Chapter 23

Eventually,the tears stopped coming, though I hadn’t really been in control of them to begin with. Funny, I’d tried to cry almost every single night lately, but the tears didn’t come, not until they wanted to.

I guess they didn’t feel my life was fucked up enough until now. I guess I hadn’t been broken enough until I learned I was going to be possibly raped by one of those men who’d looked at me like I was food—and funnier still, I was! To them, I really was food if anything I knew about vampires was true. They fed on blood. That’s why they had those fangs—to make it real nice and easy for them to suck the blood out of a body.

My own thoughts were going to drive me insane.

I stood up, holding onto the wall behind me, and I looked both ways to see if someone else was there with me. Empty. The hallway was empty, but I was no longer delusional. I already knew I was being watched.

What I also knew was that I was never getting out of here. No way could I outrun someone like Valentine, or outfly that dragon and his rider, or the other ones that belonged to the brothers. All those dragons that had come out of the Whispering Woods to bite us, the human offerings…

I was most definitely screwed.

Still, I tried.

I forced myself to keep moving, keep walking, going through doors and turning corners without a single clue where I was headed. Eventually, those doors were going to lead me somewhere. Eventually, there would be more light than the dim lamps of these windowless hallways.

Eventually, there was.

I’d gone through at least five doors already, had turned corners without running into anyone, so I didn’t expect this time to be different. I pushed the double doors open and the sound hit me all at once—chatter.

People were in there, talking. Women were in there, chatting and drinking coffee and eating grapes.

They were eating fucking grapes.

I don’t know why the hell I stared at that big bowl full of purple grapes for so damn long, but I did until the absolute silence that followed my barging into that room unannounced ended.

“Oh,” someone breathed. “It’s the new girl.”

The blur remained in front of my eyes, and I had to try really hard to focus on the faces. To focus on the women who were sitting together on a set of velvet black couches. Ten women of various ages, all of them perfectly normal-looking.

“Is that so?” said another.

“Well, come on in! Let us look at you!”

“Oh, don’t invite her! It’s her first day. She’s not supposed to be wandering the castle so soon.”

“She’s Valentine’s—what did you expect?”

“Well, he doesn’t exactly like rules, so…”

“He’s a child. How could he even dream of siring an Evernight?”

“Forget that—how does she think she can bear an Evernight with those tiny hips?!”

Laughter.

They were laughing their hearts out. My focus became sharper, so I was able to see their faces with a bit more clarity, their dresses, most black, and some of them were wearing black shawls over their heads, too. The youngest of them couldn’t have been much older than me, maybe a few years, but they were all so at ease analyzing me as they sipped from their cups and ate their grapes and strawberries and oranges. So at ease, like this place was their home.

“Leave her alone,” one of the women said, her voice stronger, echoing in the high ceiling of the lounge area. It was a round room with large windows, overlooking…darkness. Just trees and raw darkness.

“Come in, child. Come. What is your name?” Another woman, the eldest of them who couldn’t be more than forty, put her cup down on the table and stood up. The satin shawl covering half her hair fell to her shoulders, revealing gorgeous golden hair streaked with a little grey.

“Maybe she doesn’t speak English,” said another.

“Maybe she’s mute,” said the one next to her. “Not like talking’s needed to be fucked.”

Oh, God…

“Over here!” said the eldest of them again, waving her hand at me. “Focus on me. Tell me your name, child.”

I don’t know what it was about her, maybe the blue of her eyes that made her seem so ordinary, like she wasn’t part of this place, like she was real.

“Fall,” I said with barely any voice, and the woman smiled.

“Well, Fall, would you care for some tea?”

No, I don’t care for tea at all—except I didn’t have any more voice left to tell her that. The other women were already back to talking about me, watching me, judging me so openly, discussing my dress, my hair, my breasts. All I managed to do was shake my head and move back, slowly until I was in the hallway again.

