PROMISE
They knew. All of them knew.
The secret she had kept for her entire life, the reason she had been trapped inside her room, the one thing that would make her the number one target at the Centennial.
Because Oro hadtoldthem.
The pain was a hand unraveling her insides.
No. This couldn’t be real.
He had said he had never lied to her. He had said she could trust him. He had gotten kinder, more caring—
Fool.Even now, she was defending him. Even after he had ruined her chances at breaking her curse and saving her realm.
Oro had sentenced her to death. He had used her. Thiswasreal.
One moment she was in the throne room, watching the look of horror on Celeste’s face. Watching Cleo take a step toward her. The next, she was on the other side of the Mainland, down the cliff, on a beach.
Grim still clutched her hand.
Grim.He was the reason she wasn’t dead. But how did he—
Isla must have looked confused, because he said, “My flair.”
His flair.Thiswas what it was.
It was a dangerous power. Isla thought Grim could simply turn invisible—she had never imagined he was able to travel across the island within a single breath.
She remembered his proclamation on the beach, then.
I could take you back to Nightshade lands with me right now.
Did the other rulers know? Or did they simply suspect he had made her invisible?
Whatwasclear was that he had risked his flair being found out, for her.
“Thank you,” she said, tears prickling the corners of her eyes. “I—”
He watched her carefully. His eyes were crowded with worry.
Of course. Grim knew her secret now.
Did he think less of her?
She took a step back.
Did he regret potentially revealing his flair to save her?
She felt ashamed. Weak. Foolish.
“I knew,” he said gently.
A second. Another. “Knew what?”
He stepped closer. Until he was right in front of her. He pressed two fingers to her chest. Pushed. She shivered. “I knew that you aren’t bound by the curses. And that you’ve never wielded power.”
Isla’s entire world blurred, tilted.
