For Niko is the lord of pain—he does not break beneath the agony. He ishonedby it. He has spent his life learning to move through it in a way the Aeternalis has never understood. And he does so now.
His lips peel back from his blood-stained teeth in a lethal snarl, and faster than lightning, he grabs Pan by the throat, spinning him up against the wall. With a peal of laughter as wild as any Strayed, Niko yanks the knife from his own chest and plunges it into Peter’s. Straight through his exposed heart.
Dawson slams me down into the floor with a howl of fury—a cry that reverberates through me in its all-consuming grief. Savage and untethered, like a man who has lost everything.
Stars bloom behind my eyes, the room tilting precariously, as I scrabble upward to stop Dawson from rushing to the aid of his master. But in my disorientation, I am not fast enough.
I can only watch as Dawson rushes his brother, his expression a terrifying picture of madness and grief—only watch as his blade plunges through Niko’s back to spear through his heart.
Chapter fifty-six
There have been so many moments in my life where I’ve wished for time to speed up or freeze, but now—as I watch Niko’s body slump lifelessly forward against Pan’s—I wish there is no time at all. For if time does not exist, it cannot steal him from me.
But there is no magic in the universe powerful enough to grant that dream. And here, on the mainland, there is none to call upon anyway.
I am entirely unarmed but for the feral rage crashing through me. It careens through my veins until it burns at the surface of my skin; it clears my thoughts of everything except one:ruin.
With a cry of fury, I launch myself at Dawson. I am no longer the Queen of Dreams. No longer Willa at all, only a channel of anger—a weapon forged by every injustice done to me. By every hurt inflicted on others by those in power. By every dream destroyed, and every bit of innocence stolen by those who feast on the blood of others.
In his shock, Dawson loses his grip on the sword. I leap onto his back, clinging to his waist with my thighs and wedging a forearm against his throat. He gasps, desperate for air, clawing at my skin as he tries to buck me off. He careens backward, unbalanced in his attempt to shake me. Together, we smash into my old armoire. It splinters on impact, shards of wood exploding around us, but I feel none of the pain—only the light of my anger.
Dawson’s nails break my skin, a last desperate wheeze filtering from his lips as we crash to the ground. And though he goes limp on top of me, the weight of his body nearly crushing my lungs, my rage is not sated.
I roll out from beneath him and draw his own blade from the scabbard at his hip.
It is not a foreign shadow that drives me this time. It is only my own dark heart that brings the sword down through his throat; my savage love that drinks in Dawson’s last breath with relish as I stab him again and again. His face, his throat, his chest—I mutilate it all.
Only when I am coated in blood and gore—when my arms ache too furiously to hold the weapon any longer—do I let the blade clatter to the floor, and crawl to where Niko has collapsed atop Pan.
Trust me.
His silent plea echoes like a gunshot in the stillness of my childhood bedroom. Bile surges up my throat as I leverage my weight to pull the blade from his back. My heart thrums in my chest,tick, tick, tick,and for a few long minutes, its beat is all I can hear. My own heart, my own breaths—both so tauntingly loud against the quiet of Niko’s, as I work to flip him over.
There are no ribbons to aid me this time, nothing but my own stubborn will and the draining remnants of my rage. Grief threatens to swallow me whole, looming above my head like aviolent wave. But I refuse to give into it just yet—refuse to leave him in an artless land with the corpse of his brother.
Niko’s head lolls and his body finally gives way, rolling sideways to reveal the Aeternalis.
For a fractured moment, shock freezes me in place as I take in the stillness of Pan’s lungs. His vacant gaze. The gaping wound in his unbeating heart.
The Everlasting is dead, and it is not like the many times before.
This time, the wound does not close. The gold of his magic does not linger, gone out like a wick snuffed. And here, in the desolation of my childhood, Peter Pan does not look like a god, or a king, or a myth. He looks alone. A lost boy.
My gaze drifts to where Dawson lies mangled a few feet away. He has been the Aeternalis faithful servant for centuries, the only person left alive to love him, even if it was a toxic love. It washishand that delivered the fatal blow, carefully maneuvered by his own brother.
We both know how Nikolas delights in his schemes,Dawson had said in the Crocodile. It seems Niko’s final one was the cleverest of all.
A wheezing breath sends my heart lurching up into my ribs. I whirl to find Niko’s lashes fluttering, his mouth open in a soft groan. I fall to my knees, covering his body with mine. Tears pour from me like a wound reopened, as I listen to the beat of his heart and the steady sound of his breathing—sounds I hadn’t been able to hear over my grief.
“You didn’t leave me,” I sob. “You came back.”
“Of course I did, Darling,” Niko whispers against my hair. “I have no wish to face your wrath again. Or star forbid, be tossed through another ward.” His strong arms wrap around me. “What if it was an ice world this time? You know how I despise the cold.”
I laugh. Kneeling in blood, surrounded by wreckage, I laugh loudly. It is light and airy, blooming in my chest like its own form of morphellia. Because all the pain, all the heartbreak, all the trauma—it all led to the most beautiful moment. A moment when possibility spreads before us with no shadows to hinder its light.
Sparkling. Infinite.
“How, Niko? How did you know you would come back to me?”
