Page 7 of Caging Darling (The Lost Girl #3)

CHAPTER 7

“ W here have you been?”

I blink, and Peter comes into focus before me. I’m lying in his arms, facing him, Michael snoring softly on the cot across the room from us.

“Hm?”

Sleep keeps my eyes heavy. This is the first time I’ve slept soundly in months, but Peter’s question woke me. When I blink the sleep away, I catch him inspecting me. As if he thinks he can read my mind through the lines on my face that he’s put there.

“Where have you been?”

My laugh is pleasant. Flirtatious, almost. “Here, of course. Where else would I be?”

I’m hoping to alleviate the concern in Peter’s face, but his expression only hardens. “You got away from Victor today.”

I stiffen. “He told you?”

Peter shifts in bed, propping his head on his hand so that he’s no longer eye level. “Of course, he told me. I specifically charged him to keep an eye on you when you were out of the Den, and he had the audacity to come back without you.”

My irritation at Victor dissipates, overcome by fear on my friend’s behalf. “It wasn’t his fault. I wandered off.”

“Where did you go?”

I pause. Cling to the fact that Peter’s bargain doesn’t force me to speak my true thoughts. Doesn’t refuse me the right to keep my secrets. For a moment, I worry he’ll threaten Victor if I don’t tell him, but then Peter’s expression softens.

He reaches out and runs his hand through my hair, pressing his forehead to mine. “I’m worried about you, Wendy Darling. Tell me where you went. Please.”

His eyes are the gentlest of blues, and I find myself lost in them. My heart aches with the urge to please him, to make the pain in his eyes go away. To erase it with placating words. But telling him I spent the afternoon with a wraith who echoes Astor’s voice won’t take that pain away.

Choosing Peter means making him happy. Not hurting him unnecessarily.

So I choose that which will hurt him less. “I went looking for more faerie dust.”

Peter’s face falls more than I expect it to. Guilt raps at my chest, but I rest against the spot where his fingers cradle the base of my skull.

“Wendy Darling,” Peter says, searching my face for the answer to a question he’s yet to ask. “Am I not enough for you?”

“It’s just my head. I can’t focus on anything when it hurts like this. When I’m so…” Thirsty doesn’t quite seem like the right word. I feel underfed. Provided just enough to make me crave more.

“I know,” he whispers, rubbing at my temples. Where my head typically hurts.

It hasn’t hurt all afternoon.

“How would you like to go away for a while?”

“No.” The word comes out of nowhere, much like his offer.

Peter juts his head back, confused.

“No, I want to stay here with you.” Thoughts of Astor returning to Neverland while I’m away gnaw at my stomach.

Peter smiles, relieved. “You would be with me. We could go away, the both of us.”

“But…But I thought you couldn’t leave without the Sister’s permission.”

“Well, it’s not exactly the romantic getaway I would have envisioned for us. But I asked her, and she agreed to let me take you with me on my next mission.”

My mind stutters to a halt. “Why?”

Peter frowns. “Don’t you want to get away for a while? Have a fresh bit of scenery to clear your head? You’ve been asking me for months. I thought you’d be excited.”

I blink. Before the Nomad’s bargain had instigated my sleepwalking, I’d practically begged Peter to let me join him on his excursions. The ache for air that tasted of something other than pine and salt had consumed me. That had been before I remembered that Astor was bound to return to fulfill his bargain.

Choosing Peter has me answering, “Yes. Yes, of course I’m excited. But going on a mission with you wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“I know. Me neither. But to be quite honest, I’d enjoy it more if you were with me. And I think it could be good for you.”

My whole body goes numb. For months, I would have given my right arm to have a respite from this wretched island. But now…

What if he comes back while I’m gone? What if I miss him? Then there’s the thought of leaving the wraith, my first hint of Astor in months. My palms begin to shake.

“I don’t want to leave Michael,” I say, which is true. I’ve already lost one brother, and the idea of deserting him to this realm while I’m gone…

“He’ll be fine,” says Peter. “Victor will watch out for him.” Peter cups my face. “Come on, Wendy Darling. What do you say you and I go on a little adventure?”

