She missed helping Sage with the lambs and gathering berries and herbs in the Forest. She missed swimming in the spring-fed pools. She even missed Watcher duty sometimes, sitting on the shore as the sun rose across the water, hearing the wild swans trumpet in the sky, praying that they would land somewhere else. She missed the festivals, the way Endlan voices would join together so perfectly that it was almost as if they were one voice, the voice of Endla itself, releasing its cry into the universe. She missed feeling like she was a part of something.

It was strange, to be a stranger. To feel the eyes of every villager following her when she went into town. No one was ever cruel to her, and over time they began to speak to her—and eventually accept her, when they knew she wasn’t going to lure away their children with one of her wicked songs or seduce their partners in the night. She was just a girl, they would come to realize. A girl wanting to be accepted, a girl who had never wanted to harm anything.

But there was Jaren, and his very existence helped on even the hardest days. His sisters had warmed to her, especially Sofia, who followed Leelo around like she was some kind of mythical creature.

You still have magic, even if you don’t sing, Jaren had said to Leelo one time as she lay in his arms, winding his fingers through her hair gently. It reminded her of what Sage had told her, and she reached into her pocket to touch the crude swan carving her cousin had made.

She still missed Sage sometimes, and even, every now and then, Aunt Ketty. Leelo couldn’t help feeling that if she’d known the truth all along, things could have been different. Ketty had killed Uncle Hugo, but she’d done it to protect her sister, and that altered Leelo’s perspective of everything. It was such a Ketty thing to do, to defend one thing at the complete expense of another. To be so afraid of what the truth could do that she would literally bury it. Sage had been fed a different poison than Fiona, but it was no less bitter, no less destructive.

Mostly, though, she missed her mother. Knowing that she was so close yet so far away kept her up at night. Tate still cried for Fiona in his sleep, and while Leelo did her best to comfort him, she often wished there was someone there to comfort her.

One November night, she, Tate, Jaren, and Nigel were sitting on the porch of Leelo’s cottage, wrapped in blankets and scarves against the cold.

“The lake will be frozen soon,” Nigel said. “Two more months, at most.”