We quickly decided that we’d be better off sitting someplace warm down in the nearby town to examine the documents, so I slipped the file into my coat, along with the plastic bag of rubles. Navan picked me up and we flew toward the town. Luckily, there was enough daylight for Navan’s skin to absorb and change to a more normal-looking color, though his temperature was much colder than I would’ve liked.

The restaurant we arrived at was something of a tavern, sparsely furnished with wood tables and chairs. Our waitress looked like she’d been working there for the past century, and if she was at all surprised to see two faces she didn’t recognize, she wasn’t letting on. I was famished though, and ordered a plate of dumplings, which was one of four main dishes on the menu.

“This place sure is hopping,” Navan said as he glanced around the near-empty space. Aside from us, there was one other occupied table, and it was an old woman, who had a teacup and saucer in front of her and nothing else.

I divvied the papers up and we started to go through them. It was mostly reports detailing the missing villagers, along with some maps with black X’s indicating the exact location where people had disappeared from. The reports were chillingly similar, though the shifters did not seem to discriminate when it came to their victims. Young and old, male and female—so long as it was a human, that seemed to be the only criteria.

Navan threw his papers down. “Riley,” he said. I stopped reading and looked at him. He had an agitated expression on his face.

“We’re going to figure this out,” I replied. “I know it seems like a lot, but we’ll figure it out.”

“That’s not it.” He shook his head. “Well, it’s part of it, sure, but . . . about what happened back there. I shouldn’t have dragged you onto the aircraft like that.”

He still had a mark on his face from where my palm had made contact. “It’s okay,” I said. “I know you did it because you didn’t want anything bad to happen to me. And I appreciate that.” I hesitated. “For the first half of my life, I didn’t really have anyone looking out for me. So . . . it means a lot that you’re concerned about my well-being. Even if maybe you didn’t go about showing it in the best way. Slapping you wasn’t really my finest moment, either. I’m sorry for doing that.”

“I’d never be able to forgive myself if something bad happened to you,” he said. “I’ve got so much guilt about everything that sometimes it doesn’t seem like I can withstand any more. How dramatic can I sound, I know. But it’s true.”

“You shouldn’t feel guilty,” I said. “What good is that going to do? You had no idea what your father was up to. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“It’s not just that.”

“What is it, then?”

He glanced around as though he was expecting someone to be eavesdropping. “I’m not trying to relive the past or anything—once was enough—but I should be honest with you about why I’m here on Earth to begin with.”

“Didn’t you already tell us that?”

“Well . . . yes. Sort of. But there’s more to the story. Like you with your parents, there’s been a part of me that thought not talking about it might somehow lessen the pain. I think we both know it doesn’t always work that way.”

I nodded. “You’re right. And if you have more that you want to tell me, I’d be happy to hear it.” I thought back to when I’d inadvertently spilled my guts to Navan and how he’d helped me better understand myself. Maybe I could help him in the same way.

He took a deep breath. “It’s been a while since I’ve talked about this. I had a little sister named Naya. She was my pal. When she turned sixteen, she started dating Ronad, even though our parents—and a couple of my brothers—were completely against it.”

“Why?”

“Well . . . for a few different reasons. Some of my brothers were because they felt like Ronad was our brother. Our parents had taken him in and they didn’t think it was appropriate for him to be dating Naya. Which was stupid but at least understandable. My parents didn’t want Naya involved with him because he was basically an orphan, and they didn’t think he was good enough for her. They both care very much about the opinions of others, and they felt that their daughter dating someone like Ronad wouldn’t reflect well upon the family.”

“How long did he live with you guys?”

“I think he was maybe ten? His parents were never around. They pretty much left him on his own, so he’d always come around. Until one day my parents just said he could stay.”

“Sounds familiar,” I said.

Navan nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t even think of that. But Naya and Ronad had been friends long before he moved in—they’d been playing together since they were little. To me, if anything, it seemed kind of obvious that she and Ronad would eventually wind up together.”

“So what happened?”

“What happened was my parents forbade her to see him, and told Ronad he had to move out. They of course continued to see each other in secret. Though it’s all but impossible to keep anything a secret from my father. So what brilliant idea did he come up with? He concocted this elixir similar to Elysium, except much stronger—and with the added kicker of black root, which is basically Vysanthe’s version of deadly nightshade.”

I widened my eyes. “He was trying to kill him?”

