Chapter 54
W e’re all suited up in leathers on the day we are to infiltrate Neverland.
According to Peter, Neverland is the only place he still knows how to reach the Sister. It’s not as if we can verify any of this, so we have to take him at his word for it, which makes me uneasy.
There is a part of me that wants to believe that Peter is genuinely helping us—well, as genuine as he can possibly be. I still get the impression he’s hoping to steal my heart. But still, the fact that he didn’t force a bargain on me in order to enlist his help provides me some comfort.
But as I emerge onto the deck and see him on the edge of the ship, perched up on its railing, his wings extended behind him—one the dark leather patagium, the other shining black metal—I ache to know what he’s thinking as he stares up into the night sky.
What I once would have given to know what he was thinking, just for the sake of it, just to know him better.
But I now know better than to lose myself to the current, to the depths of Peter’s mind.
All I want now is the assurance he will not betray us in the end.
I linger behind him. As Nolan and Maddox are still down in the map room—I can only assume they’re discussing their strategy—I’m the first one to make it up to the deck.
“Ready for this, Wendy Darling?” asks Peter. He hasn’t moved in the slightest, giving no indication he knew I’d ascended onto the deck.
“I am ready to see my son. I am ready to hold him once again.”
“You sound so confident,” says Peter, turning his face to me. There’s no mocking in his voice. In fact, there’s something akin to admiration. “You’re different.”
He doesn’t mean it offensively. But it stings all the same.
Of course, I’m different. Of course, what has happened to me over the past two months has altered me.
Even if we do get my son back, even if I hold him in my arms once more, I am forever changed by the fact that he was ripped from my arms. These two months of his little life I’ll never get back, never have memories of.
I remember being around the infants of my mother’s noblewomen friends, noting how within the span of a week, if it took that long between visits, the same baby would seem to me entirely foreign, as if I had never seen the child before.
I am not na?ve enough to believe that when I finally gaze down upon my son, his will be a face I recognize.
“Yes, I am different,” is all I end up saying.
Silence between us, interrupted only by the rustle of the wind.
When I can’t stand the quiet any longer, I nod toward his wing. “How does it work?” I ask not out of concern for Peter, but it’s a question John would not have been able to resist asking. There’s a part of me now that feels the need to ask these questions that John cannot.
“No idea,” says Peter. “The ringmaster had an engineer in his employ—well, in his service,” he says, correcting himself.
“A genius. I’m convinced he was a Seer. A Seer or a healer.
He was something, that I know at the very least. He had some magic within him, but also a knowledge of the sciences—of engineering and technology.
” He shrugs. “He somehow figured out how to blend the two together.”
“You don’t have a mechanism by which you control it?” I ask.
Peter shakes his head. “Only my mind.”
“Just like before,” I say. “When you had both of your wings.”
“You sound disappointed,” says Peter, actually daring to sound hurt. “Do you wish that sort of pain upon me, Wendy Darling? I do not wish it for you.”
I open my mouth but then decide not to dignify that comment with a response.
“It’s not exactly the same, if it makes you feel any better,” he says. “I can control it with my mind, just like my wing. But I can’t feel it. I can’t sense the air cut underneath it. Can’t tell it if it’s been damaged, other than the way I fall in the sky.”
I nod. “I think we all have pieces of ourselves like that.”
“Is that my fault too, then?” asks Peter. And for the first time, by the way he’s looking at me, I sense his question is genuine.
I don’t have time to respond, though. Not before clattering comes up behind me on deck.
Peter’s face lights up.
“Michael!” he says, hopping down from his perch and striding toward my brother. He goes to reach for him, to pull him into his arms.
I can’t bring myself to place myself between Michael and Peter, not when I know Peter won’t hurt him. Not when they share a connection I cannot understand.
As it turns out, I don’t have to.
Michael sidesteps him, avoiding his touch altogether. He doesn’t quite cling to my side or hide behind me. Instead, he stares directly at Peter’s wing—the metallic one.
“Don’t touch,” says Michael.
Peter frowns, hurt splashing across his face, but he quickly hides it.
“Growing up into a big boy,” he says. “I should have remembered you’re not little anymore.”
There’s a strain to his voice, and I watch the way Peter convinces himself that Michael’s reaction to his presence has nothing to do with Peter and his betrayal and everything to do with growing up.
Just then, more footsteps come up behind us on deck.
I turn around to find Nolan, Maddox, and Charlie, all geared up in leathers just like mine.
I glance at Charlie. “You’re not coming, are you?”
“Of course I’m coming,” she says. “I feel fine.”
