Page 153 of Caging Darling

Without his shadows, his wings remain, unable as he was to contain them within himself before his shadows were taken. They’re that same dark patagium Victor’s father rent through on the beach. Before I defended Peter’s life and killed an innocent man for him.

Tink takes a step toward them.

“It’s not worth it,” I whisper to her, but she’s not listening to me. I can see it now, the hatred she’s kept piled in all these years, drowning out my voice, whipping like the wind in her ear.

“To you, it’s not,” says the Nomad. “But Tink and I—well, we’re cut from a different tapestry altogether.”

Tink glances up at him, fear in her eyes. But when he extends his hand, she takes the blade from him. Her hands are shaking. Her slender fingers.

“What all did you take from our friend here?” asks the Nomad, twisting at Peter’s arms. Peter, on his knees, grits his teeth. The Nomad twists harder.

Peter, never one to endure pain, speaks. “Her voice. I took her voice.”

A shriek of pain as the Nomad wrenches tissue from bone. “What else?”

“Her freedom. I kept her locked away in Neverland for years.”

“What else?”

Peter stares at Tink, blood dripping from his forehead. “I took John.”

He doesn’t even look at me as he says it.

“And?”

Peter’s gaze is almost predatory. “And I did all that after seducing her into my bed. Making her love me so that she would trust me. I went to her with a plan, then I took everything from her.”

Tink winces, shakes, but she doesn’t cry. Doesn’t whimper.

She can’t.

For a moment, she turns to me. She looks so small next to the Nomad and Peter, contorting like that. It’s strange, seeing her in real attire, not that burlap sack that was all Peter allowed her to wear all those years. She was thin when I first met her, but her form has filled out, revealing muscular legs and a sturdy torso. Her cheeks are fuller, too.

I hadn’t realized how little she’d been given to eat at Neverland. I should have brought her more of my food, more of my leftovers. I bet John thought to do that.

Tears sting at my eyes. She handles the blade in her hand carefully, then offers it to me. My mind flashes back to the cave of Endor. To picking Astor’s blade off the floor.

I’ve never solved any problems by wielding a blade in anger. As much as I’d like to. I stare at Peter, then shake my head.

“Wendy Darling,” he says. As if he thinks I’m going to try to talk Tink out of whatever she’s about to do. As if talking her out of it would be for his sake and not hers.

But if Tink needs her abuser dead, I won’t stop her.

Perhaps in several years, I’ll be wise enough to know I should have spoken wise words. Told her to do the right thing.

Tonight, I simply don’t have the energy for it.

My Mate is gone, enslaved to an immortal spirit who will cage him for the rest of his life. All because of what the man on his knees before us did to save his own happiness.

I shake my head. It’s all yours, I don’t have to say aloud.

Tink nods, then handles the blade carefully in her hand, staring at it as she flips it over in the grooves of her palm.

I wonder where she will cut first. If it were me…

She raises the blade. Touches it gently to Peter’s lips. He presses them tight, but she pries them open easily enough with the blade, plays with the edges of his tongue.

Sweat breaks out on Peter’s forehead. I can sense the urge to plead within him, but he’s too afraid to speak, too afraid to move his tongue and lose it against the edge of the blade.

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