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“It’s a thoughtful gift, Lark. It’s just… very grown-up,” he sighed. He drew her against him and kissed the top of her head. “I suppose youaregrowing up.”

Henry offered an apologetic smile. But when she was upstairs, almost in her room, she heard him mutter to Oberon, “We already owe the Felimaths enough.”

Lark traced her fingers over the golden stamp on the back of the notebook. She knew thatgrown-upwas Oberon’s tactful way of sayingexpensive. She knew that before they died, her parents had borrowed a lot of money from Alastair and Camille’s father. Her brothers were still repaying Marcus Felimath; after every salt harvest, Henry wrote out a check addressed to Saltswan.

Alastair and Camille giving her a present wasn’t the same as taking money from their father. Still, an unpleasant thought tugged at her, that somehow the expensive notebook was a reminder of her family’s debt.

Time passed; she began to fill the milk-tea-colored pages. She wrote about her weekends in the garden, helping plant new seeds. She copied passages from her library books, and glued in photostats of her favorite paintings. The unpleasant thought remained, but she pushed it down to the pit of her stomach. It lay buried, worn over time like a piece of glass turned smooth by the sea.

She never finished the notebook, though. When school ended for summer break and half the pages were still blank, Alastair and Camille went away—along with their father—across the sea to Trieste. They left so quickly that Lark didn’t even get to say goodbye.

At first, she had kept up her entries in the notebook, but as the year drew out, they still didn’t return. Marcus Felimath had telegrammed her brothers with an address to send their check at the end of the salt harvest, so when Henry mailed the payment, Lark asked him to include a letter she had written for Alastair and Camille. Neither of the siblings replied.

She had tucked away the notebook and tried not to think about how, perhaps, her friends had forgotten her. And now Alastair was back, so suddenly and unexpectedly that he almost didn’t seem real.

He was older, taller, his hair grown longer, waves brushing silkenly against his shirt collar. Lark wanted to ask him so many things—where he had been, why he never wrote to her—but she couldn’t make herself form the words. Instead, she looked up and down the beach, wondering if Camille was nearby. But the shore was deserted.

On the clifftop, Saltswan was closed up and shuttered, as empty as it had been all summer. Camille’s absence felt like the blank pages of the notebook that now lay buried in Lark’s dresser drawer.

Alastair caught the direction of her gaze, and his expression darkened with realization. “Camille is still in Trieste. She’s at boarding school there.”

“Oh,” Lark said. Without meaning to, she’d already begun to imagine the shape of days ahead: the three of them in class together sitting at their old desk in the back of the room, sharing lunches beneath the courtyard tree, walking home together in the spring twilight. “Will you come back to school in the village, now that you’re home?”

Alastair shook his head. “Father hired a tutor for me.”

Lark pressed her lips together and stared down at the ground. She felt hot and foolish for how she’d hoped. She’d clutched that hope like the knitted rabbit she still held when she slept, its ears worn down to tatters. Now, thinking about the way Alastair and Camille were divided not just from her but from each other, Lark wanted to cry.

“And you…?” Alastair asked, taking an uncertain step toward her. “How have you been?”

“I’m fine. I’ve been fine.” Forcing back the lump in her throat, Lark cast around for something to offer that would make everything feel like it had before. “Henry and Oberon took me on the train to the city last month. There’s a new bookstore opening next to the canals; it made me think of you.”

Alastair’s mouth tilted into a small, hesitant smile. “Did you see the Caedmon mural at the art gallery?”

Lark shook her head. Despite everything, a small flare of warmth sparked through her at the fact that Alastair had remembered her favorite painter. “It’s still being restored. Oberon promised we can try to visit next year; they’ll be too busy with the salt harvest until then.”

They both fell silent. Lark thought again of the debt her family owed to Alastair’s father, the check Henry would deliver to Saltswan once the harvest was done. Alastair tugged a hand through his hair, as though trying to smooth down the windswept strands. “That means your birthday must be soon.”

“Next month,” she said, and the warmth in her kindled brighter. She liked that he had remembered. If Alastair hadn’t forgotten her while they’d been apart, then maybe Camille was thinking of her, too. Perhaps they would still be a trio, even divided.

Alastair was quiet for a moment. His brow creased, and he looked nervous. “I have something for you. An… early present. Will you come back to Saltswan with me, so I can give it to you?”

Lark glanced quickly toward the house, large and formidable against the dimming sky. Her fingers picked anxiously at the sides of her skirts. She wanted to go with him, wanted it so terribly that it frightened her. Yet somehow, the thought of going inside the house felt like she would be putting her bare hand against the canvas of one of the artworks in the city gallery.

As though sensing her wariness, Alastair went on, “No one’s there. Father is still away on business.”

Lark took a deep breath and forced herself to stop fidgeting. “Lead the way, then.”

They left the beach behind and climbed to the clifftop in single file. It was as though they both knew that walking side by side would emphasize Camille’s absence.

Wildflowers dotted the edges of the path, their petals closedagainst the oncoming night. Saltswan grew larger and larger as they approached, and when they reached the wrought iron gateway, Lark had to subdue the urge to pinch herself. Even with the windows shuttered and the gate closed, the house was so beautiful that it didn’t seem real.

A silver chain and padlock were fastened around the gate. Alastair reached for the rails, then paused to look back at her. “I don’t have a key,” he said, glancing at the lock.

Lark had been about to ask why Alastair didn’t have a key to his own house, but she swallowed down the question when she saw how embarrassed he was, a dark stain coloring his cheeks. She watched as he climbed the gate with an ease that suggested practice. Then, gathering up her skirts, she climbed after him. They paused together at the top of the gate.

“Look, our footprints are still on the sand,” she said, pointing. They both looked down at the beach. From the top of the gate, Lark could see all the way along the coastline to her cottage, where lantern light gleamed in the front windows and her brothers would be preparing dinner.

Alastair smiled at her, then dropped to the ground on the other side. Lark followed him and started toward the main entrance of the house. Alastair shook his head. He looked embarrassed again, gesturing to a screen of espaliered trees that divided the front gardens from the rear grounds. “This way.”