Page 135 of Losing Wendy

So we wait, the shadows pooling around us. I remember the first time I came here, the shadows swarming me until I couldn’t breathe. There’s still today’s lower dose of faerie dust in me, warding them away.

It makes me sick thinking I have Peter to thank for that.

An hour passes according to the placement of the moon, when a shadow appears from the tree line.

John tenses behind me, and I do too. But there are no wings to the shadow. It’s just Simon, looking forlorn.

Simon, alone.

“They wouldn’t come,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s just us.”

I let out a choking sound. “None of them?”

Simon bites the inside of his cheek and shakes his head.

Pain lances through my heart, a grief I wasn’t expecting. In my mind, I glimpse the boys’ faces, each one of them. Benjamin, Victor, Nettle, Smalls, the Twins. Except none of them are smiling.

They’re as dead as driftwood, eyes wide open to the canopy above, mouths slack in horror.

I swallow and use it to steel myself. “All right, then. John, get a dose for Simon and let’s go.”

Michael sings back to me. “Time to go!”

John doesn’t answer.

“John?” I whirl around. John is there, but his body’s gone slack, limp against a figure behind him, obscured by the shadows of the warehouse.

Michael teeters precariously toward the edge of the ridge, looking downward.

My stomach spoils.

“Michael, come here,” I whisper.

He doesn’t pay me any attention, just keeps picking at dandelions near the edge.

“Michael,” I beg, then when he doesn’t listen, I say, “Simon, please go get my brother.”

Simon shifts behind me. When he comes into my vision, he offers me an apologetic glance. I’m going to be sick. Despite that,Simon grabs Michael’s hand, leading him slightly away from the edge. “I’m sorry, Winds,” he says. “There are just some things you don’t understand.”

“We really are sorry,” says the figure in the shadows. Shimmering eyes glint in the darkness. John is limp in his arms, poised with a wet cloth dipped over his mouth.

Out steps Nettle, blond hair ghostly in the moonlight.

His lips twist into a sad smile as he places a blade to John’s throat. “I told you, Winds. I remember. I remember everything.”

CHAPTER 49

“Simon?” I ask, my feet begging me to step away, my soul tethered to the life of my brothers. “What’s going on?”

It’s not Simon who answers.

“We didn’t want to have to hurt you. Everyone likes you, Winds,” says Nettle, and his voice is all innocence, no cruelty. “We like John and Michael too.”

“I didn’t tell John anything,” I say in a rush. “He knows I wanted to get us out, but I didn’t tell him anything more than that.”

Nettle blinks back tears. “He was getting close anyway. He would have figured it out, eventually. I followed him at night, when you were gone. Did you really think he didn’t notice? You didn’t wonder why he said nothing?”

Realization dawns on me. While I was out visiting the captain, John was doing his own investigating.

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