The morning light came far too soon for her liking, peeking through the closed curtains and lighting the room just enough to see. Ellie closed her eyes against the sunshine, though, knowing that it was well below freezing temperatures outside, the snow was likely still falling, and... Well, if pressed, she could admit she simply didn't want to get up yet.

"Hey." Kaz's rough voice came from beside her.

"Hnnn," Ellie groaned.

"Does that mean you're awake?"

"Mmm." It was a noncommittal sound at best. Awake? Technically. Did she want to be? No.

"Feel like getting up? Or did the moonshine after dinner do you in?"

"I barely had any, ya ol' coot," she grumbled, tucking the blankets up under her chin. "It's just too damn cold."

"You should be used to it. Didn't you grow up here?" Kaz asked, but he shifted closer to her. It was like sleeping next to a heater, and she didn't fight when he wrapped his arms around her to share his warmth.

"Just because I know how to dress for it doesn't mean I like it bein' five below zero when I wake up."

Kaz chuckled, and Ellie felt the reverberations more than she heard them.

"What do you plan on doing today?" he asked.

"No clue. Nobody'll be out on a day like today, not unless they have to. Not much point in workin' on the case."

"We could stay inside?" Kaz suggested.

"I... Mm," Ellie trailed off, shuffling slightly. "Nah. Gotta get up."

She was dead tired, but there were always things to do. That was just how life worked.

However, as soon as she tried to sit up, Kaz tightened his arms around her in a hold that was somehow both gentle and viselike all at once. He hauled her back towards him, cocooning her in his warmth in a way that left little room for argument, mostly because he was too strong to fight.

"What are you doing?" she asked, but she let him pull her back.

"You're burnt out. Take a day. Go back to sleep," he protested, and somehow she felt more than saw that his eyes were still closed.

"Got... shit to do..." Ellie said between yawns.

"You said it yourself— it's unlikely we'll find anyone to talk to today, and we've got supplies to last a week. If you don't stop soon, you're going to get sick."

"I'm not that frail."

"I would never accuse you of being frail," Kaz said, snuggling in close as he wrapped his arms around her, keeping her under the blankets. "On the contrary, it would be a favor if you let me get a little extra sleep, too."

"You can sleep on your own..." she mumbled, but her eyes were already closing again.

"It's much more comfortable this way, though," he protested, but when Ellie grumbled under her breath and tried to get up again, Kaz changed tactics.

"How about a bargain, then? Let me sleep, and I've got something for us to do later," he proposed.

"... You and your bargains," Ellie sighed. "I'm listenin', though." It couldn't hurt to hear him out... especially if it meant staying under the warm blankets a little longer.

"If you want something to do inside today, I... had a thought. Earlier," he said softly.

"Yeah?" She was skeptical, but she'd hear him out. Ellie rolled over to face him, watching his eyes flutter open in the dim light peeking through the curtains.

"If you're worried about losing Ben... Why don't we write your story? Together," Kaz suggested. "I told you I'm a writer."

Whatever she expected him to say, that was not it. Ellie was, for the moment, wide awake. It was like a jolt of adrenaline to her system, though Kaz seemed perfectly calm about it.

"You..." Ellie blinked, brow furrowing. "You want to write it? Like... in a book?"

"Or a short story. Or a poem. Whatever you think is best. It's been a long time since I've had something to write that felt like it had any depth to it. It would be my honor," he said gently. "If you want, we can even give it a better ending."

It was only a moment before she felt the tears prickling at the corners of her eyes, and she wasn't able to stop them falling onto the pillow. And then she wasn't able to stop them at all, letting a cascade of emotions run down her face— good and bad together, pain and joy, grief... but also an opportunity to move forward.

"Yeah," she said, sniffling. "Yes. Please."

"I've got you," Kaz said softly, hugging her close.

"How do you know how to do this?" Ellie asked, voice muffled against his chest.

"Do... what?"

"Comfort people."

"I told you that I'm stuck here already. The first few years were... bad. They were very, very bad," he said slowly, his hand rubbing circles across Ellie's back. "I did things I'm not proud of. I was a person I don't want to be again. I tried to use sex and money and drugs to fill the void, but nothing worked. It just numbed the pain for a while."

"You're not like that now, though."

"I'm not," he conceded. "And I wasn't like that before, either. I was... grieving. Grieving the loss of my home, like so many of us were."

"What changed?"

"I started to write again," Kaz said softly. "No one would publish it, but I didn't even care. I just... I had to get it out. I had to take it out of my chest and put it somewhere that I could examine it a hundred different ways, look at it as a journey from the outside instead of from someone caught in the middle of it. It... helped. Made me see what I was missing, got me back on my feet."

