Chapter 8

Eight

The Paradise hadn't changed one bit, just like Mama Si. The scent in the air was that of roses, but my sense of smell must have improved dramatically because I almost threw up at the intensity alone. It was too much, way too much.

But then I saw the people, the pools, heard the music and their laughter. The Paradise, alive and awake, just as seductive as ever. The sight of the massive yard with the many pools and the women and the guests having the time of their lives could so easily trick you into thinking you needed nothing else in your life but to be here. Just be here, in the Paradise—that's all you ever needed.

Such a beautiful illusion.

Such a beautiful lie she painted for people here, and the girls helped.

My stomach twisted a million times when I noticed them. Seven of the girls I used to hang out with every single day—including Amber—stood by the heart-shaped pool half hidden away from the rest of the yard by trees. Their mouths were wide open as they watched us approaching. As they watched me.

God, they'd looked so glamorous to me once. They'd looked like everything I'd never dared to even dream of, and all I'd wanted was to be like them. To be them.

And I had.

Now, as I went closer and closer and saw their faces—Mia and Peanut and Eva and Melahni—I realized they weren't half of what I'd made them to be when I didn't know any different. They were living the life of puppets under Mama Si's shade. They were dolls —literally. And I pitied them with all my heart.

"Do you see how far you've come?" Mama Si whispered to me as we passed them by, and none of them said a single thing. They all just watched me, stunned out of words, like I'd changed that much. Like they were shocked to see that I'd made it out alive.

"I see how utterly unimpressive you and this place really are," I said just to spite her, but Mama Si laughed.

She laughed as she took me toward one of the half open rooms of her Paradise, and the people still watched. Not just the dolls, but the guests and the other girls who were in the bigger pool half covered in pink foam. They still partied here like they used to, even more now that the weather was warmer. They still had no care in the world, and for a moment, a part of me envied them. Part of me still wanted to live a life so simple.

But that part of me faded away as soon as we walked through the doors and into the Paradise, and nobody was watching me anymore—except for Mike and Marissa, of course.

"Tell me, Fall Doll, have you eaten? Would you like some of your favorite foods?" said Mama Si as we went down the hallway toward the stairs.

"No, thanks. I'm full."

"Oh, I insist! It's your birthday and?—"

"I just ate with Reeva Lorein. I'm full," I repeated, and that made her clamp her mouth shut instantly.

"Oh. I see." Her smile faded away as we climbed the stairs. "So, I wasn't your first choice."

"No, you were not."

She had the audacity to look disappointed. "Very well. You're apparently still angry at me, and it's fine, even if I don't understand it."

I turned to her, my jaw touching the floor. "You tricked me. You manipulated me. You took me to the Whispering Woods against my will." And she didn't understand why I was angry?!

"Oh, get over it already," she said with a wave of her hand. "What would you have rather become—the dolls? Is that it? Was that all you wanted out of life— that ?" And she pointed her thumb behind her shoulder. "Or this ?" Then waved that same hand toward me.

God, I despised her even more in moments like this.

Because she was absolutely right.

"I would have rather not been lied to," I said, and she rolled her eyes.

"Well, you were. So, stop complaining. You turned out better than I could have ever dreamed, Fall Doll," she said, and Assa stepped forward to open the doors to Mama Si's office.

The same place they brought me when I decided to come work with her that morning.

God, it felt like a lifetime ago, but I didn't let myself dwell on it too much. I just walked in with my head up and sat with Mama Si at her desk.

Assa, Mike and Marissa were right behind me, standing near the wall still as statues, watching us.

I raised my brows at Mama Si. "Why are they here—to guard you?"

She didn't even try to deny it, as absurd as it seemed to me. If I'd wanted to attack her in any way, I wouldn't have come all the way into her office.

"Just a precautionary measure," she said, folding her hands under her chin. "Now tell me, Fall Doll. Why are you really here?"

The words were right there at the tip of my tongue.

Help, was all I had to say. I'm here to ask for your help.

But I still couldn't force myself to utter those words out loud. Instead, I said, "She's coming."

