“I don’t even know what to call it,” said Delarosa, shooting a glare at Marcus. He could tell he was stepping over the line, but mouthing off was an instinct when he got nervous. He resolved to rein it back in. Delarosa grimaced, like she was struggling to find the right words. “A monster? A . . . creature? None of it makes sense, but the stories are remarkably similar: a man-shaped . . . thing, eight or nine feet tall, and the color of a new bruise. It walks into villages, settlements, anywhere there’s people, and warns them.”

“Warns them of what?” asked Woolf.

“Snow,” said Delarosa.

Marcus nodded slowly, trying to form a response that wouldn’t get him smacked. Woolf was apparently thinking the same thing, though his tone was diplomatic: “And you believe these stories?”

“I don’t know what to believe,” said Delarosa. “I won’t deny that it sounds completely insane—more like a folktale than real news.” She shook her head. “But the reports, like I said, are too similar to discount. Either an island full of war-torn refugees got together to play a giant practical joke on us, or something’s really going on.”

“An island full of Partials,” said Marcus. “Maybe they’re spreading these rumors for some reason of their own.”

“The Partials are just as confused as we are,” said Delarosa. “The thing’s appeared to them as well, and I believe their stories more than anyone’s. If they knew our agents were humans, they would have just captured them instead of spreading the same insane story.”

“Trimble didn’t have any creatures like that,” said Vinci. “I don’t think Morgan did either.”

Delarosa shot him a sharp look. “How do you know that?”

“We’ll get to that in a minute,” said Woolf. “When you say he’s warning about snow, what do you mean?”

“Winter hardly seems like the kind of thing to warn someone about,” said Marcus. “Maybe the giant monster wants us to put on a sweater?”

It was Woolf’s turn to look at Marcus, but instead of derision, his eyes were full of sadness. Marcus frowned at this, wondering what he should feel guilty for, and realized that Delarosa had the same odd expression. “What am I missing?”

“We haven’t had a real winter in thirty years,” said Woolf. “Maybe that’s what it means.”

“A real winter?” asked Marcus.

Delarosa nodded. “With snow.”

Marcus had heard of snow, but he’d never actually seen it in person. “It never snows this far south.”

“We’re on Long Island,” said Delarosa. “It used to snow here all the time—‘this far south’ used to mean places like Florida or Mexico. But the climate shifted, and by the time of the Break even Canada was too warm for a real snowstorm.”