Lightlark (The Lightlark Saga Book 1)

Isla did not sleep. She spent her days and nights in the library, and they slipped away as easily as the rain racing down the hundred windows of the Place of Mirrors, during the storm that had locked her and Grim in the glass box for hours.

As she flipped the pages, she felt the memory of his hands against her skin, his lips against her shoulder. They hadn’t done everything she had wanted to in the moment, and part of her was relieved that instead of making any move to remove his clothes, he had pulled her into his lap on the floor. That they had watched the rain instead, her head against his chest. His chin resting where her crown should have been. Before they left, she had made him promise to find Azul, wherever he was hiding. And bring him to her.

Oro watched her like he could sense the places Grim had touched. She knew he must have noted her daydream eyes. But he hadn’t said a word. Part of her didn’t want him to know. To suspect.

Isla dug her nails into her palm, forcing herself to focus. Breaking the curses and winning was now more important than ever. She was her, Terra’s, and Celeste’s only hope.

Also—the heart was the key to unlocking the life she had always wanted. Not only power, but also, perhaps, a future to look forward to . . . with Grim.

“Anything?”

Oro’s voice was a bucket of water over the simmering thoughts in her head. She blinked and noted his expression, knowing she wasn’t focused on the text at all.

She closed the book and cleared her throat. She had read the same paragraph ten times, and none of the sentences had anything to do with the heart, or curses.

“No,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “You?”

He shook his head and stared at the stack of ancient books in front of him as if he was just seconds away from incinerating the entire pile with a flick of his finger.

Isla rubbed her hands across her face, over her eyes, down her temples. She sighed. “This isn’t working.”

Oro just watched her.

She was exhausted. Her neck and back ached from being hunched over, reading. Her mind was tired from all the work it had been doing, thinking, scheming—and also daydreaming.

“Talk to me,” she said, laying her head in her arms. The wooden table was cool against her skin and smelled of pine. “Tell me everything we know.”

Oro didn’t balk at the order the way he unquestionably would have months before. Instead, he leaned back in his chair and thrummed his fingers against the table, close to her head. “We know the heart is on Moon Isle. We know it contains immeasurable power from Wildling, Sunling, and Nightshade. We know it was used to spin the curses. We know it blooms regularly when it is needed, in different places. Where darkness meets light.”

Where darkness meets light.

Behind her eyelids, there was only darkness. She imagined it, darkness meeting light. What it would look like. What colors it would make. She frowned against her arm. She didn’t have to imagine it. She had seen it countless times, thousands of instances throughout her life.

Isla’s head shot up so quickly, pain pulsed through her forehead.

Oro’s eyes widened slightly. “What is it?”

She stood, pacing, her mind working too hurriedly, her words coming out too slowly. “What if it’s not a place, but a time?”

“What?”

She stared at him. “Dawn. Dusk . . . when darkness meets light.”

Oro considered this, eyes narrowing. “Remlar said it would be where darkness meets light.” That must be the winged man’s name, Isla thought.

“What if it’s both? What if it’s in a place where darkness meets light, but only appears during dawn or dusk?”

Oro blinked away fatigue like clearing cobwebs. Thinking. He was so focused Isla could almost see his mind working behind his eyes, spinning possibilities. He gazed at the table, hand splayed on its top. He shook his head. “I searched the island for decades and never found it . . . Perhaps this is why.”

The cursed Sunling king couldn’t be out at dusk or dawn, both times too close to sunlight. They had always searched for the heart at night, long after the sun had disappeared. It would explain why the heart hadn’t been in any of the places they had checked. Maybe it had but had been hidden. He looked up at her. “Isla, I think you might be right.”

She stood. Oro did too. They faced each other, and he smiled. Smiled.

She had never seen him this happy.

Something about his smile made her remember another happy memory. The moment she had felt the flames against her arms, prickling painfully along her frozen skin, relief sweeter than a mouthful of honey. The moment she knew, surrounded by the Vinderland, that she had been saved. By Oro.

He had found her, against all odds. I followed the bird, he’d said.

She smirked. The same creature that had almost marked her death had saved her life.

Oro raised an eyebrow at her, wondering at her thoughts.

Isla froze. She felt the blood drain from her face, and Oro shot out a hand to steady her just as she braced herself against the table.

The bird had followed her relentlessly every time they had stepped foot on Moon Isle. She had assumed it had been Cleo’s eyes and ears, but what if she had been wrong?

What if it had been trying to tell her something?

“I know where the heart is,” she said.