It was a silver cage, containing a single glowing innisfay. As Wendy watched, the poor creature collapsed, its light fading away.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” the foreman shouted.
He leaped off the railing and flew across the cavern in the blink of an eye. Hovering in the air before the cage, he picked it up by the chain from which it hung and dangled it in front of his face, scowling at the innisfay within.
The poor creature’s hair turned a sickly shade of yellowish gray, and it scrambled back to the far wall of the silver prison, huddling in fear.
“Glow!” the everlost shouted. “Now! Or I’ll break your neck!” He shook the cage cruelly, slamming the innisfay against the bars.
It was all Wendy could do not to shout in protest.
The innisfay pushed itself up to its knees and then shivered all over, the glow slowly returning.
“That’s better,” the everlost growled. “No sleeping on the job!”
With one more shake, he released the cage. Then he flew back to the ship and landed behind the wheel, where he opened a small compartment that lay hidden behind the spokes. He pulled something from it that fit easily inside his fist.
Another thimble! Wendy thought.
The everlost flew to the railing, but instead of sitting down, he stood boldly upon it. He set his legs wide, cocked his elbows, planted his fists against his hips, and spread his wings out behind him.
“Let’s try it again!” he shouted, and all the everlost cheered, launching themselves into the air with their tiny innisfay in tow.
“One!” the foreman yelled.
“One!” they all echoed.
“Two!”
“Two!” they cheered, and one near the stern placed his fingers to his lips, whistling loudly.
“Three!”
“Three!” they shouted.
Wendy watched as the ship lifted almost a yard out of the water and then suddenly dropped, sending a wave careening outward. It splashed against the cavern’s walls, making the dock rock wildly up and down.
“Better!” the foreman called to his crew. “Keep at it, men! We’ll have her aloft before the captain gets back!”
“Yo ho!” they all cried.
He laughed and arched his back, bellowing his reply.
“Yo ho!”
They cheered and answered in a chorus of voices, ranging from a high tenor to an impressively deep bass.
“Yo ho!”
“Oh, no,” Wendy whispered under her breath.
They sang only one verse, but she knew the words before they even began.
Yo ho! Yo ho!
Where’er you dream to go,
Commanders of both sea and sky,
We’ll break the bonds of earth and fly!
Yo ho!
It was the same song Peter and his crew had sung to her, the night she had flown their ship beneath the stars.
The everlost stomped their feet and burst into raucous cheers. Then they scattered across the deck and returned to their work, while Wendy’s heart sank to the bottom of the sea.
These were Peter’s men, after all.
She hadn’t wanted to believe that Peter was behind their sea battle, crippling The Dragon and The Cerberus, but she still remembered what he had told her back on England’s shores.
I have a whole fleet of flying ships!
Even if this wasn’t his crew, they were still under his command. Under his orders. What they did, they did for him.
Wendy was furious. After everything she and Peter had been through together. She thought they were friends. And then he allowed his men to attack her ship, the very ship he had told her to bring!
(Admittedly, Peter had only told her to come find him. He hadn’t told her to bring three British warships and Captain Hook along with her. But how else was she supposed to get to Neverland?)
Still, Wendy held her temper. They would report back to Hook, and they would formulate a plan. A crafty and brilliant plan. One that would put an end to Blackheart’s marauding once and for all.
At least, that’s what Wendy was going to do.
But then the little innisfay drooped in its cage again.
Its light flickered, and the foreman sped across the cavern. He grabbed the cage and shook it furiously.
“Get up!” he shouted. “Get up!”
He was going to kill the poor thing. Wendy’s heart went out to the tiny creature, and in that moment she forgot all about her crafty and brilliant plan.
“We have to stop him,” she whispered, speaking as much to herself as to anyone. She moved slowly, raising herself to her knees, watching the foreman all the while.
“Wait, what?” Michael whispered back.
“Stand down,” John hissed.
But Wendy was already preparing to load a silver bullet into her musket when a hand clamped over her mouth, a rough arm wrapped around her from behind, and a low voice growled in her ear.
“Just what, exactly, do you think you’re doing?”
endy’s eyes flew wide, then narrowed. She didn’t have much hope of hurting an everlost without a silver weapon at the ready, but maybe if she could surprise him …
His arm held her tightly, so she didn’t have much room to maneuver, but she jabbed him sharply in the ribs with her left elbow.
“Stop struggling, Miss Darling,” the voice murmured, “or you will place all our lives in danger, despite my intervention.”
It was then that Wendy finally registered three important facts about her situation.
One. The voice had just called her “Miss Darling.”
Two. Despite their horrified expressions, John and Michael weren’t helping at all.
Three. Even murmuring quietly, the voice that chastised her sounded suspiciously like …
Wendy clenched her jaw and tried to turn her head, straining her eyes to the left as far as she could. Hook’s forget-me-not blue eyes stared into hers, his eyebrows raised in a clear question: Will you stop working against me or am I going to have to drag you out of here?
