20. Vane
CHAPTER TWENTY
VANE
We’ve rented a carriage to take us to the manor. It’s a thing of luxury, with the twin bench seats upholstered in red velvet and the walls in black leather. Two small lanterns flicker from the outside casting soft light through the windows.
It may be a luxury, but when your standard mode of transportation is flying, everything pales in comparison.
I fidget in my seat.
Winnie takes my hand in hers, fingers threaded together.
The shadow sighs with contentment.
When we are apart, it riots.
When we are together, it calms.
When we are skin on skin, it settles into our hollows like a tide filling up a million tiny pools.
I almost sigh with it.
“Historically, shadows have never been split,” Asha says from the bench across from us. “How did you manage it?”
“Shadows do what shadows want,” is my answer, at the same time Winnie says, “It claimed me and when Vane was pushed off a cliff, I begged it to claim Vane too.”
“She’s downplaying it, of course,” I add. “She leapt off the cliff after me. The woman who is afraid of heights.”
“ Recovering from a fear of heights.” She smiles. “You gain the ability to fly, and gravity is no longer a burden.”
Asha’s gaze cuts between us. “You Maddred brothers like strong women.”
A statement. A fact. An observation.
If you had asked me this time last year, I would have denied it. The Darkland Dark Shadow liked to terrify. It wanted to chase and fuck and dominate. It needed to feel superior. There were days when even being around Pan was difficult because the shadow knew he was more powerful than it.
Some of that could have been attributed to the fact that the shadow and I were never a compatible match and it hated being off its island. The Neverland Shadow is different in every way. Agreeing to split itself being one of them. And I never get the feeling the Neverland Shadow is just one bad day away from tearing me apart from the inside out.
The carriage clatters to a halt at a busy intersection. We’re out of the Umbrage now and into the Merchant Quarter on the outskirts of Dark City. Darkland is made up of several mid-sized cities, with Dark City being its biggest. Everything else revolves around it, almost like a sundial. Even the Umbrage for all of its misfit, rebellious ways. Maddred Manor is on the northwest end of Dark City, halfway between the city and Port Night on the island’s northern coast.
When traffic is clear, we lurch forward straight through the intersection and through the Quarter.
Winnie is hunched forward trying to get the best view out the window. Darkland and Neverland couldn’t be more different from one another. Neverland is wilder, with a certain element of freedom. Darkland was always about restriction and control. I hated everything about it. And I didn’t realize just how much until our father was exiled, our titles stripped away. I struggled for so long with the Darkland Dark Shadow because it wanted to return and I did not. But giving it up… I was always acutely aware that giving it away meant giving its power to someone else and that was never an option. I think deep down, I always knew it had to be Roc. I wouldn’t trust the shadow with anyone else.
We pass a few shops that were once swarming with activity last I was here and are now boarded up, windows smashed, front facades scarred and stained.
It takes me by surprise, and it must show because Asha says, “There was a riot here years back. Fighting between the ruling class and the poor.”
“Roc didn’t tell me.”
“Probably because it never affected him. He could easily stand with the poor and turn around and party with the wealthy. They both loved him.”
“Was it settled then? The fighting? I’m surprised they haven’t rehabilitated the buildings.”
“The poor were driven back,” Asha explains. “Then double-taxed the year after. I think the ruin is meant to remind them of what happens when they get out of line.”
The wealthy and noble in Darkland always did embrace the lie that they were better than the lower class. Noble born meant superior blood. And while the merchant class could never fully penetrate the nobility, they were happy to be in close proximity to it, sure that when the time came, they would be protected from whatever ills plagued the lower class.
With the Merchant Quarter behind us, the large brownstones start to dominate the streets. Most of these houses belong to wealthy merchants, and most of them are designed by Hil Howe, a semi-famous architect from the mortal realm. He’s dead now, which has only added to the value of the houses.
“How far now?” Winnie asks.
I glance out the window to get my bearings. A three-story neoclassical comes into view. The front facade is constructed of white limestone, the columns ornate, the windows rounded with decorative white stone hoods. If I remember correctly, it belongs to a textile merchant known as the Silk Baron.
“We’re close,” Asha answers before I can.
“You know Darkland well.”
“I do.”
“How long did you live here?”
“Many years.”
“For someone known for their precision, that’s an awfully un-precise answer.”
She just stares at me.
In her dress, hair pinned back, she could be any noblewoman. Clothing elegant and fashionable, but eyes a little vacant, either out of boredom or disinterest. How quickly she can disappear into a role. How dangerous she must be.
“What’s your favorite part of Darkland?” Winnie asks.
She’s always been hungry for crumbs of my life before Neverland. As if knowing my past will peel back the layers of who I am in the present.
If only she knew how much of myself I abandoned in order to have my revenge and survivor it. If only she knew how much Peter Pan changed me.
Asha considers the question carefully. “The Night Gardens.”
“The name alone,” Winnie says.
“Yep.” Asha watches a man walk past on the sidewalk as we wait for another break in traffic. “All of the foliage is either black or white. And under a full moon, the white flowers almost glow. It’s absolutely beautiful.”
Winnie glances at me. “Do you know it?”
