Page 95 of Stealing Tink

“There’s not enough room. You’d hit your head,” says Lars, pointing to the red stone above us.

“We could try up top,” offers the Nomad. “The wind will be faster up there anyway.”

It’s only when he turns away that I let myself smile.

When we reach the top of the cliff, I do my sweet father a favor and at least warm up my wings. Of course, to the Nomad and Lars, it looks like I’m actually trying to fly, which is convenient for what I have planned.

It means that neither of them reacts in time to stop me when I make a break for the cliff side.

“Wanderer, no!” is all the Nomad has time for. That, and I feel the graze of his fingers on the back of my spine, but I’m quicker.

My foot launches off the edge of the cliff, and for the first time in so very long, there’s nothing at all below it.

Wendy once told me that when Peter would drop her from the sky, she felt weightless. I always thought that was her wishing she could disappear. Wishing she could fade away and find a way not to leave a single fingerprint on the world around her.

That had made me sad, because for me, that’s not what flying is at all.

For me, flying is taking what should not be, and making it so.

A thrill courses through me. That blissful moment of up suspended before the down.

“It’s too high!” I hear the Nomad scream at Lars, but I don’t hear his response, because the next moment, my body falls, cutting through the air, the wind whipping at my ears and drowning out any sound.

The water below me shimmers like glass, and if I hit it from this height, it will hurt just as much.

So I shake my wings awake, like my father did to me when I was a child, shining a lantern in my face and pulling the covers off of me and letting the cold air hit me, all with a smile and a laugh.

Agitated by the cold, by the urgency of the fall, my wings startle.

I falter in the air, then fall again. Again, my wings turn on and off, buzzing then halting, and it no longer matters if I hit the waters below. My wings have slowed me enough that I won’t⁠—

Something splashes in the water below me.

And in the clear water, I watch the Nomad sink, his body limp, knocked out clean by the impact.

No.

Realization hits me just as hard.

He jumped in after me.

I redirect, willing my body toward where he hit the water, but my wings are slow to respond to my wishes, and by the time my bare feet graze the cold waves, the Nomad has sunk too far for me to reach him.

I watch him, screaming at him in my mind to wake up, but he’s face down. And still sinking.

I’m not sure if it’s the tears or the salt stinging my eyes, but I turn my body and dive.

The water is cold, stinging and blurring my vision. My arms fight not just with the water, but with my wings, spread out behind me and slowing me down as if I had a parachute attached to me.

By the time I reach him, my lungs are already popping with pain. I fish my arms underneath his armpits and cling to the hope that what I’m about to try will work.

I beat my wings, and slowly, they act as paddles and we begin to rise. My wings are thin, frail, and not meant to move like this in water, and they fail me often.

Eventually, my back aches to the point I have to take one arm out from underneath the Nomad and swim with one arm.

We make no progress. My body is panicking, begging me to leave him behind. We’re not going to make it, not both of us.

Despair rattles through me, and I stare down at his face, perfectly serene and only minutes away from death.