He was kneeling behind her, using his good left hand to keep her silent and his right arm to hold her in place so she would not give their position away by flailing about in the alcove. He had not grabbed her with his right hand because, of course, he didn’t have one, and because he did not want to skewer her on the hook by accident.
Her heart still hammering in her chest, Wendy nodded. (This wasn’t easy with Hook’s hand covering her mouth and holding her head in place, but it was enough to get the point across.) He released her and took a discreet shuffle backward, glaring at all three of them, then jerked his head back the way they had come, silently ordering them all to follow him out.
They reached the entrance to find Nana waiting for them, right where they had left her, the imp still bound and gagged and dangling from her mouth. A brief inspection of Wendy’s bag proved that the innisfay was also still trapped within it, which was a new surprise for Hook, since he had only seen Nana and the imp on the way in.
“We—” Wendy started to explain, but Hook cut her off before she could say another word.
“Not here,” he whispered furiously.
They followed the path back to the lake clearing, which gave Wendy more time to think than she might have liked.
What seems natural and right in the heat of anger does not always stand up to the scrutiny of calm reflection, and Wendy kept playing the scene out in her mind, whether she wanted to or not: everything that would have happened if she had fired on the foreman as she had intended.
First (and decidedly in the plus column), she probably would have killed him. Wendy was an excellent shot, and she had the element of surprise on her side, so she felt confident she could have accomplished at least that much.
Second (this next bit required considerably more optimism), she might have had time to reload and shoot again. After all, she would have taken the everlost by surprise, and that might have given John and Michael time to fire as well.
>
But her mind could not make it beyond this point with any kind of enthusiasm. By the time Wendy had fired a second shot, the everlost would surely have understood what was happening. Wendy, John, and Michael would have been overwhelmed by sheer numbers, and the everlost would have made quick work of them.
In Wendy’s initial fury, she had vaguely imagined the silver-chained innisfay joining the fight. But she realized now, as she trudged along the narrow path, that if the innisfay could perform any kind of magic with a silver cuff around their wrist, they would have freed themselves a long time ago. And, in any event, they were so very small …
No, her anger had clouded her judgment. If Hook hadn’t arrived when he had, she would have gotten them all killed.
She looked up from her thoughts to discover they had reached the lake. Hook led them around to the far side, well away from both the path to the beach and the path to the cove. They hid in the underbrush, and then Hook finally turned to Wendy with a look of dark and utter fury.
“What were you thinking?” he hissed. “You never should have gone into that cave in the first place! It wasn’t just dangerous, it was stupid! Always assume the enemy is patrolling every entrance to a stronghold!”
By now, Wendy was as furious with herself as Hook sounded—she saw all too clearly the folly of her own mistakes. Which meant she was in no mood for anyone else to point them out, let alone accuse her of any other mistakes she hadn’t actually made.
“They did have a guard,” Wendy hissed back. “We captured him, which made this the perfect time to investigate the enemy’s position!” Her arm snapped out to point at the imp, who hung dejectedly beneath Nana’s mouth.
“One guard! How could you possibly be certain there was only one guard on duty for the entire harbor? No, don’t tell me. Let me guess. You asked him. By all the angels in heaven, the depths of your ignorance will be the death of us all!”
“We did not just ask him,” Wendy shot back. “We interrogated him. It wasn’t as though we just took his word for it.”
John and Michael, who were crouched in the foliage behind Hook, shared a look that said, We kind of did, though, since we took the opposite of everything he said at face value. In hindsight, that might have been rash.
Wendy saw this exchange but chose to ignore it.
“You’re impossible!” Hook’s voice started to rise, but he brought it back under control before continuing, keenly aware of where they were. “You were about to get us all killed!”
This, of course, was the painful truth, but that didn’t mean Wendy wanted to talk about it. Especially to Hook, and in front of John and Michael. Fortunately, when one is confronted by a direct and true accusation that one would prefer not to discuss, distraction is an excellent tactic if one happens to have a good one handy. Which, as it happened, Wendy did.
“I was trying to keep Pan from getting another flying ship!”
This gave Hook pause. He glared at her for a long moment, his jaw working back and forth, before he finally spoke again. “Explain,” he said.
“They’re getting that ship ready to fly,” Wendy told him. “We all saw it. They haven’t done it yet, but they’re close.”
Hook’s eyes darted to John and Michael. Both men flinched at the sudden attention but then nodded in agreement.
“Aye, sir,” John added. “They lifted her about a yard out of the water. And the foreman said he wanted it done before the captain returned.”
“Did he say when that would be?” Hook asked.
“No, sir,” John replied.
Hook turned back to Wendy. “All the more reason to return to the ship and report, Miss Darling. Had you fired on the everlost, there would have been no one left to warn the crew, and no chance of stopping them.” His tone, however, was different than before. Firm, but calm.
“Aye, sir,” Wendy replied.
He watched her for another long moment and finally nodded, just once. “And what, exactly,” he asked her, “did you intend to do with your prisoners?”
“Well, Captain, Peter’s blood saved poor Reginald,” Wendy reminded him, “as I stated in my very first report, if you remember?”
