No one came knocking the next day, nor the day after that. No matter how many how times Mat paced to and from the window, looking out in anticipation of an angry mob with pitchforks, no one came to whisk Snow away.

All that arrived were the season's first snowflakes to powder the front yard.

The stints between his looking grew longer and longer until he quit looking all together. By the end of the week, Snow imagined he was already thinking up new ways to introduce her to the world. He had plenty of time to ponder—the snow stuck around; winter was here.

Snow couldn't relate to this "cabin fever" Mat incessantly complained about; there was plenty to distract her. While the old woman spent most of her time in front of the fire, knitting and snoring, Mat baked and Snow helped. Fans of the cocoa bean, they made everything from chocolate chip hotcakes to hot cocoa tarts, and countless mugs of hot cocoa before Gran complained: "Keep it up and we'll all have hearts pumping sludge, waddling around the gardens come spring, not able to see past our knees." The old woman slept the sweets off in her oversized armchair while Mat and Snow played games; put cylinders on the phonograph and danced; built snow palaces; stayed up late and built forts out of furs where they read and told stories until the sun threatened to spill over the horizon.

Snow could imagine worse ways to spend a winter. But still Mat complained, and being the little thought gremlin she is, Snow thought up a solution she thought good enough to share: one last outing to Myst to cap the orbit.

"Absolutely not."

"You're always complaining about how bored you are--"

"And cold. How would that help?"

She thought on that. "The raw sense of adventure will keep us warm."

He laughed. "Raw fear, more like." Playing knucklebones at the hearth, he hadn't looked up at her completely serious face until now. "You're serious?"

"Dead."

"I can't believe you," he said, eyes back on the game. "We just went and you hated it."

"I want to see it as it is, not when it's crawling with goblins and ghouls for a patriotic fright night."

"And if we get caught?"

"We won't."

"And if Gran finds out?"

"She won't. Mat—"

"I said no."

For a moment, she thought his hypothetical scenarios meant she was making progress but he went on playing knucklebones like she wasn't even there. The truth is, this hadn't seemed so important moments ago. She hadn't known how how bad she wanted it until he denied her.

"You took me. FestiFae was your idea."

"That was different, everyone looked like--"

You. She could see he hadn't meant to say it. Cheeks red, he went back to playing knucklebones, concentrating comically hard on the bouncing ball.

"So what? We're gunna stay holed up in this cottage, waiting for Gran to die, so you and I can play house for eternity?"

He looked at her as if she had burped and a fly had flown out of her mouth. "'Course not, don't be stupid."

"Then, what! We didn't even get caught, why are you so--"

"Can't you wait awhile?"

"Until when?"

He shrugged irritably. "I don't know! Until I suffer another serious lapse in judgement?"

"You said you wouldn't keep me here."

He bounced the ball too hard; it veered away toward the table. "I'm not."

Crossing her arms like a petulant child, she said: "I can go with or without you."

He opened his mouth to argue, but Gran swung through the front door, a basket full of dried herbs from the cellar on her hip, preventing the exchange of any further grievances.

Mat kept his distance and held his tongue, but Snow had decided—she was going. The topic wasn't breached again until a particularly warm day that she pegged as the perfect opportunity for the adventure. The snow had melted but the dip in temperature come evening meant the ground had already frozen over; she would leave nary a footprint behind.

After Gran and Mat had gone to bed, she laid atop hers, waiting for the moon to make an appearance. Surely then enough time would have passed for the cottage's occupants and Mystians alike to be deeply asleep.

When the first sliver of white peeked through her open window, she swung her legs around and touched down, quiet as a cat. Peeking her head out, she saw Mat on the couch, his back to her. She tip-toed to the front door, slipped on her cloak, and turned to the mat where she kept her boots neatly aligned to find them gone.

"You're not going alone."

She spun around to find Mat standing there, her boots in hand. When she reached for them, he put them behind his back.

"You're not going to leave my side and you're going to listen to me."

Unsure whether to be heartened or annoyed that he had decided to come along and was already barking orders, she gave a curt nod. Anything to get her boots.

They snuck out into the night and hadn't reached the fence when Snow said: "Let's go through the Burnt Forest."

He opened his mouth, surely to protest, but kept any misgivings to himself as she took off. Gooseflesh rippled up her spine at the black expanse looming large in her vision. But when she bolted past the tree line, she shed that slimy trepidation like a second skin.

