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I N THE MORNING, ITINERARIES ARE SLID UNDER OUR DOORS. F AMILY AND guests assemble in the foyer for Leonie’s SUVs to carry everyone to Rothbad’s premier ski chalet.

I step out into the winter morning with people I hardly know or wish I didn’t.

Hammond looks wary, Elwood enthusiastic to hit the slopes.

Keeping my inconspicuous distance from the Phams, I follow my family from the parking lot into the lodge while everyone surveys the snowy surroundings with varying degrees of excitement or disdain.

In the past ten years, the chalet has been expensively remodeled into the height of elegance. Minimalist flourishes of wide, slanted windows and prismatic light fixtures refine the classic wood-walled ski-lodge design. Everyone heads straight for the gear racks on the way to the chairlift outside.

Or nearly everyone.

I hit the coffee counter. Espresso in hand, I post up inside the main lounge of the chalet, where I wait, nervous, for news of Jackson in the vault.

With my gaze on the snow outside, my nails worry the handle of my white ceramic demitasse.

My phone sits in my lap. Not even social media is enough to distract me now.

Views of the Alps face me outside the high windows. The excessively large fireplace warms the wood-scented room. In one of the chairs overlooking the mountainsides, I pretend I’m admiring the scenery.

Jackson’s successful vault reconnaissance is essential. While I envision my crew like chess pieces, the closer metaphor for the heist is the wristwatches for which Leonie’s home country is famous. Every gear, every pin, every spring works together. None of them functions without the others.

Without Jackson’s information, the rest of the plan is uncertain. Will he get a good enough look to give Grace the information she needs? Will he notice some new security feature rendering our plans impossible?

What will my grandmother say to him?

When my phone vibrates in my lap, I force myself to swipe open the screen, feeling panicky.

I don’t know what I’m expecting, exactly, but it’s not… fondue. The photo is from Kevin. His breakfast in Rothbad is what looks like a baguette with melted fromage poured directly into the hollowed-out center. It is enormous. It is cheesy. It is Kevin’s.

The message is shameless.

Kevin

You might be in a castle but do you have THIS

Despite myself—despite everything—I smile.

Tom

Okay I have the wrong job. Who wants to trade?

Kevin

I’ll trade. Flirting with hot Owens girls beats fondue.

Tom

I don’t need my job to flirt with them, Kevin.

I frown. There’s no Mia to perform for in this group chat, either. Which means Tom’s comment was intended only for me.

It’s irritating. Kissing me was fine when it was for the plan and I wasn’t with Jackson.

Flirting with me here is permissible when it services the heist. Now is neither.

Instead, it’s the dark fount of Tom’s impressive and valuable confidence—his conviction everything is his if he simply swaggers hard enough.

I need to put him in his place.

Olivia

Charming, Knight.

I’m adding your sister to the group chat now.

Tom

What

No

I’ll stop flirting, I promise

Enjoying myself, I plug Grace’s number into the chat.

Deonte

Kevin you’re bringing me one of those to the hotel right?

Kevin

You know it man!

Fondue bros

Fondudes!

Deonte

Yea ok

Olivia

Queen, we need you on the chat. Very important to the mission. Your brother is being annoying.

Grace

When is he not?

Deonte

Grace welcome to the squad

The one thing the chat needs is someone to dunk on Tom

Tom returns fire with a pouty selfie, obviously framed to reveal he’s seated next to Grace herself on the chairlift outside. In front of the stunning view of the mountainside, Grace grins as if she’s delighted to accept Deonte’s mission.

Tom

Grace you didn’t think I was annoying when I got you this job

Grace

I got this job because I deserved it.

And btw, if your job description is flirting with hot Owens girls…

Then I have you beat already.

Kevin

Please do go on, Queen.

Grace

The view of the Alps from Sofia’s room is much nicer than ours…

The chat lights with reactions faster even than when Kevin shared photos of the Pomeranian puppy his sister, Amanda, our erstwhile hostage, got last month.

I’m deciding myself between the heart Tapback and the question mark—did Grace really make something happen with my cousin Sofia on her first night here ?—when I hear the crash.

Everyone startles. I look up.

It’s nothing, I discern quickly. Someone moving quickly walked into or hooked their foot on one of the wooden chairs in the lounge, sending the chair knocking noisily to the ground.

Only…

It’s not nothing, I realize. Not exactly.

The man moving quickly is Ernest Hensson. He’s one of the latecomers to the mountain, his clothing not yet snow-dusted from the slopes.

