Sara Wood immediately came to Maggie’s mind. This annoyed her. She should have thought about Shayna and Jen instead. Sara wasn’t a friend. She’d abandoned Maggie—and not only at that disastrous party. After the party, too. When the police had questioned Sara and the college had gotten involved and the battle had started, every person in Carlton, including Sara Wood, had taken a side.

And she didn’t take mine. Maggie shook her head. She still couldn’t believe it—couldn’t get why.

Don’t think about it. Hugging herself, she turned quickly and crossed the room to a shelf of finished vases. She forced herself to focus on them. “Your supply’s dwindling.”

“Sam’s been busy shipping and delivering.”

She nodded. She hadn’t seen Sam since she’d helped him clear out the apartment … on the day she’d met Linnie. Maggie frowned out the window at the gray lake.

“What are you thinking about?” the aunt asked.

“Linnie.”

“Hmm.” She slipped her hands into a bucket of water and began to rub off the porcelain. Around her wrists, the clay made her skin look like the cracked surface of a dry riverbed. “That girl had a rough start, saw some bad things happen to her mom.” She dried her hands on the towel hanging off the work stand and added quietly, “And experienced some ugly shit herself.” She wagged her head. “To know love and safety early on? I don’t think we can overestimate the power of that, how it gives a person a steady foundation and the means to handle trials later.” Her smile was sad. “You had that. That’s partly why you pulled through last year like you did—with moxie. It was kind of remarkable, that strength.”

Maggie didn’t know what to say. She was astonished. First Linnie, and now Wren—another person pointing out her strength. How ironic that that was their impression—the opposite of her own. By the end of the school year, she’d felt utterly flattened, sapped, wrecked. Scared and scarred.

The aunt was saying, “… and that business with her mom went on for eight years. By the time social services got involved, Linnie was too troubled to last in any one foster home. She got shuffled from place to place.”

“Four in all,” Sam said.

Maggie jumped.

He was standing in the doorway to the mixing room.

“You startled me,” Maggie said, her hand pressed to her chest.

“Sorry, Meg.”

“Maggie.” Wren rolled her eyes. “For the love of God, Sam, learn my niece’s name.”