“No. He didn’t want to kill him, but he wanted to make him sick enough that he’d have to be bedridden for a while, and since the elixir had similar properties to Elysium, he wouldn’t remember Naya anyway. And while he was away recovering, my parents assumed Naya would move on—I’m sure they planned to parade a bunch of more eligible suitors in front of her. Anyway, Ronad’s birthday was coming up, so my father sent him an early birthday present—a vial of ramphastide blood.”

“I have no idea what that is.”

“It’s a bird. It’s like a toucan, except on Vysanthe, they’re six feet tall, with beaks that are more than half their length. The blood from the beak of a ramphastide is a rare delicacy and very difficult to come by. So maybe Ronad should have known, when it arrived, that there was something suspicious, because my father was not a generous man like that. But Ronad is kind and trusting and the thought never occurred to him. And unbeknownst to my parents, Naya had snuck out again to be with Ronad, and he let her have the vial. He didn’t think he’d ever have his hands on a vial of ramphastide blood again, and he wanted her to have it.”

My stomach twisted. “Oh no.”

Navan nodded, a grim expression on his face. “My father put in the exact amount of black root to injure Ronad. But Naya was much smaller than Ronad, and so it ended up being a fatal dose. It worked quickly, and she died in his arms.” Navan stared off into the distance. “Because it was a variant of Elysium, it wiped her memory clean, so she had no idea who he was.”

“Navan.” He blinked, and his focus returned to me, the pain in his eyes undeniable. I didn’t know what to say—sorry seemed completely inadequate. “That’s awful.”

“What’s awful,” he said slowly, “is that I happened to run into Naya when she was sneaking out. I could have demanded that she march herself right back into the house, but I didn’t.”

“You had no way of knowing.”

“She was my little sister, and I was supposed to protect her.” He took a deep breath. “I completely and utterly failed at doing that. I am not going to fail now. All Naya ever wanted was to get away from Vysanthe—she hated how we just used resources like there was a never-ending supply, how we exploited those that were weaker. That’s not who she was, that’s not who Ronad is, that’s not who I am, if you can believe it.”

“Of course I believe that,” I said. “You’re here, putting your life on the line to try to save Earth when you could easily just go somewhere else and not let it be your problem.”

“You should eat,” he said, pushing my plate toward me. “They’re probably cold by now. And we should get back to this paperwork.”

He picked up one of the pages and started looking at it. He clearly wasn’t someone who could take a compliment or any sort of praise at all. I wondered why that was. Perhaps it had something to do with his father.

I watched him for a second as he read, the way his eyes scanned the lines, the intense expression on his face. Everything about Navan made more sense now, and thinking about Ronad made my heart ache, especially when I remembered how he had called out Naya’s name so desperately, back when I’d hidden away in his room. That must’ve been so awful for him, to have the love of his life die in his arms, unable to remember who he was. I felt a flare of anger toward Navan’s father. Why were some parents so messed up?

Navan cleared his throat, and for a second I thought he was about to say something, but he didn’t, just continued to read, so I turned my attention to my food. The dumplings might have been sitting there for a little while, but they were still delicious, the dough buttery and flaky. I ate the whole plate, and washed it down with two cups of hot tea. Ahh. That felt better.

“The shifters certainly have been busy,” Navan said. “According to these reports, the villagers think it’s the work of the tonrar, or the devil.” He shuddered. “Which isn’t too far off the mark when it comes to shapeshifters, vile little things. In everything I’ve read so far, people have reported hearing wolves or seeing some sort of furry, four-legged animal. No one’s actually seen one of them try to take someone.”

“But what do you think they’re doing to the people?” I asked, thinking about the one that had been riding Ianthan, the way it had looked lying there dead in the alley.

“I don’t know.” Navan frowned at the paper he was looking at. “I’ve got some guesses, but I don’t think there’s any way to know for sure until we’re actually able to find one and question it.”

“We’re going to question it?”

“We’re going to try. Having the ability to shape shift, of course, certainly comes in handy when trying to evade capture.”

We went back to our piles, and I sipped my third cup of tea. The wind had picked up outside, and it rattled the panes of glass. The ship would at least be shelter from the wind, but I didn’t know how warm it would be, and I wanted to soak up all the heat that I could now.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, though I had long ago finished that third cup of tea when the old woman that had been sitting at the other table approached us. She and the waitress looked as if they could have been sisters. She wore a faded head scarf that had slipped back, to reveal her thick, steel-colored hair. Her skin was deeply lined and her eyes appeared milky, though she had made her way over to our table perfectly fine, without assistance.

