Page 50 of The Never Queen

But there’s no turning back now.

“Winnie, I’m your father.”

“There it is.”

And then Payla sinks the blade into Darling’s heart.

23

WINNIE

Everything happens all at once.

I’m your father.

Then a knife to the heart.

Pain lances through me and all the feeling leaves my legs, causing my knees to buckle.

I drop, all dead weight, and Hansel lifts the crossbow in his hand.

THUNK.

The arrow shoots past me and sinks itself into the Witch Killer’s head.

She drops me as she falls.

I hit the pavement, crumpled and gasping with a wet rasp of air.

My father.

My father?

Hansel and Pan rush over to me.

“The bone fragments,” Hansel says. He shouts over his shoulder. “Water neutralizes them!”

Fighting ensues.

Pan’s face appears above me, haloed by tears flooding my vision.

“Darling.” Terror pinches around his eyes. “Can you hear me?”

Yes, I want to say, but nothing comes out.

Someone howls in pain.

Hansel joins Vane and the twins, fighting the other Witch Killers.

“Darling?Winnie.”

I want to claw at Pan’s shirt, desperate to hold on to something that feels real as the world slips further and further away, but there’s no feeling in my hands. I can’t seem to connect to my body anymore and the panic rushes in.

I’m dying.

“That’s the last one!” Bash shouts.

I blink but there’s only darkness.