Chapter 58
A shadow forms on the other side of the nursery.
No, not quite a shadow—a figure—one with wings.
My heart sinks as Peter steps carefully into the room from a door I’d failed to notice when I entered.
It’s one off to the side of the nursery, hidden in the wall, its edges obscured by the decorative divots in the onyx wall.
My heart palpitates, because on the other side of the door is a bedroom. Inside is a massive bed made of bone.
Of course the Sister would set up the nursery so that she would have easy access to it.
“Wendy Darling,” says Peter, “it’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”
My heart turns to lead within me as I feel my son root toward my chest, then attempt to suckle at my shirt. When he finds no milk there, he begins to whimper. Anger, fear, and hatred rise up within me, and I can’t tell who it’s directed more toward—Peter, or the Sister gliding in behind him.
She has her hands at the nape of Nolan’s neck. His arms are tied behind his back, and he stumbles forward.
“Darling, run,” my husband rasps, but it is too late.
There is nowhere to run. Not when Peter gets to me before I can even take my first step toward the door where I entered.
“Wendy Darling, I’m so sorry,” he says.
I stare at him blankly, and the Sister, studying the interaction between us, actually has the audacity to laugh. At first, I think she’s laughing at me, but then she says, “Do you really think she believes that, Peter? That you weren’t the one to betray her?”
“Wendy, I didn’t,” Peter says, eyes insistent.
But those eyes have lied to me more times than I can count.
When he glimpses the incredulity in my stare, he shifts his strategy.
“I know you’ll be angry with me for a long while, but your son will be safe.
That was the deal I struck, you see. I didn’t forget about you when I made the bargain. ”
On his neck, a fresh bargain in the shape of a cradle stains his flesh. I would answer him, but it would do no good, and it is not worth my breath.
I pivot slowly back to the Sister and Nolan.
Upon losing my attention, Peter’s voice heightens.
“Wendy, the three of us will be just fine. As long as we’re in Neverland, as long as we don’t leave, the Sister is going to allow you to raise him.
I know you’re upset now, but I gave you eighteen years of his life back.
Even more than that, really. If we just go along with her plan, you never have to lose your son completely. ”
I ignore him, although it’s less of a conscious effort and more the fact that there’s a roaring in my ears blocking him out.
“I don’t care to listen to another word of yours, Peter,” I say. Instead, I look at my husband. There’s apology written in the wrinkles between his brow.
“I’m so sorry, Darling,” he says, and it breaks my heart that he feels as if he’s failed, when this is all my doing. A stupid girl, yet again seeking help from someone I never should have trusted, because I believed he was our only hope.
“Oh, don’t look so sullen, Wendy Darling,” says the Sister.
“In a way, you’re getting what you wanted.
You can’t have it all; none of us can—a lesson you’ve never seemed to learn.
Count yourself fortunate to have someone willing to bargain on your behalf,” she says, looking at Peter.
“He didn’t have to do that, you know. And he withheld information from me—told me he knew of a plot that you and your husband had to take your son back.
One that would work if he did not reveal the details.
Except he left out the relevant detail that you had already infiltrated my home until after I promised to let you raise your son.
“I’m less than fond of the idea of giving up sole keepership of him,” she says, looking at my child with such adoration, it makes me want to wring her neck. “But, as I said, we all must learn to compromise.”
“You can’t have him,” I say.
“The deal is contingent on your cooperation,” says the Sister.
“And you assumed I would?” I say, spinning toward Peter. “You really don’t know me, do you?”
By the way his face reddens, one would have thought I slapped him.
Nolan writhes against his restraints, but to no avail. “And what is your plan for me?” he asks the Sister.
The shadows around the Sister’s hips sway. “I will need someone to keep me company in the years I’m waiting for your son to be returned to me.”
Everything in the room goes numb, even the pressure of my baby in my arms. My husband tries to hide it, tries to steel his expression, but there’s no masking the color draining from his cheeks, the way his breathing begins to stagger.
“Come on, Wendy Darling,” says Peter, daring to put his hand on my shoulder to lead me out. I flinch at his touch, and he winces. “We can go now. We’ll be safe. Happy, with time. Your body is your own. You are not trapped like you were before. It will take time, I know, but?—”
“But what?” I rasp. “Tell me, what exactly do you believe time is capable of? Is it some supernatural force that will rinse my memory of the fact that you ripped me away from my husband? I am no longer one to forget, Peter. That might have been the girl you knew, but it is not the woman I am now.”
Underneath her shadows, I get the sense that the Sister is smirking at me.
“I will ruin him for you,” I say, grasping my son closer to my chest as I spit vitriol at the Sister. “I will fill his head with how you are the enemy. He will grow up knowing that you have his brave, wonderful father captive. I will teach him to deceive you. To hurt you.”
The Sister laughs. “Just like your parents did for you and the Shadow Keeper? We both know how well that worked in keeping your affections from blossoming.”
Her insult lands where intended, between the ribs.
“Remember,” says the Sister, “the bargain only works if you are cooperative. I get to be the judge of what that means.”
I fight the urge to spit on her.
“Wendy Darling,” says Nolan. “Please, I’ll be all right. Deep within me, I always knew this was to be my fate. Every moment of my existence, I’ll find contentment knowing that you and our son are together. Knowing that at least I could provide that for you.”
