“You want the twins to have the shadow,” I say.
She nods. “You and the Dark One have split a shadow. It can be done again.”
“Kas and Bash won’t do your bidding either. Clearly you don’t know them very well.”
“Oh, silly, stupid girl. To rule anyone, you just have to give them incentive.”
“Winnie!”
The voice cuts through the quiet and I spin around, confused to be hearing it here. “Mom?”
“Winnie! Help!”
It’s coming from outside. What the fuck?
I yank on the door handle and burst outside. Down below, Mom is trapped in the grip of two fae. They have their arms linked through hers and they’re dragging her from the backyard into the woods.
“Mom!”
“Help, Winnie!”
I’m still not very good at flying, but I climb up on the balcony’s railing and leap off, hoping for a goddamn miracle.
I hit the ground then take to the air again. I fly off course, hit a tree branch, stumble on the ground, then hit the dirt and the snow. The cold bites into my body, soaking through my thin t-shirt.
“Mom!”
I run instead, because I know I can count on my legs to carry me.
I run and run. Mom struggles, leaving a long trail of flailing footsteps in the snow.
I gain on them.
The shadow is vibrating inside of me.
Listen to your gut, it says. Listen to me.
But if Mom is here on the island, she needs my help. She must be scared. She must— The ground gives away beneath me and I fall into darkness, landing with a heavy umph on what feels like rough wood.
I spin around just in time to see a Lost Boy slam a lid overtop of me.
Hammers bang nails into the wood. I bang on the top. “What the fuck are you doing? Stop! Let me out!”
“Bury her deep,” Tink’s voice says.
There’s a soft plodding overtop of me. Then another.
Earth being dropped from shovels.
“Stop!” I bang harder and reach for the shadow, until the darkness completely evaporates.
I’m on my feet by the lagoon and Peter Pan is there, and Vane and Bash and Kas.
What the hell is going on?
“Darling?” Pan says. “Are you all right?”
“I was just…” I turn a circle. The snow is gone and the sun is shining, but I’m still freezing cold.
Bash wraps me in his arms and some of his heat seeps into my bones. “You have a bad dream?”
“I guess? Your mom was there…”
He laughs. “That sounds like the start to a bad joke.”
“Everything’s going to be all right.” Kas comes up beside me. “Everything’s going to be just fine.”
22
PETER PAN
I wake to blinding pain, shouting, and chaos.
There’s blood everywhere. I can smell it. And Lost Boys.
The Lost Boys are attacking?
There’s one on top of me, a knife in my chest. I can’t breathe a full breath and the pain is so intense, my stomach is threatening to revolt.
I grab the hilt and yank it out, finding a shining black blade on the other end.
I whack the kid away. He thunks against the wall and gets back up. “What the fuck are you doing?” I ask him, but his eyes are blank, like he’s not even there.
He reaches for the blade, but I grab him by both wrists and sink the knife into his skull.
He blinks once, then twice, then tilts backwards onto the bed, dead.
Up on my feet, blood gushes from the wound, down my chest, then over the curve of my hip. I’m still fucking naked. Great.
On the next landing, Vane tosses a Lost Boy over the railing and the boy hits the floor down below with a wet thud. Kas is on the steps, hands held up. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he tells a dark-haired Lost Boy. “Just give me the knife.”
The boy slashes. Kas feints to the left. He slashes again and Kas catches his wrist on the comeback, and rams forward, slamming the Lost Boy into the wall, the knife into his chest. Blood geysers from the wound.
“The fuck is going on?” Bash yells up from the floor where he has a Lost Boy in a sleeper hold, the boy flailing in Bash’s muscular arms.
“I don’t know,” I answer as Vane hurries over and tears a sheet into a long strip.
“Arms up,” he tells me. He wraps the fabric around my chest, covering the wound, then ties it so tight, white stars blink in my eyes.
“Quit whining,” he says.
“I’m not, for fuck’s sake. Boys, you hurt?”
“Surface level cut,” Bash answers and drops the now dead Lost Boy. “Nothing major.”
“Where’s Darling?” Kas says.
We look around the bedroom. The panic settles in. “Shit. Go.” I shove Vane. He takes to the air, flying down to the floor. I try to follow, but my lungs aren’t fully expanding and the pain is too intense.
Instead I have to follow Kas around the winding stairs.
“Vane, do you feel her?”
His eyes are narrowed, his awareness searching for her, and as every second passes by, I grow more agitated and Vane looks more worried.
“She’s calm. Like…” He frowns. “I don’t know. It’s weird. She’s far away and the thread is weak, but she seems fine.”
That makes me feel better. At least for now.
Bash holds up one of the knives he took from a Lost Boy. “This is concerning.”
Another throb of pain shoots across my chest. I’m dizzy and weak. “That’s the same kind of blade Tink used on me before.”
“It’s forged of volcanic stone from Lostland,” Kas explains. He snaps his fingers at his brother. “That’s what was missing from the fae vault.”
“Christ. That’s not good.”
“That’s the same kind of stone Holt Remaldi used to take the Darkland shadow from me,” Vane says. “The Darkland elite revere that shit like it’s gold.”
I glance at the twins. “You knew the fae vault possessed blades forged of it?”
“It didn’t even dawn on me until now,” Bash says. “I noticed the empty space on the shelves in the vault, but Kas and I couldn’t remember what was there.”
“I think the better question,” Kas says, “is why did the Lost Boys turn on us?”
“They seemed fucking possessed.” Vane kicks the shoe of a dead Lost Boy lying on the rug. “Something isn’t right.”
A sharp pain cuts through my ribs. I should be healing. I am not fucking healing. “We have to find Darling.”
“Agreed,” Kas says and makes his way for the door.
We file out together, hurrying down the stairs, down the hall and across the loft. The house is silent. Even the parakeets are gone from the Never Tree, the pixie bugs dark.
I have to stop on the other side of the couch, too fucking winded to go any faster.
What happens when you’re stabbed by a Lostland rock blade? The myths are varied, the source material shaky at best.
I have the Neverland Life Shadow. I should be healing.
“Which way?” Bash asks Vane.
He’s by my side, his arm hooked through mine. “Get up,” he tells me.
“I’m standing on two feet,” I argue. “I am up.”
“You look like you’re about to keel over. Are you all right?”