I focus on the small, nervous man, who hurries outside to the ski rack. He doesn’t move like he’s simply psyched for skiing. He looks like he’s fleeing from something. Or someone .

Just like when I pressed him on the crossed-dagger cuff links.

I watch him through the lounge door. He collects skis from the “family” section of the rack I’ve noticed Hammond, Elwood, and their children using, rummaging until he finds a scuffed blue-and-gold pair.

In his haste, he struggles to clip himself in, stomping clumsily on the mechanism. One of the poles he grabbed fumbles out of his grip. It rolls down the gentle slope away from the deck. His mouth forms an undeniable curse as he chases after it.

In a split-second decision, I stand.

While Ernest is occupied, I move quickly to the ski rack. Of course, I haven’t owned skis since I was kicked out of my father’s house. I choose the eye-catching magenta set from the rented pairs Leonie has provided for her guests.

I don’t want to scare my new mark. No, I need to lull Ernest Hensson into a false sense of security. While he stomps back with his runaway pole, I snap into my skis and slide to the chairlift. I wait, pretending not to notice when he finally steps successfully into his skis.

The chairlift scoops up me and my pink skis into the sky, the cold wind sweeping over my face. Ernest, I notice, glancing inconspicuously over my shoulder, has gotten onto the chairlift several seats behind mine.

While the chairlift carries me higher, I reexamine our conversation, remembering his haste when I inquired into the cuff links.

What if everything connects? What if he’s stolen the cuff links?

Mia did, didn’t she? It’s the likeliest way second-string family like Ernest Hensson would end up with one of my grandfather’s heirloom sets.

How many of the dagger cuff links did Andrew even have? Why? What makes them valuable enough to steal?

Feeling the group chat continuing to go off in my parka pocket, I ignore my phone. The chairlift reaches the top.

I need to make Ernest come to me. I can’t look as if I’m targeting him, interrogating him. Not looking back, I launch myself down the slope.

With my skis’ seamless momentum hurtling me downward, I lose sight of my stratagem for a moment. It’s stunning here, the mountain’s expanse of forest-hemmed white under the impossibly expansive view, Switzerland’s peaks rising in endless ridges from the white valleys of the countryside.

It reminds me of my old life. I learned to ski on this very mountain, imitating my cousins.

On our final trip here, the one my parents made after my grandfather died, sitting on the chairlifts high above the world was the only time I could grieve.

No one was permitted to cry for Andrew Owens in Leonie’s house.

If she caught you, you were dismissed to your room without dinner.

On the chairlift, on this mountainside, I could let my tears freeze on my cheeks. My heartbroken little rebellion.

I refocus, knowing my surveillance of Ernest Hensson depends on the next few minutes. Curving to the left, I glance over my shoulder, finding Ernest speeding my way down the mountain.

Then I drop my pole in the snow. I slow until I can sit down on the mountainside, far enough from my fallen equipment that I can’t easily shuffle up the slope to retrieve it.

“Ernest!” I call up the mountainside. I wave cheerfully. When his features focus on me, I point up the mountainside to my lost pole. “Could you do me a huge favor—” I shout.

Hensson doesn’t stop. He skis right over my pole. Without reply, he shoots down the mountain past me.

I blink, stunned. What the hell?

Dodging my questions at dinner was one thing. Ignoring me completely is another. No, I don’t think this has to do with me at all. Ernest is frantic.

The question is, Why?

I start clumsily sidestepping up the mountain toward my pole. Other skiers pass me in wide arcs. I’ve nearly reached my objective when—

My aunt’s and uncle’s voices join with the swordlike sounds of skis stopping fast. Over my ski pole stand Hammond and Elwood.

“Stay put, Olivia,” Elwood calls out pleasantly. “I’ll help!”

I smile to keep from grimacing. I don’t want my dad’s ruthless siblings to think I’m weak.

Except… feigning helplessness could work in my favor. Lulling them, with their pompous possessiveness, into the false security I intended to instill in Ernest Hensson.

I pretend to lose my balance, letting myself fall slowly onto the snow.

Hammond chuckles. His laugh is cold as the mountainside wind.

“Come now, H,” Elwood chastens. The friendly nickname earns a frown from Hammond. “Olivia hasn’t skied in a decade,” his sibling reminds him.

I hear the subtle implication in Elwood’s comment. Outsider , she’s saying.

“We have skiing in the States, you know,” I reply.

It’s Elwood’s turn to laugh, her mirth loud and joyful, unlike her brother’s. She swoops deftly down the slope, stopping right in front of my pole.

“No, you don’t,” she says.