“Why are you still here, then?” I ask, not certain I want to hear her true answer; uncertain whether I want to slit her throat for daring to possess something that was never truly mine, or sit down and commiserate how terrible it was for both of us. “If you can open the wards, why didn’t you leave the moment you got here?”
Wendy considers me for a long moment. “The Darling family once spanned the continents of the mainland, but now…now it is only you, Peter, and me.” Unease slides over my skin at her implication, the phantom connection between the three of usseeming to wind around my throat like a noose. “I never wanted to see Somnya again, but now that I have…I feel I have an obligation to warn you of what’s to come.”
I furrow my brow, wariness threading over me. “If you’re here to warn me Niko’s returned and wants his kingdom back, you’re a little late. I saw him about an hour ago.” I motion vaguely to the state of my dress and hair. “And it wasn’t the most heartwarming of reunions.”
Wendy’s eyes flare. “I do not come to warn you of his return, Willa, but of his heart. You must not let him love you.”
My blood freezes in my veins, and for a moment, I’m rendered speechless.
“The mainland is healing. The children are being released from the Ameloriation camps in droves. New life has been breathed into the world, and the spirit of innovation is in the air. All of that will come to an end if the Carrion King loves you. Do not be fooled by his sweet words or his beautiful face. He means to gain power over you and you must not let him have it, or both our worlds will be doomed once more.”
I do not tell Wendy that he already holds power over me—that he’s held it since the moment he wrapped me in his magic and carried me from the beach. I don’t tell her the power he holds over me is eternal, given to him the moment I allowed him to know me in a way no one else ever will again.
I don’t tell her the way my heartbeat evened at his mere presence—like it had forgotten how to beat without his beside it. Nor do I admit how, even after he’d admitted to trying to steal the kingdom out from under me, even after he tossed me in a fucking lake and disappeared, there exists a shameful part of me that wants to get down on my knees and thank the star above for his continued existence.
The world hadn’t made sense when Niko was dead. No matter how twisted, it makes sense now.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but he made his feelings pretty clear when he tried to steal the island out from under me.”
Wendy gazes at me with pity, her eyes drifting to where my shadow has begun to wrap its hands around my throat. It squeezes, constricting my air with all my regret and shame. “You do not see yourself as others see you, but you must before it’s too late. For though they will love you, you will be the one who pays the price for that love. It is the Darling blessing and the Darling curse.”
Hot anger washes over me, stinging the inside of my throat until every swallow is painful. And maybe it’s because Wendy and I are tied together by blood, or perhaps it’s the far worse bond of both being shattered by the same man’s betrayals. Whatever it is, it has me admitting, “I have already paid the price, Wendy. Over and over. I’ve learned my lesson, and I’ve learned it well. The island is safe with me, and there is nothing the Carrion King or the Aeternalis can do to take it.”
Wendy shakes her head, her mouth tightening. “Your immortality has given you a false sense of security. This island teaches us that everything has a cost…have you never wondered what you pay for your long life?”
Her words hit me so hard in the chest, I nearly gasp for air. They lodge in my skin like a syringe, leaking poison into my veins. Because if Wendy knows my secret, it means Niko was the one who told her. When Niko died and left me to rule his kingdom alone, I’d been devastated by the betrayal, but I understood it. I saw the eternity of pain before him through his eyes, and though I couldn’t forgive him for wanting to escape it, I also couldn’t blame him.
Thisbetrayal—speaking to another of the secrets I’ve bled to keep—feels so much worse.
“I’m a Darling,” Wendy says, seemingly reading my thoughts. “I know your secrets because I share them.”
I stare at her, my mind reeling. “I—what?”
“From what I’ve been able to discover, the curse is passed on to every firstborn of the family.”
I hate the clinical way Wendy speaks, like the sanitized edge of a scalpel digging neatly into the multitude of pain and agony layered over generations.
“That’s not—I mean…my mother was the first born and she…”
Words escape me as my past rises from where I’ve buried it. My mother’s laugh, the feel of her hands skimming over my feverish skin, the corner of her smile. The only things solid enough to remain after two centuries of living has washed everything else away.
“She was afflicted the same as you and I,” Wendy says. “The same as Peter.”
Hot anger floods through me suddenly. How dare Wendy accost me in the middle of the woods and bring up pain she knows nothing of? How dare she purport to know anything about me?
“My mother isdead,”I hiss through my teeth. “And in case you missed it, Peter also died. I already know the cost of immortality…it’s being forced to live through unimaginable pain.Alone.Always. Because even if you find someone, time will eventually steal them from you.”
“That’s not the curse, Willa, it’s—"
The rest of the words die in her throat as something shifts in the air of the forest, like the strings of the universe have suddenly pulled taut. The will-o-wisps’ hum falls silent and their tiny lights wink out. For a long moment, Wendy and I just stare at each, a heavy sensation sinking over us both.
No birds warble in the branches; no beasts roar in the distance.
The only sound is the whisper of my shadow near my ear.Void to void, hunger to hunger. Like calls to like.
I lunge at Wendy with a hiss. “Run!”
I push her behind me, sending her stumbling into the shadows of the wood. Her lashes flutter, her mouth gaping at me in a panic that seems to freeze her in place. I push her again, this time far rougher. “RUN, Wendy! The Aeternalis is here!”
