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She finally glanced up at me, her expression unreadable.
“Wendy’s brothers were taken by the demon, lured to the island with lies and magic. It’s something that has occurred many times, sadly, but Wendy’s intervention was a first. For your great-grandmum to get here, she had to siphon the power of a very powerful demon from your world. I found her wandering the island, listened to her story, and agreed to help her try to save her brothers.”
Never set down her fork, her meal still unfinished, and pushed her plate away. “I’m still miles away from believing you, but at least you spin an interesting tale.”
“I’ll take what small victories I can at the moment. When Wendy arrived, she was scared, but still full of humanity and hope. She was young, maybe seventeen, if I recall. We worked together for three days. That is how long it typically takes to break down a boy’s defenses and separate him from his shadow.”
She pressed her lips together like she was biting back a giggle, and I paused. “What is it?”
Never leaned her elbows on the table and folded one forearm over the other. “The shadow thing? Really?”
“That was in the story, I take it.”
“Yeah, but it was Peter Pan who was separated from his shadow.”
“Of course.” She had said Wendy’s story was twisted into a fairy tale. “That part isn’t entirely wrong. The demon’s shadow is a separate entity, but they are linked. Though, perhaps the terminology is an issue. In this usage, one’s shadow is one’s soul, the thing that makes a person who they are.”
Now she was smiling at me. It was a wonderfully delicious expression, with a hint of mischief in her curved lips. “So, Pan is the demon that lures boys to Neverland to steal their souls?”
I gave her a confirming nod.
“I mean, it’s a very demony type thing to do, sure, but it seems like an awful lot of work to cross dimensions for teenage boy souls. Especially when there seems to be an abundance of pirates who could stand in.” She paused and I waited to see where her thoughts were leading. “Unless you’re all a bunch of soulless bastards.”
I bit the inside of my lip and closed my eyes. She was not taking me seriously. When I opened them, I leaned forward and slid the book in front of her. “Look at the title page.”
She gave me a triumphant little smirk, but did as I said, showing absolutely no regard for the age of the book.
“Careful, please.”
She held her hands up and cocked a smartass eyebrow at me. “What? Is it dangerous?”
I let out an irritated sigh and got to my feet, moving around the table. “Not to touch, but it is old.” I leaned in and carefully lifted the front cover, tapping the name written on the bookplate in fading ink. “This belonged to her.”
She examined the page with a suspicious glare, tracing a finger over the aged signature. I would have paid my weight in gold to know what she was thinking right then. Something about the book or the signature was important to her because her breathing picked up and the crease in her brow disappeared, replaced by wide, questioning eyes.
Never let the book fall closed in front of her and she looked at me again, only with a new air of fear surrounding her.
I inched away, putting my hands up. “I am not a threat to you, Never. I wasn’t a threat to her either. I tried to help her.”
She pushed up out of her chair slowly, her hand sliding toward her dagger. “No? Because I read her journals. She sounded like a nut job, Grade A fucking bonkers, but if she wasn’t lying—” She snatched the blade, stepped back, and pointed it at me.
“There’s more to the story.”
“There always is,” she spit back.
“That power she siphoned from the demon to get here, she didn’t know how to control it once it was in her. Like I said, she was vibrant, sweet, hopeful. In the beginning. The more she used that power to find her brothers, the more it corrupted her mind and her soul. By the end of those three days, she was damaged. Irreparably.”
Never’s jaw ticked, but her blade was steady in her hand. “So, you didn’t kill her brothers?”
I froze where I stood. Lying at that moment would have been a mistake, I knew that, but the truth wasn’t much better.
She took a step forward. “It’s a simple question with two possible answers; yes or no. Which is it?”
“Wendy killed them. With her own hands.”
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