Unhooked(81)

When she realizes what is happening, her mouth twists into a snarl. “No!” she roars, and the cavern trembles and vibrates with the volume and tenor of her voice.

Behind her, though, the Dark One is fully formed. Its inky black wings unfurl and beat in a steady rhythm that causes a gust of wind to course through the cavern, whipping my hair and clothes.

It isn’t alone. All along the cavern walls, more shadows creep and bleed into one another, gathering and swelling. The whole cave is saturated with the smell of them—the dampness of rot, the swirling shuffle of wind rustling. Soon the darkness is rising, climbing up to our knees, up farther then, our waists.

The Queen’s eyes meet mine, and there is a look of such pure hate and rage in them that I gasp. “You,” she snarls, pointing at me. “You have done this.” Her eyes are wild. “You dare try to rise against us?” She lets out a long, threatening hiss. Suddenly Rowan’s arms fall away from me.

Startled, I turn and see that the steel hand Fiona had gifted Rowan with so long ago is at his throat—it looks like he’s trying to choke himself. The steel fingers grip, squeezing until the skin under them is red and his face had gone ashen. His other hand is tight on the steel wrist, trying to pull away, but the hand won’t release its grip.

The vicious glee that has curved the Queen’s terrible mouth tells me she is the one doing this. She has taken the steel fist that is now so much a part of him, and she has turned it against him. I try to help him pull the hand away, but even I can feel how impossible a task it is. The metal fist is too strong, and the hand is too tight around his throat.

He shakes his head, grimacing against the strain of trying to save himself, but his face has gone deathly pale, and the edges of his lips are beginning to turn an unhealthy shade of blue. His eyes are starting to get an unfocused look about them that has me moving before I’ve realized what I’ve decided to do.

I press my hands into the wall of the cavern so firmly, I swear my nails are carving out pieces of Neverland’s heart. I feel for the pulse of the world beneath my fingers. It’s erratic now, a jangling rhythm that feels as unsteady and unmoored as I do. I close my eyes and I demand.

When the walls of the cavern begin to vibrate beneath my palms, the Queen’s eyes go wide in surprise. I can’t stop my own vicious smile as she stares at me. As the caverns start to shake and stones fall from the ceiling. The world quakes at my demand, and I feel its pulse singing beneath my hands. Its pulse matches my own—wild and erratic. Answering to me. I focus all my pain, all my rage into the rock under my fingertips, and I demand Neverland heed my call.

It happens quickly. The ceiling of the cavern cracks with a deafening sound, and rock pours down over our heads. Rowan is there in an instant, sheltering me with his own body, and I can’t be sure if I see a flash of light or if I only imagine it before the cavern collapses around us.

? ? ?

In the silence after the dust settles, I can feel Rowan’s weight heavy on top of me, his chest rising and falling with unsteady breaths. “Are you alive?” I whisper, knowing the answer but needing to hear it from his lips.

“Aye, lass,” he says with a groan. “But I’m not sure for how long.” Then I hear his dark, wheezing chuckle tickling at my ear. “You brought the whole bleedin’ place down about our ears.”

I shift a bit so his weight isn’t crushing me quite so much. “She was killing you,” I whisper into the darkness, stating the obvious. It’s the only explanation I can manage. “We have to get out of here,” I say.

He’s silent for a long, tense moment, as though he’s still waiting for some other explanation. But I don’t offer anything more.

It takes us a while to free ourselves from the heaviest of the rubble. The cavern is barely the size of a small room now, but there’s still some air moving through it, so even though we can’t see past our own noses, we know there must be a way out—if we can just find it.

Rowan makes another torch, and we find the source of the air not much longer after that. With a little effort, we move enough of the boulders away to work free and crawl through the small opening to find ourselves in another cavern.

It’s dark here as well, but though we listen and wait, there is no rustling. No smell of old leaves. “Do you think she made it out of there?”

The torchlight flickers over the sharp lines of his face. He looks even more drawn, even more worn-down than before. “Aye. The Fey have a way of getting out of tight spots when they need to.” Frustration flattens his mouth.

“Then we have to go back to the fortress,” I say, the dreadful certainty of it like a stone in my stomach. “We have to warn the others.”

His eyes are pools of fury and pain when they meet mine. “If it’s not already too late.”





In that new world, the boy was always happiest right before. When his blood ran cold, when his senses went dull to anything but the moment in front of him. The moment when chance would, by some horrible arithmetic, select the one who could not outrun death. Only then did he feel himself something more than a sack of skin and bone and endless breath. . . .





Chapter 37


THE TUNNEL EVENTUALLY ENDS AT a place where a small river rushes along underground. A narrow ledge clings to the side of the cavern wall.