Moonlight dressed the trees in a comforting glow. She picked up the pace, lungs full of the sooty air, and raced around trees, leaving Mat further and further behind.

"Hey," he called after her.

Mat tried to keep up, but she had a good lead on him and darted behind a tree to watch as he slowed, looking around.

"This isn't funny."

He tentatively wandered past her hiding spot and the thrill of the hunt made her grin. He let loose an expletive as she leapt onto his back with an animalistic yowl, then danced away, light on her toes as he grabbed for her, catching nothing but air.

"You fiend," he breathed. "I nearly wet myself."

She laughed. "I'd love to hear you explain that one to Gran."

Again, she took off, but this time, Mat was quicker; she could hear his boots pummeling the earth behind her as he gave chase. She came to a stop at the edge of the field that hugged the back of the shops, clutching at a stitch in her side.

All was quiet, a stark contrast to how she'd known Myst during the celebration. All windows were dark, eyeless sockets boring into her, waiting for her—a ghost of a girl.

Should anyone look out, surely they'd think themselves suffering a nightmare.

Hesitant, she took a few cautious steps out into the matted grass, not a blade to conceal her. When not a thing in the world cried out against her, she picked up the pace, skirting most snow patches, but every so often, she dared to cheekily plant a footprint.

Mat caught up to her after she slipped over the stone hedge, as she reached the first fenced-in backyard.

Fluffy white creatures that looked like pillows with legs raised their heads in greeting.

Nibbling on her lip, she plucked a word from her well-read mind—sheep.

Ignoring Mat's protests, she climbed the fence and jumped into the pen, got low to the ground and crept toward the smallest lamb. It let her get close enough to see the moon in its big black eyes before darting away with a baa. Snow wished it would stay still long enough for her to touch its springy fleece. As soon as she thought it, the lamb tripped before bounding away toward the flock.

But she hadn't the time to feel hurt—the sound of a door opening and the banter of men spilling out into the night propelled Mat to her side of the fence. He all but hauled her over the top rung, then grabbed her hand and pulled her between houses. They watched four men, drinks in hand, two houses down from where she and Mat hid. Undeniably drunk, three cackled as the fourth made a clumsy show of climbing over a fence into a pasture of cows.

Mat looked around the other corner into the road. Finding it empty, he pulled her into it and they made a game of leaping from shadow to shadow, racing across the moonlit-exposed patches as quickly as their feet would fly.

Losers will be captured and exposed to unimaginable terrors.

Snow came to a halt outside Lamb Chops, where the mangy mutt that had greeted her outside Myst during FestiFae was trying to maneuver a bone from atop the bloodletting table. The table was much too tall for it to reach, paws resting on the tabletop as it shoved his snout this way and that to no avail. She imagined flicking its ear, the one that never seemed to rest, and it sharply turned its head in their direction. Mat protested as she crept toward it. The dog returned to all fours, sat and patiently cocked its head. Her hand closed over the bone and its tail wagged before she handed it over. They watched it trot to a porch with flower boxes across the street and lie down to make a snack of the bone.

"Still stupid, I see."

"Or maybe its brave."

Before he could reply, she took off down the road, thinking about all the pretenders that jeered and applauded that theatrical horrorshow, all the way to Mad Hare where she picked up a half-empty mug outside the door and turned toward the stage. It was gone, a rectangle of dead grass in its place. Standing over it, Snow took a sip of the murky contents in the mug and recoiled.

"Blech, it tastes like a tangy old leather boot."

"Where'd you get that?!" Mat ripped it from her hand, gave the mug a whiff and grimaced.

"Smells more like a candied cigarette soaked in urine." He poured it out.

"I don't want to know how you know that," she smiled, put out her arms, and windmilled over the patch of dead grass, stars spinning in her eyes.

"We shouldn't be out in the open like this," Mat said, looking over his shoulder straight down the empty road.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing at the short rock wall around a rectangular foundation the size of a small barn a few yards away.

"Religious building that was never finished."

"How come?"

"They couldn't decide on the shape."

Sure he was joking, she scrunched up her face. "But wasn't it important?"

"Falling through time and space to grapple with aliens took a real toll on the old beliefs."

"What do people believe in now?"

He shrugged. "Themselves? Some still believe in the old gods, in an overarching divine plan." He took another lingering look down the road. "Word has it that when humans first arrived in Helithica, cults formed around the faeries. People thought they were gods of another dimension or that we'd never made it to a new planet, that we all burned up on the Gone World or in space trying to get here and were stuck in some purgatory where the faeries were the gatekeepers to wherever after."

