Ash leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He stroked Truman’s thigh but didn’t say anything more. It was one of the things Truman loved about him. He was patient and his patience never cost anything.

At the end of his first semester of college, Truman had returned to Metairie, relieved to be back in his own room. He loved Tulane and New Orleans, but he didn’t feel like he fit in. Within a day of being home, though, he remembered that he didn’t fit in there either. Remembered why he’d longed to distance himself from his family. That began one of the loneliest months of his life. During that time, he’d read the Dead of Zagørjič through twice. He’d finished the last chapter of book seven and gone right back to the first chapter of book one.

Maybe it hadn’t saved his life, but it had held him all the times he needed to be held and didn’t have any other way to be so. No matter what she thought of him, he had to look Agatha Tark in the face and tell her what her work had meant to him.

“Okay, let’s go,” he said finally. “I wanna do it. Don’t let me change my mind, okay?”

“We’ll go,” Ash said, squeezing Truman’s leg. “But you can always change your mind.”

Truman closed his eyes. Appreciation for Ash brought tears to his eyes.

“Okay.”

When they pulled up to the address Truman had been given, it looked so ordinary that his first thought was, This can’t be it. But that was ridiculous. What had he been expecting—an ice palace?

“Ohgodohgodohgodohgod,” Truman muttered as they walked up the steps. He wanted to hold Ash’s hand, but his were sweating so much he didn’t think he could. He pressed a shaking finger to the buzzer and stepped back. His heart fluttered like a jailed creature in his chest, and he felt light-headed. Then the door opened and he was looking at her.

At Agatha Tark.

He knew it was her somehow. In the opposite of how the house looked nothing like her, this person before him looked exactly how Agatha Tark had to look. She had broad shoulders, a severe short bob of thick, wavy gray hair, and eyes the color of the ice palace she should be living in.

“Yes?” she asked. Her voice was low and suspicious.

Truman’s mouth simply would not function for a moment. Then he managed to croak out, “Agatha Tark?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and she went to shut the door.

“No, please! I’m so sorry to bother you, but please wait just a minute.”

She leaned on the door so only half of her body was visible, waiting. “How the hell did you find me?”