by Lisa Maxwell
My stomach goes tight, and ice slides down my spine. “If there wasn’t any Captain,” I ask slowly, carefully, “who attacked you?”
He straightens his spine, tightening his grip on his club. “No one attacked me. Not this time,” he says defensively. “I should’ve maybe gone with Liam, but I had a chance to be on the hunting squad for once. Couldn’t pass up a chance like that, now could I?”
“I don’t know,” I say weakly, not wanting to accept what I think he’s implying. “You’re saying the Captain didn’t attack you? That it was just a game to take Olivia out there?”
The boy starts to answer, but then his gaze jerks up and focuses on something behind me.
“Gwendolyn,” Pan says, sidling up next to me and wrapping an arm around my shoulders, easy and calm. “Are you well?” he murmurs, his clear eyes conveying the depth of his worry.
“I . . . Um . . .” I look at the boy, who’s now talking to himself, his eyes studying the floor as he shuffles nervously in place.
“This one wasn’t bothering you, was he?” Pan asks. When he turns his attention to the boy, Pan’s face transforms itself. All traces of warmth are gone.
“No,” I say quickly. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I was just wondering where you and Olivia had gone off to and I was talking to . . . uh . . .”
“Amir,” the boys supplies meekly, staring at his feet.
“Yes. Amir. I was talking to Amir,” I tell Pan with what I hope is a believable smile. It takes everything I have not to pull away from him.
Pan is still examining the boy. “Why are you not with the others?”
“I was, milord,” he says, his eyes still downcast.
“And yet here you are before me. I wonder why that is?” He motions for one of the other boys to come over. “I think this one has need of some help to find his way. If you’d be so kind?”
The other boy, a tough-looking kid with his head shaved smooth and blood crusted at the edge of his nose, takes Amir roughly around the shoulders and leads him off as Pan turns his attention to me. I give him my best attempt at a smile, but when his eyes go tight, I end up glancing away.
If what the boy said is true, maybe there hadn’t been any attack this morning after all. Maybe the Captain hadn’t lied when he said he didn’t go after Olivia. My breath catches at the thought—at what that would mean—but I force myself to relax, to appear calm, so Pan won’t guess where my thoughts have gone.
“Terribly sorry about that,” he says with an easy smile. “I gave strict orders for my boys to leave you and Olivia be, but they are rather keyed up from our victory.”
“Where is Olivia?” I ask, trying to keep my voice as level and normal as possible as I ignore his apology.
“She was rather upset by the events today, so I’ve settled her into my own chambers. She seems to be more comfortable there.”
“I’d like to see her,” I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.
He gives me a doleful look. “I don’t know if that’s wise right now,” he says slowly. “She’s resting quietly, and I think it’s best if we allow her to recover. I’ve come to escort you back to your room,” he says, tucking my arm around his. “I’m sure you’re quite worn out from all the excitement today.”
“I’ll see her tomorrow, though?”
Pan leads me around a pile of boys wresting over a fur. “Of course,” he says easily as he presses his hand to the far wall. With a grating rumble, the stones begin to move, forming the steep staircase from before.
When the walls of the fortress finally go silent, Pan gives me a pleasant smile and holds out his hand to help me onto the first step. But I ignore him and climb up on my own.
Pan’s eyes are sharp, a stark contrast to the easy expression on his face, but he takes my hand in his and presses his lips to my wrist. “Sleep well, Gwendolyn.”
I pull my hand away and force myself not to wipe off the part of my skin that tingles with warmth. “Will you leave me the steps?” I ask. “I don’t want to be trapped up there alone,” I say as meekly as I can.
Impatience flickers in his gaze, but the serene smile stays on his face. “Of course. You’re not a prisoner here, Gwendolyn. I do still hope you’ll come to think of Neverland as your home.”
“I really think we need to get back to our own world,” I say. “Perhaps Fiona could take us?”
His expression flickers. “I don’t quite think that would be possible.” He doesn’t add anything more, and I know there’s no point in pushing him further. Unless, of course, I want to hear more lies.
