‘Hi,’ Amber says. ‘We broke down up the road and wondered if we could borrow your phone or internet? I just want to figure out how to get the car towed and look at train times.’

The woman laughs. ‘Train times, around here? Next one will be in the morning, love.’

Amber bites the inside of her cheek in frustration.

‘Why don’t we stay the night?’ Lumin suggests. ‘It will give us time to figure out what’s next.’

Amber sees the hopeful look in her eyes. Lumin is so desperate to get to Scotland. ‘Okay,’ Amber says. She turns to the woman. ‘Any singles or twins?’

‘One twin with gorgeous views,’ the woman replies.

‘Perfect,’ Amber says as they walk in, the snow falling heavier behind them.

Amber stares out at the snowy mountains, the shimmer of an iced lake in the distance. She’s sitting on the window seat of their large twin room. The flowery decor is in need of updating and the carpet is worn in places. But it’s clean and homely and yes, the views are amazing. Even more amazing are the smells that come from the kitchen below as their dinner is prepared. When their host had heard of their plight, she’d insisted on including dinner in the price too.

Amber looks over at Lumin, who’s bent over the room’s small desk, engrossed in her drawing. Next to her is the notepad that was found on her. ‘Can I look at this again?’ she asks Lumin, gesturing at it.

Lumin peers up from her drawing. She looks tired, her skin pale. ‘Sure.’

She hands the notepad to Amber and Amber settles back down on the window seat, flicking through it before coming to a stop on a page with ‘Arctic tern’ scrawled at the top. There’s a pretty drawing of a white and grey bird gracefully swooping towards a lake, its red beak open. Amber’s eyes glance over the bulleted notes from whoever the owner was.

Arctic tern

– Tenacious as hell

– Longest known migration route (equal to a trip to the moon 3 times over!!!!!)

– Will defend their nests and young to the death

– NEVER GIVES UP! (Hell yeah!)

‘Never gives up,’ Amber whispers to herself. She looks over at Lumin. Those aren’t random drawings she’s sketching. She’s mining her memories, pulling out what she can find and putting it to paper, her special way of placing the jigsaw pieces together.

That’s tenacity. Lumin was right on the road earlier. Jasper was right that day Amber had suggested they break up. She gives up too easily. Like with her car, which at that moment was with a local mechanic getting seen to after being towed away. But why? Why did she find it so difficult to persevere when a girl with no memory was working so bloody hard not to give up?