One crouched in front of her, one crouched in the bowl of stone; they’re the same. Until this moment, did Peter even remember what he was, how terrible the secret was he planned to show her? Outside of this cave, will he forget again? Darkness blots Peter’s skin, not like the leaf-shadows in the forest, but underneath and inside him. The monster—it’s that same jagged darkness writ large, outside Peter’s body as though he could cast away all the terrible parts of himself and be only one thing, all boy and nothing more.

“No!” Peter bellows the word, and the thing in the hollow roars back, the walls shaking.

“Mothers are supposed to love their children. If you love me, you have to love him, too.” His voice cracks.

Wendy yanks her arms away, hard enough that she smashes her elbow against the stone. She hisses in pain, trying to scramble back, but Peter catches her ankle. She kicks with her other foot. The rock scrapes her skin as Peter wrestles with her.

“No. No. No!” Peter is a child, throwing a tantrum.

He screws up his face, blotchy in the orange light. Tear tracks glitter and Wendy stills for a moment, pity stealing her breath. The moment leaves Peter enough room to seize her face between his hands. It hurts, as though his fingertips have burrowed straight to her bones beneath her skin.

“You have to love me.” It’s simultaneously a whisper and a shout. The boy whispering, the monster howling, or the other way around.

With the words, sharp as any scissor cut, Wendy feels the knowledge of the shadow snipped from her mind. Only the hole torn is jagged, cut by an inexpert hand. Threads trail, and the pain is the worst she’s ever felt. She howls too, and the monster shrieks back at her before she slams a door over the space, over the sound, blocking it all out.

She can see the monster, then she can’t. Peter crouches over her, a frightened little boy. Wendy blinks. Her head buzzes, dull, simultaneously empty and full. Something has happened; she’s never seen Peter so afraid. There’s something terrible behind him, and he needs Wendy to protect him.

Wendy scrambles up, ignoring the throb in her arm, the bruised feeling of her skull. She grabs Peter’s hand.

They run. She’s falling, then they’re flying, then everything goes black. The ground trembles; the sky rages like the world splitting open.

“Peter!” She shouts the name, but the wind snatches it from her, leaving her breathless.