Page 30 of The Never Queen

A shiver prickles at the space between my shoulders and I sink into Kas more, hooking my arm through his, trying to steal some of his warmth.

Most everyone in the diner has returned to their conversation and their meals. But I still don’t feel right. Like they’re all watching us. Almost like they can see the grim reaperhanging over my head and are unsure if they should help, or give me a wide berth.

I still don’t understand why mythical killers would go to the trouble of hunting me down. Even if the Myth Maker power passed down from Captain Hook to the Darling line and somehow made it to me, it has to be so diluted by now that it would barely register. Don’t they have bigger fish to fry? Not that I think witches deserve to be fried. I know the stories from my own world, innocent women accused of witchcraft and burned at the stakes. I can’t help but feel like the Witch Killers are just modern mythological versions of those accusers from the 1600s looking to take down powerful women.

Maisie returns with a tray, all of our drinks in a circle and takes our order. The twins both get double cheeseburgers and fries. I order fries. Pan and Vane eat nothing.

We make small talk while we wait for the food, pretending that any of this is normal. I’m on edge, but the boys seem fine. It makes me wonder how they deal with anxiety and stress so well, if it’s the centuries they have on me, or the power always in their possession.

If I had been born and raised on Neverland, would I be as unshakable as Peter Pan?

I swirl my straw around my soda watching the bubbles fizz up. The fries are piping hot, crispy and salty, just the way I like them, but I can’t seem to summon an appetite.

It’s when our food is about gone that Maisie returns to our table and says, “Kody can see you now.”

Pan hands her a few hundred dollar bills and she examines them beneath the glow of the diner light.

“They’re real,” Pan tells her.

Maisie squints at them. “With Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, one can never be too sure.”

14

PETERPAN

Kody’s office is in the back of the diner and seems to exist somewhere outside the confines of the diner’s dimensions.

Walking into it is not dissimilar to walking into the nave of a medieval church.

Curved beams hold up a domed ceiling where one large iron chandelier hangs from the center. Ivory candles burn from the fittings, dripping wax into a gathering well in the stone floor.

Kody sits behind a desk made of black ashwood, the front carved with the constellations of the autumn sky.

A stained glass lamp glows from the corner of his desk where a cone of incense burns from the mouth of a marble dragon bust, perfuming the air with the scent of smoke and musk.

In contrast to the dark, Gothic office, Kody is loud and obvious in his presence with a shock of bright red hair, a bushy red beard, and a plaid wool suit done in the colors of his home village: green and mustard yellow. A thick gold chain hangs from around his neck where a pendant of a cat dangles at his sternum.

A cigar is caught in his teeth, smoke curling up to the ceiling.

“Peter Pan!” He pushes away from his desk and comes around, forcing his hand into mine, shaking with the vigor of a mountain cat with a rabbit caught in its jaws.

I could crush his bones with very little effort but I hold myself back.

My general feelings on Kody are mixed. He’s always followed through when I’ve needed his specific brand of expertise, but there have been whispers of him occasionally fucking people over if it benefited him in the moment.

I suspect that Kody cannot help himself when he either thinks he’s right or he stands to gain some level of significance from whatever will transpire.

“Kody,” I say.

“It’s been a while.” He pulls the cigar from his mouth and leans back into his desk. “Sit. Sit!” He waggles his fingers like a showman onstage and several more chairs appear in front of his desk.

“We won’t be long,” I say. “I just need some information.”

“Oh yeah? What kind of information?” His gaze strays to Darling before flitting back to me.

“Merry Darling is missing and we were just ambushed at her house by Witch Killers.”

A low whistle escapes him. “Nasty bunch, aren’t they.”