And then she stops, the full weight of her body holding her in place despite Dr. Harrington’s hand on her arm. A girl with long, dark hair passes, going the opposite direction, head down so Wendy can’t see her face properly. Even so, the sight of her strikes Wendy as a physical blow, and a name rises to her lips so swift she almost speaks it aloud—Tiger Lily.

She’s sworn to herself to keep Neverland secret here, to guard it close to her chest. Whatever John has told Dr. Harrington can only be half of the truth at best. If Wendy were to tell him anything real, Dr. Harrington would only take to it with a microscope and a scalpel, turning it into something ugly. So she swallows down Tiger Lily’s name, even though it burns, looking away as the girl walks past.

As much as she might wish it otherwise though, her mind rebels. She can’t help recalling a bank of emerald grass beneath the silver drooping bows of a willow tree. Locked away from all the world, she and Tiger Lily wove crowns of reed, linked their hands together—brown and white—and set the crowns on each other’s heads.

The memory aches. She can’t stop herself from glancing up, but the girl has already moved down the hallway. The loss in her wake makes it hard for Wendy to breathe, but she forces herself to keep going. Dr. Harrington looks at her, a frown of disapproval that she has upset the natural order of things.

The girl isn’t Tiger Lily. She knows that, and to distract herself, Wendy tries to reconstruct the girl’s actual appearance from that brief glance, and after a moment, she convinces herself that the girl doesn’t resemble Tiger Lily at all. It was only her mind playing tricks, wanting something familiar in this place of terror, something that felt like home.

“Here we are.” Dr. Harrington’s voice, falsely bright and sharp-edged, brings her back.

He opens a door, unlocking it swiftly and dropping the key into his pocket as though Wendy won’t notice. The opened door reveals a spare, cell-like room, purpose-built with white-painted walls, a narrow bed, and a single chair. The window has no curtains, and on the outside there are bars.

“We have what we like to think of as patient uniforms here.” Dr. Harrington smiles.

The expression is awkward, as though he’s letting Wendy in on a joke.

“Everyone here is equal, no matter where they began. They are all here to get well.”

He gestures to a plain cotton dress folded atop the bed, nearly the same pale gray as the blanket it lies upon. The girl they passed in the hall, the one who isn’t Tiger Lily, wore the same.