Did you hear me, Manon? The stalker’s voice worms its way deep into my brain, mining through its tender folds until it snags on the sharp ruffle of my spine. Before I’m even at the Limatra apartment, I call a taxi to spirit me back to Tai and Stökéwood.

I slide across the cab’s cracked leather seats, my skin still slick with sweat, and speed into the twilight haze of the mountains. It was a mistake to come to the city alone, and it was a mistake to leave Tai in the country. She won’t answer any of my calls, so I’m left looping her frantic messages again—not explaining, never explaining. It’s about Mama, she says, her voice tinny and tremulous, seven years old again.

I debate calling the police, too, after my encounter this afternoon. But what did the man accomplish, besides scaring me a little? I log what happened into my notebook, and I manage to sketch the man, poorly, with his three scars—clichéd, like he’s a haunted-house actor, really—and a slow warmth and strength begin to steady me.

When I arrive at Stökéwood, Tomí lets me in, bleary-eyed and reeking of booze, and I run until I find Tai, curled up asleep on the sofa in the library, a note beside her in Saxim’s neat script explaining she left to get some rest before summer school the next day. Tai looks so small and pale and unformed, like she’s a sapling that could blow away in a strong wind.

I decide not to wake her and tell her about the man: I’m the big sister, the protector, and I wouldn’t even know where to start. The encounter warps in my memory, and what I remember most is the shattering of the vase, and that smile. That smile that terrified me, like he knew me, knew my filthiest secrets, when he does not.

I turn to grab another blanket, and I see something there that sends a painful beat of blood through my heart. There, on the table beside her, the cover font big, the paper crumpled.

There it is.

White Fox, the title reads.

Before I can process it, I’m convulsing, my world dissolving into a frothy, metallic din.

This is what she found. This is why she called. I wait for the clamor to stop, those building, fizzing coins. But they don’t.

I run for my bag and reach for my anxiety pills inside, the ones I’m meant to take in emergencies, and I down two before I sit back down.

Is it real?

How on earth did she find it?