Wendy
“The what?” My mouth dropped open. “I thought you said the dragon was gone!”
“It is, but the squid isn’t,” Tink said.
“The… squid? Is that what that tentacled thing was?” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Peter nodded. “I’d believe it.”
I stared between him and Tink, incredulous and rendered speechless. My skull began to pulse uncomfortably. Given my recent head trauma, it was pain I probably shouldn’t ignore, but I pushed through it regardless because I had to think. It didn’t matter that everything imaginable had gone wrong in a matter of hours, and it couldn’t matter that I was no longer captain of my own ship. I had to form a plan, had to keep us safe, had to get us out of here—
Movement out of the corner of my eye, followed by Peter’s gasp of pain, yanked me from my rapidly spiraling thoughts. He must have tried to use his injured arm to reach for me. “Are you all right?” he asked, though I didn’t miss his barely suppressed grimace.
“Your shoulder.” It looked even worse up close, and from the way he was holding it, definitely appeared dislocated. Though the light remained dim, more golden bruising colored the inflamed—and exposed, given the way his shirt hung in tatters—skin. I inhaled deeply. I might not be able to pluck a solution to our current predicament from thin air, but this, I could mend. “Kneel facing away from me.”
He obeyed, albeit hesitantly. Once in the proper position, I gripped Peter’s wrist, lifting his arm until it was parallel to the ground. With my opposite hand, I grasped the shoulder itself, squeezing both to brace the joint and make certain I could feel where the bones should reset. It had been a while since I’d done this for anyone, but once muscle memory kicked in, I was confident that I wasn’t going to injure him further.
“This will hurt,” I warned him. “Ready?”
“Yea—fuck!”
I didn’t wait for his affirmation because anticipation always made it worse. All it took was a quick, firm tug, and the bone slid back into its socket with, to me, a satisfying pop, though far less so in Peter’s case. He scrambled away the moment it was done, holding his arm close to his chest and continuing to curse under his breath.
Tink’s light flashed crimson yet again, and she darted in front of me with the fury of a hornet. “You couldn’t have given him a moment to prepare?”
“He’d have tensed up and I might have injured him further.”
“I’m fine, Tink,” Peter said stiffly. He flexed the joint as well as his fingers, probably shaking off the residual numbness. “At least one part of me is back where it belongs.”
She flinched, but before either of them could say anything else, I butted in. “You’ve made your point, but what’s done is done. Tink is here and neither of us can do anything about it. What we can do is make a plan, and first things first, we need to get the fuck out of here.”
Both of them said something that sounded quite like a protest, but my mind didn’t bother making sense of it. I spun on my heel, my gaze darting everywhere as I scanned for something, anything that could help us. We were in a supply closet similar to the one I’d been trapped in the very first night I’d spent on this ship, but the memory didn’t bring a smile to my face. If anything, it fueled my desperation, because I couldn’t fucking stand feeling trapped. The door was locked and held fast when I yanked on the handle, so I began rifling in the space between the forgotten crates and barrels. I could have worked with so much as a rusty nail, but most of the containers were empty, and those that weren’t held nothing but various rotting rubbish. Dust began clouding the air, eliciting coughs from both me and my companions, but I refused to stop even as my eyes burned from the irritation. I refused to give up and refused to slow.
I refused to be a prisoner aboard my own goddamn ship.
It took Peter all but throwing himself in front of me to get my attention. He braced himself against the boxes I’d intended to search a third time, but it didn’t keep me from attempting to reach around him. “Wendy, stop.”
I shook my head. “It’s dark over here. Maybe I missed something. Tink, can you help me? With your light, maybe I can—”
“You’re not fucking listening. Will you look at me?”
The only reason I did was because of the way his voice cracked and rose. Tink hovered over Peter’s shoulder, bathing his battered body in her dim light, and only then did it become clear what a mess he truly was. I may have eased the worst of his physical pain, but that wasn’t the kind affecting him now. He hadn’t kept his arm close to his chest solely because of his injury; it was to hold up his ruined shirt. And judging from the wrappings drooping around his sides, that wasn’t the only thing that had come undone. My heart leapt to my throat. When did that happen, and how had I not noticed before?
“I can’t go out there like this,” Peter whispered, his eyes wide with terror. “I won’t.”
