Epilogue
Lily
Lily floated in a shallow pool within her favorite glade in the Sylvanna Vale. Her wings drifted below her in the cool water, a pleasant contrast to the sun beating down from above. Birds chirped. Floral notes filled the air.
Everything was perfect. As it should be.
Then suddenly, she was underwater—an icy, dark sea that tried to force its way down her throat.
An incessant throbbing pounded her body like she lay on the head of a drum someone banged on at an increasingly aggressive tempo.
Then there was the light. Brighter than the sun had ever been, burning away all traces of the world around her until everything was searing white.
But the pain that stung and scorched her very soul wasn’t from the light.
It slid down the membranes in her wings, radiating through her back and twisting around her ribs like a thorny vine.
Lily gasped and jerked upright. The world spun, a nauseating blur of blinding light, and she swayed, nearly tumbling back onto her injured wings.
Her wings. Sharp teeth bit into her bottom lip as she held back a sob, then sucked in one greedy breath after another.
Lily tried to flutter her wings, the smallest movement to test their strength.
A deep ache greeted her in response. It was less painful than the horrible nightmare she’d just woken from, but something wasn’t right.
She cupped her forehead, massaging it with her fingers in a poor attempt to rub away the pounding headache.
They shouldn’t hurt so just from sleeping, no matter how much she’d…
Memories flooded her in a rush, stealing her breath in a sharp gasp. The Kraken burning. Tink with a torch in her hand. Tink attacking her. A boom. Searing pain. Wet darkness. Tink…saving her?
Lily shivered despite the thick humidity wrapping her in its warmth and the blazing sun filtering through the trees above her.
Finally, her vision had begun to clear. Palm fronds loomed above.
Crystalline water lapped at the shore nearby.
Her fingers dug into the gritty soil. Sand? A gull cried overhead.
Where in all of Neverland—
A form leaped in front of her. Lily screeched and kicked her boots against the ground in a failed attempt to stumble away.
“You’re finally awake.”
The familiar voice stalled her efforts. Peter’s slight form took shape against the ocean at his back. With his hands on his hips, messy hair, and thinly pressed lips, he looked the same as the last time she’d seen him on the Kraken.
Except the other kids had been with him then.
An unexpected tightness gripped her chest.
“What happened?” She asked, quick and urgent. Lily panned her gaze, searching in earnest for the others. “Where are—”
The gaggle of boys heaved fallen branches into a pile taller than themselves. A quick count of the figures trudging across the sand had some of the tightness slipping from her shoulders.
Worrying about some human kids… Elders, what was happening to her?
“They burned the Kraken.” Peter’s lips twisted into a sneer as he knelt before Lily. “Stuck us in a rowboat and just left us.”
“Who?” But she knew. The bits and pieces of memories that came rushing back rewove themselves into a complete vision: Tink and her lover.
“Captain Hook,” Peter spat at the exact moment the pirate’s name echoed in Lily’s head. Peter flopped onto the ground in front of Lily, legs crisscrossed and hands planted on his thighs. “I kinda…” His face fell. “I kinda thought he was cool, you know? His courage. That hook.”
Child-like admiration glimmered in his eyes, though she could sense the words were more for himself than her, like he needed someone to speak to about it and thought the other kids wouldn’t understand.
Maybe they wouldn’t. And, if she were honest—which she was, sometimes—she understood that feeling.
She’d looked at Tink the same way when they were young.
Skilled. Admired. Loved. Everything Lily wanted to be.
Bitterness coalesced on her tongue. And look how that turned out.
“We’re well rid of him,” she snapped. “Pirate bastard.”
Peter straightened, the curiosity vanishing into a hard press of his lips. “You’re right. He burnt our ship! Blackbeard said it could be mine one day. Maybe. If I behaved.” He sighed, his gaze wistful again. “At least the boys thought to bring our packs. Curly put some stuff on your wings to help.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Now that he mentioned it, there was some kind of goop smeared on part of her wings. How much worse would they be without it? “Thank you.”
Peter gave a jerking nod.
Lily hugged her arms around herself. Injured. No ship. Stranded with kids… Her lingering pain was suddenly nothing compared to this mess. “The captain?” she asked.
He was nowhere to be seen, nor any of the crew.
“Dunno.” Peter shook his head. “Haven’t seen any of ‘em. That other pixie knocked me out.”
Tink… Lily’s teeth ground together. What did you do?
“Didn’t wake up till morning,” Peter continued, “but the boys said the ship went down.”
