Wendy
Bones broke my fall, and it was far from painless. The agonizing impact tore a strangled cry from my lips, and I wasn’t the only one shocked by the sensation. Screams echoed to my left and right as my companions landed around me. Even Arktos yelped when he struck the mound of decaying skeletal fragments, some of which were so sharp they sliced into my flesh. Others poked at my back and rear, reminding me far too much of the blades that had once prodded there, and I scrambled upright at the first opportunity, resisting the urge to vomit at the overpowering stench of death that invaded my nostrils.
It was dark, but not so dark that I couldn’t see. Blinking in the eerie light that lacked an obvious source, I made out several silhouettes, groaning but alive.
Elvira muttered a string of curses as she struggled and failed to stand. “Where are we?”
“Hell.” Cedric dusted off his arms, lips curled in disgust as he picked bone fragments from his brand-new jacket. “Or did you not hear the goddess?”
“I was too distracted by the way she was fondling you.”
“And you’re blaming me for that? All I did was stand there!”
“Holy shit, shut up, both of you,” I snapped, making my own feeble effort to stand and cursing again when I couldn’t get my footing. “Is everyone all right? Peter, where—?”
“I’m here,” came his voice from behind. Bones snapped and crunched as he half-shuffled, half-crawled in my direction, and only when he took my outstretched hand did I notice the cut on his cheek. A thin trail of golden blood seeped from the wound, but it appeared to be superficial.
“You’re bleeding,” I said, pointing.
Peter nodded toward the slices on my arms. “So are you.”
“Get used to it.” Cedric seemed to be the only one making any headway toward where the mountain of bones at last came to an end, down a steep incline. “Come on. The sooner we get out of this graveyard, the sooner we can find that damn trident and get out of here.”
“Get the hell out of Hell?” Elvira was the only one who laughed at her terrible joke.
Rolling my eyes, Peter and I followed Cedric’s lead, still hand in hand. He acted as my anchor any time I slipped and vice versa, but the sweat coating Peter’s palm soon made gripping it nearly impossible. The slimy sensation only got worse the farther we trekked, and by the time we stood at the edge of the incline, I became thoroughly convinced it wasn’t sweat at all. Unable to stand the sticky sensation any longer, I released his hand to cling to his shoulder instead, and that’s when I noticed it.
“Peter, what the fuck is that?”
He did a double take upon glimpsing the black smeared all over his palm and flicked his wrist in a panicked attempt to remove it. When that didn’t work, he wiped it on several bones, but that, too, failed. “I don’t know, but it won’t come off.”
“Does it hurt?”
He shook his head.
“Let me see.” Once he placed the back of his hand within both of mine, I leaned in to examine what looked rather like a welt. Black, angry, and oozing, it explained the mucus-like liquid I’d felt, but that was where logic ended. Though it could have been a trick of the dim light, the longer I stared, the more convinced I became that its outline was rippling and changing before my eyes. “It won’t come off because it’s part of your skin. It’s moving.”
Peter ripped his hand away, holding the afflicted limb by the wrist as he visibly quivered. “I don’t know when or how I got this. Do you have one?”
I showed him my completely normal palms, and he cursed just as Cedric’s irritated shout rattled the smaller bones around us. “What’s taking so long?”
He, Elvira, and Arktos had made it safely to the bottom of the bone mountain, and judging from the way Arktos kept dancing around and whining, even he appeared agitated. “Peter has some kind of mark on his hand,” I called back.
Elvira scoffed. “And does he need his hands to walk all of a sudden? Hurry up, we need to keep moving.”
“Wait. I think I have one too.” Cedric spoke over his sister as he examined his palm. “Do you?”
“Of course no—shit, why is it moving?” A look of pure horror crossed Elvira’s face, confirming that she, too, possessed a mark. “Do we all have one, then?”
“Wendy doesn’t,” Peter called back before I could.
Elvira’s shocked expression was replaced with a glower in an instant. “Kaara did this.”
“If that’s true, then why did she mark me and not Wendy?” Cedric countered.
“Can you at least wait for us before deciding what the hell those are for?” Still clinging to one another, Peter and I were doing our best to make it down the bone mountain without falling on our asses. “We’re com—ahh!”
My shout morphed into a scream as bones shifted beneath me, causing me to lose my footing completely, and then we were tumbling. Jagged fragments grazed my clothing and skin alike, lacerating both as my helpless body slid down a twenty-foot incline, and seeing the ground fast approaching, I squeezed my eyes shut and braced for impact.
