Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HOOK
As much as I want to resist Roc and his plans, I do settle into my role as Portage Minister quite well.
I do know the seas of the Seven Isles better than most, and plotting routes, checking for risk and efficiency soothes my brain.
I suspect Roc knew how much I would love this role, but I don’t love how he went about acquiring it for me.
An entire crew is gone.
Though Mertz’s pride helped fulfill that prophecy.
If he had just listened to me…
Manuel becomes my right-hand quickly. Like me, he enjoys order.
At the end of the day, his desk is arranged, papers stacked, pens set in their case.
He is very good at spotting potential risks and adjusting as necessary.
Unlike Mertz, he doesn’t allow himself to get hung up on whether he’s right or wrong.
If there is a better way, then he embraces it and moves on.
I fall into a rhythm that helps calm some of my nerves about the upcoming wedding. Most mornings, I have breakfast with Wendy and Roc. Roc leaves first because he is always needed somewhere urgently.
Wendy will dismiss herself from the breakfast table to get ready and I usually find myself in the library with a cigarello and Firecracker. The cat is a menace, but I am loath to move him when he finds a comfortable spot on my lap and curls into a perfect ball.
Once Wendy is done, we walk together to the clinic, where I kiss her goodbye and then continue on to the Portage Hall.
But on the seventh day of this new routine, I come to a sudden halt when a familiar face catches my eye.
I blink several times against the sharp slant of sunlight as if my eyes may be deceiving me.
Please be real.
A carriage clatters past and the man shouts at me to move, but I’m already running.
I race up the stairs to the wide veranda outside the Portage Hall and practically lunge at Smee.
My arms are around her and I’m smashing her into me before good manners and good sense flood in.
She smells like home. Like rum and sweet tobacco and fresh Neverland air.
My eyes are burning and my chin wobbling and I can’t lose my wits out here where everyone can see, but I am very close to it.
Poor form. Poor form.
“Jas,” she says.
“Smee.” I breathe out, blink rapidly, trying to get control of myself. “You got my letter.”
She chuckles beneath me, squeezes me back. “Man of few words. But all the right ones.”
I finally disentangle myself from her. Her locs are held back by a scarf the color of deep rust. She’s wearing her usual white button-up blouse and vest, but this vest is black with no adornment.
Several delicate gold chains hang around her neck.
There’s a sparrow pendant, an acorn, and a stamped medallion.
Dark, rectangular lenses are over her eyes, shielding from the sunlight.
It’s a new fashion accessory I can’t quite seem to embrace, but Smee makes the glasses look good.
“I…you…I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“You’re getting married,” she answers. “Of course I’d come.”
“The way we left things…”
“We will always find our way back to one another, Jas. For better or for worse.”
“To the edge of the world?”
It’s an old saying of ours, back when we spent most of our days on the sea. It was an oath we swore to one another when pirating was even more cutthroat and magic and myth were as dangerous as the monsters that haunted the sea.
“To the edge of the world,” she answers.
I clasp my hands behind me and nod, the burn still affecting my eyes. Now I wish I had a pair of dark glasses to hide the watery gleam.
I clear my throat, suck in a breath. I will not cry here on the street in the morning sun.
“I was just about to start my day of work, but I could hold off for a bit if you’d like to get coffee?”
Smee nods. “I’d like that.”
There are several cafes around the halls and High Chamber, but I take Smee to my favorite one, a bit of a hole in the wall, because it’s usually quieter and lately, my presence in the busier cafes has been noticed.
“Morning, Captain Hook!” the cafe’s owner calls out when we enter, the bell above the door chiming.
“Good morning, Tellaro. I brought a friend in today to show off your tasty croissants and your coffee.”
Tellaro is one of the winged fae, formerly of Neverland. He moved here after the last fae king was assassinated, at first working in the Umbrage, before moving further uptown to open his own cafe. I like his place because his coffees are straightforward, his pastries perfectly crafted.
As he moves behind the counter, his bright red wings gleam beneath the light—a stark contrast from his tawny skin and long black hair.
Tellaro hands off a mug to his last customer before turning to me and Smee. “Welcome in, friend of Captain Hook. Hopefully, what we have on offer is to your liking.”
“Smee,” Smee says and gives him a nod. “Jas usually knows the best coffee around, so I’m sure it will be good.”
Tellaro smiles as he dries his hand on a towel. “Do you like chocolate? I just pulled out a batch of chocolate croissants. But I also have plain, the Captain’s favorite. Or raisin if you’re mad as a hatter.”
“Chocolate would be great,” Smee says. “And black coffee.”
“My usual,” I tell the fae.
“Coming right up.”
Smee and I take one of the round cafe tables near the front window. I don’t like crowds inside, but I do enjoy watching them when they’re on the outside.
Sometimes when I sit here alone I can’t help but watch the people passing by, wondering if they also suffer from crippling impostor syndrome, or the fear that they will never be enough.
“So tell me anything and everything. Tell me what you’ve been up to,” I say.
I’m eager to hear about her new life as a pirate captain and just as eager to hear if Neverland has changed.
“Peter Pan and the Lost Boys have been behaving themselves,” she says and leans back into her chair.
“Winnie Darling has changed them to a degree that is almost hard to recognize. We’ve struck an alliance, one that I think is fair to all of us, and we no longer have territory lines.
They can come and go as they please, and the same goes for our side. ”
My mouth is hanging open. I only realize it when Smee stops and frowns at me.
“There is a truce?” I ask.
She nods, and the pride in her work is clear on her face.
“You’ve done what I could never do, Smee.” I swallow again, feeling that now familiar swell of emotion. “Well done.”
