I was bruised, a little battered, all of it from Peter, but I had never felt as relieved as I had when I burst down from the mountain path and saw all these familiar faces. After reuniting with Eddie, I had done my best to speak with some of the pirates and I believed there was a reluctant truce beginning.

They were without a captain, they told me. Will had been the one to tell me. Will, who I had played with twenty years ago. Will, who had been banished because he began to grow up. So many of the boys were here and now I recognized in them what had begun happening to me before I'd come to Darrow. We had stopped loving Peter. We had started to become men.

I was glad to see them, but I was glad to see my Darrow friends even more, and when I spotted Eowyn, I hurried toward her. "Hi," I said breathlessly. "Are you well? Have they hurt you?"