“You shouldn’t be down here,” I tell her for the hundredth time. “Catcher won’t come back for Elias. You have to tell Conall that. If both of us die, they’ll lose Catcher.”

My sister shakes her head, the Recruiter’s scarf wound tight around her neck and covering her hair. “I’m not leaving you.” It’s hard to hear her over the whipping wind.

“You can’t stay here,” I tell her. “Both of us can’t freeze to death.”

She sets her jaw. “I’d prefer to think that neither of us will freeze to death out here.” She raises one eyebrow. I know too well how stubborn the blood that runs through our veins is.

I grab her shoulders, the freezing air biting my unprotected fingertips. I propel her toward the platform. “There will be other Sweepers out here later—I met one last night. I’ll find them and I’ll be fine. I promise.”

She shakes her head, digging her feet in. “You won’t be fine,” she argues.

“You’re right, I won’t be fine. But I’ll survive. I know how to do that.”

She ducks under my arms, doubling back until she’s facing me. “I don’t want to lose you again,” she says, her voice cracking.

I pull her closer to me. Moans float through the air, more dead washing onto the frozen shore.

I take a deep breath. “Sometimes you have to leave. Sometimes that’s the smartest thing to do.” I press my bare fingers to her cheek and she returns the gesture.

“Maybe so,” she says. “But you’re still not convincing me to leave you alone in the middle of a snowstorm when Mudo are washing ashore around you.”

I glare at her. “You’re stubborn—anyone ever tell you that before?”

She smiles wide. “I take that as a compliment.”

We stand side by side, watching the darkness shroud the black slushy river, white pummeling everywhere. Unconsecrated struggle from the half-frozen water, their bodies tossing over ice that cuts dead skin. Where they’re not too deep I wade out and use the shovel, digging it into their necks, pushing down and grunting with the effort of slicing through skin and severing bone. The heads roll a little and it’s hard to avoid their eyes.

I wonder if I’m somehow giving them peace.

My sister stares down at one of the empty bodies. “What would you do if you knew you had only a few days left to live?” she says. Water laps around dead arms and legs, tempting the deep.