“Don’t look at that,” Jack said. The distance between them was no more than ten feet. “Look at me. Why are you here?”

Ansel looked at Ava. “Your candle. I saw the light.”

She snuffed the candle.

Blackness.

He heard Ava draw in breath.

Jack stepped out of the hole, keeping his eye on the door. Hint of starlight. Ansel’s shadow—he hadn’t moved. “Are they with you?”

“Inside the house. We’ve been watching it in case you came back.”

Jack moved toward the window. Carrying the briefcase. His veins pulsing. You are so stupid. What have you done?

Ava boosted herself through the window and landed outside in the snow. Jack turned and met the boy’s gaze. Everything cold and quiet. Something about him so still. Steady. Like a mountain.

“They don’t know yet,” Ansel said. “Soon they will.”

They stood staring at each other.

Jack swung the briefcase through the window and hefted himself up and jumped down. Pain, his stomach rolling. He fell. In the branches, the owl spread silvery wings and lifted into the air.

Jack staggered up.

The briefcase.

He had the briefcase.

“Hurry,” Ava said.

He felt something whiff past the air near his head and crash into the tree behind him. The shot was a faint snap, muffled in the dark of the night. He turned in time to see the small flash of a second pistol shot. “Run.”

But Ava was staring in terror, and when he looked, he saw them coming from the house across the snow. He could make out two men. Gold teeth. Black top hat.

Jack gripped Ava’s hand.

“Hide,” he said. “Hide.”

They tore through the snow and into the field behind the barn. Ava slipped, and he dragged her up. He looked back. They were partly concealed by the trees, but he knew they’d be spotted in minutes. Maybe less.

He had the case in his hand.

They crashed through a stand of white birch and descended into a dark trough. Jack tugged Ava to the ground and covered a cough with his arm. An itch in his lungs. They could hear hushed talking and then just silence, the more sinister. No way to get to the car. If they found the footprints in the snow …

Jack pulled Ava to him. “Let’s just wait,” he whispered.

Quiet. They lay in the snow, trying to listen. Shivering. Jack was wet with sweat. His side bleeding again. He concentrated to stifle a cough and knew he couldn’t run far. He lifted his chin, squinting to see. Full dark. A scrape of dead branches. How long could he run?

“Are they coming?” she whispered.

“I don’t know.”