Unhooked(40)

He frowns. “Only the Fey can truly cross the boundaries between our worlds,” he tells me, regret shadowing his expression. “But I shall do what I can. And until then, you shall be safe under my protection.”

“Thank you!” Olivia leaps from the bed with her usual burst of energy to embrace Pan. But she lingers longer than a friendly hug usually demands, and she pulls away slowly, reluctantly. Pan gives her hand a courtly kiss, and by the time he releases it, her eyes have gone glassy again.

My stomach sinks as she smiles dreamily at Pan before turning back to the bed, and her piles of flowers.

“Olivia?” I ask softly. But she doesn’t answer.

“I shall leave you to each other, then,” Pan says with a small bow, and with an acrobatic leap from the threshold of the door, he leaves us alone in the flowered opulence of the room.

Olivia is already focused intently on her daisy chain. For a moment she was there, but it was only for a moment. I watch her work, and when I understand that my Olivia isn’t there anymore, I walk over to the door and look down the sheer drop to the Great Hall below.

“How do we get down from here?” I ask, watching as boys run and shout and do all sorts of violent things to one another.

“Why would we want to get down?” she asks dreamily as she settles back in the plush bed again.

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“Well, there are the boys, for one. They haven’t had a mother in a very long time, and they’re not very well behaved.” Her voice is hollow and strangely formal, and she never takes her eyes from the flowers in her hand.

As I watch, a boy who can’t possibly be older than eight tries to skewer another boy on the end of a long, sharp sword. I remember what the Captain told me about how dangerous his boys could be, and I’m suddenly almost okay with not having a ladder.

“Liv?” I ask, closing the door against the noise that rises up from below. Our flowered room falls into silence.

“Yes, Gwendolyn?” she asks, saying my name stiffly. She doesn’t bother looking up.

I settle myself on the bed next to her and watch her work for a moment. The flowers she’s threading have velvety petals and stems spiked with thorns. They’re like everything I’ve encountered so far in this strange world—beautiful and lush with an unaccountable thread of danger. The thumb of her left hand is bleeding from being pricked, but Olivia doesn’t even seem to notice. She’s gone on making her chain, staining the white petals with smears of red.

“You know we have to find a way out of here, don’t you?” I’m unsettled by how quickly her eyes went glassy again, and I can’t hide the fear in my voice. “We need to find a way back.” Before we can’t remember what we need to get back to.

She bites her lip, and her brows knit in concentration, like she’s warring with herself over the answer. But she never looks up. She never stops weaving the stem of one flower into another.

“It’s really not so bad here. Pan is wonderful. This world is magical. I’ve seen such amazing things.” Her eyes are still soft and unfocused with that disturbing glassy sheen.

I watch her for another minute or two, but when it’s clear we’re not going to talk anymore, I go over to the lone window and pull back the silky fabric draped over it. The view I find confirms there is no way out of this room except through Pan. Outside, the mountain that the fortress is part of drops off steeply. Below us is water—a cove of sorts with a narrow passage out to the open sea beyond. There is no sign of the Captain’s ship. There is no sign of anything on those still waters but the waiting sea.





When their commander asked for volunteers, there weren’t any young or innocent enough left among them to step forward at first. His brother looked at him, his eyes tight, commanding the boy to be still. But the boy was no longer a child. He stepped forward and shot a look at his brother, defiant. His brother’s expression was grim as he stepped forward too. . . .





Chapter 19


GWENDOLYN.” THE VOICE COMES TO me through the haze of sleep, distant and familiar. My cheek brushes against the cool silk of the pillow, a soft floral scent reminds me of lavender, and for a second, I think I’m back in London. “Gwendolyn,” the voice says more urgently, and this time I register who it is. And where I am.

Clutching the blanket around me, I sit up with a start. “What?” I ask, pushing my hair back out of my face. The light in the room is bright enough that I know I’ve slept long past morning. “What is it?”

“Hurry, Gwendolyn,” Pan says, his face inches from mine. “We must go.”

“Go?” I rub at my eyes. I haven’t seen Pan since yesterday. It’s almost a shock to see him again now—to realize my memory of how striking he is wasn’t a lie. But it’s even more of a shock to find him hovering over me when I’m alone in bed and barely awake.

I’m alone.

“Where’s Olivia?” I ask. She was here when I finally fell asleep, long after she did.

“Your Captain has her,” he says, his light eyes thunderous.

“The Captain?” I ask as I throw back the covers. I’m still wearing the outfit I managed to assemble yesterday from a selection of clothes that were lying around Olivia’s room—a pair of jaggedly stitched leather pants and a tunic I made from tearing off the bottom off a wispy blue gown.