"Logic would suggest that, yes," Mama Si said without hesitation. "However, I heard from the Evernights, who've spoken to the sirens, and so far, Syra is standing down."

"It won't be for long. If she's not stopped, she's going to come for us. All of us. All the Isles."

She knew this. They all knew this—that's why the sirens had looked the way they'd looked last night when they came to the Woods. They'd been terrified because they knew.

"But she hasn't yet. That certainly indicates something good. Master Romin said that she's… content to be left alone with Master Grey," Mama Si said slowly, waiting for my reaction. I didn't give her one, though it cost me. "They say she thinks he's Hansil Knight."

"She doesn't, " I said through gritted teeth, then sank my nails in my palms again to force myself to keep calm. I didn't need to lose it right now, not in front of her, and not until I'd said what I came here to say.

"No, no—of course not. But he looks a lot like him, apparently, and so she's happy to just have him and ignore the rest of us. That's good fortune, don't you think?

Good fortune. "That's you fooling yourself and standing down, so when she does come for you, it will be easy. She'll meet no resistance whatsoever." Syra had already killed four of her sisters on top of ruining Ennaris—did they really think that once this illusion she'd put herself in faded and she realized that Grey couldn't just take Hansil Knight's place, she wasn't going to come for them again?

"Oh, Fall Doll," Mama Si said, falling back on her chair. "You seem to think there can be resistance against that power. You're wrong."

I swallowed hard. "She's not invincible." And I'd said the same thing to Reeva, too. "She was put under once. She can be put under again—by the same spell."

"A spell created and cast by a hundred witches at the height of their power, as well as six all-powerful sirens," said Mama Si. "I'm sure someone told you the story."

"They didn't. I saw it myself." I'd seen it all in detail in Emerald's library.

"Saw it how?" Mama Si wondered.

"A Storyteller in Faeries' Aerie."

Her brows shot up. "You were in the Aerie?"

"Yes, I was. And I saw what happened. I saw all of it—and Grey does not look exactly like Hansil. Yes, they're similar, but so are the rest of the Evernights." That was a lie—Grey looked more like Hansil than any of the others, but they were still different. Their eyes were completely different. "Syra is going to wake up to that fact sooner rather than later, and when that happens, she'll be coming."

For the longest moment, there was complete silence in the office, and it struck me that the last time I was here, it was about a job . Just a job as an escort in the human world—the only world I knew.

Look at me now.

"You saw Hansil," Mama Si finally whispered, and she looked shocked.

I shook my head. "Like I said, I was in the Storyteller. I saw the story?—"

"I've been in plenty of Storytellers, doll, but I've never once seen the faces of anyone in them." She smiled. "They say one needs a good amount of imagination to see what the author portrays. I'm quite the artist, if I do say so myself, but I never saw any of their faces."

"Does it matter?" Was she really going to dwell on this when it made no difference whatsoever to the situation we were in? But before she could answer me, I said, "Syra is awake. I was there. I saw her. I fought her. She's awake and very real and she will be coming for the Isles in a matter of weeks."

"Of course, she—" Mama Si stopped speaking, then raised a brow. "A matter of weeks ?"

Here goes nothing. "Yes," I confirmed.

"How would you know?"

I read it in the stars…

"A prophecy," I said, and maybe it was stupid of me to even be talking about this, but what the hell did I even have to lose at this point?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Mama Si wasn't going to want to help me, not against Syra. Of course not—so what did it even matter what I said now?

"A prophecy," Mama Si repeated, running the tips of her nails—the gloves gone—on the surface of her desk. "Tell me something, doll. No—tell me everything that happened on the Eighth Isle, won't you?"

"You know what happened." She was just wasting my time.

"But I want to hear it from you," Mama Si said, half a smile on her lips because she knew just how irritated that made me.

I could pick a fight with her over what mattered and what didn't right now, but that would lead to more wasted time, so I held myself back.

Shoving down my anger with all my strength, I gave her the shortest version of the story possible.

