The Fae Princes: Chapter 22

I wake to blinding pain, shouting, and chaos.

There’s blood everywhere. I can smell it. And Lost Boys.

The Lost Boys are attacking?

There’s one on top of me, a knife in my chest. I can’t breathe a full breath and the pain is so intense, my stomach is threatening to revolt.

I grab the hilt and yank it out, finding a shining black blade on the other end.

I whack the kid away. He thunks against the wall and gets back up. “What the fuck are you doing?” I ask him, but his eyes are blank, like he’s not even there.

He reaches for the blade, but I grab him by both wrists and sink the knife into his skull.

He blinks once, then twice, then tilts backwards onto the bed, dead.

Up on my feet, blood gushes from the wound, down my chest, then over the curve of my hip. I’m still fucking naked. Great.

On the next landing, Vane tosses a Lost Boy over the railing and the boy hits the floor down below with a wet thud. Kas is on the steps, hands held up. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he tells a dark-haired Lost Boy. “Just give me the knife.”

The boy slashes. Kas feints to the left. He slashes again and Kas catches his wrist on the comeback, and rams forward, slamming the Lost Boy into the wall, the knife into his chest. Blood geysers from the wound.

“The fuck is going on?” Bash yells up from the floor where he has a Lost Boy in a sleeper hold, the boy flailing in Bash’s muscular arms.

“I don’t know,” I answer as Vane hurries over and tears a sheet into a long strip.

“Arms up,” he tells me. He wraps the fabric around my chest, covering the wound, then ties it so tight, white stars blink in my eyes.

“Quit whining,” he says.

“I’m not, for fuck’s sake. Boys, you hurt?”

“Surface level cut,” Bash answers and drops the now dead Lost Boy. “Nothing major.”

“Where’s Darling?” Kas says.

We look around the bedroom. The panic settles in. “Shit. Go.” I shove Vane. He takes to the air, flying down to the floor. I try to follow, but my lungs aren’t fully expanding and the pain is too intense.

Instead I have to follow Kas around the winding stairs.

“Vane, do you feel her?”

His eyes are narrowed, his awareness searching for her, and as every second passes by, I grow more agitated and Vane looks more worried.

“She’s calm. Like…” He frowns. “I don’t know. It’s weird. She’s far away and the thread is weak, but she seems fine.”

That makes me feel better. At least for now.

Bash holds up one of the knives he took from a Lost Boy. “This is concerning.”

Another throb of pain shoots across my chest. I’m dizzy and weak. “That’s the same kind of blade Tink used on me before.”

“It’s forged of volcanic stone from Lostland,” Kas explains. He snaps his fingers at his brother. “That’s what was missing from the fae vault.”

“Christ. That’s not good.”

“That’s the same kind of stone Holt Remaldi used to take the Darkland shadow from me,” Vane says. “The Darkland elite revere that shit like it’s gold.”

I glance at the twins. “You knew the fae vault possessed blades forged of it?”

“It didn’t even dawn on me until now,” Bash says. “I noticed the empty space on the shelves in the vault, but Kas and I couldn’t remember what was there.”

“I think the better question,” Kas says, “is why did the Lost Boys turn on us?”

“They seemed fucking possessed.” Vane kicks the shoe of a dead Lost Boy lying on the rug. “Something isn’t right.”

A sharp pain cuts through my ribs. I should be healing. I am not fucking healing. “We have to find Darling.”

“Agreed,” Kas says and makes his way for the door.

We file out together, hurrying down the stairs, down the hall and across the loft. The house is silent. Even the parakeets are gone from the Never Tree, the pixie bugs dark.

I have to stop on the other side of the couch, too fucking winded to go any faster.

What happens when you’re stabbed by a Lostland rock blade? The myths are varied, the source material shaky at best.

I have the Neverland Life Shadow. I should be healing.

“Which way?” Bash asks Vane.

He’s by my side, his arm hooked through mine. “Get up,” he tells me.

“I’m standing on two feet,” I argue. “I am up.”

“You look like you’re about to keel over. Are you all right?”

No, I’m not all right. Far from all right.

Drenched in darkness.

An ordinary boy, abandoned by his mother.

A man who thought he was a myth, can’t even heal from a stone blade.

Blood seeps through the makeshift bandage. The room spins.

