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I wake with a cry, my skin slick with sweat despite the chill. Morning light slants weakly through the window. I remember Connor nudging me awake, helping me into the bed. And I remember sheer exhaustion carrying me back into sleep. Connor isn’t here now, and the blankets are undisturbed on his side of the bed. He never joined me.

I put on my slippers and head into the main room. Connor is already up and dressed, standing in the kitchen with a mug of coffee. I glance toward the door; his boots are there, caked in snow. He’s been out already.

“Did you sleep at all?” I ask. He shakes his head, and I can’t help but smile a little. “We should get packed.” But something in his face makes my stomach twist.

“We can’t leave,” he says. Fear closes up my throat. He nods toward the door. “Look outside.”

I go to the window, lifting aside the curtain, and my heart sinks. The world is blanketed in white—a deep, relentless layer of snow.

“The car can’t make it down the mountain safely in that, not today,” Connor says. “Vance’ll work on clearing things, but it won’t be today, and probably not tomorrow.”

“Then we take the Sno-Cat,” I say.

Connor hesitates. Then, “I’ll ask.”

“Connor—” I give him a warning look. He puts his hands on my arms soothingly, rubbing them up and down.

“I will figure it out. I promised you we’d leave, and we will. But I don’t know how to operate the Sno-Cat, and if we act like this is an emergency, it’s going to raise some eyebrows. Although…”

“What?” I prompt.

“We could tell people,” he says. “Talk to Granddad. To my mom. If they know what’s going on, Nick can’t—”

“Magnus is the one who sent me those messages, remember?” I ask. “Why would he do that unless he knew who he was? Whatever happened, Nick didn’t cover it up all on his own. We don’t know who else is involved.” I don’t add that this includes his mother.

His shoulders cave. “Okay. You’re right.” He kisses my forehead. “I’m sorry. I wish I could whisk you away from here right now. But Nick can’t do anything as long as you’re with me.”

“We’ll go to breakfast,” I say. “Smile and hold hands and pretend everything is fine. And we’ll take the first ride out of here.”

“Hey,” Connor says. He rests his thumb on my chin, just beneath my lower lip. “Theo, listen. I don’t know exactly what happened all those years ago, or what’s going on now. But I know what’s going to happen.”

“You do?” I ask, skeptical.

“I do. We’re going to get away from here. We’re going to find the truth. And we’re going to be together,” Connor says. “We’re going to get married and travel the world and get a cat and have kids, if we want them—we’re going to do all the things we planned. All the things we promised.”

“Your family—”

“You are my family,” he tells me. “That’s the way it works. That’s what the ring means. Whatever happens, whatever we find out—we chose each other. That hasn’t changed.”

I put my hand on his chest, feel the quickened pace of his heart. The edge of my tattoo peeks out from under my sleeve. I never knew if it was a warning or a guide. Now I see that it’s both. It brought me here. Brought me to my past, to my memories. But first, it brought me to Connor.

“Let’s go,” I say. I take his hand, and we leave together.

It’s quiet in the lodge when we arrive; we’re up early, though already the scent of coffee and something spiced with nutmeg reaches my nose, and I imagine Irina has been up earlier still.

Irina appears almost as quickly as that thought, and waves us in. “I’m sorry, I am a bit behind,” she says as she shows us into the dining room, already set up with coffee on the sideboard and an array of tiny breakfast pastries. Her definition of behind isn’t the same as mine. “Olena is supposed to be helping, but she is—” She pauses, a frown creasing her face.

“It’s no problem,” Connor assures her.

“I believe your grandmother will be here shortly,” she says, and exits, muttering something about “that boy” under her breath. Three guesses as to who Olena is dawdling with.

I’m pouring my coffee—or, as Connor teases, my cream and sugar with a splash of coffee—when Louise arrives as promised, steps clicking on the hardwood. In the doorway she pauses, eyes on me, displeasure evident.

“Connor. Miss Scott,” she says.

My cup scrapes against its saucer. I walk to the table, setting it down at my place and offering her a gracious “good morning.” Play the part. Don’t let the cup rattle, even if your hands are shaking.

“I was under the impression that you would be departing,” she says thinly.