But it never came, at least not as hard as I’d been expecting. There was a wall of fur, a muttered curse, and then arms encircled me, followed by a string of questions my brain wasn’t yet prepared to process, let alone answer. I wasn’t badly hurt, but I had obtained a number of fresh scratches, probably twice as many bruises, and my head throbbed as if I’d struck it. Had I?
Only when the cool metal of a hook grazed my arm did I snap out of the pain-induced trance. Shoving Cedric away, I growled, “I’m fine,” before attempting to stand too fast. Far too fast. Dizziness overtook me, my knees buckled, and those arms were back, this time ignoring my feeble protests.
“Adais’s sake, Wendy, sit down and stay down. And shoo, dammit,” Cedric snapped, though it didn’t sound like that last bit was directed at me. “She’s all right. See?”
Something wet nosed my cheek before giving it a few licks, and it took me a moment to recall that I had a dog. Shit. Perhaps I did hit my head. But not wanting to admit as much aloud, especially with Cedric within earshot, I wrapped my arms around Arktos’s neck and said instead, “Correct. So you can stop hovering.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you can stand. Unassisted,” he added when I made an attempt to do just that, using Arktos as a crutch.
Though my protests were out of habit, my logic made a lot more sense than Cedric’s did. “We can’t stay out in the open like this, and I don’t want to be the one to slow us down.”
“She’s right.” Elvira watched from a distance while Peter stood behind Cedric, but both appeared antsy and more than ready to get moving. “If you want her to rest, at the very least we need to find shelter.”
“Then find it.” Cedric spoke without taking his eyes from me. “We’ll stay here, and I’ll guard her.”
“Ced.”
He whipped around then, and the vehemence in his tone was enough for me to picture the look on my father’s face. “You heard me. We may not be on The Jolly Serpent anymore, but I’m still the fucking captain, and I’m telling you to go find shelter. Both of you.”
Peter scoffed. “Since when have I taken orders from you?”
“Since right now, unless you want me to—”
“Just go, Peter,” I cut across Cedric, shutting them both up as they stared at me with even more concern. They were probably wondering why I was suddenly agreeing with my father, but truth be told, rest sounded heavenly, and given that he’d pulled the captain card, I could already tell this was an argument I wasn’t going to win. Releasing my hold around Arktos’s neck, I motioned for the dog to go to Peter’s side instead of mine. “But take Arktos.”
The dog only whined once before obeying but happily trotted back over when Peter closed the distance between us. Frowning, I opened my mouth to ask what he was doing just as he held out his hand. “This fell out of your pocket.”
I’d nearly forgotten about the compass Kaara had given me until I plucked it from his palm. Its arrow still spun and turned erratically, without any sense or pattern, and even though part of me was tempted to toss the more-than-likely useless thing into the pile of bones behind me, I nodded. “Thanks.”
“We should stick together, boy.” Elvira motioned with her head for Peter to join her. “Something tells me it isn’t safe for any of us to go off alone.”
“I have a name, you know.”
“Ah, right. Golden Child, was it? Has a nice ring to it, and I like it far better than Pan.”
Peter bristled. “Do you call anyone by their name?”
“You won’t have a name if you don’t get your ass moving, because you’ll be dead.”
“Fine,” Peter said over his shoulder, but then addressed me, gaze darting between me and Cedric. “Are you sure you’re good?”
“Positive.”
Though Peter didn’t seem convinced, he didn’t say so aloud. A reluctant Arktos trailed after him as Peter turned to follow Elvira. Before long, their silhouettes had completely vanished in the eerie haze, and it was then that I became acutely aware of just how creepy this place was. It felt empty and full at the same time, because other than the bones, there was quite literally nothing. No warmth, hardly any light, and no sound other than whispers I could make out, both screams and pleas alike. The longer the silence lingered, the louder the voices became, and ducking my head, I prepared to cover my ears.
Cedric must have heard them too, because he cleared his throat awkwardly. In an instant, the whispers stopped, though they’d likely start up again if it got too quiet. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I fell down a mountain of bones.”
He sighed. “Wendy—”
“What?” I snapped. “I may have agreed to be alone with you, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“Right. Because you hate me. My mistake.” Pushing off one knee, Cedric stood and began to pace like a caged animal, and the sight agitated me in more ways than one. I hadn’t intended to pick a fight, especially after what he’d just gone through, but his retort was enough to push me over the edge right along with him.
“Don’t you dare put words in my mouth. You asked, but I didn’t say it.”
