Chapter 30
Chapter thirty
Children and adults alike leap from balconies, their wild laughter ricocheting through the Hollow City.
They float through my night sky, chasing after their dreams with abandon, wonder and hope swirling around them.
They gather up purple and blue cosmic dust, smearing it across their cheeks and tossing it up into the air, dancing as it rains back down.
I lean my head back against the wall of the balcony, curling my legs up to my chest. My friends have all left to explore the videntis for themselves, but I stayed back, content to watch the kingdom’s joy from afar.
Truthfully, I’m not confident my legs will hold me after such an intense show of magic.
I am wrung out and raw, like everything in me has been scraped out.
The exhaustion is far more pervasive than anything I felt after restoring the Hollows; far worse than when I’d accidentally killed the island’s dreams. All magic has a cost—perhaps mine is as simple as an exchange of energy.
Lost in my thoughts, I don’t notice his approach until he says, “Do you think they’ll love you now, little darling?”
Ice drips down my spine, and I turn to find Pan leaning against the stone at the top of the stairwell. His green eyes glow from the shadows, but it is not their eerie inhumanity that sends a wave of nausea barreling up my throat.
The Aeternalis’ appearance is far more gruesome than it was the last time I saw him—even more so than it had been after he’d been shot in the head.
The laceration at his chest gapes open as usual to reveal the organs behind his ribs, but now, it isn’t the only wound.
Every bit of Pan’s skin is carpeted in scabs, all in varying processes of healing.
Some leak yellowed pus, while others are still raw, bleeding freely onto the stone floor.
Chunks of his golden hair have been ripped from his scalp, the white of his skull visible between mats of the remaining strands.
Parts of cartilage have been shaved from his nose, and the bones of one of his arms are splayed at unnatural angles.
By all accounts, the Aeternalis appears as though his skin has been savagely peeled from his body, to the extent his immortal healing hasn’t been able to keep up.
Pan gestures mildly to his appearance. “This is what love gets you. Keelhauled by your own kin.”
“Keelhauled?” I repeat in vague horror, gaping at him.
Peter hobbles closer, and lowers himself gingerly onto the blanket beside me.
Blood seeps into the woven cotton, but he doesn’t appear to notice.
He has eyes only for me, as he explains, “A particularly brutal method of torture in which one is tied up and dragged from bow to stern. You must survive the drowning, the broken bones…” He sighs dramatically, swiping a chocolate éclair from the nearest plate with his good arm.
“…though the worst is probably being cut open across the barnacles.”
Pan takes an enthusiastic bite, finish through a mouthful, “An uncivilized method of punishment, but I’d expect nothing better from a filthy pirate.”
Niko.
As angry as I am at him, a vicious part of me croons in approval that he’d repaid even a fraction of the Aeternalis’ cruelty. The mutilated bodies of pixies and sirens and dryads and humans flash through my mind, and for a wild moment, I wish I’d been the one to do it.
“Tell me something, Peter. Why is it that the most power-hungry are so often unable to take even a fraction of what they so willingly bestow on others?”
The Aeternalis finishes the éclair with a lick of his fingers, and sets his eerie gaze on me.
There is no sign of his shadow tonight, and I wonder again how he is so adept at hiding it, when I cannot seem to do the same.
“Because we were made for more, Willa. We build empires on their backs using their pain as the mortar and their blood as the paint.”
“You keep talking to me like we’re the same, just because our magic is similar.
But for most of my life, I was not a queen or an unhinged dictator.
I’ve been the one stepped on and bled out and used.
That is who I will always empathize with.
That is where my loyalty lies. Not with the people preaching about the greater good…
but the people sacrificed in the name of it. ”
He hums softly, before motioning to where the kingdom still frolics through the videntis. “It is a most beautiful gift you’ve given them. A show of magic I don’t think even I could have fathomed.”
I glance at him warily, uncertain what to do with the compliment.
He gazes back, and despite his horrific appearance, for a moment, I understand how he lured so many to serve at his feet.
The way he looks at me makes me feel like anything is possible—like he not only sees me, but everything I will be capable of.
But I have spent two centuries reading people well enough to keep myself safe from them, and despite his semblance of sincerity, I feel something foul simmering beneath the surface—feel it in the way I would sense a storm coming. A slight charge in the air, a tingle on my skin.
