Page 12 of Caging Darling

Victor opens the door, a fidgeting Michael tossed over his shoulder. Victor’s dark eyes flit between me and Peter. I instinctively take a step back, but my thighs hit the bedside table. Red blotches appear on Victor’s neck, but he nods his head toward Michael. “He’s asking for his mother,” he says.

Peter watches me carefully, but after a moment, his shoulders go lax, his usually carefree demeanor returned. “You should tend to your brother.”

For the thirdnight this week, I wake outside the Den.

The wind howls about me, chilling my bones through Peter’s oversized shirt. If only my sleepwalking self would remember to grab a coat on the way out of the Den, that would be lovely.

The first time it happened, I woke near the grave of Victor’s father. I’d thought it was a side effect of the faerie dust, or perhaps a mixture of it and my grief. A psychological aftermath of my mental state. But then the back of my neck had burned, and I remembered.

That was the first time I’d known for sure I’ll see Astor again one day.

My body is hunting her, even when I’m not. The longer I go without fulfilling the Nomad’s bargain, the more often I wake in the middle of the night somewhere on the island.

When I’d made the deal with the Nomad for information on how to break Peter’s curse, he’d asked for Tink in exchange. At first, he’d demanded I deliver her within a year’s time, but I must have been feeling gutsy, because I’d asked for two years instead.

At nine months since striking the bargain, there’s still plenty of time, but the urges are growing stronger. I could tell Peter about the bargain, and he’d have it fulfilled before sunrise. But “choose me” wasn’t quite specific enough. I’ve learned the boundaries of the curse, what I can and can’t do. Can and can’t hide from him.

Omitting information is well within my rights. And there are some things I’d like to keep to myself as long as possible. My body. My bargains. Neither is worth very much, but each belongs to me. Only me. I think there’s a part of me that recognizes Peter will have them one day, and for now, I’d like to keep them for myself.

It’s easier, defying him when he’s not near. I keep thinking back to flying with him through the sky, remembering the desire for him that had burned so hot in the moment. Now, with Peter half an island away and the tug of the Mating Mark dulled, the thought just sends a chill through my bones.

It’s getting harder and harder, remembering what’s real and what’s not. What’s me and what’s not.

I’m just so tired.

I turn to trudge my way back to the Den, mind drifting when my surroundings finally catch my attention. I’m in a clearing. One I haven’t visited in months. My heart gives a lurch. There’s an onyx stone in the center of the clearing. If I were toapproach, I’d find a familiar name carved into its facade, though the engraving is almost hidden now underneath the moss that’s crept up the side, crowning the stone in a lush green that’s vibrant even in the moonlight.

That’s not what caught my attention, though.

In the center of the clearing is a woman. No, a faerie, her butterfly-shaped wings the texture of a dragonfly’s, their veins glowing golden, though more faintly than I remember.

I wait for the terror to seize my limbs, but it doesn’t. Tink has tried to kill me multiple times, but fearing her would require caring what happens to me. Instead, I watch.

For a moment, I wonder if she’s desecrating John’s grave somehow. That should probably upset me, but it’s not as if he cares. As I watch, Tink kneels, sinking her bare knees into the soft earth. Her back rounds, her wings flittering as she grazes the gravestone with her long, tendril-like fingers.

She’s shaking.

It takes me a moment to recognize it for what it is—weeping. It’s unfamiliar, because she hardly makes a sound. But I can’t see how it could be anything else.

Unless she’s laughing. Which I suppose isn’t out of the question.

It’s strange, and I can’t imagine why Tink would weep over John. The idea is so absurd, I’m second-guessing whether this is the right grave. But no, I recognize the cut of the stone. This is the place we lowered his clammy body into the hungry earth.

What happened while I was away?

The question rattles inside my mind. It’s not the first time I’ve asked it. Not the first time I’ve wondered what could have possibly driven my brother—so rational, so protective—to suicide. Sure, the answer had always come back to the shadows. They’d talked Simon into slitting his own throat. Victor had told me as much when I returned to Neverland. My own wraith hadtalked me off the railing when I was traveling with Astor on theIaso.

I don’t know what the wraiths said to Simon, but my wraith had used my insecurities against me. She’d not only listed all the reasons John and Michael were better off without me, she’d implied my existence endangered them.

But John—for the life of me, I haven’t been able to come up with anything the wraiths could have used to convince him to end his own life. Then again, watching Tink weep over his grave, I’m not sure I knew my brother as well as I’d thought.

Her cropped blonde hair shines in the moonlight, and I watch as she trails her fingers across her cheeks to wipe away the silent tears. Her mouth gapes, gropes, but if she’s screaming, I can’t hear her over the howling wind. Tink grasps at her chest, as if she would tear out her own heart if she only had the strength. When she pulls her hand away, her fingernails are coated with blood. Panicked, she wipes the blood on the drab sack she uses as a dress. Once she’s calmed herself, she rubs her thumb over the corner of the gravestone, like she’s running it across his chin, and my heart gives a painful, jealous lurch.

It’s a disgusting feeling, one I’ll loathe myself for later, but I hate watching her mourn over him.

I hate wondering if she visits his grave more than I do.

I close my eyes, aware that it’s my thinning supply of faerie dust talking, but that knowledge doesn’t help to dull the envy.

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