Page 59 of The Never Queen

29

KAS

We spot Doren from above as he leaves the woods that run behind Darling’s house and spill out into an open field.

Bash gestures to me, giving me an indication with this hand that he means to cut Doren off in the field.

I’ll land behind him, wedging him in.

I angle my wings, catching the air to slow my flight while Bash shoots forward.

We land at the same time and Doren spins, trying to find an escape path, his own wings coming into shimmering view from beneath his illusion.

He could go up, sure, but I’m confident my brother and I could catch him eventually and rip his wings one by one from his body.

“We just want to talk,” Bash says.

Doren sneers. “The time for talking is over. It was over a long time ago.”

“Are you truly alone?” I ask him, scanning the surrounding woods.

He doesn’t answer me. I think if he wasn’t, something about his ego would give him away. And I almost feel sorry for him, all alone in the mortal realm with no one to back him up.

What was he thinking? Was his ambition truly that blinding to put him at such a disadvantage?

Doren looks past me to the sky above and for a second, I think I’ve misjudged him. But it’s just Peter Pan and Vane joining us.

Now Doren is well and truly fucked.

“Where is she?” Pan asks.

Doren doesn’t know where to turn, who to be afraid of.

The answer is: all of us.

“You think they told me where they’re taking her?”

“Yes,” I answer.

He licks his lips, turns to face me. Panic is etching itself into the thin line of his mouth.

“I don’t know,” he says, but his objection is worthless.

Pan shoots forward, knocking Doren off his feet.

Doren spins to his knees, his wings opening with a WHOOSH.

But Vane is there, one boot on Doren’s back for leverage, as the Shadow spins around him, dark and ravenous.

With a tear of flesh and sinew, Vane rips the forewing from Doren’s body and he twists in agony, blood and gore spurting from the wound.

“I don’t know where she is!” Doren shouts.

Bash checks me and I give him a nod.

“They’re going to tear you apart, piece by piece,” Bash says in a chime of bells, in our fae language.

We can pretend to be on his side. The good guys to Pan and Vane’s bad guys.