“Jem?” Rye repeats with a smirk, and Rune flies over to him and clangs around his ear, angry. She honestly might have even given him a tiny kick.
I roll my eyes at him. “I didn’t ask Jamison to take me. We bumped into each other. I was looking for a map.”
“Did he say sorry?”
“Who?” I ask.
“Hook.” Rye eyes me. “For what he said to you.”
“Oh.” I shake my head, frowning. “I think so. I quite can’t…”
“Remember.” Rye nods once and then turns around and walks on, hitting the grass, not saying anything.
Rune bells quickly in my ear, and I give her a little look.
“He mightn’t have a problem,” I whisper. “He’s Peter’s friend. Maybe he thinks I’m doing wrong by him.”
She chimes louder, and I roll my eyes.
“Yes, well, we all know how you feel about him.”
She flies around by my foot, circling the ankle. I have the dagger Jem gave me hidden in my boot. Not because I think I’ll need it but because I like having something he gave me with me. It feels a bit like a talisman, but for what, I don’t know.
She flies back up to me, ringing.
“Yes,” I tell her, feeling pleased with myself. “He did, for my birthday. Would you like to see it?”
She chimes and I frown.
“What do you mean ‘you’ve seen it before’？”
And then she zooms in front of my face, hovering, jingling curiously, changing the subject to something that’s rather uncouth.
“Why do you always ask about that?” I roll my eyes, putting my hands on my hips. “It’s such a busybody question.”
She chimes hotly.
“I know it is! No, I know. I’ve seen it.”
She jingles excitedly.
“No! You know not like that. It’s just…very hot in those caves down there.”
She gives me a look.
“Rune.” I give her one back.
She shrugs and says it’s my loss in Stj?r before flying off ahead.
“Do you have feelings for him?” Rye calls back to me without turning around.
I think about denying it. I’ve never said it out loud before. I’ve just thought it in my head a billion times.
“Yes,” I say defiantly, though I can’t be entirely sure who it is I’m defying.
Rye sighs. “Daphne—”
“No.” I walk up to him and grab his arm, shaking my head at him. “You don’t understand. You don’t know him.”
“Yeah, I do.” Rye gives me a look. “He’s great.”
“Oh.” I frown.
His eyebrow lifts. “But Peter…”
Rune flies back, chiming loudly.
“But Peter!” I sigh, ignoring her. “What is it about him?” I ask hopelessly.
Rye shrugs. “He’s the dream boy.”
I roll my eyes and so does Rune, but Rye shakes his head.
“He’s a literal legend. Most people find it hard to say no to him or not to fall for his charms and shit, but you and your family—” He gives me a look that makes me feel hopeless. “It’s in the blood.”
I ask the question I don’t know I want anyone else’s answer to. “Do you think we’re fated?”
“Yeah.” Rye shrugs, and his face looks bleak.
Rune’s chiming away angrily, she’s swearing, I think. She’s saying words I don’t know. They sound like words one’s grandmother mightn’t teach them.
“Yeah, I do.” Rye keeps nodding. “I kind of hate that.” He laughs dryly, then looks over at me like he’s sorry. “Probably rather you’d be with Hook, honestly, but yeah, there’s something about how Peter is with…you.”
I look at him, eyebrows up, and Rune jangles loudly for my attention.
“Stop it, Rune,” I tell her, stomping my foot. “I know that you don’t like him, but this is complicated for me.”
Rye catches Rune’s eye and nods his head at me.
“He grew up for her.”
“Well,” I clarify, “not for me.”
But Rye shakes his head. “I don’t know. Something made him grow up after all these years, so many years of being a kid, and then—” He gives me a look. “He grew to your age. What are the chances?”
I purse my lips. “Slim, I suppose.”
Rye flicks his eyebrow. “Fate, I think.”
You’d think this might make me feel better, but it doesn’t because it’s binding. To belong to Peter Pan is, in so many ways, a dream come true, isn’t it? But perhaps not my dream come true, just someone else’s dream that I’m living. Maybe it could be mine? And maybe it’s just that—that I didn’t know it at the time, or did I? It’s so difficult to be sure of anything before whichever present moment you’re currently in here, but I think that’s what I came here for? To be with Peter? And then there’s that pull towards him…that gravity, that thing that sucks me in, and it’s impossible to ignore, and I feel it in me even when I’m happier lying next to someone else, even if I’m growing increasingly sure that the someone else in question is who I think I’d quite like to be next to in general. Peter is the idea that trickles into my heart like a leaky window in a storm. He’s this creeping vine of a thought that wraps its way around everything, chokes everything to death but him. He colours everything. The other day with Jem was my favourite day maybe of my entire life, and then as soon as I was back in the tree house, all I wondered was what Peter would do if he knew.