Chapter 29
CHAPTER 29
WENDY
C harlie and Maddox have a million questions for us upon our return, but Astor dismisses them, claiming he’ll debrief them after he’s had time to rest. When Charlie’s and Maddox’s eyes swivel to me, Astor glares at them and rephrases his initial condition to “after we have had time to rest.” The result is a less than subtle look between Charlie and Maddox, which the captain pretends not to notice. Begrudgingly, they both shoo us off toward the cabins.
As I shuffle down the hallway toward my and Charlie’s room, Astor’s voice follows me, stopping me in my tracks. “Dine with me.”
I let out a shaky laugh as I turn around. “Why?”
“Because we succeeded in our mission, and success merits celebration.”
I bite my lip. It’s not really as though I succeeded. I’d gone to the manor intending to learn how to break Peter’s curse. Instead, I’d almost fallen victim to it. Still, that we’re on our way to consult a man who’s traversed the realm of the dead fills me with hope, strange as it may sound. If he knows an individual who broke a Mating Bond, perhaps he knows how to break Peter’s curse.
Even if he doesn’t, even if I’m not a single step closer to my goal, I can’t help but bask in the thrill of what we’ve accomplished. The goal isn’t mine, but I’ve witnessed enough of Astor’s tenderness to know I don’t wish for him to hurt. I don’t wish for him to be shackled by his withered Mating Mark.
Strange, my two missions: bring the man I love pain, and remove the pain of the man I don’t.
“It’s almost morning,” I say.
“Does that negate your need for sustenance?”
“My clothes are soaked from the rain,” I say, fully aware it’s a weak excuse.
“Then you had better hurry to get changed then,” Astor says. “I don’t like to be kept waiting. Especially when it comes to a hot meal.”
I nod, biting back a smile, and scurry off.
I have to take a steadying breath before I knock on the captain’s door. Part of me wonders if he’ll have changed his mind in the time it took me to ready myself for dinner. My tattered gown was sodden, making it difficult to wrangle off. I had to recruit Charlie, who seemed suspicious as soon as I asked to borrow another one of her gowns rather than slide into more comfortable attire.
When I’d told her I was dining with the captain, she’d treated me to a sharply arched eyebrow. Explaining it was just to celebrate our success hadn’t done much to temper her suspicion.
Although I’d feigned indifference, I hadn’t resisted much when she insisted on fixing my hair into a slightly more intricate braid than usual.
For a while, no one comes to the door. The seconds stretch out for minutes before I get up the courage to knock again, though this time the knocks are more timid.
Shuffling feet, and a shadow appears underneath the doorstep.
My heart twists into knots, but I don’t have time to flee before the door opens, and before me towers Astor. He’s running a towel through his still-wet hair, black strands dripping over his forehead.
It occurs to me he’s bathed, and I haven’t.
It also occurs to me that I definitely should have bathed. There’s no telling how I stink after our excursion. Granted, I’ve changed, but I probably still reek of gore.
I’m about to mumble an excuse to flee the premises when the captain gestures me inside. “Took you long enough. I was about to retire to bed.”
There’s no accusation in his voice. Just amused teasing. Indeed, he’s not dressed for dinner, in his captain’s coat like I might have expected. Instead, he sports a pair of loose trousers and a white shirt, carelessly askew at the neckline. He must have just thrown it on. Even the bed is already partially unmade.
My eyes glance over to the table, where two plates sit prepared but untouched.
“I thought you weren’t going to let your food get cold,” I say.
The captain ignores me as he shuts the door behind us. The cabin feels cozier than the last time I was here. Maybe it’s a by-product of the lack of shackles at my wrists.
When I sit at the table, small enough that it only fits the two of us, he takes the seat across from me. A plate of blackened trout, grits flavored with cheese, and broccoli florets the crew must have obtained in Laraeth sits before me, though it’s not steaming.
My stomach twists when I notice the goblet sitting in front of me, but when I bring it to my lips, I’m relieved to find it’s just water. There’s not even a bottle of wine on the table.
The silence between us is painful as we scarf down our meals. The trout has gone cold, but my stomach isn’t complaining. I hadn’t realized how hungry I’d become.
