When she comes up the stairs to the loft, I hold my breath.
And when she finally appears, I can’t help but gasp.
She’s like a fairy straight out of a fairytale.
And she has wings. Large gossamer wings that arch from her back and flutter slowly beneath the light of the glowing lanterns. And when they catch the right lighting, they shimmer like the inside of an abalone shell.
Her dark hair is braided into several braids that are woven in and around a delicate golden crown where a single stone glitters in the center.
She has the twins’ high, sharp cheekbones and thin, straight nose. But her face is heart-shaped where theirs is more angular.
Turning her gaze on me, I notice her irises are the same shimmery, shifting color of her wings.
She’s magnificent.
She’s more myth than Peter Pan himself.
I blink several times as if to double check that my vision isn’t playing tricks on me.
“Tilly,” Peter Pan says and comes over to her. “I’m happy to see you.”
She smiles up at him, but some of the light fades from her eyes and it’s the first hint that something is amiss between them.
Does Peter Pan know?
She holds out her hand to him, fingers bent. He reaches over, takes her hand and plants a kiss to her knuckles.
That pleases her. Almost like being kissed is a display of dominance and she likes being the dominant one.
I suppose Peter Pan is at her mercy. She’s the only one who can dig inside my head.
Then she turns her gaze on the twins flanking me and all of the pleasure bleeds from her face.
Now her expression is cold and distant.
“Brothers,” she says.
“Dear sister,” Bash says.
“It’s nice to see you, Tilly,” Kas says.
She doesn’t respond and I can tell the short conversation leaves both of the twins wanting.
“Is this the Darling?” she asks and cuts her gaze to me.
It’s hard not to turn my face to the floor like a cowering idiot.
“Hi.”
“Have these feral boys minded their manners?”
Vane snorts.
I try to ignore him. “Yes. They’ve been kind.”
Except for when they were calling me a whore and fucking me over the table.
I’d take that over this any day.
In fact, I’d prefer it over just about anything else.
I want to go back to that, when the only pursuit was my own pleasure.
“Come, have a seat.” She gestures to one of the chairs and I reluctantly make my way across the room to it and sit down.
I fold my hands into my lap to hide my trembling fingers. My skin is clammy and my knee is bouncing.
“This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes,” she says behind me and a creeping sense of dread crawls over my shoulders.
My heart is racing and my stomach is knotted up and I think I could vomit if given a bucket to do it in.
Tilly reaches out for my head and I flinch.
“It’s okay. I’m just putting my hands here.” Her fingers sink into the threads of my hair so that they can press directly to my scalp. “Ready?”
God no. Not at all.
What if there is no memory of the stolen shadow? What if all of this is for nothing and all of the Darling women have had their brains scrambled for nothing more than a wild goose chase?
“Let’s begin,” she says and blinding pain cracks through my skull.
26
BASH
My sister won’t even look at us. We are royalty and yet she regards us like we are serfs from the berry fields.
Everything Kas and I did, we did for her.
Kas wants to be forgiven, but I’m beginning to crave revenge.
Our sister’s jeweled fingers thread their way through Winnie’s hair. An overwhelming sense of urgency wells up my throat.
I’ve seen this done many times before. I know how this ends.
“Let’s begin,” our sister says.
Bright white light glows beneath her hands and Winnie’s face contorts with pain.
Beside me, Kas shifts his weight from one foot to the other like he’s fighting the urge to leap across the room and take our dear sister down.
Winnie screams.
Pan grits his teeth.
The light builds as our sister digs in and roots around inside the Darling’s head.
Does she even know what she’s looking for all of these years later? Does she care enough to dig deep enough?
All at the expense of our little Darling.
Tilly focuses in on the task, fingers turning into claws as she shoves forward with her power.
Kas and I once watched her turn a man’s brains into mush because he insulted her in front of the court. She put her hands to his head and ten seconds later, his brain was leaking out his nose.