Luce’s voice halted in her throat. She shouldn’t care, of course. She shouldn’t even be there. The thud of trampling hooves sounded from the woods, maybe an elk running nearby, followed by the snap of branches, and somewhere a seal moaned. Suddenly she was aware of how isolated the two of them were together, buried in the core of the vast dim fog. He stared at her with fierce concentration.

“You’re talking to me now, is the thing. If I let you go you’re never going to come back. So I’m going to sit here and freeze.” He was shaking so hard that the pebbles rattled faintly under his sneakers. “Are you really not cold at all?”

“It’s against the law for me to talk to you. We’re not supposed to have any contact with humans.” She didn’t know how to explain that the timahk was much more than just the law, at least in the way humans thought of it.

“So?”

“So Anais will kill me if she finds out. Literally kill me. She wants me dead anyway.” She watched him suppress an impulse to ask who Anais was. “And I can’t let Dana find out you’re still alive. You don’t get— For us this is really serious.”

“Dana’s the one who found the drawing?”

Luce nodded. “She’s actually—she’s one of the nicest girls in the tribe. But there’s no way she’ll understand how I could do this. Let you get away twice. She’ll feel like I let her down.” His eyes took on the same expression of intense consideration she’d noticed earlier. She couldn’t stop herself from liking that look.

He reached up and pulled down the long zipper of his drenched parka, shrugging it off his shaking arms. His longsleeved T-shirt was still soaked, clinging to him. Luce was ready to snap at him for doing something so stupid when he grinned and leaned closer, holding the parka out to her. It was olive wool, with a lot of pockets and a quilted orange lining; even soaking wet it felt warm in her hands.

“Give it to Dana. She’ll think I’m dead. That way you’ll get enough space to hang out with me.”

“Enough . . .” Luce wanted to refuse, to tell him to forget he’d ever seen her. Instead she said, “Why would she believe me? That it’s yours?”

He smiled brilliantly. “There are five more of my drawings folded up in the pocket. She’ll totally buy it. You’ll see.”

Luce cradled the jacket, and noticed a name written in black marker down one sleeve. “Dorian.”

“You can read. Crazy.” He was still smiling. “Are you going to tell me your name?”

She hesitated. It seemed wrong to tell him, but then everything else she was doing was wrong, too. “Luce.”