Sadie was in her room.

All those nights with Iain outside her window. Watching. Maeve feels like she might vomit. She thinks of herself, just a few moments ago, using the privacy of her assigned room to have a good cry. Privacy? It’s as though she were onstage the whole time. Her every move before an audience; she just didn’t know it. She scans forward, watching herself in fast motion: in the hall by her room, down in the lobby, walking in the snow. Once, the Minnie Mouse voice of someone talking, close to the mic. Maeve slows the film down to regular speed. It’s Karo’s voice she hears, at the very end of the clip: What are you doing there? Be careful.

Then another room. It’s dark and hard to see, but Maeve’s there, parading from end to end. Peeling away her clothes.

The lights come up, sudden and bright. She’s standing naked, Sim crossing the room to meet her. It’s his room the night of the party—the blank canvas leaned up against the wall reflecting light like a photographer’s softbox. He reaches for her, a hand at her belly, her scar.

Looks into the camera, and winks.

Karo is sitting up when Maeve comes back downstairs, but she’s wrapped tight in the bedclothes, a new dullness in her eyes.

“Good morning,” Maeve says. She’s left the camera upstairs. It doesn’t matter to her now if Karo notices it’s missing: she’d like to drop-kick it into the woods, bury it in snow, destroy it. She wonders if Karo has watched it all herself, if that’s what she meant by causing too much trouble.

Maeve wonders if she always knew. If this is something Sim paid for, Sadie with a side hustle, she thinks. Or if it was merely Sadie doing favors. Sadie in love. Or Sadie, ambitious and eager to align herself with the most powerful man in the room.

Maeve shoves a foil tray of food into the hot ash at the edge of the fire.

“You should have some breakfast,” she says.

Karo gives an odd smile.

“Imagine, this is what we’ve come to. The ballerina is going to make me eat.”

Maeve bristles but doesn’t respond. She turns the tray on the hearth, moving it with a careful hand.

“So, no rescue crew in the night, huh? Only more new snow.” Karo shakes the blankets off her shoulders but stays where she is, slumped against the back of the couch. “And then there were two.”

Her voice is low and cracks at the edges. A symptom of the dry air, but also something else.

Or is it? Maeve catches herself. Maybe it’s just lack of sleep, or stress. How can you know if someone is behaving oddly when you’ve known her only a few days?

“I should melt some snow,” she says, using the task as a cushion against Karolina’s mood and her own. “We need water.”