Marceline exhaled slowly, forcing herself to push the storm of thoughts crashing through her mind out of focus. Negative spirals? Not now. Not when every second counted. She needed to silence the panic, to bury the gnawing dread that whispered insidiously beneath her calm exterior.

I shouldn’t lose hope. I can’t. Not yet.

Her voice was barely a murmur as she muttered the mantra to herself, hoping to breathe some kind of order into the chaos. I have to give this a chance — a trail to follow, a crack in the ice before I shatter completely.

But even as she spoke those words, her hands trembled slightly, betraying the...