"Valentine was working with Genevieve and Sedelis to awaken Syra. The first two hoped that Syra would end everything the way she should have five hundred years ago, while Sedelis was secretly planning to kill Syra and take her power for herself. Needless to say, she failed. I was there with Grey when they awakened her, and I was there with Grey when she killed Sedelis. Then she threw us all out of the Isle and raised it out of the water," I said. "That's everything. "

"But how did you end up on the Eighth Isle?" she asked, fascinated already—or acting like she was.

"I went after Grey. I was in Agva with Storm when Valentine began to unravel the spell. Storm felt it and took me there with him," I said, and the more I spoke the more her eyes lit up.

"My, my, Fall Doll," she whispered.

"We searched for Valentine for three days on that Isle and we couldn't find him until he began to undo the rest of the spell. By then Genevieve and Sedelis were already there. The rest is history." And if she wanted more details, I was going to walk out of there just as fast as I'd come in.

But Mama Si smiled, perfectly content, folding her hands under her chin again. "What a story," she breathed. "You have more balls than most people I've ever met in my long, long life, I'll give you that."

"Just d?—"

"Hush, Fall Doll. I'm trying to give you a compliment—take it," she cut me off, and it was all I could do not to scream at her fucking face. She thought I gave a damn about her compliments?

"The longer she's here, the stronger she'll get," I said, trying my best to keep my voice calm.

"I realize that," Mama Si said. "But even now she is stronger than all of us combined. That's what you need to understand, apparently, even though you saw her with your own eyes." She leaned closer on the desk. "Do you have any idea how much it takes to kill a siren?"

I could see all the colors in her eyes right now, bright and vibrant—so typically Mama Si I almost smiled.

"You're afraid." And I was, too. Everyone was afraid, but they didn't have somebody they loved in the clutches of that siren right now, so it was easy for them to choose to stand back and do nothing. Maybe I'd have done the same if I were in their shoes.

Mama Si laughed. "Of course, I'm afraid! I'm fucking scared shitless!" And she laughed some more. "I was here when she did it, Fall Doll. Merely a girl, but I remember how the earth wept. I remember the fire." Her smile faded as her eyes grew wider, then glazed over like she suddenly couldn't see me at all. "I remember life withering away, fading into nothing. I remember ."

The thought of her actually being there when Syra destroyed the entire continent sent shivers down my back. Fuck, Mama Si was old. I had yet to believe it or to understand what it meant that she was that old, but it made me so damn uncomfortable.

She then sighed as everyone else in the room held their breath with me. "Yes, I remember it, and yes, I'm afraid. Because when she comes, Fall Doll, be it now or later, it will be over. There will be no point in trying."

My eyes closed and I pushed back the tears that wanted to spill out of me. "It's all over, anyway," I whispered.

Maybe Reeva was right. Maybe I needed to just sit still and wait for the end. She was already doing it. Sitting in her rocking chair, drinking lemonade…maybe I could join her so we could wait together.

Wait for Syra to get pissed off at something and decide she wanted everyone gone.

"A moment ago, you mentioned a prophecy , doll. Whatever did you mean by that?" Mama Si then asked in her sweetest voice.

"The witches," I told her, my mind elsewhere still. "Reeva Lorein read the stars. They foresee the Fall of the Seven Isles the same way they did the Fall of Ennaris. It's already as good as over."

This came as a shock to her as well. In fact, when the words registered in Mama Si's mind, her face transformed completely.

She turned pale as a ghost, paler than usual, and her eyes were dark, no color left in them at all. Her fisted hands over the desk were shaking, and she barked, " Out. "

Assa, Mike and Marissa silently slipped out the door with their heads down without making a single sound.

So hard to breathe.

Magic in the air, leaking from Mama Si's skin—I was sure unintentionally. It took her a good few minutes to get it under control, and I told her what Reeva had told me, what I'd seen with my own eyes without her having to even ask. I figured it would save me time.

