His hand lifts to close around my upper arm, at once gentle and urgent. I refuse to care enough to pull away from his touch. “What did you just say?”

I roll my eyes. “I said a bunch of things, Ian, but the gist of it was fuck off. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“What do you mean, Merel made sure that your project was funded anyway?” His grip tightens.

“I mean exactly what I said.” I lean in, eyes locked with his, and for a split second the familiar feeling of being close, here, near him crashes over me like a wave. But it washes away just as quickly, and all that is left is an odd combination of vengeful sadness. I have my project, which means that I won. But I also . . . Yeah. I did like him. And while he was always just in the periphery of my life, I think maybe I’d hoped . . .

Well. No matter now. “He found an alternative, Ian,” I tell him. “Me and my inability to carry out the project are going to Norway, and there is nothing you can do about it.”

He closes his eyes. Then he opens them and mutters something under his breath that sounds a lot like fuck, followed by my name and other hurried explanations that I don’t care to listen to. I free my arm from his fingers, meet his eyes one last time, and walk away swearing to myself that this is it.

I will never think of Ian Floyd again.

Seven

Svalbard Islands, Norway

Present

He’s not wearing NASA gear.

By now it’s nearly dark, the snow falls steadily, and whenever I look up to the edge of the crevasse, huge snowflakes hurl straight into my eyes. But even then, I can tell: Ian is not wearing the gear NASA usually issues to AMASE scientists.

His hat and coat are the North Face, a dull black dusted with white, interrupted only by the red of his goggles and ski mask. His phone, when he takes it out to communicate with me from the edge of the crevasse, is not the standard-issue Iridium one, but a model I don’t recognize. He stares down for a long moment, as if assessing the shitfuck of a situation I managed to put myself in. Flurries circle around him, but never quite touch. His shoulders rise and fall. One, two, several times. Then, finally, he lifts his goggles and brings the phone to his mouth.

“I’ll send down the rope,” he says, in lieu of a greeting.

To say that I’m in a bit of a predicament at the moment, or that I have a few problems on my hands, would be a vast understatement. And yet, staring up from the place where I was positive I’d bite it until about five minutes ago, all I can think about is that the last time I talked with this man, I . . .