Then I started to run as the woman called my name one more time.

The voices in my head kept whispering that there was no place to go, that I couldn’t get out, that I’d be running into one of those men any second, and then I’d be done for good.

But even so I couldn’t stop moving until my legs gave up on me again.

I wokeup in the same bed as that morning, in the same room, my bladder screaming at me. I hadn’t been more uncomfortable since I was being held in the ocean by the fishtail of a fucking mermaid who looked dead when the magic of her eyes wasn’t casting spells on me.

Shit.

“That actually happened,” I told the room, and my voice came out scratchy, hoarse. My face felt swollen, too. Must have been all that crying. And I didn’t even think about who’d brought me back to this room. I just needed to find a bathroom asap.

I walked out of the room again, and this time I didn’t bother to look on both sides of the hallway—even if someone was there, I wouldn’t see them until they wanted me to see them, so why waste precious seconds? I tried the first doors to the right of the one I was in, but they were locked.

The one on the left wasn’t, and I found myself in the strangest bathroom I’d ever seen.

Black tiles. Black tub. Black shower head. Black sinks. Black, fluffy rugs—and a black toilet seat. How strange. Why would anyone go through all this trouble to make everything black?

I ran to the toilet, and I realized it smelled like detergent here, and the tiles were slightly wet at the corners, like someone had just cleaned the whole thing. The ceiling was low and there were three big windows on the walls. The lamps between them spilled white light, and it was brighter here than any other place I’d been to in this castle.

When I went to the sinks to wash my face, I saw my reflection and flinched. Maybe it was because I was so used to always looking my best since I’d moved into the Paradise, but the sight of my face scared me. I looked sick—or maybe just swollen? My hair was a tangled mess and my dress had stains that looked like maps from how the water of the ocean had dried on the fabric. I looked so, so pale. The color of my eyes seemed to have leaked out of me, too, and my hair didn’t look nearly as vibrant as its usual self.

I don’t know why that made those silly tears want to come back with a vengeance, pricking the back of my eyes, but I pushed them down with all my strength. I’d cried enough. In fact, I’d cried so much, apparently, my eyes were unrecognizable. Maybe the tears had washed away all the green in them because right now they were a dull brown.

It didn’t matter, though. I washed my hands and my face, eyed the tub and the shower but I had no clean clothes to change into. Then I remembered—Valentine had told me that I’d have clothes when I got back. Maybe he’d left a couple things for me to change into because it was cold here in this dress. So cold I had goose bumps all over me when I went back, pretending not to be terrified to be alone. Pretending I couldn’t care less if someone popped up in front of me right now and told me another ridiculous, completely absurd story which I was now a part of.

Like the siren who cursed an entire continent and her sisters who had to put her in a coma, then kidnapped human children and turned them into vampires and put them on this Isle and made it dark—forever.

My eyes squeezed shut tightly. Most stories I ever read about vampires said that they died in the sun. Was that why that dark cloud hung about the Whispering Woods all the time?

“Doesn’t matter,” I whispered to myself, just to keep my mind focused. Nothing mattered right now except getting out of here. I’d either make it to the shore, or I’d die trying—no in between.

But first, I needed clothes.

Only one set of doors in that bedroom. I went to them and held my breath before pulling one open, then released it together with the fear of finding a monster disguised as a man waiting for me with a smile on his face.

No man here—just clothes. Lots and lots of black clothes.

I’d gotten so used to seeing all the colors Adam had picked for me back at the Paradise. My closet there had been so colorful—warm, lively colors, oranges and yellows and greens and purples. Here, it seemed someone had stolen all of them because the walls were white and the wood of the shelves was painted black, too.

Dresses, dresses, and more dresses. Cardigans, shirts, four different jackets, shoes and sneakers and boots, beautiful silk pajamas, and three big drawers full of underwear. Most were black, but I didn’t care. I grabbed everything I needed. A couple black towels, too. There were no jeans here that I found, but I grabbed a pair of stretchy black pants, a jacket, and a pair of sneakers, and I went back to the bathroom again.

