Chapter 49
CHAPTER 49
WENDY
T he first thing I do when I come to is call for Astor.
“Nolan,” I choke through heaving breaths, expelling dust and rubble from my airway. The weight of several rocks bears down on me, but Astor threw me out of the way of the falling rocks as soon as he felt the ground shake. My head is pounding. I must have hit it on the wall when the ceiling caved in.
“Nolan,” I call out again, blinking furiously and trying to get my eyes to focus so I can assess my surroundings. Fear races through me, and for a moment I worry he might have been crushed, and I’ll have to go through this life knowing he’s not here with me in the world, but then his voice calls out from the other side of the rock formation.
“Darling, Darling, are you okay?”
Relieved, I tug at the hair at the crown of my head, and then, wiping the grime off my cheeks and placing my hands at my hips, catching my breath, I say, “I’m fine. Just a little dizzy, that’s all.”
There’s a pause on the other side, and my heart skips when I realize it’s Astor sighing in relief. “Well, that was exciting, now wasn’t it? Just wait for me to clear the rubble and I’ll come get you.”
“You could go back to the ship and get the crew to help,” I say.
No answer.
“Astor.” I tap my foot against the rocks.
“I’m not leaving you.”
My heart shoots into my throat, but I shoo it back into a more reasonable place. “Technically, I’m alone in here with that wall separating us. You could get me out faster if you had help.”
Another pause. “Are you afraid?”
I bite my lip, checking my surroundings. “I don’t particularly love the idea of being back here with a creepy dead Seer, but no, I wouldn’t say I’m afraid. Just a little shaken up from the fall.”
“Then wait there until I can dig you out.”
I roll my eyes, listening as rocks scrape against each other as Astor removes them. I’m reaching for one on my side, intent on helping and about to ask what he thinks made the ceiling cave in, when he calls my name.
“Wendy Darling.”
“Yes?” I ask.
“I didn’t say anything,” says a muffled Astor from the other side.
“Wendy Darling,” I hear from behind.
My stomach twists, and I turn with it. The tunnel is dark, except for the glowing lichen that line its walls, casting a blueish hue across the space.
“Astor,” I whisper. “I think the Seer knows I’m here.”
The scraping of rock against rock grows faster. “Then you’d best help me move these rocks,” he says.
“Hurry, Wendy,” whispers the voice. “We don’t have much time.”
Slowly, I hoist myself from the wall of fallen rocks. I chew on the inside of my cheek and squint, knowing I’m going to regret this. But still, I take a quiet step. When Astor’s movements don’t change pace on the other side, I take another step.
This one is louder.
“Darling? Wendy ,” Astor says, almost as if scolding me. “Please don’t tell me you’re wandering down the tunnel after a strange voice.”
“I’ve been told before that I am fairly slow-witted.” I say it teasingly, even though my heart is about to explode out of my chest from apprehension.
“Don’t you dare go down that tunnel without me.” There’s a hint of panic in his voice, infusing his otherwise commanding presence. I want nothing more than to obey him—that’s my first impulse.
But down the hall, someone calls my name. “Wendy, if you want to save him, you have to come now.”
Save him? My heart pounds wildly at the thought that Astor might be in danger. “How do I know I can trust you?” I ask.
“Because, Darling, I—” Astor must realize I’m not speaking to him, because he snaps his teeth together.
The wistful voice doesn’t answer my question, but there’s something about it that’s as familiar as a childhood dream. Something about it that feels safe.
“Wendy, I’m begging you to wait,” says Astor.
I bite my lip and follow the voice down the hall.
The voice leads me down the tunnel. It has no body that I can see, but I might have expected that from a ghost. It’s not until we reach a wide-mouthed cave that the voice swells louder, reverberating all around me. Only, in the cave I can no longer make out the words the spirit speaks to me. It’s as if the sound has expanded to fit the space of the cave, rendering it no longer intelligible.
My mouth is dry, but I take the calling stone from my pocket and utter the spell given to me by the Nomad all the same. For a moment, it seems as though nothing has happened. But soon after, a rush of wind fills the cave, coming from nowhere and all directions. It brings with it grayish lights that melt together until before me stands the imprint of a woman.
