Ben appeared at her side, close enough that she could hear him over the wind. “What do you think?”
What did she think? She thought this was the kind of landscape that painters spent their whole lives trying to capture and never quite got right. The kind of place that made you want to sit down with a sketchbook and not leave until you'd committed every line, every shadow, every impossible angle to paper.
“It's perfect,” she said, and meant it in ways that had nothing to do with filming.
Ben's expression shifted—pleased, maybe a little surprised. Like he'd hoped she'd understand but hadn't been sure.
“Come on,” he said. “I'll show you the Sisters.”
He led them to the edge of the pullout where the slope dropped away in a dizzying sweep. One by one, he pointed out the avalanche paths, naming them like they were old friends.
“First Sister, closest to the summit. Second Sister just below that. See how they funnel together? By the time you get to the Seventh Sister down there—” he gestured to where the road made its final hairpin turn “—you've got all seven paths converging on the same hundred yards of asphalt.”
Charlie studied the terrain with a protector's eye first—sight lines, escape routes, places where things could go catastrophically wrong. But underneath that professional assessment, her artist's mind was already sketching. The sweeping curves of the chutes. The sharp angles where rock met sky. The way the road looked so fragile, so temporary, cutting through all that permanence.
She wanted to draw this. Needed to, the way she sometimes needed to capture a face or a landscape before it slipped away from memory.
“In winter,” Ben continued, “when these paths load up with snow, they become terrain traps. Vehicles get caught in slides, pushed off the road. People die up here.”
“But CDOT monitors them?” Viv asked.
“Yeah, but the Gazex systems fail all the time. They self-destruct, freeze, malfunction. It's harsh up here. Equipment doesn't last.” Ben's voice carried the weight of someone who'd seen what happened when systems failed. “If you're going to film here, you need to be smart about it. Controlled avalanche, staged carefully, everyone in safe positions.”
“That's exactly what we want, of course,” Viv said. “Are there old mines here, too?”
“Yes. They’re everywhere, if you know how to look.”
Viv was glowing now, energized in a way she hadn't been at the tunnel. “This is it. This is Lord Felldark's Mountain.”
Maddie was taking photos, Rowan was walking the length of the pullout, and Viv pulled out her phone to call someone—probably the studio, Charlie guessed.
Ben stayed beside Charlie, both of them looking out over the Seven Sisters.
“You're quiet,” he said.
Charlie glanced at him. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
She hesitated. This was the part where she usually deflected, kept people at arm's length. But Ben had shared his mountains with her today. He’d explained terrain the way some people talked about their friends.
He'd trusted her with something he loved.
Maybe she could trust him with something small.
“I'm thinking about how I'd draw this,” she admitted. “What materials I'd use. How to capture the scale of it without losing the detail.”
Ben turned to look at her fully, and something in his expression made her chest go tight.
“The colored pens and markers on your desk.” He grinned. “They aren’t just for color-coding spreadsheets.”
Charlie felt herself smile. “No, they aren’t.”
“You'd want to draw this?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She felt herself flush slightly, unsure why she was embarrassed. “I mean, if I had time. If I came back up here when I wasn't working.”
“Plein air,” Ben said.
