He has no choice but to obey.
CHAPTER 62
The mortal stands before me, staring.
It’s only when my baby wriggles at my chest that my senses return to myself. I peer down upon the child and marvel at how my heart goes out to him.
But there is nothing resembling shadows within this boy. Nothing resembling a Fate. His face belongs to his father, his eyes to a mother who no longer exists.
Swallowing the agonizing lump in my throat, I offer the child to his father.
At first, the man simply stares at me.
“He’s your son,” he says, almost sounding hurt.
“Only as a technicality,” I say. “The essence of his mother is no longer with us.”
The mortal man winces, but this time when I go to hand the wriggling child over, the man takes him. There’s an oddity about the mortal’s movement. At first, he holds the boy out, grasping him underneath the back of his head and supporting his buttocks on his wrist, so as to not harm the boy with his hook. When the baby flails, sensing his own unsteadiness, I place my hands on the mortal’s wrists. He tenses under my touch, and my breath catches at his warmth, the feel of his sun-weathered skin.
He feels like he does in my memories—the girl’s memories. My black heart races within me, and I count myself lucky that I have no visible skin to flush, my shadows acting as a mask. I guide the infant in his arms, nudging the child close to his chest. The baby settles in, calming to his father’s breathing.
My heart pricks, but this baby is not mine. This husband is not mine.
The mortal glances at me, and at first, he looks as if he is about to say something, but then his gaze catches on something glinting on the ground. He squats down, baby still at his chest, and plucks the adamant pocket watch from the earth.
“You cannot imprison me with that,” I say. “If you’re hoping to take my shadows, it will not work.”
“Yes,” he says. “I know. Not unless it’s your choice.”
I cock my head to the side, examining the man.
He is beautiful in a way most mortals are not. I suppose it could have something to do with those fae ears of his. The fae always were more beautifully crafted than humans, though they suffered for it with their own faults. Still, there’s something about the sharpness of his edges that catches my eye, like the glint of a blade in sunlight. Sharp and dangerous, yes, but eye-catching all the same.
I’m used to the Descendants. Their unearthly looks. It was part of my Eldest Sister’s cruelty to make them so beautiful, yet so out of reach for my Middle Sister. But this man surpasses them all.
“Darling,” he says, gazing at me with such intensity it makes me want to squirm under his assessment.
It’s not as though I have encountered many mortals face to face, but I did not expect to feel such authority exuding from one, not when I am a Fate and he is mortal. How this man manages to make me uncomfortable, I am unsure. But this will not be a sensation I suffer for long.
“Take your son and go,” I say. “The two of you are free. My Sister won’t be bothering you any longer.”
“That’s it then?” he says. “You’re leaving us?” There’s accusation in his tone, but not anger. Something else, though. A demanding presence. A challenge, I suppose, he expects me to meet.
“You keep calling me Darling,” I say, “but I know no Wendy Darling. No more than we know the characters we meet in our dreams.”
“Yes, I know,” he says, glancing again at the pocket watch. He flips it around, twirling it on the edge of his hook. The baby presses against his chest. “I know you know no Wendy Darling,” he says, “but I do.”
If I were a mortal, I would bite my lip, perhaps hug my arms around my chest. But I am no mortal, and I am not one to feel shame.
“I know that you loved the woman you thought to be Wendy Darling,” I say, trying my utmost not to glance down at the little boy in his arms, the boy my immortal heart calls out to. I have no desire for the child to grow up motherless. But I am no mother. And this man—this beautiful man—will find a mother for this child with ease. I am certain of it.
“I love her still. She is my wife,” says the man.
“Was,” I say, correcting the mortal. “She was your wife. But that woman did not know who she was.”
“No,” says the man. “No, she did not. Not for a long while. But she found herself, eventually. And it was without the help of anyone else. Well, that’s not entirely true,” he adds. “It just wasn’t with the help of me. But a few friends along the way… they helped.”
Something stirs in my heart. Friends. Not a luxury we Fates have been afforded. We remain separate, distinct from mortals. It is a lonely existence, but a necessary one.