“How could I forget,” he said dryly.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to locate Peter himself, but I’m hoping we can use either the imp or the innisfay to save Nicholas by the same means.”
“Fine. Bring them,” Hook told her. “But we’re returning to the ship at once. We’ll need The Tiger if we are to have any chance of taking that stronghold.”
he trek down the mountain was much faster than the one up it, so it was still early in the afternoon when they reached the beach and the hidden boats, of which there were now two. Wendy was so on edge after the day’s events that she almost screamed when she noticed something large moving in the trees, but it was only Gentleman Starkey, who had rowed Hook to shore and then stayed behind to guard the vessels.
“No sign of trouble,” he reported. “In fact, I haven’t seen a soul all day. But I’ll still be glad to get back to The Tiger, I can tell you that much.”
“Well done, Mr. Starkey,” Hook replied. “It’s just as well you weren’t needed, but if you had been, I know you would have protected the boats with your life.”
“Oh, aye, sir!” Starkey said with a proud grin.
Hook turned and stared pointedly at John, who had the good sense to look embarrassed. John had always done an excellent job at Dover Castle—training the men, keeping the platoon’s accounts, and making monthly reports to the Home Office—but he had a lot to learn about leading clandestine operations on magical islands.
Fortunately, the boats were safe and sound, so they dragged them to the water and returned as they had arrived, with Hook and Starkey in one vessel and the rest in the other. In no time at all, they were back aboard the ship, and Wendy headed straight for the infirmary, where she found Thomas leafing halfheartedly through a medical journal. He leaped to his feet as soon as he saw her.
“Any luck?” he asked. His eyes brimmed with hope, and he bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, running one hand absently through his hair.
Wendy tilted her head in surprise. “But … how did you …”
“You didn’t come to the infirmary this morning, and I knew you would never abandon Nicholas. So you had to be working on a solution of some … oh! What’s this, then?”
Nana stepped through the door behind Wendy, the imp still dangling from her mouth, and Wendy shut the door firmly behind them.
“It’s an imp,” Wendy said. “Or, it seems to be. We need something to keep it in. A cage of some kind. It doesn’t need to be silver. Or, at least, I don’t think it does. Any cage should do. Nana hasn’t had any trouble holding onto him.”
“Silver?” Thomas asked. “Why would a cage need to be silver?”
“Sorry, never mind that for now. We need to secure him first. Then, I’ll explain everything.”
Thomas left the infirmary at a fast clip and returned with a brass cage that was just the right size. He lashed it to one of the many iron rings along the bulkhead, and then Wendy installed the imp within it, removing his gag and bindings and locking the cage door behind him.
“Well, that was just lovely, I can tell you,” the imp complained. “A wonderful way to treat a new friend. You nearly killed me!”
“Meaning you were never in any real danger at all,” Wendy commented.
“How extraordinary!” Thomas squatted down to peer at the imp through the bars of the cage.
“Oh, I like you,” said the imp. “Very much.”
“Goodness! Then I like you, too!” Thomas exclaimed, pivoting on the balls of his feet to look up at Wendy. “Are you sure he—”
“Has to be in the cage? Yes, I’m quite sure. He lies. And I don’t mean he sometimes lies, or that he lies for convenience. I mean he always lies. I think he can’t help it.”
“Oh,” said Thomas, looking disappointed. “So he doesn’t—”
“No,” Wendy assured him. “He doesn’t.”
“Ah,” said Thomas. “But you think he can help?”
“I don’t know yet,” Wendy admitted.
“I’ll help you! I’d love to help you! Just tell me what you need, and I’ll gladly do it!”
“He certainly sounds helpful,” Thomas said, staring at the small creature intently.
“Just assume the opposite of everything he says,” Wendy told him.
“Right. That seems confusing.” Thomas ran his hand through his hair again without standing up, bouncing a bit to maintain his balance.
“It can be.”
“She’s lying,” the imp said, but Wendy just rolled her eyes.
“Can your blood heal human beings?” Wendy asked him.
“It can!” the imp exclaimed. “Definitely!”
“So it can’t, then?” Thomas asked.
“No, it can’t. It might even hurt him. We’d have to ask more questions to know for sure, but there’s a better way.” She looked the imp straight in the eye. “You see our friend in that bed there? What won’t heal him?”
“The blood of the winged men,” the imp replied, snarling.
“Everlost blood,” Wendy snapped in frustration. “I already knew that.”
“Good for you. Then you know everything I do,” the imp said.
“That’s unfortunate,” Thomas commented, but Wendy was already holding up one hand.
“No, that means I don’t know everything he does. What else won’t heal him?”
The imp said nothing.
“What do you do if he won’t answer?” Thomas asked.
“I think that means he doesn’t have an answer,” Wendy said slowly. “At least, that’s been my hypothesis.”
“I have plenty of answers,” the imp objected.
“Not everlost blood,” Wendy muttered under her breath. “There’s something I still don’t know, but he has no other answers.”
“Actually, he never said ‘everlost,’” Thomas pointed out.
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