Itheelia sighs. “But has anything actually been corroborated?”
“No.” Day gives her a sharp look. “And we’d best hope for it to stay that way.”
Itheelia’s mouth purses. “I’ll find you later.”
Day nods at her and then turns back to me, squeezing my arm. “Chin up.”
I stare over at Itheelia, trying not to frown but still frowning a bit. “What was that about?”
She shakes her head. “None of your concern.” She peers around us, making sure no one around us can hear us before her eyes settle on me. “What is your concern is why are you here?”
I frown at her rudeness. “I was invited.”
“I meant with him.” She gives me a look.
I give her a long, measured look. “Itheelia, your son has made very clear his feelings for me.”
“Yes.” She nods once, giving me an exasperated look. “I do agree.”
I don’t know what she’s doing? Either she doesn’t know or she’s just being unkind to me. It could be either. There’s an edge to Itheelia. You wouldn’t like to cross her. If she thinks I’ve hurt her son, if she thinks I’ve wronged him, she could just be toying with me.
I breathe out and stare over at her. “He wants only to be my friend.”
His mother rolls her eyes, and I shake my head at her, insistent.
“Itheelia, he told me—to my face!”
“Told you what?” she asks, brows low.
“That that’s all he wants from me! And”—I pause for dramatic effect and hope he gets in trouble from her for this part in particular—“that I bring out the worst in him, and—”
She interrupts me. “So you’re here with the other?”
I stare over at her. “What would you have me do?”
“Listen,” she says, eyes wide and speaking with her hands, “with more than your ears.”
I let out a sigh and shake my head at her. “Itheelia, I don’t know what that means.”
“Yes, you do.” She stares at me sternly. “The universe is alive, and she is speaking all the time.”
I keep shaking my head. “To whom?”
Her head rolls back, exasperated. “To you! I know you know.”
I blink twice. “Know what?”
She grabs me by the wrist and pulls me farther away from the party. “What did the wind say to you on the mountain that day?”
“What day?” I blink at her. “The wind doesn’t speak to me.”
Does it? Did it?
She stares at me, defiant and nodding. How sure she is makes me wonder.
Is that what’s in the leather pouch?
“No.” I shake my head, but I’m less sure. “It never has.”
“It did when you were with Jam.” She folds her arms over her chest, searching my face. “What do you remember about that day on the mountain with my son?”
“Nothing, really. Nothing happened.” I shrug. “We came and I met you. That’s all it was. There was no more.” Something blows around in the back of my mind, and I squint as I try to think of it. Except I think there was more.
“Oh.” She nods once as she looks me up and down. “You put it away.”
My chin drops to my chest, and I feel like I could cry. “Not everything.”
“What, just enough to hate him?” she asks, eyebrows up, and I shake my head defensively.
“I don’t hate him.”
“Not yet,” she tells me. “But spoiled lo—”
“Don’t say it.” I glare at her, shaking my head. “Don’t say that word.”
“Hey,” Peter says, grabbing me from behind. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, staring at Itheelia, my eyes begging her to say nothing.
Peter nods his chin over at her. “Witch.”
“Pan.” She gives him a curt smile.
Peter spins me around to face him. “Girl, is she bothering you?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine.”
Peter searches over my face, and he goes serious as he does sometimes and almost exclusively about me. He touches my face with his thumb, presses into my cheek a tear that I didn’t know was there.
“Are you sure?” He frowns, glaring up at Itheelia.
I nod quickly, always wanting Peter at his most defused self.
“She’s my friend,” I tell him, even though I’m not really sure she is.
“Oh. All right then.” Peter shrugs, indifferent but relaxing. “Itheelia.” He nods.
She nods back. “Peter.”
He hooks his arm around my neck and pulls me away from her. “Let’s go now anyway.” He nods his head in the other direction. “There’s a mountain peak I want to show you.”
And thank goodness, because I want to be shown a mountain peak. I want to be distracted—desperately—from whatever it was she was trying to make me remember.
It’s a short flight up there, and it’s freezing once we land, but it’s worth it because it’s beautiful. That and I have a feeling that I’m ever so fond of the cold? What a strange thing to have an affinity for. Is there something cold in that pouch? I wonder as a few snowflakes rustle by my ear, but I brush them away because they’re distracting me from what I’m trying to remember. Except do I even want to remember, I wonder now that I’m with Peter. To what end does remembering take me to?
There’s a little clearing on the tippiest-top of the mountain the castle’s nestled up against, and you can see as far as the eye will let you.
Peter stands behind me, ducks, then rests his head on my shoulder. He points to a distant light. “See that?”
I nod.
“That’s our island.”
I turn my head to look at him, and our noses brush, and through me cracks an interesting whip. Some sort of strangled wistfulness for Jamison, some kind of relief and fragile hope that I’ve Peter here all the same. “Our?”
He gives me a half smile. “My.”
I look away, rolling my eyes, but I don’t move away from him. A bit because I’m cold, a lot because he’s being the Peter that I think I came here for.
Peter slips his arms around me from behind. “Are you happy here?”
I stare out at all of it. “Sometimes.”
“Just sometimes?” He sounds bothered.
I don’t look at him. “Yes.”
Peter turns me around. “I want you to be happy here.” His eyes dance over my face like he’s looking for clues. “Is there something I could do to make you happier?”
I lift my brows playfully. “You could…remember my name…”
He rolls his eyes. “I know your name.”
“You could…” My voice trails as my eyes fall down his arms that are holding both of mine. I pick off a shiny scale. “You could not make out with mermaids.”
“I kiss mermaids,” Peter says, pulling a face. “I don’t know what make out is. It sounds stupid.”
“It’s the same thing.”
He shrugs. “I knew that.”
“You could not be weird when it’s my birthday.” I give him a look.
Peter scoffs. “I don’t even care that you turned old. I’ve been good about that.” He gives me a defiant look. “I haven’t brought it up once. You don’t look old. You just look the same, so that’s good.” He gives me a little shrug.
I poke him in the ribs. “You could…not leave me to die with a minotaur.”
And then something peculiar happens. Peter’s countenance changes. Something rolls over him that I haven’t seen in him before. Guilt, I think? Remorse, maybe? Regret, as though he feels actually bad for what he did. Peter’s eyes drop from mine, and his face pulls uncomfortably.