The Fae Princes (Vicious Lost Boys #4)(14)

“Kas,” she says, her voice stilted. “Please.”

Tears well beneath her lids.

“You’re just a stupid little girl,” I tell her, echoing my own thoughts, my own fears. “We protected you all those years ago. We shielded you from the worst of it, bore the brunt of Mother and Father’s expectations so you could just be a spoiled little princess. We gave everything to you so you could continue to be a spoiled princess, and what did we get for it? Our wings torn from our backs. Our birthright ripped away from us. And now you’ve sacrificed the throne that our family has sat on for generations just so you can continue this campaign against Peter Pan? So you can be the most spoiled, powerful bitch on the island?”

Her face turns blue and her wings dull to match as tears soak her face.

“Kas,” she gasps out, slapping at my arms.

“Brother.” Bash comes up beside me.

I lean in, teeth gritted. “You are on a blind pursuit for power, and you’ve sacrificed the one thing any of us had for the resurrection of a dark, twisted, mother who never loved us.”

It isn’t until my own face grows wet that I realize I’m crying too.

“Kas!” Bash says as he yanks me away from our sister. “Take a breath.”

I don’t know if he’s telling me or Tilly, but we both suck in air. She chokes on it, wheezes, and turns away.

“You okay?” Bash pats my shoulder, pulling my attention to him.

When I focus on him, his dark furrowed brow, the flare of concern in his eyes, I finally come back to reality. I’ve always had him. In every dark moment, my twin has been there.

I look over his shoulder at Tilly, her lower lip trembling as she tries to hold her tears at bay.

Tilly never had someone like I had Bash. He goes to her now, but keeps his hands to himself, giving her the space she needs as he whispers consoling words to her. I collapse near Nana’s grave and look down at it, spotting several old wreaths of braided sweetgrass placed where her grave marker meets the earth. I pick one up and blow off the snow.

I didn’t make these mementos and I know Bash didn’t.

Nana loved us all, but I always thought she loved Bash and me the most. Tilly barely spent time with our grandmother, always preferring to follow our mother and father around like a lost little puppy. Mother and Father were the seat of power and Tilly had always been hungry to have a place.

Nana had the wisdom and Tilly never wanted that.

Hoisting myself back up, I cross the graveyard and hold the sweetgrass up. “These yours?” I ask her.

My sister and brother look over at me.

Tilly swipes away a tear with the pad of her thumb. “Yes.”

“Why?”

She frowns. “What do you mean, why?”

“Why were you here today? Why do you visit Nana’s grave? Why leave her mementos?”

Tilly licks her lips. The bruising left by my hands has already faded from around her neck. “I realized too late, that Nana was the only family we had who never wanted something from me.” Fresh tears fill her eyes and as soon as one spills over, she’s wiping it away. “I did what I thought Mom and Dad would have wanted me to do. Duty over family.” She gestures at us both. “Our duty was to the throne and the court. The family lineage. I didn’t want to disappoint them. I don’t want to fail! And I—” She cuts herself off, teeth clenched. Her chin wobbles as she bites back the tears. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter now, does it? What’s done is done.”

She starts off down the hill.

“Tilly, wait,” Bash says.

I catch my twin before he charges after her. “She’s right though.” We watch her make her way across the graveyard, her wings still as her cloak drags through the snow. “What’s done is done.”

“She’s in trouble,” Bash says. “I can feel it.”

“So what are we to do? Save her again? I don’t think she wants saving.”

“I don’t think she knows the language of asking, brother.”

The snow falls thicker, swallowing up our little sister as she makes her way back to the palace without a throne.





8





WINNIE


Vane is brooding. He’s in one of the leather club chairs, elbow propped on the arm, a cigarette captured between his middle and index finger, the end burning, smoke curling into the air in thin ribbons.

I have the same ability he does to sense everything he feels, but he’s better at shielding from me than I am him, and so I’m left to guess.

“You’re mad at Pan,” I say, trying to keep the question from my voice. I always want to sound sure around Vane.

He brings the cigarette to his mouth and takes a pull. He speaks as he exhales and smoke clouds out. “He’s being reckless.”

“He’s afraid,” I admit, and I’m a little shocked to find it’s true.

“Yes,” Vane says. He closes his eyes and sighs. “For as long as I’ve known Peter Pan, he’s been on a restless, endless pursuit to reclaim his shadow and now that he has, I don’t think he knows how to breathe. He’s still restless.”

“Do you blame him?” I cross the room to Vane, but hover by the coffee table, arms crossed over my chest. “Tinker Bell coming back to life, that’s pretty big shit.”