Back in the cove, I was so sure he would hand me over to Pan to save his crew. But he didn’t. He chose me. The guilt and the terrible hope that knowledge inspires make my eyes burn and my throat go tight. I don’t understand it. He loves those boys so fiercely. Why would he choose me instead of saving what was left of his crew?
He sees me stirring, but he doesn’t speak or make any move to help me up. We’re on a broad, flat rock that’s still radiating the heat from the day. Around us, the world is quiet and still. With the calm ocean lapping at the shore below, it would be easy to believe that nothing is wrong. That he hasn’t just lost a brother. That I haven’t just abandoned a friend.
“What now?” I ask once the sun has lowered itself into the sea.
“We haven’t much choice. We’ll do as Fiona instructed. We’ll find the Queen and we’ll free her.” He runs a hand through his damp hair, pushing it out of his eyes. “Then we’ll hope for the best and try to get you and your friend back to your world.”
“You’ll help me save Olivia from Pan?” I ask, surprised that he would offer without my asking. Especially after what he’d said before, on his ship.
“Aye, though we’ll have to be waiting until morning, as it’s not safe to venture into the island so late in the day. It should be safe enough to stay here for the night—if Pan hasn’t come after us already, I doubt he’ll venture out in the darkness.”
“He has before,” I say, thinking of the night he came to me on the ship.
“That he has, but he knows now my lads and I had help getting into his fortress. He’ll be more on guard, less willing to trust his safety to Fiona and the lights of her kind for protection.”
I want to tell him that I’m sorry about going with Pan. About the choice Will made. I know words can be powerful things, but I’m not sure there’s a single combination of sounds or syllables worthy of the loss he’s just suffered.
“I’ll build us a fire,” he says after a while. “It should keep us safe enough for the night.”
He sets about his task quietly, leaving me on the warmth of the rock to watch him meticulously gather debris, which he piles in a small mound. Then, using the steel of his fingertip to strike sparks against the dark stone, he carefully feeds the embers bits of dried seaweed until they flicker into flame.
When the fire is burning, he lays his coat and his shirt out on the rock so they can dry in the warmth of the fire, leaving his lean torso bare in the deepening twilight. Muscles bunch and move under his damaged skin, but this time, the sight of his scars isn’t so shocking. Nor is the steel arm, as it glints in the firelight.
Ignoring the heat that has built in my cheeks, I strip off my own damp boots and socks and warm my toes in the heat of the flames. We sit that way until long after the rosy sky has turned dark. Neither of us willing to break the uneasy stillness with words.
In time the fire grows large enough to cast a steady glow, shielding us from the darkness beyond. My toes are warmer now, but I’m still shivering from my wet clothes.
He frowns at my chattering teeth and takes his coat from the rock, feeling it for dampness. Satisfied, he offers it to me. “Strip out of those and wear this instead.”
I give him a doubtful look as I consider the outstretched coat.
“I’ll turn my back. Go on,” he says, thrusting the coat forward.
I take it from him and wait until he’s turned away from me. “Fiona said you and Pan were friends once,” I say as I strip out of my wet shirt and pants as quickly as I can. The question’s easier to ask when I don’t have to face that dark look of his.
He doesn’t answer right away, so I pull on the warm heaviness of his coat. It hangs to mid-thigh, long enough that I’m covered but still short enough that I feel uncomfortably bare. When I wrap it around myself, I’m surrounded by his scent—spicy and heady—the scent of the sea and the wind. And of Rowan.
Rowan. I’ve been thinking of him as that name since . . . when? I’m not even sure. But sometime between when I saw his dark head appear in the window of Pan’s fortress and now, the Captain began to disappear for me. Now all I see is the boy beneath the title. The boy with eyes dark as the night sky.
“I’m ready,” I say, settling myself across from him, covering my bare legs as best I can with his coat. When he turns back, his gaze brushes over me, and even though I’m completely covered, I feel unaccountably bare.
“I know you’re not friends now,” I tell him, trying to distract him and myself. “But something had to have changed. . . .” I let my voice trail off, not wanting to voice the question directly. But he understands my meaning.
“Don’t paint me the hero, lass,” he says stiffly. “The only thing that truly changed is that I learned a new way to kill.”
I frown, but I don’t allow myself to react, and I don’t press him. The stiff set of his shoulders and the self-loathing I hear in his voice are enough to tell me that he judges himself more harshly than maybe even I could.