It felt invasive to stare and even more so to prod, but something wasn’t adding up in my mind. For Peter’s shirt to tear as a result of his fall made sense, but what had sliced his chest bindings into ribbons? I was the one who’d tied them and had weeks of practice doing so at this point. They were tight enough to get the job done, but not too tight, still allowing for proper breathing and movement. Not once had the bindings so much as loosened, let alone come undone without Peter or myself unwrapping them, and that was just it—they hadn’t been unwound. They had been cut.
“Who did this to you?” My voice was hoarse.
“I… didn’t see—”
“You blacked out, but Peter didn’t.” Tink’s voice adopted a darker edge than I’d ever heard from her. “He fought them. Your crew didn’t like that.”
The emphasis Tink put on ‘your’ didn’t go unnoticed, and she was right. I still considered them my responsibility, meaning their actions, however savage, were reflective of me. Red streaked across my vision, but for Peter’s sake, I kept my tone even. “So they resorted to this?”
I was suddenly so angry I could hardly breathe. Of all the injuries the crew could have caused to make their point—bloodied his nose, kicked him once or twice, left a cut here or there—they had chosen to worsen an existing one. To poke and prod at the one thing he couldn’t help nor control. My thoughts wandered back to a particular girl I’d known at the orphanage. I’d mentioned her to Peter on the day we met, but I hadn’t disclosed the extent of the cruelty she’d endured before coming to confide in me. The teasing, the exclusion, and the assault perpetuated by both the other children and adults alike had been one of the worst injustices I’d ever witnessed, and that was counting Neverland’s atrocities. She was just as much a girl as Peter was a boy, but the bodies they had been born into didn’t reflect that to strangers without additional cosmetic precautions being taken. The girl was young enough to not need to resort to the more extreme measures, but Peter’s body was changing, and his time was running out… literally. His breast growth meant that even with careful binding, he might begin to show, and it was only a matter of time before he got his first monthly. Given how much the former was already affecting him, imagining the potentially irreparable damage the latter could do to his already fragile psyche sent icy stabs of fear down my spine.
“It doesn’t matter,” Peter said, his mechanical tone yanking me from my thoughts. As though a switch had gone off, his expression suddenly hardened, all traces of emotion locked far away. “I just… need to be covered before I can go back out there. A blanket, a shirt, something—”
“Of course.” Before he finished speaking, I had already shrugged out of my shirt. Gooseflesh immediately erupted along the newly exposed skin on my arms, but I suppressed the urge to shudder, putting on a brave face as I handed Peter the still-warm garment. I wasn’t naked, though with nothing but a thin undershirt to protect my torso, I’d be in real danger of catching a chill, especially once we reached the upper deck. I shoved the fears aside. Like much concerning our current situation, it was a problem I’d need to worry about later.
But as the shirt passed between us, a bright flash of color caught my eye. My hands were coated in some sort of residue I hadn’t noticed before, and still wet, the mysterious liquid had stained the previously unblemished linen.
“What the…?”
Without letting go, I brought both the shirt and my free hand to my face. Maybe it was a trick of Tink’s dim light, but I swore the liquid was—
Peter yanked the garment from my grasp, almost tearing it. Before I could warn him to be more careful, he began weaving his arms through the sleeves, but his shoulders remained bare as my gaze flickered to them, particularly his injured one. The bruised and battered skin I’d touched only minutes before was flecked with…
Gold. The same color coating my hands.
My lips parted in a silent gasp, mind racing as I pieced together the damning evidence. Peter should be bleeding, and yet there wasn’t a single drop of crimson in sight. Even his bruises were strange looking; a sickly yellow edged with light brown, completely lacking the shades of blue or deep purple I might expect anyone else to possess. A potential explanation began forming in my horrified mind, but before I dared to believe it, I brought my quivering palms to my face, inhaling deeply. The scent that flooded my nostrils was metallic—unmistakably iron.
If I didn’t know any better, the golden liquid was Peter’s blood.
Something unintelligible tumbled from my lips, but Tink ignored it as she shook her head, shooting me a warning glare. “Whatever it is you think you saw, you didn’t.”
“T-think I s-saw?” The nonsense I’d been speaking turned to barely incoherent stuttering. “It’s r-right there—it’s blood—”
“Blood is red, Wendy.”
“It’s s-sure as h-hell supposed to be!” My cries bordered on hysterics now, but my restraint had flown out the window. I pointed an accusatory finger at Peter, who had both donned the shirt and taken great care to ensure his wounds were now covered. “Even y-your bruises don’t look right.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Is there a ‘right’ way for a bruise to look?”
