hat night, Wendy couldn’t sleep. Instead, she sat in a chair by the window in her room, her feet tucked up underneath her, and she stared out at the stars.

A flying ship!

She tried to imagine it—a ship full of winged men sailing through the sky. Their voices calling to each other in the night. The deck bucking in the wind. Nothing but an explosion of stars above their heads, strewn across the heavens. It felt as though all the dreams of her childhood had been magnified a thousand fold and then wrapped up like a gift, just for her.

Come away with me.

Despite his handsome features and athletic form, his chiseled hands and the scent of the forest upon him, it was the ship that had tempted her. To join the crew of a flying ship! To live a life of adventures more magnificent than any she had ever imagined, seeing all the world from above!

But Peter hadn’t said anything about being a part of his crew. That hadn’t been the offer. If it had (and assuming she had believed him) she thought for just a moment that she might have gone with him. Despite the fact that she was his sworn enemy. Despite the fact that he had chopped off Hook’s right hand. Despite the fact that he and his crew had kidnapped orphans and murdered their caretakers.

Blood drinkers.

No. She shook her head, even though there was no one there to see. Not even Poppy, who lay fast asleep on the floor next to her chair. No, she knew she could never join them, no matter how tempting the idea of sailing among the stars.

If it was even true. If there even was a flying ship.

A tiny line formed between her brows as she considered it. Was it true? If there was one thing she had already learned about Peter Pan, it was that he had a tendency to exaggerate. But then again, look at poor Reginald. The man had died. Peter had claimed he could fix it, and then he had fixed it, bringing poor Reginald back to life. She never would have believed that claim either if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes. Was a flying ship really so hard to accept?

Then again, he might be feeding her false information on purpose, expecting her to report it back to Hook. And that thought brought up a whole new problem. Should she report it?

She could certainly think of several reasons not to.

First, if Pan were lying just to throw them off his trail—tricking the Home Office into searching the skies while he and his men snuck through the dark alleyways of London right beneath their noses—then reporting the idea of a flying ship to Hook would only be helping the everlost to carry out their plan.

Second, she risked looking like a fool. Or worse—losing her position with the Home Office. After all, Hook hadn’t believed her report about poor Reginald. That was what had gotten her stuck here in Hertfordshire in the first place. But at least he had thought she was mistaken about poor Reginald, not purposefully lying. If Hook came to believe she was inventing false information, he would dismiss her from the king’s service altogether, and then what would she do?

Third, she couldn’t report the conversation without admitting she had escaped from her lieutenant chaperones. Even if she didn’t mention Monsieur Dumas (which, of course, she never would, so as not to cause trouble for her friend), it would still be clear that the lieutenants had not been present in the woods when she had found Peter Pan. Hook would question them, and they would be forced to admit that she had evaded them several times now.

Even if Hook didn’t dismiss her from the Home Office on the spot, her escapades would be over. Hook would send more men. Crueler, more devious men. And Wendy would be Hook’s prisoner after all.

Wendy sighed deeply. Poppy opened one eye to look up at her, then rolled onto her back, bending her head to one side to watch Wendy from a more quizzical angle. Wendy smiled sadly and brought her feet down to the floor, tucking them under Poppy’s back for warmth.

“There’s only one reason I can think of to write any sort of report at all about this afternoon,” she told Poppy, “but I’m afraid that one reason is more important than all the reasons against it put together.”

Poppy wriggled on the floor, scratching her back against Wendy’s feet and making a low, guttural sort of sound that went something like this: “Rauuuauuuwauuu.”

“That’s right,” Wendy agreed. “Duty. Exactly. As a sworn member of the Home Office, I have a duty to report any encounter with the everlost. I’ll just have to report the entire conversation exactly as it occurred.”

Of course, Poppy hadn’t been thinking “duty” at all. Instead, she had been thinking, “Oh, it feels so good to scratch one’s back on the floor. You really should try it.” And because Wendy hadn’t understood her, she decided to try again.

“RauuauuRAUUwauuauu.”

“Well of course I’m not going to tell him where the conversation happened,” Wendy assured her. “I’ll just say I found Peter in the woods here on the estate. It’s the conversation itself that matters.”

Poppy blinked twice at her mistress, waiting to see whether the itch on her back was going to return, but thankfully it did not. Sighing in relief, she rolled onto her belly, curled up into a ball, and fell promptly back asleep.