Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Caspian
I fell faster and faster. Colors — brown, blue, gold, black — blinded me. Wind tore past my ears.
Then the air changed. Hot and wet, thick as a mouthful, and green all the way through it. December gone out of the world.
Leaves slapped my face. Twigs tore at my shirt.
Then the ground.
I landed on one knee, panting. I scanned what looked like a forest. Smell of pine but there were trees and flowers I didn’t recognize. Every instinct was on alert. I kept waiting for Pan to ambush me or some other creature. I could feel eyes on me but nothing attacked.
Alice landed about five feet away from me. Her blond hair hung in her face. She knocked it away. “I’ll never get used to going through that damn portal.”
She almost made me laugh but my laughter died as I thought of Tinker Bell going through. Bound. Imprisoned. I looked around the ground for any signs of blood but didn’t see or smell any. Hopefully, she was unhurt.
Darius fell right between us. He landed on his feet as if he was a natural at this. But his face was grim.
“We’re here. I hope that shard didn’t wake Queen Alanna up.”
That's all we needed. A mad queen on our trail. One monster in this world was already one too many.
I looked at Alice. She was dragging her fingers through her hair, getting the tangles out. “Now what?”
She shrugged. “Follow the shard. It should light the way.”
I hoped she was right, because it was the only plan we had and I'd staked both of them on it.
Alice removed the lid of the box. A light shone out and lit a pebbled path I hadn't even noticed.
“Follow the yellow pebble road,” I mumbled.
The three of us started down it. The sun was out and the shard still lit the forest like a spotlight.
No shadows anywhere. Birds went up out of the branches chirping angrily, as if to say turn off the damn light.
Other creatures — some like squirrels, some like badgers, one like a deer with a striped hide — bolted deeper into the trees.
We weren't going to keep our presence a secret much longer.
The trees started to thin and the air turned salty. It reminded me of the ocean and my own ship. I felt most at home on the open sea. Sometimes land made me feel trapped.
“We’re getting close to the Grand Sea,” Darius said.
I glanced at him. “The sea leads to Neverland. Would it be too far to fly?”
“For me no. I can draw on my demon speed—” he flashed his gaze over me as if sizing me up. “—but I’m not sure a vampire bat could fly across that ocean.”
I clenched my fists. Calling me weak? The pompous ass.
“I can do it if I have to.”
He held up his hand. “It’s not just a great distance. The Grand Sea is unpredictable and there are creatures that live in the very depths.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “What kind of creatures?”
“The Kraken for one. A huge beast over one hundred feet tall with six clawed hands. It has a long tail with deadly spikes. It’s always hungry.”
This place was just getting better and better. “It guards Neverland?”
He nodded. "And Pan. He can summon it to take down whole ships or grab things out of the sky."
So flying was out. Which left the water, in something wooden, at whatever speed a boat makes.
"Then we need a ship," I said.
Darius looked at me like I'd suggested we walk it. “Where are we going to get a ship?”
I stepped out from the forest. “I have no idea, but this is your world. Where would you get one?”
The Grand Sea had earned its name. Big waves rolling in, some of them breaking white on the rocks, the whole thing a blue-green I'd never seen on any water anywhere. Just looking at it eased some of the muscles bunched up in my neck. On another night I'd have stood there and looked at it.
But she was somewhere out on it. That took the pretty right out of it.
Darius looked up and down the beach as if a boat would miraculously pop out of the sand. I don’t know. Maybe it would. This was the Elder Dimension—not Earth.
“We go west.” Alice held up the box and the shard threw a path down the beach.
I followed the light onto the sand. Three sets of footprints heading the same direction. One set small and bare. She was walking. Whatever else he’d done to her, she’d been on her own feet.
But then I smelled it. Metallic. Blood.
I rushed over to a dark patch of sand. I knelt down and put my fingers in it and tasted it. Sweet. Spicy. But there was something else. Strong. Almost like anise.
Alice frowned. “What is it?”
I tasted it again, and I hated myself a little for how easy that was. Magic in it. Definitely something magical in the blood.
“Someone’s blood.” I glanced between their troubled faces. “I think it’s Tinker Bell’s. I swear it almost tastes like Christmas.”
Darius cocked his eyebrow. “Have you ever tasted Christmas?”
He was really starting to piss me off.