She absorbed my every word as if it was the most important thing she'd ever hear, and maybe it was. When I was done, barely a minute later as I wrapped it up quickly, she kept shaking her head, lips opening and closing but she couldn't say anything at all.

"So…" I sighed. "Maybe it's true. Maybe the stars know. Maybe we're all as good as dead anyway. It doesn't matter."

I was still going to make my way to the Eighth Isle on that boat, all by myself, and I was going to try to find Grey. I was going to die there, I knew that, but maybe I'd at least get to see him one more time before I did. Just to see his face that I missed so much my memories of him had already become a blur.

"Of course, it's true. The witches know stars," Mama Si whispered. "Why hasn't Reeva spoken about this to anyone yet? Do the sirens know?"

I shook my head. "She doesn't think it will matter." It was my best guess.

Mama Si wanted to argue. I could see it in her eyes.

In the end, she lowered her head and said, "No, it does not."

My heart weighed a thousand more pounds when I made it to my feet. I'd known that this would happen before I left the Evernight castle this morning. I'd known nobody would help me—of course not. But I'd felt it as an obligation to try to do my best, and now that I had, I could move on.

Truth be told, I was relieved to have gotten it out of the way, and I couldn't wait to get there already.

"Where are you going?" Mama Si asked when I turned for the door, her voice small. Defeated.

"I'm going to Grey."

Laughter. "She'll kill you."

"I know." I opened the door.

"Close the damn door, Fall Doll!"

I turned to her. "You don't get to order me around anymore." I was not her doll no matter what she called me.

But then she waved her hand, and her magic sprung to life so fast it was impossible to even see it coming. The handle slipped from my fingers and the door slammed shut the next second, making me jump back.

"You want to get killed, is that it?!" she demanded, and once more she was the same woman she had been on that boat when she offered me in the ritual. The woman she'd become after Shadow bit me and she no longer needed to keep manipulating me with her lies.

"I want to go to Grey," I said through gritted teeth.

"You're going to your death!" she said, slamming both hands on the desk.

"And what the hell do you suggest I do?" I strode back to her, screaming so much my throat hurt, but who cared? "I'm not going to cower back and wait for her to come kill us—I'd rather choose my own fucking time!"

More laughter. "I almost took you for smart—almost! You've seen her yourself and you dare call me a coward for not rushing to die?!"

"Yes, damn it— yes! " I shouted. "I am calling you a coward because you are so paralyzed by your fucking fear that you refuse to lift a finger to try to save yourself." To try to help me .

Such a ridiculous concept.

My eyes closed and it occurred to me how useless all of this was, but it also felt great to be screaming my guts out at her. It felt great to let all of that out, to say what I thought without holding back.

"You love him," Mama Si then said, and we were both breathing heavily.

"I do." And that was going to be enough. "Think of me whatever you want. I'm still going."

Once more, I turned for the door.

"She'll kiiiill you! " Mama Si sang.

Again, "I know."

I was out there, almost— almost closed it, when she said…

"There might be a way."

I stopped.

With my eyes squeezed shut, I stopped and I begged my pride to take a step back.

When it did, I forced my body to move, to turn around, to listen to what she had to say.

After all, wasn't this what I was here for? This was Mamayka Sionne, the original seductress. If anybody could find a way to navigate an impossible situation, it would be her. This is what she did.

"What way?" I whispered, standing tall when all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball right there against the wall.

"Close the door," she whispered, then fell back in her chair like she was already exhausted.

So was I.

Pushing the door closed, I went and sat with her again, hopeful. So fucking hopeful so suddenly it should have been funny.

"What way, Mama Si?"

Her eyes were closed, and she tapped her fingernails on the armrests of her chair in a perfect rhythm— fast. She moved her head to the melody she could hear in her head, and for a moment that's all she did.

I just watched her and waited and waited…

Then she laughed.

God, how she laughed—with all her heart, like I'd never seen her do before. She laughed so hard the entire desk shook, and I could do nothing but wait some more until she calmed down.

"We're all going to die," she eventually whispered. " At last ."

Fuck, nothing got to me the way this woman did.

