But anywhere outside the lobby is settled in its cold now. Upstairs, it feels not so much like the thermostat has been set too low but like the frigid interior of a log cabin shut up for the winter. She paces the hall a few times, trying to make it work, but eventually just takes the opportunity to move her things downstairs. Extra layers, all her dance gear, every sweater and pair of socks she brought along with her—she packs it all up. She slips into an old plaid button-up, for comfort, pulls on a pair of fleece-lined leggings, then her jeans. Last, she slings the duvet off her bed across her shoulders.

They won’t be able to sleep upstairs, away from the fire. Not anymore.

The photo-booth image of herself and the kids: this, she won’t cram into her suitcase or risk losing in among the gear in her dance bag. She pauses in the icy room, looking down at their faces, playing the smooth finish between her finger and her thumb. Anna’s bear claw with its razor edge still sits in its place, in the pocket at her hip. She slides the little photo strip into her breast pocket instead, to carry close to her skin.

Turns her phone on: No service. Turns it off again.

Before she leaves, she crosses back into Anna’s room and stands there. Whereas the rest of the building feels vast, so empty it echoes, in here, the walls feel too close. Maeve takes a deep breath and tries to push it all away—then sets about tidying the mess that Sadie left behind. The bag and its contents, the clothing, strewn over the floor.

She makes up the bed last, a morning habit, the way she would for Talia or Rudy. This time the act of pulling the covers up over the mattress, smoothing them out, feels like ceremony.

Back in the lobby, Maeve works up a sweat by the mezzanine stairs, focusing on whatever burns: a lot of planking, then barre work at the rail. Karo in her office, no audience watching from the fireside this time.

With no witness but herself, she can concentrate on drills, hard athletic work, repetition. If performing is storytelling, then practice is meditation. She starts with her mind spinning out and her muscles stiff, but there’s a rug that keeps her hands off the cold ground and makes the floorwork easier, and her instinct is borne out. An hour, then two hours, and the adrenaline is finally gone, replaced by a radiant warmth in her working limbs. She can think again.

It’s hard not to keep checking the window while she works, though. Maeve catches herself casting a regular, furtive glance to the white expanse of outdoors, snow and trees and more trees. When she’s done, she gives in and takes a long hard look out, both front and back. Realizing, now, that she’s been worried the others would give up and return. They haven’t.