“I heard you speak of tonrar,” she said. I glanced at Navan. How had she been able to hear that, all the way across the room? “Bad things have been happening here. People whisper that it’s the work of tonrar, but they are wrong. They make offerings to try to appease him, but people still go missing. Just a fortnight ago, my closest neighbor was out tending his sheep and he did not return for his evening meal. Gone, just like that. People are afraid. No one knows what to do.” She reached down and touched Navan’s hand. He tried to pull it away before she could make contact and feel that his temperature was not that of an average human, but she must’ve been stronger than she looked, because her fingers closed around his hand and didn’t let go. “But you do,” she said. “You know what to do. And you will do it.” And then she let go of his hand, patting it, like he was a little boy and she was his grandmother. She turned and walked away.

Navan and I stared after her as she made her way to the door and then walked out.

“She’s a seer,” he said finally.

I looked at him. “Like a psychic?”

“Yeah. She knew what I was—notice how she didn’t react when she touched my hand?”

“I did notice that.”

“There’s actually a lot more of her kind on Earth than people might realize,” he said. “Humans seem fond of stigmatizing the people who claim to have a sixth sense like that. Shunning them or medicating them or institutionalizing them.”

“Well . . . I think that’s because a lot of the time they seem crazy. Or they’re saying stuff that people don’t want to hear.”

“Humans seem to have a very narrow field of what they deem possible.”

“Not all of us.”

He smiled. “I know.”

We stayed in the restaurant for a while longer, but then we left. The wind had died down some, but it was still bitingly cold, and when Navan picked me up to fly us back to the ship, I nestled against him.

When we got back, Navan said he was going to leave me at the ship to do a quick fly around over the area and make sure that it was safe.

“How will you know?” I asked. “I mean, if there are shifters around, couldn’t they be in the form of something you wouldn’t even suspect, like a bird or something? Or what if they’re invisible?”

“They could be,” he said. “But I should be able to sense them, and I’d sleep a lot better tonight if I at least look around before we turn in for the night. You’ll be fine here.”

“I’m not worried about that,” I said.

He smiled. “I’ve noticed.”

Though I knew he wasn’t going far, there was a part of me that wanted to jump into his arms before he took off, to go with him, to never leave his side. The feeling almost overwhelmed me, but I stayed in the ship and watched as his powerful wings beat back and forth, lifting him higher and higher into the sky. A shooting star arced across the darkness, and I blinked, marveling at the fact of everything that had happened in such a short period of time. Not too long ago, I’d been standing under the sweltering sun in the middle of a corn field with my two best friends, and now here I was, at the edge of the world, watching a coldblood that I was most certainly developing feelings for, fly off into the night sky.

An electronic ringing sound jolted me from my reverie, and I looked around, confused at first, until I realized it was Navan’s comm. I went over to his bag and picked it up. It continued to ring, and I pressed a button, bringing the device up to my ear.

“Hello? Hello, Navan, is that you?” came Bashrik’s voice.

“It’s Riley,” I said.

“Riley! Where’s Navan? Is everything all right? Why didn’t he pick up? Did something happen?!”

I suppressed a smile at the anxiety in his voice. “Everything’s fine,” I said. “Well, relatively speaking. Navan’s just checking out the area, so he’s not here right now. I know I probably shouldn’t have picked up, but I had a feeling it might be you, and I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Well, it’s a little late for that. We’ve all been worried sick, quite frankly. You don’t know my brother the way I do, and he can get himself into situations that are way beyond his control. I know Navan’s downplaying the whole thing but if you haven’t noticed yet, that’s sort of the way he goes about things. It’s not a big deal—until it is. And, I’m not trying to be an alarmist or anything—but this is a very big deal. And it’s just the two of you? It might be different if I was there but as it is, you two are both in a lot of danger. In fact—”

“Is that Riley?!” Angie’s voice came through loud and clear, almost as if she were right there in the ship with me. In a way, I wished she was. There was the sound of rustling. “Riley? Is that you?”

“Hey,” I said, smiling at the sound of her voice. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

“When are you coming back?” She sounded as anxious as Bashrik had. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, we’re okay,” I said. “And I’m not sure when we’ll be back. Hopefully soon. We’ve got to take care of something out here first. But we’re going to get back there as soon as we possibly can.”