“Keep your voice down,” Tink hissed, her too-dim light flashing a deep violet that I knew to be a warning. But I ignored her.
“I don’t understand,” I said, mind still racing. Vivid imagery of the day I helped Peter bandage his wounds following the nerisa attack back in Neverland popped into my mind’s eye. “I’ve seen you hurt. I’ve seen you bleed. There was nothing special about your blood then, nothing at all like this…”
“You’re absolutely right.” Peter gave a curt nod. “There’s nothing special about my blood. Wasn’t then, and there isn’t now.”
At such a blatant untruth, I stilled. I knew what I’d seen, he knew what I’d seen, and here he stood trying to gaslight me. Me, the one whose resources he was currently utilizing for his own personal gain. Me, who’d defend him to hells and back. Me—his friend. Or so I’d thought. An explosive combination of fury and something else awakened within me, but I kept a careful lid on it, determined not to burst until the right moment. I had to go about this carefully if I wanted answers. Ever since we’d left Neverland, something had been off about Peter. Whatever was going on with his blood was far from the only secret he was carrying, and gods be damned, he was going to tell me what they were.
“You’re lying.” All traces of my stutter gone, I took a predatory step toward him. “And worse, you’re lying to me. I’d choose your next words carefully.”
His lip curled. “Is that a threat?”
Tink said something we both ignored as I laughed darkly. “If you need me to identify your threats for you, then I’d say you’ve lost your touch, Pan.”
My words had the desired effect, and Peter flinched. I’d channeled every bit of Captain Hook that I could stomach into that sentence, and though I wanted to vomit, that look on Peter’s face was worth it. As fucked up as it was, I wanted him to hurt as much as he’d hurt me, and at least right now, I didn’t regret it. We stood in tense silence, breathing hard, as in my peripheral vision, violet flashed once more.
“Someone’s com—”
Tink didn’t finish her warning before the door burst open. I whirled around, bewildered, to find myself staring at a man I didn’t immediately recognize. Broad and tall, his shape easily took up the entire frame, leaving no hope of Peter or me darting around him unnoticed. He was… Phil? Prescott? Phipps? He definitely had a ‘P’ name, but I stopped wracking my brain for the answer upon noticing where his leering gaze had dipped. My undershirt was not only thin but lower cut than I’d have ever wanted anyone on my crew to see, and my breasts would surely come spilling out should I bend over too far.
I crossed my arms over my front, equal parts embarrassed and disgusted to have been gaped at like some tavern wench on display. “How dare you.”
“What?” He shrugged. “I was just admiring your foresight.” Before I could ask what he meant, he hurled a bundle of white fabric at my chest. “Put this on.”
I unrolled it to find, of all things, a dress. The cloth wasn’t much thicker than my undershirt, and given its color, I was more than a little skeptical of its ability to conceal everything it would need to. “What the fuck is this?”
“Ah. Suppose a wild thing like yourself wouldn’t know what proper young ladies wear. You slip it over your head like a shirt.”
“I know what it is,” I snapped. “What’s it for?”
“Never you mind.”
I glared. I hadn’t worn a dress since my days at the orphanage and had no plans to start again now.
“That one’s been rubbing off on you, I see.” The man’s gaze flicked to where Peter stood and back again. “But we could only find one of these. Otherwise you’d both be changing.”
The meaning behind his words didn’t sink in until I’d slipped my arms through the sleeves, prepared to pull the dress over my head. If they could have found one, they would have brought a second dress… for Peter to wear? I froze as fury ignited within me, then turned back toward the man. “You said that this is what young ladies wear. He isn’t one.”
Behind me came Peter’s voice, unnervingly defeated and small. “Do as he says, Wendy. It’s not worth the fight.”
“Yes, it is,” I snarled. Especially after what you endured earlier. After yanking the dress up and over my head, I took a step toward the crewman, voice seething with barely contained rage. “Whether you want to accept it or not, I am your captain, and you will treat him with respect or—”
Pain exploded across my cheek before I’d finished speaking. I hadn’t been struck particularly hard, but given the existing and still-throbbing wound on my forehead, my knees buckled beneath me, and I staggered and fell. My vision flickered in and out, and the noise that filtered through my ears was muffled as though I’d gone underwater. I was only vaguely aware of something buzzing around my head, followed by a dull thud as something heavy struck the floor beside me. No matter how hard I blinked, my vision didn’t get any clearer, but after about a minute, words at least became easier to make out.
