Page 51 of Caging Darling

My heart stops in my chest. I’d known that the Sister had told my parents to kill Iaso in order to heal me. But the thought thather blood could have healed me without having to kill her, the thought that Peter…

“Why?” I breathe. “Why?”

The vision shifts as the Sister looks up from Tink and toward me, as if noticing I’m here for the first time, breaking out of her apparition. “Oh, come now, dear. You’ve gotten to be so much cleverer than that, haven’t you?”

I blink, because I can’t make sense of it. I turn to Peter’s wraith. “You were her friend. Since childhood. How could you want her dead? You were Astor’s friend. You had me. You had the majority of the Mark, and my parents’ bargain, too. Why would you want Iaso dead? It doesn’t make any…”

Tink comes up next to me and places her fingers through mine. I’m heaving, my mind whirling.

Iaso didn’t have to die. Iaso didn’t have to die. We both could have lived. And then Astor, Astor…

I gasp with a sharp inhale, spinning on Peter’s wraith. “Tell me why you did it,” I scream, and his wraith just cocks its head at me.

“Wendy Darling, you’re mine. My Darling little possession. You always have been.”

He approaches me, and Tink goes to stand between us, but I gently brush her aside with a touch to her shoulder. “It wasn’t enough, was it?” I say, stepping out from behind Tink. “Because you knew. You knew Astor still had part of the Mating Mark. You knew I didn’t belong to you, not completely, as long as he had that Mating Mark on him. But if you hated him so much, why not kill him? Get him out of the way? Why kill Iaso?”

Peter’s wraith actually recoils, though without seeing his expression, I can’t tell whether his offense is feigned. “You think I would kill my oldest friend?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. Search the darkness for why. Why Peter would kill Iaso.

Oh.

“You wanted Astor to hate me,” I say, the realization slapping me across the face. “You knew the only emotion as strong as the Mating Bond was hatred. So you ensured it was my fault that his wife was dead.”

Astor’s voice, from the night at the Carlisles’, rings in my head.When I look at you, do you know what I picture? I picture you sinking your teeth into my wife’s bleeding throat.

“You did that to him. To me.” I clutch my belly as if that will keep my trembling insides intact. “You made sure that the one man guaranteed to love me would be sick at the very sight of me. Would despise my touch. You made it so that every desire he ever had for me was tainted with guilt. You made it so that he couldn’t look at me, couldn’t think of me, without thinking of his wife.”

Peter’s wraith just stares at me.

“You ruined him for me. You did it on purpose. And Iaso’s life was simply the price you had to pay for getting what you wanted.”

Normally, I would feel as if I couldn’t breathe, but the anger is so real, so potent, I feel for the first time in a long time as if I’m alive.

The man standing before me isn’t Peter, it’s just a memory of him, taken from a place in time. I suppose that’s why I can hate him this freely.

The wraiths disappear, and it’s just me and Tink left. I spin around, searching the landing, but even John is gone. And though it was never truly John to begin with, I feel the ache in my heart at his sudden absence.

Tink approaches me and grabs my hand in her calloused one. I clutch it to my chest, as if her knuckles can expunge the rage growing there.

“He made it so he wouldn’t want me…” I say through heavier breaths. “He made him hate me…” Tears burn at my eyes. “And now…”

Tink pulls me into her, wrapping her arms around me. Even her papery wings brush against my skin, and I can feel the tattered bits.

It’s then that the anger within me drains, a passing gale I can’t ever hold onto long enough to do anything of import with.

“What does he do to your wings?” I ask.

Tink pulls away. Rifles through her tiles. But it takes a while, and it doesn’t seem she can find the words.

My heart aches for her. For the girl who was lured here, just so her voice could be taken. I could ask her why her voice, what was special about it, but something tells me the handful of tiles at her side won’t be able to express that either.

“I don’t think I can do it,” I say. “I’m sorry. I know you showed me this so I would leave him, but I can’t.” Tears well in my eyes.

Tink offers me a sad frown. Presses tiles to my hand. “I KNOW.”

So I descend the cliffs down the path marked by my dead brother, knowing what I know.

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