“I can’t say that’s the most reassuring thing I’ve ever heard,” Angie said.

“I know. I’m sorry I can’t give you a better answer. But try not to worry, okay?”

“Okay. Lauren says hi. I’m going to give this thing back to Bashrik. Stay safe, Riley.”

“I will.”

Bashrik continued to grill me when he got back on, and though I tried to answer him as best I could, I knew my responses weren’t going to satisfy him; the only thing he really wanted to hear was that Navan and I had given things a second thought and were on our way back.

“You might have noticed he gets a little obsessed with things,” Bashrik said. “And by a little I mean a whole heck of a lot. He’s got this idea in his head that he’s somehow going to be able to protect Earth, like it’s his sole purpose in life.”

“He told me about your sister,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Bashrik paused. “He did?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s . . . surprising. I didn’t think he’d ever bring that up with anyone outside the family.” He sighed. “Well, Naya would’ve been all for this little recon mission you two are on. And I know that plays a role in all the decisions he’s made, too. He thinks that he can somehow make it up to her, even though she’s dead. Like if he saves Earth, he’s somehow atoned for the fact that he couldn’t save her. Even though none of that was his fault.”

“He doesn’t think so.”

“Of course he doesn’t.” Bashrik sighed again, and when he spoke, his tone was softer, resigned. “Navan’s always been the biggest, strongest brother. The smartest, too. Some of the brothers resented him for it, though I never did. How could I? But that doesn’t mean Navan is immortal—not yet, anyway. Sometimes he acts like he is, but we both know that he’s not. I don’t want him to get himself killed. You’ve got to watch out for him, Riley. I know he’s going to be focused on keeping you safe, so maybe you can figure out a way to make sure that means he’s safe, too.”

“I’ll try,” I said, though what I really wanted to ask was how did he expect me to do that? I was just a human, after all—inferior in every way to a coldblood. But if there was something that I could do, some way that I could help, then of course I would try my best.

“Thank you,” Bashrik said. “Losing Naya was hard enough—I don’t know if I can deal with losing Navan, too.”

“We’ll be in touch soon,” I said.

Bashrik said goodbye, and I disconnected the call, placing the comm back into Navan’s bag. A gust of wind whipped the side of the ship, rattling something on the outside, and I shivered. I peeked out—there was no sign of Navan.

How long had I been on the call for? Didn’t he say he was just going to fly around and be right back? What if something had happened to him? I had no idea how to operate this ship to go after him. I’d be stuck out here, helpless.

My heart started to beat faster, and I took several deep breaths, telling myself I was getting carried away, that everything was probably fine, and I just needed to stay calm.

But several more minutes passed, and still Navan didn’t appear.

He should be back by now. Finally, I could no longer ignore the thought.

I climbed out of the ship and stood outside, looking up at the sky, doing my best to ignore the wind that whipped through my hair. It was so cold, and the darkness seemed to go on forever. Like there was nothing else out there.

“Navan?” I said, and it felt as if the wind snatched the word right out of my mouth and carried it away. I stumbled away from the ship. If I kept moving, that would at least get the blood flowing, and maybe I’d warm up a little, and at the same time, be able to find Navan. Maybe he was wrong about his ability to sense the shapeshifters, especially if they were invisible. What if they had ambushed him, or he was injured and couldn’t get back?

“Navan?!” I yelled, a note of fear tinging my voice. Aside from the wind, though, there was nothing.

I kept walking, until the vastness of where I was suddenly hit me, and I turned, realizing that I had gone farther than I thought. I couldn’t see the ship anymore, though I wasn’t sure if that was because it was dark or I’d gone too far. I stopped, paralyzed by both fear and the cold. It was stupid to have left the ship. I’d acted out of panic, and even though I knew acting out of panic was never a good thing to do, I hadn’t been able to help myself this time. The thought of that vampire being in trouble just seemed to have scrambled my brain.

I turned, hoping to follow my footprints back. But the snow was old and had a crust of ice over it, so there were no tracks. I could only hope that I was going in the right direction, though with no point of reference, I couldn’t be sure. I widened my eyes, then squinted, trying to make out anything in the darkness.

