Nolan writhes against his restraints, but to no avail. “And what is your plan for me?” he asks the Sister.
The shadows around the Sister’s hips sway. “I will need someone to keep me company in the years I’m waiting for your son to be returned to me.”
Everything in the room goes numb, even the pressure of my baby in my arms. My husband tries to hide it, tries to steel his expression, but there’s no masking the color draining from his cheeks, the way his breathing begins to stagger.
“Come on, Wendy Darling,” says Peter, daring to put his hand on my shoulder to lead me out. I flinch at his touch, and he winces. “We can go now. We’ll be safe. Happy, with time. Yourbody is your own. You are not trapped like you were before. It will take time, I know, but?—”
“But what?” I rasp. “Tell me, what exactly do you believe time is capable of? Is it some supernatural force that will rinse my memory of the fact that you ripped me away from my husband? I am no longer one to forget, Peter. That might have been the girl you knew, but it is not the woman I am now.”
Underneath her shadows, I get the sense that the Sister is smirking at me.
“I will ruin him for you,” I say, grasping my son closer to my chest as I spit vitriol at the Sister. “I will fill his head with how you are the enemy. He will grow up knowing that you have his brave, wonderful father captive. I will teach him to deceive you. To hurt you.”
The Sister laughs. “Just like your parents did for you and the Shadow Keeper? We both know how well that worked in keeping your affections from blossoming.”
Her insult lands where intended, between the ribs.
“Remember,” says the Sister, “the bargain only works if you are cooperative. I get to be the judge of what that means.”
I fight the urge to spit on her.
“Wendy Darling,” says Nolan. “Please, I’ll be all right. Deep within me, I always knew this was to be my fate. Every moment of my existence, I’ll find contentment knowing that you and our son are together. Knowing that at least I could provide that for you.”
I want to scream at him that this can’t be the end. That I’ll sprout claws if I must to get back to him. But when I go to say as much, my husband just shakes his head. “If all I am allotted in this life is knowing my wife and child are safe, it is more than I deserve.”
The meaning underneath his words cuts through the panic of losing him, strengthening my limbs with purpose. Keep our child safe. Keep yourself safe.
“My heart is yours,” I whisper to my husband. “It will never falter.”
He smiles softly. “I know, Darling. Don’t let him hurt you.”
Peter makes to steer me out, but as his body presses into mine from behind, it jogs on a memory. For a moment, I’m back in the carnival courtyard, and a stranger has slammed into me.
Just in case you need this back,the note from Tink had said.
One hand still clutching my child against my chest, I slip the other into my pocket. The cold of the adamant watch shivers against my touch. I have no way of knowing whether the contents of this pocket watch were emptied before Tink returned it to me. It is a gamble—one that, if it goes poorly, I will regret for the rest of my life. Yet again, I find myself forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.
Yanking the watch out of my pocket, I click it open. It buzzes, then shoots out of my hand and onto the floor, shadows bursting from its now opened bezel, searching for their master. They writhe through the air until they descend upon Peter, filling his mouth and nostrils as his chest bulges outward. It’s as if he’s being drowned by his own shadows, trapped inside the watch for months, eager to get to him since the day the Nomad secured them. I scramble for the watch just as Peter lets out a gasp that sounds disturbingly like ecstasy.
The Sister is faster. She gets to the pocket watch first, but instead of leaning to pluck it from the floor as I expect, she places her foot on it. At first, I think she’s going to crush it, but she simply laughs.
“Did you really think that would work?” she asks. “Were you trying to contain my shadows, Darling girl? I suppose that would be possible; I’ve utilized objects like these in the past when Iwanted to contain my power. But I am a Fate. My shadows are not so easily taken from me. I tuck them away when I wish to. Now, look what you’ve done.”
Indeed, as I slowly crane my head to look at Peter, horror overtakes my ability to scream.
He’s no longer the Peter of flesh and blood, but the shadow version of himself I’ve feared since the night in the Carlisles’ annex. He gazes at his hands, swathed in darkness, then scrunches his shoulders together as the shadows bind themselves with his metallic wing. The shudder he lets out of his mouth is practically cathartic.
What have I done?
I glance at Nolan, screaming an apology I can’t seem to utter. All he’d asked of me was that I protect myself and our son, and I’ve already failed.
Nolan shakes his head. “I told you, Darling. Don’t ever apologize to me.” His face is grim. Tears slip down his rugged cheeks, anger at that which he can’t prevent.
“Thank you, Wendy Darling,” says Peter, and it’s his cruel voice, not the sincere one, still aching for me, his obsession now uninhibited.
I can only hope my touch still possesses the ability to contain his shadows.
“You know what,” says the Sister. “I believe, Wendy Darling, that you are not cooperating. Peter,” she says, turning to her servant, “return my son to me.”
