Chapter 1130

Later, in the privacy of their treehouse, Jude lay with Sophie and Natalie, their bodies tangled, skin slick with the warmth of shared breath. There was nothing frantic in their rhythm, no dark influence, just mouths and hands and sighs in the moonlight, each touch a reminder of who they were before the island started to change them. Natalie's laugh was soft, muffled against his chest. Sophie's whisper was a kiss on his jaw.

"You're ours," she said. "Not hers."

Jude fell asleep to the sound of their breathing.

And dreamed of the watchersign.

He stood in a forest of glowing trees, all of them marked. The blue script stretched like constellations, and at the center of them, a throne made of bone and vines. On it sat Elyara, her shape shifting with each heartbeat, sometimes a woman, sometimes a shadow, sometimes a mirror of someone he loved.

She didn't speak.

She only smiled.

And her mouth was his smile.