“Oh, I don’t think anyone’s leaving with all this snow,” I say lightly, not quite answering the question. “Can I get you some coffee, Louise?”

“Black,” she says, and takes her seat beside the head of the table, a good distance from me.

“I’ve got it,” Connor says, perhaps sensing that I might decide to pour it over her lap.

He’s setting it down beside her hand as the dining room door opens again, and Trevor comes slouching in. He’s a mess—collar undone and hair disheveled, eyes gluey from lack of sleep or drink or both. He yawns openly as he meanders over to the sideboard, plucking up a wheel of puff pastry filled with some kind of cinnamon-nut mix and popping it into his mouth right there, dusting the crumbs off his fingers and onto the floor.

“Quite the storm last night,” he says as he drops into the chair immediately next to me.

“It felt like an Arctic trek just to get here from the cabin.” My voice is bright. My fingers dig into my thigh. Every nerve in me is telling me to run, but there’s nowhere to go.

Voices in the hall. “… at some point they start sleeping in past dawn, right?” Alexis is saying, and then she and Paloma bustle in, Sebastian in Paloma’s arms. He’s carrying a pair of dinosaur toys and is smashing them together, growling like a feral beast. Paloma plops him unceremoniously in a chair and heads for the coffee, leaving Alexis unwinding a scarf from around her neck as she hovers awkwardly near the door.

“Hope everyone got a decent night’s sleep, because we sure didn’t,” she says with forceful cheer.

“Anything wrong?” Connor asks.

“Oh, just something woke up Bastian in the middle of the night and he wouldn’t go back down. Kept getting freaked out by every little noise.” Alexis tracks Paloma as she speaks. Paloma loads up a plate with treats and sets it beside Sebastian, taking her seat without ever making eye contact. “Which you would think would mean he’d sleep in, but…”

Rose arrives then, and Magnus. Rose is put together as always—with that way of moving and speaking like she’s considering every twitch of her facial expression around her in-laws. As we all take our seats, Louise watches me, not bothering to hide her unhappiness at my presence.

Irina comes in, carrying a tray with a steaming scramble of egg and mushroom. She sets it down in the middle of the table and wipes her hands on her apron, obviously frazzled. “A moment, please, I’ll be right back with the rest,” she says.

“Where’s that daughter of yours? Not helping you?” Magnus asks.

Irina’s eyes cut to Trevor. “She’s running a bit late. Haven’t seen her yet today.”

“We need to discuss you distracting the help,” Magnus says.

Trevor’s expression is blank. “She’s probably just sleeping in,” he says, and then Irina is out the door and the food takes the focus.

I reach for the serving spoon. I can feel Louise’s eyes on me as I finish loading up my plate and go to take a bite. Finally she sets her silverware on her plate with a sharp sound and says, “I’m sorry. I cannot do this.”

I freeze, fork in midair, laden with eggs.

“Do what?” Alexis asks.

“I will not sit here and share a meal with this woman as if we don’t know what’s going on,” Louise replies, all genteel offense.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say through my teeth.

“Grandma, I already explained,” Connor cuts in.

“Yes, yes, you told us about this so-called explanation. This perfectly tragic tale,” Louise says acidly. “But it’s not as if we can verify any of it. And she’s already lied repeatedly, by her own admission. Now we’re meant to believe her?”

I put my fork down with a soft clink. “I’d be quite happy to leave,” I say, enough syrup in my voice to drown out the fear. “If we had a vehicle that could get down the mountain.”

“I’m sure Mr. Vance can oblige you with an escort,” Louise says.

I don’t know what Mr. Vance knows or suspects. What he’s been told. But he was here when Liam died, and he’s loyal to the Daltons, and that means he can’t be trusted. But Connor will be with me.

“If Mr. Vance can give us a lift, then we’ll go,” Connor says.

I manage a nod. “Thank you all for your hospitality.” I stand, and Connor follows suit. He reaches a hand as if to take mine, but Louise’s voice pulls him up short.

“Connor, a word,” she says.

I press my lips together but give him a tight nod. “I’ll wait in the foyer,” I say. Play nice. As long as he comes with me, they can pour whatever poison in his ear they want. Soon we’ll be away from here.

