Chapter 2
T he Iaso is a lone, dark tower, swaying up and down on the waves of the sea. It’s docked in an alcove, just below the cliffs, a perfect hiding spot for the Gathers, which like Maddox reported, is gone.
There’s no trace of the Nomad. No trace of his people. No trace of Tink.
My heart twists, and I hope that wherever they are, she’s not afraid.
One of the crew members lets down a rope ladder, and Nolan makes as if to carry Michael on his back, but Michael squeals in panic as soon as he feels Nolan’s touch. A moment later, and Michael’s on the floor of the dock, rocking back and forth, singing a sea shanty I don’t recognize.
Again, Nolan’s neck turns red, and he glances at me, clearly at a loss. “I didn’t mean to upset him.”
“It’s okay,” I say to Nolan as I kneel in front of Michael and allow him to rock against my chest. “I do it too sometimes.”
As Michael curls into my lap, Nolan appears less than convinced, his face stricken. When he takes a step toward us, Michael yelps again.
“Why don’t you go ahead and climb up,” I say. “He’ll settle down in a second. Besides, he’s a good climber. I’ll just go up behind him.”
Nolan’s face falters. “Are you sure?”
I smile over Michael’s head, now tucked underneath my chin. “Of course. I don’t mind.”
Nolan seems unsure, but I couldn’t be telling him anything more true. After almost a year separated from my brother, I’m more than happy to have him curl up in my lap a bit.
Nolan looks as though he’s about to say something, but instead he swallows and hauls himself up the rope ladder. I watch him as he climbs, the ease and grace with which he manages it despite his size, and I wonder why a man like that looks twice at me.
After a few minutes, Michael stops shaking and begins twirling his fingers through my hair.
“Hey, Michael,” I say, struggling to speak the phrase that will spur him up the ladder, remembering the last time he cited it to me.
I’m not sure these words are the right ones to use, given how they’ve entangled themselves with John’s death in my mind.
But for Michael, I remind myself that they’re a fond memory of a childhood that was ripped away from him, something familiar. “Last one to the top’s dead meat.”
Michael jumps from my lap and races toward the rope ladder. I have to scramble to my feet to catch him, but as the rope ladder sways and my brother giggles in delight, I watch him from the bottom and soak in the moment.
And then, I climb.
When I reach the deck of the ship, Nolan is nowhere to be found, but Charlie quickly finds us.
She explains that after she completed the adamant pocket watch—the one designed to house Peter’s shadows—the Nomad had sent her and Maddox to the Iaso , claiming that was the location we’d reconvene after kidnapping Tink from the Whittakers’.
“Of course, by the time we’d realized he’d lied to us…
Well, I suppose we’re all together now, so I’m not sure that it matters,” she says, waving her hand as if to dismiss the memory of the Nomad altogether.
“I’ve already had a bath drawn in our room,” she says, turning her nose up at me in a way that says I need one more than Michael.
Makes sense, as Michael was probably freshly bathed at the Whittakers’.
I nod and follow her, Michael in hand, to her room, the room we once shared when I thought I was a prisoner on this ship. I hadn’t known what it meant to be a prisoner at the time.
I sink into the drawn bath as Charlie watches Michael in her room, speaking with me loudly through the walls.
“So explain to me what exactly happened,” she says.
I groan and sink back against the edge of the metal tub, allowing it to dig into the space just underneath my shoulder blades, where I can feel knots forming and a headache creeping in.
“Can it wait?” I ask, not wishing to relive tonight. Or maybe I just don’t want Charlie knowing what a horrible person I am for allowing Tink to be carried away by the man she so clearly fears and bargaining away my firstborn child in one night.
The door creaks, and Charlie peeks in with an exaggerated scowl on her brow. “How long am I agreeing to?”
I let out a laugh. “I feel as though at least one sleep is fair.”
“I’ll prepare the bed,” Charlie says, whipping her head out of the doorway and closing it with a snap.
My relief at not having to explain myself doesn’t last. It’s not long before saving Nolan is clouded by the reminder that I haven’t actually saved him. Not from death, at least.
He’s still sick, his illness the direct by-product of me severing his Mating Mark.
Nolan is dying, and I don’t know how much time with him I have left.
My stomach aches at the thought. That and the realization that he and I will never have children. It was a stupid dream, but one I clung to in my captivity with Peter. A clandestine place I let my mind wander during the long nights in Peter’s arms.
It was only made worse after Nolan told me how our lives were supposed to turn out. Before he changed both of our fates by turning over part of his Mating Mark to Peter. I was supposed to help raise his and Iaso’s daughters as my own, and Nolan and I were to have a little girl too.
I miss them, these children who never got the chance to exist. I don’t understand it entirely, how I managed to have a child in that version of reality, when I never fell pregnant with Peter.
But that version of Wendy had never been addicted to faerie dust. I don’t know what sort of effects its misuse has on fertility, but the idea leaves me sullen, and I find my fingers tracing my belly, thinking of the children that will never grow there.