I’m not sure what I was expecting from the Seer. Probably someone decrepit, wrinkled. She is dead, after all.
But the ghoulish woman standing before me is none of those things.
Well, except for dead.
Though the faint light of the lichen on the cave wall shines through her body, I can still make out her curvy figure, her vibrant red hair, her pale skin and smattering of freckles. The way she carries herself would indicate that she’s older than me, though her cheeks are round and youthful.
“Wendy Darling, you must run,” are the first words from her mouth, startling me even more than her conjuration.
“It’s okay,” I say, reaching out to her, like I think I’m going to be able to calm her. Instead, my hand slips through her shoulder. She doesn’t seem to notice.
“You’re not safe here,” she says, her gaze flitting frantically around the empty cave.
I shake my head, trying to gather the words to explain. “I know you can see the others, but they can’t touch me. The spell—it only brought you close enough to communicate with me. Whoever else is here with you—they can’t get to me.”
Even so, a chill snakes down my spine. When her blue eyes meet mine, I expect to find confusion in them. Instead, I find pity.
“Death has not taken my mind,” she says. “It’s you who does not understand.”
Deciding it’s useless to argue with a paranoid ghoul, I do my best to explain. “There was a fae. People call him the Nomad. We were told that you had the magic to break a curse.” I hesitate there, realizing this is my last chance. The last moment I get to decide.
I could keep Astor.
Just a few words, and I could rid Peter of his curse and keep Astor bound to me.
But then what? Live the rest of my life pursuing a man who doesn’t want me? Catching him, then having to wonder for years if his love is true, or simply the byproduct of magic? After what I witnessed in the orphanage, I know deep within me that I could never keep Nolan Astor.
“I’m told you know how to break Mating Marks as well. Properly,” I add, because obviously the Seer Astor went to as an adolescent claimed that very ability.
The Seer closes her eyes, looking pained. She shakes her head. “He’s as much of a fool as he was then.”
I blink. “I don’t remember telling whose Mating Mark I was wanting you to break.”
She levels me with a condescending stare. “I saw the two of you enter together. Who do you think brought about the earthquake that separated you?”
Unease ripples through my belly. I have to remind myself that this woman can’t touch me. Though if she can cause natural disasters, I’m not sure I should let myself be comforted. I can only hope that causing the ceiling to cave in didn’t use up too much of her magic.
“Why would you want to separate us?” I ask, though there can only be one answer. Predators separate packs because they’re easier to trap that way, easier to attack, rip apart.
I take a step back, my foot landing on a rock that scrapes loudly against the cave floor.
“You fear the wrong people, Wendy Darling,” says the Seer, unbothered by my retreat.
Indeed, when I reach the mouth of the tunnel, the Seer flicks her hand, and vines sprout from the walls, blocking the entrance.
My heart pounds. “ Astor! ” I scream, hoping my voice will travel by echo through the cave.
“Hush, girl,” says the Seer, pacing now, pulling her red hair back into a tail at the nape of her neck with a leather tie she unwinds from her wrist.
“Astor, he—”
The woman is upon me, her hand wrapped around my mouth. I can’t feel it there, but something about her being this close startles me enough to silence me. It’s one of those moments in time that feels as though it’s happened before, like I’m being transported back to a previous version of my body.
Her vibrant blue eyes blink at me in pain.
It’s only now that I notice the gash across her throat. The slit of flesh, no longer bleeding in death, but ruined all the same.
My heart stops in my chest.
We took her back home to bury her.
“No,” I whisper, horror gripping me. I do everything I can to make sense of what I’m seeing, but my mind is whirling in circles.
“Iaso?” I ask, hating how pitifully desperate my voice sounds.
She backs away, placing her hand over her neck to hide her scar. “How much did he tell you about me?” she asks. When I stumble over the words, she snaps her fingers at me. “Quickly girl. Before he finds you.”
Fear lances through me, but something is wrong, and I have the feeling that I won’t know what until I give her the information she wants.