Leaving Neverland isn’t nearly as satisfying as I’d imagined.

For one, I think I’ve made the mistake of equating leaving Neverland with leaving Peter. But here I am, as tucked between his arms as I’ve ever been, soaring through the stars. Yet I’m not the one with wings.

The aurora is vibrant tonight, spearing the darkness with a piercing green glow, as captivating as ever.

There’s a moment when we approach the warping, the twin stars, where a rush of elation permeates my stomach like a raging current. My body warns me to close my eyes to better handle the shift in realms, but I resist the urge. I need my eyes open to scour my surroundings on the other side.

As with the first time, crossing the warping has my stomach tumbling one way, my sense of place the other. The only thing anchoring me to reality is Peter’s arms wrapped possessively around my waist.

Still, I refuse to close my eyes.

When we reach the other side and topple out into the new realm, I check below us first. But the surface of the sea is so quiet, so still, so empty, I can barely glimpse a wave.

Much less a ship.

The sky is equally devoid of any sign of life, speckled with stars but nothing resembling a flying vessel.

He’s not coming.

I’m not sure why I thought he would be. Why I thought that maybe, just maybe, there was something blocking Astor’s path to the warping. That perhaps he’s been camped just outside Neverland all this time, waiting for me, combing for a way in.

That’s a foolish thought.

The only person Astor would put in that sort of effort for is Iaso. Or perhaps he’d do the same for Maddox. Maybe even Charlie. His crew. It sickens me when I consider the host of others he’d put before me. Put before his Mate.

Not that I can call myself that anymore.

I find myself clinging to Peter’s body tighter. Just to sense someone’s warmth against my cheek, my chest. Just to feel someone squeeze me back. At least it allows me to believe, for a while, I belong somewhere.

“Where are we going?” I ask, my voice muffled by Peter’s black shirt.

His wings beat quietly against the air, competing with the breeze that gently curls through the holes between my skin and my clothes.

“Chora. It’s a town?—”

“On the mainland of Estelle. I know,” I say.

Peter looks down at me, his eyes winking with amusement. “Were you a student of maps?”

“John was,” I say, and Peter’s face falls. I don’t add that it’s not all that impressive that I know where Chora is, given I’m Estellian. My parents might have refused to let me leave the manor, but they didn’t deny me tutoring.

After a few moments of silence, I find I can’t bear the quiet. Can’t bear my lingering thoughts of John, so I say, “What do you do for the Sister?”

I’m fairly certain I already know, but I want to hear it from Peter.

Peter swallows. Glances down at me, his eyelashes flicking. It’s odd to me, how protective he is of this secret.

“I’ll find out soon enough,” I say.

“I know.” He grits his teeth. “But perhaps you can remain unaware just a little while longer.”

I examine my counterfeit Mate, feel his muscles tense underneath my grip. It’s strange to me, that he’s concerned with how I think of him.

As if the knowledge of what he does for the Sister will shift my view of him. As if there’s anything he could do that would injure our relationship more than what he’s already done to me. As if it matters what I think of him. As if I’ll suddenly stop kissing him back when he kisses me, or my heart won’t reply when he calls for me.

As if my chains aren’t eternal. Could be broken by something as trivial as contempt.

It would be laughable if it didn’t make me want to weep.

“Please tell me,” I say. Less because I’m curious, and more because I want to make him tell me. In my powerless existence, I’d like to have a morsel of control over him.

It would be nice, for once, to be the type of woman at least one man can’t deny. Surely I’ve earned that, at least.

When Peter doesn’t answer, my hope deflates. Goes sour within me.

“I miss us talking,” I whisper into his chest. So quietly a human wouldn’t be able to detect my voice, but Peter’s fae ears do, even over the chilling wind. When his fingers twitch at my waist, I lean into his discomfort. “You used to talk to me. Tell me things. Do I…do you…” I swallow. “Do you not enjoy talking to me anymore?”

Peter snakes his hand up my back, runs his fingers down my braid, then rubs the pads of his fingers behind my ear. I try not to tense, try not to let him know that he’s gotten much too close to the Nomad’s bargain. For months, I’ve kept it covered with cosmetics I asked Peter to pick up for me from his excursions. But even paint can’t mask the feel of grooves in my skin if Peter happened to touch them.

