Kingdom of Crowns and Glory

by Laura Greenwood et al.

  “It is not just in the dark,” she answered. “The world is so very large, and I am tired of staying in my corner of it.”

  “Is Starlake really so very different from the Frostwater?”

  “Starlake is where I will gather my wits about me and come up with a plan.”

  He leaned back on the railing, studying her. She pretended not to notice. “And this plan does not involve marrying the Astanrog prince?”

  She looked at him then, meeting his eyes. “It does not.”

  “I’ve heard he leaves much to be desired.”

  “I’ve heard the same is true for most men.”

  He laughed at that, and she had to hide her own smile. She did not think she could trust him, but she realized she did enjoy his company in spite of herself.

  “How long until we reach Starlake?” she asked.

  “A few days at the most.” He shifted again, turning to lean his forearms on the railing, his hook dangling over the water.

  “How shall I occupy my time?”

  He looked sideways at her, moonlight reflecting in his dark eyes. “I’ve heard you still dream, Ms. Darlington. I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

  “But I should very much like to be useful,” she protested.

  There was a shout from behind them, sounding like nonsense to her untrained ears, but the noise obviously meant something to the captain because he pushed himself up off of the railing and turned to leave her. “There is nothing worse than a woman who underestimates her value,” he said, tipping his hat in farewell before descending the stairs to the main deck.

  Chapter 3

  The Dream Thief did not visit Wren that night, or the night after that. Instead, she dreamed of dark men with stars in their eyes and the smell of the ocean in their hair. She always woke flushed and slightly embarrassed, and when Captain Hook smiled at her in that secret way he had, she was sure that he knew what she saw when she closed her eyes at night. It wasn’t like she was going to do anything about it, besides. She hadn’t run from one man to get roped in with another, to be sure. Soon, he would leave her in Black Glacier Pass and she would never see him again.

  She spent her time talking to the sailors. None of them would let her work, but they all loved telling her stories about their time at sea and adventures they’d had on board the Jolly Roger. Wren soaked them up like a sponge, telling them to herself at night so she wouldn’t forget.

  It was not a boring way to pass her days, but she longed for the land beneath her feet so she could take the next steps and keep moving. When the third day rolled around and turned to night, she found herself standing outside the door to the captain’s quarters, her hand raised to knock so she could ask how much longer the voyage would be. It seemed to her that they should have been there by now. Voices inside stilled her hand, though, and she knew she should have turned to go, but something gave her pause and made her stay.

  “It’s not too late to return to Starlake, no.” It sounded like Mr. Smee, but what did he mean return to Starlake? Wasn’t that where they were headed?

  “I did not ask your opinion.” That cool voice definitely belonged to the captain.

  Wren took a step to the side so as to be out of sight of the glass window in the door.

  “It seems a shame, to trick the lady as we have.”

  “The lady is simply a means to an end.” The way he emphasized lady made it clear that he did not think her a lady at all. “And besides,” he continued, “we are pirates. Honesty has never been our policy.”

  Pirates! And here she’d thought them honest tradesmen and merchants, though she had never thought to ask. But that was not the most shocking thing. Worse yet was that they had apparently tricked her somehow and did not, in fact, seem to be delivering her to her grandmother’s estate.

  The captain continued. “Would you deny me my revenge, Smee?”

  “Well, no, but must it come at such a high cost?”

  There was the crinkling of paper. “The blood of the creator. It says it right here.”

  “Do you even remember how to get there?”

  The captain laughed but there was no humor in the sound. “It is not a thing to remember. It is something that is always there. We have probably passed by it a dozen times without even noticing.”

  “How will we notice now?”

  The door flew open and a hook wrapped around her upper arm, the point digging into the flesh of her muscle. It dragged her into the room, flinging her forward. “Because we have her.”

  She stumbled and fell to her hands and knees on a threadbare carpet.

  “Oh, dear,” came Mr. Smee’s voice from just in front of her.

  “How quickly you have turned from guest to prisoner, Ms. Darlington,” Captain Hook said in the same cool voice he always used.

  Rubbing her hands together, she chanced to look up at him. “What do you mean? Where are you taking me?”

  The captain crossed his hands behind his back. “The question is, where are you taking us?”

  Wren fought back tears. “I just wanted to go to Starlake. I just—” She stopped and wiped at her eyes, embarrassed.

  “Yes, Starlake.” Captain Hook crossed to the large windows at the stern of the ship and looked out at the moon. “Home to the late Lady Gwendolyn, the creator of Never Island.”

  “What?”

  Mr. Smee helped her to her feet and led her to one of two wooden chairs set beside a round table. On it, a map was spread out, held down in the corners by rocks. She recognized the Frostwater, and to its west, Astanrog. And there, to the north, the Black Glacier Mountains, an X marked over the spot where Starlake would be. And there were strange plots, points of different colors, tacks and markings that she didn’t recognize, at strange intervals in the middle of the sea.

  “Never Island,” the captain repeated.

  “I don’t—I’m afraid I’ve never heard of it.”

  He sat in the chair opposite her. “Your grandmother was a remarkable woman, did you know that?”