“She’s bleeding again.”
“Can you help her? Do you have dust to spare?”
“Not in my current state.”
“Then go check the hall. Distract anyone you find and buy us all the time you can.”
Tinkling bell noises drifted away into nothing as a strong, reassuring arm snaked beneath my armpit, all but dragging my limp body to its feet. Fingertips brushed my hair out of my face, but gentle as they were, I flinched as they summoned a fresh wave of hurt.
“Wendy, can you hear me?”
I nodded, relieved to find that it was Peter, and not the crewman, touching me.
“I need you to walk, all right? And watch your step.”
As long as I kept my eyes squinted slightly, I could make out the shapes in my immediate vicinity. I glanced downward, expecting to dodge a fallen crate or barrel… not a bloodied, crumpled body. An alarming amount of crimson had already begun pooling onto the wood, dripping through the cracks and into the depths below. Inhaling sharply, I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out in shock. “What… What happened?”
“Glass,” was all Peter muttered, and he refused to elaborate until we had stepped into the hall. “I found a shard of glass.”
“You stabbed him?”
“He hit you!” he snarled, shuffling along more urgently now. “What else would you have suggested that I do?”
“They wanted to throw us to a monster before you killed a man.” As my wits returned, so did the use of my legs, and Peter became more of a guide than a crutch. Commotion had begun to sound overhead, but given that he seemed to have a plan, I followed where he led. “What do you suppose they might do to us now?”
Peter shot me a glare before motioning for us to duck behind more discarded cargo. His free hand still clutched the shard of glass, the only semblance of a weapon we had between us. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’d rather not find out. And I didn’t kill him. So long as I missed his vitals, he’ll live.”
I scoffed. “Yes, I’m sure he’ll thank you for that—”
“Quiet.”
I obeyed, albeit reluctantly. Noises indicating a struggle sounded just ahead. Peter was the only one with a clear view around the corner, and though I could stick my neck out to follow his gaze, I didn’t dare. “What’s happening?” I whispered.
Of all things, a smirk played on Peter’s lips. “Tink is giving them a hell of a time. She just needs a moment and… there. Come on.”
At his signal, I rose, rounded the corner, and found myself greeted by three more fallen bodies. Hovering above them was a triumphant Tink, her needle-like dagger flashing in the lamplight. I gaped. “How did you…?”
“Does it matter? Move!”
Peter’s snarl didn’t keep my mind from swimming with questions. We were nearly to the stairs, and though my companions approached them confidently, fear constricted my chest at the thought of what we might encounter on the main deck, where there would be far fewer places to hide. There were dozens of men aboard this ship, and it was only a matter of time before we provoked a fight we couldn’t win. Even if we did manage to fight them off, where in hells would we go? What would we do? We were in the middle of monster-infested waters, more than a week’s journey away from the nearest land mass, and had no supplies, no ship, and no other allies to speak of. Whether Peter chose to believe it or not…
“We’re fucked.”
Tink didn’t slow, but Peter stopped in his tracks. “Excuse me?”
“We’re fucked,” I repeated, more stubbornly than I had the first time. “Unless I’ve magically been reinstated captain, there’s no way out of this, Peter. You’re a goddamn fool if you believe otherwise, and you’re only making all of this worse.”
He stared at me, chest heaving with ragged breaths as he spread his arms in mock exaggeration. Gold coated the palm that clutched the glass shard, and unlike before, he made no attempts to hide it. “Do you have any better ideas?”
“Not killing my crew would be a decent start.”
“For gods’ sake, they’re not your crew!”
“They are if we want to live!” I wasn’t anywhere near shouting, but I was no longer whispering, either. “They’re our only way out. We have to face them. We need them, and unless you’d rather be thrown to the monsters, we need to show them that they need us.”
Peter glowered. “They hate us.”
“Have we given them reason not to?” Gods, what was I saying? This wasn’t something I would have dared to utter even twenty-four hours ago, but here I was repeating Peter’s own words back to him. “I’ve been nothing but a bratty teenager, and you’re the spoiled child, remember? Think for one second about how this must feel for them.”
“For them?”