"What. Way ?" I said through gritted teeth, unable to help myself.

"You know, you really hurt me with how you spoke to me at the party, Fall Doll. My soul is still wounded." And she brought a hand to her chest.

"Oh, fuck your?—"

" Choose yours next words wisely! " she shouted, pointing a finger at my face.

I clamped my mouth shut and sat back, so desperate I wanted to either cry or laugh—or both. Because I knew what this was. I knew exactly what this was, and despite every cell in my body demanding I keep my mouth shut and swallow those words, I couldn't. Because she said, there might be a way.

And if she believed there was a way…

"I apologize," I choked.

It was like pulling nails out of my throat, not words.

"For what?" the bitch said, arched brows to the middle of her forehead.

Oh, how she was enjoying this—and it beat me why she bothered. Didn't she just hear that we were all going to die soon? Or was she doing this because of that? To get one last laugh at my expense?

"For how I spoke to you at the party," I said anyway.

She smiled. "Good girl."

My eyes closed. "Mama Si?—"

"Like I said, I was very hurt by the whole thing, but an apology sure feels good," she said, like I hadn't spoken at all. "And since we're all going to die anyway, I could help you if I so choose."

Don't speak, don't speak, don't speak…

I spoke. "You owe me."

She gasped—and it was all an act. "I do not owe you a single thing!"

"You tricked me! You lied to me and manipulated me and you fucking threw me under the bus—just to gain power for yourself, you old hag!"

This time when she gasped, it felt pretty genuine. With both hands to her chest, she said, "I am not a witch," she told me. "Therefore, I cannot be a hag. And I might have tricked you and lied to you, but I?—"

"And manipulated me and everyone around me," I cut her off, and she rolled her eyes.

"Yes—and that, but I did it for my people. For my Isle."

"You did it for yourself," I said, slamming my hand on the table next. "However—I survived, and now you owe me. We're all going to die, so you might as well repay one fucking debt you have to another person on this earth before you rot in hell for the rest of eternity." The words left my mouth so fast you'd think I rehearsed them and learned them by heart.

"Your claws are so sharp," Mama Si said, but she was smiling, and she sounded proud. "But it's so cute that you still think there's a hell—or anything at all after death, Fall Doll."

She was going to be the death of me for real.

I groaned. "For the love of God, just tell me what way ?!"

Laughter. "And in god , too—oh, my dearest doll!"

I should have been running out of that place by then, and running fast, yet I stayed put until she was done with her theatrics and got herself together again. Until she stopped laughing that awful sound.

"Okay, okay, fine. I will tell you," she finally said, clearing her throat and straightening in her seat. "Who knew the end of the world would put me in such a great mood!"

"Mama Si," I warned again, but she just waved me off.

"The way I see it, Fall Doll, there's only one scenario in which nobody else gets killed by the siren, and you get your Grey—even if it is for a little while. Because let's face it—you can't really hide anywhere in the world. She'll find you on another planet, too."

"A little while," I repeated with a nod. I would take a little while. I'd take a day—a fucking hour.

"Just a little while," Mama Si said, and I couldn't even begin to understand that she was so excited for the world to end.

She stood up from her chair and came around the desk, head high and steps steady, her eyes cold now, and she didn't really see anything as she stared at the floor.

"Yes, yes, it could work," she whispered. "She'd believe it—after all, it is the truth, isn't it?"

I shook my head, so impatient the curiosity was going to eat me from the inside out. "What's the truth?!"

Mama Si shrugged, resting her hip at the edge of the desk as she slowly folded her arms in front of her. "The end."

I narrowed my brows. "The prophecy."

"Precisely. We will use the prophecy to lure her out," said Mama Si.

"Lure her out?" Was she insane? Out of where —the Eighth Isle?

"You'll never even see your precious Grey if she's on the Isle, Fall Doll. I'm sure you know this already—it's impossible to escape her senses. But if she's not on the Isle, there might be a chance for you," Mama Si said.

Fear, raw and intense, was already weighing down on my shoulders. "And you think it'll work?"

