“What, just enough to hate him?” she asks, eyebrows up, and I shake my head defensively.
“I don’t hate him.”
“Not yet,” she tells me. “But spoiled lo—”
“Don’t say it.” I glare at her, shaking my head. “Don’t say that word.”
“Hey,” Peter says, grabbing me from behind. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, staring at Itheelia, my eyes begging her to say nothing.
Peter nods his chin over at her. “Witch.”
“Pan.” She gives him a curt smile.
Peter spins me around to face him. “Girl, is she bothering you?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine.”
Peter searches over my face, and he goes serious as he does sometimes and almost exclusively about me. He touches my face with his thumb, presses into my cheek a tear that I didn’t know was there.
“Are you sure?” He frowns, glaring up at Itheelia.
I nod quickly, always wanting Peter at his most defused self.
“She’s my friend,” I tell him, even though I’m not really sure she is.
“Oh. All right then.” Peter shrugs, indifferent but relaxing. “Itheelia.” He nods.
She nods back. “Peter.”
He hooks his arm around my neck and pulls me away from her. “Let’s go now anyway.” He nods his head in the other direction. “There’s a mountain peak I want to show you.”
And thank goodness, because I want to be shown a mountain peak. I want to be distracted—desperately—from whatever it was she was trying to make me remember.
It’s a short flight up there, and it’s freezing once we land, but it’s worth it because it’s beautiful. That and I have a feeling that I’m ever so fond of the cold? What a strange thing to have an affinity for. Is there something cold in that pouch? I wonder as a few snowflakes rustle by my ear, but I brush them away because they’re distracting me from what I’m trying to remember. Except do I even want to remember, I wonder now that I’m with Peter. To what end does remembering take me to?
There’s a little clearing on the tippiest-top of the mountain the castle’s nestled up against, and you can see as far as the eye will let you.
Peter stands behind me, ducks, then rests his head on my shoulder. He points to a distant light. “See that?”
I nod.
“That’s our island.”
I turn my head to look at him, and our noses brush, and through me cracks an interesting whip. Some sort of strangled wistfulness for Jamison, some kind of relief and fragile hope that I’ve Peter here all the same. “Our?”
He gives me a half smile. “My.”
I look away, rolling my eyes, but I don’t move away from him. A bit because I’m cold, a lot because he’s being the Peter that I think I came here for.
Peter slips his arms around me from behind. “Are you happy here?”
I stare out at all of it. “Sometimes.”
“Just sometimes?” He sounds bothered.
I don’t look at him. “Yes.”
Peter turns me around. “I want you to be happy here.” His eyes dance over my face like he’s looking for clues. “Is there something I could do to make you happier?”
I lift my brows playfully. “You could…remember my name…”
He rolls his eyes. “I know your name.”
“You could…” My voice trails as my eyes fall down his arms that are holding both of mine. I pick off a shiny scale. “You could not make out with mermaids.”
“I kiss mermaids,” Peter says, pulling a face. “I don’t know what make out is. It sounds stupid.”
“It’s the same thing.”
He shrugs. “I knew that.”
“You could not be weird when it’s my birthday.” I give him a look.
Peter scoffs. “I don’t even care that you turned old. I’ve been good about that.” He gives me a defiant look. “I haven’t brought it up once. You don’t look old. You just look the same, so that’s good.” He gives me a little shrug.
I poke him in the ribs. “You could…not leave me to die with a minotaur.”
And then something peculiar happens. Peter’s countenance changes. Something rolls over him that I haven’t seen in him before. Guilt, I think? Remorse, maybe? Regret, as though he feels actually bad for what he did. Peter’s eyes drop from mine, and his face pulls uncomfortably.