"Could you read it to me one day?"

"I can't guarantee it's any good. It's not even finished, if I'm honest."

"That's okay," Ellie said. "Maybe I can help you finish it."

"I would like that." A yawn escaped her lips before she could stop it, and Ellie finally conceded that he had a point about a rest day. "Maybe... Maybe after we get some more sleep."

The late season storm brought two feet of wet snow with it that solidified into a rock-hard layer of slick ice over a few inches of packed powder. Most of the village, Ellie and Kaz included, chose to hibernate inside for a few days, but by the time the third day arrived, Ellie had a severe case of cabin fever.

That morning, she pulled on her boots, bundled up like a human marshmallow, and rammed the front door open. It took a minute to dig her way out enough to get to the real snow shovel, but as soon as she could, Ellie was knee deep in cold, slushy snow drifts and shoveling a path away from her door.

"What poor perversion of snow is this?" Kaz frowned as he finally made his way out the door, looking at the piles of muddy, gritty, slushy ice with disdain.

"Normal," Ellie grunted, sticking the shovel into another pile of slush. "If a big snow blows through here, it's nice for about 24 hours if you're lucky, 'specially this time of year. It's been just warm enough to melt it during the day and then freeze it solid at night, so ya end up with this shit," she said, smacking the nearest block of ice with her shovel for emphasis. The metal end of the shovel clanged in protest, but it got the point across.

"Snow is not supposed to be like this," he muttered, but he picked up a second shovel and started to help break up the ice.

"You're used to New England snow, I guess? Stays cold up there for way longer. Snow don't stay soft 'less the temps stay below freezing constantly. Too much variation down here. It'll be five below this mornin' and nearly forty degrees at noon." Ellie just shrugged. She'd heard people describe the differences when they passed through from the northern or western states, but this was all she knew.

"That is... moderately terrifying," he said slowly, giving up on the shovel entirely as he simply kicked his way through a layer of ice with sheer blunt force.

Ellie let out a breath that fogged in the frigid air, putting her shovel to the side for a moment. There was almost a decent path leading away from her front door, but then they'd all have to work together to clean off the main road that ran through the village. Her cheeks were already red from exertion as she squinted towards the village gates, the bright sunshine reflecting off icy banks in blinding glares.

"Who in their right mind is out hikin' up the mountain in this kinda weather?" Ellie huffed, trying to make out the shape in the distance.

Sure enough, there was a shadowy figure tromping through the snow just outside the village gates. He carried a large bag as he steadily worked his way towards the main entrance, leaving a trail of crunching footprints. It would have been an imposing, almost ominous sight...

If he hadn't slipped on a particularly slick patch of ice and fallen flat on his back almost as soon as he was inside the gates, of course.

Ellie winced on his behalf. That wasn't a fun fall— she'd taken it many times. She didn't recognize the man, though, even as he struggled to his feet and brushed snow and ice off his clothes as best he could.

"Excuse me!" the man called, waving to Ellie as he struggled towards them.

It was early enough that Kaz and Ellie were the only two outside, mostly due to Ellie's aforementioned raging cabin fever. Shoveling snow had burned away some of the restlessness, but she'd felt ready to snap something in half when she woke up that morning, or maybe crawl out of her own skin just to stop the crushing feeling of being stuck indoors.

"Can I help ya, there?" Ellie called.

"Pardon the intrusion," the man said, panting for air. "My name is Hartley Allade, I'm a professor at—" he paused for breath, but there was apparently no need for him to explain any further.

"Hart?" Kaz gasped, dropping his shovel to run over to the man.

What?

Ellie sighed and followed along much more slowly, using her shovel like a walking stick to help her balance in the snow.

"Kaz?" the visitor took one more hesitant step towards them, but Kaz was faster.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Kaz asked, shaking his head even as he reached out to hug their visitor.

"Tracking ley lines. Sort of." The man, Hart, waved his hand vaguely as he spoke, and frowned. "It's difficult to explain. What about you? You're usually one for cities— what on earth are you doing out here? And in this weather?"

"Well, if that ain't the pot callin' the kettle black," Ellie grumbled, boots crunching on the icy snow as she walked up to the newcomer.

Now that she was closer, she could make out his face a little more. He wasn't quite as tall as Kaz, but still easily over six feet, body frame almost completely disguised by layers and layers of clothing. Fogging half-moon glasses partly hid bright green eyes, and his pale skin was flushed from the cold and the walk up the mountain. Dark brown, almost black hair hung over his shoulder in a long braid, a bronze-blonde streak peeking through amidst the dark strands.

