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I ignored every one of them.

Before I had even properly stepped off the jetty, I called Marion's landline.

It rang for a long time.

As I stood there listening, I could picture the phone ringing in the hallway of the house with the blue door, with nobody there to answer it. When the call finally went unanswered, I was already searching for the hospital's number when the taller of the two Council escorts extended his hand.

"Council regulations, Miss Hale," he said pleasantly. "No personal devices during escorted leave. You'll have it back this evening."

I looked at Silas.

His jaw tightened, and for a second I thought he might object. There were two escorts standing in front of us, though, and a boat full of Council personnel still tied up behind us. Marion was somewhere in a hospital, if the letter was telling the truth, and I had no intention of starting a confrontation on the jetty before I had even reached her.

I handed over the phone.

That was when I noticed the black car parked at the far edge of the harbor beside the fish market.

Unlike the dented vans and salt-stained hatchbacks surrounding it, the car was long, polished, and obviously expensive. I had never seen it before, and it looked conspicuous enough that I wondered why I had not noticed it the moment we arrived.

As our car passed, the driver's window lowered a few inches.

Kaelen Vance was sitting behind the wheel.

He looked at me through the narrow opening without saying anything, then raised the window again.

A few seconds later, the black car pulled away from the curb and fell in behind the green van. The Council car led us out of the harbor, Jax followed in the van, and Kaelen came last as all three vehicles took the coast road north through the gray morning.

"His father's car," Silas said quietly beside me. He was watching it in the wing mirror. "Fenhall keeps it at the harbor for Council business."

I turned toward him. "How did Kaelen know I was coming?"

"Fenhall's harbor steward saw your name on the order for the dawn crossing and sent word to him." Silas kept his attention on the mirror. "The steward also knows what Aldric uses that car for." His expression hardened slightly. "Kaelen knows his father."

That made the whole operation feel even more like a trap.

By the time we reached my hometown, it was nearly three in the afternoon. We had spent six hours on the highway beneath a low gray sky, watching the same wet fields, service stations, and concrete overpasses slide past the windows.

Daniel had chosen the café in the shopping center near the bus station. It was the same chain we used to visit on Saturday mornings because the coffee was cheap and he liked the muffins. The tables were still slightly sticky, the air still smelled of overheated milk and burnt espresso, and the place seemed to have resisted change with impressive determination.

It had been raining, which was hardly unusual for my hometown. The pavement outside the shopping center shone with water, parents pushed strollers through the automatic doors, and people stood beneath the awning shaking rain from their coats before going inside.

After three months on Ironmoor, stepping back into all that ordinary noise and fluorescent light was more unsettling than I had expected. Everything was exactly where I remembered it, but I no longer moved through it with the old sense that it was unquestionably mine.

I had asked to go straight to the hospital, but the escorts had explained, very politely, that visiting hours did not begin until five. Mr. Crane was already waiting for me with news, they said, and it would be unfortunate to keep him waiting.

They took a table near the door. At a nod from me, Silas went back outside and stationed himself beneath the awning, broad-shouldered and patient in the rain, where he could keep an eye on us through the glass. I had no idea where Jax or Kaelen had disappeared to.

Daniel was sitting near the window.

What unsettled me most was how little he had changed. His hair was still neatly cut, and he was wearing the same kind of jacket he always used to wear, expensive enough to be noticed but chosen to look effortless. His face still had that pleasant, reasonable expression that made people trust him almost immediately. He had gained a little weight around the middle, and there was a watch on his wrist that I didn't recognize, but otherwise he looked almost exactly as I remembered him.

"Wren," he said, getting to his feet. He leaned in and kissed the air beside my cheek. "God. Look at you."

I sat down across from him. "How's Marion?"

"Marion?" He blinked at me. "Oh. Fine, I think. I haven't—" He broke off and gestured toward the chair, apparently forgetting that I was already sitting in it. "Look, I'll get you a coffee. Latte, right? You always had a latte."

"She's in the hospital. The letter said she'd had a fall."