And my favorite, and one I happen to belong to—The Bone Society.
I wonder if the fae queen knows her throne is likely imbued with the supposed dark magic wielded by the secret society.
I could tell her.
But I probably won’t.
“What is the secret?” I ask and come off the dais. “You promised me.”
The queen clasps her hands behind her back. “As you know, I can get inside most mortal minds without much effort at all and up until recently, Peter Pan tasked me with using my power to root around inside a Darling’s head to find the location of his shadow.”
“Yes, yes. This we know.” I pull a peanut out, crack it between my fingers. “Please do get on with it.”
The queen narrows her eyes at me. I suppose I’m pushing her authority with my tone. Sometimes I forget to pretend to be submissive.
“Getting inside the heads of the Darlings has borne fruit,” she says. “Secrets of Peter Pan’s.”
“Go on,” Giselle says.
I pop a peanut into my mouth.
Tilly’s wings shift from green to turquoise and I sense that what she’s about to reveal excites her more than it should.
This better be good or I’m eating the fae queen for wasting my fucking time.
Tilly sucks in a breath and says, “Peter Pan never returned Wendy to the mortal realm.”
I swallow bits of the peanut and look at the fae queen searching her face for a game.
And then the chess pieces start moving in my head.
“If Wendy was never returned, then how did the Darling line continue?”
The queen’s wings buzz back and forth. “That’s where it gets interesting.”
I dust off peanut shell from my hands. “Show me.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you can get inside a head, you can show me the memory. Don’t deny it.”
She clamps her mouth shut, ruby red lips thinning into a frustrated line.
I go to her. She backpedals.
“Show me.”
“I can’t—”
“You want this island, do you not? That’s why you called me here. You need my help. You want my help, you give me proof.”
I reach out for her hand. She tries to snatch hers back, but my fingers circle her wrist and drag her into me. “Show me, little girl.”
She huffs, furrows her brow. The fae live long lives. I’m not entirely sure how old Tilly is, but I guarantee she isn’t as old as me.
“Fine,” she says and then the throne room disappears and I’m suddenly Wendy and I’m being yanked out of Peter Pan’s grip.
“Don’t leave me,” Wendy screams. “Pan! Don’t…please…”
Peter Pan pulls a blade from his side and slits a guard’s throat. Blood geysers. He stabs another.
“Get him!” someone shouts.
Pan backpedals. I get further away, but my arm is outstretched and there’s panic beating at my breastbone.
“Get Roc!” she yells. “Please get Roc and come back for me!”
When I stumble out of the memory, there are tears in my eyes. They aren’t mine exactly. Or maybe they are.
I can still feel Wendy’s panic thumping in my chest.
He left her.
He fucking left her.
And he didn’t tell me even though she begged him to.
Unless…
I blink back to reality and search the queen’s face.
Can the queen make up fake memories? I suppose I couldn’t put it past her.
“Tell me how the Darling line continued.”
“Wendy told Peter Pan she’d already had a child,” Tilly explains. “So he didn’t think anything of leaving her.”
“I noticed.” The words come out through clenched teeth.
“Wendy was lying, of course. She told him she had a child because she had wanted to stay in the Isles with you.” Tilly taps at her chest. “I could feel her desire for that right here. A heaviness I still have a hard time shaking.”
“Then why did she deny me?” I challenge.
“Because of what you did to Hook.”
I tsk. “That was no business of hers.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“He deserved what he got.”
Tilly cants her head. “Did he?”
“Get on with it, queen. How did the line continue if Wendy never returned?”
“Because when Wendy Darling left Neverland, she was pregnant.”
I can hear all of the things the fae queen is not saying.
She left pregnant. She did not arrive pregnant. And what I am…it does not so easily procreate.