Finally, when I’m beginning to think the silence will break me, the captain asks, “Did you have a theater tutor?”
Unfortunately, I’m halfway into a bite of trout, so the captain will have to wait. Once I’ve gulped it down rather forcefully, I say, “An odd question, don’t you think?”
He picks at his grits. “I don’t think so. In fact, I think it’s quite relevant given your performance at Vale’s.”
“Oh. That.” My cheeks burn and I take a gulp of water as if it were a swig of soothing wine, burning on the way down. “I suppose I did make it seem as if I were the boss behind the operation.”
“You were rather convincing. Though perhaps I was simply eager to be convinced.”
My tongue goes dry, despite the water. “And why is that?”
“I’ve always told you I’d like to see you assert yourself.”
My tone goes chilled. “Funny. I don’t remember you saying as much. What I do remember is you insulting my timidity and weak-mindedness.”
The captain returns to his meal, looking slightly abashed.
“No,” I say when I can’t bear the silence any longer.
He quirks a brow, swirling his fork around the edge of his plate.
“No,” I go on. “I didn’t have a theater tutor. I wanted one, but my parents felt it unwise. They thought it would lead to me wanting to join productions.”
“I was under the impression that such activities were finding their way into high society.”
“Well, yes,” I say, glancing away as I rub my palms against the tops of my knees. “For children whose parents let them leave the manor.”
Captain Astor leans back in his seat. “Ah.”
“But John and I used to put on shows for Michael. For the longest time, my youngest brother only spoke when he was repeating something dramatic. For a while, we thought his jargon didn’t mean anything, but when we realized he was using the dramatic quotes and songs in contexts that fit, we started exposing him to more of those things. We wanted to give him more to say, more ways to express himself. So John and I used to write and perform plays for him. Up until…well, up until I entered society, I guess. When it became obvious that my time should be devoted to…well, other things.”
The captain clenches his fingers against the edge of the table but says nothing except, “You love your brothers dearly, then.”
I nod, trying to quell the burning in my eyes. I’d rather not cry in front of the captain.
“Are they…” He looks as if he’s choosing his words carefully. “Should I have taken them too?”
The words needle through me with shock, the implication infuriating. “You act as if you stole me for my own benefit rather than your own.”
The captain stares at me. “Can it not have been both?”
My cheeks heat with anger, but there’s no use tantrumming. “Peter saved Michael the night before you took me. Michael fell from the cliffs. Peter caught him. He won’t let anything happen to him. To either of them.”
The captain’s gaze darts to my hands, where my fork is trembling. When he speaks, he sounds as if he’s attempting to approach a fawn in the woods. “The other boys on the island…”
I slam the fork against the table. “They’re good boys. At heart. Nettle was misguided, eaten up by his own anger at what he perceived to be Peter’s betrayal and Thomas’s evil nature. Simon happened to get roped in. None of them would lay a hand on either of my brothers unless it was for one of their silly wrestling matches.”
I expect the captain to argue, but he says, “I’m glad to hear your brothers are safe.”
For some reason, this offends me most of all, but as I’m incapable of ascribing reason to my offense, I instead offer him a question. “Do you have any siblings?”
Astor blinks, like no one’s ever asked him that question. “Maddox,” he says with a lingering tone, “might as well be a brother. And a better one than most could boast of, blood ties or not.”
“Have you been friends for a long while, then?” I already know the answer to this from the first time I spoke with Maddox, but I’d like to hear as much as I can of the captain’s side of the story. I’ve found that when it comes to getting information, sometimes it’s best to remain quiet.
“Since before I was captain,” Astor says. “Maddox and I served under a cruel master. When the crew attempted to overthrow the captain, Maddox got me—and Iaso—out. Together we amassed our own crew. Though we’ve lost a few along the way.” Astor’s eyes dip to the corner of the table.
My mouth goes dry. “Would you tell me about her? About your wife?”
Astor’s thumb finds his wedding ring. He’s wearing it again. “Why would you need to know?”
I don’t know how to explain it, my unfaltering curiosity—almost obsession—with the woman who stole Astor’s heart, never to give it back, not even after a decade and a half in the grave. “I suppose I don’t need to know. But…don’t you ever just want to know other people? What they love? What they hate? The aches they can’t seem to bury?”