"This is Ellie," Kaz said as she approached. "She's my..."

He trailed off, and at that moment Ellie also realized that they'd never actually settled on any kind of terms. They both floundered for a long moment before Ellie finally wrapped her arm around Kaz and sighed.

"We're tellin' people he's my fiancé to make it simple," she whispered, shrugging. "Prob'ly better if we talk about that inside, though. You look plum soaked through."

And he was. His boots looked barely used and his clothes weren't appropriate for the weather. He was dressed like someone who had never really spent extended time in show before, but assumed what he would need to wear to prepare... wrongly.

"I... would appreciate a moment inside, yes," Hartley said slowly, letting out a breath.

Ellie wasted no time in leading them back to her front door, mostly assuming they were following her from the crunching sounds of feet breaking through thin ice coming from behind. She rested the shovel against the outside of the house and opened her door to a warm blast of air, ushering them inside quickly.

On days like these, she was thankful for her brick floor. It was hard on the feet, but she also didn't have to worry about the water and slush sloughing off their boots and coats as much as she might with a wood floor.

"Shoes off, hang your coat, have a seat," she said curtly, automatically moving to put the kettle on as soon as she'd removed her boots.

"Hope you like tea," Kaz said with a laugh.

"Oh, I love tea, thank you," Hartley said, and she could hear the scrape of one of the kitchen chairs across the kitchen floor as he pulled it out to sit down.

"How do you two know each other, now?" she asked over her shoulder as she picked herbs out of jars. Today felt like a day for strong black tea, maybe with some cinnamon. Something to warm them up, especially the poor man who looked like he'd barely seen snow before.

"Kaz and I met early in the course of this mess. We were both... having a hard time with the reality of it," Hartley said carefully.

"What he means is that we were kicked out of the same bar and he let my sorry ass sleep off a hangover on his sofa." Kaz, as ever, did not mince words when it came to things like this. He didn't mind telling the blunt truth about himself to someone he trusted, Ellie realized, and she liked that about him.

"The start of a beautiful friendship," Hartley said, shrugging helplessly. "Though I certainly didn't expect to see you here, of all places."

"Long story short, I'm helping investigate a cold case. Murder," he said bluntly. "Actually, since you're here, we could use a little help."

"I'll gladly assist if I can, but I have to admit that my strengths are in healing magic. I don't know if I'd be any help as a detective."

"You're... a witch?" Ellie asked, eyebrow raised. "Nice to meet one from outta town."

"Not a witch, no," Hartley said. "I'm... an Other."

"Don't bother asking what kind of Other. He likes to keep it to himself," Kaz said with a shrug. "All I know is that he's an old, old man with a very pretty face."

"Thank you, I am pretty," Hartley said with a soft smile, adjusting his glasses.

"You're an old man," Ellie mumbled, elbowing Kaz gently before she went to pour three mugs of hot tea for them.

"Compared to him, I'm probably something like a toddler," he said, but quickly changed the subject as Ellie distributed the mugs. "Are you still on your science experiments?"

"I'm still investigating the source of all our troubles, yes," Hartley sighed, leaning on the table. "The ley line energies seem to lead to somewhere in this area, but it's taken me years to get this close, and I can't narrow it much farther, so it's up to searching on foot."

"Translation?" Ellie asked, eyebrow raised.

"He's looking into the reason for the Appearances in the first place. Hartley's a... little obsessed," Kaz explained.

"Inquisitive," Hart countered, eyes narrowing.

"Fixated." Kaz took a sip from his mug of tea.

"Curious."

"Okay, children," Ellie said, rolling her eyes. "Anyways, you in town for a while?"

"I am, yes. The Appalachian Teacher's College was looking for professors, so I took a job there, and the college is planning on expanding. They're building an extended campus for Other studies outside of town, so they recruited me for the program. Luckily, my magic speaks for itself, and they don't mind that I'm not keen to disclose my personal history."

As he spoke, Hartley absently fiddled with a circular pendant on a long chain around his neck. At first, Ellie thought it was a pocket watch. It opened and closed like one, certainly, and Hart wasn't even looking at it as he traced his fingers over the object. However, when he finally moved to open the clasp, she could see it was actually a compass.

The needle moved oddly, centering on a seemingly random direction and holding firm when Hartley looked down at it momentarily. He sighed, closed the compass, and let the pendant rest against his chest.

"You keep a compass around your neck?" Ellie asked, only mildly surprised. She supposed it would be useful, especially for someone doing an extensive amount of foot travel and map making.

"Yes, but... It isn't for navigation, not really," Hart said softly. "It doesn't even point North. I have a different one for that."

