Page 67 of Mama Si's Paradise

“That’s…that’s…” My mouth kept opening and closing, but it was impossible to say the word out loud.

Mama Si laughed her heart out. “That is Dragons’ Den, doll. And yes—those are dragons.”

Dragons.

The boat suddenly started to move faster, but it was so steady I didn’t even fear losing my balance. I closed my eyes for a moment, took in a deep breath as that word echoed in my head.

“Open your eyes. Look—to the west,” Mama Si said, and I had no choice but to obey.

Another island.

This one looked ordinary—as in no fire-breathing dragons were flying over it—but the island seemed round and with a single structure in the middle shaped like a triangle.

“That is Witches’ Wing, and beyond is Sirens’ Lair,” Mama Si explained, as my eyes struggled to make sense of the view.

“Is that… is that like a?—”

“Very big witch hat?” Again, she laughed, and she was so perfectly amused the sound of it warmed me to my toes.

“Yes,” I choked. That’s exactly what it looked like—a piece of land with a black witch hat on top.

“That’s the witches for you,” Mama Si said, nodding her head, like that was a perfectly normal thing to say.

“Witches.” And dragons—thosedragons that I could see right now with my own eyes, three of them, so big they were impossible to miss even if they hadn’t been spitting fire every now and again.

My God, those were dragons.

And then there was something else in between the dragons and the island shaped like a witch’s hat.

“What the…” My voice trailed off, words evading me once more.

It was darkness. Just a huge cloud of darkness right over the ocean, there in the middle like a black hole had exploded into existence and had sucked the light out of the world around it.

“Thatis the Whispering Woods, Fall Doll,” Mama Si announced, and I could have sworn she shuddered as she watched it with unblinking eyes. “Our destination.”

Suddenly, I had this insane urge to jump off the boat and swim all the way back to the Paradise.

No way could that darkness mean anything good. No way going closer to it was a smart idea.

It looked like hell. A different kind of hell with shadows instead of raw flames, except this one was scarier because this one wasreal.I was looking right at it.

“Mama Si,” I whispered because she couldn’t honestly believe that this was a good idea. “I can’t go in there. I…I can’t…”

“Oh, we’re not going into the Woods,” she said, and it was like she’d handed me the world on a silver platter. “Nobody that isn’t of the Evernight Court goes into the Woods today. The closest we can get is the waters surrounding it.”

I narrowed my brows, trying to see more of the Isle, whatever hid behind that raw darkness that seemed to reach all the way up to the sky—but there was nothing there.

“The Evernight Court?” I was pretty sure she hadn’t mentioned that before. I’d have remembered the name.

“Yes—the brothers that rule over the Whispering Woods. They’re very isolated. They rarely allow anyone who does’t live there on their property.” I could have been mistaken, but Mama Si sounded a bit afraid, which was absolutely ridiculous. If you’d ever met this woman, if you so much as saw herfrom across the street, you’d know she didn’t get scared. Not someone you could intimidate, but here we were.

“So, why are we going to their Isle again?” I asked breathlessly, definitely afraid, but also awfully impatient to get closer, to see better, to know what that darknessfeltlike. I don’t know what it was about it that drew me, but the closer we went, the more that excitement, that curiosity took the lead.

“Because the Evernight brothers also rule over the other Isles, and they choose the worthiest offering in the ritual.”

“Oh.” That couldn’t possibly be a good thing. I swallowed hard. “How exactly do they do that?”

“Look, Fall Doll,” Mama Si said instead, pointing her finger east, toward Dragons’ Den. Other boats I hadn’t even noticed, almost identical to the one we were in, had stopped right there, so close to the dark cloud over the ocean that was the Whispering Woods.

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