Page 40 of Caging Darling

“You’re much gentler than the real Astor.”

The wraith cocks his head, just ever so slightly, but he doesn’t explain.

I don’t know why the words start spilling out of my mouth. Maybe it’s because that’s what always seemed to happen with the real Astor, and I can’t help myself around him. Maybe I really am this lonely.

“I slept with Peter last night.” Where I would imagine the real Astor to go rigid, the wraith version only taps his finger against his knee.

“Did he make you?”

I frown, hug my arms against my chest, and stroke the bargain in the crook of my arm with my fingers. It’s the shape of a chain, the middle notch only binding when Peter called in his side of the bargain.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “But…” I bite my lip, trying to come up with the words to describe it.

My lip quivers, and that’s when the tears truly come, not just in trickles, but what feels like a torrent. “Last night, it felt like my choice. It felt like I was the one manipulating him. But now that he’s gone and the Mating Mark or the bargain or whatever’s messing with my mind has dulled, I don’t… It doesn’t feel like it was me, even though I know it was. I can run it back through my head and tell you exactly what I was feeling, why I did it. I was so hurt about you not coming for me, and I just wanted to be wanted. To enjoy something. And to hurt you, I think. It seems like it was me, but…”

The wraith tilts his head to the side. “But what?”

I stroke the bargain at the crook of my elbow. The Mating Mark at the notch of my jaw. “But I guess I’ll never know, will I? Because I don’t know where I stop and these begin. I don’t know how much is me anymore.”

Usually, the crying helps. Cleanses me of some of the pain, provides me a new perspective that perhaps things aren’t quite so bad as I originally thought.

Usually.

“Do you think it was me?” I ask, my voice trembling with trepidation.

“I’m afraid that’s not a question anyone else can answer for you, Darling.”

“I know,” I say, biting my lip. “But in your gut, you have to have an opinion.”

For a moment, Astor’s wraith says nothing. I turn toward him, as if I’ll somehow be able to glimpse an answer in his expression. As if he’s real and here with me and not made of shadow.

“You shouldn’t rely on something like me to help you discern what’s real and what’s not.”

“Well, it’s not as if I can rely on myself for that, now can I?”

The shadow of the wraith’s jaw moves, but before he can speak, footsteps sound in the hall.

By the time Peter returns, Astor’s wraith is gone.

CHAPTER 14

As we approach the warping that leads into Neverland, the wind whipping at my hair, tearing it from my braid, Peter informs me it’s time for another dose.

“Why do I need to go back on faerie dust?”

The question is difficult. I have to pry it from my mouth. It’s going against my every instinct not to grab the pouch from Peter’s side and scarf down the tantalizing substance. My mouth is dry, and I have to remind myself that the faerie dust won’t fix that.

I wish I were strong enough to resist it for a better reason, but the only thought rapping at my head is that if Peter gives me a higher dose than he had been, I might not see Astor’s wraith again. I should be resisting for Michael’s sake, so that I can be a more present sister for him. But I’m too weak to be picky about which motivations are the most noble, so long as they keep me off of it.

Peter furrows his brow. “You don’t like it anymore?”

Of course I like it. It feels as if it sustains my very being. I’d felt somewhat better, if not more volatile, more irritable in the other realm, but the fresh air, the not-Neverland air, has helped clear my head some. While I still missed it, it wasn’t my onlythought in Chora, as it so often is. Besides, Peter has already been backing off my dose.

“I thought you were trying to wean me off of it,” I say, trying not to stare at the pouch.

Peter frowns, hovering outside of the warping. “Not completely off of it. Just lower than the dose you had been taking. So you could feel like yourself again.”

“Well,” I say, swallowing and trying to make myself look taller. More certain. “I do. Feel more like myself, I mean.”

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