That night the boy dreamed of hell—of fire and brimstone and a face he should never have forgotten. And in the morning it was as though he were waking from an endless dream. . . .
JUST AS THE WORLD BEGINS to slide away into a field of stars, a great roaring brings me back, slamming me into my aching body with a violence that leaves me shaken and rattled from the pain. Next to me, Fiona lies headless, her blood staining the ground. Near her, Rowan lies unconscious, his hand still holding a blade coated with the Fey’s strange dark blood.
“No,” I croak, my voice barely working. It takes an incredible effort to hoist myself up enough to move toward Rowan’s still form. He could’ve taken everything from me. He could have saved himself, but he didn’t. He used the last of his strength to save me.
“Don’t leave me,” I whisper, brushing back his hair. His face is so pale. His lips tinged with blue. My hand cups his face, and I press a kiss to his lips. “No,” I whisper again, my throat tight and aching.
His eyes blink, but he’s very, very far away. His face is almost colorless and his skin is growing ever cooler to the touch.
Little by little my strength is beginning to return, though. Little by little I become more conscious of everything around me. Pan’s still body is slumped to the ground nearby, his skin covered in a maze of dark lines, like a shattered plate.
Olivia stumbles to Pan, a sleepwalker just beginning to surface from a dream, but when she takes his hand, his body is so fragile, so brittle, it shatters, crumbling beneath her touch. A strangled scream escapes her lips as she draws back in horror.
I should feel the same horror, the same revulsion, but I’m still too much in shock to feel anything at all at the sight of the headless Fey on the ground nearby. For a moment, I can almost begin to feel relief, but the moment doesn’t last long.
All around me, the world turns a brilliant white, and I recognize the power strumming through the air that signals the presence of the Queen.
She comes and floats over us, her face strangely beautiful in its fury. “He has killed one of our own,” she rages, her voice a terrible screech of fury. “He shall pay with his life.” She raises her hands as though to strike him down.
“No,” I say, covering him with my own body, as he once protected me. I steel myself for what is coming. For the terrible shattering pain that is sure to be my end.
But a screeching wail echoes in the air, and that blow never comes.
I look up, squinting against the brightness of the Queen’s glow, and I see what has caused that terrible noise—Olivia is behind the Queen. Her hair is a tangled mass around the blank fury in her face.
“Olivia?” I whisper.
She turns to me, but she doesn’t see me. Her gaze is glassy and unknowing. With an almost hysterical laugh, she pulls the dagger from the Queen—Pan’s dagger. It gleams dark silver in the Queen’s light, tipped with the Queen’s own blackish blood.
The Queen stumbles, her light wavering, her skin crawling with the dark lines of her unmaking. “No,” she screeches, clutching at herself. Pain contorts her beautiful face as she turns on Olivia. A dangerous current crackles through the air in the wake of her fury and pain.
With a motion as quick and deadly as a striking snake, the Queen takes Olivia by the throat, lifting her until her feet dangle in the air. Black lines creep across Olivia’s skin from beneath the Queen’s hand as Olivia writhes and struggles, her eyes wide with fear. The black lines continue to craw across her skin—up over her face, down her chest, creeping across the soft skin of her arms, until Olivia stops struggling and goes still.
“No!” I scream, torn between protecting Rowan and helping my friend. Olivia looks up at me, her eyes clear again, and they are filled with pain and confusion.
Before I can choose, I hear the rustling call of the Dark Ones. They begin to creep out from beneath the dead and brittle plants and begin to gather, swirling, marching themselves around us until they surround the Queen. Again they pull at her, but this time, she stumbles beneath their fingertips, releasing Olivia, who crumples to the floor.
The Queen falls to her knees, the dark blood still spreading from the wound Pan’s dagger made in her back—the wound Olivia gave her. The Dark Ones continue to swirl, pulling at the Queen, until they cover her completely. And as she disappears beneath them, she shrieks again, an earsplitting wail that causes the caverns around us to shake and tremble.
