Page 50 of Devour the Dark

There is nowhere to hide here, but glancing at him, he doesn’t seem to be affected by it. There is no air of vulnerability to him.

The loft is mostly one big, connected space, with a kitchen on the right of the entrance and a living space to the left with a tableat the far end of the room set beneath a bank of cloudy windows twice as high as Roc is tall. Any daylight allowed to spill through the windows has a green cast to it. Most of the Umbrage is like this, dark and gritty and sallow. Roc seems right at home here.

He goes to the kitchen and pulls out several glasses with one hand, setting them on the long island that separates the kitchen from the living space. As he pours a round of drinks, I wander the perimeter of the room.

There are two additional doors branching off from the main loft. Peeking into the first one, I find a bathroom with black stone floors and a copper clawfoot tub. The second door leads to a large bedroom. There’s a king-sized bed with a headboard made of black metal spindles. The bedding—black and silky—is pulled taut as if the bed were made and measured at the end of a ruler.

I keep wandering. Books are stacked up on a few end tables, some on the stone window ledges. Classic monster stories, mythologies, history of the Isles, and the mortal realm.

There’s a thick stone ashtray on a coffee table with just a dusting of ash inside.

Roc offers everyone a drink, and when he comes to me, he holds the glass back, a questioning glint in his eyes. “Are you seeing anything of interest, Your Majesty?”

I let my attention wander away from him. There’s an oil painting on the wall beside the bedroom door. There’s a queen in the distance, standing on a moor, but she’s pale, grotesque, and it looks like she’s screaming. The sky is stormy and bruised. In the foreground, a dark shadow with pale green eyes.

“Who are you? Really?”

He finally gives me the glass. He takes a sip from his. He doesn’t take his eyes off me, but I can’t tell if he’s looking out or inviting me in, all the way to the dark center of who he is.

“Who am I?” He smirks at me. “Who are you, Wendy Darling?”

There is a challenge in his words. Not to define either of us. But to reject the notion that we must be defined.

It reminds me of a poem Asha read me once, the original text smuggled into the Seven Isles from the mortal realms.

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Roc is many things: man and monster and dark, tempting myth. Perhaps in my desire to know him for who he really is, I fooled myself into believing he could be known. Can any of us be known? Truly for who we are?

I glance over the rise of Roc’s shoulder at James. He’s staring at us both, watching, waiting. If Roc is the gale force always propelling us forward, then James is the life raft, making sure we don’t drown.

I need both of these men in different ways, but I don’t think I can truly be with anyone until I figure out who I am, multitudes in all.

All of the years I fought to survive in the Everland court, I kept telling myself that once I escaped it, I would finally be allowed to live the life I wanted. Mine was stolen from me so early on, first by Peter Pan, then by King Hald.

Maybe somewhere along the way, I started to believe my life was never going to be my own. And that belief has swallowed me up slowly, year after year, like a dark stain.

“This is a trap, you know,” Vane says.

I blink, look away from James and back to Roc.

“Drink your drink, Your Majesty,” he tells me and then pulls away, breaking the tension between us.

I almost stumble forward as if his attention was a crutch I needed to keep myself upright.

I bring the glass to my lips and pull in a sip. The liquor is a welcomed bite.

“Of course it’s a trap.” Roc goes around to the kitchen and leans his backside against the counter. He lights a cigarette and the smoke curls up into the high ceiling, spinning around the hanging globe lights. “The question is, who is setting it? Malachi crossing us is too obvious and he would know that. I think he wants what he says he wants. The question is, is he being discreet about it all?”

“What’s your witch saying?” Asha asks. She’s pulled herself up on the island, her legs dangling over the edge.

Roc sets his glass aside. “She is against working with him.”

“That could also be a trap,” Vane says.

---