I want to scream at him that this can’t be the end. That I’ll sprout claws if I must to get back to him. But when I go to say as much, my husband just shakes his head. “If all I am allotted in this life is knowing my wife and child are safe, it is more than I deserve.”
The meaning underneath his words cuts through the panic of losing him, strengthening my limbs with purpose. Keep our child safe. Keep yourself safe.
“My heart is yours,” I whisper to my husband. “It will never falter.”
He smiles softly. “I know, Darling. Don’t let him hurt you.”
Peter makes to steer me out, but as his body presses into mine from behind, it jogs on a memory. For a moment, I’m back in the carnival courtyard, and a stranger has slammed into me.
Just in case you need this back, the note from Tink had said.
One hand still clutching my child against my chest, I slip the other into my pocket.
The cold of the adamant watch shivers against my touch.
I have no way of knowing whether the contents of this pocket watch were emptied before Tink returned it to me.
It is a gamble—one that, if it goes poorly, I will regret for the rest of my life.
Yet again, I find myself forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.
Yanking the watch out of my pocket, I click it open.
It buzzes, then shoots out of my hand and onto the floor, shadows bursting from its now opened bezel, searching for their master.
They writhe through the air until they descend upon Peter, filling his mouth and nostrils as his chest bulges outward.
It’s as if he’s being drowned by his own shadows, trapped inside the watch for months, eager to get to him since the day the Nomad secured them.
I scramble for the watch just as Peter lets out a gasp that sounds disturbingly like ecstasy.
The Sister is faster. She gets to the pocket watch first, but instead of leaning to pluck it from the floor as I expect, she places her foot on it. At first, I think she’s going to crush it, but she simply laughs.
“Did you really think that would work?” she asks.
“Were you trying to contain my shadows, Darling girl? I suppose that would be possible; I’ve utilized objects like these in the past when I wanted to contain my power.
But I am a Fate. My shadows are not so easily taken from me.
I tuck them away when I wish to. Now, look what you’ve done. ”
Indeed, as I slowly crane my head to look at Peter, horror overtakes my ability to scream.
He’s no longer the Peter of flesh and blood, but the shadow version of himself I’ve feared since the night in the Carlisles’ annex.
He gazes at his hands, swathed in darkness, then scrunches his shoulders together as the shadows bind themselves with his metallic wing.
The shudder he lets out of his mouth is practically cathartic.
What have I done?
I glance at Nolan, screaming an apology I can’t seem to utter. All he’d asked of me was that I protect myself and our son, and I’ve already failed.
Nolan shakes his head. “I told you, Darling. Don’t ever apologize to me.” His face is grim. Tears slip down his rugged cheeks, anger at that which he can’t prevent.
“Thank you, Wendy Darling,” says Peter, and it’s his cruel voice, not the sincere one, still aching for me, his obsession now uninhibited.
I can only hope my touch still possesses the ability to contain his shadows.
“You know what,” says the Sister. “I believe, Wendy Darling, that you are not cooperating. Peter,” she says, turning to her servant, “return my son to me.”
I cry out, clutching my son to my chest as I fold in on myself, turning my back to Peter, but I am too late. He wrenches my child from my arms.
My boy wails at the separation, and I lunge for him, but Peter’s agility outmatches mine tenfold.
“Give him back!” I scream, like a child might a toy being held over their head.
But Peter only looks down at me, annoyed. “You should have listened.”
“Don’t worry, Peter,” says the Sister. “You can still have her. Do whatever you wish with the girl. Just drop the child off with Malia on your way out. You remember where the guest room is, I’m certain.”
“I will make these years miserable for you,” hisses my husband as she drags him toward the door to her bedroom.
The Sister halts in place. “Actually,” she says. “I’ve changed my mind.”
Just then, she whirls around. Shadows eject from her fingers, wrapping around my throat.
Vaguely in the distance, I hear Nolan cry out my name. As my vision blurs, I watch him struggle against his restraints, but to no avail. Peter’s shadow self wails in a possessive fury.
“She’s mine,” he screams, but the Sister silences him with a word, Peter unable to fight her compulsion thanks to the bargain he made.
“You can’t hurt her,” gasps Nolan, struggling with the Sister’s shadows that are wrapped around his neck. “The curse?—”
“Yes, about that curse,” says the Sister as I flail, her shadows constricting tighter around my throat.
“I’ve been developing a theory about that.
You see, my curse states that I cannot harm the Mate of a descendent.
But recently, I’ve been considering—what if that Mate severed the Mating Mark? What if she destroyed the bond?”
“My Mark is healed,” says Nolan.
“Your Mark, yes. The bond between you? Well,” says the Sister. “We’ll just see about that.
“You should have cooperated,” she says to me, stalking closer. “But you’ve never been one to cooperate. Never been one to listen, have you? Oh, so spoiled. So used to all of your decisions being applauded. The one who could never do wrong. Everyone’s favorite.”
The words are a puzzle piece, fallen under the table, finally found, ready to be snapped into place.
“What did you say?” I croak, though the shadows are strangling me.
The Sister’s shadows relax on my throat for just a moment as she cocks her head to the side. Then, as if remembering that she is the one with the power, she closes the binding around my throat again, cutting off my air.
I writhe, clinging to the shadows. I can’t be strangled in the same room as my son, not while my son is watching. Regardless of whether he’ll remember this or not, I can’t let him watch his mother die.
Everyone’s favorite , the Sister had said.
But she hadn’t been speaking about Nolan.
That is my last thought before I succumb to the darkness.