“You didn’t need to. Your hesitation was more than enough.” He didn’t slow his hurried steps. “Either you hate me, or you hate yourself because you don’t, and I’m not sure which is worse.”
I suppressed a wince, and my words came out far more pleading than I intended them to. “Why does it matter either way?
“Because this isn’t how it’s supposed to be between a parent and their child!”
“How is it ‘supposed to be,’ then?” I didn’t recall standing, but I somehow managed to keep my balance on aching, wobbly legs. “You’ll have to enlighten me, because it’s not like I would know.”
“I don’t either!” Cedric ran his hand through his hair, shouting now. “In case you’ve forgotten, my father didn’t exactly set an ideal example, but that’s my entire point. He never gave a fuck, yet the harder I try with you, the more it feels the way it did between me and him. We’re powder kegs waiting to explode, and either of us could be holding the matches.”
“Then stop trying!”
He froze. “What?”
“If you ‘trying’ was what got us here, then stop.” I closed my eyes, recalling what I’d told myself on the beach mere hours ago: face your feelings. Right now, my feelings wore Cedric’s face, so I raised my gaze to his and uttered perhaps the truest words I’d ever spoken to him. “You’re right. Whatever is between us is twisted and complicated, and it’s going to be for a long time. Maybe even forever. But I don’t hate you.” I clenched and unclenched my palms as it suddenly became much easier to breathe. “It became abundantly clear when I thought I lost you. I couldn’t stand the thought of that awful fight having been our last interaction, or”—I hesitated before mumbling the last bit—“never seeing you again.”
Cedric’s face had gone from wounded to something else, though he looked just as likely to cry as he had before. He said my name in a voice choked with emotion, but I shook my head to silence him.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I still don’t like you. But if that’s ever going to change, I need time and space, okay? This can’t be forced, not by either of us, and you certainly can’t go around telling me that you love me. While I still feel this way, that’s the equivalent of hugging a feral cat. You’re going to get scratched, and I’ll have you know I’m not above biting, either.”
He laughed then. “You sound like Elvira now.”
“Bad news for you if that’s true.”
“No, a challenge. One that will keep me sharp, which is a good thing considering I’m not getting any younger.” Cedric’s eyes narrowed as he considered me. “I’m willing to agree to a truce, but are you? It’s hardly fair that you keep backing me into a corner so you have yet another thing to hold against me when I inevitably lash out. I may not be claustrophobic, but I still don’t like being trapped. Powder keg and matches, remember?”
That truly was a perfect metaphor for what we were. “Fine. I’ll hide my matches if you hide yours.”
Cedric held out his hand as the corner of his mouth played at a grin. “Shake on it, Wendy Maynard. I may be a pirate, but I honor my word.”
I swallowed my I’ll believe it when I see it retort and accepted the handshake, grimacing at the familiar slimy sensation of his black mark rubbing against my palm. But before I’d even pulled away, the compass in my other hand began quivering, and it startled me so much I nearly dropped it.
Cedric frowned when he noticed. “What’s going on?”
“No idea. Seems broken, though.”
He shook his head. “I highly doubt Kaara would have made such a show of giving you something useless. Let me see.” I handed him the compass, and he inspected it with both hand and hook, quickly making a discovery. “Have you seen this? There’s an inscription on the side here.”
“What does it say?”
“‘I show not your heart’s desire, but what you need most dire.’”
I groaned. “Didn’t we leave all the riddles behind in Neverland? How the hell is that supposed to show us anything when it’s spinning like that?” The needle seemed torn in opposite directions and switched erratically between the two, sometimes adding a handful of spins for good measure.
Cedric brightened all of a sudden, handing the compass back. “I don’t know, but Scarlett might. Didn’t she give you something else?”
“Yes, but it’s even more usel—”
“Nothing, and I mean nothing,” he cut across me, deadly serious, “Scarlett Maynard does is ever unintentional or without thought. Show it to me.”
It took a moment to pocket the compass and instead locate the small shell, but when I did, my fingers closed around a third object, something unexpected. Paper? I pulled it out along with the shell, holding one in each hand. “She must have written a note as well.”
He released a breath of wonder as I began unfolding it. “Of course she did.”
My eyes scanned over the nonsensical words twice before I spoke them aloud. “‘Marks vanish when you’re safe to emerge. Speak to the shell for further guidance.’”
Cedric immediately began muttering the message under his breath, his gaze faraway as he attempted to unravel Scarlett’s meaning. “The marks. Does she mean the ones that all of us have but you?”