The corners of his lips twitch. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d want to know a scoundrel like me, Darling.”
“And I wouldn’t have thought you’d want to know a spoiled heiress who looks as if she’s barely been weaned, but I’m not the one who invited you to dine with me, now am I?”
Astor brings his chalice to his lips, hiding his reaction. “You know, you can be insolent. When you want to be.”
“I’m not being insolent, I—”
“I didn’t say I disliked it.” He sets down his chalice, then pushes his plate meticulously to the side. “What is it that you want to know about her?”
“How did the two of you meet?”
A hazy look muddies his green eyes. “I don’t remember.”
I crane my neck at him.
“What?” he asks.
I shake my head. “You’re just the type of man who seems like you’d remember the moment you met the love of your life, that’s all.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You’re rather intense.”
The captain chuckles, though he does so without smiling. “Iaso and I grew up together. Knew each other since we were children. That’s why I don’t remember meeting her. I don’t remember falling in love with her either. Just the certainty that I would marry her one day. That certainty…it was like walking. I knew I’d learned it somewhere, but couldn’t remember when. Just that it was ingrained within me.”
“What did you love about her?” I can’t help but ask.
The captain stares, not at the wall, but into the distant past. “She was a riot.” His lips quirk into an almost-smile. “Always getting into trouble and dragging me into it. She could make me laugh…Well, she was clever with her words. Witty. Sharp. Quick.”
I try to ignore the way my heart twists in my chest as the captain describes the perfect woman—so unlike myself.
“She knew what she wanted from life. At least, she thought she did. She wanted to be a cartographer—she was a savant with ink and a quill. But then, one day, she cut herself on a splinter jutting out from an abandoned storehouse we liked to play in. Her blood dripped onto my knuckles. They’d dried and cracked from the salt air. And it healed my skin right up. Something changed about her after that. She was still just as boisterous, loved to laugh. But she’d found her purpose, and she gave it to others. Her blood, her smile, her laughter. Her life.”
My back goes rigid, but there’s no anger in the captain’s tone. Just tragic awe for an enchanting girl now dead.
“Why do you really want to know?” he asks.
The words come out before I know I’ve let them. “I wanted to know what kind of woman took my place.” One who’s better than me , is what I don’t say. “It sounds like the world is a worse place without her.” And with me , I neglect to add.
The captain’s gaze flickers over me, and I can’t stand to dwell on the inkling he’s thinking the same thing, so I say, “Did she always love you back?”
His face softens, breaking the tension. “Hardly. She took quite a bit of convincing. For a long while, though I was her closest friend, she thought me too brash to be fit to be a husband.”
“You?” I feign shock. “But you’re so gentle.”
“Yes, if only you could have been around to tell her as much. Lobby on my behalf.”
Judging by the look on his face, it seems the words just slipped out. Like he wishes he could take them back. A shadow falls over his expression, and I expect him to make me leave, but instead he says, “What about you, Darling?”
I wriggle in my chair. “What about me?”
“What did you want from life?”
I blink. “I’m unsure what you mean.”
He shrugs. “I wanted a ship. A name for myself. For others to fear me. Iaso wanted to heal the world of pain and disease. Maddox wants enough gold to retire the crew to his own private island. Charlie wants Maddox, but more than that, to find her place in a world that burned hers down. What I can’t seem to figure out is what Wendy Darling wants.”
I pick at the shoulder sleeves of my dress. “For a long time, all I wanted was not to be taken by the Shadow Keeper.”
Astor cocks his head to the side, like he’s a predator who can sense my fear, my lie.
I sigh. “But that’s not altogether true. Part of me wanted to go with him. Years before it happened.”
“Why?”
I find myself tracing my Mating Mark, the gentle ridges that brand my cheek. “I think the answer to that question is obvious, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You don’t think the fact that he’s my Mate had anything to do with me being drawn to him? Is that truly an argument you want to make?”
“I’m better than you at arguing, Darling. I promise you, I’ll win.”
