“Goddammit,” I mutter and jog after him.
When we lived in the palace, a green fairy named Mead oversaw the apothecary. She was a knowledgeable woman much younger than Nana, but who would spend hours and hours listening to Nana’s stories and advice on harvesting and creating tinctures and salves and magical oils.
I liked Mead, even if she worshipped Nana and sometimes monopolized Nana’s time.
Bash and I had always been greedy for our grandmother’s attention. We never got enough of it from our mother and father, so we had to look elsewhere. Nana had always been willing to tolerate us, even when we were being bastards, but she had a life beyond us and she wasn’t above telling us to go away.
We find the apothecary quiet and dark. If Mead still manages it, I’m sure she’s at the party enjoying a break.
The room is exactly as I remembered it, with a garden window on the left, the shelves inside full of small potted flowers and herbs. In the center of the room is one long worktable, the wood base well-worn, the marble top spotted with stains, but still smooth to the touch.
On the right, shelves and shelves of amber glass bottles.
Bash runs his fingers over the labels, searching for the fairy lube.
I go to the worktable and pluck a pale blue flower from a repotted forget-me-not. Nana used to call them mouse’s ears.
“Do you want to hear something weird?” I ask my brother.
He continues his pursuit of the bottles. “Sure.”
“I’ve forgotten what Nana looked like.”
Bash stops searching. He frowns at me over his shoulder. “You know…I don’t really remember either. Like I can see her in my mind when I think of her, but her features are fuzzy, a little indistinguishable.” He laughs. “I can hear her voice, though. Clear as day. ‘You may be princes, but you’ll act like gentlemen when you’re around my ears.’”
I laugh too. “‘If you want to learn how to harness true power, you grow a tomato!’”
My brother turns and folds his arms over his middle. “I wonder why she never sat for a portrait? I can’t think of a single image I ever had of her. Tink had a dozen paintings done. I couldn’t turn a corner without seeing our mother rendered in brush strokes.”
I think of the contrast between my grandmother and my mother and have a hard time reckoning with my brother and me being some kind of converging point between them. Equal parts Tink and Nana, two very different women.
I crush the flower petals between my fingers and the oil soaks into my skin. Forget-me-nots are traditionally given to a person you love. It’s a promise, or a reminder. Never forget me.
But what if you forget yourself? Who you were and who you wanted to be?
What if you thought you knew what you wanted only to find out you were groping around blindly, in pursuit of something that, once you had it, did not feel so important?
Will getting my wings back make me feel whole again?
I want to be free of the pursuit.
“Come on,” I tell my brother. “Let’s get into the vault and find those vessels.”
Bash scans the last of the bottles and finally lands on what he’s looking for. He holds up the amber glass and gives it a little shake. “Got it. Darling’s going to love this.”
I roll my eyes, but honestly, she probably will. That shit is amazing.
We leave the apothecary and return to the main hallway, still finding it empty. We jog the rest of the way, cutting left, then right, then left, until we’re underground again, the shadows a little thicker, the air colder.
At the large double doors, we stop. There’s a glowing orb at the latch. It’s fairy magic, an impenetrable lock that will only open for a select few.
Bash and I used to have access. Do we still?
It seems unlikely, but yet…
When I hold my hand over the orb, the energy inside condenses and glows bright blue.
And the lock thunks open.
17
BASH
It seems too easy, the vault opening for us after all this time.
But who I am to question luck?
I push the doors in. The hinges groan loudly. The doors are three times as tall as we are, and it takes both Kas and me to shove them in.
The vault spreads out into darkness with just two lanterns glowing at the entrance, metal hooks hung over metal stands.
We close the doors behind us and then each grab a lantern.
“You go left, I go right?” Kas proposes.
“Sounds good to me.”
I try to shut out any expectations and just listen to the magic of the room. The shelves are arranged in rows creating aisles between each one. I start down the first, passing magical figurines and enchanted leaves and sealed jars that say DO NOT OPEN.
I can sense the magic within, some of it bright and poppy, other magic dark and sinister.
If pressed to describe the way my wings or magic would feel, I’m not sure I could put it into the right words. It’s just one of those I-know-it-when-I-feel-it scenarios.
The next aisle produces several leather-bound books, then a pointed hat, a single cobbler’s shoe. I weave around the aisles, holding up the lantern so the light spreads far.
“Anything yet?” I call out, voice echoing into the dark.
“Nothing,” Kas answers back.
The worry sets in once we’re halfway through the vault. I was hoping I could just home in on my wings and the vessel they’re held in, like an elephant homing in on water several miles away.
But there’s nothing. Just the buzzing background noise of magic that is not my own.
Kas and I near the back of the vault, with just a few aisles left to search, when we meet up in the main aisle.
“This is making me anxious,” I admit.
The lantern light flickers over my brother’s face. He doesn’t have to say anything for me to know he feels it too.
“Just a few more aisles,” he says and disappears down the next one.
I grumble and keep searching.
I go down one aisle, then the next, passing treasure after magical treasure, but nothing rings out as belonging to me.
When Kas and I meet up again at the back wall, there’s no more hope left to suspend us.
Our wings are not here.
“Tink probably knew we’d look,” Kas says. “I did find one empty spot on the shelves, but I don’t think our wings were there.”
“Show me.”
He takes me back three shelves. The third shelf from the floor is empty from end to end. There are hooks embedded into the wood, like several duplicate items used to hang there.
“What used to be here?” I ask.
Kas shrugs. “I’m drawing a blank, but the lingering magic doesn’t feel like ours.”
I’d have to agree. It has a harder edge to it.
“I suppose it couldn’t have been this easy, huh?” I laugh, but it’s edged in worry.
There’s a bad feeling crawling up my throat.
“We should get back,” Kas says and lets his lantern hang limply at his side as he makes his way for the entrance.
18
PETER PAN
I’m drunk and Vane is pissed, but I don’t fucking care.
Nothing matters anymore, does it?
Everything is a fucking lie.
Now with Darling back in our midst and the Crocodile gone, having slithered back to some dank hole, no doubt, Vane drives me from the throne room and into the dining hall. The music is quieter here, just a low drum and twang across the room. The voices carry farther—laughter and cajoling and merriment.