"What about you, what do you believe?"

"That we're here and now and who cares about the finer details."

Even here the Burnt Forest loomed in the tail of her eye.

"And the faeries."

"What about them?"

"What did they believe?"

"I can't know that. Let's go," he said, reaching for her arm, but she danced out of his reach. "We shouldn't be dawdling out in the open like this."

"I could have been in the play. Don't you think I would have made a more convincing faery," she said, and crouched, legs apart, hands on her head, fingers pointing like horns as she waddled toward him, hissing and spitting, face warped into that of a rabid animal.

Mat did another sweep of the empty road. "Yeah, I'd say that much ugly isn't far off." He crouched into a battle stance, mimicked holding a spear. "Fiend, I come from a faraway land where I always dreamed of being king of my very own alien planet. Now, bend the knee, or I'll spill your guts."

Fingers wiggling, her eyes rolled and her lips uttered a nonsense incantation—she jerked back as if something had flown into her hands, then adopted his stance.

"With what spear?" she said with a toothy grin and began to circle him like a predator that had cornered its prey.

In pretend shock, he glanced down at his empty hands in time for Snow to quickly sidestep and slice him in the gut. He made a guttural noise and lurched, eyes boring into her as he clutched at the shaft sticking out of his stomach and fell to his knees.

"Tell your maker I said—" and she blew a fat raspberry.

They erupted in a fit of giggles—

The tavern door swung open.

Mat sprung up as Snow made a mad dash for the corner of the neighboring structure.

"Mathew! Bit late to be out and about, innit?"

She laid flat against the stone, every fingertip gripping a crevice as she tried to swallow her erratic heart.

"Speak for yourself, old man," Mat said, the slightest tremor in his voice.

"If it was anyone else, I'd think you were up to no good."

"Good thing it's me then, eh?" Mat said, greeted then with a pregnant silence. "Couldn't sleep. Figured today's warm weather is surely a fluke and I should take advantage before the snow packs us in."

"Ah. Yes, I suppose it gets lonely in that cottage over the hill."

"Not really. Just get tired of being cooped up, y'know?"

Snow glanced to the Burnt Forest and contemplated making a run for it. No, he's being nice—everyone knows everyone here. They'll chat and the man will leave.

"Guess that means you're shirking your apprenticeship until the new orbit."

Snow's heart, which had begun to inch back down to its cavity, now lurched back up into her throat. Did he sound closer?

"Don't forget that slice of Gran's peach cobbler. You promised me, boy."

"Cross my heart—listen," Mat said as Snow caught a flash of cloak as the man walked to the corner, Snow's corner, before Mat swung him around. "I told Gran about the apprenticeship, and she's not too keen."

Snow inched along the wall and around the other corner to the back of the building. She pulled her hood over her head, cursing her cloak's color that shone as bright as freshly spilled blood in the moonlight and bolted over the wall and hunched behind the stone hedge, listening to their voices fade to whispers, and in spite of her harried situation, suppressed a snicker.

Mat had told her why the wall was built. If dead-man Wil knew that his invention had concealed what he'd intended to keep out—

It wasn't until she heard a door close very close that she remembered the mystery man, hood pulled low at the end of the play, the one who had disappeared around that very same corner.

Footsteps approached. Mat climbed over the wall, uttered an oath, then: "C'mon."

She leapt up and they raced for the tree line. All that man had to do was look out his window to witness a peculiar sight.

Only once safely tucked back into the shadows of the Burnt Forest did they stop, breathing haggard plumes into the frosty air.

Mat gripped her arms and squeezed. "I thought we'd been had back there."

"Me, too. I thought my heart was going to fall out of my butt."

He snorted. The giggles returned.

"Who was that?"

"Old man Elis, he owns that small toy shop on the end."

"Toy shop? It looks like an above-ground basement without a home."

He made a noise of acknowledgement. "He doesn't get too many visitors.

"What do you say, a couple near misses enough excitement for one night?"

He wasn't angry, relieved maybe, or even euphoric that they had escaped by the skin of their teeth.

She nodded. "Race you back?"

With an evil gleam in his eye, Mat took off, leaving her to catch up.

Therewas something about racing through the Burnt Forest while the rest of Helithicaslept, the promise of winter cold in her lungs, the only witness the moon lightingtheir way that filled her with a sense that everything was as right as it couldand maybe ever would be.