“Consider it done, sir.” He tilts his head, a knowing smile toying at the corner of his lips that sends a wave of both agitation and appreciation washing over through me. “And where are you going?”
I don’t tell him the entire truth: that Pan’s words dug beneath my skin just as he meant them to, leaving behind an icy fear that won’t abate.
I only reply, “To make sure the kingdom’s affairs are in order.”
Chapter twenty-three
Ikneel beside Wendy, a pervasive cold sinking beneath the stiff fabric of my dress. It leeches the feeling from my fingers and toes, the numbness spreading steadily from my limbs to my chest. She is beautiful, even in death. I find pieces of Celie in the slight upturn at the corner of her eyes, hints of my mother in the delicate angle of her chin and the full set of her mouth.
The longer I look at Wendy—the more lost pieces of myself that fit themselves together—the more bereft I feel. But I shed no tears, nor do I howl in anguish. I keep my grief trapped inside my body, as I have no right to it.
I’d only known Wendy for a few minutes—her death shouldn’t hurt like this. Maybe it is not truly grief of her at all, but sorrow for what I’ve lost. For a few brief moments, I hadn’t been alone in the universe. I’d had a family, something to tie me to my own history.
I reach for Wendy’s hand, her fingers already cold as I wrap them in mine.
Is this how Pan has felt for thousands of years? Always reaching for something to hold onto as the expanse of time rages around him? Always searching for something that won’t abandon him?
In this moment, I understand something of him even as I wish I didn’t.
I slide Wendy’s vacant eyes shut gently, before wrapping her in my arms and imagining us both at the edge of the Lunaedon grounds. The castle rises above us, lanterns glowing through the inlaid windows in muted shades of scarlet and tangerine. I don’t know what Wendy’s final wishes would be, so I decide to keep her close. It may be selfish not to take her back to the mainland—to keep her in a world she never wanted to return to—but I can’t bring myself to leave her somewhere she’ll forever be alone.
I paint her shrouded in silk, tucked beneath the earth and cradled by the roots of a magnificent garden in a corner of the palace grounds. Wildflowers of every kind spread over her final resting place, their petals a riot of color beneath the starlight. Vines and leaves climb up the fenced boundary, winding between the intricately carved stories.
I brush soil from my dress, uncertain how to feel.
Because despite the bitterness of loss, for the first time, new life blooms on the grounds of the Lunaedon.
By the time I make it back to my chambers, exhaustion pulls heavy at both my limbs and my mind. My thoughts come sluggishly, like I have to dig them out from beneath thick mud, and my joints ache as I sink into the heat of a bath.
I wash Wendy’s blood from my skin, watching the last of her leave me in subtle pink swirls with a numb sort of horror. And then she is gone, and I am left with nothing to hold onto, just as I always am.
I always thought the curse of my immortality was the pain of living, but perhaps the true curse is surviving long enough to see everything you once loved taken from you. Perhaps I will lose Letum as I’ve lost everything else.
Perhaps it’s what I deserve.
I step out of the bath, my shadow mirroring my every motion though there is no sunlight to cast it. It is always with me now, and no matter how I avoid my reflection, I still feel the aching void of its malevolence.
It is yours, Willa,the shadow tells me as I dress.Only yours.
I push the words away, too tired to fight against them.
I am climbing into bed, when a soft note sounds from the piano in the atrium. I freeze, listening intently as a few more resonate through the chambers. Quietly, at first. And then more earnest, the notes cascading into a mournful sonance that wraps around my ribs and draws me from the bedroom. Through the study and into the glass atrium, even knowing who I’ll find.
Niko is bent over the keys, hair falling in raven curls over his eyes, as he moves in time with the music. Long, tattooed fingers dance over the ivory keys, coaxing a melody that feels heartachingly familiar, though I know with certainty I’ve never heard it. The song winds through me, loosening the tightness in my lungs, unfurling the grief that’s tied my muscles into knots.
I lean against the threshold, curling my arms around myself in an attempt to hold onto my anger. It is the only thing keeping me grounded as Niko plays from memory; as he glances up from the piano to meet my gaze with a grin so wicked, I feel it in my blood.
I hate the way he looks like he belongs here—a king returned to his realm.
I hate how much itfeelslike he belongs here—like the Lunaedon has released the breath it has been holding in his absence. Like his presence has settled not only me, but the entire island.
Niko looks back to his fingers, and I feel the loss of his attention as acutely as the presence of it. The song crescendos and then falls, and only when it ends on one deep, lonesome note, does he return his gaze to mine.
My skin heats, as I fight the urge to fidget beneath the intensity of his stare. He doesn’t appear at all inclined to speak, nor to explain his presence here. He only watches me, drinking in every detail as he always does—without me ever offering any of it.
And there is a relief in it, just as there is in his death. A relief in not having to pretend to be fine, or be good, or beanything;in not having to pour my heart out or explain away my darkness. Niko sees it all as it is. He always has.
“What are you doing here?” I finally ask, my voice hoarse and tired.
