I know with a sickening certainty that if he continues drinking in her life, that line will grow. She will turn as brittle as the boy in the Captain’s ship. And then she’ll fall to the ground, pieces of a shattered porcelain doll that can never be put right.
I can’t let that happen.
Struggling against the hedge, I start to scream to warn her, but the branches retaliate by pulling me back into their thick, thorny arms, pressing their broad, glossy leaves against my mouth. Silencing me. The hedge closes itself quickly, but not before Pan hears my voice and his eyes find me. Just as the leaves block my view, I see those eyes flash with an anger more dangerously feral than any of his boys.
“Gwendolyn,” he calls, confirming what I feared—he saw me. He knows that I understand what he’s capable of. He knows I saw the truth of what he is.
But I have nowhere to go—the branches are immovable.
“Gwendolyn?” Pan’s voice is closer now. His voice has softened, and I can tell he’s trying to sound as pleasant and charming as always, but there’s a hollowness in his tone that doesn’t lie, and I know if he catches me, it won’t be good. Because Fiona was right—it isn’t only the Captain who uses the Dark Ones. And if she was right about that, how much more of what she said might be true?
I slam my fists against the thorny branches, ignoring the way they scrape at my skin. “Let. Me. Out!” I shout, pushing at the dense growth with all my might.
Shadows begin to swirl at my feet, and I shove harder. “Please!” I cry at the immovable branches. “Fiona!”
Without warning, the branches behind me part enough that I fall to the ground.
I’m still panting from the effort of my escape. Around me, the hedge has gone still, and one of the fairy lights now hovers near me, pulsing and growing brighter with each beat as it shivers, as though from the increase in energy.
I glance back at the trembling foliage—I can’t leave Olivia here with Pan. I know now for sure just how dangerous he is. And I know this world has made Olivia powerless against Pan’s seduction. But there isn’t time. The darkness is already gathering around me, the branches already rustling as they part to let him through.
I don’t want to leave Olivia behind, but I won’t be able to help her if Pan has me. I’m no good to Olivia if I’m dead. With panic fluttering in my chest, my skin cold with fear, I don’t hesitate any longer.
The moment I feel the orb’s searing cold light on my fingertips, the world tilts. In a flash of blinding pressure, the cavern around me quivers, and then it disappears completely.
His brother asked if he was ready, and the boy nodded, but it was a lie. “I’m sorry,” he started to say to his brother, knowing that he needed to put everything he meant in those three syllables. But his brother’s expression went hard as he shook his head to stop the boy from speaking. “There’ll be time enough for that after. . . .”
Chapter 26
WHEN I COME TO, THE light is gone. It takes me a second to remember what’s just happened, but I have no idea where I am.
It’s dark—a dense, unnatural darkness that I recognize too well. The scent of moldering leaves is all around me. I hear a whispering rustle somewhere in the distance, and the echo of the metallic sound grates against my nerves. It all marks the unmistakable presence of the Dark Ones.
The darkness is so thick around me, so deep and dense, it’s easy to imagine that I don’t exist at all. It brushes against my cheek and inches like ice down my spine. It spins me into itself until I am completely lost, until I can’t tell my past from my present, and suddenly, I’m there again, in that mysterious forest. . . .
The forest surrounding me, the night breathing slow and steady, and my heart racing in my chest with a terrible joy.
A rustling, a scuttling scrape that sounds like the wind coming alive. And the forest dressed in night, and something is out there, waiting. A voice in my head, dark and sweet, whispering to me. But I can’t make out what it says.
A wailing moan comes out of the darkness—not the night of that image, but the deep dark night of where I now am. I blink, shaking a little as I come back to myself, but the ghost of the memory is still there, just on the edges of my consciousness. I have the sense that I could almost grasp it and discover what’s hidden there, but . . . I back away instead and let the memory fade into the darkness that inspired it.
Another moan greets my ears. Shaking, I listen to it reverberate through the spaces around me, and as it echoes, I realize that I’ve heard that moaning wail before—it’s the sound I heard each night I was a prisoner on the Captain’s ship. That can’t be a coincidence.
I make up my mind to follow the noise, and begin to inch my way forward. I don’t know how long I’ve been moving through the dark when I come up against a wall—a dead end. The screams haven’t come for a few minutes, and I have the sickening feeling I’m lost.