No lock on the door, but since the alternative was not showering, I had to suck it up and take the fastest shower of my life.

I left my dress right there on the floor, and I slipped into the shower with my heart slamming in my chest, until the hot water hit me on the back. Until I was soaking wet, no longer cold, and the steam had filled half the bathroom.

Then, I held onto the tiles in front of me and I let the water wash away the day. The week. The whole fucking month. I might have cried a few tears in the process, but it could have very well been water.

Eventually, I used the shampoos in the black glass bottles without labels, and they smelled heavenly—like vanilla mixed with something else I couldn’t place, something that made it the right intensity.

By the time I switched the shower off, I felt reborn.

Then I turned around to step out of the cabin—and I found Valentine by the closed door, leaning against the wall, watching me.

My breath caught in my throat. I hadn’t heard the door opening, hadn’t even cared to check behind me while I showered, so lost in my own thoughts, in the calm and comfort the warm water had offered me. But he was right there, his eyes bloodshot as they slowly scrolled down the length of my body. My completely naked and wet body.

I didn’t move, couldn’t if I tried. I don’t know how much he saw through the fogged-up glass of the shower cabin, but the way he looked…yeah, he saw much more that I’d have liked.

The towels were on the edge of the tub, at least five feet away from the cabin. I’d be parading in front of him naked while I went for it.

Fuck it—I was going to do it anyway, but Valentine moved first.

I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to cover up as much of my body as I could while he, without ever looking away from me, went and grabbed the towel, and came to me. His brows were narrowed, his lips parted, eyes so bloodshot they looked completely red. He walked toward me slowly, as if he wanted to give me all the time in the world to close the shower door or tell him to get the fuck out or do anything at all except stand there like an idiot and watch him.

What the hell are you doing?! I shouted at myself in my head, but I was paralyzed by his attention. And he really was so damn hot.

And I’d never been looked at like that before, not ever.

“Turn around,” Valentine whispered, and the spell finally broke. I turned the next heartbeat, desperate to get those eyes away from my face, desperate to think. To be pissed off.

How dare he come into the bathroom while I showered, naked and alone?

How dare he go get my towel and not walk out? Was he going to grab me now that I had my back turned to him?

And if he did, what the hell would I do?

Thank God I never got to find out.

Valentine put the towel around my shoulders and wrapped me up like I was a damn baby.

“Don’t move,” he said, and his voice was almost like a growl. I stood perfectly still while he went back and got the other towel, and he began to pat my hair dry.

I must have lost my mind for real.

“Go. Get dressed, Sunshine. I’ll be waiting,” Valentine said when he was done.

My eyes squeezed shut, the sound of him taking me out of this trance.

Move!

Cursing myself in my mind, I kept my head down and the towels wrapped tightly around me, and I didn’t look up at all until I was out the door.

I pickedout new clothes to wear because I couldn’t go back to get the ones I’d taken to the bathroom. But by the time I was out of the closet, wearing black pants and boots and a gorgeous leather jacket, the clothes were already folded at the edge of the bed.

When I walked out the room again, Valentine was by the wall, waiting with his arms crossed in front of his chest and that fucking dragon on his shoulder. His long tail wrapped around his neck looked like an accessory.

He saw me naked, a voice in my head whispered, and there went my cheeks flushing bright scarlet again.

Valentine flinched. “We’re gonna have to work on that, Sunshine.” Then his eyes, no longer bloodshot, scrolled down my body.

“Work on what?” I forced myself to say—so what if he saw me naked? I stepped out of the room and closed the door behind me.

“Your blood. The way it rushes so fast…” His voice trailed off as his eyes scrolled down to my neck.

