“Get married? I suppose.” With her free hand, Wendy plucks at her sleeve, trying to imagine herself clad in a wedding gown. “Play pretend. Play wife and mother.” Wendy tries to smile, and it hurts, a deep ache that goes all the way through her. “It wouldn’t be the first time, after all.”

* * *

“Wendy.” Tiger Lily touches her own throat when she speaks, as if speaking physically pains her. Her voice is a cold wind blowing from a lonely place. It hurts to hear it, and Wendy’s name in her mouth is a terrible thing.

For a moment, Wendy can only stare, wanting to undo everything done to Tiger Lily and bring her back to the girl she remembers. Tiger Lily’s twig-hard fingers brush Wendy’s cheek. They’re almost bone, and Wendy has to fight not to flinch away from the touch. The wonder in Tiger Lily’s eyes— that is real, that is human, despite the ruin of her flesh, and Wendy keeps her gaze there as if she could forget the rest of what Tiger Lily has become.

“I started to think I dreamed you.” The words scratch, and Wendy touches her own throat reflexively. “The girl from the other side of the stars.”

Tiger Lily’s lips crack when she smiles, but there’s no blood. A lump rises in Wendy’s throat, and she can’t swallow it down. Tiger Lily, trapped here while Wendy was locked behind St. Bernadette’s walls; had the rest of Neverland forgotten so that Tiger Lily been doubted and disbelieved too, told Wendy was only a story or a dream?

“But you’re here now,” Tiger Lily says.

“I’m here.” Wendy makes herself fold her arms around Tiger Lily again, feeling her hollowness. She is skin wrapped around bone, with nothing else inside.

“What happened?” Wendy draws back, wiping at her cheeks.

“Peter.” Tiger Lily spreads her arms, a dry, rustling sound, and her lips crack again, her expression grim this time.

Peter, of course, Peter. Wendy knew before she asked. Anger and guilt war inside her. If she’d stayed, she could have stopped this. She could have saved Tiger Lily and the mermaids.

“Don’t,” Tiger Lily says, as if reading Wendy’s thoughts. “Don’t blame yourself for him.”

Wendy lets out a breath, and a small measure of the tension inside her unwinds. She wants to believe what Tiger Lily says is right, and yet blaming herself feels like the only useful thing she can do. Peter is a breaking storm, too vast a target for her rage, leaving only herself in his stead.

“Come,” Tiger Lily says, jostling Wendy from her thoughts. “We’ll talk.”