Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
ALICE
I shift closer to Hook, the light casting soft shadows over his shoulder. I can’t believe he didn’t say anything. I know it’s only been a day, but hell, this wound is red and swollen, and it has to be sore as hell.
“How is this not having you in agony?” I lean in closer, the light between my hands flickering, hesitant and fragile, but it’s there. It feels warm, alive, and entirely unfamiliar as it hovers just above Hook’s shoulder.
I focus on it, willing it to grow, to reach out and do whatever I’ve convinced myself is impossible. Because how can this be real?
Even the light on the ground, the one I somehow summoned earlier, just sits there, steady and unchanging. I feel it the same way I feel any other part of me—it hasn’t gone out. But I still don’t understand how it works.
I sigh and nod to myself. I’m really doing this. Really going to try to heal someone with my hands.
“You’re doubting yourself again,” Hook says, his voice cutting through my thoughts.
I bite my bottom lip and glance at him. “I was just thinking my family back home would have me locked up for this. For even trying it.”
I can almost see Chris’s face in my mind—his disbelief, his utter refusal to believe in anything beyond what he can see and touch. He doesn’t believe in anything. Not the universe, not God, not mediums, none of it. And here I am, trying to do this.
Hook doesn’t say anything, just watches me with that steady, unflinching gaze.
“Alright,” I whisper, my voice trembling as I steady my hands.
It doesn't take me long this time and the second ball of light hovers just above my palm, stronger than before. It pulses with a faint energy, alive in a way that feels almost like breathing. It’s surreal, like I’ve really lost the plot, but I don’t stop.
I tilt my hand, letting the edge of the light touch his unbroken skin. Then I tip my hand further, imagining the light rolling off my palm and into his wound. I close my eyes and force the image into my mind, willing it to happen.
The light shifts, spilling gently over the torn edges, and I close my hand over it.
“I don’t know if it’s doing anything. I…”
But Hook’s eyes are closed, his breathing uneven. There’s a bead of sweat at the edge of his hairline.
“I’m hurting you,” I say, starting to pull my hand back.
His hand comes up, firm and steady, pressing mine back down against the jagged edges of his wound. “Keep going.”
“I don’t know if I can. I’m not sure—”
“Yes, you can,” he says, his tone sharp but steady. “You’re doing it. Don’t stop.”
I close my eyes again, shutting out the doubt clawing at my chest. Instead, I focus on the warmth in my hands, on the steady thrum of magic that feels like it’s always been there, just waiting for me to notice.
It feels… comforting. Real. Tangible. Like the feeling you get at Christmas, or when you’re warm and cosy and exactly where you need to be. It feels like that, not just in my hands but in my chest, spreading outward.
Hook lets out a soft sound, one that sends a strange, unexpected jolt through me. When I finally pull my hand back from his shoulder, he doesn’t stop me this time.
“I didn’t heal it,” I say quietly, staring at the wound.
The redness is almost completely gone. The wound still gapes slightly, the edges rough and uneven, but it’s no longer angry or swollen.
“I—” My voice catches, and I take a shaky breath. “I think that’s the best I can do.”
Hook twists slightly, trying to peer over his shoulder. Of course, he can’t see it. He flexes his arm experimentally, wincing a little but nodding.
“You did good, love,” he says, his voice softer now. “Better than good.”
“I didn’t heal it, though.”
“No, but it’s enough.” He meets my eyes, his expression softer than I’ve ever seen it. “You saved me a lot of pain.”
The sincerity in his voice steals my breath for a moment, but I shake it off, sitting back on my heels. The light dims as I let it go, retreating back into wherever it came from. Hook pulls his shirt into place and shrugs his jacket back on, but he's not wincing now. Maybe it was enough.
“What now?” I ask, brushing invisible dirt off my hands. They tingle faintly, the sensation just under the skin.
He glances around us, his gaze searching the space as if answers might be waiting in the shadows. But there’s nothing here. Just the bars where we dug out a little, the muddied walls, and the hole we fell through.
It’s not too high, but high enough we can’t reach it—not even if I were to stand on his shoulders.
“I don't know. No one even knows where we are,” he mutters, more to himself than to me.
We sit quietly for a while, the silence heavy but not uncomfortable. Finally, I find myself breaking it, my curiosity too much to keep in. “Why did your uncle put you in a place like this?”
His jaw clenches, the muscle there twitching.
For a moment, I think he’s going to brush me off again with some smart remark, but instead, he exhales slowly, dragging a hand over his face.