I can’t help myself. I find myself leaning over the table, elbows digging into the slats in the wood, spine stiff to the challenge. “I thought you didn’t make promises. And besides, I don’t know how you intend to make a stronger argument than the Mating Mark that quite literally binds Peter and me together.”
The captain doesn’t avert his gaze. “Watch me.”
For some reason, the challenge feels like it’s about more than winning an argument. It smells of parchment and melted wax sealing an invitation—one to search his sharp features without shirking back, without the social parameters telling me to avert my eyes lest I stare too long. Watch me . It’s permission to examine the scythe-like line of his jaw. The ruggedness of his sun-weathered skin. The poison in his green eyes.
“I think,” he says, and when he locks his stare onto me, I let it land. Soak in his unerring attention rather than shrinking from it. “That you’d been holed up in that manor so long, with nothing to feed that marvelous imagination of yours except your books… I think you wanted out. And I think Peter was the first to offer you his hand. The first to present you with an escape.”
Something like regret creases the corners of the captain’s piercing eyes.
“Well,” I say, cheeks heating, “I don’t see how that’s a more compelling argument than the Mating Bond.”
“Whatever you say, Darling. You didn’t answer my question, though.”
“Which question?”
“What,” he says, his lips careful with the words, “do you want?”
His voice chases a chill down my spine. I play with the ring on my finger, still just a hair too loose. Peter was going to get it altered, but he never got that chance. “Peter and I are going to get married with the Lost Boys as witnesses. Michael’s going to be the ring-bearer, though I imagine that’ll mean one of the other boys will have to make sure he doesn’t go running off to collect seashells. John can’t be the one to do it, because he’s going to give me away. And then we’re going to live where time and society can’t touch us. No more rules, nothing weighing us down. We’re going to fly every night under the stars.”
“Yes, yes, I know that’s what going to happen. But what do you want to happen?”
I blink. “I just told you.”
I expect the captain to cluck his tongue condescendingly, but he doesn’t. He just stares at me, a challenge in his eyes, but his voice is softer than his expression. “What do you want, Darling?”
Stolen glances. Casual brushes. A trail of fire on my jaw. You missed a spot . For a man to speak about me the way the captain speaks about his long-dead wife.
“I’m growing tired,” I say, standing from the table and pushing my chair back into place. The captain rises, but I shake my head and wave him away. “I can see myself out.”
“Wendy.”
I’m fidgeting with my ring, not daring to look at him, when thunder cracks across the sky outside. At the same time, a wave jostles the boat. The jolt is quick, and I’m not prepared. I go careening across the floor, scraping my knees against the floorboards. A splinter lodges itself in my skin. I hardly notice it.
Not when my ring is gone.
I search the cabin frantically, praying it didn’t fall in between the floorboards, down into whatever lies below the captain’s quarters.
Tears spill from my eyes, and I have to catch my sobs in my hand. My ring—the one piece of Peter that hasn’t yet been shattered.
The captain’s face appears before mine. “Sit down. Just for a moment. I’ll find it for you,” he says, and I’m too embarrassed by my outburst to argue. I return to my seat, tapping my shoe against the floorboards as the captain searches the cabin.
Moments later, he plucks something silver and gleaming out of a crack between the floorboards. Relief washes over me as I catch sight of the glimmering object between his fingertips. He’s running his thumb over its ridges, staring down at it contemplatively.
“Give it back,” I say without thinking.
He turns to me, and where I expect anger, hurt sparks in his face. “I am,” he says, striding over to me.
When he reaches me, I stretch out my hand to grab the ring, but the captain catches my hand in his, gently running his thumb over my knuckles, leaving trails of fire in his wake. I’m not sure what he’s about to do.
Then Captain Nolan Astor kneels.
I should be looking at my trembling hand, watching Peter’s ring with the attention of a hawk. Making sure it makes it onto my finger. But all I can see is Astor, kneeling before me, not daring to break eye contact, boring into me with the most beautiful imploring green eyes, burrowing into my soul.
My chest burns. My soul aches.
Cold metal contrasts with warm, calloused skin as the captain slips the ring back onto my finger, never once releasing my gaze.
“There,” he says with a whisper, twisting my ring around my finger one last time, though he remains on his knee before me. “Just like you wanted.”