I feel dizzy being close to him again. Stupid girl. I swallow. Nod. “Okay.”
His eyes flicker over my face. “If it goes dark, we’ll hae t’ set up camp—stay the night.”
Please god, let it go dark, I think to myself, but instead, I just say, “Okay.”
He tilts his head. “The wee man winnae mind?”
I give him a grim smile. “It’s ever so likely that the wee man won’t even notice.”
He runs his tongue over his teeth and nods once. “Let’s go then.”
We walk out to the edge of town, mostly in silence. I don’t mind silences with Jamison though. And maybe we’re better if we don’t talk? I walk on his left-hand side, a few steps behind him, and I could pretend that it’s by chance but it’s not, it’s on purpose. Jamison Hook is spectacular from every angle you’d turn him in, but the most striking one of all is his profile. It highlights all his edges, and of those, there are many—I believe I saw a couple new ones at the Dirty Bird—but this angle in particular, his left side, sun facing—his features are so sharp. It is worth noting though, there’s a gentleness to him that I don’t think he wants me to see, that I don’t want me to see anymore either, I don’t think.* That’s why I put those thoughts down.
He looks back at me and smirks a tiny bit. “That’s a grand hiking dress ye’ve got there.”
I give him a look. “Rune gave it to me. For my birthday.”
“Very athletic,” he tells me wryly, and I push past him grumpily.
He chuckles to himself, jogs a few steps so we’re walking side by side, and he clocks my top lip.
“He d?dnae get it.”
I frown, confused. “Get what?”
On his own mouth, he points to the part of my lips where my kiss lives. I feel for it, touch it, swallow, relieved.
“No, he didn’t.”
Jamison gives me a single nod, and a smile I think he wouldn’t want me to see breezes over him, because he looks away.
“Ye’ve been here some months now,” he says to me. “Are ye liking it?”
“Sometimes.” I nod.
“Just sometimes?” He watches me.
I nod back. “Just sometimes.”
“Ye’ve had a good run.”
I give him a look. “I have?”
“Aye.” He nods. “No rogue magical villains hae floated through or anything. That’s good fortune.”
“What do you mean?” I frown.
“It’s Neverland.” He gives me a wry look. “It’s no’ all good. A lot o’ it’s fucked.”
“How?”
“It goes both ways.” He shrugs. “Has to. If it can be wonder-filled, then it has to be terrible too.”
I lift my eyebrows, waiting for more, and he rolls his eyes at me.
“Last year, a hellhound got loose on the isle—tore a bunch o’ people t’ pieces. The year afore that, there was an oilliphéist that would come out and terrorise everyone. The queen of hearts—”
I roll my eyes. “She’s not real.”
“Sure, not in the way ye ken her to be, no.”
I cross my arms, waiting for more.
“She’s a witch.” He gives me a look. “The man she loved d?dnae love her back. Now she takes the hearts of men in love and eats them. Feels full for a moment, then it empties her more.”
I stare over at him, eyes wide. “That’s a legend.”？
“No.” Jem shakes his head. “I saw her with me own eyes.”
I feel sick as I blink over at him. “But she didn’t eat your heart?”
He shakes his head. “I was no’ in love at the time.”
Our eyes catch—I don’t know why?—and then he gives me a quick smile and clears his throat.
“Hae y’seen a volcano before?” he asks, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
I nod. “I have.”
“Where?”
I purse my lips, and he looks at them as I do. “I’ve seen Vesuvius in Pompeii and Mauna Loa in Hawaii.”
“Hawaii?” He looks over at me all interested. “I’ve always wanted to visit thonder.” He smiles in this far-off way that I don’t understand because he comes from Neverland, and how could you long for any place else? “What’s it like?”
“Well, parts of it are quite like here, actually—not too dissimilar from Cannibal Cove. Bigger waves. No mermaids.”