Page 99 of Mama Si's Paradise

I looked at him. Really looked at him. “Does that mean I am really an Enchanted now?” If Mama Si hadn’t lied, that had been my payment.

“Yes,” he said, and my breath caught in my throat all over again. “Or rather, you’re becoming one. The transformation will be complete after the Blood Call. Until then, you will slowly manifest your magic, but it will be small. Weak. Just a little here and there.”

Magic.

My eyes closed and I fought back those tears that seemed to want to come out of me at the most inappropriate times now. That had been all I’d wanted—magic. Power. Freedom.

“So, those women I saw after breakfast in that room…”

“Yes, they are all chosen. They all used to be humans, just like you.”

For the longest time, I just sat there and looked at those mirrors, at the different worlds full of creatures I hadn’t even known existed two weeks ago.

“What about you?”

I turned to Valentine again, the question hanging in the air.

“What?”

“This is how I see the world.” He waved his hand around us. “How do you?”

I thought about it for a second, and the answer scared me. The truth was that I didn’t. I didn’t see the world at all—I wasalways in a chaotic state, always trying to get somewhere, torushsomewhere, to the part of my life where I would finallynotfeel like a waste of space. I was always on the run, always being chased, though I had no idea by whom.

The only time I felt like I wasin the moment,so to speak, as part of the world around me, was when I played. When I made my melodies or when I used to tell stories on a canvas.

“Piano,” I ended up saying. “I see the world through the piano.” Or, at least, I used to.

Valentine smiled. “Time for lunch.”

Twenty-Four

He tookme back upstairs to the dining area. Everything looked the same, yet so different to my eyes now. So many doors and hallways and corridors that I was sure I wouldneverget used to this place, even if I never left.

There were no guards by the walls, not like there had been outside by the gates, which wasn’t surprising. I doubted anybody around here would dare step a toe out of line in the home of the Evernight brothers.

But right as we entered the dining room, a guard seemed to appear out of thin air behind Valentine, and he whispered something in his ear.

Valentine suddenly looked murderous.

“I have to leave for a little while. Start eating. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said, and panic settled in my chest instantly, as if I’d already forgotten who he was. I’d already forgotten what he represented—and his fangs.

“Of course. I’ll be fine,” I said anyway, and I walked into the room before he had the chance to smell my bullshit.

Fuck, I didn’t want to be in this place all alone.

Too dark. Too unpredictable. And his brothers…

“I’ll be right back. Nobody will hurt you, Sunshine. Don’t be afraid.”

I turned around with my chin raised, hands behind me fisted tightly. “I am not,” I lied.

Valentine smiled like he could see into my mind, but he said nothing, just pulled the door closed. The sound of it echoed in my head for a good minute after. A long sigh escaped me, and my eyes closed.

It was okay, just the dining room. I’d been here that morning. I would be just fine.

And with that thought in my mind, I went and sat in the same chair as before, praying nobody came to eat me until he came back.

Nobody cameto eat me in the next twenty minutes or so, only Aster and Vinny served me food. I had to choose from three different options like I was in a restaurant, and I ended up eating the same simple things I ate at the Paradise when Claus prepared everything without having to ask me what I wanted. That part, at least, had been perfect in the Paradise. My body had changed so much in such a short time because of the food I ate, and the workouts Jennifer made me do. Just last week I’d actually started to enjoy cardio a little bit, and now here we were.

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