She waves me off. “Clearly, the problem was you. Once you were gone, we were all good friends.”
I snort.
She laughs.
“But in all honesty, Neverland feels like it’s been repaired and I’m not going to take that for granted.”
Tellaro comes over with our coffees first. His mugs are white with a stamp of red wings on each side. Steam rises up, perfuming the air with fresh roasted coffee that’s a little nutty, and very rich.
“Croissants are on their way out,” he says and returns to the counter for the next customer.
“What about your crew? Have you had luck there?”
Mug in hand, she blows across it, sending the steam swirling. “I’ve found a few good men. And women.”
“Oh?”
We were always an equal opportunity crew, but women were harder to recruit for various reasons, despite our efforts.
“All in all, it’s going well.” She sips from the coffee and widens her eyes. “Oh, this is good.”
“See!”
I taste from mine, delighting in the richness of it, and the joy of sharing it with my closest friend.
“What about Cherry?” I ask. “Were you able to get her somewhere safe?”
I last left my little sister on board my destroyed ship when Roc, Wendy, Vane, Winnie, and Asha, and I sailed for Darkland. All of it happened so fast—Roc losing control of his monster, Vane and Winnie joining us—that I barely had time to send a message off to Smee before we left.
“I did,” Smee answers now, but there is an uprise in her tone of voice that tells me there is far more to that answer than she is saying.
“But?” I coax. “Did she give you trouble? Did she try to throw herself at a Lost Boy again?”
“Jas,” Smee chides.
“Well.” I huff.
I can predict the movements of a storm surge much better than I can predict my little sister. And some of that is my fault.
I traded her for Smee many years ago in my endless war with Peter Pan. It’s a decision I will never forgive myself for. I was blinded by ambition and self-righteousness.
“So where is she?” I ask.
Smee sets her mug down. “She made a choice.”
Now I’m on edge. “Smee.”
“She’s a grown woman, Jas.”
“Where is she?”
“She was recruited by the Ancient Order of Shadows.”
“What!”
“Jas!”
I exhale and resettle and inhale deeply.
The Ancient Order of Shadows is a not-so-secret society that trains assassins. My little sister is not cut out for that life.
“Why the hell would they recruit her?”
“Maybe because they saw potential in her?”
Smee’s words bear a fruit of accusation.
One that implies I do not see potential in Cherry.
I will admit that I’ve expected very little of her over the course of our lives.
And perhaps some of that led to her constantly seeking approval and admiration from Vane, one of Peter Pan’s Lost Boys and Roc’s little brother.
That also did not end well.
“Who recruited her?”
“Nix,” Smee answers and the absolute dread that follows the sound of that name makes me turn to ice.
“Bloody hell.” I hang my head.
“Nix is the Shadow. There is no higher authority in the Order. If he saw something in Cherry, let her prove herself and see where it takes her.”
“She’ll be dead in a day.”
“Or maybe she’ll make something of herself.”
I look across the table at her. “You really think so?”
“You’re about to marry the Crocodile. If you ask me, Jas, anything is possible these days.”
I rock back into my chair. This conversation is reminding me, painfully, of the comment I made at breakfast a while back, aimed at Wendy and what I assumed, wrongly, she was doing to please Roc and me.
At the time, I thought I was protecting her, but I think my own fears were getting in the way. Just like they are now with my little sister.
I owe Wendy an apology. And soon.
“Smee, you always were the wisest of us.”
She smiles at me. “I know that, Jas. But feel free to continue to remind us whenever the mood strikes.”
I spend most of the day with Smee showing her around the Merchant District. We part ways in the afternoon so she can return to her hotel to rest after her voyage.
I leave the Portage Hall early and head straight to the clinic. I find Wendy reading a storybook to a child sick with pneumonia. When she’s finished and the evening nurse arrives to take the child’s vitals, Wendy spots me waiting in the hall.
“James,” she starts but I cut her off.
“I need to talk to you.”
She frowns. “Okay.”
There’s a courtyard in this wing of the clinic, with a gurgling stone fountain at its center, surrounded by a ring of stone benches and right now the courtyard is empty.
I usher Wendy through the arched doorway and to the closest bench.
“I need to apologize to you.”
“James—”
“No. Let me get this out.” I take a deep breath.
“That comment I made…” I lower my voice even though we’re alone.
“About the plug. I shouldn’t have said that.
It’s your choice to do as you please. I was…
projecting onto you and it was poor form.
My entire life, I’ve been trying to live up to the perceived expectations of my father and I suppose it’s been harder to let go of those expectations than I first realized.
And being here with you and Roc, and what it all means to be with him, a king, and you, a queen, I think it triggered some of those old feelings.
But it wasn’t fair that I take it out on you and for that I apologize. ”
She reaches over and takes my hand, bringing it to her lap. “Apology accepted.”
I feel the line of my brow sink. “Just like that?”
“Yes, James. Just like that.”
“But—”
She leans over and kisses me on the cheek.
“Thank you for apologizing. But truthfully, I would have forgiven you with or without it. I know you’re still healing from your past. I think we all are.
And there are bound to be more conflicts in the future because of it.
What matters is that we work through those things together. Don’t keep it bottled up. Yeah?”
Relief washes through me. “Yes.”
She pats my cheek. “Good. Now be a gentleman and walk me home. I’m tired and this is the last night we have before our Wedding Eve and we have so much more to prepare for.”
She’s up and headed toward the door before I can say another word.
The thought crosses my mind that I don’t deserve her, how kind and caring she is, how passionate and wise. But if I keep thinking that, I will be right back where I started.
I get up and follow her, trying to shed the weight of expectation as I go.