Page 2 of The Never Queen

Further amplifying my apprehension is the very simple fact that I’m stepping into the role the twins’ sister only recently abdicated from.

Tilly left a gaping hole in the fae court that I could never dream of filling.

Maybe, subconsciously, for better or worse, I’m almost relieved the fae are pushing back on me becoming queen. Because if they deny me the crown, then I don’t have to discover that I am not actually up for the job. Or worse, that if I can’t take on the roles Pan, Vane, and the twins want me to take on, then maybe I don’t belong on Neverland after all. And I refuse to go back home.

I thought I was past all this.

I thought I had turned over a new leaf about my own self-worth.

I thought I believed I belonged on Neverland.

I thought I believed that Winnie the Whore could be at the top.

But the fae opposition has my doubts creeping in again.

I fiddle with the knot once more, testing the bindings. Bash is watching me intently, hunched over, balancing on the edge of the table, me in the chair wedged between his legs.

“We’ll speak to Doren,” Kas says and picks up his pencil again, the lead swishing across the paper as he shades the petals he’s drawn. “I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”

Bash snorts.

I look up at him. “You don’t think he’ll reason with you?”

Bash takes pity on me and loosens one of the bindings. “I think he is a reasonable man, sure. But he’s also within the inheritance line, a distant cousin of our father’s. He is extremely powerful—here,” he says and points at an axis in the bindings. I get it between my teeth and pull and the entire elaborate knotwork comes undone. “Bravo!” He claps for me.

The sun loves him too and caresses his cheek with a faint glow.

I frown at him. “You solved that. Not me.”

“You were patient and put in the effort.”

My frown deepens. I toss the rope aside and slouch in my chair. “Just how powerful is Doren?”

“His illusions are better than ours,” Kas says.

Bash takes affront to that and crosses his arms over his chest. “Barely.”

“He could fool us.” Kas makes a few short pencil strokes. “It may not hold long. But he would only need a handful of seconds to best us.”

My anxiety rises. “Maybe we just leave the potential hornet’s nest of being queen and fighting Doren alone for now?”

I am very aware that I am turning tail and running.

“Absolutely not,” they say in unison.

I sigh, my stomach aching, my head pounding. I’ve already swam the ocean for a bit of exercise. I had breakfast (an English muffin covered in jam, though they don’t call them that on Neverland and so I’ve started referring to them as Never muffins). Kas made coffee early for me, so I’ve had plenty of caffeine.

I just feel…ill. Restless. Unmoored.

Maybe I need to drink more water.

A door slams shut distantly in the treehouse and a few seconds later, Vane appears in the arched frame of the doorway of the library.

That unmoored feeling returns, like I am tossed around by the sea.

His black hair is wet and raked back. A few droplets of water cling to his skin like needy little sprites.

The Neverland Dark Shadow, the primordial entity Vane and I share, stirs like a cat stretching long and low in a patch of sunlight.