“To look at a tree,” Peter replied, not bothering to turn around.
“It’s a cool tree,” Barbie said, without a hint of irony.
I sighed in relief. The truth was I’d come all the way to Fae, and so far, I didn’t have much to show for it aside from a fuck ton of injuries and the faintest memories of bloodlust. Even my brief stint as a superhero—while thrilling—had required a free fall that should have killed me. Frankly, a little sightseeing—even if it was simply to see a tree—sounded damn good. Hell, compared to taking on an army of Fae braves led by Tiger Lily to avoid being detained by Captain James Hook, it seemed downright relaxing. “Lead on,” I said, gratefully.
Peter chuckled. “Don’t worry, we’re nearly there. The tree is on the other side of the wall there,” he said, pointing. “You can see the topmost branches of it from here.”
I glanced up and realized he was right. Reaching out beyond the top of the fort’s rear wall, the branches of a leafless tree loomed, smothered in ropes that dangled and swayed in the breeze. I stopped walking for a moment, marveling at the world above for the first time; high over our heads, the largest rainbow I’d ever seen lay draped across the sky. Each shift in color consisted of a band so thick I had to physically move my head to look at it, craning my neck to get from red to violet and back again.
It was breathtaking.
And then a section of it shattered in a crystalline explosion, and I jolted in horror, shock, and disbelief. I rubbed at my eyes, wondering if I was hallucinating. An entire section of the rainbow was gone.
In the gap of revealed sky, a wild, black horse—with wings seemingly made of pure shadowy smoke—galloped through the air. Its mane and tail consisted of long black and red peacock feathers, and a barbed, gnarled horn sprouted from its forehead. The sun glinted off silver hooves, and as it turned for another pass, fiery holes flashed where its eyes should have been. Then it took off for another brutal, physics-defying charge.
This time, shards fell from the sky as another crystalline explosion rang out when it struck, pieces like giant stained-glass window shards raining down and burying themselves in the distance, probably somewhere out to sea.
The creature neighed as it made one final pass, destroying the entire rainbow with the force of its assault. What little remained of the rainbow collapsed inwards on itself like a broken bridge, leaving nothing behind but a clear blue sky.
I realized I had been holding my breath when Peter let out a sigh from beside me. “That’s the third time this month,” he murmured.
“What the hell is that t’ing?” I asked with a shudder.
“Grimm,” Barbie said, sounding highly amused. “Nate’s horse. Hunts rainbows.”
Seriously? How come everyone but me got a dope-ass ride?
I turned to eye the sprite. “Literally nothin’ out of your mouth just now made any fuckin’ sense, I hope ye know that.”
Barbie giggled. “You two would probably get along. He has a potty mouth, too.”
Peter tapped my shoulder. “Let’s go, before it gets dark.”
I glanced up at the sky, my hands clammy. I’d been so busy I’d lost track of time. What fresh horrors were out there, I wondered, lurking, waiting for the sun to go down so they could gobble us up? I glanced back down, realized they’d gone ahead without me, and rushed to catch up to Peter Pan and his stark-naked sprite companion—the three of us headed towards an improbably large tree covered in nooses, ignoring the exultant whinnies of Satan’s Steed.
Basically, there was nothing else to see here, folks.
Nothing at all.
Chapter 18
It wasn’t until we stood directly in front of the ridiculously tall wall that I realized there was no gate on this side of the fort. In fact, looking around, I realized there were no gates at all—no exit signs either. In essence, a fire marshal would take one look at this place and have a fucking stroke.
“And how d’ye lot come and go?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow as I indicated the lack of egress.
Peter rested a hand against the nearest log, running his palm over the rough, sun-bleached wood. “At first, I wasn’t sure about creating a true settlement. Walls were something adults put up, after all. But eventually I understood the necessity. Once we began to age, you see, it became harder to differentiate who was one of us and who wasn’t. Hook began sending his youngest in as spies, claiming to be Lost Boys who’d run away from home. The game got complicated after that, the lines blurred. Over time, a few of the Lost ran off to become pirates, and a few of his pirates stayed behind to become Lost.” Peter smiled. “That was the beginning of the end, really.”
