After, the boy never thought of those he killed. He did not recall their nameless faces and never dwelled on the capriciousness of chance. For when he fell—and fall, one day he would—he did not expect that world to remember him. Until one day he stood over a small body that dripped death from its head like a cracked egg and saw another face instead. One he should have never forgotten. . . .
AS PAN DRINKS IN MY life, I can still feel the pull of my flesh. But I’m not completely in my body, not really. I don’t think I’m dead, but I don’t feel quite alive, either. I simply feel apart, like I’m still floating just above my flesh. Above everything, watching it all with a strange detachment through blurred vision.
Across the clearing, I can just make out Rowan. His body is broken and battered, but he’s still struggling to get to me.
Above Pan and me, a shadow suddenly appears. Already, my vision is beginning to cloud and go dark, which is why I think at first I’m seeing things. Because it can’t be Fiona who is standing there. It can’t be that treacherous Fey who is taking Pan by the scruff of his neck.
Pan jerks at Fiona’s touch and releases me from his hold. I hit the ground hard, but I don’t shatter. I don’t come completely back to myself either, though.
“Rowan?” Fiona’s voice buzzes, dangerously close. She doesn’t release Pan from her grasp.
But Rowan can’t answer. A cough shudders through him, and his body slumps again to the ground, too weak to go on.
“Was this your work?” Fiona growls at Pan. Before he can answer, Fiona shakes him.
But Pan’s eyes are unfocused, almost drunk on whatever power he’d taken from me. Fiona shakes him again before placing her hand against Pan’s chest. Her face remains calm as she hisses for him to answer her, and when he does not respond, her fingers pierce his skin and he screams with pain.
Disgusted, she tosses Pan’s limp body aside.
My vision is still dark around the edges when Fiona scoops Rowan up and brings him to where I lie.
“It is time,” she whispers in that strange humming voice. “You have hesitated long enough.” She helps him up to his knees, supporting him as they loom over me. And I see why I don’t feel whole—Fiona has the thread of my life wrapped around her fist. When Fiona tugs on the trailing stream of light, I want to move toward her—and when she offers it to him, toward Rowan.
“Now, Rowan. It must be now,” Fiona buzzes from somewhere very close. But I can’t see her. My vision is darker now, closer to the end.
All I can see is Rowan above me, his dark eyes flat with pain, looking more lost than I’ve ever seen him.
Do it, I think. Because it doesn’t even feel like a betrayal. Do it.
He leans his forehead against mine. It’s cool, clammy. Do it. Hurry. He needs to take whatever it is I can give him. He needs to go on.
“Hurry, Rowan,” the Fey buzzes. “My Queen is free. Pan has been defeated. You need not die as well. If only you will take her.”
“I can’t—” I feel his breath on my skin, hear the weakness in his voice. “Won’t—”
Fiona hisses, her voice dangerously low. “Do you think I gave you your place in my world to have you waste it on this pathetic excuse for a halfling? Take her Rowan, or I will kill her just the same.”
“Kill us . . . both. . . .” I hear him say from far off. Vaguely, I feel the weight of his body slump on top of me.
I’m slipping, though. If a soul had fingers, mine are trying to grab at my frail body, reaching clumsily to stay with myself, but it isn’t working. I don’t have enough spirit in my hollowed-out body to keep my eyes open any longer, and I know, after everything I’ve been through, I’ve finally reached the end.
There are words. So many words I’ve never said. Words I thought I would have time for. But it’s too late. My soul slides away from my body, the last fragile wisps of it leaving behind the pain and despair until I’m almost nothing more than light.
And then I no longer feel Rowan’s weight holding me to this world.
Fiona has my life wrapped around her fist, and every bit of who I once was wants to flee from my body, toward that light.
But before I can, before my soul slides away completely, a shadow appears over Fiona’s shoulder. A dark form whose eyes burn with hatred.
And Fiona screams.