Even from this distance, I know it is him—know by the haloed glow around his head and the way the entire island seems to lean toward his presence. The waves, the flowers, the stars, the children.
Oh god—thechildren.
I’d been so caught up in my own misery, I hadn’t noticed the way they writhe against their parents’ control, little bodies straining toward the ship. I turn, watching as a nearby boy growls in frustration, his mouth foaming as he fights against his father’s hold. Another small girl claws at her own eyes and skin, her screeches piercing through the whispers of the crowd.
Whirling back to the sea, I understand the small shapes bobbing atop the waves is not the driftwood I thought it to be—it is the children who managed to wrestle from their parents’ arms.
I understand with horror the small shapes bobbing on the waves is not driftwood at all, but the children who have already escaped.
“Please help them,” a mother pleads with me.
Her panic quickly becomes my own, as the children begin to chant. Their small voices twine through the air in a synchronous melody, harrowing and pervasive in the cool night air.The creator is home. The creator is home.
A little girl slips from her mother’s hands and hurtles herself into the sea. Her eyes never open, even as her pale body slips through the crashing waves, fighting toward the Indomnitus.
I glance around, understanding crashing over me like a block of ice. The children are allasleep.
The Aeternalis is calling them to him through their dreams.
Chapter eight
The world begins to spin. Or maybe it is me that spins, as the room around me narrows and blood rushes past my ears, drowning out everything but Wendy’s words:she can be killed.
I grind my jaw, staring down at Wendy in cold assessment. “If you’re trying to delay my return to Letum by telling me ridiculous fairytales, I assure you…” I dig the tip of my blade a little further into her throat, drawing a pinprick of blood. “…the only thing you’ll succeed in doing is pissing me off.”
“I’m not! I’m not!” she yelps, her eyes widening in fear. I drink it in shamelessly, as there is freedom in the unmasking; relief in no longer pretending to be the man Wendy once believed me to be.
“I—I had a theory when I was with Peter…” Her words trail off as her gaze drops back to the blade at her throat.
“Are you going to enlighten me as to what it was?” I ask sardonically. “Or shall we both sit here until you bleed out drop by drop?”
Wendy sucks in a sharp breath. “Everything has a cost in the land of dreams.”
Despite the impatience scratching at the back of my neck, I force myself still as she continues, “So, it would stand to reason that the Aeternalis’ immortality had—has—one, as well.”
Seeming to suddenly forget the danger looming at her throat, Wendy’s eyes spark with fervor. She’s always been excited by the pursuit of an answer. “He wanted so badly to be loved…to never be alone…I believe he inadvertently created his own weakness.”
Wendy flinches at my loud hiss of frustration.
“I don’t know what gives you the impression I have the time or forbearance for storytelling, but I suggest you get to the point.”
She blinks. “Love,Niko. The Darlingscandie, but only at the hand of the person who loves them most.”
The air flees my lungs in a violent exhale.
“It was only a theory before you sent me away, but it’s proven correct.” She watches me fearfully. “By you.”
Despite myself, I flinch. “Did the centuries alone drive you fucking mad?” I demand, icy anger clawing up my throat. “I didnotlove Pan. I hated him with everything I have. I still do.”
There is pity in Wendy’s eyes as she gazes up at me, her face going so soft, I have the wild urge to carve my knife through it.
“Such hatred isn’t borne of nothing. Often times it’s the other side of the same coin. Children are desperate for love and approval, and the Everlasting was the only family you’ve known. You were able to kill him because you were one of the few who truly loved him.”
“I was able to kill him because I have death in my heart and in my hands, and death takes what it wants,” I growl, jaw tightening.
“Death is true. Death is loyal. Even if you hated him, you couldn’t help but love him because it is who you are.”
My fingers go white on the hilt of the blade, as I try to reel my rage up tight before it blinds me to my true goal. I don’t like speaking of the past; it belongs buried in the depths of my memory, like a sunken ship.
