Page 113 of Stealing Tink

I’m face-to-face with the man I’ve dreamed of telling off so many times, memorized what I’d say to him if I ever saw him face-to-face again.

And he can’t even read my signs.

I realize then that this is the answer to the Nomad’s question, to what I was planning on doing after I found my voice.

I was going to confront Peter. I was going to tell him all the things I’ve spent years bottling up, unable to release.

But we’ve come face-to-face too early, and I’m as silenced as ever.

Peter begins pacing me in a circle. “I do wonder what he promised you,” he says. “Tell me, what is it that you think I have? What is it that you’ve come to steal?”

I frown, tears smattering my cheeks despite myself.

When Peter approaches me and reaches out his hand, I freeze. And though I wish I were less affected by his nearness, when his finger trails my throat, I flinch all the same.

He doesn’t smile, and there’s no pleasure in his eyes at my fear.

“I always liked you, you know. I know you don’t believe that. I know you think it was all an act to lure you to Neverland so the Sister could use your voice to bind the realm. And I suppose, at first, it was an act. But the acting was so easy. You were so funny, you see. So interesting to talk to. I miss that about you.”

The barb lands, and the worst part is that I’m not certain it’s an intentional blow. Knowing Peter, he could very well mean it as a compliment, overlooking that what he misses is the very thing he stole from me.

“That’s what he promised you, isn’t it?” he says. “He promised you your voice back.”

I can’t help myself. I’m shaking. Hanging on Peter’s every word despite myself.

Something like pity crosses Peter’s face. “Oh, Tink. And you believed him?”

A fissure makes its way down my heart. Not quite a crack. Not with me suturing it together with the reminder that Peter is a liar. But still, I don’t move. Just listen as Peter feeds my fears exactly what they’ve wanted to believe all along.

Peter shakes his head. “I asked the Sister once, if it could be returned to you. She told me it was gone, interwoven into the Fabric of Neverland itself. There is no getting it back, I’m afraid. Not even the Nomad, the Fates’ favored pet, could unweave it. Not even if Neverland itself was destroyed. I’m afraid, my dear, that you’ve believed the wrong man.”

No. Peter is a liar. Always has been. From the day he stepped into the carnival and saw me in my cage, he’s been lying to me.

When I wrench myself from his shadowy grasp, he has the audacity to look hurt.

Then he turns and searches his rooms, opening drawers and rifling through clothes, until he pulls out a small yet ornate box. When he goes to pull something out of his pocket, he frowns.

“My key is missing. Would you believe it?”

He turns the latch on the box anyway, and it clicks open.

I hold my breath, but when he opens it he says, “Figures.”

He tilts the box toward me, the interior lined with red velvet upon which nothing sits.

He chuckles, running his hand through his hair. “I’ve always hated that man.” Then he turns his gaze toward me. “Let me guess, you thought you were coming in here to steal this. He didn’t let you in on the fact that while you two were watching me from the circus seats, he’d already sent someone in here to take it?”

The lump in my throat swells. Acel. There has to be an explanation. It’s just an empty box. There’s no reason to believe the artifact was ever in there in the first place. Peter saw us at the carnival. He could have easily taken out the artifact before I arrived at the tent.

As if reading my thoughts, Peter says, “I recognize that look. That disbelief. You’re still defending him.”

How I hate that I can’t bite back at him with the question of why exactly he recognizes the look.

“Do you know why the Nomad needs what used to reside in this box?” asks Peter. He goes and sits on the edge of his bed, patting it to invite me to sit next to him. When I remain where I am, he shrugs and continues. “Surely you’ve heard the legends surrounding him. That this is not his home realm. That he hails from somewhere so far away, it cannot be reached by land or sea or even death. Only by manipulating the Fabric that divides the realms. Oh, yes. There are worlds beyond this one. Complete worlds, unlike Neverland. And the Nomad has been gone from his for a long, long while. What was in this box, well, it was his ticket back home. Back to the world he once tried to conquer.”

My mind flashes back to the story the Nomad told me about his childhood. About the land his father had conquered, had taught him to conquer. About how, at the height of his power, his mother had killed him, and then, regretting it, had brought him back. But he’d never told me how he’d ended up here. The question now raps at my mind. If his mother succeeded in bringing back her dead child, why had he still been banished to this realm?

I am a very bad man. That’s what the Nomad had told me himself, had he not?