Huge chunks of the crystalline ceiling tumble down, crashing with violent explosions to the ground below. The world is quaking, rumbling, and alive by the time the dark wisps form themselves into the shapes of monsters and an army of living shadow stands before me.
The scuttling wind spins faster now, whirling violently in that familiar rustling, but in that rustling, I hear someone speaking to me.
“Please!” I scream, trying to block the sound. I’m not sure what I’m even asking for, but I sob out the word again and again as the Dark Ones swirl. Telling me their secrets, whispering my own truths back to me.
“Please,” I continue to repeat. But my voice is now a feeble whisper, begging for things I don’t understand, and then the darkness overwhelms me and I am tossed back—and the voice whispers to me again.
But it’s not a single voice. No, this time the voice is a thousand dark voices, singing to me and urging me. And all at once, I’m back in those dark woods of my childhood, the coolness of the night calling to me. The voices calling to me. The trees stretching their fingers wide toward the sky, caging the stars in their hands. Creaking and moaning in the rushing air, like the trees are translating the wind.
I am immersed in too-familiar images. And I remember everything then—the strange pull I felt as the voice called to me. The oddest feeling that I needed to go to them, to be with them. Again. For it felt so familiar, that wanting, that calling. So I followed the voice, away from the lights of our house. Away from the safety of my mother. Into the darkness, where the forest smelled of damp leaves, and the night spoke in a language I could almost understand.
It wanted me, I realize, but not to kill me. There was nothing frightening or unsettling about the voices I heard in the forest of my childhood. Nothing terrible about the thick and living darkness that brushed against me. It wanted me because I was part of it. It wasn’t the darkness that hurt me that night. It was everything that came after.
Everything I forgot.
The Dark Ones might have been hunting me then. They were definitely hunting me in my own world and here in Neverland, but now I understand they didn’t want to harm me. They wanted to show me what I was—the heir of my father. The heir of both Dark and Light, perfectly balanced. Just like this world should be.
All at once, the swirling darkness spins around me, excited that I’ve understood them. Joyful their message is clear. Welcoming. Like every soft summer night I’ve spent sleeping under stars without my mom knowing.
When I went running into the woods that night, it was because this world called to me, pulled me. That was why my mom embedded the rune into my arm. To keep me hidden and also to stop me from realizing what I was. This is the truth the Dark Ones give me.
You belong to us, they croon. You can save us and reclaim the world for our King. For our kind.
Neverland is quiet beneath us. It no longer breathes. Its heart no longer beats. The largest of the Dark Ones moves toward me, and even though I no longer sense it as a threat, I throw myself over Rowan more securely. Its faceless head turns and, with a wave of its arm, it shows me what is happening to the world. The fortress all around us is crumbling. Pan was right: without the Queen to hold it together, Neverland is breaking apart.
Then it speaks in that unfamiliar tongue, rough and grating syllables that once sounded like nothing but the wind. But I can’t forget what they’ve shown me, what they’ve whispered to me about who I am. About the choice I have before me. This time I understand what they say.
Pan hadn’t lied. Neverland could truly be my home if I choose it. I could embrace all the Dark Ones have shown me, I could claim what they believe is rightfully mine. For I am both Light and Dark, heir of the Queen and the Dark King. I could balance the power here, reclaim the world and live within it.
But when I close my eyes, trying to think, all I see is the blue-gray gaze of my mother. When I open my eyes, I see Rowan’s unsteady breath, and I know what my choice is. What it will always be. “I need to get them back,” I plead.
I can feel the disappointment rolling from the dark creature, but its faceless head gives a jerk, a nod of assent. Two others come forward, and this time I have no fear of them. I back away as one lifts Rowan effortlessly in its arms. He’s pale and unconscious now, and far too close to death.
“Take care of him,” I plead.
I go to Olivia, kneeling beside her as another Dark One approaches. She looks up at me with a lazy half-lidded gaze, surprisingly calm and unaware of what has just happened or of the state she’s currently in. Her face is covered in a maze of dark lines. Her arms look like cracked porcelain.
“I’m going to get you home, Liv,” I tell her, brushing her hair back from her face.