I stood and wiped the sand off my fingers onto my jeans. “Yes, I have. Anise. I love pizzelle cookies and they always remind me of Christmas.”
Alice’s shoulders slumped. “You think someone hurt her?”
And they’d pay for doing it. Ripping out Pan’s heart. Bleeding him dry. Doing to him exactly what he’d been doing to her, and taking my time about it.
“I do. Pan’s ruthless.” I folded my arms. “Who knows what the hell he’s doing to her.”
Darius pointed. “There’s a small fishing village. Ifelthas. Two or three miles away.” His face was grim. “We might be able to rent a boat there.”
The scowl didn’t match the good news. “You don’t look too happy?”
“The villagers there are loyal to Queen Alanna.” He said her name and something closed down behind his eyes.
I had no inclination to meet this Alanna. She could remain asleep forever for all I cared.
Alice clasped his arm. “You keep forgetting, Darius. My father’s king. Things have changed.”
Daughter of a king. That would help.
“If her father is a king, what are you worried about?”
“Because Alanna’s cunning, vengeful, and she’s a witch. I was supposed to marry her and literally left her at the altar.”
So we were walking into a village full of people loyal to a woman who wanted him dead, carrying a box that lit up the whole forest, on a beach with Tinker Bell's blood on it.
“Do you think she’s aligned with Pan?”
I needed to know who was on our side.
“No. But that could have been because Pan’s been in the Hollows for so long. He’s back now. He would make an alliance with her if he thought it would get his shadow back.”
Pan had all the advantages. He’d make a deal with the devil if it would get him back his Shadow. And his damn shadow could be anywhere on this continent or stuck in Neverland.
Ifelthas was a quiet village. There weren’t many fishing boats in the harbor and judging by the location of the sun, it was close to noon.
They'd be out at sea, reeling in their catches for the day.
What kind of fish lived in the Grand Sea?
Probably something with three rows of teeth that could swallow a man whole.
This was the Elder Dimension, after all.
Men stopped and stared at us as we headed over to the dock. Obviously, we were dressed differently than they were. They all looked like they had stepped out of a Robin Hood movie with their tights and tunics. We stood out like a sore thumb.
“How are we going to rent a boat?” I leaned closer to Darius. “We don’t have any money.”
“With gold.”
“You’re carrying gold coins?”
Alice nudged me. “He’s not. But I am. I brought some from home before we got here. Not a lot, but it will get us by.”
I studied the boats in the harbor. Not a dinghy. A dinghy would put us on the bottom of that sea inside a day.
"We need something small enough for three to sail. A sloop. Single mast, shallow draft, decked forward so we don't swamp in a following sea."
Alice blinked at me. "A what?"
A frost-haired old man with a gold earring came down the dock toward us. "Strangers here?"
He looked us over and let his hand rest on his sword.
Not the trusting sort. Didn’t know what that meant. Was he a friend or foe of Alanna? This wasn’t the time to question.
"Yes." I gave him an easy smile. "We're looking to buy a boat."
The man tilted his head. "Where you headed?"
"Teacup Cove," Darius said. "Family reunion."
Teacup Cove. I kept my face where it was.
"Really. What family?"
Small place, then, if he expected to know the names.
"The Knaves. Chester's a good friend of mine."
The old man went quiet and studied him. His heart picked up — not fear, something else — and his hand came off the sword and hung at his side.
"Chester," he said. "Huh."
He knew the name. I couldn't tell you whether that was good for us or not, and I didn't like a stranger holding a card I couldn't see.
"We have gold," Alice said.
Changing the subject. Smart, and about two beats too fast.
He turned on her like a dog hearing a can open. "How much do you have?"
Wonderful. Now he knew we had it and didn't know what it was worth.
Alice folded her arms. "You tell me what you want."
"Five gold coins."
"Show us first," I said.
He shrugged and motioned. "Follow me."
He took us down to the last slip, where a little sloop sat low in the water.
Weathered to gray, orange paint peeling off her in strips.
But her lines were right. I stepped down into her and put my weight around while he watched me do it, and she took it without complaining.
Sound hull. Oars stowed. Rigging was old but it was rigging.
I put my hand on the mast. It'd been a long time since I'd stood on something that moved under me.
"She'll do," I said. “Give him four.”
The man whistled and shook his head, but took the money. I wasn’t sure if I had been had. But I didn’t have time to barter more. Tinker Bell was out there and we needed to find her now.