“This is exactly what Tinker Bell would want, wouldn’t she?” Darling’s eyes fade from black to her bright green. “Us fighting amongst each other with the twins pulling away from us.” Her attention slices to me and real pain turns her mouth down at the corners.
Darling is worried? Well, shit. I don’t know why she’d doubt me.
I go to her, blood still a bright tang in my mouth, and wrap her in a hug. It’s easy to swallow her up. She’s half my size, barely a sliver of a girl. “I’m not leaving you.”
She melts into me and wraps her arms around my waist. “It’s your mother.” Her voice is barely audible, muffled against my skin. “And your sister. Them or these assholes. How can you choose?”
“Maybe I won’t have to.”
Darling pulls away, but her arms are still linked around me. She has to crane her head back to meet my eyes. “Pan didn’t want to choose,” she reminds me. “And look where that got him.”
Over the top of Darling’s head, I find Peter Pan. He’s at the window now, gazing out at the gloomy Neverland sky.
No one knows better than Peter Pan just how cunning my mother can be.
Is he worried?
I get the distinct sense that he is.
5
PETER PAN
I can’t get Tink’s words to stop echoing in my head.
“All that time I spent down there with the spirits of the lagoon, you hear many curious things about myths and men, and men who think they are myths.”
Men who think they are myths.
It was aimed at me. I know it was. What was she hinting at? That I am not who I think I am?
Snow is still falling from thick, dark clouds outside the loft and there’s an undeniable chill in the air.
I thought I fixed this problem.
Getting the shadow back was supposed to right everything, including Neverland. But the island feels distant again. Quieter than I’d like.
Why is it fucking snowing?
Why did the island bring Tink back?
There are other words that have been whispering again and again in the back of my mind: Never King.
Never King.
Given light, trapped in the dark.
Do you hear us now, Never King?
I thought the spirits in the lagoon were warning me about my penchant for violence and cruelty. That I couldn’t continue on unfeeling and uncaring.
Darling was my light. Or so I thought.
So why the fuck is Neverland dark?
Why does it feel far away?
Behind me, Darling is calling my name, but I can barely hear her over the roaring in my ears.
Men who think they are myths.
“Peter?”
I jerk out of my reverie. “Don’t call me that.”
Darling frowns up at me. “Your name?”
I turn back to the window and watch a swirl of snowflakes catch an updraft.
“Tink calls me Peter.”
I may have been on Neverland soil longer than Tinker Bell, but somehow her return has diminished me to a boy. I am unprepared and vulnerable.
Darling’s hand on my forearm sends a chill down my spine. Not because of the cold, but because of the sharp contrast of her warmth. “Just Pan then.”
I swallow again. My mouth is dry. I need a drink.
What was the lagoon trying to tell me? Were the spirits warning me this would come? Did I miss the clues because I was too fucking arrogant to listen?
Tink’s return feels like another toll of the warning bell.
“We’re going to figure this out,” Darling says. “If we stick together and—”
The twins are arguing with Vane again, trying to decide what to do, how to approach this new problem. Every day it’s something else.
When do we rest?
“We’re not going to the palace,” Vane says.
“Yes, we are.” I turn to them. Darling’s grip slips away and I am immediately colder because of it.
“What the fuck are you thinking?” Vane asks.
When I meet his eyes, there is worry there. But it’s not just for me anymore. He’s worried about Darling. Worried that I’ve lost my fucking mind, and that I’m going to endanger her too. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.
But I also know I can’t do nothing.
I did nothing last time, and Tink killed the original Darling.
We’re all here now because I did nothing.
“We go to the palace,” I tell him and keep my voice steady. I will brook no argument. “If we don’t go, we look weak. And I know Tink better than any of you. If we ignore her, it’ll only inspire her cruelty.”
“Going to the palace puts us all at risk.” Vane points at Darling. “She is our weakness, and that fucking fairy knows it. She will use her against us. It may not be blunt. It may not even be obvious. But one way or another, she will divide us and we will all risk losing Darling. And if that fairy lays a hand on Win, I swear to fucking god—”
“I know.” I cut him off because I know where this leads, and I don’t want to think about it. Thinking about it will strangle the air in my lungs, squeeze my heart until it threatens to explode.
Vane is right—Darling is our weakness and Tink knows it.
But she’s not going to harm her right in front of us. Tinker Bell plays in the shadows. She is the enemy that gets sick satisfaction out of making us guess where and when the knife will cut.
Where is the fun if we see it coming?
“We go to the palace,” I say and start for the hall. “We accept the invitation to quell Tinker Bell’s aggression. We pretend to make amends because at the very least, it’ll get us the twins’ wings the easy way. And if we don’t get them the easy way, we’ll be in a better position to get them the hard way.”
At the mouth of the hallway, I pause and turn back to them. The twins are at the bar sharing a drink. Vane is a few steps away, closer to Darling than anyone else.
I am envious of him.
Envious of all of them. Kas has Bash. Vane has Darling.
A very, very long time ago, I had Tinker Bell.
It’s moments like these when a memory burns to the surface. Most of my memories are gone or buried. I didn’t want to remember the original Darling, and thinking of Tink brought up only guilt and regret.
I can hear her laughing all of a sudden and I can see her wading through the shallows of the lagoon, her wings glowing behind her.
“Can I be your fairy, Peter?” she’d asked.
“You know you can’t be my fairy, Tink, because I am a gentleman and you are a common fairy.”
“You silly ass.” Then she’d laughed and kicked a splash of water my way.
When the memories burble up, they are always followed by grief.
Tinker Bell was my best friend for as long as I can remember.
And if my best friend could turn on me…
“We go to the palace,” I tell them. “Be ready just before sundown.”
And then I leave them to discuss what a silly ass I am, no doubt.
6
ROC
For all its faults, Neverland is a place with lots of magic and many magical things, and magical things can help a beast find a missing Darling girl.
So I start marking things off the list.
Peter Pan might know how to find Wendy.
The fae queen might know even better. After all, she hailed me to this island with a promise of secrets, and while she gave me one, there were more.