It’d be a fucking lie, anyway. It’s the truth. When Tilly comes, by the end of the night, the Darlings are changed.
So then I bide my time, waiting for the next generation to come of age, waiting for this moment.
But now… I don’t want this Darling to change.
Usually when I take them, they rave and scream, or they sob and quiver.
This one is like a feral cat that wants to push the saucer of milk off the table just to watch it spill.
I like that about her.
Brave little Darling girl. Wild and reckless, always up for depraved adventure.
“Is there any way to get to the memories without risking the insanity?” she asks.
I lean back into the chair. “I wouldn’t know. That’s not my area of specialty.”
“So what is?”
Good question. I don’t seem to have one anymore. I used to have many. I could fly, for one. I could look beyond myself, into the island and just know things about it. I could make anything appear out of thin air. Food or animal or trinkets or treasure. If I thought it, I could create it.
I haven’t been able to do any of that in a very long time.
Now the bushes don’t produce the same number of berries, and the coconut trees produce fewer coconuts and the bays are yielding fewer catches. The weather shifts more than it used to.
I claimed the shadow of life a very long time ago and it was my responsibility to keep it.
And without it, the island is dying.
I am dying.
“I don’t want to go mad,” the Darling says.
Her voice catches and her eyes fill with tears.
She can go toe to toe with the Dark One but facing the loss of her sanity is the thing that terrifies her the most.
I think perhaps we have more in common, this Darling and I.
“Get dressed,” I tell her.
“Why?” She’s immediately on guard.
“Let me take you for a walk and show you something.”
She narrows her eyes at me.
“You will be safe,” I tell her. “From me and the island. I assure you.”
“All right. I could stretch my legs.”
She sets the book aside and passes me and I have to fight the urge to reach out and snatch her. This is why we never touched the Darlings. Once you’ve got a taste, it’s hard to forget the flavor.
She goes to her room and I go to the loft to pour a drink.
I’m not as tired as I was yesterday, but my fucking head is pounding.
I sling back a shot of whisky, then light a cigarette, letting the smoke ache in my lungs.
I don’t know where everyone is and I don’t fucking care.
When the Darling comes back, she’s wearing her dress and that sweater that hangs off her bony shoulders, and something stirs in my gut at the sight of her, so tiny and fragile.
I can’t breathe.
“Lead the way,” she says.
There are many paths that lead from the house into the island’s forest. The forest is what stands between us, Darlington Port, and the fae territory.
The rain has let up to a breezy mist that coats my skin.
I take the Darling on the path that heads north into the heart of the forest. She’s silent beside me but it’s hard not to notice the loudness of her presence.
“Where did you get your scars?” I ask her.
She inhales sharply, keeps her eyes on the path.
“Darling.”
“A hazard of being a Darling, I suppose.” She tries to smile up at me, but it’s forced.
“Who did them?”
The thought of someone carving her flesh makes me angrier than it should. I shouldn’t fucking care. I don’t care.
Yes, you fucking do.
“People my mother hired.” She grabs a firecracker flower from a listing bush and starts plucking petals from the stem, leaving them behind us like bright red breadcrumbs. “She was trying to protect me.”
“She had an odd way of showing it.”
Darling rubs a petal between her thumb and forefinger, then brings it to her nose, inhaling the sharper floral scent now that the oils have broken through to her skin.
“It was because of you,” she says, her voice edged in accusation. “If you didn’t kidnap Darlings, I might have had a normal life.”
Guilt burrows into me.
But I am nothing if not fair. I only give what I get.
“If the Darling hadn’t stolen my shadow, I wouldn’t have to steal Darlings.”
She frowns over at me. “I guess that’s true.” She tosses the naked flower stem into the brush. “How did she steal it anyway? My ancestor?”