The Never King (Vicious Lost Boys #1)(37)

She inhales sharply, keeps her eyes on the path.

“Darling.”

“A hazard of being a Darling, I suppose.” She tries to smile up at me, but it’s forced.

“Who did them?”

The thought of someone carving her flesh makes me angrier than it should. I shouldn’t fucking care. I don’t care.

Yes, you fucking do.

“People my mother hired.” She grabs a firecracker flower from a listing bush and starts plucking petals from the stem, leaving them behind us like bright red breadcrumbs. “She was trying to protect me.”

“She had an odd way of showing it.”

Darling rubs a petal between her thumb and forefinger, then brings it to her nose, inhaling the sharper floral scent now that the oils have broken through to her skin.

“It was because of you,” she says, her voice edged in accusation. “If you didn’t kidnap Darlings, I might have had a normal life.”

Guilt burrows into me.

But I am nothing if not fair. I only give what I get.

“If the Darling hadn’t stolen my shadow, I wouldn’t have to steal Darlings.”

She frowns over at me. “I guess that’s true.” She tosses the naked flower stem into the brush. “How did she steal it anyway? My ancestor?”

Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl.

“There was a coup,” I tell her and that will be all I tell her.

“Who?”

Those are skeletons I don’t want to unbury.

Thankfully, I don’t have to. We’ve arrived at our destination. “Look.” I pull back an overgrown fern to reveal the Never Lagoon.

The Darling stops on the path, her mouth agape, her eyes wide. “Whoa.”

White sand surrounds the lagoon and the water that fills it is bright turquoise, even beneath the gloomy sky.

It butts up against Marooner’s Rock so that the lagoon is mostly hidden, nestled between rock and forest.

Rain continues to patter against the leaves. “Come closer,” I tell her and take her hand, and she inhales at my touch.

My chest tightens.

We go to the water’s edge.

“Look down,” I tell her.

There is no great depth to the lagoon, but it’s full of magic. Or it was once, and so when you look straight down, it’s like looking through a portal.

And in that swirl of water and magic, glowing shapes swim back and forth almost like a slow-motion dance.

Every now and then a face turns to the surface, eyes glowing bright.

“Holy shit,” the Darling says and staggers back. I catch her before she stumbles over her feet.

I can’t help but laugh. The sound of it catches me off guard.

“What are those?” she asks. “They look like mermaids or ghosts.”

“Maybe a little of both.”

Tink once told me the lagoon was a portal to the afterlife, that the shapes swimming beneath the surface were trapped souls.

I skirt the shore and pluck a stone from the sand and send it skipping over the water. Swirls of light rise up to meet it.

“This is…amazing,” the Darling says.

“Your mother said the same thing.”

She frowns. “You brought my mom here?”

“She was…not well,” I admit. “Sometimes the lagoon can be healing. I thought maybe it would help her.”

The girl is looking at me now like she doesn’t recognize me.

“You tried to help her?”

She softens and takes a step toward me.

I turn away. “She was sobbing all night long,” I say. “Had to shut her up somehow.”

That’s not true. Not entirely. Merry had been sobbing, but for a much different reason.

And when she told me—

I pluck another stone from the sand but this time when I toss it, it sails clean across the lagoon and lets out a resounding crack when it hits the face of Marooner’s Rock.

“Did it help her?” Darling asks. “The lagoon?”

The rain picks up again and when I turn back to the Darling, she’s trembling in the cold.

My chest catches on a growl. I take off my shirt in one quick yank of fabric and go to her. “Arms up, Darling,” I order and she dutifully follows my command. It’s not a thick shirt, but it’ll do for now.

“Tell me,” she says and peers up at me. Mist clings to her lashes and rain drips from the end of her nose. “Please.”

I sigh. “I think so, for a while anyway.”

She nods. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” I say. “The reason she was in need of anything was because of me. Remember?”

She frowns at me, her gaze searching for things that I don’t think I possess but desperately want to give her.

“Come. Tilly will be to the house soon. We best get back.”

She needs warm, dry clothes. That’s what she needs.

It’s the least I can give her before the fae queen digs into her head.





25





WINNIE


Peter Pan’s shirt smells like him. Like wild forest and heady nights.

I pull it closer to my torso to keep in some of my body heat while I follow him back through the woods.