Page 28 of The Never Queen

“Hansel showing upisunusual,” Vane cuts in, the cigarette now burning from the clutch of his two fingers. “Why help us?”

“I don’t know,” Pan says. Do I detect a thread of worry in his voice?

“Why did none of us have our powers?” Darling asks.

“It was the glowing bone shard,” I tell her. “As the story goes, Hansel and Gretel harvested the bones of the witch they killed, pulling them from the ash of her oven. Somehow, in the killing, forged in fire or intent, the witch’s bones put off a negative effect on other magic. So the bones were cut and now each Witch Killer carries one.”

“Great.” Darling reaches up and threads her fingers through mine where my arm hangs off her shoulder. “So now what?”

“Well,” my brother says. “We could take Hansel’s advice.”

“Or,” Darling cuts in, “we don’t.”

“I’m with Darling,” I say and give her fingers a squeeze.

“I don’t know if I trust Hansel anyway.” Vane blows out smoke. “We should form our own plan.”

“Agreed,” Pan says. “We do what we set out to do: find Merry and then get back home as quickly as possible.”

Beneath the crook of my arm, Darling shivers.

“Yeah,” I hear her mutter beneath her breath. “Home.”

13

WINNIE

We go first to Ninth & Seven Coffee Shop but find the inside dark, the closed sign hanging from a hook in the front window. This is my mother’s favorite coffee shop, according to Leo, but I didn’t know my mother liked coffee shops, let alone black tea. I can remember her making a cup of coffee most mornings, but she made instant coffee from a can she bought at the dollar store and mixed in enough sugar and powdered creamer that it resembled milk more than coffee.

She would carry the cup, along with her med box, to the front window of whatever house or apartment we were living in, and she’d sit there and stare outside, watching the street beyond. I could never tell if she was just watching nature or watching for signs of Pan.

Maybe she was daydreaming about a life neither of us was destined to have.

What else about her life now do I not know? What else has changed? I never took the time to ask her on the rare occasions we visited, and I never bothered to ask Leo. Maybe I didn’t wantto know that she was thriving now that I was out of her life. That she had built something beautiful and quiet and safe when that’s all I’d longed for as a child.

We follow the street several blocks to the south until we reach the twins’ favorite diner and our next best chance for a lead on my mother’s disappearance: The Lost Knife.

It’s one of those retro diners with chrome siding and neon lighting. A giant sign on the top reads THE LOST KNIFE in neon green cursive.

I’ve been here with them once before, but in the daylight, and we sat in a booth and ordered a round of cloudberry smoothies.

The Lost Knife is the only place on the east side of the country that is an official portal between realms. You walk into the front door of the Knife from the mortal realm, and you can walk out the back door to Pleasureland. But when I asked the boys if we should visit the other island before returning to Neverland, their response was, “We never go to Pleasureland, Darling. It’s a place you don’t escape.” So I don’t really know if people actually use the back door of the diner or if it’s mostly just there for decoration and scary bedtime stories.

We go inside and the bell above the door chimes. The two winged fae on the red vinyl stools at the counter turn, checking us over their shoulders. To the left, in the half-circle booth, sharing a giant basket of fries, are four pirates and one of the Pleasureland fae with their bright red eyes.

Several other booths are full of people who appear mortal only from the neck up. There’s a man dressed in yards of silk that looks like it was fashioned from stars and dreams. A woman behind him is in a hand-stitched velvet jacket sporting the emblem of the royal house of Summerland North. And beside her is a man with a leather vest adorned with gems that shift in size and cut depending on the light.

All of them are looking at us standing in the soft glow of the diner, and I can’t tell if they’re looking at us like that because we’re covered in Witch Killer blood or if they too know I’m a Darling being hunted by said Witch Killers.

But if I remember correctly, Bash once told me the Knife is neutral ground and fighting is banned.

“Come on, Win.” Vane nudges me to the right, to the U-shaped booth on the other end of the diner. We’ll have a bit more privacy there, with the two booths next to it empty.

The boys sandwich me in the middle, Kas and Bash on my left, Pan and Vane on my right.

A server, Maisie, comes over, laminated menus in her hand. “It’s been a while, princes.”

This, aimed at the twins.