“And maybe Arktos,” I offered weakly. “No one thought to check his paws.”
“They vanish when we’re safe to emerge, and to do that, Kaara said we need to do something selfless. Or be selfless, in your case, which is probably why you’re the only one who doesn’t have one.”
“That’s why they’re moving. Must be magic.”
He nodded. “Makes sense. They’re a warning and will disappear when we’re able to leave the Sea unscathed. All right, that’s one clue dealt with, and the other is hardly cryptic. Do as Scarlett says.”
My mouth fell open. “What? You want me to talk to a damn shell?”
“If you won’t, I will.” He made a reckless grab for it, but I snatched my hand away.
“No. If Scarlett wanted you to be the one to do it, she would have given it to you.” But when I held the shell closer to my face, I completely blanked, especially with Cedric staring at me like that. “What the hell should I say?”
“She said to ask for guidance, so that would be a good place to start.”
It felt beyond ridiculous to be talking to a shell, but it wasn’t as if we had any other options. Sighing, I asked, “May we have some guidance… please?”
I only added the ‘please’ after Cedric mouthed something that looked like ‘manners,’ but common courtesy appeared to have gotten us nowhere. Nothing happened, not even after I asked a second time, and turning back to my father, I threw up my hands.
“Never does anything ‘without thought,’ huh?” I mocked in his overconfident tone, but before I’d finished speaking, the shell vibrated in my palm as a deep but familiar voice sounded from it.
“Hello again, Wendy Maynard. Is Cedric Teach with you?”
Adais. Gooseflesh erupted along my arms, and my mind spun with this new revelation, but despite the sudden dryness in my mouth, I managed to utter a response. “Yes.”
“Good. Have you secured my trident yet?”
I may have appreciated the fact that he’d gotten straight to the point if there weren’t a million questions running through my mind—where did Scarlett get this? How had she kept it secret from Kaara? And how long had she been talking to the Sea God, plotting and scheming up gods-knew-what, literally?—but unable to voice any of them, my lips somehow formed another curt reply. “No. We only just arrived.”
Adais made a disapproving noise. “You must hurry. Well-laid plans have been set in motion, but we have no hope of succeeding until I have Heartpiercer in hand.”
Cedric snatched my wrist so suddenly I yelped. He brought the shell mere inches from his lips as he spoke, his words tense and rushed. “What plans? What’s going on? Is Scarlett involved? Is she all right?”
“Your task is retrieving Heartpiercer. Until you do, nothing else matters.”
My father clenched his jaw, tightening his grip on my arm at the same time. “Does that mean that if we don’t, she’ll die?”
“Don’t ask questions you already know the answers to, Crow.”
Cedric cursed as I yanked myself from his grasp. “But how do we find the trident, and what do we do once we have it? How do we get out of here?”
“Heartpiercer is not difficult to find, Wendy Maynard, and that compass will aid you if only you let it. Once you have secured my trident, all you need to do is grip its shaft—you, and anyone accompanying you—and say, ‘What belongs to the sea will always return.’ Heartpiercer will do the rest, but remember, only those who are touching the shaft will be brought to the surface. Hurry, because far more than your mother’s life is at stake if you fail.”
How were we meant to succeed when even the Sea God was being so vague? Were there traps we needed to watch out for? Monsters? What awaited us that wasn’t this stupid mound of bones? There were so many more questions I wanted to ask that I didn’t know where to begin, but before I could select one, Cedric ripped the shell from my palm and rattled off pleas of his own.
“Tell Scarlett that we’re safe, all right? Tell her that I love her, that we’re coming, that Wendy is—fuck.” Cedric let it tumble to the ground with a flick of his wrist, not looking the least bit apologetic when I shot him an incredulous glare. “What? It shocked me.”
“You could have broken it, and then we’d be even more fucked than we already are.” Bending over, I picked up the shell, inspecting it for cracks before dusting it off. It appeared to be in one piece, thank whatever gods would listen, but it was clear Adais was no longer one of them. “Looks like we’re on our own.”
“We shouldn’t be. We need to find Elvira and Pan. Are you all right to walk?”
I nodded both in answer and agreement. They should have been back by now, and the fact that they weren’t concerned me. Was there truly no shelter in this place? Had something happened? Were they even alive? Get a grip, I reminded myself, and before my thoughts could spiral any further, I fell into step beside Cedric. Reaching back into my pocket, I deposited the shell before trading it for Kaara’s compass, turning it over in my hands as my father retraced our companions’ steps. A strange mist shrouded much of what lay ahead, but at least I could still make out the things in my immediate vicinity.