“I can’t control how my blood rushes,” I said through gritted teeth, trying not to cover my neck with my hands. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“You can control how you feel,” he said, taking a step closer to me, as if to see if I’d react. I wouldn’t—I would not let myself be scared of this place or these people anymore. I already knew I was going to die soon—while trying to escape. If they killed me sooner, so be it. I would have no regrets.

“I’m not a vampire, as I’m sure you know.” If I could control how to feel, I wouldn’t have been on this Isle to begin with.

My God, how the hell had I ended up in this place?!

“You certainly make it very hard for a vampire as well, Sunshine,” he whispered, coming closer and closer.

“Stop,” I said when he was three feet away. “That’s far enough. What do you want?”

His brows shot up and he was suddenly amused again. It suited him, that look—but who was I kidding? With a face like that, every look suited him. He probably looked good even when he was sobbing, if he ever did.

“To ask you that question,” he said.

“Which question?” He hadn’t asked me a question, had he?

“That. What do you want?”

I paused. “What do you mean, what do I want?”

“Exactly that? What do you like to do?”

Slowly, sneakily, he took a teeny tiny step forward, like he was testing me to see if I’d notice. And I did—of course, I did.

“I like to go home,” I said, holding my head up. “That’s what I’d like to do.”

Pulling his lips inside his mouth, he shook his head. “What else do you like to do?”

“I like to be alone.”

He flinched. Actually flinched. “I can’t give you that, either.”

“Why not? This seems like a big place. Plenty of space for you to be where I’m not.” Even if being by myself meant there was a chance I’d run into his brothers by accident—and I would rather just hide under the bed—I still needed to find a way out.

“Because I don’t want to,” Valentine simply said, and fuck, what the hell could I say to that?

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. The smell of new leather filled my nostrils and I loved that I wasn’t cold anymore, even though my hair was still wet. “I will not be your bride. I will not be anybody’s bride,” I spit, and for some reason, that just made him smile bigger. It even made the dragon on his shoulder make this sort of snickering sound, like he was amused, too.

They could rot in hell for all I cared. No matter how otherworldly and perfect they looked together like that—and who even knew I was this into such dark things?—they could rot in hell.

“Then you won’t be my bride,” he said, and that was unexpected. I blinked, leaning my head back a bit.

That was a good thing, wasn’t it?

Except… “You’ll just be mine, period.”

I almost groaned. “I’d rather swim the ocean all the way back home.”

“Until you do, let me show you around mine.” And he actually offered me his arm, like he thought I might lace mine around it when his dragon was watching me from his shoulder on the other side.

I walked down the hallway alone.

Valentine chuckled as he followed, and the sound made my stomach twist in knots. I ignored it completely and just kept going until we reached the stairway.

He rushed to fall into step with me, and as we descended the stairs, I said, “Why did she do it?”

“Who?”

“The siren. Why would she kill her own sisters? Why would she ruin an entire continent?”

Valentine looked at me. “Because she was heartbroken.”

“Heartbroken, how?” Who got heartbrokenand then went and destroyed continents? Who even had such an incredible power?

“You’ll know when the time comes, Sunshine,” said Valentine.

“When’s that?”

“After the Blood Call.”

Shivers ran down my back again. I’m not going to be here for the stupid Blood Call, I thought, but kept my lips sealed anyway.

“Everything looks the same,” I said instead, focusing on the walls, the black flowers here and there, the lamps. “Where are the windows?”

“There isn’t much to see in the Woods from the castle,” Valentine said. “There’s a balcony here if you want to take a look.”

I nodded right away. Of course, I wanted to take a look—I had to see exactly how far away from shore we were and where the gates of that large wall surrounding this castle were.

“Very well. This way,” he said, touching my arm a little to show me to the other side, and electricity jolts went throughout me at the contact even over the jacket. I tried so hard not to flinch, not to remember what he was, and not to basically see those fangs in my mind’s eye.

I failed.

“Don’t do that,” Valentine said. “Don’t pretend with me, Sunshine. I know.”

