Page 9 of The First Lost Boy (The Shadows of Neverland Duet #2)

Hudson

The Never Sea swells to our waists as the three of us quietly wait and watch the shore. Belle and Nyin hear two sets of footfalls approaching from the Neverwood and the mermaid is poised to lure the hapless wretches into the sea.

“Neither one of them feels like Pan,” Belle breathes, disappointment lacing the anticipation coursing through her small frame.

Belle’s been away from Peter and his power for a very long time, and I’m not sure she can trust the instinct she once honed. If Pan wants to cloak himself, he can. Besides, I’m not sure Nyin’s song is strong enough to capture Pan. But he’ll feel the blow if we incapacitate two of his loyal, lost mutts all the same.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and one of them will be Ava!” she chirps.

“That would be quite lucky,” I muse, although I’m fairly certain there’s zero chance of that happening. My gut tells me that Peter is keeping Ava on a very short leash. He’s using her to bait Tinkerbell. The pixie must know that.

“Yes, quite,” Belle mutters before biting the inside of her cheek.

“Until we know for sure, stay in the water,” I advise. We have a plan. We just need to remember it and stick to it if anything goes awry.

My ship looms behind us, anchored as close to the shore as I’ve ever dared bringing her, thanks to the mermaid’s careful eye beneath the waters to avoid the rocks.

Perched in the crow’s nest, Rio serves as lookout.

Nyin will swim us to the ship if anything goes amiss, where Smee is at the rail, ready to haul us back aboard at the first sign of trouble.

I have no doubt we’ll find plenty. I just wish I could predict how much to expect. “The water’s curse is still potent, right?” I watch Tinkerbell from my periphery.

She cursed the very sea so that Pan and his Lost couldn’t reach us. The line ebbs and surges with the tide, but it runs through every salty drop of the Never Sea.

After she left, they tried everything they could think of and couldn’t find a way over or through it. If they touch the water or anything on it, they burn, and if they don’t stop, they will burn to death.

Peter sent one of his Lost into the water to test what it would do. She was not resurrected because nothing was left of her.

“Of course,” Belle answered. “That’s why he can’t overshadow the mermaids, as long as they stay submerged.”

I nod thoughtfully, wishing I could sense it myself. I hate having to rely on others. “Will the water recognize Ava as one of the Lost?”

Belle winces. “I don’t know now. It might if she’s aligned with Pan.”

“Kissing him would suggest that might be the case,” I grouse.

The fairy turns to me. “Do you know what he’s done to my people?”

I shake my head. “I only know that they were here one day and gone the next.”

She hums an unhappy response and crosses her arms. “There are only a few places he could have hidden them.”

My brow raises. “You think they’re hidden ? Not dead?”

She bristles. “They’re on the island. I can feel their magic, it’s just… It feels different than when I left. But it’s still here. The island doesn’t lie.” The pixie offers a determined nod. “I’ll find them and set them free once we get Ava and Paris off this island. That should be our focus. They can survive well enough without their shadows.”

I open my mouth to protest that they’ll need their shadows to go back home, but she’s right. She’s so right. Pan expects us to come for both, but Ava and Paris can live without their shadows on the mainland. Ava’s done it most of her life. If it means that everyone lives and goes home this time, she can do it again. It’s what she’d want. It would make this last trek ashore easier than I’ve been anticipating it to be.

I just wish I felt as settled about them living without their memories as Belle does.

A wave swells to my throat, then continues pushing forward until it crashes and sweeps onto Neverland’s shore.

Pan waited until Belle was gone from Neverland a very long time before setting the shadows she took from him free. He knew that time and her distance from Neverland would necrotize her power, just like he knew Belle would take the shadows upon herself and they would slowly eat away at her. Pan was patient. He waited until he was stronger than she would be when she returned.

I’m just not sure if he somehow sensed that Ava was still with Belle. How could he have known? Could he sense her through the shadows Belle stole from him? And if so, did that mean we didn’t have all our shadows back? If he kept even a sliver of each separate from the rest, the curse would still bar us from returning home.

If I’ve learned nothing else from this hell, it’s that on Neverland, curses are like cages, fitted inside one another around the island like nesting dolls. Some were woven by Pan to serve his purposes. Others were raised by Belle to keep us safe from Pan. And then there is the curse that holds Pan on the isle. He might have found a way to circumvent it for a time, but he hadn’t escaped it, no matter how hard he tried.

