Page 14 of Freeing Hook

My brother can be quite determined.

Still, we make it to the top eventually; me sweating and heaving, though Michael doesn’t seem at all fazed.

Unfortunately for us, the storehouse is empty. Cleaned out. Swept, even.

That answers my question about whether Peter knew we were coming.

“You’re looking especially thwarted today,”says Victor, sweat forming on his brow as he watches over a pot of boiling water at the stove. Today’s my day to cook, but he volunteered to help, claiming fear that dinner wouldn’t actually make it onto the table if the “cripple” was the only one working on it.

As much as I don’t appreciate being called a cripple, I at least can acknowledge that it’s wise for Victor to come up with a reasonable excuse to help me. One everyone else will believe, especially Peter. Victor isn’t the type to offer to help with chores out of the goodness of his heart.

Besides, I really do hate kitchen duty. There might have been a time in my life when I enjoyed it. Cooking is basically just chemistry you get to eat, and both are activities from which I derive great pleasure. But between the fact that I still can’t grip well with my left hand and trying to keep Michael out of the furnace, it really does take me hours to get anything accomplished in here on my own.

“Thwarted is accurate,” I say under my breath, thankful that Michael is banging cast-iron pans together as if he’s experimenting on which combination is the absolute loudest. Michael usually isn’t fond of loud noises. Unless he’s the one making them. “Peter’s cleared out the storehouse. Moved all the faerie dust.”

“I was under the impression you were going after Tink,” says Victor. “Had I known you were planning on skipping out on me—”

“I wasn’t skipping out on you,” I say, which is technically true. I omit the fact that I will gladly skip out on Victor if given the chance. There are some things that are just better left unsaid. “Having faerie dust on hand would have been nice. Just in case.”

Victor grunts, but he doesn’t argue, the knife in his hand glinting. “Just don’t double-cross me and we’ll be fine,” he says.

The potatoes crunch underneath his blade.

“Anyway,” I say, taking careful note of Victor’s knife and trying to ignore the skitter of gooseflesh prickling my arms. “That leaves us back at the original plan of finding Tink. Seeing if she knows anything about Wendy’s disappearance.”

“I’m still confused why you think she’d know anything.”

“She has a habit of stalking my sister. Probably Peter too. It’s possible she saw what happened.”

“Orwaswhat happened,” Victor says casually.

I adjust my glasses, though they’re fogging up in the steam from the pot—another reason it takes me so long to cook. Really, I should get rid of these, but I can’t bring myself to part with them. “All the more reason to start with her.”

There’s an additional reason I want to find Tink, but I keep that to myself.

No one knows how faerie dust is collected. The traders keep that secret locked down. But Peter has an abundance. It’s possible he steals it from traders in the other realms, but unlikely. I have a theory for how he gets it, though. I have ever since Wendy told me that the faerie who attacked her had shredded wings. At first, I assumed it had been Peter’s way of keeping Tink from escaping the island, but what if there’s more to it than that?

“So how are you planning to catch her?” asks Victor, plopping the potatoes into the boiling water.

“You’re good at traps, aren’t you?”

Victor glances at me sidelong. “Who told you that?”

“Wendy.”

Victor actually blushes a bit, which catches me off guard, though it shouldn’t. Objectively speaking, I am capable of acknowledging that my sister is the type of girl that boys might develop a crush on. Even if the thought makes me want to writhe out of my skin.

“I’m good at trapping animals. Faeries tend to be just a smidge more intelligent than hare, though. It’s not like she’s going to walk over a hole covered in sticks just because we put fish innards in the middle of the circle.”

I nod, focusing on chopping the onions in front of me. They make my eyes water, and when I wipe my eyes, dislodging my glasses, they sting. “The Twins were trying to trap something the day Freckles died.”

Victor snorts. “Good luck recruiting either of them. You think you’re a hermit…”

“Do you have a better idea?”

Victor shrugs. “We could follow Peter. If Tink’s stalking him, and we’re stalking him, we’re likely to cross paths.”

That’s actually not a horrible idea, except for the bit about having to follow Peter, who I’m still not positive didn’t hurt my sister.

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