My brow rose and I pretended again. “Know what?”

“Your heart. The way it beats.”

Well, damn. “You literally just met me yesterday.”

“And I’ve been listening to your heartbeat for as long as you’ve slept. I know the rhythm of it for most that you do and most that you think,” he said, and he sounded so fucking confident I almost believed him.

“Oh. Do you usually go around listening to people’s heartbeats all night?” I was being sarcastic, but if he understood, he pretended not to.

“Not at all. I’ve never done it before, but I’ll be doing it every night now.”

I stopped.

I looked at him.

“What?” he had the audacity to ask.

“That is creepy as hell.” Did he really need me to tell him that?

The asshole grinned as he looked at my lips and licked his. “You’ll find it romantic soon enough.” And he continued to walk ahead, toward a set of doors that was pretty much the same as the others to its sides design-wise, but these were almost twice in size.

“That’s…that’s just…” I didn’t really have the word for it. What the hell could I even tell him?

Didn’t matter, anyway. Shaking my head, I followed, and when he pulled the doors open, the dragon on his shoulder spread his black wings and began to fly right away.

Open air filled my nostrils, and I was suddenly cold again. Pulling the jacket tighter around me, I followed Valentine outside, taking in the darkness around us.

We were already two stories down the tower, so we could see the ground much better—except there really wasn’t much to see, just like he said. The top of the wall surrounding the castle was almost level with us here. The balcony was wide, the railing made out of stone blocks. I put my hands over it, forgetting the cold as I analyzed what more I could see—the ground, the people about five stories below who seemed to be standing guard, and farther to the left—big wooden gates on the stone wall. Closed gates, and about eight men standing near them. The rain had stopped, but I had no clue what time it was, if it was noon or twilight, if the sky was blue or dark. Here, only a black cloud was hanging over us, and beyond the wall were trees. That’s all I saw—darkness and trees.

“Where is everything else?” There had to be more to this Isle, wasn’t there?

“Out there, in the forests that cover most of the Isle. There are towns and houses, smaller houses. There are animals—a lot of wild animals in the forests. There are three large mountains on the Isle, too,” he said.

“And what do you do with yourselves all day?”

“We hunt. We fight. We play.” Valentine shrugged.

“Is it always this dark?” I asked, turning to my surroundings again. My head was so, so cold because of my wet hair, but I couldn’t go back inside yet. I still tried to see—a star, a building out there, one of the animals he was talking about.

I saw nothing.

“Always. But it rains here most days. We do have that, at least.”

Rain.He liked the rain. Funny how it suited the looks of him, the rain. He’d no doubt look good wet, too.

And that thought was just wrong.

“Is it…is it because of you? Because of what you are? Does sunlight burn you?” I asked, sure that I’d gotten it right, but…

“No, it doesn’t. Those are just stories. This darkness is a magic spell meant to keep us shielded from the siren’s senses. Even dormant she can feel what goes on in Ennaris,” said Valentine.

“So, you just stay here all the damn time, all your lives?” Was that what he was saying?

“Not by choice,” he muttered, and the quick look he gave said he felt trapped. I almost felt sorry for him—but then I remembered what he was.

“The sirens force you to stay here?”

“They do. This spell does,” Valentine said.

I shook my head, even more surprised. “But how…how do you live like this?” This seemed so impossible. Such a miserable way to exist. “How do you see the world?”

I thought I had problems because I got kicked out by my boyfriend, when there were people who actually lived like this?

Valentine turned to look at me, as if my question surprised him. As if the thoughts that popped into his head just now surprised him as well.

Then he smiled. “I’ll show you.”

We went downa spiral stairway half hidden by the wall and this black vase that was as tall as me, dotted with white ink like someone had bled white all over it. Inside were roses, those same black roses, except they were real. I touched one as I went, and they were real. Petals, just like on red and pink and white roses. Real, just like Valentine Evernight, a vampire of the Whispering Woods.

