Page 216 of Mama Si's Paradise

“Regardless—it’s already done. And I am not from here. I am human. Or I used to be—but this place is not my home.” It didn’t matter whether Mama Si paid for it or not—I was here. I was part of the Isles now. I was an Enchanted. The damage was done.

“Fall, if there was a way to break this curse and take you wherever in the world you want to be, I’d be doing it right now. I’d live the rest of my life in misery, probably wasting away in a cave somewhere, but I’d take you there myself,” he said. “The curse can’t be broken or manipulated or tricked.”

I reached out to touch his beautiful face despite my betterjudgment. He meant every word, and suddenly I was imagining everything he said—him living alone in a dark cave, and me out there in the human world somewhere, far,faraway from him.

My stomach twisted like I’d just been stabbed.

God, I was so screwed.

“Actually, it can,” I said, looking down at my other hand as he kissed my palm, holding it to his face. “Look at this ring. It’s an amethyst, and it’s magic. It makes its wearer invisible to all kinds of magic—even the curse.”

Grey stopped kissing my fingertips and put my hand down on the bed, but he didn’t let go. Instead, he laced his fingers to mine and shook his head, “That’s not possible.”

“It is. It’s possible.” And I’d been so close to leaving. So fucking close I’dtastedthe freedom.

I wanted to tell him that, too. I wanted to tell him everything—I trusted Grey more than I ever had anybody else in my life. But for a moment there, I was stuck in silence, wondering if I regretted not leaving then. Wondering if I should have chosen the real world then—because now?

Fuck, now things were so much more complicated. Now, I was lying in bed with Grey, and I was about ninety-five percent sure I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world but here forever.

“Baby, it’s not,” Grey said. “There is not a single kind of magic that works against the curse. Not a ring, not a spell, not anything.”

I did a double take, then blinked my eyes a million times. “No, she said it did. She said it made you invisible to all kinds of magic.”

Grey narrowed his brows. “Who?”

Her face painted itself in front of me instantly. “Your mother.”

The way Grey’s eyes darkened instantly made me wonderif maybe I’d said something else, somethingbad, something vile.

“She gave you this?” He took my other hand in his to look at the ring. I nodded. “May I?”

“Yes, sure.”

He took it off my finger and brought it closer to inspect it, then sniffed it hard. “There’s magic in this. A lot of magic,” he said, turning to me again. “But there is no kind of magic in any of the Isles that could get you out of the curse. If there was, all the generations of Evernights that came before me would have found it.” He touched my cheek lightly. “Most don’t want to live here, tied to this place, Fall. Given the chance, only Romin, and maybe Tristian, would choose to stay in the Whispering Woods like this. The rest of us? We would all leave.”

His every word rang true.

Suddenly, my mind went back to his mother, to that room that looked like the sky. A grey sky.

The words she said to me—how much she missed the real sky and the real world. How tired she was of living in isolation.

And it occurred to me, if she had a ring that could take her out there in the real world, why wouldn’t she use it for herself? Why would she give itto me?

“Grey,” I whispered. “What would happen to me if I….say, walked away? Left the Isles? Went back home right now?”

“You can’t leave now. The Blood Call ties you to the Whispering Woods, and if you tried, it would attack you physically. Rip you apart trying to pull you back in.”

I flinched. “Before it. Before the Blood Call—what would have happened if I’d left then?”

Grey paused for a second. “You would’ve died.”

“But how? Would the curse kill me the same way? Would itrip me apartto stop me from leaving?” God, those words sounded so awful.

“No, it would kill you by taking back the magic that is now inside of you. The farther away from the Isles you are, the quicker the curse takes back your magic,” Grey explained. “Without it, your body would wither and die. Not right away, but I would imagine within weeks.”

My eyes squeezed shut and my heart stood perfectly still for a long moment.

Pieces clicked into place, and I realized I’d been such a fool. My God, I’d been such a damn fool!

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