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Is he eating properly? I know he’s tired and overworked. All I can do is make sure that, for a few hours each night, he sleeps.

But what about me? How am I going to sleep tonight?

There haven’t been many nights since I arrived in Winterberry that I haven’t slept with Finn or at least stolen a few hours. Nearly every night since Thanksgiving, I have left this house before midnight, driven to Winterberry, knocked on his door, and slept with his back pressed against my chest. Every morning I have driven back before the sun came up.

Tonight, I can’t.

Three weeks ago, I was a man who went months at a time without seeing Griffin Hall, and I was fine.

How the fuck did I get here?

“Foster.”

I look up to see Sylvie watching me with an expression I can’t read.

“You know,” she says, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “The frozen pond is beautiful this time of year. Have you been down there since you got here?”

“Not on this trip.”

“You should walk down. I think it might do you good.”

I look at her.

“Go on. The pastry needs to rest anyway. I’ve got the apples now.”

I set the knife down and wipe my hands, then I cross to the mudroom and pull my coat and scarf off the hook.

I exit through the kitchen door at the back of the farmhouse. “I’ll be back for dinner.”

“Take your time, honey.” She glances over her shoulder. “Finn’s scarf looks good on you, sweetheart.”

I freeze with my hand on the doorknob. Then I open the door and step out into the cold.

The wind hits me, and I pull the scarf up over my chin. It still smells like Finn because I’m taking every shower I can at his place and using his soap.

The farm is stark in the low afternoon light. The trees are bare, the fields are brown under thin frost, and the sky is flat white like it’s about to snow.

I walk past the barn and the equipment shed, down the long track that leads to the far pasture and the frozen pond at the edge of the property.

I’ve walked this track a hundred times. It’s the walk I do when I need to think.

I’m about halfway down when I hear boots on the gravel behind me.

“Fox,” Nikko calls before catching up and falling into step beside me.

“Hey.”

“Alright,” he says. “We’re doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“You’re going to tell me what’s going on.”

“What do you mean? Nothing’s going on.”

“I’m going to say this straight. You have left the house before midnight nearly every night since Thanksgiving. You come back before the sun is up.”

I thought I was being so careful. Clearly not enough.