“Sit down,” Vane says, changing his course as he shuffles me around the couch and drops me onto the cushion.

My chest is throbbing, the skin hot where the blade pierced flesh and muscle. Everything hurts.

“Find Darling,” I tell Vane.

He’s crouched in front of me now, his gaze worried.

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’re growing pale.”

“Not enough sunlight,” I joke, but the fake laughter makes me spiral into a coughing fit that sends barbs of pain straight down to my knees.

“Find Darling,” I order him again. “Please.”

He stands upright. “Don’t move. Don’t exert yourself—”

“Yes, I got it. Now go—”

Something zings across the room. Vane snatches it from the air.

Fuck. It’s another black blade.

“Get down!” I yell.

But it’s too late.

One after the other—

—three more blades sink into Vane’s chest and he drops to a knee in front of me, his eyes black, his chest covered in streaks of blood.

“Vane!” I slip off the couch to catch him as he dips forward. “Vane!”

“Fucking…fairy…bitch,” he says on a wet growl as golden light fills the room and drives away the shadows.

Tinker Bell, with Tilly reluctantly trailing behind her, enters the room.

“There’s the party poopers,” she says. “You left so early. I thought I’d bring the party to you.”

Several Lost Boys and lower level fae fill the loft in a circle, blocking the exits.

They all have dead looks in their eyes.

“Boys!” she yells and waggles her fingers at the twins. “Come join your mother. Come on.”

The twins edge away from the doorway to the kitchen and come to stand beside the bar where Tink lines up several glasses and unstoppers a bottle of apple whisky. It used to be her favorite.

“You know what I find funny?” She fills the glasses and brings me one. I hesitate to take it with Vane still putting most of his weight on me. “Go on, Peter.”

I snatch the glass from her grip. Vane lists.

“What I find funny is how long you searched for your shadow, Peter. How funny it must have been to you when you realized your precious Darlings had it the entire time.” She laughs, grabs a few more glasses, and hands them to the twins.

“I put my faith in you,” she tells me. “There was a time when I thought you knew everything. When I thought you could anything. Do you remember that feast you conjured for us out of thin air?” She shakes her head, a little wistful. “That was a fun night. When’s the last time you used your power for such frivolities? Now it’s all war and fucking, and let’s face it, .”

She comes over to me. “Drink, Peter.”

The glass shakes in my hand. I’m shivering and I can’t feel my legs.

“Drink. Peter.”

I bring the glass to my lips and sip, but Tink grabs the thick bottom and tips it up, forcing it all down my throat.

I don’t even have the energy to fight her.

When it’s gone, she sets the glass aside.

“There are only two men in this room who are worthy of power, who never whined and complained about doing the hard things.”

Tink gestures to the twins with a flourish. “My boys.”

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Bash asks her.

“Reinstalling you to your birthright.”

“By killing Pan and Vane? Absolutely not,” Kas says.

“They’ll never let you lead.” Tink joins the twins, weaseling her way between them, her wings throwing up pixie dust. “Have they ever let you lead?”

The twins glance at one another.

The answer is no, we haven’t. I always treated them like little brothers I never wanted. Vane too.

But the twins chose me. They put their faith in me.

And yet…they still don’t have their wings and I would never have the power to put them back on the throne.

Tink lowers her voice, as if she’s confiding in them. “They don’t want you to lead. They just want you to follow them around, just more Lost Boys looking to be found. But you, the fae princes, you were born to lead.”

Bash’s jaw flexes. Kas’s nostrils flare.

“And you should lead with the shadow,” she adds.

“What the fuck are you suggesting?” Bash uncrosses his arms.

“Peter Pan never deserved the Neverland Shadow,” Tink says. “He just took it because he thought he did.”

“We don’t want the shadow,” Kas says. “We just want our wings.”

“Oh.” Tink pouts. “Did your sister not tell you?”

Tilly backpedals.

“Tell us what?” Bash says.

Kas advances on his little sister. “Tell us what, Til?”

The fae queen licks her lips as tears well in her eyes. “I…your wings…”

“What about our wings?” Bash edges closer.

“I never had them,” she blurts out.

“What?!” Kas shouts.

“As soon as they were taken, I had them destroyed.”

There is sudden pandemonium as Bash steps around his twin to leap at his sister.

