Chapter 9
I’m not sure what I was expecting from the moment my flesh finally grazed the shadows. Perhaps to meld with this creature of the night, for my body to break apart like the ash of a crisp sheet of parchment held over the fire.
Instead, the inner crease of my right elbow stings. Two white-hot ovals appear, separated by an untouched patch of skin between them.
I hardly have time to consider the implications of the mark that signifies this new bargain, because before me the shadows thicken, compressing until they turn solid. In the dull glow of the distorted moonlight, the creature before me shifts, color blooming within the previously vague elements.
Pale skin knits itself over sinew, copper hair lengthening at his skull. The shadows coalesce to reveal a man—fae, given his pointed ears—with a lean build and chiseled shoulders, though his eyes remain black as coal, dyeing even the whites.
Dark patagium forms his wings, which fold in at his side, expanding as he stretches them. He’s dressed from head to foot in black leathers, a strap across his back and a pouch at his hip. The same brand that marks me for our recent bargain now settles onto the knuckles of his right hand.
None of that is what catches my attention though.
It’s the playful smirk on the edge of his lips.
It’s the type of smile that should make me want to shrink back, but I’m familiar with the shadows, and all it seems to do is invite my forbearing spirit on an adventure.
The Shadow Keeper is beautiful.
Where the captain is all sharp edges and dark corners, the Shadow Keeper is the glow frolicking in his mischievous eyes, glinting off his copper hair.
“Hello there, my Darling,” he says, allowing my hand to drop limply at my side.
I’m not sure what to say to that, but the Shadow Keeper’s attention has already been diverted to the rattling ladder where the pursuing captain now climbs.
“Best hurry then.” He grabs the pouch from his waist and tosses it to John, who catches it out of the air. “Just enough to coat your forefinger should do for the young one. Might need two for yourself.”
John peers skeptically down at the pouch, then unties it and dips his finger inside. When he withdraws it, it’s brushed in a shimmering gold powder. “This is concentrated faerie dust. It’s not edible,” he says.
The Shadow Keeper shrugs. “Says who?”
John frowns at him from behind his spectacles. “Says anyone who knows better than to drink from the tank of a faerie dust lamp.”
“Wendy Darling,” says the Shadow Keeper, turning to me. “You didn’t mention in your bargain that your brother would be so difficult to convince.”
This seems to incite John, because he groans and presses the powder to his tongue. His expression shifts ever so slightly, like he’s surprised by the taste. Quickly, he goes for another. When he seems satisfied with the fact he hasn’t dropped dead, he goes to hand some to Michael, but Michael, who has always had an affection for shiny things, has already dug through the pouch and brought the faerie dust to his lips.
After a moment, John’s eyes widen, and his feet lift off the ground.
One would expect a nineteen-year-old boy to be thrilled at flying, but John just whispers, “Fascinating. I wonder how this works,” as he stares at Michael, who is now spinning in circles in the air.
“Not really the time or place, John,” I say, reaching for the bag. As John tosses it to me, the Shadow Keeper snatches it from the air.
For a moment, my heart sinks. Does the Shadow Keeper intend to leave me to the pirates?
“Don’t worry, Darling,” says the Shadow Keeper. “I don’t like the idea of those men touching you.”
“Then why not let me take the faerie dust?” I ask, eyeing the bag, well aware of how close the captain is to gaining on us.
“Because,” says the Shadow Keeper, slipping back into shadow form, then reappearing behind me, his arms wrapping around my waist, pulling me into his chest as he leans in to whisper in my ear, “I like to keep what’s mine close.”
In midair, John tenses across from me, but the Shadow Keeper nods for him to go on ahead.
“Where are we supposed to go?” asks John, staring up at the closed ceiling above us.
“We’ll have to teach that one to have a bit more imagination, won’t we, Darling?” the Shadow Keeper says. “Tell me, where’s your imagination leading you?”
Before I can answer, a golden-laced hand appears at the top of the ladder. The captain pulls himself halfway up, a curse on the tip of his tongue, rage flashing in his sharp and beautiful face.
His eyes search the landing for me.
He finds me sure enough, but he finds the Shadow Keeper, too.
I’ve lived my entire life adjacent to the shadows, but I’ve never seen one overcome a man’s face so fully.
“Peter,” the captain whispers.
The Shadow Keeper traces his thumb around my hip. “Hello, old friend.”
Fear seizes my heart, but the captain is momentarily stunned by the Shadow Keeper’s—Peter’s—arrival. With a beat of his wings, our feet escape the ground, and we shoot toward the glass clock.
I let out a scream, sure that the glass will slice my skin, but Peter curls his body around mine.
We burst through the glass.
Glass rains down, coating the landing below us, showering the captain, who throws his arms up to cover his head. Shadows twirl around the shards falling toward my brothers, catching them before they pierce their skin.
John’s eyes go wide, but his gaze quickly finds Michael, and something resolute overtakes his features.
He grabs onto Michael’s hand.
And my brothers fly.
The captain rights himself, lunging onto the landing, his fingers grabbing hold of Michael’s ankle. John lets out a yelp and kicks at him. The captain roars as his grip loosens and Michael slips free.
Wind beats at my face as Peter and I soar upward, but only when John and Michael clear the broken face of the clock tower do I allow myself to take in my surroundings.
