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He was being protective. Chad deserved it. But the chill it left behind hasn’t melted, even in the morning sun. I want to know what I saw. I’ve written four pages about it, and I’m no closer to an answer.

My phone rings, and I’m grateful for the interruption. Willow’s face on the screen.

“Hey, Will.”

“If this surly man you work for is going to ravish and/or murder you, he’s taking his sweet time. I was hoping you’d be too indisposed.”

“Willow.” I laugh. “Stop.”

Last night, we got within arm’s reach of one of those things, maybe both, but I don’t dare say it. She’ll turn it into a bigger deal than it is, and I’ll never hear the end.

“Well, if there’s no exciting drama to report, what have you been up to?”

I tell her about the spot Nick took me, standing on that ridge with the aurora rippling around us. I slip my notebook under my pillow like she might read it through the screen and don’t mention the rest.

“You sound more…full,” she says.

I get what she means. I feel more full.

I prop my phone against my coffee cup on the nightstand while I scrape my hair into a messy bun and shove my bangs out of my eyes. “How’s the city?”

“Same old, same old. It misses you. I miss you.” She leans into the cushions of her fuzzy peach couch.

“I miss you too. You should come visit. Maybe wait until spring, though. The days are getting frosty right now.”

“Do you think you’ll be home for the holidays?” A crease appears between her brows, and I know she’s wondering where all this leads.

“I’m not sure. Maybe not?” My fingers find the gold raven printed on my notebook and stay there. I think I already know I won’t be going home for the holidays, but saying it out loud to Willow feels like I’m letting her down.

“Your parents have called me three times,” she says, breaking the silence. “They’re…worried isn’t the right word. You know how Claire is, but she’s concerned.”

“Let them be concerned.” I mean it. Mostly.

“Well, if your goal was to piss them off, you’re succeeding.”

I laugh. After we hang up, I sit with the fact that they went to Willow. Two weeks of calling me, and it never occurred to them to ask my friends where I was. I’m not sure which part I like the least—that it took them this long to think of it, or that they’ve taken an interest.

Chapter 17

Ellery

Booking canceled. No shift tonight.

I wasn’t expecting another day off so soon, but this time, I know what I’m going to do with it.

Maybe if I scratch the itch, I can move on from this small obsession I’ve developed. Light internet stalking, rather than lingering touches and smelling his clothes. Like a normal person.

Googling someone is never a good idea. I know this, yet I’m doing it anyway. My search doesn’t yield much. Just one article from the Stanford school newspaper featuring a photo of Nick and a pretty girl with long brown hair, both in thick neon orange puffer jackets, each holding the end of a tube of ice in gloved hands. They’re grinning as if they’ve won the Nobel, and I zoom in on her before I zoom back out, which I’d like stricken from the record.

The headline reads, “Grad team discovers carbon-eating microbe in Arctic ice core.” When he said Stanford, he failed to mention the doctorate, or that he was solving climate change like a damn Marvel hero.

It’s from five years ago and he looks exactly the same, right down to the haircut. I file it under men who peaked at a good haircut and never risked changing it.

As expected, he has zero social media presence, though Luca does, and he manages the Nightwatch Expeditions account. I find a post from when their dad died, letting all their followers know he’d passed suddenly, and they’d be closed for a few weeks. Mikel was his name. The photo is old, Mikel at maybe around Nick’s age. Dark hair, brown eyes with an amused crinkle in the corners. The kind of dad you could joke around with. Nick and Luca got more of Mikel’s genes than Marthe’s.

With the internet failing to give up more of its secrets, and back issues of the Ravenslight Chronicle nowhere to be found online, I take my quest to the newspaper office.

My first day in Ravenslight, I sheltered under the awning right here, soaked, with a broken suitcase. Now I’m walking in the door.