Page 98 of Mama Si's Paradise

“Part of the spell of the sirens, the only way to motivate the Isles to bring new humans to us every year. Sirens themselves cannot leave Ennaris without risking their sister awakening, so they must rely on others. So, part of the spell was thatwhichever Isle brought in a compatible human woman for the Evernights would be getting a power boost straight from them for that whole year,” he explained, and my head just kept on shaking because too much information was being fed to me, and I had no clue what the hell to do with it.

“The sirens are the most powerful Enchanted of all, but even their power is minimalistic now since they created my kind. That, and the magic of Ennaris was meant to flow through the land and its people constantly to be whole. Now that the land is broken, so is the magic. All we have is basically leftovers.” He shook his head with a deep sigh. “Not enough so shapeshifters can shift, or so that fire elementals can actually produce fire the way they ought to, or so that faeries can have wings to fly with as they were meant to do since they were created.”

My head was going to fucking explode, and I still couldn’t get enough.

“What’s over there?” I asked, looking at the next mirror that showed some kind of a blue-green twinkling light that I couldn’t see well.

“Sirens’ Lair,” Valentine said, and my body was instantly covered in goose bumps. “It’s underwater, and your eyes aren’t equipped to see in the dark yet,” he continued. “And that’s the Whispering Woods.” The next mirror showed darkness, trees, and just the tips of the five towers of the castle I was in, so much bigger than I’d imagined. Definitely more than three times the size of the Paradise mansion, so massive among those trees, so menacing, like it had come straight from a horror movie.

“And what about that one?” The last mirror was dark. Completely dark—no twinkling lights or trees or anything showing on it.

“That one is broken, I think. It’s never showed anything to anyone,” he said.

“How do they even work?” It seemed impossible thatmirrorswould be able to give you a live feed of places that were miles and miles away.

“They show all of Ennaris to us. They were created by someone of our bloodline in the beginning, I imagine because of the maddening solitude that comes with being tied to the Whispering Woods. We don’t know who, as there were never any records,” Valentine said, and before I could ask anything else, something moved over our heads fast.

The chilling fear that came over me made the scream catch in my throat. It was the dragon, the small black dragon that had probably been hiding somewhere in the dark behind the mirrors, and he suddenly just flew over us and…into a mirror.

I paused, sure I was seeing things, but then my eyes were stuck on the mirror showing Witches’ Wing, right where the dragon seemed to have slippedin, and I saw him there. I saw the little dragon flying right there over the witches’ heads, getting smaller and smaller as he beat those wings until I couldn’t see him anymore.

A chuckle filled my ears. I turned to Valentine as the shock made a mess out of my thoughts.

“You canwalk throughthese mirrors?” Was he serious?!

And he laughed. “He can. Our dragons can travel through the mirrors without trouble. It’s onlywewho are tied to this place.”

A million questions invaded my mind at once. I looked at the mirror for a good few minutes, hoping to find the dragon flying in the distance somewhere. Returning.

Valentine let me. His eyes were on my face the whole time, but I was too stunned by my surroundings, by looking at so many different worlds at the same time, to care about it.

Eventually, when I got my brain to work again, I asked, “How come you have a pet dragon? You and your brothers.”

At that last word, he flinched so hard it was impossible to miss it.

“They are gifts from Dragons’ Den for each Evernight that is born. They are our connection to the outside world. Dragons are the only creatures in existence that are capable of connecting to their masters on such a deep level that we can basicallyfeel throughthem,” he explained. “We need them to find blood compatible with ours.” He turned to look at me. “That’s how we pick from the offerings.”

My turn to flinch. “You mean innocent human beings who are tricked and forced?—”

“No, actually,” he cut me off. “They all know. They all come here willingly.”

“They don’t. Mama Si tricked me. She lied to me—that’swhy I came here willingly. She promised me I’d be chosen to become an Enchanted.” And I’d so foolishly believed her. Look at me now.

“This is actually the first time this happened. All the women who’ve ever been chosen knew exactly what they were getting themselves into. The people of the Isles tell them the whole truth before they come here. They all know about everything, our entire history, long before they set foot in the Whispering Woods.”

My mouth opened and closed and opened and closed. In the end, all I had was, “You’re joking.”

“Not at all. They all know. And Mama Si’s offerings in the past have all known, too.”

Great.“So, she only lied to me.” Wasn’t I really fucking special?!

“I thought about that actually, and she didn’t lie. Not technically,” said Valentine. “She didn’t tell you the whole truth, but she didn’t lie to you. Otherwise, I doubt this would have worked.”

“But she told me she would be offering me to Ennaris,and if I got picked, I would become an Enchanted and I’d be claimed by Ennaris forever, that I could never go back to the human world again and…”

Oh, shit.

“Exactly,” Valentine said. “All of those are true. She offered you, and the dragons and we—all part of Ennaris and everything that is part of this world is called by that name here—picked you.”

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