Barbie danced through the air to land on my shoulder. “You ready, Quinn?” she asked.
“Ready for what?” I replied, idly wondering when Barbie had caught my name. When Alucard and I had been talking, perhaps? Or had she been spying on me longer than that? I shook the thought away. So far, she and Peter had done nothing but help me; the least I could do was give them the benefit of the doubt.
For now.
“For this,” the sprite said, giggling. A silver aura enveloped me, and I levitated off the ground, the aches and pains of my wounds receding now that gravity was no longer tugging on them. I felt weightless, like I was floating beneath the waves. Unfortunately, the change in my atomic makeup didn’t come with the sense of euphoria I’d felt earlier—it came with panic. I wobbled and spun slowly in the air, unable to control my body or my trajectory; I drifted like a damned bubble in the wind, with about as much say in the matter.
Eventually, I felt Peter’s arm link in mine, and I desperately latched onto him like a drowning woman clutching a life preserver. He chuckled. “The walls aren’t really walls, you see,” Peter continued. “They’re more like hurdles. Even the smallest of the Lost People can fly over them without trouble. Many of our children fly before they can crawl.” He righted us and began towing me upwards.
Barbie was still giggling.
Punk ass sprite.
“So they’re like a test, then?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the eerie sensation of floating through the air.
“More or less,” Peter replied. “As I said, some of our boys switched sides. The walls weren’t perfect. But you can’t fly unless you’ve embraced your wild side, fully, which kept out most. Men like Hook—too old, too set in his ways. Unwilling or unable to change.”
That made sense; I certainly couldn’t see a man as rigid and intense as Hook soaring through the air with a smile on his face. Of course, for a man who rejected change—as Peter suggested—Hook had recently signed up for a relatively extreme one. “I can see that,” I replied, “although I t’ink that may no longer be the case.” I followed that up with a deep, calming breath, trying my best not to pinch my eyes shut until the ride was over. Where had the joy gone, I wondered? Before, I’d felt like a fucking eagle, strafing through the skies like a jet fighter—now I felt like a baby bird who’d fallen out of the nest.
“What do you mean?” Peter asked as we passed over the wall. He shifted, and the ground came up to meet us, slowly. Below, a flat, level path lined with multi-colored stones waited, leading all the way to the tree.
“I mean Hook’s leavin’ Neverland,” I replied, relieved to find the ground so close.
Peter froze, halting our flight completely. My feet dangled only about ten feet from the trail below—so close, and yet so far. I swung around, prepared to give Peter a tongue lashing, but quickly realized there would be no point.
Because it wasn’t Peter’s face I saw.
Instead, he sported the face of a mischievous child, like a mask poking out from beneath the face of the man I’d so recently met, his once-tired, immortal eyes twinkling, his bow-shaped mouth cocked in a defiant smirk. Then, with an abruptness that made me feel like I’d dreamt the whole thing, the mask was gone. Peter met my gaze, and we continued towards the ground. “I had no idea he planned to leave,” Peter admitted, as if nothing
had happened.
“He’s gotten old, Peter,” Barbie said, trying to comfort the man. “He’s lost friends. Not to a battle with the Lost Boys or Tiger Lily, but to old age. Your truce saved many lives, but you took from him what he valued most.”
Peter grunted. “His war.” He was silent for a moment, thinking. “Yes, I see your point.”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry. He found another war,” I said, hoping to improve Peter’s mood. Barbie’s silver glow winked out at that precise instant, and I nearly fell as my body acclimated to its own weight. Was I really that damned heavy? I needed to do more cardio, I decided. Luckily, Peter kept his arm linked in mine until I was able to stand on my own.
Not his first rodeo, I gathered.
“Who’s he fighting now?” Peter asked, stepping away. “Have the Queens begun another war?”
I shook my head, but Barbie responded before I could. “They’re working together, with King Oberon,” she said, a hint of anger leaking out at the mention of Oberon’s name.
Peter frowned, his brow furrowed, and beckoned us to follow. “Why would they do that?”
“To fight a common enemy. The Fomorians, led by Balor One-Eye,” she replied.
