Page 54 of Veiled in Stars and Silver
Then James took me to a small bakery. The smells of fresh bread and sugary goods made my stomach roar with hunger.
He sat at my table, offering me a plate of biscuits and a mug of warm tea. He held his own steaming mug in his hand. “I have a credit.” He smiled. “Last time I ate here, I paid with a diamond, so they still owe me.”
I breathed in the delectable smells wafting up toward me. “You’re spoiling me.”
He stared at his own food with satisfaction. “We have a big day ahead of us. Now that we have the dagger, we need to collect the spellbook of Stardust and face off against Pan.”
The hunger in my stomach soured. “With all of Neverland under his control.”
His look was grim. “Eat up.”
I took a bite of the warm buttery bread that came along with the biscuits and suppressed a groan of pleasure. “And get my brothers back,” I reminded him.
“As per our deal. But one step at a time. Here.” He set down his mug and handed me the pickleweed root from his pocket.
My eyes widened. After everything that had happened, I’d forgotten to ask him about it. I took it from him and popped the lid on the potion bottle hanging from the line around my neck.
“Just place it in and let it dissolve, then after about half an hour, it will be ready,” he said. He watched me slide it inside and re-stoppered the vial. “Before we do anything,” he continued, “we must get on board the Jolly Roger, probably with my crew crawling all over its decks, and retrieve the book.”
“It contains the spell that will cause the magic to flow out of Pan into the dagger?”
“Precisely. It is only when the dagger and book are in one another’s presence that the spell can be enacted.”
“So how do we climb on board and get it without getting caught?”
He took a sip of his steaming tea. “That is the question.”
I bit my lip, considering. I needed the book and the dagger to get my brothers. Would Pan stand in the way of retrieving it if he believed I was under his thumb? I doubted it. But James didn’t know that. He couldn’t know that I planned on giving the dagger and book over to Pan in exchange for my brothers. Damn it, he was going to hate me, wasn’t he? But if I had to choose, my brothers always won out.
At least James would remain free, thanks to his half of the stone. I wasn’t sure if I could go through with it otherwise.
Maybe I could convince him to leave Neverland with me once I found my brothers. And he’d realized he’d lost… No, he’d never give up. He’d said as much.
I’d have to worry about all of this later.
Whatever plan we came up with to get onboard the Jolly Roger, it needed to be both obvious and subtle. Obvious to Peter that he should play along, and subtle enough that James would think it could work. My gaze fell to where the dagger lay hidden, tucked beneath his shirt.
“When you first tried to take the dagger from me, you used some sort of illusory magic.”
James’s head raised, his eyes flickering with recognition. “Yes.”
“I don’t suppose you know how to do that again?”
“Unfortunately, that glamor magic cannot be performed with only verbal incantation. It requires the nectar from a never flower and the first cut lock of a newborn babe.”
“You remember these spells pretty well.”
“Since I can’t be carrying the book everywhere, I’ve memorized the most useful ones.”
I leaned back in my chair, skeptical. “I’ve no idea where to find the first lock of a newborn.”
“Fortunately for us,”—a devilishly clever grin lit his face—”I know where we can find the ingredients.”
The magical black market that I had frequented for years was busy today. People shifted within the thin alleyway in their shawls andhats, stopping at different booths, talking discreetly, despite the others shoving past.
“We are going to find what we need here?” I asked.
James nodded. “Most definitely.” He moved about as if he had been here a thousand times. He looked up and down the row, searching.