I ignored the interruption. “They pledged their lives and loyalty to Hook, not me. I may be his daughter, but clearly I’m nowhere near deserving of the same respect he built up and earned over gods know how many years. And until a few weeks ago, you were their sworn enemy. You’d been picking them off one by one, torturing them when you got the chance.”
Peter clenched his jaw. “Who told you that?”
“Doesn’t matter. What does is what we do from here.”
Before Peter could reply, Tink’s light flashed a warning. “The sedative I gave those men is extremely temporary and will wear off any moment now,” she said.
“Wait.” I dared a glance back at the fallen bodies. “They’re not dead?”
Peter laughed incredulously. “Of course they’re not. Did you really think a fairy would be capable of bringing down multiple grown men on her own?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tink huffed.
“This is fantastic,” I said, perking up at the news. “We can apologize, claim that the first one was an accident, tell them we didn’t know Tink was here—”
“Apologize? Have you lost your damn mind?”
“—and grovel. After that, we do whatever it is they want us to, without question or complaint.” I shot Peter a glare, raising my chin for good measure. “That’s my plan, and it’s the best chance we’ve got. We cannot do this on our own, Peter, and blindly hacking and slashing won’t get us anywhere but to our graves even faster. Are you with me, or not?”
I’ll never know if he was actually going to agree, because a gunshot split the air. It was closely followed by a cry from Peter, but instinct had me crouching to the floor before I could discern whether or not he’d been wounded. Without raising my body, I whipped my head in the direction of the noise, sucking in a gasp when I made out the familiar leering shape at the end of the hall. Pierce. His name finally came to me just as he limped into the light. One quivering hand gripped a revolver while the other was crossed over his bloodied middle, and he leaned heavily against the wall between steps. Though I was his closest target, Pierce stared right past me, through me even, his hardened face contorted in rage as he bellowed with all his might.
“Look alive, you fucks—the prisoners are loose! Nelson, Digby, Alder, DOWN ʼERE!”
Bodies came thundering down the stairs. I didn’t catch a single glimpse of Peter through the chaos that ensued, through the tears of pain blurring my vision as I was yanked up by my hair. My arms were twisted brutally behind my back before being tightly secured by even more rope, both at my wrists and at my elbows; when they were done, my shoulders screamed in familiar agony. They all but dragged me to the upper deck, cruel laughter echoing in my aching skull every time I tripped over the dress I’d been forced to wear.
Though fear kept my body paralyzed, my mind raced with reckless abandon. Not only had I not seen Peter, I hadn’t heard him since Pierce had fired his gun. Had Peter been shot? Was he wounded—was he dead? And where the fuck was Tink? If she’d evaded capture, could she do anything for us? Far more pressing than concern for my friends was the guilt eating me alive. Not five minutes ago, I’d suggested that we apologize to these men, that we do our best to try and talk our way out of this. Only now did I realize the idea hadn’t just been hopelessly naïve, it was fucking asinine. Talking was for humans.
These men were monsters.
A groan slipped through my gritted teeth as my hair was yanked yet again, forcing me to stare straight ahead—or at least it would have if my eyes weren’t closed. I was propped up between two bodies, my feet dangling uselessly against the deck. Though I could place them flat if I wanted to, I wouldn’t, unsure if my aching, bloodied knees would even support my weight anymore.
“—fuck have you done? This was never part of the pl—”
“Unless you want to lose that tongue of yours, I suggest that you silence it.”
The voice I recognized spoke again despite the threat, and my chest tightened. Would Smee truly risk himself to save me? I’d assumed he loathed me just as much as the others. “That’s Hook’s daughter you’ve beaten into a bloody pulp. What do you imagine he’d do to the man who so much as looked at her funny? Have you forgotten what he promised?”
“It’s a damn good thing he isn’t here then, isn’t it?”
“And him,” Smee continued. “Pan’s hands are far from clean, but he’s with her, and we can’t—”
My eyes flashed open, but not because Smee had been punched in the face. Behind my mentor and the man leering over him was a scene straight from my nightmares.
Secured to the mast by his wrists and ankles was Peter. Given that he faced away from me, I couldn’t get a good look at his face, but there was a shine to it. A wetness. He was crying, and I could hardly blame him; the shirt I had lent him had been ripped from collar to hem, exposing the entirety of his muscled back, tanned everywhere but where his bindings normally rested. Scars I’d long since memorized were now on display for all to see, but that wasn’t what the men were laughing at.
