They should return for Rufus, try to help him. But even the thought makes her pulse seize, her eyes burn. What can she and Timothy do against all of Peter’s hunters? Better to let them grow bored, forget. They’re bound to sooner or later. She has to believe it’s true.

Timothy’s added weight—slight as he is—makes the hammock sway. His feet don’t even come close to touching the ground as he dangles them over the side.

Tiny lines crease the skin between Timothy’s brows. He looks like he’s trying hard to remember something as they sit in silence, Jane gathering herself, thinking what to do next. She can’t run off and leave him to look for a way home. She has to help him, and Rufus too, and any of the others she can convince of Peter’s wicked ways.

“Why were you running?” Timothy asks after a moment, his expression clearing from troubled to wide-eyed curiosity. “Is it because you saw a monster?”

The question catches her off guard, and she almost laughs, but Timothy’s expression is so serious she swallows the sound down.

“No, I wasn’t running from a monster.” Except, she thinks, she was, just not the kind Timothy means. “There are no monsters here.”

She makes her voice firm as she says it, as if will alone could make her words true.

“Is that because you’re here to be our mother? That’s what Peter said.” Timothy looks up at her.

“I’m not…” Surprise at his words turns into something else as she sees the hope in Timothy’s eyes.

“Peter says that’s what mothers are for,” Timothy goes on. He says the word “mother” like it’s a strange creature out of a fairy tale, one he’s only heard stories about but doesn’t really understand. “Mothers cook and tell stories, but the best thing is that mothers scare monsters away.”

“I…” Jane hesitates. The way Timothy looks at her makes her think for a moment that it could be true, she could be big and safe enough to protect him. Not a mother, but a big sister. At the same time, she feels terribly small. She misses her own mother, and she only wants to go home.

“No.” She lets out a breath, and it hurts; maybe she should have lied. “I don’t think so. I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” The disappointment in Timothy’s voice is clear, but like before, there’s a quicksilver mood change and he looks up again, grinning. “That’s okay. We can still be friends.”

“I don’t belong here.” She didn’t mean to say it out loud, but the truth rings in her and she can’t keep it quiet. “I need to go home.”

Timothy looks like he might cry.