“‘I show not your heart’s desire,’” I repeated, reading the first part of the inscription aloud. “Seems straightforward. It won’t point to what someone wants, but rather ‘what you need most dire.’ But how ‘dire’ are we talking? Does my life need to be in danger before it will point to anything?”
Cedric shrugged before muttering that he didn’t know, and if that didn’t make it obvious that his mind was anywhere but here, his furrowed brow did.
“You’re worried about Scarlett.”
“Of course I am.”
“You shouldn’t be. She’s outsmarted a goddess, schemed with a god, and has a role far larger than any of us expected. Possibly the largest.”
“Is that supposed to reassure me? That only worries me more, but not because I think she isn’t capable.” Cedric placed a hand on one of the pistols at his hip. “It’s that whether intentional or not, she’s entangled herself in an impossibly complex web, one she might not be able to extract herself from, and I didn’t come this far to not… to not…”
“Be with her?” I finished quietly. “You heard what Kaara said, though. Scarlett’s engaged.”
“Oh, trust me, I fucking heard,” Cedric snapped. “But the union is a ruse. I may not know how or why just yet, but I do know that Scarlett doesn’t want anything to do with that moron prince, if that’s who she’s marrying. Not truly.”
Gods, he was far more in denial than I thought. Ordinarily I’d just let it go, but this seemed to be a scenario in which it would be far better to rip the bandage off in a single pull rather than do it slowly, and Cedric seemed to be in enough pain as it was. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.” He took a deep breath before exhaling just as slowly, yanking whatever story he was about to tell along with it. “Years ago, before you were born and before Neverland, Scarlett and I were capt—wait. Is that your dog?”
I assumed Cedric was stalling or had made an extremely poor attempt to change the subject until those telltale hairs rose on the back of my neck—the ones that told me a beast was near—and a moment later, a fluffy white shape came bounding toward me. Arktos showered my face in licks after I knelt to meet him, but when I ran my hand over the fur on his flank, it was warm and sticky, and my palm came away coated in crimson. “Is that blood?”
“Better that dog’s than your boyfriend’s.”
I heard Elvira before I saw her, but her slender silhouette soon reappeared from the mist. Though her hair had been ruffled and she held a bloodied knife in each palm, she appeared unhurt. Peter was a different story. Trailing closely behind Elvira, he gripped his right shoulder with his opposite hand, features contorted in pain. I had been attempting to locate the source of Arktos’s wound, but the second I noticed Peter, I sprinted to his side instead, poking and prodding at his injury even when he groaned.
“Don’t tell me you dislocated this again,” I started, but Elvira shook her head.
“Not dislocated and nothing’s broken, though both are a shock to me. That fall was nasty.”
“What fall?” Cedric glanced between the trio. “What happened?”
Elvira snorted. “Goldy over here tried to play the hero when it’s that dog who actually saved the day.”
“I wasn’t trying to be a hero, I was trying to be selfless!” Peter protested before puffing out his chest proudly. “I think it worked, too!”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t still have this.” I held up the palm containing the black mark. “They disappear once you’ve proven yourself.”
“Anyway,” Elvira continued in that nonchalant tone, “this strange cat-like creature leaped at me. Pan thought it would be a good idea to get between us to fulfill his noble little quest, but it was Wendy’s dog who ended up ripping the thing limb from limb. We were up on a ledge, though, and there wasn’t enough room for all that commotion, so Pan fell.”
Understanding dawned on me as Arktos licked his chops. “That blood isn’t Arktos’s?”
Elvira shook her head as Cedric asked, “Why were you on a ledge?”
“You mean you haven’t seen them?”
“Seen who?” Cedric snapped, frustrated now, but Elvira beckoned with her finger.
“This way.”
She led us through the haze, her strides confident and sure even when the mist got so thick that I could barely see my own hands. Not wanting to lose my companions, I laced my fingers with Peter’s and hovered close to his side, gripping his palm even tighter when those whispers started up again. They were far louder this time, closer, and more numerous. Even Arktos’s hackles rose as we neared our destination, but as I was about to voice my fears aloud, the mist parted, and Elvira gestured in front of us.
“This,” she said grimly, “is everyone who’s ever died.”
