The Captain’s dark eyes meet mine, and I see real panic there. And fear. The expression is so foreign, so strange-looking on the sharp lines of his face, I’m moving before I can think better of it. And before I can think through the implications of what I’m about to do, I grab Pan’s arm and pull him back. “No!”
Pan turns to me, his eyes narrowed and his mouth curled up into a snarl. Gone is the beautiful boy, and in his place is something cold and dangerous. His blue eyes are empty of any feeling but rage. Still I don’t let go of his arm.
“Why ever not, Gwendolyn? He brought his rabble into my home, to kill my boys—why should I spare him?”
“If you do this, you’d be no better than he is,” I say, careful not to look at the Captain. I keep my eyes on Pan, begging him without words to relent.
Pan’s eyes narrow as he considers me. For a moment that feels like an eternity, the Captain hangs from the doorway, sweat beading on his forehead with the effort of trying to pull himself back up.
Whatever he’s done, whatever he might be, I can’t stand by and do nothing. I saw the Sea Hags, and I know the risk he took to pull me from the water. I owe him this much. “Please,” I plead. “You don’t need to kill him to win. You can be better than he is.”
At first Pan doesn’t show any sign of having heard me. His jaw remains tense, his whole body ready to attack as he glares at the Captain. But then his shoulders relax, just a little, and he glances at me, his expression hiding more that it reveals.”
“Quite right, my dear,” Pan says after another long moment. Then a dark smile flickers across his face. “But then again, I’ve always been better than he is.”
With a flick of Pan’s hand, the vining garlands that Olivia made begin to snake their way along the floor and wrap themselves around the Captain’s wrists. Blood wells where their thorns dig into his right arm, but he barely flinches. And he doesn’t scream or plead his case. His dark eyes are steady on me as the ropes of green begin to drag him off the ledge, lowering him down to the Great Hall.
I run to the doorway to see Pan’s boys gathering below. When the Captain, still struggling against the vines, finally makes it to the floor, the boys set upon him.
“You said you wouldn’t kill him,” I say to Pan, who is watching the events unfold with a gleam in his eyes.
Pan glances at me. “Worry not, my dear. My boys know well enough that I’d be very displeased if the Captain’s death came at any hands but my own.”
I’m not as sure of the boys as Pan is though. With his hands and arms wrapped tightly in the vines, the Captain doesn’t have a chance to defend himself against the blows he’s being dealt by the feral pack of children below. After a moment, one raises the Captain’s metal arm aloft like a trophy.
But some of the glowing orbs have started to gather around the group of boys. With a flash, one of them explodes in a burst of light that has me blinking away, and when I look back, I see a person is standing where the orb once floated.
Or not a person, exactly, but a creature that looks so much like Fiona, I don’t have any doubt he’s Fey. His naked torso is covered in the same strangely iridescent scales that covered Fiona’s body, and his head is topped with the same white-blond hair.
The boys in the hall below go completely silent, and the one who was about to deliver a kick to the Captain’s face lowers his foot as, one by one, the glowing orbs flash with blinding brightness and transform into more of the blond Fey. The sixth and final orb explodes in light and reveals Fiona, standing stone-faced over the Captain’s body.
I let out a shaking breath in relief as she bends down to examine him. With a quick jerk of her head, two of the other Fey come forward and hoist the Captain up by his arms. I wait for the boys to attack, but they never do. They just watch with uneasy expressions on their young faces.
“Show our guest to the hold,” Pan calls down.
I whip my head around, confused. On the ship, Fiona talked to the Captain as though they knew each other—more than knew each other. She talked to him as though they were allies. For a moment I thought she came to rescue him, but it’s clear from the expressionless look on her face, she hasn’t.
Pan smiles at my confusion. “Fiona’s been loyal to me from the first, Gwendolyn.”
“But she was on the ship,” I protest.
“Yes, she was—at my behest. She brings me information and keeps me apprised of the Captain’s plans. Rowan has no idea.” Pan smiles, a slippery curve of his mouth that lights his eyes with amusement. “Though I suppose he does now.”
When the order was given, they crept slowly, cautiously, out into the barren stretch of land between safety and death. His brother’s eyes were alert, watching for danger to reveal itself. The boy should have been looking as well, but he could not take his eyes off the misshapen lump that had once been a soldier a few meters away. . . .
Chapter 23