  Wren nodded. “Yes, but how did you?”

  “I knew her, you see, back when the world was younger and still had a touch of magic.”

  “That’s not possible.” Her grandmother had been nearly one hundred years old when she passed. The captain looked to be in his twenties.

  He chuckled softly. “How can you be a dreamer if you still think there are impossible things?”

  “Because dreams aren’t real.”

  “Ah, but your grandmother could weave dreams into reality,” he said, holding up a finger as if making a point. “When she lost a dear friend, she created Never Island.” He touched the map, tracing some of the strange, plotted points in the water. “A place between sleeping and waking, where time stood still. A place where she could visit him even in death.”

  Because she herself was a dreamer, and because she had known her grandmother, she willed herself to believe every unbelievable word. “But what does this have to do with me?”

  “Ten years ago, the Dream Thief discovered a way to close Never Island, and when he did, he banished me and my crew to the mainland.” He reached forward and took hold of her wrist, turning it over and tracing a blue vein down her pale arm. “The only way for us to return is with the blood of the creator.”

  She snatched her hand back. “But Granny is dead.”

  “So they say. But her blood lives on . . . in you.”

  A chill ran up her spine but she tried to keep her voice from shaking when she asked, “You’re going to kill me, then? To get back to the island?”

  “I will do whatever it takes, yes.” He did not look or sound the least bit apologetic.

  Mr. Smee, on the other hand, offered her a cup of tea and a pat on the head.

  She took it but did not drink, instead using the cup to warm her hands. “Suppose I refuse to help?”

  “I do not need your cooperation, Ms. Darlington.”

  She stood and turned to the door, only to find Mr. Smee
blocking her way, still gazing at her sympathetically.

  “Why the charade, this whole time? Why pretend?”

  He smiled and she hated herself for ever thinking it was appealing. “Pretending is what we do best on Never Island; it is a hard habit to break. And besides, it was easier to have you complacent than to have you fighting. Now, though.” He nodded at Mr. Smee. “Take her to the brig. We’ll bring her up when we have need of her again. Until then, do your best to keep her alive, or at least breathing.”

  Kicking and screaming as she was, Mr. Smee could not handle her on his own. In the end, he enlisted the help of several men, including Longfellow and Two-Toes, to drag her down to the bowels of the ship. They went through the cargo hold to the rear of the ship, where there was a small room of iron bars, barely high enough for her to stand in. She dragged her feet and scraped her fingers against the rough, wooden walls, spilling some of her supposedly precious blood.

  “The captain won’t like that, no,” Mr. Smee muttered, following behind Two-Toes who seemed to have taken the lead on this expedition. He was manhandling her into the cell, grunting and cursing at her all the while. When he managed to shove her inside and slam the barred door, she threw herself against it.

  “Mr. Smee,” she said. “Two-Toes. Please.”

  “Captain’s orders, milady,” Mr. Smee said, wringing his red cloth hat in his hands.

  They left her alone in the dark. She did not know for how long. She had nothing to mark the passing of time, and no visitors came to give her food or company. She wept, tears of sadness and fear. She wept for everything she had left behind and everything she would never see again. How she longed for Starlake, for Jae, for her mother. For everything she had taken for granted.

  Eventually, the rocking of the ship lulled her into a reluctant sleep, and this time—this time, she brought him to her.

  She stood on a beach, alone, waves lapping at her toes. Behind her, there was nothing but dark jungle, and in front of her, an angry ocean, stirred by dark storm clouds overhead. She spun, looking for the Jolly Roger, for the Frostwater, or Starlake, anything that would give her a hint as to where she was, but there was nothing.

  Then, a voice from the water.

  “Help!”

  She looked out over the crashing waves, scanning them for the source.

  “Help!” came the cry again, and then she saw it, a dark figure tumbling in the surf. It went under and then emerged again, sputtering.

  Wren waded in. She was not a particularly strong swimmer in real life, but this was her dream, and she wouldn’t let someone drown in it. When she was in to her knees, she launched herself into the next wave. Her feet no longer reached the bottom. The water tugged at her, a hand trying to pull her into its depths, but she fought it with strong strokes.

  The form—a boy, she saw now—surfaced again very close by. She slipped through the water until she was beside him and wrapped a hand around his shoulders.

  “Stop struggling,” she ordered.

  He thrashed a few seconds longer before going limp.

  She dragged him forward, her limbs burning, her lungs and eyes on fire as the salt water continued to batter her. Then her feet found sand and she was crawling. She released him, and they collapsed side by side at the edge of the water.

  Panting, she turned to face him, pushing her sopping wet hair away from her eyes. She blinked once, twice, before believing what she saw. “You!”

  The Dream Thief blinked back at her. “What happened?”

  “You almost drowned in my dream.”

  He pushed onto his hands and knees and shook his head, not unlike a dog might do after a bath. His light golden hair was too long and hung around his chiseled cheekbones. “You’ve always been a problem for me,” he said, crawling farther up the beach and turning to sit, propping his arms on his knees.

  “That’s not fair.” She stood, dusting herself off. It was pointless, though. The sand clung to her wet clothes and skin. “You’re the one trying to steal my dreams.”

