I veer up along the shore, deep inhales and ragged exhales burning my lungs, and I glance back over my shoulder to see if Oliver has woken and come to look for me. If Suzy is standing among the pines. But I’m still alone, crashing through the snow. Gasping for air. Legs burning.

The light changes around me—becomes pale and milky. Night transforming to day. Yet, the morning birds don’t wake and chatter from the limbs. It’s too cold. The world too silent. Or maybe they’re too afraid. A Walker girl stirs among the trees with fury in her eyes—safer to stay quiet. Safer to stay hidden.

Thin ribbons of smoke rise up from the chimney of the small cabin beside the boathouse, and a candle gleams from one of the windows. Mr. Perkins is awake.

I hurry up the shallow steps to the porch, my breathing still sandpaper. And I knock on the door.

Breathe in, breathe out.

I flash a look over my shoulder, but the lake is still silent, a few soft flakes swaying down from the sky, remnants of last night’s storm. Late to arrive.

There is no sound from the other side of the door, and my body begins to shake, the cold settling beneath my skin. And inside my coat pocket is the silver watch—I can feel it ticking, the tiniest of vibrations against my palm, becoming a part of my own heartbeat. I stole it. And when Oliver wakes… how long until he realizes it’s gone?

I knock again at the door, and this time I hear the shuffling steps of old Mr. Perkins inside. Making his way slowly across the creaking wood floor—too slowly. A moment later the door swings inward, and Floyd Perkins peers out at me with the keenness of a bird, sharp eyed and watchful. “Morning,” he says, blinking as a winter wind blows through the open doorway.

“Can I come in?” I ask. My voice sounds broken, worse than I expected it to.

The wrinkles around his eyes draw together and he grumbles—not out of irritation, but rather the stiffness of old joints as he pushes the door wide. “The wolf stays on the porch,” he says, giving Fin a quick glance. Mr. Perkins has always thought Fin was too much wolf and not enough dog. He’s a wild animal, he said to me once. I don’t trust anything that could kill me in my sleep.

Fin obeys and lowers himself down to the porch—he prefers to be outside in the cold anyway, instead of in the cramped oven of Mr. Perkins’s cabin.

I step through the doorway and the roaring wave of heat is almost unbearable, the scent of smoke filling my nostrils, beads of sweat already rising across my forehead.