But it’s not a single voice. No, this time the voice is a thousand dark voices, singing to me and urging me. And all at once, I’m back in those dark woods of my childhood, the coolness of the night calling to me. The voices calling to me. The trees stretching their fingers wide toward the sky, caging the stars in their hands. Creaking and moaning in the rushing air, like the trees are translating the wind.
I am immersed in too-familiar images. And I remember everything then—the strange pull I felt as the voice called to me. The oddest feeling that I needed to go to them, to be with them. Again. For it felt so familiar, that wanting, that calling. So I followed the voice, away from the lights of our house. Away from the safety of my mother. Into the darkness, where the forest smelled of damp leaves, and the night spoke in a language I could almost understand.
It wanted me, I realize, but not to kill me. There was nothing frightening or unsettling about the voices I heard in the forest of my childhood. Nothing terrible about the thick and living darkness that brushed against me. It wanted me because I was part of it. It wasn’t the darkness that hurt me that night. It was everything that came after.
Everything I forgot.
The Dark Ones might have been hunting me then. They were definitely hunting me in my own world and here in Neverland, but now I understand they didn’t want to harm me. They wanted to show me what I was—the heir of my father. The heir of both Dark and Light, perfectly balanced. Just like this world should be.
All at once, the swirling darkness spins around me, excited that I’ve understood them. Joyful their message is clear. Welcoming. Like every soft summer night I’ve spent sleeping under stars without my mom knowing.
When I went running into the woods that night, it was because this world called to me, pulled me. That was why my mom embedded the rune into my arm. To keep me hidden and also to stop me from realizing what I was. This is the truth the Dark Ones give me.
You belong to us, they croon. You can save us and reclaim the world for our King. For our kind.
Neverland is quiet beneath us. It no longer breathes. Its heart no longer beats. The largest of the Dark Ones moves toward me, and even though I no longer sense it as a threat, I throw myself over Rowan more securely. Its faceless head turns and, with a wave of its arm, it shows me what is happening to the world. The fortress all around us is crumbling. Pan was right: without the Queen to hold it together, Neverland is breaking apart.
Then it speaks in that unfamiliar tongue, rough and grating syllables that once sounded like nothing but the wind. But I can’t forget what they’ve shown me, what they’ve whispered to me about who I am. About the choice I have before me. This time I understand what they say.
Pan hadn’t lied. Neverland could truly be my home if I choose it. I could embrace all the Dark Ones have shown me, I could claim what they believe is rightfully mine. For I am both Light and Dark, heir of the Queen and the Dark King. I could balance the power here, reclaim the world and live within it.
But when I close my eyes, trying to think, all I see is the blue-gray gaze of my mother. When I open my eyes, I see Rowan’s unsteady breath, and I know what my choice is. What it will always be. “I need to get them back,” I plead.
I can feel the disappointment rolling from the dark creature, but its faceless head gives a jerk, a nod of assent. Two others come forward, and this time I have no fear of them. I back away as one lifts Rowan effortlessly in its arms. He’s pale and unconscious now, and far too close to death.
“Take care of him,” I plead.
I go to Olivia, kneeling beside her as another Dark One approaches. She looks up at me with a lazy half-lidded gaze, surprisingly calm and unaware of what has just happened or of the state she’s currently in. Her face is covered in a maze of dark lines. Her arms look like cracked porcelain.
“I’m going to get you home, Liv,” I tell her, brushing her hair back from her face.
Weakly, she opens her eyes and looks at me, and I see them go from the soft glassy forgetting of Neverland to the sharp awareness of my friend.
“Liv?” I say, taking her hand gently. Her skin feels fragile as spun glass, but her eyes are still Olivia’s.
“Gwen?” she says, her voice thick with pain and confusion. “What happened?” Her eyes dart wildly around, from me to the monstrous dark Fey lurking above her and back again. Panicked. Frightened. Like she is just waking up, just beginning to remember.
She tries to pull her hand away from me, and I feel pieces of it flake away. So I let her go, and the moment I release her hand, I see her eyes start to go glassy again. All at once I understand. It’s me. When I hugged her that first day, when I touched her out at the End . . . I’m what was causing those moments of clarity in her expression. Because of what I am.
“Liv,” I say, grasping her hand again, refusing to let her go.
Her skin crumbles under my grasp, and she moans in agony. But her eyes are so clear, and I can see the memories flooding back as her expression darkens with horror. “What did she do to me?” she asks, her face contorting in agony.