Her mouth drops open, and for a moment she forgets to be afraid, or even annoyed. A castle with turrets and ladders and defenses sprawls between the trees. Bridges and walkways and platforms tilt madly around branches and trunks, some looking ancient and some brand new. It’s almost like something grown instead of built, except some of the wood is clearly salvaged from the ship on the beach. Other sections are carved right into living trees, or woven from branches still attached to the trunk.

The whole structure looks like it’s been started, abandoned, and restarted many times over countless years, no one part of it matching another. The most uniform part she can see is a barricade of long pikes surrounding the trees on two sides, enclosing the camp. In the middle of the trees is a space that’s been completely cleared. There’s a fire with a cast-iron pot hanging over it, something else she guesses must have been salvaged from the ship.

“This is where you’ll cook for us,” Peter says.

He beams, as if at some clever trick he’s pulled, and she finds herself dizzy again, but not in the lightheaded way. Her blood fizzes from the tip of her toes to the top of her head, making her cheeks hot.

“I told you, I don’t know how to cook!” She yanks her arm free of his grip, stomping her foot.

He still hasn’t explained where Neverland is, or why he keeps calling her by her mother’s name, and he hasn’t listened to a single thing she’s said. He never asks, all he does is tell, as if his words are the law holding this place together and making things true, and she’s utterly fed up with it.

All around the boys fall silent, eyes wide, watching to see what she’ll do, what he’ll do in return. Peter’s eyes, full storm gray in the shadows, go even darker, flickering from hurt to anger. There’s a dangerous thing there—she can just see the very edges of it—and she’s glad she didn’t shove him, even though she wanted to very much.

“Enough.” Peter grabs her arm again, nails digging in, and she can’t hold back a small, startled noise.

When he lets go, crescent moons of red linger, imprinted on her skin. As quick as his smile vanished, it returns, and it’s the sweetest thing in the world, sugar melting in a copper pot. She finds her cheeks warming again, inexplicably wanting to forgive him just as badly as she wanted to push him a moment ago.

“Cooking is easy,” Peter says, his tone gentle, coaxing, patient. “Look, I’ll show you.”