I catch eyes with Itheelia, and she smothers a smile with her hand as the man turns to Rye and whispers something angrily. Rye shoots me a look across the table as though he’s annoyed at me, but I shrug. For him to think that I owe his sister my discretion? The gall.
“Where is the boy anyway?” Day asks me, like I’d know.
I gesture to myself. “Banished, remember?”
Jamison squashes a smile.
“Where is he?” Day sighs, looking around the room, but ultimately his gaze lands on me again.
I sigh.
“With a mermaid? Finding treasure? Chasing a squirrel? How am I to know?”
“Shall we start without him?” Itheelia suggests.
Day sighs, and they do.
Everyone shares all the information they have about the uncle and his apparent impending arrival as I sit quietly and listen, and I become no more sure about this man than I was the day when Jamison and Itheelia first mentioned him.
Multiple sightings all across the realm. I didn’t know we were in a realm; I don’t know what I thought we were in. I suppose I thought we were on a planet, just. Probably a bit silly.
Anyway, sightings all over the realm, stories dripping in of people going missing, many of them young, so that’s particularly sad and awful.
Roaming patrols will commence tonight. And killing him on sight is the plan of attack.
Harder than it sounds, I’m gathering.
I did suggest why don’t they just take him to the police, and Jem said, “Oh, why daen we think of that? Oh, because there’re no police here. It’s Neverland.”
Which then elicited a very unimpressed look from me.
“Can he be killed on sight?” Rye asks, eyebrows up.
“Kind of,” Itheelia considers.
“A stab through the heart should do it,” Rye’s dad declares, but Itheelia doesn’t look entirely sure.
“There are rumours that he’s hidden his heart.”
I look over at Jem, completely lost.
“He’s…” Rye’s voice trails. Magic is the word he doesn’t say.
“He harnesses magic,” Jem tells him. “He daesnae hae it innately himself.”
Rye nods, sort of following along. “Any tips?”
“Aim true?” Jem offers with a shrug. “Wherever true is.”
“I’ve heard,” Itheelia starts, “that you can see the location of his heart, pulsing under the moonlight.”
“Why does it have to be through the heart?” I ask, looking between them all.
Jamison looks strained as he thinks on how to explain. “He’s collected some things over time that’ve made him powerful.”
“Oh,” I say, still not really sure what he means. I think that might be his intention.
“Will you see Pan?” Itheelia asks Rye. “Will you relay to him all th—”
“No need, witch,” Peter says, waltzing in with all the Lost Boys in tow, new freckles on each of them.
I feel a funny twinge of relief to see the little ones. They spot me before he does.
“Daphne!” Kinley yells happily.
“Oh, Daphne!” Percival goes to run to me, but Peter puts out a hand and stops him.
“What are you doing here?” Peter asks, scowling at me as he takes a seat. “I banished you.”
Under the table, Jamison’s hand squeezes my knee, but on his face, he gives Peter a grimace.
“I know ye may find this hard to believe, mate, but thon actually means fuck all.”
Peter doesn’t look at Jamison; he doesn’t take his eyes off me. “You shouldn’t be here,” he tells me.
I stare over at him. “Says who?”
“Me,” Peter spits. “I want you off my island.”
“It isn’t your island, Peter,” Itheelia tells him calmly, and he tosses her a dark look.
“Don’t be stupid. We all know it is.” Then his eyes go back on me. “And I want her off it. I’ll drag you back to London myself.”
Jamison stands. “And I will kill ye if ye try.”
Peter matches him, jumping to his feet. “What are you even doing here?” He jumps onto the table and stares down at me as he walks over.
I push back from the table. The chair loudly scrapes over the stone as I move away from him, and Jamison stands between us.
Peter peers around Hook to me, eyebrows furrowed. “This is where you’ve been staying since you left me?”
“Since you banished me,” I correct him.
Peter jumps off the table, eyes wide in a funny way—panicked, almost.