Morning? Lily glanced at the position of the sun. It was well past that now. How long had she been out? “Ugh.” Her head dropped into her hands. What a terrible mess.
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure Captain Hook pays for this.” Peter rose to his feet, the portrait of arrogant pre-teen confidence.
Lily rolled her eyes. “And how exactly do you plan to do that?” she asked, sarcasm dripping from every word. No ship, no crew—a small sigh slipped out at the loss of the few passable ones who’d been pleasing bed companions—no gold, no plan, and stuck... “Where are we even?”
He shrugged. “An island somewhere.”
Elders take me. Lily groaned.
Peter held out a hand to help her up, oblivious to her frustration.
At least the kid respected his elders. Lily grimaced at the thought.
Elder? No way, I’m too young and pretty for that.
Slightly more mature companion? She nodded to herself as she took Peter’s hand and let him help her up.
That she could live with. It was a good thing he had a hold of her, too, because just standing made her head spin and all the aches on her body cry out.
“The boys are almost done, then we’re going to light it up,” Peter said, beaming with pride. “A ship will see it and come.”
Lily slipped her hand from his. “And what if it’s Captain Hook?
” And Tink. She swallowed the sudden tightness in her throat.
Her cousin was okay. Somehow, she was sure of that.
Facing her again, though? She wasn’t ready for that.
She might not be for a long time. At least, not when she was stuck in such a pitiful situation as this.
Maybe once she had a fortune from the sale of her dust. A nice home. A handsome lover of her own…
“I-it won’t be,” Peter stammered, the slightest waver to his voice. “Not yet. But we’ll be ready when we meet him again.” He crossed his arms and beamed toward his boys. “Probably some merchants. They won’t want to leave a bunch of kids and their mother alone out here.”
Mother? Her brows scrunched. But they didn’t— She jumped back, her wings fluttering painfully. “Me? You can’t be serious!”
Peter just blinked at her. “It’s perfect. You just hide those wings—”
“You cannot ask a pixie to hide her wings!”
He shrugged. “More believable that way. You wanna explain why a pixie is out here with us?”
The hard look he gave her had her teeth grinding together. But damn him if he wasn’t right. In her condition, she couldn’t just fly away or fight off the humans if they weren’t friendly to pixies.
“Anyhow, they’ll take us to port. Maybe we can catch a ride to Tortuga. We’ve got a decent treehouse there. We’ll use that pixie dust of yours—”
“Uh uh,” Lily snapped, but Peter ignored her.
“—get us some gold. Then you can help us hire a ship.”
“No way.” She stomped her foot, instantly regretting how it made her wings bark in pain.
“Adults don’t like to deal with kids,” he said, as if that were obvious. His brows scrunched. A finger tapped against his chin as his gaze focused somewhere distant. “Maybe we could steal one.”
Guilt was a bitch, and she didn’t like the idea of kids stealing—annoying little humans or not. “Fine. I’ll help you get a ship, and then I’m outta here.” They did bring her to safety and tried to help her. She owed them for that.
“You sure?” Peter cut her a sideways look. “Could make it worth your while.”
Lily pinched the bridge of her nose. No way was she sticking around with these kids. Nope. Not happening. That was not part of her grand plan. “What could you possibly have to make it worth it for me to stick around with you all?” It wasn’t likely they had a chest of gold stored away somewhere.
Peter grinned, triumphant, and pulled a folded and crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. “Captain Blackbeard was excited about this, so I might ‘a borrowed it for a bit.”
Borrowed. Right. What was so exciting about a piece of paper?
Peter unfurled the paper—not a paper, a map. Lily leaned in closer, squinting to make out the unfamiliar land masses—not that much of the human world was familiar to her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“A map.”
She fought against another eye roll.
“But not just any map,” Peter continued, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It leads to a treasure more valuable than gold and jewels, even more valuable than the scale of Leviathan.”
The fine hairs on the back of her neck rose as she craned forward on the tips of her toes. What could be more valuable than gold?
Peter snapped the map closed, causing Lily to jump back, grimacing at the sudden movement.
“So, you in?” he asked.
Lily planted her hands on her hips. “What’s the treasure, exactly?”
“Something that means we’ll never get old like Captain Blackbeard. We can stay young and strong forever.”
Forever… Lily’s wings tingled, pleasure mixing with pain as a dim glow spread around her.
Peter’s grin was even more blinding. “The fountain of youth.”