Unhooked(55)

“I really think we need to get back to our own world,” I say. “Perhaps Fiona could take us?”

His expression flickers. “I don’t quite think that would be possible.” He doesn’t add anything more, and I know there’s no point in pushing him further. Unless, of course, I want to hear more lies.

“You said you would help us,” I remind him. “You promised.”

“And I will, my dear,” he says, his mouth turning up into a smile. But it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.





They were trapped. Between safety and death. Between what they were and what they might have been. The earth quaked under their feet as fire and brimstone rained down upon them. The boy, clutching his rifle like a talisman, realized then his mistake in believing himself brave. “We’re going to have to move,” his brother told him. “This is just the beginning. . . .”





Chapter 25


BY THE TIME MORNING BREAKS, I’m exhausted. The cloying scent of the flowers, the things Fiona told me, the decisions I have in front of me—they all kept me up for most of the night.

It’s not that I trust Fiona. The only thing I believe completely is that she’s out for her own good. And it feels too unbelievable to think I could be part Fey, but my mom had been worried about something. All night I’ve been thinking, trying to pull up memories of the world I came from, and the thing I remember most is my mom’s fear and conviction that we were being chased by monsters.

Monsters that turned out to be real.

There was always somewhere to go, though. Always another stop that would calm her for a while, and I can’t help but wonder if Fiona was right to believe that someone had been helping to protect us. I can’t help but wonder if my mother had always been right about my father leaving to protect me.

What is certain is that Pan lied to me about being able to return us to our world. He could, if he wanted to, but it’s becoming clearer he doesn’t. And I can’t quite make myself dismiss what the boy told me the night before. The more I think about it—the confusion on the Captain’s face when I accused him of attacking Olivia, the sureness in Fiona’s voice, even the speed at which Pan knew what had happened and where Olivia was—the more certain I am that the Captain wasn’t involved with what happened to Olivia yesterday.

But why the elaborate ploy? Was it just to get me to distrust the Captain? Or perhaps there was something more going on—some scheme to make me trust Pan. Or maybe it was some sort of test of what I am. I think about the challenge in his eyes in the caverns after the world stopped shaking, and I can’t help but wonder if I passed or failed.

I need answers, and I know there are none to be found in this empty room. I have to find Olivia. She might not remember me or the world we came from, but I remember—parts of it, at least—and I won’t give up on getting us back.

Using the wall as a brace, I make my way down the uneven steps as quickly as I can. Once I’m safely on the ground, I’m halfway across the Great Hall before I find a boy who isn’t still asleep.

“Have you seen Olivia?” I ask.

He blinks at me. At first I think he doesn’t understand, but then he heaves an irritated sigh and waves for me to follow him. He leads me through the tunnel we used the day before, back to the cavernous room where the other tunnels branch out in all directions. “The gardens,” he says, pointing to the tunnel on the far right.

“You don’t want to show me the rest of the way?” I ask hope-fully. He just glares at me and turns back toward the Great Hall.

I stare at the dark opening for a moment, wondering if I shouldn’t just go back and wait for Pan to bring me to Olivia. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. After all, he left the stairs, as he promised, and he said I could see her today. . . .

No. I don’t want to wait for Pan. The whole point of my finding Olivia is to get her away from him. I need to get her alone so I can try to talk some sense into her without his easy, tempting smiles pulling her away from me.

I move along at a steady pace, and when the white walls of the tunnel flare open, I find a cavernous space that houses a maze of gorgeously blooming gardens. It’s not dark here like in the rest of the fortress. The walls remind me of an opal, and the patches of multifaceted stones above me bathe the whole garden in soft light.

Everywhere I look, plants bloom in lush disarray. As in the jungle, every few seconds they begin to shift—ruffled roses the size of my hand transform into smiling snapdragons, and brilliantly colored daisies morph into the elegant fluted petals of lilies. Flowers I cannot name transform into colors I’ve never imagined.

One that draws my attention is a vining plant with fluted flowers that looks so much like something I’ve seen before. For a moment I remember seeing a flower like that, one that glowed with a strange amber-orange light. I can almost picture it. . . . But then the trumpet-shaped blossoms pull inward, and when they reemerge from the stems, they’ve transformed themselves into ruffled blossoms.

The moment is gone, and the ghost of the memory right along with it.

Still a little unsettled by my inability to really remember, I turn my attention back to the problem of the gardens. The thought of getting lost in their maze of thorny hedges and flowering trees has me hesitating. But their abundance of blossoms tells me for sure there was no reason for Olivia to venture out of the fortress yesterday. She could have found anything she wanted from the relative safety of these gardens. Which makes me even more certain than ever that Pan lied about the attack. If anything, he was the one who put her in danger by having his boys take her out to the End.