My fingers stumble upon a section of raised flesh.
I jolt upward in the bath and stare down at my belly, but the water leaves me unable to see what my hands are feeling. When I extract myself from the bath, that’s when what I’m feeling becomes clear.
It’s the mark of a bargain. And it’s in the shape of an infant, placed directly over my womb.
I choke on a gag, anger welling up within me. Hatred for the Sister eats at my stomach. She could have marked me anywhere, if I had to bet, and she felt the need to taunt me. Remind me of what I can never have.
Why? Unless she’s trying to tempt me. Give over one child, and I can keep all the rest.
But she doesn’t know Peter never let me utilize preventative measures. Meaning she doesn’t know there’s a possibility I’m barren. That the faerie dust has eaten away at my womb. Because of the curse the Eldest Sister placed upon her, she can’t see me or Nolan in that tapestry of hers.
“Wendy?” Charlie calls from the other side. “What exactly am I to do with the fact that Michael is flicking his boogers across the room?”
With haste, I dry myself off, throw on the nightgown Charlie left out for me, and try not to think about the brand marring my belly.
I’m not sure what time it is when Charlie finally wakes me. Sleep had been fitful, but eventually my body succumbed to its allure.
I’d dreamed of Nolan’s last breath and a beating heart in my belly.
By the time I’ve spent what must have been hours wrestling with my nightmares, Charlie shaking me awake rather aggressively is welcome. “Hey, you’ve slept long enough. All day, actually. You need to get up.”
“What’s wrong?” I ask, sensing the urgency in her voice.
She waves my concern away. “Nothing’s wrong. But if you don’t eat dinner, you’ll get grumpy, and I’m not having that.”
I nod, shoving her off of me playfully, though she’s correct; I am on edge.
“Where’s Michael?” I ask, looking around the room.
“Maddox is watching him,” says Charlie, somewhat elusively.
“I take it you asked him to watch him and he jumped at the chance to do anything for you?” I say, brow raised.
Charlie flits her hand again. “Technically, watching Michael is for you.”
I can’t argue with that, so I go to change out of my nightgown, but Charlie’s already set out a lovely blush gown for me. I hold it up, noticing the way it alternates between golden and pink depending on the light.
“This is nice,” I say, cautiously.
Charlie bounces up and down on her feet, grabbing her own satin evening gown from her overflowing wardrobe. “That’s because tonight, we’re celebrating,” she says.
“Celebrating what?”
Charlie looks at me like I’m an idiot. “You, of course. You’re back.
I know you don’t think about things like this, but the crew really did miss you.
Besides, now that the Nomad’s gone, we don’t have to do his dirty work anymore.
Oh, and not to mention, you saved the captain from eternal slavery to the Sister. ”
“Well, it wouldn’t have been eternal,” I say, dimly.
Charlie glares at me. “Just stop being so morbid and put the dress on. We’ll worry about finding a cure for the captain tomorrow. Tonight, we’re just going to focus on being happy.”
Happy. I stare at the gorgeous gown in my arms, and wonder if such dreams are possible. Maybe they are, especially if I only have to be happy for one night.
“Alright, fine,” I say with resignation to Charlie, but it’s with a grin bubbling up from the excitement within me.
She flashes me one of her gorgeous smiles, and it’s not one of winning, but of pure and genuine excitement for me. I shouldn’t let it, but the fact that Charlie thinks I’m worthy of having a night of fun makes me believe perhaps it could be a little bit true.
Charlie helps me into the dress, then sets to work on my cosmetics and hair. It takes her little to no time, and she assures me it’s because I’m beautiful enough as it is that it’s not necessary.
When she’s done, she hands me a mirror, and I can’t help but let out the tiniest of gasps.
I look not only beautiful, but innocent.
Happy. The light from the pale blush and golden gown glimmers, highlighting the Mating Mark on my cheek and jaw.
I stroke it, thinking of how many times I had to hide it.
How often my parents made me feel as though it was something to be ashamed of, something that would keep me from ever being wanted.
Nolan’s portion of the Mark might not exist anymore, but in my mind, my portion still belongs to him. Marks me as his.
In the mirror, I glimpse myself smiling, and it’s a prettier sight than I remembered. Perhaps because this time, it’s real.
Charlie has my hair down, which is a change for me. Typically, I wear it pinned back, out of the way. Wifely, as my mother would say.
But the gentle waves that frame my face tell the story of a young woman with a life ahead of her, not behind her.
“You’re stunning,” says Charlie, and from the hand mirror I glimpse a single tear run down her cheek.
Before I can respond, there’s a knock on the door, but Charlie doesn’t rush to get it. When I offer her a questioning look, she says, “Whoever it is can wait until we’re ready.”
I laugh, but as we are already ready, I head to the door. I whip it open, halfway in the middle of a laugh, when my breath catches.
Because in the doorway is Nolan Astor.
And the man is kneeling.