“You said you would help us,” I remind him. “You promised.”
“And I will, my dear,” he says, his mouth turning up into a smile. But it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
They were trapped. Between safety and death. Between what they were and what they might have been. The earth quaked under their feet as fire and brimstone rained down upon them. The boy, clutching his rifle like a talisman, realized then his mistake in believing himself brave. “We’re going to have to move,” his brother told him. “This is just the beginning. . . .”
Chapter 25
BY THE TIME MORNING BREAKS, I’m exhausted. The cloying scent of the flowers, the things Fiona told me, the decisions I have in front of me—they all kept me up for most of the night.
It’s not that I trust Fiona. The only thing I believe completely is that she’s out for her own good. And it feels too unbelievable to think I could be part Fey, but my mom had been worried about something. All night I’ve been thinking, trying to pull up memories of the world I came from, and the thing I remember most is my mom’s fear and conviction that we were being chased by monsters.
Monsters that turned out to be real.
There was always somewhere to go, though. Always another stop that would calm her for a while, and I can’t help but wonder if Fiona was right to believe that someone had been helping to protect us. I can’t help but wonder if my mother had always been right about my father leaving to protect me.
What is certain is that Pan lied to me about being able to return us to our world. He could, if he wanted to, but it’s becoming clearer he doesn’t. And I can’t quite make myself dismiss what the boy told me the night before. The more I think about it—the confusion on the Captain’s face when I accused him of attacking Olivia, the sureness in Fiona’s voice, even the speed at which Pan knew what had happened and where Olivia was—the more certain I am that the Captain wasn’t involved with what happened to Olivia yesterday.
But why the elaborate ploy? Was it just to get me to distrust the Captain? Or perhaps there was something more going on—some scheme to make me trust Pan. Or maybe it was some sort of test of what I am. I think about the challenge in his eyes in the caverns after the world stopped shaking, and I can’t help but wonder if I passed or failed.
I need answers, and I know there are none to be found in this empty room. I have to find Olivia. She might not remember me or the world we came from, but I remember—parts of it, at least—and I won’t give up on getting us back.
Using the wall as a brace, I make my way down the uneven steps as quickly as I can. Once I’m safely on the ground, I’m halfway across the Great Hall before I find a boy who isn’t still asleep.
“Have you seen Olivia?” I ask.
He blinks at me. At first I think he doesn’t understand, but then he heaves an irritated sigh and waves for me to follow him. He leads me through the tunnel we used the day before, back to the cavernous room where the other tunnels branch out in all directions. “The gardens,” he says, pointing to the tunnel on the far right.
“You don’t want to show me the rest of the way?” I ask hope-fully. He just glares at me and turns back toward the Great Hall.
I stare at the dark opening for a moment, wondering if I shouldn’t just go back and wait for Pan to bring me to Olivia. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. After all, he left the stairs, as he promised, and he said I could see her today.
. . .
No. I don’t want to wait for Pan. The whole point of my finding Olivia is to get her away from him. I need to get her alone so I can try to talk some sense into her without his easy, tempting smiles pulling her away from me.
I move along at a steady pace, and when the white walls of the tunnel flare open, I find a cavernous space that houses a maze of gorgeously blooming gardens. It’s not dark here like in the rest of the fortress. The walls remind me of an opal, and the patches of multifaceted stones above me bathe the whole garden in soft light.
Everywhere I look, plants bloom in lush disarray. As in the jungle, every few seconds they begin to shift—ruffled roses the size of my hand transform into smiling snapdragons, and brilliantly colored daisies morph into the elegant fluted petals of lilies. Flowers I cannot name transform into colors I’ve never imagined.
One that draws my attention is a vining plant with fluted flowers that looks so much like something I’ve seen before. For a moment I remember seeing a flower like that, one that glowed with a strange amber-orange light. I can almost picture it. . . . But then the trumpet-shaped blossoms pull inward, and when they reemerge from the stems, they’ve transformed themselves into ruffled blossoms.
