Page 161 of Mama Si's Paradise

“Farewell, sweet Doll. May you find happiness where you’re going,” she told me, waving her hand, that same smile on her face.

The words got stuck in my throat and I couldn’t even saygoodbyeto her one more time. The best I could do was watch her until she disappeared.

Then I sat on the ground and listened to the footsteps from the maze of tunnels while faeries went about their business, and I tried not to throw up.

I couldn’t fucking move.

My arms were wrapped tightly around my knees, back against the smooth stone wall. I was all alone in the dark, and I still couldn’t move from the floor. The sun had set what could have been an hour ago, and the dark sky outside didn’t have enough stars to illuminate this hole I was in, but who cared? Light was not what I needed.

A pair of balls to choose myself for once and do whatIwanted to do, what was convenientfor me,on the other hand, would have been nice.

Still, I couldn’t do it.

To leave this place behind knowing what would happen to Valentine? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t walk away and let him die, no matter how I’d been brought here. And maybe he had a plan to save himself—he probably did—but I needed to know first. I needed to see it for myself. I needed to talk to him, maybe even convince him to join me. Would this ring on my finger extend its magic to Valentine, too? Was there a way to take him with out there in the human world?

And if I could…what about Grey?

Laughter burst out of me, and the sound bouncing off the stone walls startled me. I couldn’t even believe the thoughts in my head—what about Grey, Fall? WHAT ABOUT GREY?!

Eventually, the laughter died, and I was so sick of the thoughts in my head. So fucking sick that my body was physically exhausted by them.

But I had no choice other than to accept the simple truth—I couldn’t leave, not right now. Not without knowing with certainty that my escape wouldn’t cost Valentine his life.

Once I accepted that, I got up on my numb legs, eyeing the hole in the ceiling that Emerald said led to the surface of the cliff. It could save me time, but I had no idea in which part of the town this would take me, and I also wanted to see that fairy again. I needed her to know that I hadn’t left so that when I came back here, she’d bring me to this rabbit hole once more. She’d been kind enough to do it the first time, and if I was honest with her, I was sure she’d agree to bring me here again.

My focus had been shit on my way here with Emerald, but by some miracle my legs knew the way back to that door that had led us out into these corridors. Faeries of all sizes and colors—some were barely three feet tall, and they didn’t look like children—watched me, but nobody stopped me.

Then I knocked and knocked on Emerald’s door, but she didn’t answer. I knocked some more and called her name, but nobody came to let me in. She was probably busy in her library, tending to customers who’d come to see stories in her Storyteller. She wasn’t going to hear me even if I knocked a thousand more times.

But before I found someone else down here to tell me how to get to the Bazaar on the top of the cliff, I tried the handle just in case.

It gave. The doorwas open.

No time to think. I just walked inside like I owned the damn place.

Small library. Hallway with the pretty painting. Living room. Red kitchen.

I passed by them in a blur, until I found the same shelf that had opened like a door into Emerald’s library.

My heart was about to beat right out of my chest. I was going back—back to the Faerie Bazaar, and down those steep, half-ruined stairs on the side of the cliff, and to the mirror I’d left behind on the shore. I knew the way and I’d get there in less than a couple hours. I could be back in the castle before midnight, find Valentine, and talk to himtonight,then return to the Aerie by tomorrow.

I was so consumed by my own thoughts that I almost missed the voices coming from Emerald’s library when I pushed the shelf door open.

“Shit,”I muttered under my breath, and I stopped in the doorway to give Emerald a second to finish speaking to her customers. I shouldn’t have barged in here like this. I should have stopped and knocked first, and I was going to do just that to announce my presence, but…

Then I heard the words.

“Are you certain it was her?”said a male voice, low and rough, and it was coming from farther into the room, to the other side of the Storyteller ball.

“Of course, I am,” said Emerald—her voice crystal clear, ringing in my ears.

“It washer.You’re absolutely, one hundred percent certain?” said another man, and my heart sank.

Every inch of my body rose in goose bumps and the fist I’d raised to knock on the wood of the shelf froze halfway. Instinct took over and I strained my ears to hear better, barely breathing.

Emerald said something, but the whisper was too low, so I didn’t catch it.

Without even realizing it, I moved farther into the library slowly, on my tiptoes so I didn’t make a single sound.

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