Weakly, she opens her eyes and looks at me, and I see them go from the soft glassy forgetting of Neverland to the sharp awareness of my friend.
“Liv?” I say, taking her hand gently. Her skin feels fragile as spun glass, but her eyes are still Olivia’s.
“Gwen?” she says, her voice thick with pain and confusion. “What happened?” Her eyes dart wildly around, from me to the monstrous dark Fey lurking above her and back again. Panicked. Frightened. Like she is just waking up, just beginning to remember.
She tries to pull her hand away from me, and I feel pieces of it flake away. So I let her go, and the moment I release her hand, I see her eyes start to go glassy again. All at once I understand. It’s me. When I hugged her that first day, when I touched her out at the End . . . I’m what was causing those moments of clarity in her expression. Because of what I am.
“Liv,” I say, grasping her hand again, refusing to let her go.
Her skin crumbles under my grasp, and she moans in agony. But her eyes are so clear, and I can see the memories flooding back as her expression darkens with horror. “What did she do to me?” she asks, her face contorting in agony.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell her, my throat tight. “We’re going back now. We’ll fix it. You’ll be fine.”
Panicked, I look to the Dark One, who is waiting for my signal. It comes forward, but when the Fey tries to lift her, Olivia screams as part of her forearm shatters and crumbles away. The Dark One hesitates, and Olivia’s eyes meet mine and there is a look of such horror, such complete fear, that my vision goes blurry with tears.
“Please, Liv. Let him at least try.”
“I can’t,” she rasps.
“I know it might hurt at first, but we can fix this. We’re going back and—”
She stops me by laying a hand on my arm. Her fingertips are so fragile, a couple of them crumble beneath the pressure of her grip. But her eyes—those are horribly clear and every bit the Olivia I’ve always known. “Please,” she whispers. “I can’t. Just go. Leave me. You have to get out of here.”
A sobbing gasp erupts from my chest. “I can’t do that, Liv. You saved me. Now stop being so damn stubborn, so I can save you back,” I tell her, my voice choked by tears as I cling as gently as I can to her hand.
Her mouth tries to smile, but she’s too fragile. Too brittle. When the corners of her lips start to crack, she shakes her head instead, a barely imperceptible motion. Her eyes begin to go dim, and when she speaks, her voice comes out stiff and halting, as though she can barely form the words. “Go,” she says, determined. “Someone has to . . . tell my parents. . . . Make sure they’re okay . . .” Her eyes meet mine, filled with pain and so terribly clear. “Go!” she demands in a dry, brittle version of what once was her voice.
I do cry then. In this moment she is completely my Olivia—whole and real and just as stubborn as she’s ever been.
But I can’t accept this. I can’t leave her to this world after everything that’s happened.
“Let me go, Gwen,” she whispers, her voice like a ragged husk. Her color has all but drained away, and when she speaks, bits of the corners of her mouth crumble, leaving only blackness behind.
I shake my head, even though I know she’s right. There is no way to get her back. The Queen has done too much damage. But I can’t leave her like this. . . .
“Go,” she whispers, her eyes closing as she tries to pull her hand away from me, her skin crumbling beneath my touch.
I don’t have a choice—if I try to keep ahold of her, I’ll hurt her even more—so I let her hand go. “Olivia,” I plead.
But a second after I release her hand, her eyes open again, and the sharpness that had once been there disappears. Her eyes take on that glassy, forgetful look, and when they do, her body relaxes—all panic, all fear, gone.
My body shakes with the sobs I cannot hold back. “I love you, Liv,” I say through my tears. “Whatever happens, I always will.” She blinks up at me, her eyes soft, and I know she doesn’t recognize me. My Olivia is gone. But at least the girl who looks back at me isn’t afraid.
The Dark Ones stir behind me, their wings rustling. The largest of them holds out its great clawed hand. I look once more at Olivia, searching for some other way, but the world around me is already crumbling to dust. Even now I sense the Dark One’s impatience, so without any other choice but to stay and die, I take its hand. And I leave my friend and everything I thought I was behind.