Crammed into the space ahead were millions upon millions of ghostly silhouettes, and I couldn’t immediately tell if they were solid. Most wandered in dozens of never-ending lines, dragging their feet as if weighted with chains, but others simply stood in place, lips parted and eyes glazed over as if even their spirits had long since given up. My mouth dropped open as I drank it all in. There was nothing gruesome or even particularly sad about it—everyone died at some point—but my eyes began to glisten regardless. They weren’t people anymore, but they had been once, and each one of these souls had a life, a purpose, families, friends—
“...stretches as far as we tried to walk in either direction, and they lash out when we get too close. Yes, they can touch us, because one of them tried to bite me. There’s no way through,” Peter was saying when I finally managed to tear my gaze from the horde of wandering souls, and then it dawned on me.
“There may be one way.”
Everyone turned to stare at me as I produced the compass, which for once, wasn’t quivering. The needle pointed straight toward the souls, its message more than clear.
“Well,” I said to Cedric, “it looks as though our need is ‘most dire.’”
Before any of them could stop me, I took a deep breath, approached the souls, and held the compass straight ahead. What was it Adais had said? That compass will aid you if only you let it.
“I’m letting you,” I whispered, ignoring the fact that at least a dozen of the souls had turned to stare at me. “Take us to Heartpiercer. We need it to save my mother. To save Peter.” At first, nothing happened.
Then little by little, they parted.
I could hardly believe my eyes as the souls shuffled back, offering us a clear path through what had previously been a tangled mass of bodies. Once in place, they turned their heads to look at me, and I couldn’t decide whether that was unnerving or reassuring, so I turned around, smiling weakly at my companions.
“See? Someone just had to ask nicely.”
Cedric ran a hand through his hair, his face pale enough to rival the souls’. “Is there anything that doesn’t listen to you?”
You, I wanted to blurt out, but I managed to keep my mouth shut until I turned back around. “Come on.”
Getting through the souls was the easy part and, strangely, didn’t trigger my claustrophobia. Maybe it was the extra room they seemed to know to leave me, or maybe it was their presence alone. Either way, I appreciated the gesture as they allowed us to pass. The whispers turned reassuring, and the fact that I was now the leader kept my thoughts from spiraling. I was able to simply walk. And walk.
We trekked for what was probably several miles. The slow shuffling of boots scraping dirt combined with Arktos nosing my hand every now and again kept me energized, but my confidence was rapidly dwindling. What if I was wrong and led them all this way for nothing? What if all these ‘things’ I felt were just lies I told myself? What if we’d already failed and Scarlett was already dead, what if—
“What if all you needed was a reason to believe in yourself?”
Chills erupted down my spine as the faintest whisper drifted from my pocket. It was Adais, and he was right, and my companions deserved to share in my sudden boost of confidence. “I can’t explain how I know,” I said, raising my voice so it would carry to everyone behind me, “but we’re close.”
They had to think I was mad, because we didn’t appear close to anything right now. There was nothing but barren, rocky wasteland as far as the haze stretched around us, and we’d long since left the whispers from the horde of wandering souls behind. Between the compass, the prickles trailing across my flesh, and Adais himself in agreement, the only thing I could do was trust them, and a few minutes later, light caught my eye as the mists parted. “There!”
Heartpiercer hovered in midair no more than fifty yards out. Though it was difficult to tell at our current distance, the golden three-pronged weapon appeared to be longer than I was tall. Humming and faintly glowing, it radiated power even in this bleak place, as if to say it would bend to the wishes of anyone who would aid in its mission of reuniting with its master. The trident was quite near the edge of what looked to be a steep cliff, and the path to reach it was littered with rocky outcroppings, but so long as whoever retrieved it watched their step, the sudden drop-off shouldn’t be a problem.
Peter’s voice cut through my train of thought. “I’ll get it,” he declared, and would have taken off sprinting if Cedric hadn’t snatched his arm.
“No,” he hissed, gaze darting around wildly. “I don’t like this.”
“Unless you want to lose your other hand, I suggest you get it off me.”
Cedric paid Peter’s threat no mind, still fixated on the trident. “It’s far too easy. Wendy, can you sense anything? Any monsters?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.” Arktos was the only creature I picked up in the near vicinity, but like Cedric, that didn’t give me anywhere near the amount of confidence it should have.
Elvira snorted. “Definitely too easy, which is why I’m going first. I still need to perform a ‘selfless act,’ remember?” Before any of us could stop her, she darted forward. Ignoring Cedric’s cries of protest, she stepped lightly, utilizing the outcroppings both as shortcuts and shelter, remaining on high alert for any sudden threats as she made her way toward Heartpiercer.
