Something pries into the lid and wrenches it back.
And when I blink into the dim light of darkness, it isn’t any of the boys I see, it’s Tilly.
I lurch upright, ready to fight, but she holds up her hands, her wings casting shimmering light across the clearing. “I came to help you.”
I’m pressed against the back wall of the hole, dirt sloughing off, pebbling around me. “Why?”
“Because this is all my fault and I need to fix it.”
I’m wary of her. Of course I am. But I can hear the desperation in her voice, the thin reediness of a girl who’s made desperate decisions just trying to survive.
The twins said she tossed the fae throne into the lagoon as an offering, as a way to get an edge over Peter Pan and the boys. But now we’re all suffering the consequences.
“I was never loved by my mother,” Tilly admits, and her voice catches. “And somehow she loves me even less now.”
“So you saved me to get back at Tink?”
“No.” She swallows and licks her lips. “I…I don’t expect you to understand, but I did what I thought I needed to do to be the dutiful daughter and continue our family’s legacy. But it was never enough. And even now, when I am queen, when I hold all of the power to rule the court, I still have nothing. I still don’t have the respect of my mother or my brothers.”
She grits her teeth, stalling the tears, even though I can hear them in each word she speaks.
I know what it is to want love and never find it from the one person who should love you, no questions asked. Before Pan and the boys, I thought love was something you had to wait for, quietly, desperately, and that sometimes even when you waited, it would come to you in only pain.
“I’m sorry, Tilly,” I say.
“I don’t want your pity,” she says. “Just help me save my brothers.”
Her wings carry her out of the hole and she reaches down, offering me a hand. But just as I reach up, a dark figure barrels into her.
“Vane!” I shout as the shadow surges to him, and he wraps his hands around Tilly’s throat, pressing her against the nearest tree. I fly out of the hole, stumble, then right myself. “Stop! She helped me!”
Tilly’s eyes bulge and she struggles for air.
“Quit it.” I grab him by the wrist and yank his grip. “She saved me!”
Vane blinks over at me and the shadow settles. When he lets her go and steps back, I realize he’s covered in blood. “What happened to you?” There isn’t much light to see by, but I can tell he’s paler than normal. Which means the blood must be his. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
I put my hands on either side of his face and force him to look at me. The shadow ebbs and flows between us, like water sloshing around a tide pool. He grits his teeth and the shadow answers, I can heal him, as it pulls from me, flowing back to Vane to heal his wounds.
“What happened while I was gone?” I ask, first Vane, then Tilly.
I sense Vane’s unease and Tilly’s reluctance.
“Tell me.”
“It’s Pan,” Vane says. “He sacrificed his shadow to the twins.”
I start back for the house.
Vane and Tilly come after me.
“Wait, Winnie, for Christ’s sake.”
“We have to help him get it back.”
“Would you stop!” Vane surges ahead of me on the path back to the treehouse and blocks me. “He gave it up.”
“So! That means he can get it back.”
I try to move around him, but Vane puts his hands on my shoulders, forcing me still.
“The shadow went to the twins.”
“Both of them?”
Vane nods.
I never chose the shadow. The shadow chose me. And later it chose Vane too. I know from watching Holt on Marooner’s Rock try to force the shadow into him, that shadows are fickle. They don’t just leap into random hosts for the fun of it.
If the Neverland Life Shadow left Peter Pan of its own freewill and claimed the twins…
“But…it’s Pan’s shadow. He’s spent the better part of his life hunting for it. It’s his.”
Tilly comes into focus just over Vane’s shoulder. “The shadows belong to no one. My Nana taught me that. The shadows belong to the land and the shadows decide who is deserving of them.”
I look up at Vane. His dark brow is furrowed, his eyes searching mine. Everything that Peter Pan is, is in that shadow. Without it… He won’t survive this.
His entire life has been about that shadow and ruling Neverland.
“We have to go to him,” I say.
“I know,” Vane answers. “But it’s complete chaos in the treehouse. Tink is somehow controlling the fae and the Lost Boys.”
“Some fairies can get inside a mind,” Tilly says. “Our family has always been exceptionally gifted at illusions and infiltrating minds. But my mother seems to have gotten even better at it since the lagoon spit her back out.”
There is no pride in her voice. Just disgust.
“It seems she’s gotten inside their minds, and whatever dark power resurrected her, is now able to infiltrate a mind and control it.”
“Okay, so what do we do?”
“We might be able to stop her if the shadows unite against her.” Tilly glances at us over her shoulder. “If you’re up for it.”
“Of course. If you’ll help us and not betray us again.”
Her wings flutter open. “I suppose I deserved that.”
Vane snorts.
“Let’s find my brothers,” Tilly says and takes to the air. “Try to keep up.”
25
BASH
I don’t want to cry, but fuck it, I have my wings back!
I dip through the sky as a fae gives me chase. To my left, my brother is carting a flailing Lost Boy out to the ocean.
The fae crashes into me and my wings beat at the air, holding us aloft. He punches. I shift and he misses, his momentum forcing him downward.
I roll, tuck in my wings, and shoot through the sky like a hunting hawk spotting its prey.
The fae is trying to catch a headwind, but Tink is clearly controlling him and the Lost Boys, and I don’t think their minds are fully invested in fighting. I don’t know this fae warrior, but he’s not maneuvering through the air like someone who knows what the fuck he’s doing.
Hell, I just got my wings back after being grounded for decades and I clearly have an edge over him.
A shifting wind throws him off course, right into my arms. I wrap my body around him, wings tucked in, letting gravity do its job. We sail for the forest floor below. The fae wrestles against my grip.
I drop him when the canopy comes nearer. He crashes into the thick branches of an oak, wood cracking loudly through the forest. A few seconds later, I hear a loud thud followed by moaning.
My wings open up again and beat at the air, lifting me higher and higher. In the distance, Kas is making his way back to me. With no other fae in sight, I hover in the air, waiting.
And I catch the faintest sound of Darling’s voice and…Tilly’s?
“Down!” I shout to Kas. “On me!”
It’s like we’re warriors again, training in the fae guard. How long has it been? Too long.