Max rakes his hands through his hair, as if pulling out the strands from his scalp. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he barks, eyes scanning the doorway where Oliver stands, anger thudding through him. “You’re just as strange as everyone says you are,” he adds, his grin turned sour. “They say you should be locked up, that you’ve lived in this forest too long—that no one can stay sane in these woods.”

I scowl at him. “I’m not insane,” I answer, wishing I had a better comeback, wishing my head wasn’t so full of smoke. “Oliver’s not dead,” I snap, but when I turn back to look at Oliver, his expression has changed. He’s no longer looking at Max—he’s looking at me, his mouth flattened, eyes pouring through me with the deepest kind of sadness. With guilt and regret and maybe even pity.

“Nora—” Oliver begins.

But he’s cut off by Max. “There’s no one there, witch girl,” Max says, pointing to the door. “You’re talking to yourself.”

I shake my head, confusion and fear suddenly clattering down every joint, and I step away from Oliver, holding a palm in the air.

I don’t know what’s happening.

“Weird little witch girl has lost her mind,” Max jeers, laughing now. He says something else, but I can’t hear. He laughs and more sparks skitter through the doorway, smoke filling the house. The fire is close now. But I don’t care.

Max can’t see Oliver. He’s standing right beside me, but Max doesn’t see him.

I was wrong.

So fucking wrong.

I take another step away from Oliver, trying to swallow, trying to find the right words, but they never form.

I thought the boys were worried I would find Max’s body. But they were worried I’d find him in here, alive. They were worried I’d turn him in, tell the counselors where he was hiding—a boy who drowned another boy.

One boy missing, one boy dead—a girl who couldn’t see the truth.

“You drowned,” I say aloud, staring up at Oliver, not caring if Max hears, if he thinks I’ve lost my mind. The thoughts are spiraling fast now, too many moments, too many things I missed. All this time. I didn’t see. I didn’t know.

Oliver’s jaw tightens. “Nora,” he pleads.

But I shake my head. I don’t want to hear my name on his lips. I don’t want to hear anything.

“Nora,” he repeats. “Nora, please.”

I move past him in the doorway before he can stop me, before he can touch my skin with his. The air is humming around me, sparks whirling through the trees. The fire is close now.

I waited too long.

Oliver says my name again, but I’m scrambling down the steps into the snow, into the chaos of cinders.

I’m running down toward the lake, away from the flames, away from Max Caulfield who isn’t dead at all.

From Oliver, who might be.