The fae queen’s handwriting is elegant and slanted on the creased parchment paper.
The words leave a taste in my mouth, though I don’t know if it’s bitter or pleasant.
Let us unite against Peter Pan, the queen has said. As we were meant to.
Just the mere suggestion of it has my blood boiling. We were supposed to align once upon a time. We were supposed to be rid of Peter Pan too.
Conjuring an image of the Never King makes my residual limb ache.
Every time I think about him, I shake with rage.
I turn back to the letter to distract myself and rub the thick paper between thumb and forefinger. It’s good paper. Thick and velvety. Paper can say a lot about a man. So can his handwriting. His clothing. His posture. His diction. I suppose everything can say a lot about a man. And a fae queen too.
She closes the letter with, And I can help you defend yourself against the Crocodile, should he return to the island.
If I hate Peter Pan, my feelings on the Crocodile are ten times worse. I’m not sure there is a word in the dictionary that would suffice for what I feel for the Crocodile.
Sometimes when I lie in bed, I can see him in my mind’s eye.
The hard lines of his body. The sharp teeth.
A chill fills the room and I’m not sure if it’s the ocean breeze or the sensation of my own rage borne to life.
Folding the letter again, I set it neatly beside my quill and go to the window and look out on the bay where my ship is moored in the night. The moonlight finds its masts and makes it glow against the twilight sky.
A man’s ship and the way it’s kept says more than paper, and the Jolly Roger says that I am a man who deserves respect. Even on an island full of magic and duplicitous bastards.
Even—
Somewhere beyond my study, I hear the ticking of a clock.
It’s pitiful, the way my heart seizes up and my stomach clenches.
It’s pitiful that the sound of a ticking clock makes me see nothing but a beast in my mind’s eye, the way his tongue lapped up my blood.
I leave the room, stalk down the hall, and enter the front parlor. My men are drinking and cavorting. We haven’t been at sea in several months and it’s starting to show. They’re drunk and rowdy and filthy. Several are in the middle of a poker game, chips strewn over the sticky table.
The ticking is so loud in my head, I swear I can hear it in my bones.
I spot a pocket watch amongst the betting pile on the green felt table and stalk toward it. Several men take notice and go quiet, and the ticking grows louder making my eye twitch and my hand ache.
No, not my hand.
My hook.
When I reach the table, the players gaze up at me, blinking. “Hi, Captain,” the man on my left says. “Did you care to join the game? We could—”
I cock my arm back and then slam my hook down on the watch. The glass shatters and the clock face crumbles beneath the force.
My hook has gone straight through the table and it takes me several yanks to spring it free.
The watch stays pierced on the curved tine of my hook.
I look at the men sitting around the table. “Poor form. Poor form!”
“Sorry, Captain. We didn’t—”
“I said no watches or clocks. None. Do you idiots know what none means? Zero. Fucking zero.” I hunch, putting my face in his and he shrinks back. He stinks like cheap ale and stale cigarettes. He’s missing several teeth and the sight of the gaping holes in his mouth makes me want to smash his fucking face into the table.
Do these men not know how to take care of themselves?
“Next time,” I warn and hold up the hook and the smashed watch, “this will be your fucking eyeball. Do you understand?”
“Aye, Captain. Apologies, Captain.”
“Jas.” Smee puts her hand on my arm. “We need to talk.”
My blood is boiling and I can feel the heat of it fanning in my face. Maybe I’ll claim his eyeball now. Teach them all a fucking lesson.
“Jas!”
I whirl on Smee. “WHAT?”
“I need to speak with you. Right now.” She yanks the pocket watch from the end of my hook and shoves me toward the study.
It isn’t until we’re inside, the door shut, that she frowns at me. “Poor form,” she says, echoing my favorite saying.
“I said no fucking watches, Smee!”
She crosses her arms over her chest. Smee was once Samira, but at just five years old, Cherry couldn’t pronounce it and Samira became Smee.
The name stuck and she let us keep it.
She comes over to me now, her long locs sliding heavily over her shoulder. “Why are you in a tiff?”
“I’m not in a fucking tiff.”
The line of her brow sinks over her dark brown eyes. “You’re shouting and cussing. That’s a tiff.”
I sigh and drop into my leather chair behind the desk. “The fae queen wrote to me.”
“And?”
“And something is going on. I can feel it. She’s offering an alliance—”
“Cherry is here.”
I look up at her. “What?”
“It’s why I wanted to talk to you. Clearly not a coincidence now that I know of the letter.”
“What does Cherry want?”
Twice I’ve dared to cross the border to check on my little sister. Twice I’ve regretted it.
“Apparently, she’s at the gate with the Dark One. They’re asking for you.”
“What’s their reason?”
“They wouldn’t give one.”
I feel sick.
I don’t want to see Cherry. I certainly don’t want to see Cherry with the Dark One. I’ve heard the stories. Sometimes I regret handing her over. Sometimes I have to remind myself that she had little use for me and still doesn’t.
She was always enamored with Pan and the Lost Boys. She would have turned on me eventually.
My little sister is adorable and kind until she isn’t.
Which was why, when Peter Pan captured Smee in one of our endless wars, I traded Cherry for Smee’s return.
Smee had always held more value than Cherry.
And in a way, Cherry being a hostage of Pan’s has brokered the intended peace.
I would never endanger my sister’s life so the fighting has stopped.