The city of Jolpa is lit up in the gentle glow of faerie lamps cutting through the fog. The same material now works through the bodies of my brothers, keeping them afloat.
We rise higher and higher until the glass clock tower is barely a yellow glow in the distance, its broken face only a memory.
When I glimpse the houses shrinking into tiny dots below us, I let out a gasp.
“Frightened?” asks Peter, his breath warm on my ear.
“Yes,” I say, my words breathy.
“Good.”
For years, I’ve dreaded the Shadow Keeper’s possessive nature. Now, I try to take comfort in the fact that he’s not likely to drop me.
As we fly, I open one eye to peer down at the Estellian landscape below us. Twinkling lights speckle the ground, a mirror reflection of the starlit sky. I’d gaze at the stars too, but Peter has us flying almost perpendicular, his body a firm wall between me and the sky as he clutches me close. My head is still dizzy with the height. I’m used to climbing, but I’ve never been without a sturdy foothold, and now my entire lower body feels as if it’s being pricked with needles.
“Where are we going?” I ask once the kingdom of Estelle fades from view and the dark and swarthy mountains overtake the landscape.
“Tell you what, why don’t we play a game where you ask me five questions, then once your questions are up, you can guess where I’m taking you?”
“And what am I to gain if I win?” I ask.
“The answer, of course.”
“And if I lose?”
“Then I drop you.”
My heart stops in my chest, my vision tunneling as I stare at the ground so far beneath us, at the craggy tips of the mountains, the boulders that would break me upon impact.
“What do you say, Wendy Darling?”
I let out a chuckle that doesn’t at all sound like the scream I’m unleashing inwardly. My poor mother didn’t know what a terrible trait she was passing along to me, the inability to express my displeasure.
“I’d say I’m a rather patient person and do believe I can wait.”
“Well, that’s no fun, now, is it?” The teasing still tinges Peter’s voice, but there’s something sinister that’s crept into it. Something dark that I don’t dare disturb.
“What doesn’t seem fun is breaking my body upon the rocks.” I fight to keep my tone casual, steer the Shadow Keeper away from his madness.
“True. But think of the thrill of the game. Don’t you want to feel, Wendy Darling?”
I want to tell him that I do feel. That terror creeps up my spine like spiders carrying their silk egg sacs on their back. That I feel his grip around my waist, firm for the moment, but with no promise anchoring it.
I want to tell him that I’m well acquainted with feeling. That I’ve felt nothing but fear and anxiety all my life, all because of him.
But as I consider it, it hits me that this isn’t entirely true. Fear terrorized me, overcame me as a child, but over time I learned to tuck it away, to sear my soul with a white-hot iron until fear could not touch me. Until the haunting shadows no longer stirred much of anything in me, except for perhaps the longing that one day they would either end the numbness or fulfill it.
I open my mouth, almost ready to play this maniac’s game, but then I think better of it, changing my question. “The captain. He knew you. He called you Peter.”
“Did you think you were the only person ever to be haunted?”
“No, but…” I bite my lip. “I don’t think you haunted him the way you haunted me. He knew your name.”
“You never asked me my name.”
I suppose that’s true, but there’s something not right about this. “Did you know him…before you were the Shadow Keeper?”
“Careful, or I might be convinced you want to play a game with me after all.”
I clamp my mouth shut, frustrated. There’s a stubborn part of me, the part of me that expected my life to end this very evening, who’s brave enough to risk it to get answers. After all, I’m just on borrowed time now anyway, aren’t I?
But then I glimpse my brothers soaring several feet below us, John leading Michael along by the hand, all the while glancing up at me every few seconds to make sure I’m okay.
I can’t risk my life. Not when my death would crush them. Not when I need to devote my energy to finding a way to get them out of whatever horrid place Peter is planning on keeping us. Besides. If I’m cursed to be Peter’s slave, I should have plenty of time to question him in whatever life he has planned for me.
A chill snakes through me at the idea of what this lunatic, intent on taking me since I was a child, might do to me once we reach our destination. Black dots swarm my vision, panic spiking at every part of my body he touches. I fear if I ponder it too long, I might pass out. But then Peter strokes my belly with his knuckles, and calm instantly seeps back into my veins.
So I pivot my questions. “If you know the captain, do you know why he wanted my parents dead?”
My stomach clenches at the question, and Peter’s hands tighten at my waist, his chest tensing at my back. Our flight path dips a bit before Peter rights it with a steady beat of his wings.
“I’m many extraordinary things, as you’ll come to discover. But I’m no mind-reader.”
“Disappointing indeed,” I say, realizing too late the ease with which I say it. I’ll have to be careful in this man’s presence.
I’d never met a fae until tonight, but so far the legends about them seem to be true. There are several tales of humans becoming enraptured by the fae’s beauty, entangled in their glamour. Walls of self-preservation crumble in the presence of these beings when they should grow more fortified.
I’ve already experienced the effects on myself while dancing with the captain, the ease with which I found my heart bending toward him despite the awful words he spouted my way.
I’ll have to keep a check on myself to avoid stumbling similarly with the Shadow Keeper.
As Peter leads us toward the stars, I glimpse a shadow hanging over us. One that blots out the light of just two of them, distorting their shimmering like the glass of the clock tower did to the light of the moon.
“Wendy, my Darling little thing,” says the Shadow Keeper. “Would you believe that you’re finally home?”