“So beautiful.” His purr prickles along the surface of my skin as he leans in closer. “They do not deserve it. Your gift, nor the mercy you bestow.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “After everything the people of this island have been through, a night of hope is the least I can do.”
“Do you think it’ll be enough?” Pan cocks his head, his gaze sliding over me in curious assessment. “For them to see past the horrors you possess?”
The question sinks into my stomach like a stone. I don’t reply; only lift my chin and stare back at him blankly. He’s searching for my insecurities, for a weakness in my armor to drive his sword through.
“That is why you did this, isn’t it? To beg for forgiveness for stealing their dreams?” He tsks with disappointment. “It will never be enough. They will take and take for as long as you’ll allow it, and the love you earn will only exist so long as you provide for them.”
My breath freezes in my chest, and I stare at the Aeternalis, feeling as aptly stripped as if I stand naked before him.
Because isn’t that a sum of my entire existence?
People taking until I am empty and then leaving because of the desolation; sifting through my pieces to pilfer the good and abandoning me to live with the jagged remains.
Pan’s expression is almost pitying. “It is the most terrible and wonderful thing about children. They have no appreciation for your sacrifices. They only demand more of them.”
A child’s giggle floats between us, effervescent and tinkling.
“I demand nothing of you, cousin. Rather, I’ve brought you a gift.”
“A gift?” I repeat stupidly, caught off guard. Pan doesn’t seem the kind to consider anyone but himself. And yet, I cannot ignore the eager way he watches me—almost like he’s waiting for my approval.
Pan smiles, the luminous gesture so at odds with the horror of his mutilated skin. “A creature as exceptional as you are, deserves all the accolades of the universe. Perhaps a new Dreaming’s Eve tradition? From one deity to another?”
I stare at him, searching for a sign of insincerity. Anxiety snakes up my spine, threads around my throat though I cannot determine its source. “I don’t want anything from you.”
Pan has the nerve to look disappointed. “But Willa…you gave me the most wondrous gift, and to not reciprocate would be poor manners. I never had a mother to teach me etiquette, but even I know that.”
His grin is slow and deliberate. It feels like insects crawling over my skin, and as I follow his gaze to the crowd milling below the balcony, the feeling grows. Because there, frozen in the midst of the revelers, is a familiar face.
“Zenni?” I breathe, the name cracking with the sudden fear spiraling through me.
She is the same as she is in my memories—spiral black curls, worn red sneakers, ripped jeans that hang from her small frame—but somehow, everything seems wrong.
Her clever brown eyes are distant and unfocused; her precocious mouth that is usually sharply honed weapon is slack, like she sleeps standing up.
And worst of all, is the glow emanating from her heart. Just like the little boy on the Indomnitus, her chest is lit with the magic inherent to children. But unlike the boy, Zenni’s has been reduced to a mere spark, as if most of it has already been siphoned away.
A scream builds in my throat. Zenni resisted the plague so much longer than most with her wild imagination and adventurous spirit.
She held onto hope when the entire world had lost theirs.
To now have it stolen from her to feed a power-hungry tyrant—stolen from her because she had the misfortune of knowing me—is too unfair.
Pan devours my reaction, his pleasured grin a wound far more sinister than any marring his body. “I saved you the last morsel of her magic,” he simpers with relish, “so that when you drink it, she will be yours forever.”
The crowd has not yet noticed Zenni’s strangeness. They dance and laugh with no care to the hollow-eyed girl in their midst.
“I have heard your deepest desires, Willa. You are afraid of being alone, afraid of those you love leaving you. I will make sure none of them ever do.”
My shadow stirs at his words, because despite the horror of them, they speak to the deepest parts of my heart. The parts carved in abandonment and fear. The parts willing to attack anyone who gets too close—to hurt them before they hurt me.
Pan’s shadow flickers to life behind him.
“Our hearts share the same magic, grown from the same wounds.” His shadow slinks forward, the dark form wrapping around mine.
I watch in disgust as they stroke each other, even as I try to pull away.
“We will keep them all with us for eternity. Never alone. Always powerful. It is what you want, littlest darling. I know your heart as I know mine.”