Dawson roars as she disappears into the stars, her furious screech echoing behind her. I leap after her as the ward begins to snap closed, and my brother’s hand latches around my ankle. Without thought, I slice my sword downward, through sinew and bone. His scream of pain is the last thing I hear before the rush of magic and time yanks me home.
Chapter eleven
The Aeternalis leads me up to the main deck, before crossing to a door at the back of the ship. I know before we enter it leads to the captain’s quarters—know by the ornate spiral of the carved designs, threading over the wood like lace.
Pan shoots me a mischievous grin before ducking inside, leaving me to a moment of indecision. Could I somehow lock him in there and get the children off the ship? While I’ve gotten far faster at using my magic over the past year, he’s had thousands to learn to wield his with precision. He doesn’t seem to need the time I do to paint the imaginings in his mind. They come effortlessly, like his magic is innate rather than something to control.
Anger rises in my chest, the dark shadow clawing up my throat and pooling along my tongue until I taste my own resentment—acidic and bitter. I swallow it down, determined to be patient. I can no longer afford to be the reckless woman who would ruin everything to save her own life. There are so many morethat depend on me now. I have to be smart, and wait for the opportune moment, even if waiting feels like death.
I follow Pan through the door.
The moment I step over the threshold, my breath catches and the shadow balloons behind my ribs. Because everything about the captain’s quarters is darkly beautiful—everything isNiko.
The gleaming black floors, the luxurious velvet couches and plush throws; the paintings of distant seas and foreign skies hanging neatly in polished frames; the shelves lined with leatherbound books; the desk scattered with maps of the stars; the wall at the far side composed entirely of windows, that frame the way the sunlight sparkles over the violet waves; the bed tucked into a large alcove, seven stars carved into the ebony wood arching above it.
I choke on my grief as I drink in every detail, each one carefully considered. As everything always was with him.
Pan saunters to one of the sofas with an infuriating air of ownership. He sinks into the cushions with an exaggerated sigh of relief, gaze fixed on me like he’s daring me to do the same. His shadow remains standing behind him, its dark form looming like a malevolent cloud. I feel the void of it even from this distance—the wretched hunger, the twisted sentience.
It feels as if the Aeternalis fed his shadow every dark want for a thousand years. Niko’s death had been sentient, but this is different, like teetering on the edge of a malignant hole—like if I step too close, I’ll be dragged into it.
Skin crawling, I rip my gaze away from the shadow to set flatly on Pan. “If you’re expectingmeto pour that drink, you’ll be waiting awhile.” I lift my chin. “I’ll take a whiskey.”
He lets out a merry laugh that stands my hair on end. “I must say, Willa…you are not at all what I imagined.”
In his mouth, the words don’t feel like a compliment. Even as his eyes light up with indescribable hunger, and his entire bodyseems to vibrate with magic. Like he’s drinking something from me I haven’t willingly given.
“I get that a lot,” I mutter, clasping my hands in front of me to keep them from wandering to my weapon.
“I’m sure you do.” He leans back into cushion, crossing his legs as he studies me. “As the stories have gotten you all wrong.”
Alarm threads through me that I’ve done something warrantinganystory, good or bad. Even after a year as queen, attention feels like an ill-fitting glove—a garment made for someone else.
“What did you imagine? Some simpering queen who lives in fancy dresses and never gets her hands dirty?”
“Never.” The word is a velvet purr, and light sparks at his fingertips. Magic I wish didn’t look so much like my own. Less than a second later, a tumbler of whiskey appears in my hand.
“Only a vicious heart and a heathen spirit would call tomyisland. And your heart, Willa…” He makes a satisfied noise in the back of his throat that makes my blood go cold. “…is filled with the most delicious darkness…if only you’d allow it room to grow.”
As if in answer to his words, the darkness in my chest lurches so violently, I jerk. Whiskey slops out of the glass, splashing down my arm.
Pan smiles, conjuring his own glass and toasting to me. “You’ve felt it growing, haven’t you? Each time you use your magic, it becomes a little more…alive.”
I toss back what remains of the liquor, hoping the slight burn in my throat will warm the cold dread burrowing into my veins at his implication. The Aeternalis speaks of the shadow in my chest like it is not a conjuring of my imagination, nor a passing symptom of my anger. He speaks of it like heknowsit.
I smack my lips, feigning a calm I don’t feel. “I don’t know if the stories told you this, but patience has never been one of mystrong suits. So why don’t you get to your fucking point before I die of boredom?”
His eyes spark, his mouth twisting. “Darlings do not associate with the rudimentary rule of death. We are life. We arepossibility.We are infinite.”
His words hit me square in the chest, the blow hard enough to stutter my breath. The Aeternalis speaks of dreams and death like one is the antithesis of the other—and once, I may have agreed. But I’ve felt the heart of death beating in time with mine, the rightness of the rhythms. They are two ends of the same line, meeting at the beginning of a circle.
“Well, that’s awfully rich coming from you,” I snap. “Seems like you wereprettyfucking associated, seeing as you were actually dead, and all.”
That skeletal rage flashes over his face, and I know now, the horror of it is not imagined. The shadow behind him jerks closer, the weight of its attention shifting to me.
“Sometimes gods must fall in order to remind their worshippers that death is nothing but a paltry parlor trick. To show them it has no power over their deity.”
He rises from the sofa, taking a few long strides toward where I still stand near the door. His shadow doesn’t move with him, its stationary poise eerie and watchful.
