The Fae Princes (Vicious Lost Boys #4)(21)

“Clearly!” Kas yells up the stairwell.

Vane glares at me with the intensity of the sun.

I turn for the kitchen and the sound of his footsteps follow me. “Tell me what really happened with your sister.”

“Oh, I see.” I open the ice box and peer in. “Shooing Darling off with my twin was just a ploy to get me alone. You think I’m just going to spill all of our secrets? Tell you all of the sordid family details? Okay, fine, you twisted my arm.”

I pull out the glass container with the chicken and biscuits from last night and turn to find Vane staring at me, his hands on his hips. He’s giving me one of those looks like he wishes he could twist my head off like a bottle cap.

Left one dysfunctional family for another, I guess.

“Tilly is getting really desperate,” I tell him, dropping the levity. “And when my sister gets desperate, she makes really big fucking mistakes.”

“Like accidentally bringing your dead mother back to life.”

“Yep.”

Hands on the island top, I hunch over, trying to think. I’m not sure anything I say would convince Vane. But I don’t want to let this opportunity to try slip through my fingers.

I don’t know what I want to happen to Tilly. If I want vengeance or forgiveness. It changes day by day. Depends on my mood and the waxing of the moon. Depends on nothing at all.

“If I can just get through to my sister, I know we can fix this.” I look over at Vane. His anger has always been easy to read. His irritation and his weariness too. I’ve rarely seen empathy on his face. But the fine lines around his eyes soften and his jaw unclenches.

“What will it take?” he asks.

I shake my head and glance out the balcony doors at the swirling snow and the gray sky. It’s never snowed on Neverland in my lifetime, but the fae have always been clever about creating seasons in the palace. Every year, around the end of the year, we’d throw a winter celebration and the fae that were talented at illusions would make snow fall from the domed ceiling in the throne room.

When I think of it now, it seems like a dream. But I can still see Tilly swirling in the haloed glow of the twinkling lights, her skirt lifting with her momentum as she turns her face toward the ceiling, mouth open to catch snowflakes. Back then she was never meant to rule and she lived her life as if it were her own.

“I just need to get her alone again,” I tell Vane. “Away from our mother and anyone at court who might be whispering in her ear.”

Vane nods. “Then let’s make it happen.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“So you can kill her?”

“No, dipshit. So you can save her.”

He starts for the door.

“Wait. Hold on.” I follow his footsteps. “Save Tilly? The fae queen that’s tried to outmaneuver us around every corner and who has scrambled all the Darlings’ brains? That one?”

He stops abruptly and I nearly smack into him when he turns back around. Vane isn’t as brawny as I am, but he does have a few inches on me so when he looks at me, he looks down.

I don’t care what he says. He definitely has daddy energy.

“Save your sister, Bash,” he says. “And make amends. Otherwise, one day you’ll look back on this and realize you are full of regret.”

I can tell we are no longer just talking about me and my sister. I never did hear the full story of Vane and Roc and the loss of their sister, but I know they carry the weight of her death like an albatross around their necks.

Vane walks away again.

“You’ve changed,” I call out. I’ve grown soft. He’s grown soft. What is this world coming to?

“I like it!” I yell at him.

“Fuck off.”





12





WINNIE


When I step into Cherry’s old room, a memory swirls into my consciousness. One of being trapped in here with the dark shadow. I only remember the sharp edge of panic and then nothing.

I still don’t know what she was thinking or what she was hoping would happen.

I’m sure she wanted me dead.

The hair along my forearms rises and I sense the shadow at the center of me.

We were meant to be, it says.

And yet Cherry had to betray me for it to happen. Does that absolve her of her guilt? Maybe. Maybe not. Or maybe with her gone, it no longer matters.

Kas slips in around me for the closet. The door creaks on its old hinges and Kas disappears inside.

“Cherry didn’t have a lot,” he says from the darkness. “But she did accompany Pan to the palace on a few occasions and he made sure she had the appropriate attire. It’ll have to do on short notice.”

I circle Cherry’s room. It’s in disarray. The frenzy of someone leaving quickly.

There’s a sweater on the end of the bed and I pick it up, rub the fabric between my fingers. It’s threadbare but soft. Well-loved. And I can’t help but think of all the pieces of myself I’ve left dotted around the country as Mom and I left quickly, hoping to escape a landlord demanding rent, or a man who got a little too close in Mom’s work.

There was one thing Cherry and I had in common: our belongings were all we had. There was never a home.

“Oh, Cherry,” I say.