Unhooked (16 page)

This space is brighter than the Great Hall below, and the air is fresher and smells overpoweringly of the hundreds of flowers that tumble out of vases and across the surfaces of the room—wildly colorful blooms, some as large as my head, others barely the size of my smallest finger, all bunched in bright bouquets and strung up in long garlands.

I'd thought we were inside of a mountain, but there is a window on the back wall, covered with brightly colored silks that rustle in a breeze. With the draping fabrics and the soft furs that cover the floor in a patchwork of color, the whole room reminds me of a sultan's tent. In the center of the space stands an ornately carved canopy bed draped with silky white curtains. And in the center of the bed, half obscured by the diaphanous fabric, is a familiar figure.

“Olivia,” I whisper, afraid to move. I have the sudden feeling if I say her name too loudly, the spell will be broken and this will all disappear like a dream.

But it doesn't disappear. She's real.

The second I see Olivia, alive and whole, I can almost believe I might be able to find a way back to our world, because I don't have to find it by myself anymore. I don't have to be alone in this strange place. The one person who has ever come closest to understanding me is here, and we'll find a way back together.

Olivia doesn't see me at first—her attention is focused on stringing daisylike flowers together into a long garland that's already trailing up over the canopy of the bed and halfway across the floor. I've never seen her do anything half so crafty before, and she looks absolutely absurd doing it now.

“Olivia, dear,” Pan says smoothly from behind me. “I've brought Gwendolyn to you.”

Olivia's hands go still when she hears Pan's voice, and when she sees him standing in the doorway, her whole face softens and her eyes brighten with delight. There is no fear in her expression, no worry.

Then she sees me standing next to him, and her expression darkens. “Gwendolyn?” she asks, her voice as unsure as the look on her face. I can tell she doesn't recognize me.

If I hadn't been looking for her, if I hadn't seen the picture in the Captain's quarters, I don't think I'd have recognized her, either. She's wearing a soft, flowing gown of the palest pink, something Olivia would never be caught dead in. Her long blond hair falls in its usual waves around her face, but her eyes aren't right. Their pale green is too glassy, too distant.

It's what this place does to people,
I remind myself as I try to smile, but my face feels stiff with fear.

Pan steps forward into the room, toward the large bed. “Olivia, dear,” he says again, his voice soft and soothing. “You remember Gwendolyn, don't you? You told me she was your dearest friend. You asked me to find her for you. And I have.”

Olivia's brows draw together, like she's not exactly sure she remembers ever asking for such a thing. But her features soften when Pan offers her his hand. She rises slowly and allows him to pull her toward me.

“Come, Gwendolyn,” he says, never taking his eyes off Olivia.

“Liv?” I brush my hair back from my face, tentative as I step toward the two of them.

“Come, Olivia, greet your friend properly.”

Olivia gives Pan another questioning look. When he inclines his head in the barest nod, she finally releases his hand and steps toward me, her arms out in greeting. The gesture is formal, stiff, and so unlike the girl who would think nothing of looping her arm through mine. The memory of it rises up in my mind, clear and distinct. But before I can hold it tight, the image begins to fade again.

I step toward her, but her body tenses at my approach, her arms falling to her sides. I'm not sure what I should do or say. I'm not sure how to get
my
Olivia back. “Did the Dark Ones hurt you?” I ask finally, looking her over for some sign of injury.

“The Dark Ones?” Confusion shimmers in her eyes.

“The monsters that took us from London,” I tell her gently, trying to remind her. Even with so many of my memories remaining just out of reach, the horror of being taken from my bed has never completely faded.

“London?” She says the word like it feels funny in her mouth, and then she glances at Pan for guidance. He has the same almost pleasant expression on his face he's had all morning, but his eyes are sharp and perceptive.

“You remember what we've talked about, my dear,” Pan says gently.

Olivia closes her eyes. “I remember waking up,” she says in a stiff voice. “And I remember Pan. He takes care of me.” When her eyes open and look up at him, they are soft with wonder and an emotion that looks dangerously close to love. “He protects us all.”

