Chapter 4
Tink
Tink sprinted across the rope bridge, not caring how it creaked or swayed. Her pulse pounded in her ears, each beat urging her to run faster. Falling onto the beach below would be better than getting caught by that arrogant pirate.
That look—she shivered as she raced through the twilight.
No, he certainly hadn’t forgotten that she’d stolen from him.
It didn’t matter that she needed the Heart of Fire to earn the merfolk’s trust and get one step closer to her real goal: home.
Pirates only valued gold, and she’d taken something worth a heap of it.
Filthy, rotten, no-good pirates.
Her wings ached, straining against the bindings she’d wrapped around her torso.
She shouldn’t have come to play at the Crow’s Roost tonight, not with so many ships in port after the storms. But she needed what money she could get, and drunk humans tipped pretty ladies well…
when they thought they were human. Sure, she got plenty of unwanted looks and offers too, but those she could deal with.
If they knew she was a pixie, they’d want the dust she no longer had.
She’d had plenty of it once. It came naturally and plentifully in the vale.
Here though, she’d managed to make little after she’d shed all she had to save Lily from Blackbeard, and even that little bit of dust was weeks ago.
Nothing about her wings worked well outside of the vale.
She stumbled a bit as she left the bridge and veered onto the path running through the edge of town toward the forest. One glance over her shoulder sent her heart racing even faster.
Hook crashed through the bar’s door. His gaze found her in the dimming light without error. Shit. The crimson lining of his jacket fluttered as he lunged onto the bridge after her.
Tink could lose him in the forest. She had to. Of all the rotten luck…
Bad enough it was rumored Blackbeard might be in port soon, and now Captain Hook out of the blue? The very last two pirates she ever wanted to see again.
She propped her mandolin against the back wall of the last building. It wouldn’t aid her flight, and Hook wasn’t after an instrument.
Leaves and underbrush crunched and crashed as she sprinted down various animal paths.
When she looked back over one shoulder, the toe of her boot caught on a root, sending her tumbling to the ground.
Tink’s arms and chest slammed into the packed dirt.
The impact rattled through her bones and knocked the wind from her chest. Beyond the buzzing in her ears, the unmistakable sound of someone hacking their way through the brush reached her.
Pain faded in a rush of adrenalin as she pushed to her feet and took off again.
Soon she’d be to safety. It wasn’t the Sylvanna Vale, her real home, but it’d do. For now, at least. If that greedy pirate caught up to her, she might never see the vale again.
Tink nearly cried in relief as rays of moonlight touched her treehouse—ramshackle boards and branches that made a twisting house of connected rooms in and around the massive, near-hollow trunk of the old tree.
She could take credit for the retractable rope ladder, a catapult to shoot fireworks, and other defenses her tinkering had conjured.
The original structure was someone else’s abandoned creation though, one she’d fixed up and improved.
“Finally!” Tink grabbed the rope ladder and scrambled up one rung at a time.
If Hook found her treehouse, he wouldn’t get in.
She’d see to that. Worst case scenario, she’d unbind her wings and fly away when he wasn’t looking.
They didn’t work well outside the Sylvanna Vale, as if the very air was different and caused them to struggle through it, but they could get her away. Maybe.
Heavy, racing breaths echoed in the dark room as she pulled up the rope ladder and secured it within. She slammed the door shut. Her cloak found a home on the floor before she pulled off her tunic and started to unbind the fabric from around her torso.
Movement in the shadows drew her eye. Tink froze, half-undressed, as she peered into the darkness between stacks of supplies she’d hoarded away. Only a thin slat of light spilled into the room from the lantern she’d left lit in the adjoining one. Her hands froze.
No. She hadn’t left a lantern burning. She wouldn’t. Her wings fought against the remaining fabric, pushing free and sending it sliding to the ground as she entered the room. “Who’s there?” The snapped question was met with silence. Did Hook beat her here? He couldn’t have, could he?
She turned away from the lamp, back toward the room she had vacated.
“Wings?” someone whispered.
“A pixie!” came another voice.
She’d barely turned toward the voices before a blanket cloaked her in musty darkness. Tink screamed and clawed at the cloth.