“Never heard of them,” Peter remarked, back turned as we neared our destination. The tree, which had seemed impossibly large before, was even doubly so now that we were outside the fort and walking towards it; the base of the trunk stretched so wide that I had to turn my head to see from one side to the other to take the whole thing in. The limbs—swaddled in ropes of various sizes—ascended like bridges, stretching out into the distance until I could barely make out where they ended.
“An old enemy,” Barbie replied. “Before your time. Before most.”
I frowned, wondering just how much the sprite knew. It’d taken me a hell of a lot of research, not to mention an audience with the Winter Queen and a posthumous exchange with Jack Frost, to gather as much as she’d told Peter. What other answers might she have, if pressed?
“Worth fighting?” Peter asked, interrupting my thoughts, the pitch of his voice slightly higher, his back still turned to us. But I was willing to bet his mask was showing. Or, perhaps, not his mask at all—but the true face of Peter Pan.
“The Lost People would die,” Barbie replied, matter-of-factly.
Peter tensed, but he kept walking. “I wouldn’t discount us so easily, Barbie.”
I was beginning to see that Peter was like a military commander. Always moving, always planning, always scheming, always… leading.
“If the Fomorians find a way into the Fae realm, we may all die,” she replied, though she sounded not the least bit concerned. “The Fae were at the height of their power when they last faced the Sea People—and they fought in the human realm, where the Fomorians power was weakest. But even then, if it weren’t for our generals, we would never have defeated them.”
“Your generals?” I asked, intrigued. This was information I hadn’t been able to obtain. Sure, there were plenty of legends out there about the Fomorians defeat, but they were vague—more mythical than factual—not to mention contradictory.
“You humans would probably call them gods,” Barbie said. “You mortals have a bad habit of doing that—giving unnecessary titles to things you don’t understand. But we knew them as our Lords and Ladies. Long before the Queens fought for dominion over the land, or King Oberon and his Wild Hunt terrorized the world, they ruled over us. Some are out there, still. Others sleep. When the Old Gods walked away for the sake of the ravished human realm, our Lords and Ladies did the same, out of respect.”
I continued to crutch along as I processed everything Barbie had said, thrusting my bat into the dirt at a brisk pace to keep up with Peter—who was pensively silent as he moved effortlessly across the well-worn trail.
I’d heard several Fae mention the Old Gods before, specifically in reference to their mass exodus, but this was the first I’d heard of Barbie’s Fae Lords and Ladies. In hindsight, though, her version of events made sense. The Irish had gods of their own, after all;
Dez had mentioned them more than once, telling me fantastic, unbelievable stories of the Tuatha de Danaan—the premier protagonists of Celtic mythology, sometimes called gods and goddesses…sometimes not.
Jack Frost, in his final moments, had named several.
“Lugh Silver-Hand,” I said, mostly to myself, recalling the names I’d mistaken for the demented ramblings of a serial killer. “Clíodhna. Manannan mac Lir.”
Barbie was nodding along, bobbing her head so forcefully it felt like a ball was bouncing on my shoulder. “Very good!” she replied, reaching out to lovingly brush my ear, causing me to shiver. “Of course, you can’t forget the one who drove them into the sea,” Barbie said, ignoring my protest, “she and her sisters were perhaps the greatest—”
“Father!” a little girl cried, high above our heads. I glanced up in time to see a girl of maybe six or seven dive-bomb off a tree limb, free-falling with a gleeful squeal. I reached out to catch her by instinct, although I had no idea what I hoped to achieve; she was falling far too fast and from too high for me to save her. But then, at the last possible instant, she snatched a nearby rope, used it to swing to another rope, and then another, until at last she landed. She had a bandana tied around her head like a pirate, one eye comically covered by an eye patch, a wooden sword slung in a band about her waist. She was up and on her feet before I could so much as blink, sprinting towards us with her arms outstretched.
Peter dropped to one knee and held his arms out wide, grinning. “Playing pirate again, Wendy?”
The girl giggled as she threw herself into Peter’s arms, latching onto him like a damn koala bear, her face buried in his neck. He chuckled and rose with his very own human accessory, turning to me. “Quinn, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Wendy.”