Cedric tensed as we watched helplessly, and I gripped his arm. One wrong step and Elvira could set off a booby trap. One wrong breath and she could die. If something were to happen to her now, we were too far, too hindered by all those outcroppings to assist.
Just as thoughts began to spiral, Elvira came to a halt just short of the trident. Cedric and I released a collective sigh of relief as she spread her arms, a victorious grin forming on her lips. “Well, brother, I guess it is that ea—”
Something slammed against her chest with nearly enough force to throw her over the edge of the cliff. As Elvira scrambled to regain her footing, face contorted as she clutched her middle, one of the strangest and most hair-raising noises I’d ever heard rose up from the silence.
An insect more monstrous than anything my worst nightmares could have conjured up appeared from behind one of the largest outcroppings. A formidable pair of pincers came into view first, followed by a spiny carapace, eight legs, and lastly a tail that hung curved over its back. Attached at the end was some kind of blackened barb, but there wasn’t time to worry about its purpose. With another cry consisting of a series of hissing clicks, the monster made a wild grab for Elvira with one of its massive pincers.
I reacted without thinking, closing my eyes as I recalled what I’d done with the dragon only a few short days ago. Opening them again, I stepped forward, balling my hands into fists as I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Leave her alone!”
Nothing happened, though it was quite possible neither of them heard me. Having recovered from her near-fall, Elvira was back to being light and quick on her feet, leaping from ledge to ledge as she attempted to put as much distance between her and the creature as possible. Whipping out a pair of knives, she hurled one and then the other between jumps, but despite both being well-aimed, the daggers bounced uselessly off the insect’s protective carapace.
She spared a glance in our direction as the monster slammed its barb into the space she’d occupied a split second previously. It attempted to land another blow in quick succession, one she barely dodged, and the carelessness of it caused her to trip and stumble. Elvira crumpled against a rocky ledge, limbs quivering as she tried and failed to prop herself up on her arms. My heart nearly stopped. Was she hurt? Could she get up? Though her wispy blonde hair covered most of her face, it didn’t conceal the genuine fear in her eyes as she fixated on the presence beside me.
Cedric barrelled past me, but not without barking orders. “Stay here, no matter what happens! And for fuck’s sake, get back. OI!”
Cedric had still been standing in close proximity to me when he addressed the monster, and I flinched at the volume of his shout. Stripping off his jacket, he strode forward before waving it over his head like a flag. “You want blood? Have a taste of mine.”
The monster turned then, but not without ramming its tail into several rocky ledges in the process. Debris rained down on Elvira’s battered body, but with the beast’s sights set on him, Cedric couldn’t get to her, especially now that he was the one dodging that intimidating barbed tail. He made a grab for his pistol before shoving it back in its holster, and even as I wanted to scream at him to shoot the damn thing, it dawned on me that he was likely afraid he’d shoot one of us instead, especially in this chaotic mayhem.
Terrified determination surged through me as I pointed a shaking finger in Elvira’s direction, nodding to Arktos. “Go dig her out, boy,” I ordered, and he raced to obey, but as I moved to follow, a hand gripped my shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Peter hissed. “We need to go get that trident, especially while that thing is distracted!”
I couldn’t have given less of a shit about Heartpiercer in that moment. “They’re going to die if we don’t help!”
“Then help! Can’t you talk to it, like you did the dragon?”
“It won’t listen.” My breathing quickened as I watched Arktos frantically dig Elvira from the rubble while Cedric continued to make himself an enticing target, dodging pincers and that terrifying tail alike. Though he managed well enough for now, it was only a matter of time before he ended up like his sister or worse. “And I’m not entirely sure I can. It’s beasts I’ve spoken to, not insects.”
“Then we need to get what we came for and get the fuck out of here,” Peter said, and then he was gone, using my shoulder as a boost to prop himself up on one of the outcroppings before tearing off.
“Peter!” I screeched, but my cry was swallowed among the chaos. Arktos had started barking and wouldn’t stop. A few of Elvira’s pained groans reached my ears, and Cedric remained locked in his game of cat and mouse with the monster. The longer it went without killing anyone, the more frenzied and frustrated it became, and the creature acted far more battering ram than beast at this point. Between the boulders it hurled and the outcroppings it reduced to rubble, it didn’t seem to care whether it was those or its own appendages which succeeded in ending my father. By some miracle, Cedric remained on his feet, though I was more than aware that could change at any moment.