“Olivia—” I start to say, but Pan interrupts me.

“I had no idea the Dark Ones had stolen two from your world. Once Olivia confirmed she had a friend, I discovered the Captain had you. I sent some of my lads to retrieve you, but as I said, they failed.” His jaw hardens and he glances away, his eyes shadowed. “I'm sorry they were not more successful, Gwendolyn,” Pan tells me, the picture of contriteness.

“None of that matters now,” Olivia tells him in a breathy whisper before she turns to me. “We are safe here, with Pan. You can forget the rest. All that”—she wrinkles her nose in distaste—“unpleasantness.” Then she gives Pan a dazzling smile before settling herself back on the bed to work on her daisy chain again. The determination on her face is so thoroughly Olivia and yet so completely wrong.

“No,” I tell her, approaching the bed slowly. “We can't stay here, Liv.” I kneel down on the floor next to her and touch her arm to stop her from stringing another flower. “We have to find a way back,” I tell her. “I need you to remember so you can help me figure this out.”

“Back?” She goes very still under my hand, her expression tense.

“This isn't our home,” I say, pushing down the unease I feel under Pan's too-watchful gaze. “This isn't our world.”

But she's not listening to me. Her attention is on a point just beyond me—on Pan—and, ignoring me completely, she gives him a slow, private smile.

I ignore the jealousy that twists uncomfortably inside me when Pan smiles in return.

So Pan looked at me. So maybe for a second there I had thought . . .

I don't even know what I'd thought. Of course Olivia would want Pan. With his dark clothes and the scarlet runes decorating his fair skin, he looks like an elfin prince, and of course he would want
her
. She would make him the perfect fairy princess.

None of that matters, though. Like the Captain said, this isn't a fairy tale. We can't stay.

I take her hands and do not let them go, even when I feel her try to pull away.

Olivia glances at Pan, and I get the sense she doesn't know what to do.

“You
have
to remember, Olivia,” I say, squeezing her hands and failing miserably to keep the urgency out of my voice. “Think about what our parents must be going through right now,” I tell her. By now everyone would know we're gone. Would there be search parties? Would our faces be on the nightly news? “Think about how scared they must be.”

“My parents—” She says the second word slowly, drawing it out, but recognition begins to light her eyes. Then her face falls. “My parents are probably too busy to even realize I'm gone.” She looks up at me, sadness and anger clear on her face. Then she sees—
really
sees me—and the glassiness in her eyes lifts like a fog.

“Gwen,” she says, and now it's
my
Olivia who is speaking. “Are you okay?” she asks. She's touching my face, squeezing my hand. Her expression is urgent, like she's suddenly awoken and just realized where we are.

She slides from the bed and throws herself at me. Her long arms go around me, and for a moment I'm overwhelmed by her hug. For a moment I feel like everything will be okay. “Oh my god. I thought I'd never see you again,” she says, pulling away and looking me over.

“I know,” I tell her. “Me too. But I'm here. So we'll figure this out.”

“See, my dears. A happy ending after all,” Pan says.

I turn to him, relief barely settling over me. I'm more determined now than ever that we need to get out of this world and back to our own. “Can you help us get back?” I ask him. There has to be a way.

He frowns. “Only the Fey can truly cross the boundaries between our worlds,” he tells me, regret shadowing his expression. “But I shall do what I can. And until then, you shall be safe under my protection.”

“Thank you!” Olivia leaps from the bed with her usual burst of energy to embrace Pan. But she lingers longer than a friendly hug usually demands, and she pulls away slowly, reluctantly. Pan gives her hand a courtly kiss, and by the time he releases it, her eyes have gone glassy again.

My stomach sinks as she smiles dreamily at Pan before turning back to the bed, and her piles of flowers.

“Olivia?” I ask softly. But she doesn't answer.

“I shall leave you to each other, then,” Pan says with a small bow, and with an acrobatic leap from the threshold of the door, he leaves us alone in the flowered opulence of the room.

