Page 115 of Ship of Shadows
I stepped back. “But . . . you’re not?”
Goji peered at me. “You’re the one, eh? The princess the pirate lord would sacrifice the world for.” She said it so flippantly.
“I—” I sputtered. “Well—I—yes, I suppose that’s one way of putting it.”
She scoffed. “With the way he talked about you? It’s the only way of putting it. He’s an idiot, but I suppose we often are when it comes to love, eh?”
“He spoke about you.” I rubbed my arms. “You were a good friend to him, and it’s my fault your pixie dust is gone. I stole it from him. He didn’t betray you.”
She tutted. “No, he just acted like a fool. When I gave him that dust, I told him to use it right away, to break the binding, to get his and his crew’s shadows back. But he insisted he had to wait to use the dust so that you’d believe him. That he’d come back for me. He sacrificed everything for you. That’s what he does. He sacrifices. He puts everyone else first.”
It was true, but I’d never thought of it like that until now. It broke my heart that Bastian feared I wouldn’t believe him, so much so that he didn’t use the dust when he could have.
A shadow swooped down over our heads, almost brushing against my scalp. I ducked, then slowly straightened. “Why can’t you just leave?” I asked Goji. “Why do you need Bastian’s help? Our help? If it’s so bad here, run away.”
She snorted. “Just run away. As if that’s a simple thing when there are shadows keeping everyone trapped.”
My gaze flitted to the canopies above. “Even the pixies?”
She gestured to them. “They have their orders. To guard, to protect. They cannot differentiate boys from pixies. They’re not that intelligent.”
I gestured to the dust floating in the air, little motes of color illuminated in the slivers of sun. “Why not use your magic?”
She peered at me. “Do you know anything about pixie dust?”
“I know that giving it is a sacrifice, that its use takes years off your life.”
“And do you know why?”
I nodded. “The Seven Spirits. It was their way of putting a check on the magic they gave you when they created you.”
Goji looked impressed. “Exactly. They couldn’t have servants more powerful than themselves. We can live as long as we want if we never use our magic. Every time we use our pixie dust, it takes time off our lives. Just a little. So using our magic here and there isn’t so much of a sacrifice, but a lot of magic?” She widened her eyes in emphasis.
“Is that why you can’t give Bastian another vial of dust?” I asked.
“That and—” She flapped her wings, gesturing to the dust floating from them. “Do you know how long it takes to collect our own dust? It took me months just to get enough for that one small vial.”
“So why work with the shadow king, then?” I asked. “Why help him? Why help any of the shadow people?”
Goji’s eyes flashed. “The shadow people?” She frowned. “You elementals don’t know much about the pixies or this island, do you?”
“That’s because you’ve never shared much with us. You’ve kept to yourselves.”
“For good reason,” Goji said, then she gestured to the trees, which shook as the shadows slithered around the branches. “Come. We must get you back, and you must leave Sorrengard immediately. The shadow king will take your shadow if he finds you.”
She turned and her feet lifted off the ground as she fluttered through the trees. I stumbled after her. “Why are you helping me?”
“I’m not helping you.” She flew higher, over a branch. “If I let the shadow king take your shadow, then the pirate lord will never agree to help me, no matter our previous deal. I want to leave this place behind, and I can’t do it by myself. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
I stepped over a moss-covered log, my boot landing in the squishy mud. “Why? Isn’t this your home?”
She sighed. “After the spirits disappeared so long ago, the pixies almost went extinct without them to protect us. Humans were attempting to kidnap us, trying to shake our dust from us, killing us for our magic. We settled here, hoping to remain hidden. When the shadow king came to Sorrengard after the Shadow War, he promised to protect this island, to let us have free rein as long as we let him collect his shadows. We knew the price. It would be hard for anyone to leave, but we didn’t particularly care. Why would we leave when the outside world was so dangerous to us?”
I mulled over her words as we began to ascend a hill. So we were right. This shadow king had risen after the war.
A stitch formed in my side as I dug my fingers into the soft dirt, pulling myself upward. I grabbed onto what I thought was a root in the ground, but when my hand brushed against hard metal, I realized I’d grasped onto something that looked like a bolt. I gasped and let it go, staring at the glittering object.
“How did you and Bastian become friends?”
