Page 54 of Caging Darling (The Lost Girl #3)

CHAPTER 54

“ I had a feeling this is what you’d ask of me,” says the Nomad, breathing and posture unaffected by carrying the passed-out Tink.

“Don’t sound so reprimanding,” I say with what comes out sounding like a rather despairing tease.

“I’m not reprimanding you. Just enlightening you regarding your own predictable failings.”

“It’s the only way to save him,” I say.

The Nomad watches me carefully, his eyes bright in the moonlight. “What is it exactly that you intend to bargain away?”

I try, and fail, not to wince at the question, but I bite my tongue all the same, shame keeping my lips sutured together.

The Nomad offers me a grunt that’s less than reassuring. “Well, whatever it is, know that when you make a bargain with a Fate, the price is always higher than you initially expected.”

“I’m aware,” I say. “Are you going to help me or not?”

The Nomad groans, but closes his eyes all the same. Squares his shoulders as his lips drip the gentle tones of a language I don’t recognize.

The night chill halts in place. Even the rustling leaves still at the Nomad’s words. The birds cease to sing, and my heart stops in my chest.

And then, even the Nomad goes quiet. He examines the garden for a moment, then turns his attention on me. “Goodbye, Wendy Darling. I sincerely hope it’s worth it.”

I don’t have the energy to respond, not when I’m saving up all my courage for the conversation I’m about to have. Not when Astor’s freedom rests on the half-formed plan still proofing in my mind, not quite ready to bake but about to be placed in the furnace anyway.

And then the Nomad is gone, and my friend with him.

And I am alone.

But not for long.

For the second time tonight, shadowed tendrils appear in the garden. Shadows that don’t belong to the shrubbery or the fountain or the turrets of the manor. Shadows that take the form of a woman.

“You called again?” she says. “You do know that of all my Sisters, I’m the one who likes you least—Oh,” says the Middle Sister, swiveling toward me when she finds no evidence of the Nomad in the garden. “It’s you.”

“I have a bargain to present to you. One I think you’ll find to your benefit,” I say, hating how my voice warbles.

Though I can’t see the Sister’s features, I feel her lips curve into a smug tilt. “I’m afraid you’re too late for that. I’m not sure how you’ve forgotten so quickly, but I’ve recently come into possession of my heart’s utmost desire.”

“For now,” I say.

The Sister laughs, but I don’t miss the way her tendriled fingers tense. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Astor’s dying,” I say. “He has been ever since I severed his Mark. Your Elder Sister—she doesn’t like for her magic to be tampered with, does she? It’s an affront to her wisdom to sever a Mark, so to remove one fully comes with a price. That’s why part of Astor’s skin withered when he gave part of his Mark to Peter. And that’s why, now that his Mark is gone, he’s dying.”

“You think something as menial as illness is an obstacle for me?” asks the Sister.

“It is when it comes to Astor,” I say. “You’re not allowed to harm him. Your Elder Sister made sure of that. But you can’t touch his tapestry at all, can you? You can’t reweave his future. So he’s going to die, and you’re helpless to do anything about it.”

The Sister pauses for a moment, puts a hand on her hip, like she’s determining whether it’s worth lying over. “Fine. Clever girl. But what good does that epiphany do you? Unless you have some healing power I’m unaware of?”

I can’t help the sly smile that snakes across my lips. “No. No, you made sure the one person who could have healed him died saving me.”

The Sister’s spine straightens. “Your Mate is dying, and you find amusement in his suffering?”

“No,” I say. “But I do find amusement in yours.”

The Sister glides forward, her shadows multiplying around her, looming over me, expanding like the neck of a cobra. “Only fools taunt a Fate, girl.”

“Fools. And those who have something to bargain with.”

“And what could a little weasel like you possible have that I would want more than the precious little time I have left with the man I adore?”

My throat constricts, my courage faltering. Or maybe it’s not my courage faltering at all. Maybe what I’m about to do is so wicked, so selfish, it’s my last bit of courage, last bit of selflessness, reining me back, reminding me there is still time to back out.

But I can’t let him die.

More than that, I can’t let him be a slave to the Sister. Can’t allow him to be abused and mistreated, the boy who escaped the tortures of the orphanage warden, now marked with a deeper brand.

I can’t allow him to be trapped.

Besides, if my time with Peter is any indication, I’ll never have to worry about fulfilling the end of the bargain I’m about to strike.

Still, Renslow’s voice reaches out to me from the past, haunting me from where I left him dead in the opera house.

And you wouldn’t do it? If the person most precious to you were in peril, you wouldn’t trade the life of a stranger for them?

But no, it won’t come to that. I won’t let it.

“If you keep Astor to yourself, he’ll die, and his line will end, and you will mourn him the rest of your eternal existence,” I say.

“Or, perhaps,” she says, “his line will end, and I’ll be free of my curse, my longing, altogether.”

I shake my head. “I don’t believe you want to be free.”

“And what makes you say that?”

“Because you’re not all that different from humans, from fae. Because at the end of the day, when the heart is involved, we’ll hold onto what wounds us for an eternity, so long as we don’t have to face the pain of letting it go.”

“Wendy Darling,” says the Sister, stroking my face with shadowy fingers that are trickles of ice to my cheek, “are you offering me what I think you’re offering me?”

I pause, wondering if Astor will hate me for this. Wondering if I’m doomed to lose him regardless.

But at least he’ll be free.

And besides, I won’t let it happen. I won’t let it come to this.

So I speak the words I can’t take back.