Wendy tries to gentle her tone, but her voice is barely under her control. This… whatever it is, she’s seen it before. She knows. Or she almost knows. There’s a hole where her memory should be, a door in her mind slammed over it long ago. Now, the door rattles, assaulted by a violent wind. No, not a wind. A breath.

“It’s a story of the monster at Neverland’s heart,” Tiger Lily says.

Wendy relinquishes her grip, as though all at once Tiger Lily’s skin burns. She looks down, expecting to see the seams of fire beneath Tiger Lily’s flesh again, but there’s only her ash-colored skin in the dark.

“The monster.” Wendy repeats the words; they taste of heat, charcoal still smoldering and laced with smoke.

Tiger Lily shifts, so she’s sitting. Wendy sits beside her, but even seated the space is claustrophobic, and her breath sounds over-loud in her ears. Tiger Lily draws her legs up against her chest, and wraps her arms around them, resting one cheek against the bony points of her knees. Her face is cast in shadow, but even so, her eyes are unnaturally bright, shining with a hint of the fire Wendy saw beneath her skin, from when Peter made her burn. Her voice is quiet, sorrowful almost, and her gaze focuses on nothing in particular. Wendy draws her legs up too, and listens.

“There are many stories about the monster, but all of them start a very long time ago, before there was a Neverland. None of the stories are clear on exactly what kind of creature the monster was to start off with—not an animal, or a man, or a raging fire, but all of those things mixed together, with blunt teeth and sharp horns, hooves and wicked claws. Or maybe it only became those things afterward. Stories that old tend to change over time.

“One thing all the stories agree upon is that it was already ancient when Neverland was born. Some claim the monster is the seed from which Neverland grew, and others that it was simply the first creature to step foot on the island, calling it into being.

“The way it came to the island, or created the island, is that it committed an unspeakable act, and it was sent into exile. Because of the act, the creature was split in two. Part of it was buried deep underground, and part of it lived on the surface in the light. The two halves were never meant to know the other existed.”