Devourer of Men: A Captain Hook, Crocodile, and Wendy Darling Reimagining
Chapter 35

Making my way back to the castle takes twice as much effort as escaping it. But I still manage because when I’m determined to do something, I fucking do it.

I don’t care if Wendy is still technically married to a dead king. If she wants to leave this place, I will take her wherever she wants to go. She deserves to finally have a life of her own choosing. Roc can come too if he’d like. If he behaves himself.

I’m so overwhelmed by the realization that my blood doesn’t automatically mean I am bad, that I nearly run into the prince’s bride-to-be again.

But something has changed.

She’s smiling at me.

“You came back,” she says, hands folded in front of her.

The timid, slightly scandalized girl of before is gone, replaced with something knowing and more menacing.

From the moment I first met her, I thought she was familiar, but I couldn’t place her.

But as I stare at her and really take in the tiny, sharp nose, the hollow cheeks, the wide set eyes and wavy brown hair, it comes to me.

She was different back then.

Her hair had been longer and braided into two braids. Her dark eyes had been lined in dark kohl. She was not adorned in royal jewels, but instead wore thick braided rope around her neck with shells woven in.

The truth of the matter hits me so squarely that it makes my head spin.

“You’re the witch in the woods,” I say. “The one my father took me to see.”

Her smile widens and as she does, her chin turns down, her eyes narrowing.

“How…why…”

“Why am I here?” she says for me. “How am I here?” she adds. “Would you like the whole story? Or just the important bits?”

I clench my jaw. “The whole story.”

“Very well. Follow me.” She turns down the main corridor on the first floor.

I glance over my shoulder. The castle has quieted since I left it earlier, but there is still shouting in the recess. The sun is beginning to rise and light flares through the high windows of the mezzanine.

Do I dare go with her?

It occurs to me that this woman may be a parasite infiltrating Wendy’s court. There were whispers of magic and witches. I know Wendy is mortal. So it stands to reason the rumors are actually about this woman.

But she’s also connected to my past and to who I thought I was.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that she’s here now, our paths crossing just when I’ve started to question everything my father made me believe about myself using her as part of the scheme.

I decide to follow her.

She takes me to a sitting room where the furniture is emerald green and the drapes are toile green to match. She pours herself a drink and offers me one. To be cautious, I watch her sip from hers before taking a swig of mine.

It’s a sweet wine, reminiscent of fairy wine, but with far too much tartness. It overwhelms the burn of the alcohol.

“I am originally from Lostland,” she tells me. “The home of the Myth Makers.”

One of the Isles’ secret societies, the ones always working behind the scenes for power and prestige and wealth.

“I did a bad thing once.” She brings her arm across her middle, the glass still held in hand. “The Myth Makers are controlled by a council of seven. They are known as the Myths and at one point, I was to be inducted as one. But the oldest Myth thought I was too, well, feral, and he bypassed me for his nephew. So I killed him. The nephew, not the Myth. That didn’t go over well.” She laughs to herself and begins to pace the room.

I’m not sure what to do with myself. I’m still shocked she’s here. I’m still shocked she somehow managed to make herself the prince’s betrothed and then hid in plain sight looking the part of a demure bride-to-be.

But why? Why is she here and what does that have to do with me?

“I was banished from Lostland and the Seven Isles,” she goes on. “I was thrown into the mortal realm and not only was I banished, but I was blocked from replaceing my way back to the Isles. No matter how hard I looked, no matter what magic I did, I couldn’t go back.”

She makes her way around a green settee with an ornate gilded frame. “I established myself as a mystic in your realm, but every day my magic waned. Disconnected from the Isles, it was like my magic was blocked too. I became desperate to try anything. The mortal realm is starving for magic, but you can replace the right people if you know where to look.

“I visited a fortune teller and asked for her guidance, and she told me the way back was by the hook.”

She paces to the window and sips from her wine. “I was confused at first. What does that even mean? Months I researched and analyzed and fretted over it. Until a man darkened my door asking me to teach his misbehaving son a lesson. The man’s name was William H. Hook.”

I suspected this was where her story would lead but still hearing my father’s name spoken after all this time, by someone other than me, pulls up all of my repressed memories of him.

I hated the man and loved him equally. I worked hard for his respect. I worked harder to meet his standards. But it was never enough. And I think deep down I knew that whatever his standards were, they were impossible to reach because they were always moving, always changing.

The witch goes on. “It was a coin toss as to whether William or James—” she tilts her glass toward me “—were the subject of the fortune teller’s prediction, so I took a gamble and chose you. Your father wanted me to fix you, but I just needed a map. So using what little power I had left, I gave you a part of myself, the most important part: my magic.”

I instinctively glance down at the cut on my arm, now crusted over black.

“You set sail one day and you never returned,” she says. “Because of course you quite literally stumbled into the Seven Isles when I had been searching for my way through for decades. But once you were there, all I had to do was track my magic and follow you.” She spreads out her arms. “Voila. I am home. But what I didn’t account for is that you would impregnate a Darling and that the Darling baby would give its mother power too.”

My mouth drops open.

That explains Wendy’s ability to heal. And it begs the question: was the power continually passed down through the familial line? Does Winnie Darling have some power inherited from the Myth Makers?

I take another sip from the wine to settle my nerves. This is so much to take in. “Now you are here,” I say to the witch. “What do you want of Everland?”

She smiles. “The Myth I told you about? The one who banished me? He’s dead now. A new Myth reigns and plans are in motion. I am just a cog in the scheme.”

“Bloody hell.”

“Oh yes, Captain Hook,” she says and tips her glass to me. “It will be bloody indeed.”

I have to replace Roc and tell him what I’ve learned. I have to save Wendy before the Myth Makers turn this entire court into a battlefield.

I set my glass on one of the tables and make my way for the door. But turning abruptly makes the room spin. At first I think it may be lack of sleep or perhaps hunger. But standing still doesn’t help it abate.

The witch’s footsteps come closer. I stumble forward, crash into the table. The glass wobbles, then spills over and as the liquid drips to the floor, I notice it’s speckled with something green.

My knees give out and I crash to the floor.

“Sorry, Captain Hook.” The witch crouches beside me. “I would like my magic back now if I’m to help the Myth Makers take over all seven of the isles.”