Peter looked out towards the tree house he’d called home for so long, and suddenly that golden world he’d only known in bedtime stories and magazines rushed in to take its place. And his heart skipped at the thought of all those pretty little towns with their white church spires poking up above the trees. Where streets were alive with the sound of tinging bicycle bells and lawn sprinklers going chucka chucka over carpets of glossy green grass. Where children bundled into bright yellow buses and the mailbox sat cockeyed on a post with a flip-down lid like the sole of one of his dad’s busted-up shoes. He saw it all so suddenly and clearly. Every sight. Every sound, except one. He couldn’t picture Cooper there. He looked for him in among those weaving bicycles. He tried to find him out on that pristine lawn. In the garage. The bedroom, perhaps, where the scent of log smoke and sweat might still linger. But he was nowhere.

Peter’s throat tightened. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

“It’s a lot to take in, Peter. And I wanted so deeply for the choice to be yours.”

“Even though it never was.”

“I’m sorry. Truly.”

“And no Returnees can stay behind?”

“No one can stay behind.”

“But mainly them.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to,” said Peter. “But if the Returnees have been accepted as some kind of ally, why has a bounty hunter been sent out to kill them?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did. Perhaps the ranger was provoked. Daisy or Wyatt must’ve instigated violence for them to have taken such action.”

But Peter wasn’t convinced.

Tokala wandered across the ice a few feet away from where they were standing and scanned the darkness of the woods. “Are you and Cooper sure no one followed you back?”

“What?”

“Are you sure no one—”

“Yes,” said Peter. “Yes, of course.”

“Peter.”

“I said yes. We chased the ranger over a cliff. But even if he’d survived, Cooper knows the rules. The lake might not have any faith in me, but he’d never be so stupid as to let anyone follow. We waited in the tunnel behind the falls for three hours before clearing the other side. No one took up the trail behind us.”

Tokala looked back. “Very well.”

“And you haven’t given Wranglestone’s whereabouts away to anyone?” Peter asked. “Before you came for us, I mean.”

“We have not.”

“To your town or the people outside it?”

“We came straight here when we saw your flare that night.”