“I am the last person to cast judgment on good matches and poor matches,” Giselle said, and Magda could tell she was choosing her words carefully. “However, I think certain matches are better than others, simply based on my observations. I’m not an expert. From the outside, my relationship with Calum is probably unconventional at best.”
“You and Calum are…?” Magda pushed her brows up, surprised. “He’s the tall one?”
“The physician,” Giselle said with a smile. “The one with the amazing blue eyes.”
“Ah,” Magda said, nodding her head. She knew exactly which male Giselle was referring to. He did have amazing eyes, Magda agreed.
“He’s gruff, I’m warm,” Giselle continued. “We’re polar opposites on many issues. But he makes me a better person. He says the wrong things and he doesn’t know how to say the things he wants to say without being offensive. But somehow, it works for me. I’m too nice for him, perhaps naïve. But it works for him. I push him to be a better version of himself. We work together, very well. Same for Adele and Joel.”
“Adele and Joel are together as well?” Magda asked, surprised. “No wonder Nick fancies himself in love with Remy.”
Giselle giggled, leaning her back against the door. Her right arm crossed her torso so her hand could cup her left arm. Her blue eyes looked out the small window, out to the water.
“You’re not as perceptive as I thought you were,” Giselle commented, her tone innocent.
However, despite Giselle’s pure intentions, Magda still could not help but take offense to that. “What makes you say that?” she asked. She hadn’t meant to sound aggressive, but her voice always turned rough when she was trying to control herself.
“I did not mean to upset you, Magdalena,” Giselle said, and her cheeks turned red. “What I meant is, you seem to only focus on what you think is important and ignore everything else. Clearly, Nick is important to you for some reason. I always see you stare at him – not because you find him attractive (although I do think you find him attractive) but because you’re taking him in. You’re memorizing his details in case something turns out to be useful. But your hyper-focus narrows in on one target and ignores everything else. You didn’t even know our names before this conversation, Magdalena. Don’t you think that’s a bit daft?”
“I suppose so,” Magdalena agreed. She sighed through her nose. Her gaze flickered out the window. “Do you believe in the magic?”
Giselle tilted her head to the side, and her hands – either consciously or unconsciously, Magda could not tell – began to braid her hair. Magda narrowed her eyes at the action, and something niggled her insides. She wished to learn how to braid her hair. She had never been taught by her guardians, and after she met up with James, never saw the point in learning when she could simply toss her hair into a bun or a ponytail. Now, however, she wished she knew how. It would give her hands something to do during times like these when pacing was too exhausting to think about.
“What do you mean?” Giselle asked. “Do I believe that the potion will do as Elizabeth says it will? I do not know. I’ve never encountered magic of this kind before. I, myself, did not even know fairies were real. However, I believe that there is a possibility of everything. My feeling, though, is that the user must believe it for it to be real. And if they believe it, then the chances of it working are much more than it would be if they did not believe it.” Giselle wrinkled her brow. “Am I making sense?”
“You are,” Magda said with a smile.
“Do you believe in the magic?” she asked. She stopped braiding her hair, and instead, chose to regard Magda with a curious look on her face.
“If I know it’s true, does that mean I still believe it?” Magda asked. She shook her head. “Your captain is the most frustrating man in this realm. Do you know that?”
“Of course, I do!” Giselle exclaimed with a laugh. “I’ve been with him for years. I knew him when all he wanted to do was look for treasure and whores and drink lots of rum in the sand under the sun. Basically everything but his duty. He has gotten better, and after Remy…” She let her voice trail off and shook her head. “He’s more focused than I’ve ever seen him. He’s determined to get her back.”
“Do you think he will?” Magda asked.
“I have no doubt. Nicholas Grey is the most stubborn man you will ever meet in your entire life, mark my words. If he wants Remy found, he will find her no matter what it takes. My only hope for him is that he doesn’t put all of his heart into this adventure.”
“You think she will break it,” Magda stated, and for some reason, Giselle’s words caused her heartbeat to quicken.
“Not intentionally,” Giselle made sure to say. “But I do not think she is placing much of her heart into anything down here when she’s still tied to her home and family on earth. I have Calum, Adele has Edward. Nick has no one. Not here, and not there. And I worry he’ll be blind to everything else but getting Remy back.” She paused. “He is much more attracted to the idea of her than who she actually is. To him, she represents completeness.”
“That’s absurd,” Magda said.
“Is it?” Giselle pushed her brow up. “Everyone wants someone, Magda. May I call you Magda? Nobody wants to be alone. There is a difference between independence and partnership. Do you really think you’ll be alone for the rest of your life? For the rest of forever?”
“But you cannot expect to be with someone for the rest of forever, either,” Magda said. “Monogamy is impossible.”
