Page 31 of The Eighth Isle

And Assa was smiling, too, as she held up the umbrella so the sun didn’t touch Mama Si’s face at all.

Exactlylike always, and I was willing to bet that nothing had changed since she was created.

Shivers ran down my spine when my boat began to slow down, and I pulled my magic inside me. The outer wall of the Paradise was a crisp white, with only one door at the back through which I’d come the last time I’d been here. The same door that opened now, too. Out came Mike with a huge smile on his face, and behind him Marissa, the woman who’d tended to my every need while I’d lived here. A woman I’d considered a friend.

It was like I’d gone back in time, and I didn’t like it. Ihatedit, and my instincts were at it again, demanding I turn back.

“Fall Doll, you made it!”

Deja vu.I was in her office, helpless, completely vulnerable again—and she was promising to make all my dreams come true.

But now things were different.Everythingwas different.

“Hello, Mamayka,” I said, deliberately using her full name just to remind her, too, how much it all had changed.

Her smile didn’t falter. “You honor us with your presence. The Burrow welcomes you,” she solemnly said, and I’d have rolled my eyes had she not surprised me with how authentic she sounded.

But then again, this was Mama Si. I’d be a fool to trust a word that came out of those lips.

“I need to talk to you,” I said when the boat stopped on the shore. I remained standing at the head of it, begging my legs to just take me forward, but they refused still.

“My, my, doll. Look at you,” she said, her sparkling eyes admiring me, like she was looking at the sun rising, not me.

Move!

I forced myself to jump off the boat and raised my chin again. She might still make me uncomfortable with the way she looked at me, but I was not the lost, helpless girl I used to be when shefirst found me—far from it. I could feel her magic in the air. It was about her like an aura, and it shocked me to see that I hadmoreof it—much more than she did. I hadn’t at the party, but being with Grey had changed that. Being with Grey had made my magic so strong I could hardly believe it myself.

And Mama Si could feel it, too, but it didn’t bother her. She smiled wider instead.

“You’re just in time, Fall Doll,” she said, as the others, Assa and Mike and Marissa, bowed their heads to me like I was fucking royalty.

I couldn’t stand it, but I didn’t dare say a single word. It was easier to pretend I couldn’t see them at all.

“How did you know?” I asked Mama Si and flinched when she put her hand on my back to guide me toward the door.

“Of course, I knew. Syra has awakened—and it’s your birthday, too. I always knew you’d find your way back before you were officially of drinking age,” she said, laughing like it was the best thing she’d ever said.

Goose bumps on my arms. Yes, it was my birthday today, ironically. I turned twenty-one. Not that it mattered—of course it didn’t. And it meant nothing that she had remembered. It was all a game to her still. She was forever trying to get under my skin.

“I’m sure you did,” I said, and the energy in the air here was so different. The magic in the Paradise was unlike any other I’d felt so far, so…seductive. Calming. Relaxing—which was fitting, considering succubi lived here. But it was all an illusion, just a trap to get to you faster, and I saw through it now. Thank God, because I was still tempted to let go. I was still tempted to ask Mama Si to hold my hand so her calm could slip in my pores and stop my heart from racing and my thoughts from trying to split my head wide open.

I was still tempted.

“You look divine, Fall. You are more beautiful than the sun,” Mike whispered as I passed him by, and Marissa chuckled.

“Such a charmer,” Mama Si said, grinning.

“Well, he lives with you,” I said. “Thanks, Mike. Same as always, I see.”

“Yes—always,” he said with a nod.

“It’s so good to see you again, Fall. You looked beautiful,” said Marissa, and despite having always liked her, I barely forced a smile. She’d known what this was since the get-go and she hadn’t warned me. None of them had.

“Thank you, Marissa,” I said, then turned to Mama Si. “We really do need to talk—right now.”

Her lips curled up again and she looked more like a snake than a woman. “Of course, my dearest Fall Doll. We will talk for as long as you like.”

Eight

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