“Wendy Darling, you know I’m obsessed with you.”

A non-answer if I’ve ever heard one. If this were Past Wendy, the Wendy I was before him, I might let it lie.

But I’m so tired. And I’d like so badly to win. Just once. Just this little battle that’s not even a battle I care about. Just so I can win something. Anything.

“It’s just that…she knows. You’ll talk to her about it.”

Again, Peter tenses. “The Sister is my master. She knows a great many things about me I would rather her not. That’s something I adore about you, Wendy Darling. You don’t push me into anything.”

Correction. I didn’t.

“You’re gone for a long time when you’re away. It makes me wonder…”

“Wendy Darling, you’re my Mate,” says Peter. “You’re mine. No one else is. There is no other.”

I pause, dig my fingers into him more sharply. Like I’m worried that if I let go, I might lose him. I feel his breathing quicken, his desperation for my love and affection palpable. As possessive as he was over me before his pain was restored to him, it’s agonizing for him now—the thought of losing me.

“But I’m not yours. Not really.”

Peter opens his wings. Lets the air punch our bodies until we halt in midair. “What did you say?”

“I want it to be true. I want you so desperately, Peter. Like I want water. Like I want dust.” That’s a lie, but it’s effective. “But I keep having this thought, and it won’t leave me alone. Won’t get out of my head. That our Mark is fake, that it’s not even complete, and that’s why something feels off. That’s why you don’t want to share your inner world with me. It’s because your Mark is unfinished. That’s why you can never want me like I want you.”

Peter swallows, but he won’t look at me. That’s fine. If he were looking at me, I’d know I hadn’t made him uncomfortable enough. Usually, my bargain with him wouldn’t allow me to assault our relationship so directly, but because I’m fighting for the relationship, for us growing closer, I suppose this is still choosing Peter, even if it’s not in a way that he would prefer.

I slide myself into the nuance of the bargain and lodge myself there. I’ll hang myself in the noose of this loophole so long as it means I’ve found one. So long as it gives me more breathing room than I have now.

Peter takes a deep exhale, still not looking at me. He flies on. Below us, the black waters of the sea meld with the shoreline of a country I don’t recognize, faerie dust lanterns highlighting the patterns of the zigzagging streets below. It’s beautiful. Once, I would have been entranced by the lights.

But I’ve already been entranced by the shadows, and they make the light look all the less appealing. What it might reveal about me.

“The Sister has her own duties. But after centuries of carrying out her purpose, she grew weary of getting her hands dirty. So she sends me to do her dirty work instead.”

I remember the story of the Three Sisters. How the Middle Sister took it upon herself to weave the tapestries, the futures, of mortals. How she hunted those few mortals who were too dangerous to live, whose tapestries refused to be woven into a brighter story, no matter how long and often she labored, trying to reshape their futures into something brighter.

“You kill them before they harm anyone else. Before they become monsters,” I say. “Just like the Sister was going to do to the Lost Boys.”

That was how she and Peter had met. She’d been at Thomas’s bedside, readying to poison him before he enacted his revenge not just against the warden who’d abused him, but the entire village for allowing the orphanage to exist.

Judging by the timeline Astor offered, this must have happened a year or two after Astor and Iaso had married and left the town of Endor. Peter had abandoned them, ill with envy toward Astor, believing he couldn’t have possibly let me go in his heart.

If only I had possessed Peter’s skepticism.

But Peter had stepped between the Sister and Thomas. Peter had intervened. Convinced the Sister to create Neverland instead. A place where the Lost Boys could live, separate from the realms, separate from the pain that had seeded violence in their hearts. The Sister had taken the Lost Boys’ memories. But she hadn’t taken their pain. Not really. Not like she had intended.

“Peter?” I say, when he doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t respond until we’ve reached Chora several hours later.

I shouldn’t rejoice. Shouldn’t be exuberant that Peter is murdering people before they commit their crime.

But he’d told me. He hadn’t wanted to, and he’d told me, anyway.

I’d made him do something he didn’t want to do.

In some ways, that tastes better than even faerie dust.