I tug on the rope ensuring the hook is secure, before heaving a breath and thanking the star above I kept up with swordplay while on the mainland, as my palms would be far too soft to endure the climb otherwise. As it is, the rope rubs against callouses as I leverage my bare feet against the planks and begin the slow climb upward.
The motion of it is rhythmic, ingrained in my body somewhere far beneath conscious memory. And though my muscles shake with the exertion as my death writhes excitedly around me, for once, my body does not fail me, carrying me to the top just as it did on so many worlds before.
I haul myself over the rail, landing soundlessly on the deck, chest bare but for a simple bandolier slung over one shoulder. For a moment, it feels almost like the last two centuries of agony never happened—like if I blink, Sam will appear at my side, asking for coordinates.
I push the thoughts away with ruthless intent, as I’ve learned well the price of dwelling on dreams. It is only my will that matters, as the universe will only give up what I carve out with my sword. I will make it bend and bow; I will force it to give back what is mine.
I signal to the sirens drifting in the shadows below, and a moment later, their song floats up from the sea. Their harmony washes over the shining black deck and slips between the planksinto the depths of the ship. I follow silently, pulling the hatch open and climbing down the steep stairs.
When the island brought my ship up from its watery grave to torment me, this deck had been a tomb. A grave of emptiness, a reminder of the death and destruction I wrought. Now, it has been slung with hammocks just as it’d been when I led a full crew. According to Marina, Willa had managed to save Caelum’s children from the Aeternalis’ influence, but it appears he’s been busy in the meantime for many of the hammocks are occupied once again.
Icy rage fills me as I take in the sleeping forms of at least twenty children of differing ages and origins. I knew in the week since Willa bested him, Peter wouldn’t simply lie low and regroup. He possesses the willful determination of a child—adults have been beaten down by the world, by previous disappointment and fears of failure, but children are not hindered by any of those things. They move through the world like it has never touched them, their innocence and belief a shield more powerful than their past experiences.
The Aeternalis is much the same: he does not consider defeat, and therefor, he is rarely defeated.
Until he met me.
The siren’s song shimmers in the air, caressing the children until each of them rouse awake. Hair mussed, they blink blearily into the dim lantern light as if under a trance. The song crescendos, a playful melody of hope and mischief, and one by one, they begin to hop down from their hammocks.
The older ones help the younger ones, some toting toddlers and babies on their hips as they begin up the steps to the upper deck. I smile to myself, watching them all disappear through the hatch with satisfaction. A siren’s song is near impossible to resist for adults; children, with their soft minds, so open to theworld around them, would never be able to weather their call, no matter the hold the Aeternalis keeps on their dreams.
I follow behind them, ensuring that each of them climbs down the rope ladder to the vessel below. When the last one clambers into the boat, I turn away, knowing Lisian and her sisters will swim them to safety according to the terms of our bargain.
I release the hold I keep on my death with a sigh of relief. The ribbons crawl over my skin and rot seeps from my heart to my veins, washing away my humanity in a deluge of ice. I feel only the cold of the end, only the want of blood and ruin. My nerves burn and my lungs scream with every breath as I lose my name to the void, lose my heart to decay—lose hold ofeverythingbut death’s jealousy.
It batters against the cage of my ribs, slices through my skin, pours from my tear ducts as I thrust open the door to the captain’s quarters. But when I take in the room through the rotted haze of bloodlust—a desk littered with my hand drawn maps, bookshelves filled with titles from every corner of the universe—I find nothing.
The Aeternalis isn’t here.
Chapter twenty-one
Wendy trips, sprawling face first into the foliage carpeting the forest floor. She scrabbles forward, disappearing beneath the underbrush. I don’t dare look to see if she’s made it to safety, as at that moment, the air sparks and the Aeternalis steps from the shadows.
His golden hair is windblown and his face is flushed. A playful smile dances over his elven features, and his grass green eyes sparkle as he drinks in my shock.
“Cousin,” he intones with a wink. “What a pleasure.” His tongue rolls over the word in a lascivious manner, and a disgusted shiver climbs up my spine.
“Far from it,” I mutter. I gesture to his chest, bare but for a few mismatched weapons belts slung over the gash reaching from his sternum to his groin. Nausea roils in my stomach, my gaze instinctively skittering away from where his organs glisten grotesquely, focusing instead on where his feet sink into the moss of the forest floor. “Haven’t you ever heard of a shirt? Or shoes? It’s like you roll directly out of bed and into my way.”
Pan laughs, the glittering sound raking through the space between us. “Clothes are a construct…used as masks, as social dividers. As bindings and chains.”
His gaze roves over me like he’s imagining peeling away the fabric of my dress, and when I bare my teeth in warning, he laughs again.
“Unlike some of us who cloak ourselves in costume, I prefer to be what I am.” His tongue swipes over his lower lip, and I clutch my hands into fists to keep from ripping it out as it rolls silkily over the next word. “Bare.”
He steps forward from the shadows, and unbidden, my gaze draws back to the unnatural wound. His golden magic pulses beneath my sudden attention, and my heart leaps into my throat. Aboard the Indomnitus, Pan’s magic had been encapsulated in a small pool behind his heart, but now, it threads between his ribs, veining outward in a multitude of sparkling rivulets. It winds around his intestines and disappears behind the cage of his skin like it is woven into his very being.
I sacrificed the dreams of the island to release the Aeternalis’ control of the children, and it had been for nothing. He’s found a way to increase his power without the children, without the island. How am I to stop something I don’t understand?
“And what about you, littlest darling?” His breathless voice draws me from the sudden panic I’ve ensnared myself in as he takes another step closer. “You’ve shed some of your costume.” Pan’s gaze flickers to my shadow behind me. “When will you discard the rest and emerge as you were meant to be?”
“I prefer to keep my shirt on, thanks,” I bite out acerbically, ignoring the way my shadow shudders at his attention.
“Do you think a pretty dress will keep them from seeing who you are at your core?” He asks with a saccharine smile. “Lace and silks…well, they are transparent, are they not?”
Before I can respond, Pan sniffs. He tilts his head curiously and sniffs again, deeper this time, like he’s trying to discern something in the air. My breath stutters in my lungs as his face flashes skeletal—distorted skin pulled taut, empty sockets where his eyes were just a moment before.
The air snaps, and a wave of power ripples through the wood. A moment later, Wendy appears between us, bound and gagged by tendrils of Pan’s golden magic. Her eyes find mine, the sharp edge of her fear stinging the space between us.
