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The forest teems with life as tiny luminous creatures flit between the branches above us, and vines twist and curl around ancient tree trunks, creating an intricate, living tapestry.
I glance over at Sebastian. His eyes scan every inch of the woods as we walk. He’s no stranger here and I’m not sure if that comforts and unsettles me more.
From what I’ve read, Neverland was a forgotten place. It used to be the old gods’ garden, with a well for magic in the center. Except when the old gods became curses, forced into mortality, the well dried up. That magic didn’t just disappear. It was absorbed. It created everything here, an entire ecosystem.
I’d read about it when I was little and asked the maids if the stories were true. They said a god lived here, one of the last alive. He was so greedy that he harbored all the magic from the well that he could before it completely dried up, storing it to keep himself young. Is it possible that it was Pan? Just like how blood witches that have destroyed their souls and lost their magic crave to cast again. Maybe he finally ran out. Maybe he started using shadows to keep him young instead.
“Are there more… plants like that one?” I ask cautiously, still shaken by the flower’s sudden transformation.
“You don’t want me to answer that.”
“And if I want you to, anyway?”
He glances at me, arching a brow. “Then I’d say that plant is the least of your worries on this island.”
“Great.” I huff out a shaky breath, picking up the pace. I’m not even sure where we’re going, but maybe getting there sooner rather than later is best.
“Told you.” He chuckles, barely having to extend his gate to keep up with me. As is, I have to take two steps to his one.
My steps slow as we reach a wall of tall bioluminescent flowers. They stretch up, nearly coming to my shoulders. Halting a few feet away, I swallow hard, my limbs sprawling out when Sebastian nudges me forward.
“I promise, these don’t bite,” he says, walking around to hold his hand out to me. “Come on, I won’t let them hurt you.”
Hesitantly, I place my hand in his and he steps into the flowers. The stems twirl and move without a breeze, almost tickling my legs and arms as we pass through them.
“See, these are probably the only harmless things on the island.” Sebastian grabs one, holding the bud out in front of my face without damaging it. “Smell it.”
I stare at him a moment, unsure if I should.
Sebastian rolls his eyes. “Trust me.”
Leaning forward, I inhale.It smells like his cologne...It’s fresh, almost citric, but with floral undertones. I’d never smelled anything like it until I met him. Now I could recognize the scent anywhere. I’ve practically been wrapped in it since my soul was bound to his. Not that I’m complaining.
“There you go,” he coos, letting the bud go. “See? Harmless. My mother loved them. Every time my father would come back here, I usually was with him and would get some. It’s sort of my way of remembering her.”
“I suppose I have her to thank for that, then. It smells amazing.” I hang onto his hand as we continue forward. He smirks at me but doesn’t try to take it back.
“Thank you. I think that’s the first compliment you’ve ever given me,” he teases.
“That’s not true.”Is it?I rack my brain, trying to think of something I’ve said that would be just a genuine compliment, but can’t think of one.
“Relax, love. It was a joke. I don’t need compliments. The way you stare at me half the time is enough.”
“I do not stare... Okay, maybe sometimes.”He’s pretty to look at. Float me.Sebastian’s smirk grows wider as silence filters in. We’re through the flowers before I gather the nerves to break it. “Why does your father come here? If everything is sodeadly,why come back?”
He takes a minute before he answers, watching the ground instead of surveying the woods like he has been. “It’s where he met my mother.”
I blink, taken aback. “I thought your family was from the Western Isles, or was that just part of the whole façade you used to enter the gauntlet?”
His gaze remains fixed ahead, but there’s a softness to it now, a faraway look in his eyes I’m not used to seeing. “My mother was from the Western Isles. She was on a ship underway to Solaria, to be married, actually. A beast attacked and the ship went down. She managed to get into a rowboat and washed up here. No one else survived.” He pauses, allowing the weight of his words to settle. “She survived on this island by herself for over a year before my father came, searching for Everbloom, a flower with anesthetic properties, and found her.”
His voice cracks slightly, betraying his ironclad facade, and I sense the depth of the ache he still feels through our bond. “After she died, my father moved back to the Luminaries and stayed there when we weren’t on the ship. He came back here once a year, just to feel closer to her.”
My heart aches for him, for the pain in his past. There’s a vulnerability in his eyes that I’ve never seen before, a crack in his confident demeanor that he wears like a mask.
“I’m sorry…” The words slip from my lips.
His head tilts, a wry grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “About what? You didn’t take them from me.”