“Don’t let her go!”
Hands grabbed at her. She screeched as someone yanked a delicate wing.
“Tie her up!”
Panic bubbled up her throat as she struggled against the attackers. From their voices she guessed at least four, maybe more. If only she had some dust left. Without it, she was no better than a human with wings, possibly weaker.
Something pulled around her chest, forcing her struggling arms against her body. The blanket drew tight over her face. Air became thin. Her wings cramped as they were forced down against her back.
Tink willed her body to go limp, to give in, even as her lungs yearned for air. If they didn’t let her go, she’d suffocate.
Someone pulled the blanket from her face. She gasped mouthfuls of precious air, head spinning and eyes squinting against the lamplight as she took in her attackers. Short. Male? Scrappy clothing. Five of them that she could see.
These weren’t gnomes. They were too big, the proportions all wrong.
“You’re kids?”
The red-headed one put his hands on his hips as if to say that should be obvious.
Human kids.
Tink nearly laughed at the absurdity of it all. By Beryl’s wings, human children had tied her up in her own home.
“Is she really a pixie?” the shortest—possibly the youngest—said. He gazed at her with wide, brown eyes as if she were a kraken or some other monster.
“She’s got wings, don’t she?” The one with long, blond hair poked at her right wing with a stick.
Tink hissed at him, “Don’t you dare.”
The boy jumped back, but she didn’t let up on her hard stare.
Red stepped forward. He was still a boy, but his wiry build and features marked him as the oldest, possibly almost a teenager. “Give us pixie dust, and we’ll leave.”
Dust? What could they want with—
The youngest grabbed onto Red’s shirt. “But you said we could stay,” he whined.
“This is my home, and none of you are staying,” Tink said. “You’re not getting dust either. Now untie me and go back to your parents.”
“We ain’ got parents,” Blondie replied.
No parents? A sharp ache slipped through her chest. Five children in torn and poor-fitting clothing stared back at her.
Various expressions from pursed lips to pouts met her look of confusion.
She knew what it was like to be separated from family.
How much worse would it be to have none at all?
Still, it didn’t explain their request. “Why do you want dust?”
The little one tugged at Red’s shirt. “Dan said it makes you happy.”
Tink groaned and strained against the ropes. “Dan is an adult?”
The little one bounced. Red put a hand on his head before answering. “Yeah, works at the bakery. Gives us bread sometimes.”
She’d have run her hands down her face if she could reach it.
These kids had no idea. Pixie dust wasn’t magic—not the kind she could see written all over the hope in their faces.
It could get a man drunk faster than a whole bottle of rum, and all they’d remember was whatever happy thought it conjured.
“You’re too young.” She shook her head. “Besides, it’s not what you think.” Humans couldn’t use it to aid nature either—not like pixies did by working it into the ground and helping plants to grow.
“We’re not too young!” the freckle-faced one yelled.
“Yeah!” the others chimed in. One even stomped in indignation.
She sighed, rotating her shoulder as the rope loosened a bit. What a mess.
“Tinker Bell!” The deep, roaring yell seeped in through the cracks of the treehouse.
Her heart dropped. And getting messier…
The boys raced to the window. One leaned out so far, Tink reached for him on instinct. Not that she could move her arms or get there in time to pull him back.
“He looks angry,” Freckles said.
“That a hook?” Blondie asked.
“Cool!”
“Kids?” The disbelief in Hook’s voice was impossible to miss. “Is there a young woman up there with you?”
“No,” Red said, “but there’s a pixie.”
Durin’s beard. Can these kids not shut up?
“Well, now.” Hook’s tone shifted to one of pleasant surprise. “How about you hand her over to me?”
“Don’t talk to him,” she said quickly. “He’s—”
“She’s our pixie!” Red shouted back.
Well, okay fine, maybe it wasn’t so bad if they talked to him. At least they were all distracted. Tink twisted her arms and flexed her wings, wincing at the pain. If she could just get free, she could fly away and leave this all behind.
“I could pay you,” he called.
The boys looked at each other. “How much?” Red asked.
“But the dust…” the little one whined.
