Page 28 of Caging Darling (The Lost Girl #3)

CHAPTER 28

W herever we’re going, it takes hours to get there by flight. We pass through the warping and make way across the sea, until speckles of light line the horizon. We don’t stop there, but travel inland, until we reach the foothills of the mountains.

The place appears uninhabited. There are no faerie lanterns in sight, the only light sources the stars and the fireflies dancing through the trees. At least, not until Peter plunges us through the canopy. Leaves scrape my face, and we slam to the ground. Our long flight has done nothing to soothe Peter’s anger, though he’s yet to hurt me again.

Neither of us has spoken the entire journey.

At the bottom of the mountain is a cottage, surrounded by trees and covered in moss. There’s a signpost outside that looks as if it might have once held the name of a business, but the paint is worn to the point of illegibility.

Peter nods toward the door, but I stay planted where I am.

“Wendy Darling.” The effect of his plea is lessened by his exasperation. “Please don’t make me force you.”

I stare at him in defiance. Regret flashes in his eyes, but he grabs me by the back of the neck and steers me toward the cottage door all the same. As much as I’m able, I dig my heels into the soft earth with each step.

By the time he raps on the door, Peter’s gritting his teeth, his jaw ticking with annoyance.

“My, my,” says the weedy, silver-haired woman who opens the door, her skin papery and translucent. “Lost that charming smirk of yours, have you, boy?”

“I’m in need of your services,” says Peter.

The woman flashes him a toothless grin. There’s a faint smear of blood in her gums.

The woman is slender, like she hardly gets enough food to scrape by.

I would feel for her if I had the capability of pity anymore. Or maybe it’s the fact that she’s got me strapped to a table that inhibits that particular emotion.

I’m prone, my face smashed against the cold stone slab so that I have to turn my head to the side to breathe. The cold almost feels good against my cheek. Almost.

The room itself is dimly lit in faerie dust lanterns. I think of Tink every time I see them now. Wonder where she is, if she and Michael are safe. It’s pitiful, but even seeing the lanterns causes the craving for faerie dust to bloom on the back of my tongue.

But I won’t be getting any of that. I haven’t had faerie dust in months. Not since Peter ran out of his stash, unable to harvest more after Tink escaped.

The light from the lanterns dances off a thousand objects that clutter the small space. It seems that what this woman doesn’t spend on food, she spends on acquiring magical relics.

“You ask too much,” says the woman.

“I want it gone,” Peter says.

“Are you content with your woman being headless, then?”

The statement reminds me of a conversation between myself, Astor, and the Nomad, when the Nomad had mockingly offered to cut off Astor’s hand himself to rid him of the Mating Mark.

I’ve thought about this plenty. Even tried to rid myself of Peter’s bargain by carving it from my skin. But the wound always heals. The skin always grows back.

My arm wouldn’t grow back, but I’m well aware that I’m too weak to go through with that.

A sadness swells in me, thinking of how easy it would be to rid myself of Peter’s curse, the bargain in the crook of my elbow, if only I were strong enough.

I can let anyone else in the world hurt me. I can let the Nomad’s bargain kill me, let Peter throw me up against the wall.

But I can’t take a blade to my own arm. No matter how hard I’ve tried, I’m not strong enough to fight the impulses of my own body trying to protect itself. I simply don’t have the willpower, the discipline. Besides, the bargain doesn’t want to be cut off. It whispers fear into my mind, convincing me it can’t be done, that it won’t work, and I’ll still be bound to Peter, only without an arm to show for it.

“There has to be a way. Slice off the skin if you have to.”

The old woman scoffs. “You come here and tell me how to do my job. It won’t work. You have to sever the limb on which it’s attached. It’s the only way to free her. Unless you can?—”

Peter cuts her off. “Then can you track who put it on her?”

I pray not. I didn’t want Peter fulfilling the Nomad’s bargain before. Now, knowing Tink, loving her as a friend, I can’t bear the thought of her being placed in another prison, siphoned off for her faerie dust. Not when she’s been taking care of Michael…

“Please. Please don’t…” I whisper to the old woman.

If she hears me, she pretends she didn’t. “It’ll cost you,” she says.

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” says Peter.

The toothless grin makes another appearance. The woman shuffles to a dingy corner of her workshop, then returns with an onyx-colored box. “A shadow then.”

“You ask too much,” he says, slyly. Though I can’t see him the way my head is angled, I know his face well enough to see the smirk stained in my head.

“Then you don’t want this enough,” she says.

“Something else.”

The woman says nothing. Instead, she waits patiently. Eagerly.

Peter is silent for a moment. Then, slowly, a black tendril forms at his back. It slithers through the air and hovers over the open onyx-colored box. I’m not sure if it’s just my imagination, but the shadow seems to hesitate.

The woman snaps the lid shut over the shadow. She takes the box to her ear and shakes it. To my surprise, it rattles, as if she’d trapped a rock inside rather than a shadow.

“The adamant, girl,” says the woman, perceiving my surprise, though she doesn’t explain further.

The old woman whistles to herself, clearly pleased.

I imagine whatever she’s about to do to me will not be all that difficult. On her end, at least.

She hums as she pads over to a cluttered workstation, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she prepares whatever it is that will help her track this bargain.