“Of course.”
“Can we go to it?”
“If we have time in between murder and blackmail, sure.”
Asha laughs. “I know that was a joke, but I can tell murder and blackmail are also not out of the ordinary for you.”
I wish that wasn’t the case.
I wish a great many things.
The carriage finally breaks through the traffic and we cross the next intersection and there, at the end of the street, the large, wrought iron gate proceeding the long, winding drive to Maddred Manor on the rise of a gently sloping hillside.
Maddred, much like its name and the family origin, is constructed in bright, blood-red stone. Its main structure in the center of the manor is three stories, with a balcony on the second and third floors. It’s bounded on both sides by east and west wings with only two stories. Unlike the neoclassical brownstones outside the Merchant Quarter, the manor’s architectural style is hard to label here in the Seven Isles because its style did not originate here.
The size of it may be grand, but the style is minimalistic, almost military-like in its sharpness and its unadornment. My father wanted it that way. My mother wanted the soft, country style of the northern coast houses. It was her money, but it was our father who always got the last word.
The horses come to a stop as the carriage driver announces our name. The gate quickly swings inward, permitting our entrance.
I didn’t think coming here would affect me. But I’m suddenly feeling affected.
The shadow surges to me, its energy flooding my veins with a calming antidote.
My hand still in hers, Winnie hooks her other arm around my elbow, pulling me even closer.
I’m all right , is what I want to say, but she would know it’s a fucking lie.
The shadow hides nothing.
A half-dozen carriages are already lined up, waiting for their occupants to depart at the portico as we clatter up the drive.
“Let’s go over the plan one more time,” I say.
“We stay together until we identify the witch,” Winnie says.
“Then we separate,” Asha adds. “And stand as backup.”
“Once I’ve completed the task, you find Malachi to confirm. If he doesn’t have the hat on him, I will yank his insides out his fucking nose.”
“No, you won’t.” Winnie pats my thigh. “Because once he’s dead, we won’t know where he put this magical hat.”
“Then I’ll force the hat’s location out of him and then yank his insides out his fucking nose.”
Winnie gives me a look. It’s not a threatening look. There is nothing menacing about it. It’s just cold and distant and detached, like she’s inside her own head plotting all the ways she will torture me until I beg for forgiveness.
And for her, torture isn’t blood and gore and guts. It’s psychological warfare.
“Do you want to go over the actual dispensing of a Myth?” Asha asks. “They aren’t easy to?—”
“ Kill . Yes, I know. But I have the dark shadow. And what better way to fight darkness than with something darker?”
“So you plan to kill her how? You never did tell me.”
“The shadow moves between us,” Winnie explains. “So I’ll push it toward Vane.”
“And at full power, the shadow can tear arms from bodies, muscle from bone. It will be messy, but thankfully not my mess to clean up. I’ll leave that to Malachi.”
“How will you get her somewhere private?”
This is the part I hate the most and explaining it is akin to ripping out my own insides through my nose.
Winnie lowers her voice and leans across the carriage like she’s about to share a secret. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but women have a hard time ignoring Vane.”
“So you’re going to seduce her?” Asha’s voice rises with incredulity.
“I have a less than ten percent fail rate,” I reassure her.
“You don’t think the Myth will see you and immediately be suspicious?”
“What are the myths well known for?”
“Manipulation. Persuasion. Compliance.”
“Yes, and their hubris is often their undoing. She may be suspicious of me, but there is an opportunity to exploit it, because the suspicion is also a challenge to bend me to her will. She won’t, of course. I cannot be persuaded.”
“Hah!” Winnie shouts. “I can persuade you to do a great many things.”
“I don’t need to know,” Asha says.
The carriage pulls forward again. We’re next in line to disembark.
“To pull it off, of course, I need to keep my hands to myself,” Winnie says. “It will be the most difficult task, but I’m willing to power through it.” She smiles innocently at me.
That look, the brattiness…fuck, if we were alone right now…
She senses my shift in thought and winks at me, knowing full well where my attention has gone.
Finally, we’re beneath the portico. One of the servants pulls the carriage door open, setting a stool beneath. I get out first so I can offer my hand to Winnie, then Asha.
The girls right themselves, smoothing over their dresses.
I walk forward to the bottom of the steps and look up.
Wind rattles the leaves of the oak trees.
Blood is pumping through my veins, but I feel hollow.
I’m not an anxious person, but sometimes a feeling like anxiety will creep up and whenever it does, I revert to something I’ve read, repeating it in my head like a mantra.
More often than not, it’s Poe. I read him often. For some reason, his poetry helps me make sense of the darkness, the monstrous things, the abyss at the center of me, threatening to swallow me whole.
Being here at the manor again, I can’t help but think of all of the loss. All of the fucking ghosts.
The spirits of the dead, who stood,
In life before thee, are again,
In death around thee, and their will,
Shall overshadow thee; be still.
I didn’t want to return here.
Winnie comes up beside me. “I’m here,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Now let’s go kill some witches, and then afterward, I’ll shove you down in my bed and have my way with you.”
When I look over at her, she’s beaming at me and I huff out a laugh.