“My uncle,” he says, his tone flat, matter-of-fact.
“He wanted all the inheritance and not the child who came with it.”
My stomach twists—not just at the words but at the way he says them, like he’s long since given up feeling anything about it. I almost apologise for asking, but what else do we do down here? “You have no parents?” I ask quietly.
He leans back against the wall, his knees up slightly, his legs parted.
His arms rest across his knees, hands hanging loosely in the space between.
He looks so calm, but the tension in his shoulders says otherwise.
“I didn’t know my father. My mother never told me who he was, and really, I didn’t push.
I was never at that age where it mattered.
” He takes a breath and glances at me, and for the first time, the cocky, annoying bastard I’ve come to know slips away.
It’s a mask, I realise, and beneath it is something raw. In those bright blue eyes, set in that frustratingly perfect face, is pain—and something else.
“My mother died when I was nine,” he says, his voice quieter now, the words slipping out like he’s trying not to give them any power.
I shift slightly, the light from my earlier magic casting faint, flickering shadows across his face. “I’m sorry,” I say softly.
His lips twist, and he shrugs. “It happened. It’s done. No point dwelling on the things we can’t change.”
Before I can respond, he’s back on his feet, his knife in hand and his back to me. He crouches near the bars, pulling at the dirt as if answers might be buried there.
I don’t like the silence that falls between us. I didn’t mean to pry into his life, not when it’s clear whatever I unearthed is still raw.
“My grandmother died last week,” I say, the words tumbling out to fill the quiet. “She was like a mother to me. She—”
He pauses, tossing a glance over his shoulder. “Your parents died, too?”
“No.” I shake my head quickly. “No. Mine are both alive. Divorced now, but alive. I’m sure my mother wishes my father were dead sometimes.” I let out a humourless laugh. “Probably wishes I were dead too.”
“I doubt that,” he says, his voice softer than I expect.
I scoff, hugging my knees to my chest. “My mother and I don’t get along.
I don’t think we ever have.” I press my hands into my lap, sitting cross-legged.
The folds of my dress bunch around me, giving me a strange sense of comfort.
It’s not cold here—far from it—but somehow, it feels right to be tucked into myself.
“It was worse after I came here the last time,” I admit. “I think… I think that’s when it really changed. The shift.”
Hook doesn’t say anything, but I can feel his attention on me, the weight of it. It’s strange—his silence isn’t like the heavy, oppressive quiet of this place. It feels like… space. Room to speak.
“When I was a kid,” I begin again, “small, I used to read all the time. I liked the ones with pictures in. My sister read ‘proper books.’” I lift my hands, miming air quotes. “The ones with just words. I found those so boring.”
I can’t help the faint smile that crosses my lips, though it’s more bitter than fond. “I preferred drawing. I liked the pictures because I could see the stories in them. My mother never got it. She used to tell me, ‘Art will never get you anywhere, Alice. No one pays the bills with painting.’”
My voice catches slightly, and I glance down at my lap, smoothing the fabric of my dress. “She hated when I drew. Said it was just living in the clouds. And then, when I came to Wonderland… when I went back to her world…” I pause, swallowing hard. “She hated it. Hated me for it.”
Hook shifts slightly, the faint sound of his jacket brushing against the wall catching my attention. “What did she say?”
I look up, startled by the question, but there’s no mockery in his tone, no smirk waiting to follow.
“She said I was crazy. She told me to stop talking about it. Said if I didn’t, she’d cut the tree down.”
“The tree?”
“The one in the garden,” I explain. “It’s where… well, where I thought the door was. She said if I kept going on about it, she’d get rid of it. Make sure I couldn’t ‘escape’ anymore.”
Hook’s brow furrows slightly, and for a moment, I think he’s going to say something. But he doesn’t. He just watches me, and somehow, it feels like enough.
“I stopped drawing after that,” I continue, my throat tightening. “Stopped… everything, really. I went to school, got a degree, got a job. I did all the things she wanted, all the things she said would make me ‘normal.’” I let out a shaky laugh. “And look where that’s got me. Right back here.”
There’s a long pause, and when Hook speaks, “Maybe you were never meant to be ‘normal.’”
I blink at him, my chest tightening at the simple sincerity in his words. “What does that even mean?”
“It means,” he says, leaning back against the wall, “that maybe you’re exactly who you’re supposed to be. And maybe she was wrong.”
I don’t know what to say to that. For once, his cocky bravado is gone, replaced by something gentler. Something that makes my heart ache just a little.
And for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel so alone.