I stride out, resisting the temptation to linger and try to catch what they’re saying. Connor will tell me what’s going on. I walk steadily, keeping my breathing constant, and I almost succeed in keeping my fear in check.

Nick is in the foyer. His back is to me, but at the sound of my footsteps, he turns, as he did the night we arrived, and as it did that night, his expression freezes in place. “Theo,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

“Getting breakfast,” I say. “Or getting kicked out of breakfast.” I keep my chin tipped up and tell myself I have no reason to be afraid, here in the lodge with witnesses only a hallway away. It doesn’t help.

He moves toward me, so quickly I don’t have time to react before his hand is closing around my upper arm, inches from the wound he stitched up only yesterday. The pain makes me cry out, but his grip doesn’t relent as he stares at me, searching my face for—what? His teeth are clenched, his breathing suddenly ragged, and I freeze.

Don’t move.

Don’t make a sound.

Don’t make the ogre angry.

“What’s going on here?” Trevor’s voice comes from behind me, lazy and unbothered. He slinks around into view, hands in his pockets. “Did the peasant girl steal the good silver?”

Nick lets go. He steps back. And without a word, he walks past us both, down the hall toward the dining room.

“What the fuck was that about?” Trevor mutters, sidling another step closer to me as he watches his uncle go.

“I don’t know,” I say, voice shaking. It’s only half a lie. Trevor gives me a curious look.

“He’s an asshole, you know,” he says.

“I know,” I say.

“No, I mean—he’s a serious asshole. His wife filed for a restraining order. He’s not allowed near her or the kids. That’s why they’re not here,” he says. “Would’ve put that one on the tree, but he’d probably shoot me.” He still stands with that casual, no-shits-to-give posture, but there’s an old wound behind those words, ridges of scar tissue running through them.

“You’re kind of an asshole, too,” I remind him.

“Yeah,” he says. And to my surprise, he looks guilty. “I’m sorry about your hand.”

“Are you?”

He pulls his hands from his pockets at last, and almost delicately he rolls up his left sleeve, one fold at a time. My breath hisses between my teeth. His inner forearm is dotted with a dozen circular burns near the elbow, all in various stages of healing, from scar tissue to fresh scab. “Sometimes I get the urge, and it’s like the only thing my brain can hear. Only I’ve never hurt someone else. So, sorry. That was fucked.”

“No shit,” I manage. He rolls his sleeve back down. “Thank you for apologizing, I guess.” I’m not going to stand here feeling sorry for this little psycho.

“Listen,” he says. “Olena and I were out at the cabin last night, but she left on her own. She should have been back in her own bed, only it sounds like she wasn’t.”

Dread curdles in my stomach. “Then where is she?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t want to freak everyone out or get her in trouble if she’s like—ditching work somewhere,” Trevor says. He swallows. “Can you help me look for her?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“Because if you rat us out, no one’s going to believe you,” he says with a shrug.

Olena isn’t back. There was a fucking storm last night and Olena isn’t back. But I’m not about to go off on my own.

“Trevor,” I start to say, and then I glance toward the hall. Nick hasn’t disappeared into the dining room. He’s only retreated a ways, and Magnus is with him, the two of them exchanging quiet words as Nick’s gaze fixes on me. Cold fear floods me at the look in his eyes.

I’m not safe here.

“Fine. Suit yourself,” Trevor says, and starts to leave.

“Wait,” I say quickly. “I’ll come with you.” Better out there with him than in here with them. Trevor may be an asshole, but he’s one of the few people I’m completely certain isn’t involved.

They’d never trust him enough.

We walk out together. Trevor holds the door open for me, a show of chivalry that feels more like mockery. I glance once behind myself and see Nick and Magnus still watching us. I pick up my pace, following Trevor out toward the trees.

“She should have come straight back here,” Trevor says.

“What’s the fastest way to Dragonfly?” I ask. He points, but lets me take the lead, forcing me to put him at my back. My nerves prickle, on high alert. Trevor was a toddler when his father died. And he’s clearly not invested in protecting the family’s good name. That doesn’t mean he’s not a potential threat.

“Your family seems to have gotten over your little stunt pretty fast,” I say, mostly to get him talking, make it easier to track his position when I can’t see him.