“How could you!” Bash yells.

The fae circle around their queen, daggers unsheathed and ready for battle. Tilly backs into the kitchen. “I didn’t think about…I’m sorry…I just…I was so angry at you and I didn’t think I’d ever forgive you and…”

“Of course,” Tink’s voice rings out loudly. “There is one other way to fly.”

The twins turn back to me. Grief is an emotion that is not so easily hid and I can see all of the layers of it on the twins’ faces. Their wings are gone. They’re never getting them back.

I know what it is to pine for something so badly it aches.

“We’re not taking Pan’s shadow,” Bash tells Tink. “So you can fuck right off.”

“We’ll never do it,” Kas adds and he’s looking right at me, speaking directly to me across the room as Vane breathes heavily in my grip.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Tilly slip away through the kitchen, tears streaming down her face.

“Then I suppose you’ll never get your Darling girl back.”

The grief and the defiance on the twins’ faces is immediately replaced with anger and fear.

This is Tink’s final card. The trump card.

Even if it’s power she wants for the twins, the Darlings were always a thorn in her side that she wanted to dislodge.

“Where is she?” Kas asks.

Tink’s wings flutter leaving a swirl of fairy dust on the air. “Indisposed, I’m afraid.”

“Where the fuck did you take her?” Bash lunges at his mother, but he’s quickly swarmed by Lost Boys and fae, blades poised to cut.

“I can feel her panic now,” Vane says.

“What?”

“Darling. I can feel her now.” He shudders in my grip. “She’s panicking and…scared.”

“Where is she?” I whisper to him.

Blood trickles down the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know. I can’t tell. It’s like she’s underground or something.”

Buried in the dark. All alone.

Just like I did to Tink when I killed her and dumped her in the lagoon.

“Tell us where she is!” Kas yells and punches a Lost Boy, only for another to take his place.

“I swear to fucking god—” Bash swats at one of the smaller fae and the man spills over a barstool.

“Stop,” I yell.

Everyone goes quiet.

“You can take it.” I lick my lips.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Vane asks, but I ignore him.

“I will give my shadow freely.”

“Don’t be…stupid,” Vane says.

“Pan.” Bash shakes his head at me, but it’s too late. I’ve made my decision. What is power if you’re constantly fighting to keep it? What is power if you have no one to share it with?

“I give you my shadow,” I tell Tink. “You give them Darling.” I nod at the twins and Vane. “She remains unharmed.”

Bash, his face sharp with unease, says, “We don’t want the shadow.”

“Which is exactly why you’re the perfect ones for it. Just like Darling and Vane, neither of them wanted it. I spent the better part of my life searching for the shadow, destroying everything I could to possess it.” I glance at Tink. I don’t know if there’s any of the fairy girl I knew all those years ago, but if there is, I need her to hear this.

“I’m sorry, Tinker Bell. I’m sorry we loved each other so much we destroyed one another.”

She falters. For one brief moment, I see the old Tink. My best friend. The first person I got to share Neverland with in any sort of meaningful way.

I loved her back then because I was desperate not to be alone. But it was misplaced. I clung to her because I had no one else. And maybe in a way, we both abused that love because of the things we needed and had no language of how to ask for it.

And then I became the Never King, the wicked, ruthless Never King.

And I don’t want to be that man anymore.

Not for Darling. Not for Vane. Not even for the twins.

I want to be someone else, even if I don’t know who that is.

I help Vane to the couch, then go to the twins and Tink.

I’m so very tired.

I drop to my knees in front of the fae princes. “Take it.”

“Pan,” Kas starts.

“Take it.”

Bash grits his teeth. “We’re not going to—”

If they are meant to have the shadow, the shadow will go to them. The last test, the last bit of proof I need to know that it was never supposed to be .

The shadow writhes to the surface. I sense its shape, its weight, the great heaving wave of it as it surges from the throbbing wound in my chest. I purge it like an infection, eyes bulging, watering, body shaking.

It leaves me behind and surges towards the twins, enveloping them in bright, searing light.

The twins drop to all fours.

I can hear the distant chiming of bells as the floorboards rattle against the nails that hold them.

And then…

The darkness subsides and the twins stand up.

And behind them, dark, shimmering wings unfurl.