My hand falls to my side. The roaring in my ears drowns out the silence.
The green haze around the skulls disappears when I turn and slip back into the trees.
Chapter Four
THE WHITE RABBIT
I nod at the door, as if that will somehow make a deal between us. Something about the black door with the skull and crossbones emblazoned on it makes me uneasy. I know that Neverland is in trouble, know it means something dangerous is going on in their world, but as I touch my fingers to the black paint, I can feel the wrongness of it. What exactly will we be walking into? And should I lead the others into this danger?
“What’s wrong?” Jupiter steps up beside me, her head tilted in confusion. I don’t blame her. Typically, I simply threaded the key into the lock and turned, opening the door right after. I’m not sure how to explain my unease or put the feeling into words, not in a way it will make sense. “Is it the door?”
“I don’t know.” I turn and meet her green eyes, her brows creased in worry. “It feels. . .off, somehow.”
“This is the door to Neverland, right?” Cheshire asks, his arms crossed over his chest. He wears his usual scowl on his face, as if everything is perpetually annoying to him. Of course, it was on his face less often nowadays with Cal by his side, but she wears a scowl just as often, sometimes.
We’re all dressed in our armor, the metal panels gleaming in the light. None of us know what to expect on the other side of the door, if we’re walking into a war already in action or if it is a different sort of danger we’ve never experienced. We hadn’t been able to get anymore messages through to Wendy, so I’m not even sure if we’re too late to help them. I don’t know if we’ll be able to save them.
“It is,” I answer Cheshire. I’m certain of that fact, because the last time I’d used the door was the last time I’d met Wendy and Hook. I hadn’t had reason to step through again, not when we’d been fighting our own battles. I’d once tried to help Wendy leave, but it hadn’t worked. She’d been unable to step through my door, some magic keeping her tied to the world she resided in. With Alice wreaking havoc on Wonderland, we’d barely had time to breath before the distress call came from Neverland and dropped before us. And now here we are, going to their aide in the hopes of stopping whatever trouble they face.
March stands silently behind Atlas, his ears twitching with the things he hears. I’ve often wondered if his madness is like Hatter’s or if it comes from some other source. The March Hare had refused armor, saying he didn’t need it, so it makes him look strange now, the only one not armed for battle. It doesn’t help that he’s suddenly wearing glasses I’ve never seen before. Cheshire had noticed the same thing earlier, and though they’re clearly worried about what I’m waiting for, the Cat turns to the Hare now and narrows his eyes.
“Since when do you need glasses?” Cheshire grunts.
March shrugs. “I don’t. I just like the way they make the world look wonky.”
Cheshire snorts and shakes his head, returning his haze to me, his curiosity sated for now.
“What are we waiting for?” Atlas frowns and I know he’s just as confused as I am, as the others are.
“Sorry,” I cringe, shaking my head. The wrongness doesn’t go away, but they don’t need to know that. It could be nothing. “Let’s go.”
I push the key into the lock and twist, the mechanisms inside grinding with years of disuse. I probably should have oiled them first, but I didn’t think of that. There have been other things on my mind.
“Ready?” I ask the group behind me and Jupiter beams up at me.
“Ready!” she exclaims, excited as usual. No doubt, her backpack is full of vials and containers for collecting samples. I also know it contains her favorite t-shirts, all the nerdy ones she loves and few of the ones I’ve been bringing back for her. For a second, my chest squeezes. I love Jupiter with every fiber of my being, had hoped we could settle down and enjoy a little bit of life together before we were called on again, but that isn’t in the cards for us. Our roles demand our duty, and though I know Jupiter is okay with it, excited about it even, it still worries me that I’m putting her in danger yet again.
Taking a deep breath, I push the door open with a shove and step through, my ears twitching at the sounds of the forest. Immediately, I know something is wrong. My feeling had been correct and something fundamental has shifted.
The others cluster through the doorway behind me, Jupiter practically bouncing through, her fingers clutching at my hip. They can’t come through all the way, not with me blocking it, but they push me forward a few steps to see.
