Sometimes it catches me off guard how otherworldly they all are, how they’re all mine. Someday when we’re no longer at constant war on Neverland, I’ll take them to my world and parade them around the people I used to go to school with. I got along with most of the girls in my town, but there were definitely a few who knew I was beneath them. They would lose their ever-loving minds for Vane and the twins.
Who wouldn’t?
“So the plan is—” Bash starts,
“We distract Tink while Tilly stabs her,” Kas finishes.
Tilly pulls the sheathed black blade from a leather belt at her waist.
“We really think this is going to work?” I ask. “The blade didn’t kill Vane. Thank god.”
“Yeah, but Daddy Dark One”—Vane scowls at Bash—“has the Neverland Dark Shadow. Tink has…well, we’re not sure what she has, but I’m willing to bet it’s not as indestructible as the Dark One.”
“And if it doesn’t work?” I ask.
“There’s always a plan B, Darling.” Bash hooks me into his arm and drags me into his side. He plants a kiss on top of my head and his wings open behind him.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to that. Talk about looking hot. The twins in their natural fae form are like mythological heroes stepped from an oil painting.
If only Peter Pan was here.
Where is he?
My chest tightens thinking about him. Is he purposefully avoiding us or is something wrong? Did Tink get to him?
Come on, Pan. Come back to us.
We leave the treehouse and make our way down the footpath. Because Tink probably wants to kill us as much as we want to kill her, we’re betting she’ll find us eventually. So we walk in the direction of the fae palace as the snow starts falling around us again.
It may be close to dawn, but it’s hard to tell with how dark it is.
When this is over, I’m sleeping for an entire day and I’m going to make the boys stay in bed with me.
Something to look forward to.
We cross the Mysterious River Bridge. Ice that has collected on the stones crackles beneath our feet. More ice has formed along the river’s shore, gathering in chunks where the earth juts out into the water.
Tinker Bell is waiting for us just as we leave the cover of the forest and enter into the great meadow before the fae palace. She’s flying several feet in the air with at least two dozen fae behind her, and a spotty army of Lost Boys and wingless fae on the ground before us.
“My children have come home,” she says and claps her hands, fairy dust raining down from her. “But you brought a Darling and the Dark One and no Peter Pan? Just as well. I suspect the Never King is no more. Perhaps we will never see him again.”
The thought makes my stomach turn. I know she’s just trying to get a rise out of me and it’s working.
“We’ll ask you once,” Bash says, “to kindly fuck off and leave the island. We don’t want to fight you.”
Tink lowers herself to the ground. “I’m not leaving my children just when they’ve been restored to power. You’ll need me. Boys always need their mothers.”
“The fuck we do,” Bash says.
“We never needed you,” Kas says. “You needed us because we were the only thread you had to the fae throne and the power it wielded.”
She hangs her head back and laughs and when she finally sobers, she says, “It was the throne that brought me back, and it’s the throne’s power that will crush you now. Ironic, isn’t it? You’ll come to your senses. I promise you that.”
She lifts her hands and gives a flick of her wrists, and the wave of fae and Lost Boys comes charging toward us.
The twins race ahead to meet them, slicing through the opponents with barely any effort at all. They are in their element, their wings carrying them up, then down. I wish I could watch them from the sidelines. It’s like a dance.
Vane makes me stick close to his side, but it gives us a chance to finally put the Neverland Death Shadow to work.
The shadow is excited for mayhem, and its excitement floods my system with adrenaline.
I was made for this.
Several Lost Boys charge toward us brandishing daggers. They slice. Our shadow blooms around us, a thing felt, not seen other than the heat of it ribboning the air.
A blond Lost Boy lets out a battle cry, barreling toward me, knife like a hacking tool in his hand. But he never makes it. He comes to a halt, eyes wide, then collapses to his knees, trapped somewhere between suffocating and terror.
Well done, I tell the shadow.
It barely gives me notice, pulsing between Vane and me as we take out a fae, then a Lost Boy, then another. I pluck a fallen blade from the snowy ground and stab up, taking out a woman with bright purple hair. Her blood gushes down my arms, soaking my coat.
Up ahead, Kas and Bash are closing in on Tink.
“Hurry, Vane!” I yell at him just as a fae with pointy horns jabs with his blade. Vane snatches his wrist and gives a sharp downward blow, breaking bone. The fae howls. Vane tosses his blade into the air, catches it by the hilt, and sinks it into the fae’s neck.
Blood paints his face in spurts.
He looks over at me as the last breath gurgles out of the fae and Vane drops him to the ground.
We cut through the rest of the attacking foes and make our way to Tink and the twins in the center of the battle.
Kas lunges at her. Bash takes to the air, stopping her escape. Their shadow and their wings keep her down as she laughs at their efforts.
“Is that truly all you’ve got?” she says.
Tilly comes sailing out of the air, black dagger in hand. Without hesitation, she sinks the blade into her mother’s heart.
Dark, black blood seeps out of the wound like oil sludge.
The twins step back. Tilly watches, stunned by what she’s done.
Tink’s golden light fades as she sinks into the snow and the mud, the air gasping out of her.
Could it really be that easy?
We glance at one another, on edge, waiting.
A Lost Boy charges at me and Vane steps between us, roping his arm around the boy’s neck, spinning him around and yanking back.
The loud sound of his neck cracking echoes through the clearing.
If Tink was dead, shouldn’t the Lost Boys and fae no longer be under her control?
And then Tink’s eyes pop open and she laughs again, a shrill sound that makes my ears ache.
She climbs to her feet, yanks the blade from her chest and tosses it aside.
“As if that would stop me.”
27
ROC
My favorite part of fighting is watching.
I watch from the treehouse balcony as Peter Pan loses his shadow and the princes regain their wings and then everyone loses their mind over the missing Darling and Tinker Bell loses her shit over not getting her way.
This is the only time I wish I had popcorn instead of peanuts.
Vane, bleeding, but breathing, goes one way, following the trail of his Darling. The twins and Pan go another way and eventually get separated.
I find Peter Pan at the lagoon, collapsed in the sand.
I crack a peanut and he winces, lifting his head just enough to see it’s me before dropping back into the sand.
“Are you moping?” I ask him and pop the peanut into my mouth.
“I’m in no mood, Roc.”
“Are you crying?” I ask instead.