Chapter 92

Abby

Vincent left us where the trail ended in a wall of snow-covered rock.

“Follow the cairns,” he said, pointing upward to a small pile of stones barely visible against the white. “There’s one every few hundred yards. When you can’t see trees anymore, you’re close.” He handed Kade the pack of supplies he had carried up. Flour, salt, lamp oil, coffee. “Give him these whether he opens the door or not.”

“We will,” Kade said.

Vincent looked at me for a long moment. Then he pulled my hood up over my hair the way my father used to, when I was small and complaining about the cold.

“If he says anything cruel,” he said quietly, “it isn’t about you.”

***

The climb took almost three hours.

The first