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His hands pause for half a second. “I think that bear getting into Mom’s cool room rattled him.”

He wasn’t rattled. He knew exactly what he was looking at.

Nick gives his lecture on oxygen and altitude, and goes back to standing between us and the trees.

Luca drops into the camp chair beside me and offers me more candy corn.

“Is this what you want to do?” I ask him. “Run the tour business with Nick?”

What I’m fishing for in these conversations is courage, probably, though I’d never say so.

“For now, I guess. I love building things and fixing machines. I always thought I’d be a mechanic or an engineer or something.” He shrugs. “Then Dad died, and a lot changed. And I realized, as long as I’m happy, who cares? When I’m not loving it anymore, I’ll do something else.”

He’s not even twenty-one, and he’s already worked out what I’m only beginning to understand. I don’t ask about Mikel because everything I know about him I got from digging around, and Luca has no idea.

Here, my days are simple. Fresh air, a job I’m good at, new friends. It’s enough and I’ve stopped remembering why I was chasing anything more. I bought a plant.

“Can I ask you something?” Luca says.

“Sure.”

“Did something happen with you and my brother?”

Down by the shoreline, forty feet away with his back to us, Nick stops walking.

“No,” I say.

“Cool.” Luca eats another piece of candy corn. “That’s what he said too.”

We drop Luca at a friend’s house in Fairbanks. He gets out of the van and leans in through the door.

“You’re on your own tomorrow.”

“But there’s another group…” Nick says.

“Yeah, no.” Luca knocks twice on the roof. “Figure it out.”

He walks off. Nick pulls away from the curb, and we drive back to Ravenslight in a silent cab. I keep my head down, scrolling through my phone, casting subtle glances at him as we wind down the mountain, focused on the road like he’s deep in thought.

“Night,” I say, when he comes to a stop outside my apartment.

“Ellery.” He sits there with both hands on the wheel, engine running.

I wait for him to finish, or just start. Whatever it is he’s going to do.

“I’ve been a jerk to you,” he says to the speedometer. “Since you got here. What I said in the van, about you hiding.” A muscle tics in his jaw. “It wasn’t true. I’m sorry.”

Twice I’ve told him not to. This time I let him.

“The AC was never broken.”

“I know.” The heater’s on full blast, and my hands still find their way into my sleeves.

Half a crooked smile that almost looks painful. “I was trying to make you quit.”

“I know that too.” I keep my head down, otherwise I’ll be tempted to let him off too easily.

“I’m not going to do that anymore.” He finally faces me, and I make the mistake of looking at him.