Gray clouds rolled over the beautiful sky and the snow started to come down again, stinging his face. By the time the snowmobiles pulled up at a little cabin, he was numb with cold and fear and exhaustion. The silence, when the engines turned off, rang in his ears. Aaron climbed off the snowmobile and gave Ángel a little tug as if to help him rise, but his muscles had locked up, and he fell to his hands and knees in the snow. Aaron roughly hauled him up and dragged him into the cabin, which was heartbreakingly warm. He was shoved into a chair near a woodstove. While the men shucked off their snow-caked outerwear, he extended trembling red hands to the heat.

He timidly looked around while he warmed his hands. There were four guys. Logan the traitor, who wanted to kill him. Aaron, black-bearded and deep-voiced, who didn’t. The third guy: a skinny weaselly dude not much more than eighteen, whose name he hadn’t caught, and whose stance on killing Ángel he hadn’t yet determined. And a fourth: midfifties, with piercing blue eyes and an air of authority, who’d presumably stayed behind in the cabin.

“I already know this was a clusterfuck,” growled the old guy, folding his arms over his broad chest. “Where’s Tommy?”

“Probably dead,” said Logan. He and the others seemed to defer to the older guy as though he was their leader. “The elf wasn’t asleep. We went up to his bedroom, but he wasn’t there. He came up behind us and killed Tommy.”

“How?”

“He threw him down the stairs.” Logan’s voice was husky with horror, and Ángel shivered too. “Broke his neck. I ran.”

“Did he recognize you?”

“I don’t know.” Logan jerked his chin at Ángel, who was huddled by the stove, his thawing hair dripping. “This one knows me, though. He was outside for some reason, and spotted us going in.”

The leader’s blue gaze clicked over Ángel, who shrank deeper into the chair and said nothing.

Logan went on, “I’m not expected back from leave for a week, so if the elf didn’t make me, the DOR won’t know I was there.”

Aaron said scornfully, “Dude, you think they won’t figure out that the guy on vacation was involved?”

The leader asked, “Why wasn’t Oberon asleep? Was he warned?”

“No way,” said Logan.

“Bullshit.” Aaron seemed to be Logan’s chief opposition in all things. “You gave it away somehow. You did something stupid and tipped someone off, and the elf was ready for you.”

“Fuck off,” said Logan.

“You fuck off. You came to us saying this was a sure thing, and now Tommy’s dead and we’re going to have the DOR all over us, because of you.”

“They were supposed to be asleep,” whined Logan. “No one was where they were supposed to be.”