Page 59 of The Last Lost Girl

Though the light breaks over everything, not a single shadow is cast.

I don’t expect to see them extend from the souls atop this sand, but why don’t the plants cast shadows?

I walk beyond the damp sand and into the vines, crouching down to lift a smooth, green leaf. Stand and look at the driftwood. No shadows stretch from their gnarled limbs.

Paris strolls over, ever watchful. “Are you well, Ava?” His clothes are rumpled, the buttons at his neck undone. He looks wrung out. Nothing like the coiffed, confident young man I met yesterday.

Death robs us of far more than our loved ones.

I pluck a leaf and hold it up for him to take. He pinches it between his fingers. “Thank you?” he phrases as a question.

“It doesn’t cast a shadow.”

Paris is rendered speechless, his lips parting as the implications wash over him.

“Can anyone other than Pan use the shadows like he does?” I ask.

Paris clears his throat and looks away from me. “I certainly hope not.”

His eyes flick back to me to see if I buy his answer. I don’t. The Frenchman is a terrible liar. “Paris – who else can use them?” He hesitates, so I raise my brows and wait.

“The fairies,” he quietly admits.

I thought so, given that Belle was able to absorb the shadows that escaped Pan’s pendant.

“No one, or nothing else?”

He shakes his head. “It’s interesting that you noticed,” Paris mentions slowly. “Interesting that you even bothered to look.”

When have I ever not looked for them, or for their absence? “I’ve been haunted by shadows for as long as I can remember.”

He turns to me, interest perking his brows. “Haunted by them?”

“I’m sure Hudson told you about Belle.”

He tips his chin up to confirm. “Ah, yes.”

I look to the gentle waves as they tumble ashore. “I don’t know when you came here, but the world has changed so much since I was little. If anyone back home had noticed I didn’t have a shadow, they would’ve done terrible things to learn why. I wouldn’t have been treated as a human, but as a specimen – either a freak of nature, or as something dangerous. I would have been locked away. Belle protected me as best she could.” Until she couldn’t.

He looks horrified but recovers quickly. “Of course she did,” he says with a prim sniff. “She made an oath, and fairies would rather die than break a promise.”

“Oath?” I ask.

He rubs his brow, looking sheepish. He deftly excuses himself and walks to the others, rolling up his sleeves on the way and preparing to take the shovel from Milan.

I wonder what the Frenchman meant.

Water surges over my ankles as the men take turns digging the grave as deep as they can manage. I offer to help, but they insist it’s their responsibility to Cairo.

Because I don’t belong here.

When they’re satisfied with its depth and the shovel finds the insistent water table, Hudson jumps down into the grave and splashes into the seafoam-laced puddle gathered at its bottom. He takes Cairo’s body into his arms, gently lays his friend in the sand, and crouches down and speaks. Vowing to never forget him and telling him how sorry he is, Hudson takes the weight of blame on his already too-tense shoulders.

He lingers with Cairo for another long moment, like he can’t bring himself to leave just yet. Like he can’t bear to let go.

Smee stretches a hand to him. “Hudson,” he quietly says.

The captain clasps his palm and climbs out of Cairo’s grave.

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