Chapter 88

Aria's POV

The snow arrived overnight and stayed.

Not the tentative early-season snow that melts by midmorning but the kind that settles with intention, remaking the landscape into something quieter and more considered. Shadow Peak under snow had a different quality than Shadow Peak in any other season — sounds traveled differently, distances looked different, the familiar became slightly strange in ways that required recalibration.

Kira stood at the kitchen window for twenty minutes before breakfast, not speaking, simply looking at what the snow had done to the garden.

"It's still there," she said finally.

"What is?"

"The shape I made. You can see it under the snow....