"That's where we start."
"It's also exposed. No cover. If the doppelgänger attacks while we're searching then there’s nowhere to hide."
"We don't have time to wait for perfect conditions. Emmett gave me three days. We're down to one."
Maren nodded slowly. She knew that they to find the locket, destroy it, end the doppelgänger, and somehow prove to the Council that she wasn't the threat everyone believed her to be in one day.
Simple.
"When the storm clears, we go," she said.
"When the storm clears," Tristan agreed.
They finished eating and cleaned up, falling into an easy rhythm that spoke of too many days spent in close quarters. Maren found herself watching him move through the space, cataloguing small things about him that would poke through when he didn’t think she was looking.
He'd lost someone to fear and spent three years carrying that failure. Now he was determined not to repeat it, even if it meant standing alone against an entire town.
They waited for weather to break and prepared for a fight that would determine whether Maren Pitch survived to see another winter in Hollow Oak. Or if the doppelgänger wearing her face would take her place permanently.
21
TRISTAN
The storm hadn't broken.
Tristan stood at the window watching daylight fade to dusk, then dusk to full dark, while snow continued its relentless assault. They'd lost their window. Lost the entire day waiting for weather that refused to cooperate.
Tomorrow was the deadline and Emmett would call another Council meeting, amd they would be without evidence, without the locket, without anything concrete to show for the three days he'd been given, the decision would go against Maren.
Exile. Binding. Worse.
"We could try anyway," Maren said from behind him. "Go now, in the dark."
"Visibility's almost zero. We'd be stumbling blind while that thing has perfect awareness of every shadow." Tristan kept his voice level despite the frustration building in his chest. "That's how people die."
"People die from waiting too."
"Not tonight they don't."
She didn't argue, which somehow made it worse. Just moved to the fire and added wood with mechanical precision, hershadows spreading across the floor in restless patterns that mirrored his own agitation.
The day had passed in uncomfortable quiet after their morning conversation. Tristan hadn't meant to tell her about his mate, hadn't planned to excavate wounds that had barely scabbed over. But something about Maren made honesty feel necessary, like hiding would only make the inevitable hurt worse.
His back ached where the doppelgänger had struck. The salve had helped, but movement still pulled at healing wounds.
"I should make dinner," Maren said, breaking the quiet.
"I'm not hungry."
"Neither am I. But we should eat anyway."
She prepared something simple from their dwindling supplies. Tristan forced himself to help, needing movement, needing distraction from the growing certainty that he'd failed before even getting the chance to properly fight.
They ate in silence. The food tasted like ash, but he choked it down because she was right, they needed energy for whatever tomorrow brought.
"Tell me about her," Maren said suddenly.
Tristan's hand stilled on his mug. "Who?"