Olivia is already focused intently on her daisy chain. For a moment she was there, but it was only for a moment. I watch her work, and when I understand that my Olivia isn't there anymore, I walk over to the door and look down the sheer drop to the Great Hall below.

“How do we get down from here?” I ask, watching as boys run and shout and do all sorts of violent things to one another.

“Why would we want to get down?” she asks dreamily as she settles back in the plush bed again.

“Why
wouldn't
we?”

“Well, there are the boys, for one. They haven't had a mother in a very long time, and they're not very well behaved.” Her voice is hollow and strangely formal, and she never takes her eyes from the flowers in her hand.

As I watch, a boy who can't possibly be older than eight tries to skewer another boy on the end of a long, sharp sword. I remember what the Captain told me about how dangerous
his
boys could be, and I'm suddenly almost okay with not having a ladder.

“Liv?” I ask, closing the door against the noise that rises up from below. Our flowered room falls into silence.

“Yes, Gwendolyn?” she asks, saying my name stiffly. She doesn't bother looking up.

I settle myself on the bed next to her and watch her work for a moment. The flowers she's threading have velvety petals and stems spiked with thorns. They're like everything I've encountered so far in this strange world—beautiful and lush with an unaccountable thread of danger. The thumb of her left hand is bleeding from being pricked, but Olivia doesn't even seem to notice. She's gone on making her chain, staining the white petals with smears of red.

“You know we have to find a way out of here, don't you?” I'm unsettled by how quickly her eyes went glassy again, and I can't hide the fear in my voice. “We need to find a way back.”
Before we can't remember what we need to get back to.

She bites her lip, and her brows knit in concentration, like she's warring with herself over the answer. But she never looks up. She never stops weaving the stem of one flower into another.

“It's really not so bad here. Pan is wonderful. This world is magical. I've seen
such
amazing things.” Her eyes are still soft and unfocused with that disturbing glassy sheen.

I watch her for another minute or two, but when it's clear we're not going to talk anymore, I go over to the lone window and pull back the silky fabric draped over it. The view I find confirms there is no way out of this room except through Pan. Outside, the mountain that the fortress is part of drops off steeply. Below us is water—a cove of sorts with a narrow passage out to the open sea beyond. There is no sign of the Captain's ship. There is no sign of anything on those still waters but the waiting sea.

When their commander asked for volunteers, there weren't any young or innocent enough left among them to step forward at first. His brother looked at him, his eyes tight, commanding the boy to be still. But the boy was no longer a child. He stepped forward and shot a look at his brother, defiant. His brother's expression was grim as he stepped forward too. . . .

G
WENDOLYN.” THE VOICE COMES TO me through the haze of sleep, distant and familiar. My cheek brushes against the cool silk of the pillow, a soft floral scent reminds me of lavender, and for a second, I think I'm back in London. “Gwendolyn,” the voice says more urgently, and this time I register who it is. And where I am.

Clutching the blanket around me, I sit up with a start. “What?” I ask, pushing my hair back out of my face. The light in the room is bright enough that I know I've slept long past morning. “What is it?”

“Hurry, Gwendolyn,” Pan says, his face inches from mine. “We must go.”

“Go?” I rub at my eyes. I haven't seen Pan since yesterday. It's almost a shock to see him again now—to realize my memory of how striking he is wasn't a lie. But it's even more of a shock to find him hovering over me when I'm alone in bed and barely awake.

I'm alone.

“Where's Olivia?” I ask. She was here when I finally fell asleep, long after she did.

“Your Captain has her,” he says, his light eyes thunderous.

“The Captain?” I ask as I throw back the covers. I'm still wearing the outfit I managed to assemble yesterday from a selection of clothes that were lying around Olivia's room—a pair of jaggedly stitched leather pants and a tunic I made from tearing off the bottom off a wispy blue gown.

“A hunting party went out earlier—Olivia went with them. I realize now I shouldn't have allowed it, but she was rather distressed after your time together yesterday and . . .” His voice trails off as he gives me a look that is part question, part accusation.