Page 41 of Veiled in Stars and Silver
“I hope you find it.”
“I’ll find it, dear.” She gestured to her curves. “Who can resist this?”
I found myself smiling at the woman’s easy optimism. The door opened, and boots and knives were tossed into the room.
“Don’t move. I’m almost done.” After a few finishing touches, Ivy stepped back. “There. James will drool all over the floor when he sees you.”
She’d drawn my hair up with a bit left to trickle down my neck and rest against my bare shoulder. I imagined Hook coming close, running my fine locks between his fingers, his eyes sparking with desire. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure, dear.” She gathered up the boots and knives, carrying them over to me, and watched as I stashed them inside the hiding places the ladies had taught me.
“You’ve become a true lady,” Ivy said with pride.
“I'm missing a knife.”
I glanced into the mirror. Ivy's face had gone strangely slack, but I caught the flash of metal in her hand. Alarm rushed through me, and my fingers dipped toward my boots.
Ivy moved in a flurry of skirts, shoving the blade to my throat with one hand, jerking me back into the chair with the other. I sat ramrod straight, not daring to tip forward to try for my boots again. The blade dug dangerously into my skin.
“Hello, Wendy Lady. Enjoying your time in Neverland?” Ivy's voice was low and deadly.
I saw my reflection become ashen pale in the vanity mirror. “Peter?”
“You are quite the disappointment.” Ivy's face twisted into a hateful sneer. “I bring you here to kill Hook, and instead, he recruits you as his little soldier. My, how quickly he turned you. A flash of those baby blues, and you're spreading your legs for him like every other whore here in Neverland.”
“How dare you—” The blade dug harder, and I gulped down my words, though a fire raged in my veins.
“Shshsh.” Ivy pulled the knife ever so lightly across my skin. The slightest bit of pressure, and it would slice me open. “If you will not do what you are supposed to, then what use are you to me?”
“What about the Dagger of Forgotten Souls?” I risked speaking to remind him of the one object keeping me alive.
The knife drifted back over my throat as Ivy's other hand dipped to my chest. “I need that dagger. You will get it for me.” Her palm closed around the half-silver stone and tried to lift it.
The smell of scorching flesh reached my nostrils.
Ivy hissed and released it. She held up her hand, blistered and blackened, and examined it curiously. “This will be harder than I thought.”
Triumph shot through me, even while I felt bad for Ivy, who would have to deal with the repercussions of the burned hand. “You're not going to kill me.”
The knife dropped from my throat. “No. I'm not. But you must understand, all of Neverland is at stake. Do you really plan to leave that power with the likes of Hook?”
I rose and faced Ivy. “You have enslaved Neverland, Peter. This…this only proves it.”
“You would trust pirates and whores over me?”
“Apparently, that is the truth, Peter Pan.”
“You want the truth? Ask your dear pirate captain. There are consequences to refusing to do my bidding.”
Ivy's arms rose, the knife turned inward. Shit. I lunged, gripping the other woman's arms and jerking back to counter her momentum. We wrestled over the blade, me trying to keep her from stabbing herself.
“Wendy?” Ivy's face filled with panic as the knife dipped closer to her chest. It was like her consciousness had returned, but her body still wasn't her own. “I can't stop it. Please help me.”
Chapter 16
Wendy
We stood in the plush bedroom, the vanity chair toppled from our hasty movements. The blade's sharp point slipped a little closer towards Ivy's chest. I was losing the battle against her determined momentum.