There are times when I wish someone, or some thing , would obliterate them all and let us see where the chips fall without the cursed barriers in place. But then I consider how many people have been hovering over the sea, waiting for a chance to escape, losing themselves to Pan’s cruelty, and I can’t stomach them giving up even the slightest portion of what little they have left.

I glance at the pixie treading water beside me. “You’re certain that you’re strong enough to not only drop the curse, but curse the water again?” Because if she’s not, we need to devise another way to reach Ava and Paris.

Belle huffs. “Yes. We’ve been over this, Hudson.”

“We discussed the logistics from the deck of my ship, not when you’ve been standing in the swells,” I tell her.

“Distance is irrelevant!” she snips.

I shrug a shoulder. “Doesn’t seem that way. Pan’s magic has become far more potent than it used to be, and his reach stretches farther than any of us realized.”

She shook her head, frustrated. “That’s something I don’t understand. He shouldn’t be able to gain power. He should only have what he was born with.”

“Maybe he’s just discovering its full breadth,” I suggest.

“It feels more substantial than that,” she mutters.

It feels more sinister. I’ll agree to that much.

Does it matter why or how he became more powerful? It doesn’t change the fact that he is. And the more we know about what he is capable of, the better we can prepare to face him.

I remember him striking Ava as the skiff carried us away from his reach, marking her with his magic as I held her in my arms.

I saw the shadows siphoned from Evermist, but he reached the mainland with his shadows, touching Belle through layers of curses.

If the Second Star’s curse on Pan ever truly fell, I still don’t believe Pan would need anyone else’s shadow or the wings that decayed long ago. With his ability to move through shadow, there’s no place on this earth he can’t reach.

Nyin told us that when she saw Peter and Ava at The Cove, he cast his shadows out over the sea, searching for any mermaid who had fallen under his influence, as she once had been. Which begs the question: how far can Peter toss his dark net? And what might he one day be capable of dragging back to Neverland?

Belle’s foresight before leaving with Ava is the only reason he didn’t corrupt my crew and the whole town, each of us turning on the rest.

I may still be bitter that she left us here for years, but at least she thought to guard us before she went.

A smile stretches over my lips because my mundane, human ears now capture what Belle and Nyin have been listening to for some time: someone is whistling.

Belle grins. “Do you finally hear him?”

I nod.

If Wraith has been sent to The Cove today, we’ll soon know what’s going on in the heart of the Never Wood. He’s quite chatty when properly motivated. But if fortune wants to shine her brilliant light on us today, she’ll send us Bones…

Nyin utters something under her breath.

Belle gestures to her pointed ears. “It’s time. If you can hear them , they can hear Nyin’s song.”

I use my fingers to plug my ears as best I can and crouch so they’re underwater as an excited gleam brightens Belle’s golden eyes.

As the mermaid begins to sing, Tinkerbell looks as giddy as she does feral. She’s a perfect reminder that malicious hearts can be hidden by angelic smiles. This crafty plan is all hers, after all. Not that I don’t wholeheartedly approve of her appetite for destruction.

In the distance, Seoul, Kenya, and Dublin disappear, steering the skiff toward The Lagoon and out of earshot of the mermaid, where they’ll wait just beyond the breaking waves for nightfall and word from Nyin to go ashore. After dark, Pan’s shadows will be impotent, and the advantage will be ours.

A figure emerges from the tree line before a second form follows suit. They drift closer and closer to the water they would never wade too close to if they had their minds about them. But their thoughts belong to Nyin now. As do their bodies and their will.

Two birds to kill with a single stone…

Nyin sings Lock and Thorn to the water’s edge. I feel a crackle of energy as Belle removes her influence from the water and watch the men walk into the sea for the first time since Belle left Neverland with Ava.

Each is intent on getting to Nyin, who sings them deeper and deeper into the swells.

She wraps her clawed hands around each of their forearms as both men stare at her like she’s their savior and not their executioner.

The men’s screams startle the birds roosting in the nearest trees the second Nyin stops singing and they realize where they are and what’s about to happen.

It’s music to my ears.

Almost as sweet as the sound of the sea stealing their last breaths.