"I do, actually," she said, and she really didn't look afraid anymore—just excited. "She'll want to see the reading of the stars, especially if everything you said about it is true. And while she does…" Slowly those pink lips spread into a wicked smile. "You can get your Grey and run away—until she catches you, that is." And she winked.

"Until she catches me," I repeated.

"But she'll believe it—like I said, it's the truth. We only have a few weeks left, wasn't that what Reeva said?" Mama Si continued as she paced around my chair slowly, watching me like a hawk—the way a predator watches her prey.

"That's what they had five hundred years ago," I answered without really thinking about it. "But you're right—it's the truth."

"A truth the likes of Syra will want to know about, especially since she just woke up and is planning to stick around. That's the thing about manipulating people that most don't understand—it matters little what you want. It only works if you can figure out what the other person wants and give them that."

"Like you did with me." She'd known exactly what I'd wanted—something different, something more than my life had ever given me, and she'd held that in front of my face and made me chase it without regard for anything else.

Mama Si smiled like she'd just heard the best thing in the world. "Exactly, Fall Doll!"

I couldn't even tell if she faked it, or if she was genuinely that happy that I got it.

Shaking my head, I smiled. "Well, Syra is no me." I'd been helpless, alone, vulnerable. That's why her lies had worked so well on me.

"Syra is like everyone else. Name one woman who wouldn't ruin the world for a man she loves—just one !" That laughter again, ringing in my ears, getting under my skin.

Then her fingertips were under my chin and she was pulling my head up, looking into my eyes, but no magic came off her.

But she said, " You would do it, too, wouldn't you, Fall Doll? In the name of love?"

Her whisper slipped into my ears like a snake come to devour me from the inside out. The idea that she saw right through me as she looked into my eyes terrified me, but I couldn't answer her for the life of me.

No, I should have said, of course not. I would never!

Except…that was a lie.

A voice in my head and a feeling deep in my bones said it was a goddamn lie, especially when I'd felt the pain Syra had felt when she'd saw Hansil being eaten by her sisters.

My God, all that pain…

My eyes closed and I drew in a deep breath to remind myself that I was here now, and I wasn't Syra. What had happened to her all those years ago hadn't happened to me. I was not Syra. I could never kill innocent people. Not for any reason, ever.

Lie, that voice in my head whispered, but I ignored it perfectly fine.

"Syra," I told Mama Si, moving out of her reach. "Focus on Syra. What's the plan?"

She smiled like she knew all my deepest, darkest secrets. "It's a fairly simple plan because only those truly work. I will go to the Eighth Isle and talk to Syra, tell her about the stars. And when she wants to go to Witches' Wing to confirm the story, that's when you make your move."

My heart was already hammering in my chest. "Reeva will agree to it," I said with a nod, even though I didn't know it for sure. But the witch had said that she'd help me, that I should tell her when I had a plan, and I believed she'd meant it.

"Regardless of whether she agrees—Syra will want to see for herself. I doubt there's a witch out there who'll dare stand in her way." She grinned sneakily.

"And if they do?" I asked in a whisper.

Mama Si raised a brow. "If they do, they die."

The words echoed in my head for a long time after.

"But they won't," I told myself. "They won't stand in Syra's way. Reeva will make sure of it."

"Then you have nothing to worry about, Fall Doll," said Mama Si, standing before me as she dusted off imaginary wrinkles on her dress. "I shall go to the Eighth Isle and speak to Syra, tell her what the stars have predicted, and hope for the best." She crossed her fingers and winked at me again. "Here's hoping she's as fabulous as my teenage mind remembers."

For fuck's sake… That same voice inside my head warned me— do you really want to trust the likes of Mama Si again ?

The answer was simple—I didn't, not even close. But the truth was that I had very little choice, and even less time. I wasn't trusting Mama Si with anything. She was simply going to tell a truth to Syra and hope the siren left the Eighth Isle for a little while. And if it didn't work…

Well, we were all going to die soon, anyway, weren't we?