Page 25 of Losing Wendy
I suppose that’s true, but there’s something not right about this. “Did you know him…before you were the Shadow Keeper?”
“Careful, or I might be convinced you want to play a game with me after all.”
I clamp my mouth shut, frustrated. There’s a stubborn part of me, the part of me that expected my life to end this very evening, who’s brave enough to risk it to get answers. After all, I’m just on borrowed time now anyway, aren’t I?
But then I glimpse my brothers soaring several feet below us, John leading Michael along by the hand, all the while glancing up at me every few seconds to make sure I’m okay.
I can’t risk my life. Not when my death would crush them. Not when I need to devote my energy to finding a way to get them out of whatever horrid place Peter is planning on keeping us. Besides. If I’m cursed to be Peter’s slave, I should have plenty of time to question him in whatever life he has planned for me.
A chill snakes through me at the idea of what this lunatic, intenton taking me since I was a child, might do to me once we reach our destination. Black dots swarm my vision, panic spiking at every part of my body he touches. I fear if I ponder it too long, I might pass out. But then Peter strokes my belly with his knuckles, and calm instantly seeps back into my veins.
So I pivot my questions. “If you know the captain, do you know why he wanted my parents dead?”
My stomach clenches at the question, and Peter’s hands tighten at my waist, his chest tensing at my back. Our flight path dips a bit before Peter rights it with a steady beat of his wings.
“I’m many extraordinary things, as you’ll come to discover. But I’m no mind-reader.”
“Disappointing indeed,” I say, realizing too late the ease with which I say it. I’ll have to be careful in this man’s presence.
I’d never met a fae until tonight, but so far the legends about them seem to be true. There are several tales of humans becoming enraptured by the fae’s beauty, entangled in their glamour. Walls of self-preservation crumble in the presence of these beings when they should grow more fortified.
I’ve already experienced the effects on myself while dancing with the captain, the ease with which I found my heart bending toward him despite the awful words he spouted my way.
I’ll have to keep a check on myself to avoid stumbling similarly with the Shadow Keeper.
As Peter leads us toward the stars, I glimpse a shadow hanging over us. One that blots out the light of just two of them, distorting their shimmering like the glass of the clock tower did to the light of the moon.
“Wendy, my Darling little thing,” says the Shadow Keeper. “Would you believe that you’re finally home?”
CHAPTER 10
Peter’s fingers curl possessively around my waist as we soar toward the stars that seem moments from twinkling out. Around them is a gentle haze that distorts the misty black of the evening.
In the legends of the ancients—the ones John found during his research, prompted by the night I broke down and told him of my curse despite my parents forbidding it—there’s a story of a Fate who takes slaves for herself, slaves whose mortality she wraps into the Fabric of time itself.
The only price they must pay is their soul.
My thoughts are cut short as my fae master stops in midair, his ebony wings still flapping.
“The children first,” he says, the taunting in his tone evident as he gestures toward John, whose jaw is ticking. Michael pays him no mind. He’s simply whistling, spinning in circles in the air. As if the faerie dust has put him in the most wonderful trance, releasing him from the ground that has proven to be a shackle to how he’d prefer to move—smooth and untethered by space or time.
“Come on, Michael,” John says, taking our younger brother bythe hand and leading him toward the distortion. He stops as he approaches it.
“A warping,” he says, peering at it through his round spectacles. “I wasn’t sure these actually existed.”
Peter yawns behind me, and John shoots him a menacing look. “You really expect for us to just enter a hole in the realms without questioning you?”
“I suppose not,” says Peter. “What I do expect is for your faerie dust to wear off shortly. As much as it would amuse me to sit back and watch you fall, dashing your mortal flesh upon the rocks below, I’m afraid my little pet here might cry over your deaths. And that truly would put a damper on my spirits. So I suggest you go on ahead.”
John grits his teeth, glancing at me. When I nod, he pulls Michael close and floats toward the distortion.
In a moment, a blink of the eye, my brothers disappear. As if they’d never existed at all.
“What do you think, Wendy Darling? Do you wish to follow them or would you rather dally in the outside world for a moment longer?”
Peter’s fingers play at my waist, flexing so that only a few hold me at a time.
Fear crawls up my throat. “I’d like to follow them now.”