I suppose I could tell Peter. Spare myself of whatever agony and torture this old woman has planned for me. But I’ve learned that Peter doesn’t recognize my suffering unless it’s bold. Dramatic. He doesn’t recognize my pain until I’m screaming.

So I stay quiet and keep the truth to myself. Just a little longer.

I will no longer be complicit in my own lack of agency. They can pry the truth from my jaws if they wish, but never again without getting bitten.

When the old woman returns, it’s with a vial full of black serum that steams out the top of the vial, filling the small room with a pungent scent I imagine will taint my memories for a long while.

I get the feeling this is going to hurt.

Peter must get a similar feeling, because he has the gall to take my hand in his and squeeze it. Like I’m a woman readying to give birth and he’s a doting husband, ready to stroke my forehead and wipe it of sweat and do whatever adoring men do for the women they cherish.

Nausea churns through me as the woman pulls down the back of my collar, exposing my skin.

“An urn, eh?” she says. “Strange symbol for a bargain.”

I don’t have time to consider what that means as the woman drips the serum onto the back of my neck, and I plunge into another world. Another version of how things turned out. In this world, it’s not Peter holding my hand, but Astor. And it’s not the agony of the serum ripping through me, threatening to tear apart my body, but the pangs of childbirth. My and Astor’s child.

And I’m enduring this for them. For us.

For the joy on the other side.

As the pain rips through me, I let out a scream so bloodcurdling, it takes me a moment to register that it’s coming from my own lips. Faintly, I hear Peter whispering my name in the background.

In my mind, I switch the voice out for Astor’s.

I switch everything out for Astor, knowing good and well it’s a malignant fantasy I’m allowing myself to endure.

But I should be allowed some things. This one thing. This one version of a future that might have been mine had the man currently holding my hand, stroking my cheek, not tampered with it.

I’d expected the pain to be localized to the bargain, but it only starts there, trickling down through my bones until it feels as if there’s no marrow left. Only a serum that stabs and stabs and aches until my body can’t help but writhe. The leather straps hold me in place, keeping me from the movement my body is so sure would distract me from the agony.

And then, everything goes dark. The faerie dust in the room flickers out. At least, that’s what I think happened.

Until the voices begin to speak.

What are you doing?

Why are you hurting her?

She didn’t do anything to you.

She’s innocent.

Get your hands off her.

I frown, confused, but the old woman mutters something in surprise, and as soon as they came, the voices are gone again.

Sweat beads on my brow, but a moment later, there’s a tugging at the back of my neck. Like someone’s placed a hook into my spine and is dragging the serum out of me.

It’s foolishness, but I let myself believe it’s him, just for a moment.

Soon, a faint light begins to glow from above. I crane my neck, my cheek pressed to the table, to get a better look. Inside the orb is a man sitting at a desk, his blue eyes piercing. The old woman stares at it, the pleasure of a job well done shimmering in her eyes.

There are voices, muffled this time, not like the voices before. And there’s only two this time.

I recognize them.

Because one is mine.

“You’d be surprised, Miss Darling,” says the Nomad from the past, “how many mortals prefer to make pets of their curses.”

My past self is so confident in her answer. “Not Peter. Peter would choose to be free if he could.”

Next to me, Peter flinches.

The Nomad again. “He would choose pain? To love you more fully?”

“Just because you can’t comprehend that kind of love doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

The Nomad’s laugh still chills my bones, just as it did the night we had this conversation. “You have no idea the pain I’ve subjected myself to—time and time again—just for a taste of that sort of high. But you know about highs, don’t you?”

There’s silence, then the Nomad speaks again. “So you choose this Peter, then? How unfortunate for Captain Astor.”

I hear my past self snort. “The captain prefers to cage himself in the past.” Oh, how I hadn’t realized the extent to which that was true at the time. “If the captain wishes to be rid of me, who am I to stop him? Why would I choose someone who refuses to choose me?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” says the Nomad. “Surely you can admit there’s fun in the chase.”

“I don’t want to chase,” I say. “My feet are too tired for that.”

“Very well, then,” he says. “I believe you and I could be mutually beneficial to one another.” No, no, no. I remember now, how this conversation ends. Panic infuses me, yet I can’t bring my mouth to obey, to scream out so Peter won’t hear what the Nomad says next. “You see, I’d quite like?—”

A shriek sounds through the cabin, but it’s not mine. Peter and the witch both jump, Peter’s hand finding the back of my neck instinctively. I watch in wonder as shadows swarm the witch’s cabin.

They’re coming from the table where she’s tied me down.

The shadows wail, multiplying until the cabin is blanketed in darkness, until there’s nothing anchoring me to this space except for Peter’s grip on my neck and the cold press of the table against my cheek.

What must be a full minute passes. Then, slowly, the shadows dissipate, disappearing into the cracks in the planked walls. The Nomad’s face appears before mine again, the vision fading at the edges, but his blue eyes just as potent.

“Now,” he says, holding out his hand. “Do we have a bargain?”

“What did he say? Who is that man?” demands Peter.

“He has many names,” says the old woman, “but in this region, they call him the Nomad.”

Only when the vision dissipates and the light filters out of the room do I let myself lose consciousness.