Wendy dips her head. She doesn’t intend to look up as she steps past him, but Ned touches her arm.

“The inspectors are doing everything they can. They’ll find Jane and bring her home.”

Despite her better judgment, Wendy meets her husband’s eyes. The loss in them is dizzying, threatening to break her all over again. The stutter—nearly vanished in the eleven years she’s known him—betrays itself when he speaks, a sign of his exhaustion. She should say something kind, reassure him, but she’s already wasted too much time. She needs to go after Jane, and she can’t do that with Ned watching over her. Wendy pinches the inside of her arms to keep them crossed.

“Of course.” Her jaw aches with holding back words. “You’re right. The police will take care of everything. I’ll go rest. You’ll fetch me if you hear anything?”

She says it knowing there will be nothing to hear. Scotland Yard won’t find Jane. Only Wendy herself can do that. By the time Ned comes looking for her, she’ll be long gone.

“Yes, darling. Of course I will.” Ned kisses her brow. Wendy stands perfectly still; his lips on her forehead burn.

Darling, darling, darling. She knows the word for fondness, knows Ned means nothing by it, but she can’t help loathing it. The word has become a weapon, not in Ned’s mouth, not on purpose, but over the years it’s been a word to soothe, to dismiss, to hush. Her own name taken from her and turned against her—a gag, a chain. She would be happy never to hear it again.

With Ned still looking after her, and guilt dogging her steps, Wendy retreats to her room.

She allows herself a moment to sag, to feel the ache of Jane’s loss. As she does, a memory drops from nowhere, jarring and sharp. She’s running, her hand in Peter’s hand, the ground shaking, the earth bellowing.

It’s so real, so present, Wendy has to lean her weight against the post of her bed to remind herself she’s a grown woman in London. She isn’t a child, tagging along at Peter’s heels. There’s a lifetime of difference between who she was then and who she is now.

And yet over the years, in the quietest moments, she’s allowed herself the indulgence of remembering what it felt like to fly, to play follow the leader, to chase Peter along the twisting paths of Neverland’s forests. She wants that now, the purity, the simplicity, the freedom.

But this is something different. Not running for joy—running from something. Something terrible.

She can almost touch it. Her reaching fingers meet solid wood, a door, the memory locked away behind it. Something secret. Important.