Down and down we went, and the dragon joined us, silently taking his place on Valentine’s shoulder and wrapping that tail around his neck before I even noticed him there. Valentine didn’t react at all, didn’t even flinch at the sudden contact, almost like he’d known the dragon was coming. It made me wonder about their connection.

We reached the bottom of the spiral stairway, and it was different down here. No fancy lamps and strange paintings, and no black walls. Just grey concrete on all sides and a perfectly round door at the end of the narrow corridor, like ones in the fantasy movies I watched as a kid. Mysterious.

When Valentine turned to look at me, he was smiling. “I like that,” he said.

“Like what?” I hadn’t said anything out loud, had I?

“That little skipped beat. You’re enjoying this.”

Well, fuck. My mouth opened and closed, half of me wanting to deny it, the other half absolutely in awe that he could tell when my heart skipped beats.

What in the world was this guy’s deal? He couldn’t really be as infatuated with me as he said, could he?

He hadn’t really stayed up all night to listen to my heart beating…had he?

The groaning sound the door made when he pulled the handle said it was really heavy, and it was as thick as my shoulders, but Valentine moved it like it was nothing but a feather. On the other side of it was raw darkness. The room must have been huge—you could feel it in the air. Colder, but not too cold. Just more open. The ceiling could have been missing completely for all I knew. All I saw were some structures ahead, in what could have been the middle of the room.

Valentine started walking toward it, and the dragon was making that crackling sound again—like wood burning in a fireplace. A fleeting thought occurred to me—maybe this was it. Maybe this was where he brought me to kill me, suck all the blood from my body and leave me cold on the ground, but…

The closer to those structures we got, the more light I could see. The more colors were reflecting from them—and the sound, too. Sound was coming from those tall pieces of wood, and when we were halfway to them, I realized…

“Mirrors.”They were mirrors, eight of them, made out of dark wood, taller than me, and twice as wide. They were placed in a perfect circle on a wooden platform two steps off the rocky ground.

“Yes, mirrors. They see into the Isles,” Valentine told me, and we went through the narrow space between two of them to find a big round couch with cushions on it in the middle, and a few chairs scattered here and there. A violin and a flute were leaning against the wooden frames, as well as a strange looking instrument, almost like a drum. An easel was there as well, and paintings stacked on the floor. Whoever had made them hadn’t cared about preserving them at all.

But everything else became irrelevant the moment I could see into the mirrors.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, bringing my hand to my chest, completely in awe.

They were windows, these mirrors. They were windows that overlooked entire places. Entire towns.

“That’s Witches’ Wing,” said Valentine, pointing at the first mirror to my right, cracked a bit at the left corner, but what was showing in its reflection was incredible. It was a town with small wooden houses, narrow pathways that snaked their way around them, and bright green grass. A large black structure started somewhere to the right, but I couldn’t see the whole thing, just the colorful wildflowers that grew around it. I knew what it was, though. I’d seen it atop the Isle when I was still on Mama Si’s boat. It was a witch’s hat, but from afar it had looked so sinister. So dark. From here, with all those wildflowers surrounding it, it had a completely different vibe, and I could see it as if a 4K camera was showing it to me from a drone or something.

“That over there is Dragons’ Den,” said Valentine, a big smile on his face at the shocked look on mine, pointing at the next mirror—this one very different, with bare trees, yellowish rocks covering the ground, and the people that came and went all wore scales in different colors. When I realized they were dragon scales, I almost gasped. They were redheads, all of them, some lighter and some darker than me, with a kind of pinkish skin as they went about the stands made of wood and fabric. It must have been some sort of a market and there were a lot of them selling what looked like fish at the edge of the mountain. In my mind, I could see the tip of that mountain clearly, the dragons flying around it, spitting fire every minute.