The moment is gone, and the ghost of the memory right along with it.
Still a little unsettled by my inability to really remember, I turn my attention back to the problem of the gardens. The thought of getting lost in their maze of thorny hedges and flowering trees has me hesitating. But their abundance of blossoms tells me for sure there was no reason for Olivia to venture out of the fortress yesterday. She could have found anything she wanted from the relative safety of these gardens. Which makes me even more certain than ever that Pan lied about the attack. If anything, he was the one who put her in danger by having his boys take her out to the End.
And then another thought occurs to me—maybe he did that on purpose. I think of his expression when Olivia’s voice came to us through that fog, and I’m not sure anymore if it was really relief I saw there. Maybe he never intended for Olivia to come back. . . .
Then, deep from within the lush green landscape, I hear the distant sound of familiar female laughter, and I don’t hesitate any longer. I step toward the thick wall of vegetation, looking for a way in.
Almost as if they sense my presence, the plants shift, an invitation to enter. I hesitate for another moment, wondering whether this is just another trap. Maybe this is just another way that Neverland is trying to draw me in and keep me from ever getting home. But then I hear Olivia’s laugh again, and I put aside my fear and enter the green alley of branches.
The space made by the parting of their branches is narrow and, at first, seems to dead-end a few yards ahead. But as I walk, the plants move to guide me through the heavy green. When I reach the dead end, I only have to wait for a moment and the hedges rearrange themselves to create a new path. I walk and walk, following the trail that appears before me and growing more and more convinced I’m lost, but every time I think about turning back, I hear the laugh again, and it is so clearly Olivia’s, I keep moving. After a while, the sound grows louder, and I start to grow more confident. With each step I grow more sure that I will turn the next corner and find my friend.
But when one of the dead ends refuses to shift, I’m forced to stop. And when I turn back, the path I’ve just come from is gone. I’m suddenly trapped in a room of leaves and thorns.
“No,” I say, trying desperately to find an opening in the hedges. The path can’t just have disappeared like that. But the branches and leaves shift and grow, knitting themselves even tighter and making themselves even more impermeable.
My breath goes tight—It was a trick, and I fell right for it.
I shout for help, hoping Olivia—someone—will hear me, but the dense branches around me swallow the sound. Worse, the room of green begins to feel smaller. The branches of the hedges haven’t stopped steadily swelling, and the more I try to free myself, the more they shift, pinning me with the pricking of their thorns. No matter how I struggle, I can’t move.
Forget about this world—I may never get out of this maze. Someday some lost boy is going to find what’s left of me pinned into the greenery, like a leftover ornament on a discarded evergreen.
Then—just as I think I will never see the light of day again—the branches part slightly, creating a small windowlike opening. Behind me, the hedge grows thicker, pushing me toward that space. It’s like the maze itself wants me to see what’s on the other side, which should be enough to warn me away. But I don’t have much choice. The more the branches behind me swell, the more impossible it becomes to avoid looking at what’s on the other side.
And what’s on the other side is Pan and Olivia lounging on the soft ground, half undressed, and wrapped around each other in an embrace so intense, my cheeks flame at the sight.
I try to tell myself this is not my Olivia, but nothing gets past the hollow ache I feel as Pan’s arms pull her closer. If Pan has her, she’s already lost, the Captain had told me. I didn’t want to believe it—I won’t believe it.
I can’t ignore the possibility that the Captain could have been right. Maybe I’m already too late, I think as Pan’s hands roam up Olivia’s long slender legs, over the flat lines of her bare stomach. And the way Olivia responds to him—pulling him to her, entwining her leg with his with such urgency and unbridled fierceness, I don’t doubt that she’s chosen this.
Except I can’t help but remember how I had felt pulled toward Pan. I can’t help but think how easy it was to let myself fall under his spell—and I’m more sure than ever it was some kind of a spell. There’s no way the intensity of what I felt toward him could have been real. And I’m not sure it’s real for Olivia, either.