"Heirloom?" That would certainly make sense. It wouldn't matter if a purely sentimental object pointed north or not.

"Something like that," he said carefully, taking a deep breath. "It belonged to someone very important to me."

An empathetic ping resonated through Ellie's chest. It wasn't hard to recognize that tone, not after she'd heard it in her own voice so many times.

"I lost somebody, too. I... I get it," Ellie said quietly.

"I... I was hoping I might have a chance..." he trailed off, shaking his head and abruptly changing the subject, looking up at Ellie from over the rim of his mug. "Since I'm here... Are you any good with divination?" Hartley asked hesitantly.

"Kinda depends on what you're lookin' for," Ellie said, shrugging. "I'm good with cards and casting, sometimes books. Never did take to scrying, though."

"Cards will do," he said, nodding. "Would you be willing to look into a matter for me? I... would like to confirm something, and I'll gladly pay you for your time."

"Is it a court case, a date of death, or tryin' to see if somebody loves you back?" she asked with a sigh, leaning her head on her hand.

"N— no?!" Hartley blinked, taken aback. "Do you get those requests often?"

"I get more requests for medicine than card readings, but I just wanted to check," she said with a shrug. It was against her personal code of ethics to read for dates of death or to try to reveal someone else's feelings. It seemed like prying without permission.

However, if it wasn't any of those things, and if Hartley was willing to pay, that could be a mutually beneficial arrangement. She wasn't opposed to that.

"... There's somethin' else I could use more than money for payment, though," she said slowly.

"I'm listening." He took a long sip from his mug, humming pleasantly at the taste.

"There's somebody I know who would really benefit from a few science classes at the college," Ellie said. "Think you could maybe look into that for me?"

"Done," Hartley said with a nod. "And... While we're at it, if you all keep any maps of the area around, I'd love to see them. I'm not certain what I'm looking for, but I can't afford to stop searching yet."

"I think we've got a few in the library building. It's a small library, but there should be somethin' in there about mapping out the land, building houses..." she trailed off helplessly.

"Is it open?"

"Usually, if the creek don't rise," Ellie said with a shrug. "Jeannie's usually a stickler about unlocking it in the mornings. Kinda toss up in this weather, though."

"If the..." Hartley squinted, looked briefly at Kaz, and then looked back at Ellie.

"Don't think about it too hard," Kaz said with a sigh. "You'll be branded a city slicker."

"Ah... Alright, then," Hart said slowly, rising from his chair. "Well, thank you for the help and for the tea. I suppose I should be on my way if I'm going to continue searching today."

"You're sure that's the best idea?" Kaz asked.

Ellie was inclined to agree with him. If Hartley was dead set on searching, that was one thing, but he didn't seem like he knew mountain weather or mountain slang or mountain... anything. He might unwittingly put himself in danger. Others were strong, but even they could end up in trouble sometimes.

"I... don't know anymore," Hart admitted. "It's the only thing that keeps me sane now, though. We all have our vices. Besides, I haven't been in the area long, so I might as well look around."

"That explains it," Ellie said without thinking. Hartley just blinked at her owlishly. "Your clothes. You didn't pick the best ones for a trip this far out, and your boots look like new. Better be careful with those or you'll rub sores on your feet."

"I see... thank you," Hartley said with a nod. "Perhaps I'll stick to the library today, then. Is there anywhere here I could stay the night, or should I stick to the plan of going back to town before dark?"

Kaz and Ellie exchanged glances.

"You mind sleepin' on a camp bed by the stove?" she asked.

"Anywhere warm is fine with me." City slicker he might be, but at least he seemed easygoing. Not picky, either, which was good this far out.

"The village doesn't get visitors often, so we don't have an inn or anything, but you can stay here for the night if you need to," Ellie said. "Kaz vouched for ya, so it's okay with me."

"I appreciate that very much," Hartley said with a smile. "I wasn't expecting to find friends here." He reached for his boots and started to put them back on, tying the damp laces tightly. A puddle had formed where the slush melted off their clothes, but it was warm enough inside that they were mostly dry.

"Want me to pull cards for you before you leave or...?" Ellie asked, slightly confused.

"I'll come back with the registration papers for your friend. You can do it then," Hart said with a smile as he pulled on his coat. "That way you know I'm as good as my word."

"Good to see you, Hart," Kaz said, holding out his hand.

"You as well. I'm glad to see you're happy," Hart said, looking back and forth between Kaz and Ellie. It wasn't until after the door shut that Ellie realized neither of them ever moved to explain that Kaz was not her fiancé, not really, and it wasn't several hours later that Ellie realized she didn't so much mind not correcting him.