“When is the last time you were in this vault?” Pan asks over his shoulder.
“Years and years,” I answer.
“How hard would it be to find the vessel?” He turns to us once he’s reached the Never Tree. The parakeets are quiet this morning, but the pixie bugs are winking in and out, filling the shadowed branches with soft golden light.
“The vault is vast,” I answer.
“And full,” Kas adds.
“But it wouldn’t be impossible,” I say. “We’d know it when we felt it.”
“What are you suggesting?” Vane meets Pan in the middle of the loft. “Break into the fae palace and into their vault and steal their wings back? Wings that are stored in some unknown magical vessel while the entire fae court is on top of us, helmed by a petty fae queen and her resurrected evil mother?”
Pan regards Vane for a beat and then puts a cigarette in his mouth and spins the wheel on his lighter, the flame catching. He brings the fire to the cigarette and inhales, then snaps the lighter shut. The long draw he takes makes the ember burn brightly between them as they continue to stare each other down.
After a long exhale of smoke, Pan says, “Yes.”
Vane turns away. “For fuck’s sake.”
“Even if we get our wings back,” Kas says, “we still have our mother and Tilly to deal with.”
Pan takes another hit, and ash flakes away from his cigarette, swirling down to the hardwood floor. I can’t seem to read him right now. Not that he’s ever easy to read. I just wish he’d give something away for once.
“I promised you I’d help you get them back,” he says. “And I need to keep that promise. Tink will know it’s the one thing that will motivate you, and while I know you’ve chosen your side and that side is me, I also know what I would do if faced with the same temptation.”
“Are you insinuating we’d choose our undead mother and our wings over you?” Kas asks.
“Are you insinuating that you’ll say no to your wings?” Pan counters.
Kas frowns and looks away.
It’s more complicated than that, of course, but when you pare it down, there is one undeniable fact: we really want our fucking wings.
We want to fly. We want to feel whole again.
Pan, Vane, and Darling can all take to the sky, and Kas and I being stuck on the ground has tipped the balance in our group.
We haven’t spoken this aloud, not a one of us. But it’s there between us like a crack fissuring the ground, a clear line that divides us from them.
The group dynamics are different, the power shifting. And what does that mean for us? I sure as fuck never expected Darling to have the shadow. Not that I can hold it against her. She didn’t set out to get it. She is a victim of circumstance.
But it still doesn’t change the facts.
Footsteps sound up the stairs. Not human footsteps, but wolf. Balder’s nails are loud clicks on the wood as he makes his way to us.
Perfect timing.
When he reaches the loft, he pays none of us any mind. Instead, he goes straight for Darling, circling her once before setting back on his haunches at her side, the top of his head level with her waist.
I go to him. “What do you know about the lagoon bringing our mother back from the dead?”
Balder peers up at me, his amber eyes bright. Darling buries her fingers in his ruff, giving him a scratch, and he sinks into her touch.
“Silent now, are you?”
His eyes close.
“We’re not going to get answers from a dog.” Vane drops into one of the leather side chairs and props his boots on the low table. “But just so we’re all clear, I think this is a stupid fucking idea and if the twins want to fly, I’m happy to help. I’ll drop-kick you off the edge of Marooner’s Rock. You’ll really fly then.”
“Don’t be a shit,” I tell him.
He sits up straight. “What is that mortal saying, Win? The one about fools.”
She squats down beside Balder, and he nudges her beneath the chin with his nose. “‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’”
“That’s the one. How many times has your sister fooled you?”
I cross the room and shove his boots off the table so I can sit on the edge. Elbows on my knees, I lean toward him. He scowls at me. “Look, Dark One. Would I rather get shit faced and tie Darling to my bed and fuck her until she screams or deal with my undead mother and conniving sister? Obviously, I want the former. The latter makes my head hurt. But once upon a time, you had a sister too.”
He tilts his head, the line of his jaw hardening, eyes narrowing. “Careful, prince.”
“But you did questionable things to avenge her.”
“Yes, avenge,” he repeats. “She was already dead.”
“And if she weren’t? If she were alive, what would you do to save her?” My voice catches, and even though I thought I had dissociated myself from feeling anything at all for Tilly, my body betrays the truth of it. Tears burn in my sinuses. “Would you save her, even if it was from herself?”
“My sister never tried to kill me,” he points out.
“If she’d lived long enough to see you turn into an asshole, she might have.”
He lunges at me. We spill over the edge of the table and slam to the floor. He’s on top of me, the air growing darker, swirling around him. He cocks his arm back and brings his fist down, but I’m a second ahead of him and conjure an illusion that transforms me into Darling. It’s just enough to throw him off for a split second, to force him to pull up. Long enough for me to hook my leg around him and drive him back. I scramble over top of him and land a fist to his jaw.
“Stop it!” Darling yells.
“Cheap shot,” Vane says and catches my second punch. His grip is immediately crushing, and pain shoots down my arm.
“Like you’ve ever played fair,” I counter and make a fist with my left hand. He catches that too, so I slam my forehead into his face. Blood spurts from his nose. The force makes my teeth clack together and the coppery tang coats my own tongue.
“Pan!” Darling yells. “Do something!”
“Let them fight, Darling,” Kas says. “They do this sometimes.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
With my fists trapped in his grip, Vane rolls us and gets the upper hand. He lands a blow on my jaw that sends a reverberation straight down my spine.
He winds back for another blow when a lithe figure barrels into him, shoving him off of me.
I sit upright as darkness pervades the loft, blotting out the gray skies and the glowing pixie bugs.
“Stop,” Darling says, her voice an eerie echo. She’s straddling Vane, his back flat on the floor. “Or I’ll sweep the floor with both of you.”
Vane glares up at her, but I can’t help but laugh.
Darling turns her black eyes my way, fury etched into the space between her brow.
“Sorry, Darling.” I hold up my hands to show my innocence. “I don’t doubt you. But seeing a slip of a girl like you take out the Dark One is practically a comedy sketch.”
Darling climbs off Vane and he gets to his feet. Blood is still running from his nose and he uses the curve of his knuckles to swipe at it. It leaves behind a smear under his bottom lip.