I watch the two of them and realize something I hadn’t before. Mary didn’t come just for me. She came to see if the one beside me would falter. And she didn’t. Not even once.
Mary nods once, then steps back into the snow, coat catching the wind like wings as she turns toward the woods.
“You’ll hear from me again,” she says. “Soon. And when you do, you won’t be able to stay out of it this time.”
“Understood,” I say.
And then she’s gone. Not vanished. Not vanished like a trick or ghost. Just… not there anymore. Like the forest swallowed her whole and the snow didn’t mind keeping her secrets.
The fire crackles again, louder now.
Angie exhales slow beside me. “She’s something else.”
“She’s a warning in human skin,” I say.
“She’s not wrong, though.”
“No,” I admit, jaw working. “But she’s not the one I have to listen to.”
She looks up at me, eyes wide and sure.
“You are.”
She takes my hand then, no hesitation, no pretense. Just strength. And I hold it, knowing damn well I’ll need that more than any weapon.
I don’t feel alone when the world turns colder.
22
ANGIE
The cold has teeth tonight. Not the usual sharp bite I’ve gotten used to up here, not the kind of chill that just slides down your spine and nestles into your bones until your fingers go stiff. No, this one’s different. It’s too still. Too quiet. Like the air itself knows something’s coming and doesn’t want to breathe too loud in case it wakes it early.
I’ve been feeling it since just before dusk, this low hum of wrongness threading through the snow, but I didn’t say anything at first. Cassian had that look again—that tightened jaw, that don’t-talk-to-me-unless-it’s-life-or-death glare—and I figured maybe I was just being paranoid. After all, we’ve barely slept in two days, and my brain’s been stretched thin between remembering everything Mary said, watching Cassian slip further into his own head, and trying to convince myself I’m still a journalist when I’ve already set half my career on fire.
But now, as I step past the outer edge of the old ice hall, camera still in hand more out of habit than purpose, the lens catches something strange. A flicker. Just a shimmer, barely there, like the air’s been twisted or bent. I adjust the focus, shiftan inch to the left, and there it is again—just near the ground, half-buried under a light crust of snow.
Tripwire.
Thin as fishing line. Nearly invisible. And it stretches across the path Cassian was about to take.
“Cassian!” I hiss, sharp enough that he hears the edge in my voice before the word finishes leaving my mouth.
He freezes mid-stride, maybe ten feet away from me, about to step right over it, boots already packed with slush and steam rising off his shoulders like a warning sign. He glances down, eyes narrowing as they scan where I’m pointing. One breath later, he sees it too.
He doesn’t speak. Just slowly steps back, crouches, and brushes the snow aside with practiced care until the line pulls taut. His fingers follow it to a small rock cluster and then to a small, blackened box with a red LED winking up at us like a dare.
It’s a trigger.
His voice is low when it comes, rough with restrained fury. “There are more.”
I don’t doubt him for a second. I crouch beside him, scanning the space around us. And sure enough, once I know what I’m looking for, I start to see the pattern. The same shimmer here, there, arcing between trees and stones like someone tried really hard to make this look like untouched wilderness. Which, to be fair, they almost did. Except they didn’t count on me still carrying the camera. Still filming. Still paying attention.
“Tripwires. Pressure triggers. Infrared, probably,” I whisper. “They’ve boxed us in.”
Cassian doesn’t answer right away. He just stands, slow and deliberate, eyes tracing the perimeter of the clearing. His whole body is tight, coiled, and I know he’s already running scenarios—how many exits, how many attackers, how fast he can kill if he shifts. But his hands don’t tremble. They never do. Not evenwhen I can tell he’s holding back so much rage it could level the forest.
“You saved us from walking into it,” he says finally, voice low but not soft. “You saw it before I did.”