“Shaking like a leaf.”
“Not a leaf—a girl. Men don’t fear a little flogging, not even when they’re boys.”
“But you’re not one, isn’t that right, Pan? Just a confused little girl playing dress up.”
“Poking her nose where she shouldn’t.”
Peter jerked at that, yanking on his bonds as a snarl tore from his throat. “Whatever it is you deem me to be, this child killed more of you than anyone can count.”
“You’re no child. You’re a fucking demon.”
Pierce’s boots clicked rhythmically against the deck as he closed the little remaining distance between himself and Peter. Just as Pierce had belowdecks, one hand clutched the wound Peter had given him while the other gripped a weapon; this time, a nasty-looking knotted whip. I screamed and thrashed but was paid no mind, a helpless spectator as Peter was to be tortured before my eyes, by the man least likely to show him any mercy, no less. No. Gods, no, this couldn’t be happening—
The moment Pierce raised the whip, a ball of dim light streaked across his path, coming to a halt in front of Peter’s back. A glimmer of hope ignited in my chest. Tink. I’d nearly forgotten about the fairy’s existence in my panic, but here she was, come to rescue the boy with whom she shared a bond. I stood as straight as I was able, even putting weight on my aching knees. Get him, Tink.
Pierce’s cheeks turned as crimson as Tink’s light now flashed, and before he could react further, she darted toward his face. He shrieked, dropping the whip as she buzzed around his skull like a hornet, hopefully using her trusty dagger and more of that sedative. My lips twisted into a smile as I watched the glorious sight: a grown man brought to his knees by a single angry fairy. It captivated my attention until Peter screamed in agony.
I realized what had happened before I saw either of the telltale signs: the discarded whip now in Digby’s hands, the golden blood trailing from the fresh gashes on Peter’s back. His still-bound hands gripped the mast for dear life, and his trembling legs likely would have buckled if not for the ropes holding him upright. Save for Pierce snatching a freshly distracted Tink by her wings, everything stopped, and whispers started.
“What the fuck is that?”
“What the fuck is she?”
“That can’t be blood.”
“Cursed—has to be.”
“And now he’s brought it to us. They both have.”
My heart hammered wildly against my ribcage. Everyone on deck now stared at either me or Peter. Some were disgusted, others fearful, and still others looked murderous. Ravenous. Talking wasn’t an option, and never had been. There was only one way out, and it wouldn’t change the simple truth.
We were fucked.
But I wouldn’t allow Peter to be—at least, not more. I had to get him out of here, even if it meant facing a different monster. If he stayed here, he’d die a slow, torturous death, and I knew without asking which one he’d prefer. Swallowing hard, I spoke in a voice that hardly sounded like my own. “We’ll go.”
Pierce turned to me, brows raised. “What did you say?”
“You’d planned to throw us to the monsters, right? We’ll go.”
More low murmuring broke out among the men who didn’t seem to have a discernible leader.
“No skin off our backs.”
“If they’re so eager to die, let them.”
“Can make it look like an accident.”
Once it died down, Pierce regarded me once again, this time with a demented smirk painted across his scratched-up features, no doubt from Tink’s dagger. He still held the fairy between his fingers; Tink, to her credit, remained still and silent. “All right, then. Ladies first.”
Before I could insist that they at least cut Peter down from the mast, the men holding me dragged me toward The Jolly Serpent’s rails. There was a narrow space in which they parted—likely an unused gun port—where a board had been laid flat. As recognition dawned on me, I twisted in my captors’ arms to face the jeering crowd of men.
“A plank?” My voice rose, incredulous. “You’re going to make me walk the fucking plank? I thought that was just a myth!”
Pierce flashed me another twisted grin. “Myths are what monsters are meant to be. This, sweetheart, is real.”
With my arms still bound, I was lifted onto the unassuming slab of wood where I was immediately greeted with an icy blast of wind. It bunched the skirt around my legs, but I was too focused on what lay below to care about the snickers behind me. There was no sign of any monsters, but the sea, black and cold, was a threat all on its own. We were far from the temperate waters of Afterport, farther than I’d ever been from home, and farther still from Peter’s lifelong dream. It was his words and not the swords digging into my back which spurred me on.
If we don’t find Ursa, if I’m doomed to live in this body, then I don’t want to live at all.
I’d died once. I could do it again.
I strode leisurely to the end of the plank, closed my eyes, and jumped.