As if one of them had read my damn mind from miles and miles away, the next moment fire fell over the people, over those stands, and it brightened up the entire room we were in. A miracle I didn’t have a heart attack, and I was too stunned to scream. The people in the mirror raised their fists at the sky, pissed off, shouting something I couldn’t understand because the audio on these mirrors must have been set on low.

Even so, I could see the fire as it spread, nearly touching the ground, catching at least three people in the process, and before I knew it, I was grabbing Valentine by the arm.

Burned.

Those people were completely burned to a crisp!

Except…the fire disappeared into tendrils of smoke seconds later, and the people were not burned. They were just shouting at the skies with their fists raised like everybody else, only now they were half naked. Their pants were burned but the scales and leathers they wore as coats over their shoulders were perfectly intact.

Perfectly intact. Alive.

“How?” I whispered because it made no sense. I’d seen the fire—these people had gone right through it, and now they were still screaming angrily at the skies as they continued to wherever they were going.

“Fire elementals,” Valentine said. “They don’t have much magic and they can’t wield fire properly anymore, but they’re still perfectly immune to it. To dragonfire, too.”

There was no way I could come up with a decent reply to that, so I just focused on letting go of his arm, and I stepped to the side again.

“You can stay right there,” Valentine said with a wicked grin.

“I’m fine,” I muttered, keeping my eyes ahead.

“Suit yourself. That’s Skinwalker Soil,” he continued to the third mirror, showing me a much darker and gloomier place.

“The sun is shining,” I said when I realized that it was daylight in all the mirrors. A blue sky in Witches’ Wing and Dragons’ Den, and a blue sky in Skinwalker Soil as well, though it looked like it was about to rain there any second.

“Yes, it’s about two p.m. right now,” Valentine explained.

He actually looked good in sunlight, now that I noticed. In fact, his cheeks weren’t as pale as I thought, and his eyes were almostbrown. Almost not an all-absorbing black.

“I can sit very still if you’d like to keep watching,” he said, and I rolled my eyes, hoping I didn’t blush. He’d caught me red-handed and I couldn’t even deny it.

“I’d rather look at the real world,” I said and turned to Skinwalker Soil again. A lot of people were gathered around what could have been a bar outside in a wide, half-dry field. It was open on all sides, and everyone was getting trays of food from it, then going to sit on the benches spread all over the field.

“Are they eating?”

“Yes—they eat at the same time, all at once. Wolves are pack creatures. They do everythingtogether,” Valentine explained.

“What do you mean, wolves? Where are the wolves?” I wondered because I couldn’t see any animal among these people.

“You’re looking at them. Skinwalkers are shapeshifters. The only kind that survived the Fall of Ennaris were werewolves.”

Chills down my back at the mentioning of that phrase. Fall of Ennaris…I shook my head to clear it, analyzing the people in the mirror once more. “But they look so ordinary.” No fur and no claws and no teeth.

“They are people, just like all other species. Most can no longer shift anymore, and those who can are disfigured versions of what a werewolf used to be,” Valentine said, and if I’d known him longer than a day, I’d have guessed he sounded sad.

“That’s…that’s amazing.” And absurd. And fantastical—werewolves?

“It is. The Seven Isles are all incredible. If only they had the magic that rightfully belongs to them,” he said, moving to the next mirror. “And here is Faeries’ Aerie, built upon the highest cliff in all of Ennaris. Their system is incredible—they have an entire city up here and another inside this rock.”

His words barely reached me while I studied the view in the mirror, the large cliff, bigger than the one I thought Mama Si’s Paradise was on in the beginning. An entire city was built upon it, but it was the strangest city I had ever seen because the buildings were trees.

Large trees grew on rock somehow, and the trunks had doors and windows. The thicker branches as well. They had grass and flowers and smaller structures made out of wood, animals wheeling carriages and even children running around, playing ball. The view of this place was from much farther away, so I didn’t see details, but I saw the hair color of most, and how it matched their wings.