But he had held his own for this long, and I was much closer to Peter than I was to Cedric, so there was only one option which truly made sense. My body made the decision though my heart protested, pulling and yanking itself to the top of an outcropping before scanning for Peter. He was halfway to the trident, and if I hurried, I could catch up.
Forcing myself not to pay attention to anything other than what was right in front of me was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, especially when Cedric began screaming my name. The trident, the trident, the trident, I chanted in my head, utilizing the syllable pattern to help me keep a hurried pace as I leaped from outcropping to outcropping, though it became much harder the closer I got to my prize. They were spaced much farther apart here, and finally, I reached a dead end. There was no way I’d be able to jump to the nearest one without a running start, and there simply wasn’t room for that on the ledge upon which I currently stood.
It was up to Peter, then, and judging by the fact that he was nearly within arm’s reach, he’d succeed. “Hurry,” I urged him, finally daring a glance over my shoulder and immediately wishing I hadn’t. Though Arktos had managed to extract Elvira from the debris, she looked far too weak to aid Cedric, who sorely needed a reprieve. He breathed so heavily that each inhale was audible even from where I stood, and his face was so red that the outline of every strained blood vessel was clearly visible. His legs quivered, so much so that he wobbled when dodging the monster’s barbed tail, and it was clear he didn’t have many—if any—dodges left in him.
Peter’s agonized cry had me whipping back around. He stood next to Heartpiercer, but flicked his wrist, grimacing, and yelled, “It burned me when I tried to take it!”
“Use your jacket!” I called back, though even as I said it, I knew there was no way the trident could be fooled that easily. Sure enough, the moment the fabric grazed Heartpiercer’s handle, the jacket burst into flames.
Peter yelped before tossing the flaming garment aside, shooting me a glare before it even struck the ground. “Any more brilliant ideas?”
“Just one,” I muttered for my ears alone, because I had tensed up to do something quite the opposite. Balancing my heel on the very back of the ledge, I bent my knees, steadied my breaths, and tried not to think about the fact that I wasn’t particularly athletic as I took what wasn’t nearly enough of a running start.
Then I jumped.
Peter’s mouth opened in a silent O, or perhaps he was screaming, and I simply couldn’t hear him. I was airborne for what felt like an eternity, hovering precariously between victory and a concussion before gravity took hold of me far too soon. I wasn’t going to make it, not even if I stretched out my arms. I was going to fall in that dark narrow space between the ledges where no one could reach me, and not only had I failed, I’d condemned everyone I had ever cared about, including Scarlett, to certain death.
Just when my mind had been about to follow my body into the depths of despair, fingers encircled my wrist. I fell forward instead of down, and though the subsequent slam into the outcropping’s edge was enough to knock the wind from me, I’d never been more grateful to feel anything in my life. Peering up, I glimpsed Peter’s contorted face as he held my arm in both of his hands, including the burned one. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” he said over and over, as if words would be enough to keep him from dropping me. “But I could use a little help.”
I utilized both the outcropping’s jagged edge and my free hand to scale up the cliff, and a minute later, Peter and I collapsed in a tangled heap of limbs on the ledge’s face. “What the fuck,” he said without lifting his head. “You could have broken your leg!”
“But I didn’t.” Heartpiercer pulsed from where I lay draped over Peter’s chest, but I couldn’t bring myself to move until I had at least caught my breath. “Besides, wasn’t it you who told me to help?”
“You’re no help to anyone dead,” he shot back as I extracted myself from him. “Or with a burned hand. Wendy, you don’t mean to touch that, do you?”
“Someone has to.”
He remained silent as I approached the trident, and if our circumstances were any different, here was where I may have hesitated. I may have halted, taken time to assess whether or not the heat radiating from the weapon was meant to be welcoming or a warning, or even attempted to fashion some other way to get Heartpiercer down without using my bare hands. But there was time for none of that, and it was now or never. So I curled my fingers around the trident’s shaft, squeezed my eyes shut, and tensed for all hell to break loose.
It did, but not in the way I’d expected.
I’d all but forgotten about the monster, but the moment Heartpiercer fell into my hands, its guardian released a cry so piercing that it brought me to my knees. Through watering eyes, I made out several vague silhouettes: Peter throwing himself at the creature’s hardened carapace, Cedric sprinting at full speed toward me, leaping from ledge to ledge in single strides, and that horrific barbed tail pointed straight at my chest.
A scream, a shove, and then I was falling, both hearing and feeling an excruciating snap a moment before the world went dark.