For the most part, of course. Pan just killed two of my men a few days ago because they crossed the boundary lines.
Poor form, indeed.
“What do you want to do?” Smee asks.
I scratch at my jaw as I think and the stubble rasps.
Something is going on and I want to know what.
“Show them in,” I say.
There are bruises peppering my sister’s skin and the sight of it makes me ill.
What have they done to you?
I want to ask her but I’m not sure she’d answer me. How could she give me anything when I was supposed to protect her?
Besides, she may be bruised, but her eyes are bright as she stands proudly next to the Dark One.
No one ages on Neverland, but somehow Cherry looks older. She got our mother’s thick, dark red hair. We both have her freckles, but Cherry got more than I did and mine have dulled beneath the sun.
I’ve thought of this moment for years. Gone over in my head what I’d say to her when we had the chance to finally speak. But now that she’s in front of me, I have no comforting words to offer her.
I gave her up to the enemy. And while it’s a common practice where we came from, it was never something that sat well with me. Even if I still believe to this day that it was the right decision to make.
“Sit,” I tell them once they’re in my study. “Can I offer you a drink?”
“No,” Vane says as he takes the leather chair that sits in front of my desk. Cherry follows his lead and sits beside him. It makes my skin crawl.
“All right,” I say and sit. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“We seem to have lost one of our Lost Boys,” Vane says. “Pan would like your permission to enter your territory to look for him.”
Lies.
I sit forward and put my elbow to the desk, letting my hook take center stage. Vane pays it no mind. Cherry can’t take her eyes off the pointy tine.
She was just a kid when the Crocodile took my hand. Perhaps she can remember the screaming. The blood.
I swallow hard against the bile rising up my throat.
I detest the sight of my own blood.
“I suppose a Lost Boy is apt to get lost,” I say.
“Indeed,” Vane answers.
I don’t like dealing with the Dark One. I like it even less than dealing with Pan. The sooner I can get him out of my house the better.
His face reminds me of familiar things. Things I’d rather forget.
“Suppose I allow Pan to cross the boundary,” I say. “What do I get in return?”
Vane doesn’t have to consider this question. He and Pan have clearly already thought of this request.
“We’ll give you back your sister.”
Cherry’s head whips his way and her mouth drops open.
She didn’t know?
And why does she look like she wants to scream?
Maybe she hates me for giving her up, but surely, she’d want to come home if given the chance?
I swear I can hear the bite of her teeth.
Vane reacts not at all.
“That’s it?” I ask. “No other conditions?”
“No.”
“What if I don’t want to come back?” Cherry barks.
Vane turns his head her way, slowly and deliberately. “You don’t have a say in the matter.”
“But—”
When the Dark One scowls at her, she snaps her mouth shut.
I don’t blame her. I would too.
“I have some business to attend to,” I say. “I’ll give Peter Pan permission to enter my territory two nights from now. Let’s give the Lost Boy some time to turn up on his own. How does that sound?”
Vane’s smile is tight against his teeth, more sinister than mine, and it makes the hair at the nape of my neck stand upright. “Fine,” Vane says. “In two nights.” He pushes off of the chair and turns for the door, snapping his fingers at Cherry as he leaves.
“And my sister?” I ask.
Cherry barely looks at me.
Vane glances over his shoulder. “Pan will bring her to you in three nights.”
Cherry’s frown deepens. I’m not sure if I can convince her to stay. But I’ll try my damnedest.
“Very well.”
When they’re gone, I pull open the bottom drawer on my desk and fetch my bottle of Caribbean rum. There are two glasses there too and I pull out both, knowing Smee isn’t far off.
She appears a handful of minutes after I’ve poured us each a glass.
“So?” she says and takes the rum in hand.
“I think Peter Pan found his shadow,” I say.
Smee arches a brow.
“And I think it’s here on my side of the island.”
Smee sits in the chair Vane just inhabited. She spreads out her long legs and crosses them at the ankle. “That explains the fae queen’s letter.”
I point a finger at her. “Precisely.”
We drink in silence as I consider my options. When the glass is empty, I start moving.
“Do you have a plan?” Smee asks as she follows me back out to the parlor.
“Yes.” To the men I say, “On your feet.”
Smee comes up beside me. Her dark skin stands out against the creamy white of her button-up shirt. She’s cast off the jacquard vest, has her sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She smells like lavender and tallow soap. Her stomach groans. Smee could eat all day long and always be starving. I’m not sure where she puts it. She’s always been lean and lithe.
“What are you doing?” she whispers to me.
“Gentlemen, I need you to scour my territory. Start at the border and work your way back to the bay.”
“What are we looking for?” one of the burly men asks.
“Excellent question.” I clasp my hands behind my back and pace to the bar. “I’m looking for a shadow.” I turn on my heel and face them. “Peter Pan’s shadow, to be exact.”
I offer the men a twenty pence reward if they find the shadow and once there’s money on the table, they’re all but stumbling over themselves to get out the door.
Smee and I watch them from the leaded glass windows as they race down the road toward the border.
“What are you doing, Jas?” Smee asks.
“If I have Peter Pan’s shadow,” I say, “then I won’t have to worry about the Crocodile. Or the fae queen. Two birds, one stone.”
“And what happens to Cherry if you claim the shadow before she’s been returned?”
I look over at her. “If I have the shadow, there will be nothing Peter Pan can do to stop me.”