They were enlarged butterfly wings, completely torn—exactly like someone had run claws all over them.

“What happened to their wings?” I asked, and I had no idea why I found it so painful to be watching this when the people were going about their business and they seemed okay. None was grieving—on the contrary, they seemed pretty energetic.

“The Fall,” Valentine said, and my stomach twisted and turned once more. I looked up at him to find him grinning. “Of Ennaris, I mean.”

Again, I rolled my eyes. “Shouldn’t you be above teasing?”

“I should,” he said without missing a beat.

“So, stop teasing me.”

“Never.”

“You just said?—”

“I am not above anything with you. You’re different.”

I groaned—how could I not?

“I’m starting to think you wrote the book on the worst pickup lines ever. You’re different from other girls—that’s such a lame line, Mr. Evernight.”

His eyes fucking glistened like he’d never experienced satisfaction like he did when I talked. Which made me feel all kinds of weird. And self-aware.

“I don’t do pickup lines, Sunshine. I’ve tasted your blood. You are different from other girls.”

“That’s all kinds of scary rolled in together,” I muttered. I’ve tasted your blood. Definitely not a pickup line.

“You never have to be scared of me,” Valentine said, reaching up his hand to touch my face. This time he did it slowly, so I had time to lean away—a clear indicator, but it didn’t wipe the smile off his face.

“Yet you won’t let me go home.”

“Sit with me,” he simply said.

We sat on the round couch, and my eyes were on the next mirror, the one that showed a forest. A lush deep-green forest and a large building with crisp white walls to the side. Animals went from one side to the other, and people in the building—so many people—were dancing and laughing and drinking like there was no tomorrow. I could imagine their faces just fine, even though the view of them was from too far away to see clearly.

“The Blood Burrow,” I whispered, and right now it was so hard to imagine that I’d been right there, on that Isle, in that very building just two days ago.

“Yes. The Paradise,” Valentine said, shaking his head. “Out of all the Enchanted I’ve ever heard of, Mamayka Sionne always stands out.”

“Well, I’m not going to assume I understand any of this yet, to be honest, but she wanted power. She said she wanted power for her land and for her people.” That much she’d made very clear to me in our little talks.

So easy to see how she’d tricked me. How masterfully she’d ensnared me. So easy to see now, but it had been impossible then.

“Oh, she has more power than all the other Isles already. She doesn’t want anything for her land or her people, but I assume that’s what she tells herself to make herself feel better,” Valentine said. “Mama Si is a very smart woman. Very powerful because of the type of Enchanted she is. A succubi is able to gather energy from sexual pleasure and is able to stimulate it as well. It’s so easy to stimulate lust. One of the strongest emotions and the easiest to manipulate—which is why she’s created the Paradise. She feeds off the energy of humans and gives them incredible pleasure in return, so the power flows constantly. She knows how to use it to keep herself young even after five hundred years of life, and to keep her land flourishing. The Blood Burrow is one of the most Isles because of that.”

“I’m sorry—did you say five hundred years of life?” He’d surely made a mistake.

But Valentine shook his head, and he wasn’t amused. “Yes, that’s how old she is, approximately.”

“Wow.” Five hundred years old! Annabelle hadn’t been kidding that day at her bar. “So, she’s immortal?”

“No, only sirens are immortal,” Valentine said. “But she knows how to harness her power to keep her body from aging. She still doesn’t have pure, raw magic she hasn’t harnessed herself, which is what I imagine she wants.” He flinched. “Well, she will have it now that you’re here.” And that didn’t make him very happy.

“How? How does that work?”

“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 that whichever 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 that mirrors would 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 can walk through these mirrors?” Was he serious?!

And he laughed. “He can. Our dragons can travel through the mirrors without trouble. It’s only we who 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 basically feel through them,” 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’s why 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.”

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 was always in a chaotic state, always trying to get somewhere, to rush somewhere, to the part of my life where I would finally not feel 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 was in 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.”