“Is this it?” Jupiter asks excitedly, but she frowns when she sees my expression.
I turn and look at the open door again, at the telltale skull and crossbones, at the room beyond that takes me to the worlds I need to travel to. This is wrong. It’s completely wrong. Something has happened.
“I thought Neverland would be more tropical,” Cal remarks, her hand on the sword at her hip. She has great instincts, already knows something is different. It’s what makes her such a powerful mate for Cheshire, and what makes Cheshire a powerful mate for her. Two sides of an iron coin, their strength unmatched when bonded together.
“I don’t understand,” I mumble, touching my fingers to the door still hanging open.
Jupiter kneels and plucks a tiny flower. I don’t have time to chastise her for touching anything with her fingers before she shoves it in a tiny vial and hides it away in her backpack. “What is it?” she asks, studying the trees. “This doesn’t feel like a Neverland to me.”
“That’s because it isn’t.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Cheshire growls, his ears swiveling on his head.
March tilts his head and squints his eyes, but he doesn’t offer any wisdom, nothing from the Keeper of Memories.
“This isn’t Neverland,” I say again, louder, so there’s no mistaking it. “That’s the correct door, but this isn’t Neverland. I don’t understand. This has never happened before.”
“How can it be the correct door and the wrong world?” Atlas frowns. “What world is this if it’s not Neverland?”
“It’s not my world,” Jupiter surmises. “None of these plants and trees are anything I recognize.”
“Fucking great,” Cheshire growls. “Let’s go back through the door and figure it out where it’s safer.”
“Wait.” Atlas’ one world stops us all.
His head tilts, listening to something I don’t hear right away, not until it draws closer. How Atlas hears it before me, and clearly before Cheshire, too, I don’t know, but I slowly draw my sword.
“There’s someone coming,” Cal whispers.
“There’s two,” I correct. Someone light-footed is in front, and something far larger is crashing behind the first. It has to be chasing the first, and whatever it is, it’s massive. But the first sound, that comes from someone small and fast, someone who knows how to move through a forest without making much sound.
I drop into a crouch and push Jupiter behind me, halfway through the door. Luckily, it’s large enough that we’re all able to cluster in the doorway, our weapons at the ready. I don’t know what’s about to burst through the trees, and though Jupiter can easily defend herself, I’d rather take the brunt of the blow if it comes to that. Still, my strong-willed mate smacks my hand and pulls her own blade, preparing for whatever we’re about to face.
The creatures grow closer, the first speeding up, putting distance between the two, but as it draws close and a splash of red cloak bursts through the trees in front of us and blinks in surprise in our direction, I nearly stumbled backward.
It’s a woman.
“What the bloody hell are you doing out here?” she growls. Her hair is wild, the edges of the red cloak she wears torn where it must have snagged on the trees. Her eyes focus on the open doorway behind us and she growls with a ferocity I don’t expect from a human woman. “Go back!”
“Is that a Bandersnatch?” Cal asks in confusion, stumbling back against the door, her sword gripped tight in her hand. So far, the creature only has eyes for the woman in the red cloak, but I know it’s a matter of seconds before it realizes we’re here, too.
“It’s a fucking werewolf,” the woman snarls, twisting to avoid claws and teeth. “Get the fuck out of this world before you get yourself killed!”
She seems hardly out of breath as she jabs at the beast with her blade, as she draws small amounts of blood from the cuts she’s able to make.
“Is this Neverland?” I ask because I have to know, and the werewolf whirls at the sound of my voice.
I can feel Cal shove Atlas through the open doorway, Cheshire and her following behind. March is already inside the door, watching the werewolf closely. I push Jupiter in the same direction, but I wait a split second for the red-hooded woman to sweep up to me and brace her hands on my shoulders. I watch with wide eyes as the werewolf roars and storms behind her, but she seems entirely unconcerned with the monster.
“This is the Grim Forest,” she snarls, just before she shoves me backward, through the open doorway and against Cheshire. The Cat’s fingers brace me quickly and I straighten in time to see the door slam shut on the image of the wolf slashing a thin line along the woman’s thigh with a resounding snap.