I had to force myself to start walking again; the cold had seeped into my bones and made my joints feel as if they no longer worked. I took as many steps as I thought I had taken away from the ship, but when I looked, all I saw was darkness. Somehow, I had gone the wrong way, and now who knew how far I was from where I wanted to be.

Needed to be. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to keep going, but I knew my situation was becoming dire. Hadn’t I just promised Bashrik that I would try to stay safe, that I would try to keep Navan safe? And now here I was, completely alone, lost in the freezing tundra. I would have been mad at myself, but I was too scared.

My foot slipped on the ice and I went down hard, the impact jarring every last bit of breath out of me. I lay there, unable to move, unable to get my breath back for a few terrifying seconds. But then my chest unlocked and I sucked in a cold mouthful of air, which burned my lungs and made my eyes water. I couldn’t stop shaking, but a heavy feeling suddenly overcame me, like I was more tired than I’d ever been in my entire life. I could barely keep my eyelids open.

My eyes had almost closed all the way when a surge of anxiety shot through me, and with that anxiety was a jolt of adrenaline. I tried to scramble up, knowing that if I let my eyes close now, I’d probably never open them again. But my limbs didn’t want to cooperate; it was like my brain was telling them one thing and they were doing the opposite. I flailed and thrashed and I couldn’t get my feet underneath me. I couldn’t get up.

I lay back, looking up at the dark sky. Another shooting star. Was that my imagination? Had I ever even seen a shooting star before tonight? And now I’d seen two? You were supposed to make a wish when you saw one, right? That heavy feeling returned, lurking like a stranger at the edge of my vision. All I could hope now was that Navan was okay, that nothing bad had happened to him, that he’d be able to continue the mission and be successful.

I let my eyes close.

The wind blew around me, and though I wasn’t sure what would happen next, I expected it to be something like falling, maybe a tunnel, my whole life flashing before my eyes. But there was just . . . the sensation of the cold, which felt as though it had worked its way into my blood, was coursing through my veins. Suddenly, though, there was the sensation of ascension, of being lifted somewhere, the wind rushing around my face. I struggled to open my eyes, half-expecting to look down and see my body still there on the ground, my spirit lifting off to who-knew-where, but instead, I saw an arm, wrapped around me, the ground getting further away.

“What the hell are you doing?” I felt Navan’s voice more than heard it, though the realization that he had found me, that I wasn’t going to die out here alone in the cold, gave me a burst of energy and I struggled to sit up. “Hold still,” he said. “Or you’re going to fall. What are you doing out here? I got back to the ship and you were gone!”

“I’m sorry,” I tried to say, though no sound really came out of my mouth. I started shivering uncontrollably and I tried to nestle myself against him as best I could. His grip tightened around me, and his voice was hoarse as he spoke.

“What if I hadn’t come back when I did? What if I wasn’t able to find you? You’d be dead right now, you do realize that, don’t you?!”

It seemed only seconds until we were back at the ship. Navan set me down gently and spread the sleeping bag out. He pulled my shoes off and then helped me lie down, wrapping the sleeping bag around me. My teeth continued to click, my whole body shaking. I tried to get it to stop by taking deep breaths, but I was just so cold. Being in the sleeping bag didn’t seem to make a bit of difference—it was like my body didn’t have enough heat left in it.

I opened my eyes when I heard Navan light the gas stove. I watched him for a moment, confused as to what he was up to. He had a pot on the stove and was melting down two of the candles. He dipped one hand, then the other, into the hot, melted wax. That must hurt.

I tried to sit up, but it felt like every ounce of strength had left me. “Wh-What are you doing?” I managed to ask, but my voice was barely more than a whisper and he didn’t seem to hear me. The wax hardened around his hands and he broke it off, dropping the pieces back into the pot. He turned the burner off, and then came over to where I lay. He positioned himself behind me, pulling me to him. His hands emanated heat from the hot wax, and my body immediately melded against his, warmth finally radiating into the sleeping bag, enveloping me in what might have been the most wonderful sensation I had ever felt. And though he didn’t have any heat of his own, outside of the candle wax, he seemed to absorb the heat that my own body was finally capable of generating, and the warmth swirled around us, making me feel as though we were both safely cocooned.

There wasn’t a need to say anything, though part of me wanted to thank him, not just for this small gesture to keep me warm or saving my life after I’d all but resigned myself to the fact that it was over, but for being open with me earlier about what had happened with his sister, for being willing to risk his life to save a planet that he didn’t even live on.