The kiss. How had I forgotten? But then that was a silly question. It had happened right before he tried to kill me, which happened right before he tried to kill himself.
My fingers brushed my lips, and the heat at my neck crawled across my cheeks. “I like you, Bay. But…”
His fist clenched. “I never should have faced the test like I did. I was just so blinded by my preconceived notion the Fountain was within reach. I shouldn’t have kissed you either. I don’t regret it, but I wasn’t in my right mind. I just… What they showed me… What I told myself… I’ve spent so many years hating my father for what he’s done, worrying that I’m exactly like him. It was too much. So much that I caved and did exactly what he would have.” A gentle breeze caressed his cheek, pulling his hair away from a face awash in torment. The torment eased with surprise, and he glanced at me.
My lips pressed together. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I couldn’t help it.”
He smiled, though pain still rested in his eyes. “You’re amazing, Wind Song, and I hope you know that I’m glad you found my treehouse.”
A laugh escaped me. “That seems a world away.”
“It is.” Voice soft, his murmur drifted through the weeping trees around us and toward a horizon I couldn’t make out past them.
I swallowed, feeling a lump form in my throat. Why did it have to hurt like this? I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Yesterday was a whirlwind, and now I stood on the brink of a war? A war where Skyla was only the beginning. What if I failed?
I couldn’t afford to fail.
Bay tucked my hair behind my ear and smiled, half-shrugging when I looked back at him. “I couldn’t help myself.”
He hovered, inches away, and my heart ached. My fingers begged to touch him. Before I knew it, they had. They slipped through his hair, hesitating only when I recalled what had happened to his hair tie, the moment it had fallen in the temple.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper.
What was wrong? This? He was Hook’s son. He had proven himself better than his pirate father in the end, but the spirit had assured me darkness remained a seed within him. I shouldn’t— I shouldn’t, and yet…I wanted to believe. Mouth dry, I said, “I’m scared.”
He swallowed, his body going rigid. “Of me?”
“No.” My hand slid out of his hair and found his chest. His heart beat, racing mine. I wasn’t scared of him, and maybe that scared me a little bit too. I believed in him like Wendy had once believed in Hook, and now look where she was… I was terrified of being wrong because I desperately wanted this. “You’re almost out of dust, Star Boy.”
He traced the feathers running down my arm. “A pity, some of us don’t have wings.”
In that moment, everything was him. My breath stilted, and I fought the pounding beats of my heart that brought me closer and closer to an edge I couldn’t return from. Did it matter if I fell? I had never been afraid of falling, even before I knew I could fly without pixie dust.
My hand clamped in his shirt and yanked, drawing his lips to mine. He kissed me, and I melted into his arms. Please don’t be wrong . I clutched him tight, unwilling to let go. He was air. He was ocean. He was endless.
When we parted, we didn’t separate. I rested my head against his shoulder, still clutching his shirt, allowing his scent to hold me along with his arms. He squeezed me close, as desperate as he had been in his kitchen so many days ago when I’d first called him my friend. He was more than that now, though I wasn’t exactly sure when it had happened. “I love you, too,” I said.
His breath shuddered, and his lips touched my neck as he buried his face against my shoulder. In his embrace, it was easy to hope. It was easy to believe. This couldn’t be wrong; it couldn’t fall apart. A cold sort of determination took refuge in my chest.
As long as I could, I wouldn’t let it.
Bidding the Nixie Cove goodbye, we picked our way silently through the treetops, deciding that flying on a clear day would only allow the pirates to know where we were if they searched, and if we took the land route, they could be lying in wait.
Somewhere in the middle, then, Whisper had said, landing on a branch and setting her hands at her hips. I’m not sure she’d left the air since she regained her ability to fly.
Skye made himself busy flitting between the two of them, and exhaustion filled him every time he collapsed on Bay’s shoulder, face down against the clothes.
“Are you okay?” Bay murmured, but I heard him. He poked Skye’s cheek.
The tiny creature mumbled against the cloth, “Of course, I love being hunted by pirates and having to monitor two people so they don’t fall out of trees. Can someone please tell her that the dust is for if she needs it and not for doing tricks?”
Whisper skipped from one branch to the next, hardly touching even the sturdiest limbs. Her face was so bright. Bay saw it too, and he pouted. “But she looks so happy.”
“I see how it is.” Skye pushed himself up, fluttering indignantly. “You’d rather let your girlfriend’s friend be happy than let your pixie rest. How the loyalty has shifted. I trusted you.”
Bay caught my eye then, and I looked away like I hadn’t been watching the whole exchange. I had no helpful input to provide. I hadn’t so much as touched a branch for the last ten minutes.
Bay floated to me, drifting at my side, and Skye groaned, falling face-first against his shoulder again. Bay’s hand skimmed mine, inciting butterflies in my stomach. “Being nosy again, Wind Song?”
My cheeks flushed.
“What do you propose we do to fix this problem?” he asked.
I glanced at Whisper, who cheerfully tapped her way over the awkward terrain, oblivious. It was nice to see her so at peace after so many days of seeing restrained tension in her limbs. “She should have her own pixie.”
Skye scoffed, glaring at me. “Pardon ? People don’t just ‘have’ pixies. We only cling to people who can understand us.”
“Wendy couldn’t understand you.”
He rolled his eyes. “No, duh. I was never meant to be ‘hers.’”
My brows rose. From even before Bay was born, Skye knew? Or had he been told? Who knew what the sirens manipulated. One problem at a time, I supposed. “Then where’s my pixie?”
“Maybe none of them like you because you think we’re something to be owned?”
Bay snickered, glancing away.
I narrowed my eyes at him and addressed Skye. “You know that’s not what I mean. And what use would I actually have to ‘own’ a pixie now?”