Wendy. As in the Wendy? I frowned. Surely it couldn’t be the girl from the story? The one who’d helped Peter recover his shadow? That had been decades ago, and this little girl was Peter’s daughter, not his wife. I shook my head, realizing I was being a jerk; Peter had one eyebrow raised, waiting for me to say hello.
“Aye, it’s a pleasure to meet ye, Wendy,” I said, as sweetly as I could manage.
Wendy poked her head around to look at me, a scowl on her face. But then her eyes widened in wonder. “Daddy, she has red hair,” she whispered.
For some reason, that made Peter laugh. He pried her free and set her back down on the ground. “Sorry about that,” he said to me. “Wendy here isn’t very good with her manners, yet. Plus, she’s got a reason to find your hair color fascinating.” As if to prove it, he snatched the bandana off Wendy’s head; hot orange locks spilled out onto her shoulders in massive curls.
Wendy glared up at her father. “Give that back, Daddy! It’s mine. I won it from James, fair and square.”
Peter held it out for her to take, then snatched it back as soon as she reached for it. It quickly became a game—her trying to snag the bit of cloth, while Peter danced out of reach or pulled it away. His grin spread as his daughter fought harder and harder to retrieve her bandana. Finally, after nearly a solid minute of his teasing, Wendy huffed, settled one bare foot into the ground, and lunged…only this time she didn’t come back down. She soared upwards, the bandana in hand, whooping for joy as she flew circles around us.
“Pretty sure that’s how she stole it from James, too,” Peter remarked, wryly.
“James?” I asked, watching as Wendy floated on her back, retying the bandana across her forehead, letting gravity take care of her hair. I had to admit, I was jealous; she made flying look not only easy, but fun. I sighed inwardly, thinking how easy it would be to put my hair back in a ponytail if I could fly upside down.
“My son,” Peter replied, interrupting my Faedream, his expression darkening somewhat. He glanced up at the sky, which had already begun to dim. “Right. We should hurry. Even with Barbie’s light, it would be hard to show you what’s
inside the tree once it gets dark.”
“Inside the tree?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Can I come, Daddy?” Wendy asked, the fierce resentment of a moment before already long forgotten.
“No, I want you to head back to the fort, Wendy. You know you aren’t supposed to be out here on your own.”
Wendy rolled her eyes. “But no one’s come out to play with me in forever,” she whined.
Peter sighed. “Go find your mother and let her know we’ll have a guest for dinner,” he said, choosing to ignore her complaint.
Wendy brightened. “You’re coming to dinner?” she asked, rotating to stare at me, her body parallel with the ground.
The gurgle of my empty stomach answered for me, but I decided to clarify just in case. “Aye, that sounds like somethin’ I could use.”
The little girl whooped once more and shot off, making a beeline for the fort. Peter, meanwhile, was busy shaking his head. “She has so much energy,” he said. “But, unfortunately, no one her age to play with.”
I frowned. “I thought ye had a whole settlement full of people back there?”
Peter nodded. “We do, but it’s only us, now—the original settlers. There are no new Lost Boys or Lost Girls. They stopped coming around the same time we started aging. But come on, it’ll all make more sense once you’ve seen it.”
I frowned, not sure I liked the sound of that. Or the tone. But I opted to follow, if only to find the answers to the half-dozen questions I now had, like what had Peter meant when he said Nate’s parents brought time to Neverland, and why was I only now hearing of it? And what was this second name nonsense? Wasn’t Master Temple and King of St. Louis pretentious enough?
And what had the Temples been doing here in the first place? And—most importantly—where was I supposed to go from here? Obviously, Barbie had saved my life; all I had to do was look at the wounds I’d sustained to know that. And, based on her knowledge of the Fomorians, it was possible she could point me in the right direction. But I’d left Alucard, my guide, behind. Which meant, even if I knew which way to go to find answers, I had no idea how to get there…not to mention the fact that I had exactly zero leads on how I was ever going to get home. I sighed, deciding there was no use fretting about it now. I would worry more after we’d had dinner.
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