“There will be consequences,” he says in a gruff imitation of his grandfather. “Like it matters. They don’t even have control over my trust fund anymore, so they can’t keep dangling that over my head.”

“Oh, thank goodness for that,” I say, and can’t restrain myself from rolling my eyes.

“I’m a spoiled little brat, I know,” he says, and I can hear the grin.

“Don’t you have any loftier ambitions for your life? Or are you just here for a good time, not a long time?” I ask, not bothering to keep the disdain from the words.

He actually falls silent for a moment, our footsteps keeping up the conversation for us. “Do you know what anhedonia means?”

“It’s an inability to feel pleasure or joy,” I say. I’ve always thought the word was oddly lovely, for such a depressing thing.

“I think maybe I was born with it,” he says. “Can’t remember feeling happy. And if the best I can aim for is not quite as fucking terrible, what’s the point in trying at all?”

“Are you telling me this because it’s true, or because you want me to feel sorry for you?” I say, turning to look at him.

He stares at me a beat. And then the corners of his mouth hook up, one crooked tooth showing. “You could fix me.”

I start to turn back around, about to tell him to go fuck himself when something catches my eye. Everything in the woods is gray and white, the occasional green of pine needles prickling through. And in the midst of it all, a brief flicker of red.

Red—like a cardinal in the snow, but I haven’t seen any of them here, and then my mind fills with other things. Red scarf . I turn my head back toward it, but the contours of the landscape have hidden it from me if it was there at all. Still, I take a step in the direction where I think it was, and then—yes, a spot of red. Not blood red; brighter than that. The red of the coat I’m wearing now, and I take another step, and another.

“Theo?” Trevor says.

Vance warned me it wasn’t safe to walk out here in the dark at night. There are places that drop off suddenly, depressions and gullies. Easy to trip. Twist an ankle. Break a leg.

She lies at the bottom of a steep depression, face down. One hand is out in front of her, resting on top of the snow; the other is twisted under her body. Her dark hair spills out, the white wool cap lost. Snow has fallen thickly, covering her shoulders, covering the blood that pooled beside her head, but it’s seeped up, making a pattern of pink across the snow like creeping mildew.

“Theo, what—” Trevor says, and then he’s caught up to me. He makes a garbled sound of horror, lurching. “Oh fuck .”

I ignore him, scrambling down the short slope toward her. I grab her shoulder, forgetting everything I know about stabilizing the neck, securing the airway, just frantic to get her turned over, certain she’s suffocating—

Her eyes are open. Her skin has a bluish cast, and she’s dead, she’s been dead for hours, there was nothing I could do, and the first thing I feel, the very first thing, is a wash of relief, a release to know that I cannot save her and so I am spared the agony of trying, and I know that for the rest of my life I will remember that moment and be ashamed. And just as quickly, the feeling is gone. It collapses into sorrow, into horror and confusion.

“Olena!” Trevor says, falling to one knee beside me. “We need to get help. Get her warm. We have to…”

I look at him, waiting. He’s panting, frantic. And then his mouth closes, the air going out of him all at once.

I turn my gaze back to Olena, though it’s the last place I want to look. Her hair is frozen to the side of her face with a mixture of blood and snow, and the ragged lip of a wound protrudes beneath it. I look back, farther down the slope. There’s a rock there, the size of two fists pressed together, one edge sharp. It’s dark with what might be blood.

I think of the sound I heard last night, stumbling back to White Pine in the dark. Like a bird or a rabbit crying out in pain.

I brush hair from Olena’s face with my fingertips. Her empty eyes stare into mine, and I feel like I’ve been here before.

Here, in the cold.

Here, with a body that has long since lost its warmth.

With eyes staring into mine.

I’ve been coming and going from Dragonfly—Mr. Vance saw me. He told people. Told Nick. And this path—we’ve veered off course, farther south than the direct path Olena would have taken if she was going the shortest route. With all the snow, Olena must have been cutting over to the cars and the lake, to get to the easier path around the lake edge.

She was walking in the direction of White Pine. In her red coat, the same color as mine.

We looked the same in the dark, Olena and I.

“What happened?” Trevor asks, as if I know. As if I can explain it.

I look up at him, voice perfectly level, and say, “She fell.”