For a second, none of us say a thing. I’m too shocked to move before I shake my head and frown.
“Care to explain?” Jupiter asks, her brows raised. She’s not condemning me. In fact, she’s only searching for her own answers, trying to figure out how we stepped out into the wrong world through the right door.
“She said it was the Grim Forest,” I murmur before turning toward the hall of doors. I walk up to an old oak door, worn by time. The wood is carved with great sweeping trees, twisting like fingers, crawling along the wood like sentient being. If you focus on them, it feels like they reach out to you. I’ve never had the urge to go through this door. “But this is the door for the Grim Forest.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Cheshire growls.
“You’re right. It doesn’t.” Curious, I slide my key into the door leading to the Grim Forest and unlock it, and when I push it open, the salt air tickles my nose. “But this apparently leads to Neverland now.”
I meet Jupiter’s eyes, both of us sensing something larger happening, but neither of us have an answer, not right away.
“Save Neverland first,” she murmurs. “Then we figure out the doors. Prioritize.”
Logical, and the same answer Clara would have given. “You’re right. The most pressing matter first, then we’ll figure out how two doors got switched.”
I usher us through, before something else strange happens, like the doors switching again. My ears twist with my agitation, but I don’t voice it out loud.
Neverland first, I repeat in my head. Neverland first.
And then we’ll figure out the rest later.
Chapter Five
I step back through the trees and bypass the line of fencing that surrounds the Coven by entering through one of the side entrances. It protects them from a lot of the dangers of Neverland, and though it doesn’t keep out the Lost entirely, it’s meant mostly to slow them down so the Coven has time to mobilize during an attack. The lookouts don’t stop me as I made my way through the opening. I’m easily recognizable, but even if they couldn’t see me, they’d feel my aura.
The Coven is a bustle of activity, a mixture of Wendy’s men, my Tribe, and the Coven moving around to accommodate each other. The Tribe doesn’t need housing—we brought our shelters with us—but I know some of Wendy’s men prefer to have some sort of roof over their heads. A few have already strung up their hammocks on approved trees, ones Tink’s people have checked for damage, so some of them will be in the open air, too. It’s good to have such a variety, in case we’re attacked here. If the Croc grows brave enough and focuses his effort on our joined people, we will have plenty of men stationed in various places to give ourselves a fighting chance. We’re stronger together than split into three.
“Where’s Peter?” Wendy asks, coming to stand beside me as I survey the movements inside the Coven. Tink is on the other side of the street, discussing options with her people. Even though it had been somewhat short of notice, Tink seems prepared to take us all inside her haven, and that tells me more than she ever will. The Pixie Queen had suspected my suggestion, had deemed it of merit, and argued it for old time’s sake, apparently. She’d always intended to offer the Coven for us all, even if she hadn’t seemed to like it.
Wendy searches along the trees behind me, just in case Peter is hiding there, but when she doesn’t see him, she returns her soft blue eyes to me.
“He’s not coming,” I sigh, taking my headdress off for a moment so I can run my fingers over my hair.
Wendy’s face morphs with her emotions, something I’ve always marveled over. As the most human of the Daughters, Wendy is still powerful, but her humanity bleeds through often, especially when she’s around us. She knows we can sense most emotions anyways, knows we can sense a lie, but the fact she shows me her emotions now tells me where her loyalties lay. It isn’t until anger crosses her face that I speak up.
“He’s struggling, Sea Captain. Either he’ll come out of it stronger or he’ll perish beneath it. Either way, there’s nothing we can do if he refuses help.”
“We’re all struggling,” Wendy growls, crossing her arms. “I struggled after he brought me here and I lost my brothers, when he kept me prisoner for weeks. And I overcame that.”
“We are not all made of the same flesh, Wendy,” I chide and shake my head. “We all handle our darkness differently. You overcame all of that because you were determined to, because your humanity demanded you do so, but at your core, you’re a good person. Peter, he’s done things most of us would cringe at, and he’s never had to face them before now.”
