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“And if I were to warn your ship away from the hurricane of Willa Darling?” I’d stand on the deck and let her consume me,
I don’t feel soft; I feel wrung out. Like a dry sponge being squeezed for its last drops.
but the death trapped in my heart the moment I was bonded to Letum. The magic of the island, woven into the very thing which keeps me alive. That ties me to this kingdom and everything in it.
And there, shining brighter than the second star, is Willa. On the same beach she first appeared to me.
cerulean
There is something oddly familiar about his face, something I’m still trying to place when he drawls, “I see the King of Carrion has already prepared you to meet us.”
Whatever the Strayed are—they are not children. Not as children should be. They contain none of the innocence; none of the inherent kindness.
No one heard the siren’s pleads. There will be no one to hear mine.
no one can take and take without ever caring that I’m already empty.
“Useless—” A powerful tug. “—arrogant—” And another. “—His Majesty of Putrefaction and Snobbery—”
Like to disturb it would be to awaken something I’m not sure I want to face.
His Majesty is awake.
“Water.”
“No matter how far I go, I always seem to end up in the belly of the crocodile again.”
“Are you going to be okay?” I ask in a small voice. A ghost of a smile pulls at Niko’s mouth. “Are any of us?”
Niko’s nostrils flare white in fury, and he jerks away from me with an angry hiss on his lips. “Don’t touch me,” he
Niko pales, but his anger doesn’t abate as he watches me. It only seems to fester, feeding into the crimson heat of my own.
“You’re the King of Death. Who wouldn’t try to escape from you?” His flinch is miniscule.
“If Letum is—was—Neverland, does that mean the Strayed—are they the Lost Boys?”
So, if you want the truth from me, Willa, earn it.”
Indomnitus.
“Power is not the same as truth, and you’re going to have to work for both.”
She doesn’t know what one touch of my skin against hers will do. Doesn’t know it’s been two hundred and seven years since I’ve felt the warmth of any touch at all. Not even so much as a brush of another’s hand or the soft embrace of a friend’s arms.
I shamefully consider it. Taking that lush body beneath mine and devouring every piece I can before she decomposes beneath my fingers.
She may not know that my skin is deadly, but she can surely feel it, just like any prey can feel the presence of a predator.
“Why, Willa, haven’t you yet guessed?” Her brow furrows in confusion, and another laugh ripples from me. “The things you paint in your mind have a funny way of coming true, do they not?”
“Your power is the very thing you claim to be nonsense,” I explain, now allowing myself the pleasure of running my gaze freely over her bare skin. “Imagination.”
There is never enough violence, enough depravity, to fill the hollow carved by years of eternal childhood.
I can’t touch her. There’s no changing that fact. Both because it would kill her the instant I did, and because I shouldn’t even want to. Not with whose blood runs through her veins. His blood. Her blood. Peter and Wendy.
Willa’s magic. Pan’s magic. The ability to dream anything into reality. And right now, she’s dreaming of the worst things to have happened to her.
Aeternalis.”
Aeternalis, who had lived longer than any could fathom and whose own magic was irrevocably tied to the island’s, began to resent the children for choosing to leave him and return home.
An ancient ache throbs in my chest. My memories from the time before the Aeternalis stole me from a window in London have all but disappeared, blurred and erased by the years since.
“The thing about fun is that it relies on novelty. And after centuries, more is required to feel anything at all. And if there’s no one to teach you patience, no one to curb your worst inclinations…they grow in the dark like poisonous vines.
“I want you to embrace your power of imagination and open the wards. I want to bring the dreamers back to Letum and restore the magic and life to both our worlds.”
“The rest of the world would mire your feet in the earth, Darling,” I breathe onto her mouth. “But I—I would set you free into the sky.”
“Because death has no companion.” I mean it only as a fact, but when something far too close to pity edges Willa’s gaze, it feels more like foretelling.
You’ll sleep in my chambers. Tonight, and every night after that.”
Niko’s smile grows wider. “Forgive me for not realizing you were angling for an invitation. Let’s blame the multiple attempts on my life for the temporary ignorance.”
For when you’ve been touched so deeply by pain, the compassion needs to be even more forceful, or it won’t be felt at all.
“They used to mean something to me. In another life.” His words feel like a confession; like a secret. “What?”
“Ironic that you’d be the one questioning my sanity, you absolute lunatic,” he replies without bothering to open his eyes. “Poor Sam will never be able to look at a nail file the same way again.”
“I think we both know my ass is exquisite.”
“I won’t touch you,” I assure him softly. “I promise.” Surprise flickers in his eyes, followed by an unmistakable flash of rage.
I liked Willa being close enough to protect, and that was an abject problem, considering my plans for her.
I anchored myself in pain. A reminder that this relief, however Willa’s presence grants it, is temporary. She is not mine.
I can feel the longing in the strands of ribbon, the wish to pull away from me—to be near her.
He means we would have found someone to warm your bed thirty years ago if we’d known that’s all it took for you to be pleasant company. “Am I not always the most pleasant of company?”
“You were smiling at your scrambled eggs, and you don’t even like them,” Tiernan says, as if this settles everything.
“She’s a relation of the Aeternalis,” I snap harshly. Marina goes still at the name, while all traces of humor on Sam and Tiernan’s faces evaporates instantly. “Have you not considered what that means? Who else she’s related to?”
