I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth made a grinding sound.
Pan finally looked away, appearing vulnerable for the first time as he admitted in a softer voice, “I’ll confess that much of my motivation when I was younger was trying to prove that I was better than you. Each act of destruction, each plague, just one more notch in the bedpost to show that I had vastly superseded anything you could ever hope to achieve. But I guess the joke’s on me in the end, seeing as you’re... well, you.”
His confession nearly sent me to my knees. Usually ego would have me nodding, but I was overcome with a much different impulse, one almost exclusively reserved for Merri: the need to comfort.
“I’m not so sure about that. You saved the world once already. And it’s not exactly like I ever achieved my purpose. Your Auntie Death holds that title. Seems to me that of the two of us, you’ve accomplished more than I ever have.”
The way his posture changed reminded me of a deflating balloon. All of his bluster, his bravado, left him in a whoosh.
“You’re not at all as I expected,” he said.
“And you are exactly like I was centuries ago. Full of piss and vinegar.”
Pan snickered. “If you think I’m bad now, you should have seen me when I had my horns. I was a nightmare in every sense of the word.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Now that I believe.” After a beat, I risked asking the question floating around my mind. “Why leave them like that?”
His eyes, twins of my own, met and held mine. “Leave what, like how?”
“Your horns. I see you reclaimed the rest of your demonic persona, but you left those shorn to stumps. Why?”
“Ah.” A ghost of a smile curled his lips as his gaze went distant and unfocused. “It’s a reminder of my choice.”
“May I ask what choice that was?”
He swallowed, and his eyes cleared. “The only one that truly mattered in the end. Power or love.”
“You chose love.”
“Obviously.”
“Was it an easy choice?” I asked, the question leaving my lips before I realized I’d asked it aloud.
“It was the only choice. Rosie is the only option I would ever truly consider.”
I nodded slowly, knowing when it came to Merri, I felt exactly the same.
Pan’s lip curled in disgust before he muttered, “Feelings.”
I simply responded, “Blech.” But inwardly, it was all I could do not to laugh at how alike we were.
He huffed out a laugh. “You’re not a fan either?”
“Not remotely. Nasty things, them.”
“Here I thought I’d gotten that from Mum, but I guess it must have been you.”
“Looks like.”
He studied me, some of the levity fading before he declared, “I suppose there are worse traits to inherit.”
“I did give you my power.”
Now he was grinning and rising to his feet. “I do quite enjoy that part.”
“And the rest?” I asked, knowing what I was really asking was what he thought about me in general.
He made a show of looking me up and down before sighing dramatically. “It could be worse, so I guess as far as fathers go, you’ll do.”