The skinniest kid—who’d yet to utter a word—grabbed at his stomach as it let out a loud rumble.
They were hungry. Even if she had dust to give them, they needed Hook’s offer. Damn him.
“Catch,” Hook called.
Blondie grabbed at the small object, nearly dropping it back out the window before he pulled it in and held it up to the light. A gold coin sparkled and glittered. The other kids leaned in. Freckle’s mouth gaped open.
“It real?” Blondie asked.
Red took the coin and bit it. “Real enough.”
“I’ve got more where that came from,” Hook called.
Red called the other boys together. They whispered in a huddle, though the words were loud enough to know they spelled her doom.
She nearly screamed in frustration when the ropes refused to budge.
If only she had some dust left, maybe she could buy her way out of this.
She tried to stand but slipped and tumbled to the ground.
“Well?” Hook asked.
Red nodded and broke away from the huddle.
“Wait,” Tink said, craning her neck up to look at the lead boy. “I can get you dust. Not this minute, but I’ll get some and come back.”
He looked between her and the window.
“You can sell it,” she added. “It’s worth a lot to the right buyer.”
Red knelt in front of Tink and held up the gold. “Maybe you’re a pixie, maybe you’re not. And maybe you’re telling the truth, but maybe not. This. This is real.” He turned to the window. “You’ll have to come up and get her.”
“Let me in then, mates.”
Rope dug into Tink’s side as she wiggled on the floor. “Don’t. Please.”
The boys ignored her as they exited toward the room with the rope ladder.
Shit. Tied up, half-naked in her own home, and about to be sold to a pirate who no doubt wanted to see her punished for her theft against him.
Maybe she shouldn’t have stolen the Heart of Fire, but what option did she have?
It would have taken ages to save money to buy it from him, if he’d have sold it at all.
Everyone knew mermaids were fickle creatures.
Would they wait that long for their gem back?
No, she sighed, they wouldn’t, and the only whisper of a way home she’d found would have been lost. Stealing it was a test to earn their trust, to prove herself an ally to the merfolk and worthy of dealing with them for what she really wanted: the mystical black pearl that could fix anything, even her.
Angering Hook was worth it. Queen Titania wouldn’t even discuss her pathway home before, but now Tink knew what she really wanted in exchange for the precious pearl: the scale of Leviathan.
Greedy witch. As if stealing the Heart of Fire wasn’t hard enough on its own.
She ground her teeth. The merqueen was taking advantage of her, no doubt, but Tink didn’t have any other options.
She’d come this far. She couldn’t give up now.
Getting the scale…well, she was still working on that part.
But if Hook threw her in a cell, she’d never get it, much less return it to the merfolk in exchange for her prize.
Worse, what if he made her walk the plank, arms bound, weights on her ankles?
Her chest squeezed tight. Hysteria bubbled up her throat in a humorless laugh.
He wouldn’t even need the weights or the ropes. She couldn’t swim in a still, shallow pool.
The thump, thump of heavy boots within the treehouse sealed her doom. Tension sizzled in the air.
One glance over her shoulder sent her heart leaping and shirking at once.
The dim lantern highlighted the planes of his face, catching the gleam in his eye.
It was that look that had nearly made her forget her mission when she crawled into his lap, pixie dust upon her lips, ready to steal the necklace he’d so recklessly draped around her neck in an effort to seduce her. Not that he needed the help.
“All tied up like a gift.” Hook knelt before her, a wicked grin upon his face. He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “No wonder you didn’t fly away, love.”
Tink scowled. “I’m not your love.”
“Aye. Pity that.”
She swung a leg, attempting to knock him down, but the blanket and bindings stifled her movements.
At least they covered her, though. If Hook had found her in just her breeches and underthings, she might have flushed pink from navel to nose.
The boys didn’t need to see that either, even if they were house-stealing, backstabbing little thieves.
Besides, she was sure any desire Hook once had for her fled when she’d left his ship, treasure in tow.
“Now, love.” Hook knelt in front of her, just far enough away to avoid what little thrashing fury she could conjure. “Where’ve you hidden the Heart of Fire?”