“I know you are—were—his wife. I know he tried to get rid of his Mating Mark to be with you. You were friends with him, and Peter, when you were a child. I know your blood contains healing properties, and that when the plague struck Estelle, you went to the Darling mansion to heal their daughter. I know…” I fight the urge to shut my eyes, to shield myself from her expression as I recount her death. “I know my mother slit your throat and made me drink your blood to save me. And I know it destroyed him.”
“Yes. Yes, it did, didn’t it?” Iaso’s expression is far off and I wonder if she’s remembering her own death or the boy Astor used to be. The boy she fell in love with.
Slowly, she leans herself against the walls, shutting her eyes. Tears squeeze from her lids to her pale-blue cheeks.
“Please,” I say. “He just wants to be rid of our Mating Mark. He never stopped loving you, and he never will. He doesn’t want to love anyone else. It’s his choice.”
“You sound thoroughly convinced,” says Iaso.
I swallow, shifting on my feet. But I can’t talk about Astor now, not when I’m face-to-face with the woman who unwillingly took my place in death. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I’m so sorry about what they did to you. For me.”
Iaso flits her hand. “It was long ago.”
“But you’ve been trapped here ever since.”
She stares off into the distance, like she’s searching through the past. “He won’t quite let me go on.”
“I don’t understand,” I say.
She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “That much is obvious.”
I would flinch at the insult, except there’s no unkindness in her voice.
“Do you love him?” she asks abruptly.
At that, I do flinch.
“That’s answer enough,” she says with a flit of her hand. She begins to pace across the cave floor with the sort of determination I’d expect from a healer. “And yet you’re willing to help him rid himself of the Mating Mark?”
Again, I nod.
A sad smile softens her full lips. “So it’s truly love, then. My husband is a fool for not seeing that.”
“I think he sees it. He just can’t care for me in the same way,” I say.
“Clearly not,” she says, anger spiking in her tone, though I can’t understand why. She runs her hands through her hair at her scalp, pacing again. “Nolan, what have you done?”
Again, the unease settles in my belly. I don’t understand why she’s so distraught over Astor trying to remove his Mating Mark, unless she fears it will fail just as it did when they were fifteen. Still, that doesn’t make sense. Doesn’t seem to be enough to inspire the distress, the disappointment I’m witnessing.
It hits me then that it can’t be a coincidence that Iaso is the Seer we’ve been searching for. There has to be a reason Astor didn’t tell me we were returning to his home village.
Something as dull and heavy as stone thuds in my stomach. “He’s not trying to break his Mating Mark, is he?” I ask.
Iaso’s fingers stop running through her hair, frozen in that crazed position as she spins on her heel to look at me. “Just give me a moment to think. I can get you out of here. Or…” She squeezes her eyes shut, thinking. “Keep him trapped long enough to let you escape. You do have a way off the peninsula, don’t you?”
I shake my head. “Only on his ship.”
“Of course,” she says, rubbing her palms together. “Then perhaps if you told him I was begging him not to go through with it. Perhaps he’d still listen to me…”
“Please,” I say, tired of being left in the dark. “Just tell me what he’s trying to do.”
But when Iaso stares at me, mouth half open, apology written on her expression, I think I already know.
“He tricked me,” I whisper, filing back through every moment I’ve spent with Astor. Every stolen glance, every brush of his hand, every almost kiss. My mind screams that it couldn’t have all been a ruse to get me to fall for him, to trust him.
To follow him into a dark cave alone.
No. Astor is my friend, if nothing else. Even Maddox could see it. And Maddox is the captain’s closest friend. If he didn’t care for me, surely Maddox would have been able to tell.
If there was a moment in time when I should have realized the truth, I’m unable to find it. And besides, it’s too late.
“I’m so sorry, Darling.” His voice is gentle. Genuine. Pained, even. Or perhaps I’m simply hearing what I want to hear.
I turn to find Astor standing at the mouth between the tunnel and the cave, on the other side of the crossed vines Iaso had summoned.
His blade is drawn.