He had felt it too, the whole time.

  Reese found she didn’t care about fate or islands or the bodied burning beyond the gate behind them.

  Because she had been wrong.

  And it terrified her.

  If Luca truly wanted her as much as she wanted him, there would be no avoiding it.

  And she knew how things like this ended.

  Even her mother had left her father because the land and the sea weren’t meant to do more than meet.

  Would the heartache be worth the time they had together?

  Would she end up like her father, staring out at sea, lost in the memories of a time gone by?

  And if she did, would she regret it?

  “What’s on your mind, little sparrow?” Luca asked. His voice was the softest she’d ever heard it.

  “If we ever get off of this island, what is it going to do to us?” She asked.

  “What do you mean?” He asked.

  “We’ve led completely different lives up until this point. You’ve lived far more of them than I have,” she said.

  “We’ll work through all of that as we come to it. There’s no need to worry about it. If we can get off of this island, we can overcome anything together.” He smiled.

  They had already been through hell and back.

  The island was the last test.

  Surely there couldn’t be anything worse than that.

  They had survived the worst, and they had done it together.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay.” She nodded.

  “Does that mean you have a plan?” Wrenly asked as she came to sit down next to Reese.

  Reese let out a light laugh. “When do I ever have a plan?”

  “You had to have a plan when you rescued him.” Wrenly shrugged.

  “I didn’t really, I just...” She had known she couldn’t live without him.

  It was a scary thought, one she hadn’t dared allow herself to think, but she knew it was true.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Their story may end in disaster and ruin, she might know he was no good for her, but living without him wasn’t something she could do.

  However long she had been trapped in the carnival, he had been her only constant.

  Her only way of keeping her sanity despite her humanity fraying.

  She had never expected sharing rum and funnel cake at the end of the world as she knew it would lead to her caring for someone else the way she cared for her family.

  And yet there she was.

  And there he was.

  “You couldn’t think straight, could you?” Wrenly’s smile held a hint of bitterness. “I couldn’t either when I killed that guard. It feels like it’s the last thing that matters when someone you love is in danger.”

  “It does.” Reese agreed.

  “We need to make a plan,” Myla said. She glanced at Derrik, who was pacing the shoreline. “We’re going to go crazy if we stay here.”

  “Maybe we can go back inside, at least there’s food.” Theresa suggested.

  Metal creaked, but when Reese turned around to look at the gate, it was gone.

  The carnival was gone.

  Fire still burned in the distance, but the buildings it had consumed before were gone.

  The magic had died once and for all.

  What did that mean for Luca.

  Reese’s hand closed over his just to reassure herself he was still there, that he hadn’t vanished like everything else.

  “I’m still here, little sparrow.” He whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  But Reese had to wonder what else would disappear before this nightmare was over.

  “Swimming isn’t one of our options. The next island is too far away for us to make it,” Reese said. Truth be told, she had never actually swum. She had only ever been on the sea in a boat.

  She wasn’t sure she could swim at all.

  “So, what do we do then?” Cillian asked.

  “We have to find a way to survive here until someone finds us.” Reese looked around.

  The island around them looked like it had all the life sucked out of it. Trees rotted and decayed along the beach. The sand was bleached white from centuries of sun exposure. Reese could hear no birds, no wildlife rustling around in the half dead foliage.

  It might turn out to be a harder task than she’d expected.

  “How are we going to do that?” Wrenly asked. She saw the same thing Reese did.

  A dying island with no capability to sustain life.

  “Well, to start, we’ll need fishing poles and nets. I’ll have to teach you all to fish.”

  Though the island itself was dying, the ocean that surrounded it was full of life. Reese could see smaller fish splashing around, their scales reflecting the sunlight.

  With patience, those little fish could catch them bigger fish. Maybe even enough to feed them all.

  However, it would take a lot of patience.

  And Reese didn’t know how much of that the group had left.

  “We can do this,” Luca said. “Reese got us out of the carnival, if we listen to her, she can get us out of this too. It may take some time, but we’ll get there.”

  “What if we don’t have time?” Derrick demanded.

  “We have as much time as we need,” Reese said. “But only if you exercise patience. If you rush this, you could doom us all to starvation.

  Derrick rolled his eyes but remained silent.

  “You three take Cillian and go get sturdy long sticks. I’ll take these two to get vines for the nets,” Reese said.

  “No.” Theresa objected immediately.

  “I should stay with you.” Cillian agreed. He shot Theresa a wary glance.

  “Whatever this is.” Reese gestured between the two. “Needs to be resolved. Our survival now depends on us being transparent and working together, so get over it.”

  “Transparency is just Theresa’s specialty.” Cillian laughed.

  “Can you blame me?” Theresa demanded.

  “For allowing me to court you when you were with Myla and not at all interested, yes!” Cillian shot back.