“That is something we’ll have to disagree on, Magda,” Giselle said. “I love Calum with the entirety of my soul. Sometimes, we get into the worst arguments. Sometimes, I feel this burning hatred for him. Sometimes, he makes me cry and hurts me and I think I can’t take anymore. He brings out the absolute worst in me, in a way no one else has done before. But then we take time to ourselves, we calm down, we breathe. And then he brings out the best in me. He pushes me, he makes me strong, and he’s the only person I want to be with in the entire realm. I love him. That’s what love is.” She caught herself, passion engulfing her grey eyes. “That is love. And I care for Nick. I care for Remy. But that is not what’s between them.”
“Yes, but you and Calum have had time,” Magda pointed out. “You share a history. Remy and Nick just met.”
“They’ve had a couple of months together,” Giselle corrected gently. “Relationships may not begin in the first couple of months of knowing someone, but if something is going to happen, it’s clear. It’s in the way they look at each other, the way the speak to each other, the way they touch each other.”
Magda let Giselle’s words sink in. She rubbed her lips together. Love was a whole new concept for her, but it was something she wanted to understand, piece by piece. Perhaps she did not have the experience it, but maybe she could observe and learn.
“I care about Nick,” Giselle continued, her voice low. “I want to protect him more than anything. I know, without a doubt, he’s making the wrong choice. But I have to support him. He’s my captain. Sometimes, you have to let people make poor decisions themselves.”
“But” –
“I know. But they don’t need to hear why they are wrong and what choice they need to make in order to be right. What they need is our support. And when that decision comes back to haunt them, they need us to be there for them, without judgment. Because that is what partners do for each other. Whether we want to or not. Do you understand? I think you do, if you are going to be apart of this crew. Nick has made poor judgment after poor judgment. But I know, without a doubt, he will eventually learn to make the right one.”
“How are you so certain?” Magda asked.
“Because of you.” Her grey eyes were piercing and serious. “Because of how you treat him, and how he treats you in return. He may claim to have never felt the way he feels about Remy before, but he’s never treated anyone the way he treats you.”
Chapter 13
The Magistrate
did not like how things turned out with James Hook. If she was being completely honest, she might say she was worried. It was clear he knew of the girl and, perhaps, he had her in his possession already. If she was to get a better grip on her position as Magistrate over The Neverland, it was essential that she get the girl. Whoever had the girl had the souls, and even though her role commanded respect, it did not mean that respect was guaranteed.
The problem was, she could not do this alone. She needed reinforcements, and she needed to find an ally she could trust quickly. The only problem was, she did not think she could trust anybody. Everyone wanted something, and if she shared just what it was she was after, there was no guarantee that person might highjack her plan and make it theirs.
Currently, she was in a luxurious room in one of the many hotels the Bay of The Other World had to offer. It was on the highest floor – the seventh – and her room overlooked the ocean, giving her a beautiful view of the nearby dock and the horizon. Hook’s castle was just down the road, but it was so heavily guarded that she could not break in herself with some sort of repercussion. That much was revealed to her when her man came back with only one leg. Poetic, if James implemented the punishment.
No matter. She needed to test his security, see what she could hope to get away with and what she most certainly could not.
“Mum,” the man had told her through the pain. “The girl. She’s… She’s there. Just as you said she’d be.”
This caused The Magistrate to pause. Becky, the nurse she assigned to him in order to cauterize the wound so he would not bleed out – put alcohol on his wound, causing him to hiss in pain.
“I do not understand,” The Magistrate said slowly, allowing her mind to connect the pieces together at their own speed. Time was under her control, not the other way around. “How were you able to slip past his guards? Certainly the castle is heavily protected.”
“It was, Magistrate,” he agreed, his voice weak. The man could not even keep his eyes open, but he continued to talk to her, even through the pain. That was the type of respect she needed from every occupant in the realm, not just those under her influence. “But I, I had assistance.” The last word was hissed out as Becky continued to work on him. There was a large metal rod next to her, with an end sticking straight in the air the color bright red.
“Assistance?” This was news to The Magistrate. He had had help? “By whom?”
“A boy.” The man shook his head, as though he, himself, did not quite believe what he had seen. “Couldn’t be no more than fifteen. Sixteen on a good day. He was dock master, and he saw me. Picked me right out from my vantage point in one of Hook’s trees. You know he has tons of trees around that castle of his.”
The Magistrate furrowed her brow so one wrinkle littered her forehead. “I am starting to lose my patience,” she said, an edge to her voice though it was calm. “Who assisted you, and why?”
The man shrugged. How he was able to do that with the amount of pain he surely must be feeling was incomprehensible. Not that The Magistrate particularly cared, but it was an interesting tic she would make note of. This man could handle pain well; he would be useful on the frontlines should a war ever break out.
When the war breaks out, she amended, because it will.
“I did not catch a name, mum,” he told her, and her ears detected honesty in his tone. “But he was a child, mum. And he helped me. He had copper colored hair, mum. Wasn’t familiar with Hook’s castle, but helped me get past it just the same.”
