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I put my face in my hands and suck in two, three long breaths.

Fucking hell.

Come on, Dorothy. Get it together.

You’re looking for food, not melancholy.

I notice a pair of double doors on the far wall, each with a thick steel handle. I go to them and yank the handles up. The latch clanks open, and a hiss belches out along with a gust of cold, condensed air.

A walk-in refrigerator?

The interior is also constructed of stone with shelves bolted into the wall and wooden crates set on them. Blocks of ice in metal crates run the perimeter of the room beneath the bottom shelf. The condensed cold air mists off the ice.

Hunger pangs lance through my stomach just looking at all the food stuffed inside. I find a crate of apples and pluck a ripe red one from the top, biting into it. As I snack, I inspect the crates and find smoked meat, fresh fish, carrots, chilled dough, round cakes, butter, cream, and jars full of a reddish-brown liquid. Popping off the cap, I’m greeted with the familiar scent of apple cider.

I’m immediately taken back to the harvest festivals with Em and Henry, the crisp autumn air, the smell of baked apple pies and caramel corn. There was always a big group of us, local farmers and their families, who would gather around one of the bonfires, eating cake donuts, and drinking cider.

That feeling of comfort seeps in, replacing some of the despair and rage. But just beneath that is the disquieting awareness that I’ve been fighting to get back home, only to realize I may not know where home is.

I fill up my arms with carrots and meat, several cakes, and a bottle of cider.

Careful with the armful, I slowly edge out of the chilled room and find Rook standing on the other side of the worktable.

Without thinking, I drop the food from my left arm, leaving the bottle of cider in my right hand. I cock it back and throw it across the room, aiming for his head.

He snatches it from the air effortlessly.

I’m so shocked by all of this, by seeing him, by his competency, by his ability to so easily dodge the reaction of my rage, that I stagger sideways and crush one of the cakes beneath my boot.

Goddammit.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“You survived,” he says.

He does not sound surprised.

“No thanks to you.”

His gaze sweeps over me, taking in my new armor. “He’s made you into a vision of himself. He works quickly.”

The Tinman. His older brother.

“If I’m going to defeat you, I can’t be what I was.”

Heat flushes up my neck. I didn’t mean to surrender a confession to him so easily. I am determined, but it feels stupid to state it, especially with him.

“Defeat me?” A laugh comes through his nose as a huff of air.

“What else would I do now that you’ve stolen from me and stabbed me?”

The merriment leaves his eyes in a flash and he is suddenly, sharply serious. “You cannot defeat me.”

I summon a sliver of the Tinman’s carelessness and say, “Are you so sure?”

Rook stares at me for several long, achingly still seconds. My heart kicks up in my chest as time stretches.

Then he blinks and sets the bottle of cider on the worktable between us. “Do you plan to stay with him? Team up? Defeat me together?”