She takes a step forward, and I can tell by her strained smile that she’s fighting to hide a limp. She’s doing it well. I wouldn’t catch it if I weren’t looking for it.
“You’re not yet fully recovered,” I say.
“I’m fine,” she says. “I’m not missing this. I failed your son once. I won’t do it again.”
There is warmth in my eyes—gratitude for Charlie—but fear also.
“Charlie, I almost lost you once. I can’t lose you again.”
Maddox grumbles something next to her. Something about “Now where have I heard that before? Oh yes, from my own mouth.”
Again, she repeats the sentiment about failing.
“Those two can’t come,” says Peter, pointedly looking at Charlie and Maddox.
Charlie flares her nostrils. “That’s not really up to you.”
Peter crosses his arms. “No, but who’s to say the Sister isn’t watching your tapestries?”
“Who’s to say she isn’t watching yours?” says Maddox, glaring at Peter.
“Peter is right,” I say, to which Maddox appears less than pleased. “No, listen. The Sister can’t see my and Nolan’s tapestries, and she can’t see us in anyone else’s. Sure, she can see Peter’s, but it wouldn’t necessarily raise the alarm if he were to return to Neverland to contact her.”
“Not if I’m alone,” says Peter. “If I’m dragging along two of Captain Astor’s known associates, however…”
Charlie opens her mouth to protest, but Peter interrupts her. “We can waste time arguing, or we can go get your son back.” He glances between me and Nolan and even nods at Nolan—a silent gesture I don’t miss.
“Let’s go,” says Nolan.
Since Peter is the only one who can fly, he does so in turn, taking us into Neverland via the warping. He takes me first.
The warping is just as I remember it. A topsy-turvy sensation that feels as if my insides—my stomach—are being turned inside out, like a wine flask being cleaned.
When we land, my boots collide with the crunch of the onyx sand, and I feel the familiar salty spray of the dark ocean stinging at my nostrils.
It’s a strange sensation, walking on this onyx beach in my boots rather than my bare feet, but I have no desire for my flesh to touch anything about this realm, this world.
Peter lets go of me, then launches back into the air to go get Nolan.
I wait, gazing in wonder at the sky above. The aurora is out tonight, its green streaks vibrant, painting the sky.
“A beautiful prison,” I whisper to myself.
“Those are the most dangerous prisons of all, aren’t they?” says Peter, as he and Nolan land. “The beautiful ones?”
An eeriness overcomes us at the weight of what we’re about to do.
I glance around—at my husband, at my enemy, at my former prison—and wonder not only if this night will end with my child in my arms, but what I will have to give up to gain him.
As we walk across the beach and toward the reaping tree, toward the forest, Nolan recounts the plan to us for what must be the fiftieth time.
It’s rather simple. We’ll descend into the Den.
“Yes, I remember,” says Peter. “Though I’m not looking forward to my part of the plan.”
A twinge of sympathy rises within me, one I probably shouldn’t feel for the man who abused me, but he’s right. His part of the plan is less than savory.
The Sister’s heart might have always belonged to Nolan, his ancestors, and now his son, but they had been out of her reach for ages. It’s not as if, in that time, she has not desired anyone else’s company.
On occasion, I got dreadful glimpses of her relationship with Peter, specifically the first time I saw his Mating Mark as he bowed naked before her.
“She’s obsessed with me. Not in the way that she’s obsessed with you,” Peter says to Nolan.
“But believe me, her desire for you never stopped her from wanting me, even if she did make it clear that I was not her first choice. It didn’t matter in the end, really.
The experience on my end was the same either way. ”
There’s an emptiness to his voice as he says it.
“You really think she’ll forgive you?” I ask. “For failing her?”
“She’s lonely,” says Nolan. “She has been for centuries.”
“Yes,” says Peter. “Loneliness can drive us to plenty of decisions that we regret.” He glances at me, and I look away quickly.
“She won’t be able to resist my coming back for her,” says Peter. “I always made it clear how much I despised her, how her advances were unwanted, repulsive even. She did what she wished with me, anyway. But it hurt her. I could feel it in the air around her, the pain at every insult.”
“She wants to be wanted,” I say. “It’s a dangerous place to be.”
How well I know.
There’s a part of me that fears that now that she has our son, now that he cries himself to sleep in her arms and feels the nurture of her comfort rather than mine, she will no longer feel that aching quite so deeply.
Nolan must read my thoughts in my expression, because he says softly, “She desires to be craved. Not loved. She will not be able to resist Peter.”
I nod. And a moment later, we find ourselves underneath the lights of the looming globes of the reaping tree.