Wendy frowns, soaking in my words, and I can tell she doesn’t like them. “So because he suddenly grew a conscious, he can’t bear to show his face.”
“I don’t think it’s that,” I admit. The image of the wounds opening by themselves across his skin flash through my mind, and I nearly grimace with it. “I think it has to do with what’s happening in Neverland. Peter is bonded to the world far closer than we are. But, if Peter’s darkness takes him too deep and he won’t take my hand, then I’m not sure what else we can do for him. He has to want our help.”
Wendy sighs. “If anyone can help him, it’s you.”
I freeze, her words echoing inside my mind. “Why do you say that?” I ask, meeting her eyes.
Wendy raises her brow, but she doesn’t answer, letting her opinion linger there. The Sea Captain has apparently seen more than she’s revealed, and I should’ve expected it. Just because Wendy is human doesn’t mean she isn’t perceptive. If anything, she’s the most perceptive of us all, because she doesn’t rely on her powers. But Tink, Tink is concerned with other things than any relationship I might or might not have had with Peter Pan.
“I directed the Tribe to take up the space on the other side of the courtyard,” Tink says, launching into her role with ease. She’s a Queen, knows exactly how to dictate tasks. She’s just as regal as ever, the green dress she wears pooling around her feet like gauze. If you don’t look into her eyes, you’d almost think she’s beautiful, but the Pixie Queen carries her own demons, the same as we all do. She’s nearly too brutal to be called beautiful.
“I thank you for your hospitality,” I murmur because manners are important in the Coven.
“Lily!” Aniya shrieks as she runs through the busy street, her face stretched in glee, interrupting our conversation. I’m pleasantly surprised to see the little ordinary bird fluttering along behind her, all in one piece. It seems the creat
ure had taken my advice after all. When Aniya draws near and sees Tink standing beside me, she slows, her eyes wide on the Pixie Queen. I don’t know what I was expecting from Tink, but it certainly isn’t what she does next.
The pixie couches down, her wings wide behind her to keep balance, and she smiles at Aniya brightly. “Hello, little enchantress,” Tink coos, and I nearly fall over in shock. I’ve never heard the wicked queen coo in all my time of living. Wendy seems just as surprised, her eyes wide at the sight before us.
“Pretty,” Aniya shrieks, pointing to Tink’s wings, and the answering smile from the Queen makes my jaw go slack. What in the ever loving—
“Would you like to touch?” Tink asks, turning to offer her wing, and that does it.
I sit down directly on the ground, my shock nearly crippling me. I’d been worried how the Pixie would react to Aniya, had thought the Queen would look down on a child in her Coven, but instead, Tink lets Aniya gently touch her wings, and when Aniya screeches in happiness, she sprinkles a little pixie dust to give Aniya her own invisible wings.
Wendy sits next to me as I watch Aniya lift into the air, Tink holding her hand to keep her low so she doesn’t hurt herself, and we both watch in silence for a few minutes, completely flabbergasted.
“That’s a sight I never thought I’d see,” Wendy murmurs and I nod.
It appears the Wicked Queen has a heart after all, and not just the one beating inside Neverland. A weakness that she chose to show us, and I will remember the kindness.
I’ll remember watching the Wicked Queen kneel for a child and offer her wings.
Chapter Six
The fire blazes in the center of the Coven, the flames licking nearly as high as a funeral pyre. With so many people to feed, we decided it would be best if we all dine together, that eating become a communal event. It’s already like that in the Tribe, and I suspect on Hook and Wendy’s ship, they all dine at the same time as well, but the Coven eats whenever they please. It’s inefficient in my eyes, but we each have our own traditions. For the Coven, it’s a matter of pride that they can prepare food for themselves, and if they choose to share their meal with another, it’s a great honor. The fact that pixies and Fae are helping to prepare food with everyone else isn’t lost on me. They’re showing honor the easiest way they knew how, even if we are all from such different communities.
Fierce as a Tiger Lily (Daughters of Neverland Book 2) Page 3