Page 12 of Devour the Dark

Our port is directly across from a market street where, despite the late hour, most of the shops remain open, offering food, drink, and wares.

I was dreading coming back here. It’s not a place I have fond memories of—but seeing it now…

I breathe out and clasp my hands behind my back. I am no longer terrified of Neverland. I am no longer at the mercy of Peter Pan or his Lost Boys.

The sudden release of all of that pent-up anxiety makes my eyes burn.

“Talk to me,” Asha says.

She returned to the ship about twenty minutes ago with the news that Pan, Vane, and Winnie Darling were on their way.

I’m buzzing with anticipation, fraught with emotion. I swallow, trying to hold the tears at bay. “I don’t know what to say. Neverland was just a blink in my history, but it held a lot of power over me. Being here again, having the opportunity to meet one of my descendants…it’s a lot.”

Asha follows my gaze over the city streets.

Down below, on the docks, two men push handcarts stacked with crates. Hay sticks out of the slats. An orange tabby cat trails behind the last man, meowing loudly. “I ain’t got no food for ya,” he tells the cat, but the cat doesn’t seem to buy it.

“And Peter Pan?” Asha asks.

A breath stutters down my throat and my stomach spins. Not in a good way.

All those long months in the Everland prison, and later in an Everland palace, I hated Roc and Hook for not rescuing me. But I hated Peter Pan more. Not because he’d abandoned me. But because he’d taken my home from me, swept me into the magic and mystery of Neverland, introduced me to Roc and Hook, and then quickly snatched it all away.

If it wasn’t for Pan, I never would have met Roc and Hook and my heart would have never broken into a million fucking pieces.

Sometimes, when I lay in my bed in the palace, I would daydream about what my life might have looked like withoutPeter Pan and the Darling curse. I’m sure it would have been quiet, mundane, maybe even boring.

Would I have preferred that?

When I was desperate to escape, I told myself I did.

But now, standing here on James Hook’s quarterdeck, a best friend beside me, just moments away from meeting my descendant who, in our realm, I would have never had the chance to meet, I think maybe I’m lucky.

I am who I am today because of everything that came before. How could I possibly wish for it to change now?

“Peter Pan,” I repeat and let out a sigh. “If I see him today, I’m afraid I may stab him.”

Asha pulls her blade from the sheath at her hip. “Might I suggest this blade?”

I glance at it, then up at her. We both laugh.

“What do you know about Pan?” I ask.

A sea breeze lifts the hair along her face. She has most of it twisted back and held in place with a hair stick. This is Asha prepared to fight. I only ever see her hair down when she’s relaxed, when she feels safe.

“I fell down a Peter Pan rabbit hole one summer in the Dark Archives. I had heard stories about him as a child. They were mostly cautionary tales about the demise of his friendship with Tinkerbell. Tales about loyalty and betrayal.”

Asha’s voice catches on the wordbetrayaland though she’s never said much about what led to her running away from her home island, I’ve always known deep down it had something to do with betrayal.

“The scholars were never able to come to a consensus as to what Peter Pan is.” Asha turns to me. “Do you know?”

I shake my head. “Whatever secrets he had, he wasn’t about to share them with me.”

“And now your descendant is here with him. How do you feel about that?”

The wind shifts again and I catch the scent of something sweet roasting in the city.

“I’m worried she doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself into. But, at the same time, I still feel like the girl I was when Pan took me, and if I’m still a girl, what do I know about protecting her anyway? What if I’m delusional?” I look back at Asha. “Or worse, what if she doesn’t want me at all? What if she looks at me and she sees the weak woman I fear I am?”

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