  “It’s for your own good.”

  “You mean it’s for the good of Never Island.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. It was clear he didn’t like her knowing that. “Who are you? How are you doing this?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, dropping beside him and tucking her tattered skirt around her knees.

  He gestured around them—to the island and the ocean and the jungle. “You’re in control. You brought me here.”

  “I did?” The wind began to pick up again. In the distance, far out in the water, she saw two tall masts. Had she brought him here for a reason? “I did,” she said, and this time it wasn’t a question. “I need you to help me.”

  He let out a bark of laughter. “My help? After you dumped me into the ocean?”

  “And then pulled you out.” She stood and pointed to the horizon. “I’m on that ship, a prisoner of Captain Hook.”

  “Captain Hook?” he growled, also standing. “What is that scoundrel doing so close to my island?”

  She saw her way in. “He’s going to use me to get onto the island.”

  “Impossible,” he said.

  Wren smirked at him in spite of herself, remembering the captain’s own words. “How can you be a dreamer if you don’t believe in impossible things?”

  “Who are you?” he asked again.

  She opened her mouth to answer, to finally give him her name in hopes it would mean something to him and encourage him to help her, but the wind carried her voice away.

  His fingers grasped hers. “Wait.”

  For what? she wanted to ask, but found she could not speak. She felt strange, like she was fading. Water grabbed at her toes, and then her legs, and her fingers slipped from his as the ocean swallowed her.

  She woke with a start to the sound of creaking wood and howling wind. There was a crash and a shout, the sound of running feet. She wedged her fingers into a crack in the wall and peered outside. There was only darkness until a flash of lightning illuminated an angry ocean not unlike the one in her dream.

  Had any of it been real? Would he come for her?

  The waves rocked the ship and flung her against the iron bars. Salt water seeped in through the cracks in the wall and soaked the floor. She was so fixated on keeping her balance and her stomach that she didn’t even hear someone in the bowels of the ship with her until the key was fitted into the lock.

  It was Two-Toes, leering at her from the other side. “The captain says it’s time to go.”

  No. The Dream Thief was supposed to come for her. She needed more time.

  Two-Toes jerked her out of the cell with a hand around her arm. He dragged her back through the cargo hold and up the ladder to the deck. Captain Hook stood under a dark, angry sky, a wild look in his eyes.

  “We’re close!” he shouted, and the crew cheered. “Are we ready to go home, lads?”

  Thunder rumbled and wind whipped the sails taut, jerking the ship to the side at the same time that a wave reared up and crashed over the deck. In his attempt to stay upright, Two-Toes released his hold on her. Wren scrambled to the railing, chased by the water, and looked over. This was not a dream, and she did not know if she could swim well enough to survive, but she would rather drown than let the pirates bleed her dry.

  “Be brave,” she told herself.

  Two-Toes was just behind her, reaching his grubby fingers out for her. As she hauled herself up and over the railing, his fingers scraped against her neck, closing around the chain to her grandmother’s ruby necklace. The chain snapped and Wren fell, arms spread as if she still thought she might fly.

  She fell in slow motion, the water rushing up to meet her. Twisting, she saw the captain screaming down at her. But there, just above him, in the clouds . . .

  There he was, diving out of the sky. A bird. A swallow who had nested in the eaves of her imagination for years. An old friend. A dear enemy. He had come for her after all. His stern, handsome face was the las
t thing she saw before she hit the water, and the force of the blow made everything go black.

  Chapter 4

  “What is it?”

  “A girl, stupid.”

  “A Wendy?”

  Smack. “A girl.”

  Wren came around slowly, her ears the first to wake to the sound of boy voices arguing. Her eyes were crusted shut, and her mouth was so dry she did not think it would even open. She brought her fists to her eyes and rubbed.

  “Water,” she croaked.

  There was a stunned silence.

  “Water,” she tried again, blinking her eyes but seeing only a bright, white light.

  “She lives,” one of the boys said.

  Smack. “Of course she lives. Pan wouldn’t let her die. Not yet, anyway.”

  Good grief, were boys always this useless? She pushed up on her elbows, blinking. She seemed to be in some kind of shelter, though it looked more like a child’s treehouse than an actual home. The walls were rough wood and the bed she was in was just a pallet of scratchy blankets. An oil lamp gave off some light, and sunlight peeked in between the slats in the walls.

  As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, the faces around her swam into focus slowly, a half-dozen boys, none of them any older than she was. One of them who was particularly small and wore broken glasses was rubbing the back of his head, and she guessed he was the recipient of the smacks.

  “Who are you?” she asked, looking from face to face. She was struck with disappointment to find that not one of them belonged to the Dream Thief. He had saved her, she knew, but where had he left her instead?

  “I’m Bearslayer,” said the small one, lifting up a hand in salutation.

  She thought the name highly unlikely, but didn’t want to be rude.

  Another of the boys, muscular and angry-looking, had no such qualms. He hauled off and smacked him across the back of the head. Wren winced as the smaller boy’s glasses went tumbling to the ground.

  “Keep your mouth shut, Cub,” he commanded. “Or Pan will make a rug out of your hide.”