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Ellery glowers and thinks I don’t see.

“Thanks.” She takes the items from Tess. Once she has everything loaded, she climbs into the passenger seat and buckles up.

We drive in silence until we pull into the driveway of the first pickup. I make no move to get out to do the meet and greet like usual.

“Please locate and greet our guests.”

“Okay,” she mutters and disappears into the hotel, returning with a family of four. Once they’re seated, she climbs in with them, like she has every night since she started. Fine. She can hide back there all she likes.

When we reach the lake, I dump a box filled with newspaper, kindling, and matches in her arms, stuffing the fire starters into my pocket.

“What—” She stops. Any second now she’s going to admit she has no idea how to start a fire. Instead, she heaves the box higher and strides toward the fire pit. If looks could combust, she’d have set me ablaze right there and then.

I march down to the shore to give my tutorial on capturing aurora photos to our guests. But I keep one ear tuned to the fire, because of course I do.

It does not go well.

The first match sputters and dies instantly. So does the second. I hear the scrape of the box and a frustrated little exhale. Another match flaring and guttering out. She’s bunched the newspaper together too tightly and stacked the kindling like a log cabin with no room to breathe.

The next match snaps clean in half between her fingers.

“Come on,” she whispers, so quietly only a vampire would catch it. “Come on.”

For one ugly second I almost go to her. Almost cross the clearing to give her the fire starters and soothe that crack in her voice. My hand closes around them in my pocket. One more match. If that one dies, I’m going over there.

She sits back on her heels and digs out her phone. She’s about to give up. Call home, book a flight.

She’s reading.

Now she’s pulling the newspaper looser and building the kindling into an open teepee instead of a wall. Her unsteady hands cup around the next match like it’s the last one in the box.

By the time I wander back up, the fire’s roaring, the snack table is arranged, and she’s crouched beside it helping the little girl spear a marshmallow on a stick. She’s grinning at the kid like none of the last twenty minutes happened.

She catches my eye. Triumph, undisguised.

Now I’m the one who wants to set something on fire.

At the end of the evening, I deliver her back to her apartment. Before she gets out, I stop her. “Ellery?” It’s the first time I’ve said her name all night and it comes out rough.

She turns, and for a second her expression is open, unguarded. “Yeah?”

“I’m going to need you to come by the office for a few hours before departure tomorrow.” That isn’t what I meant to say, and now I’m in the middle of it. “And, probably, every day, to do some other tasks.”

“Is this paid, or is it character building?”

“On the clock.”

“I’m scheduled to work at the cafe from four until eight,” she says, like the math doesn’t compute.

“Great, so I’ll see you at two.” I hand her a business card with my address on it. “Goodnight.”

I stare out the windshield while I wait for her refusal.

She shuts the door with more force than necessary to make her feelings known, and I count it as a win, which tells you everything about the kind of week I’m having.

I’m in the tour office with my boots up on the desk, flicking through one of our brochures like I don’t have it memorized. She shows up a full fifteen minutes early, hair pulled into a messy bun, and stands in the middle of the floor waiting to be told what to do.

“Here’s your list.” I give her a notepad and watch as she scans it.