The Magistrate’s dark eyes narrowed. “Copper hair?” she asked. “A boy, you say?”
The man nodded. Becky took hold of a metal rod. She murmured something that sounded like, “Prepare yourself. This is going to hurt” before taking the end of the rod and placing it on his stump. His blood-curdling scream was tragic, to say the least, but The Magistrate paid it no mind. Her focus was on this rescuer. She had a feeling she knew exactly who he was.
--
Christoph Alvarez was not a big fan of The Magistrate’s. He did not agree with her rule over The Neverland, nor did he agree with how she handled things. She made poor decisions based on her emotions rather than decisions based on thought and logic. However, when she recruited him to be one of her soldiers – men who would fight for her and The Neverland should a war ever break out – he found himself agreeing. Alvarez was born a soldier. He loved to fight in every way imaginable – physical combat, with guns and swords, with bows and arrows. He grew up in Spain before moving to Port Royal, looking for jobs that he was both skilled at and paid a decent salary. Besides an older brother, he did not have family though women have claimed he fathered their children. It turned out to be a lie each time, however; women wanted monogamy, some sort of commitment and stability from him. They wanted to tame the wild beast. He never gave in, was not ready to sacrifice his freedom just yet.
In fact, he died fighting, during a pirate attack on the ship he was working on with a slit throat. But not before killing at least seven blood-thirsty pirates, something he was proud of to this day. Alvarez was not yet ready to transition to his final resting place and continued to look for odd jobs that paid well without requiring a long-term commitment.
He still did not know why The Magistrate’s offer tempted him so. Perhaps it was because he got to continue fighting, even in death. Perhaps it was because the risk was so much greater – die here, and his soul would be lost forever. Whatever the reason, he jumped at the chance. Now he had a steady income and a career he could count on. He worked his way up through the ranks before becoming captain of one of The Magistrate’s fleet. He wasn’t particularly fond of sailing – preferred steady ground to the water – but he learned to love it, given the nature of transportation here.
“Alvarez.”
The Magistrate’s voice caused his insides to jump, but he kept a cool, passive look about him as she stepped around him so they were face to face. The Magistrate had a knack for sneaking up on people, but Alvarez trained himself early on to not let it show. Perhaps that was one of the reasons she was so fond of him; he did not scare easily.
Her lips curled up into a coy smile when her eyes took sight of him. Alvarez felt his breath slip away from him even though he had seen her countless times. He would not say she was beautiful, but the woman was striking. He always did a double-take with her, and he could not help it.
“My, my, you look handsome in your uniform,” she stated. She always tried to rile him up, always tried to throw him off his game. There were times it worked, but most of the time it didn’t. This time, he was proud to say, did not work. “The red and blacks suit you.”
“As you say,” he said.
Her smile widened. “And I adore your Spanish accent,” she continued.
“I do not have an accent,” he said, keeping his eyes focused straight ahead. “How may I assist you, Magistrate?”
“Alvarez, you know you can call me, My Lady,” The Magistrate admonished. She waved her hand dismissively, making it look more graceful than such a simple action should look. “You are no fun. Let’s get to the point then.” She stood in front of him, her shoulders back, her neck long, her chin tilted up. Striking. “I need you to do something for me. However, it requires your discretion. You are the only one whom I can trust to execute this task. It is extremely important, but also extremely dangerous.”
“What is it?” he asked, and then added, “My lady.”
Her lips twitched when she heard it, but said nothing else. Instead, she focused on the task at hand. “I need you to extract a soul from The Other World,” she told him.
“Is that even possible?” Alvarez asked. If a soul was condemned, that soul belonged to whatever realm had possession of it. Another ruler could not simply walk in and snatch that soul for herself.
The Magistrate tsked him. “Of course it is possible,” she chided. She placed her hand on his chest. “You should know better, Alvarez. Anything is possible here. You simply must believe it is.”<
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“Excuse me, Magistrate,” he said. Without thinking, he corrected himself. “My lady.”
“There’s a good boy,” she said, her lips curling into a smirk. “Listen to me, and I shall reward you will pleasure you cannot even imagine. You want gold, it is yours? You want power, it’s granted. You want pleasure of the flesh, just ask. I’m much like a genie, and I’m here to grant you wishes, after you deliver me Peter Pan.”
“Peter Pan?” Alvarez furrowed his brow. He had never heard of this man. Why was he so important to The Magistrate that she would send him to rescue him? Were they lovers? Business partners? If he had been condemned to The Other World, there was a chance this man was not a good man. Was it likely that he would even go with The Magistrate without putting up some kind of fight?
“He is very important to me and my plans,” The Magistrate told him though he knew she did not have to. The Magistrate did everything to serve her purpose, so he did not believe she did it out of the kindness of her heart, or that she suddenly started trusting him. She did it to further her agenda in some way. What way that was, Alvarez could not guess. Not yet. “I need him.”
Love in Neverland: Book 2 in The Neverland Trilogy Page 10