But there’s nothing I can do, trapped like I am.
And I can’t seem to look away.
As they kiss, the soft light of the cavern throws long shadows on the ground behind the two of them, and at first those shadows perfectly mirror their intimate dance. But as they deepen their embrace, Pan’s shadow moves. It doesn’t move like a shadow should, though. Instead of mirroring Pan’s own movements, it slowly untangles itself from Olivia’s shadow. The shadow never breaks its connection to Pan, but it stands, prying itself up from the ground until a perfect dark silhouette lurks over the couple.
A sinister hum begins to grow as other shadows in the clearing make their way toward Pan’s, and then bit by bit add themselves to it, until they begin to take on the form and shape of one of the Dark Ones.
Pan glances up from the progress he’s making down Olivia’s neck. His eyes light with anticipation when he sees the Dark One is fully formed and ready.
The dark figure moves closer and then slowly rests its clawlike hands on Olivia’s shoulders. She doesn’t recoil as the tips of its claws sink into her skin. Instead, she lets out a soft, satisfied moan at its touch.
When the Dark One withdraws its fingertips from Olivia’s shoulder, it brings with it that same faint trail of luminescence I saw harvested from the boy. Pan barely pauses in his thorough savoring of the skin on Olivia’s neck to lap at the offered thread. But when he does pause, his eyes light in a sort of ecstasy before he begins to consume it.
To consume her.
This isn’t the violent taking I saw in the hold of the Captain’s ship, though. Olivia doesn’t writhe in pain. Her body doesn’t contort stiffly, like the boy’s on the ship did, and she doesn’t fight him. From the soft noises she’s making, from the way she pulls Pan even closer, angling her neck even farther so he can nuzzle into it even more, it seems like she’s enjoying what he’s doing to her.
Paralyzed by the horror of what I’m seeing and the regret that I can’t stop it, I can’t seem to do anything but watch as a dark line begins to travel down Olivia’s arm from her elbow to her wrist. Across the hand tangled in Pan’s wild hair.
I know with a sickening certainty that if he continues drinking in her life, that line w
ill grow. She will turn as brittle as the boy in the Captain’s ship. And then she’ll fall to the ground, pieces of a shattered porcelain doll that can never be put right.
I can’t let that happen.
Struggling against the hedge, I start to scream to warn her, but the branches retaliate by pulling me back into their thick, thorny arms, pressing their broad, glossy leaves against my mouth. Silencing me. The hedge closes itself quickly, but not before Pan hears my voice and his eyes find me. Just as the leaves block my view, I see those eyes flash with an anger more dangerously feral than any of his boys.
“Gwendolyn,” he calls, confirming what I feared—he saw me. He knows that I understand what he’s capable of. He knows I saw the truth of what he is.
But I have nowhere to go—the branches are immovable.
“Gwendolyn?” Pan’s voice is closer now. His voice has softened, and I can tell he’s trying to sound as pleasant and charming as always, but there’s a hollowness in his tone that doesn’t lie, and I know if he catches me, it won’t be good. Because Fiona was right—it isn’t only the Captain who uses the Dark Ones. And if she was right about that, how much more of what she said might be true?
I slam my fists against the thorny branches, ignoring the way they scrape at my skin. “Let. Me. Out!” I shout, pushing at the dense growth with all my might.
Shadows begin to swirl at my feet, and I shove harder. “Please!” I cry at the immovable branches. “Fiona!”
Without warning, the branches behind me part enough that I fall to the ground.
I’m still panting from the effort of my escape. Around me, the hedge has gone still, and one of the fairy lights now hovers near me, pulsing and growing brighter with each beat as it shivers, as though from the increase in energy.
I glance back at the trembling foliage—I can’t leave Olivia here with Pan. I know now for sure just how dangerous he is. And I know this world has made Olivia powerless against Pan’s seduction. But there isn’t time. The darkness is already gathering around me, the branches already rustling as they part to let him through.