Page 222 of Mama Si's Paradise

“Except the Aerie is not in the Whispering Woods,” Emil said. “And you can’t get out of the Whispering Woods.”

“She’s just afraid. She’s making up stories to distract—” Valentine started.

My God, he actually said those words.

I burst out laughing. “How dare you?! You were there! You took me there yourself!”

He blinked at me, a look of perfect innocence I’d fallen for so many times. “And how did I do that?”

“The mirror room! You took me through the mirror in the mirror room!”

The brothers all looked at one another, except Grey. He took my hand in his and squeezed my fingers.

“Baby, I need you to go back to the other brides, okay? We can?—”

“You can’t go anywhere through the mirrors in the mirror room, Fall,” Romin cut me off.

“Of course, I can. Idid. I’ve seen Shadow do it countless times before,” I said with my chin raised. If they thought they could make me look like a fool about something I knew with certainty, they were in for the surprise of their lives.

“Shadow is a dragon. Nopersoncan use the mirrors as portals,” Romin said, and his words were so…final.He said them like they were absolute truths.

I looked at Grey—Romin was lying, wasn’t he?

Except Grey was looking at me still, andsorrywas written clearly in his beautiful eyes.

My stomach fell. “But…but I went through the mirror.” I’d gone through the fucking mirror—and I’d come back the same way.

“You can’t go through the mirrors. It’s impossible,” Romin repeated.

And Valentine didn’t utter a single word.

No.

They would not mess with my mind like this. I refused tobelieve them when I’d been there myself. I’d seen all of it myself—they werewrong.

“Tell them,” I said to Valentine. “You took me there—tell them! You tried to kill me with the stupid ring, too—just tell them!”

“Fall, stop,” Grey whispered, bringing his hand to my face, but I couldn’t.

“I have nothing to tell. It’s impossible to go through the mirrors, Fall. My brothers know it.Iknow it.”

The fucking prick. “You tried to kill me! You…youknew…”

“Fall, baby, look at me,” Grey said, and he brought both his hands to my face and forced me to look at him.

“I’m telling the truth,” I whispered, but the way the other brothers were looking at me, I was doubting my own ears and eyes and sanity right now. I was doubting myself because they would know, wouldn’t they? Romin would fucking know if it was possible to go through the damn mirrors.

Had I…imaginedthe whole thing?

Had I really, truly lost my mind?

“Take her back. Dawn is here,” Romin said, and Grey had already wrapped an arm around my shoulder, and he was pulling me back toward the trees.

“Grey, please. I’m telling the truth—I know what I saw!”

Grey said nothing until he’d brought me back to that same place I was watching from minutes ago. I kept telling him that I was speaking the truth because for this, at least, a trusted myself fully, and he finally stopped in front of me, pulling up his wings to the sides to shield us from everyone else. He grabbed my face and came close enough so that all I saw was him, and he said, “I believe you, baby.”

My heart skipped a beat. “I was there. I went through the mirror. Valentine took me there, Grey. I spent hours in Faeries’ Aerie, in the Bazaar. I was there.”

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