“I finally gave up yesterday, and here I am.” I spread my hands as I shrugged. “There was nothing more I could do.”

“You could’ve tried to contact your family.” Uncle George glowered at me from behind his desk, which I sometimes still thought of as being Papa’s.

It had taken almost a half-hour to extricate myself from the hugs and questions and concern of the clan and make it to his office. “I was just about ready to send out the search parties.”

“I know, and I’m so glad I made it back in time to stop that,” I said, meaning every word. “I’m sorry to have caused you so much worry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Obviously.”

“I wanted to find Jasmine.”

“Which you didn’t.”

I looked down at my lap.

Only he could’ve made that sound like an accusation. The man was born without the ability to empathize.

“I didn’t. I’m a failure.”

“Now, now, I wouldn’t go that far.”

But he just did.

“I’m sure you did everything you could. I know how devoted the two of you were to each other.”

The fact that he was already using past tense was promising. Could he be that easily fooled? Or was he that eager to be rid of Jasmine as one of his advisors? I hadn’t considered that yet, but it made a degree of sense.

I raised my eyes again to study him. His blonde hair, a lot like mine, swept back from his forehead. He had Jasmine’s eyes, bright green and clear. But while hers had a softness to them—except when she was being stubborn—his were always hard. Cold. Calculating. He looked so much like Papa but was nothing like him in all the ways that really counted.

“I did find the car,” I offered. “It was a wreck. I couldn’t even tell you exactly where it landed, but there’s no way she could’ve survived that.”

“But there was no body inside.”

“The doors were both open, though,” I said with a shudder. If I imagined my sister being part of the wreck, it was easier to act as devastated as one would expect. Tears filled my eyes when I thought of her body slumped over in the car, tumbling down the side of the mountain, breaking and shattering. “She must have either been thrown from it, or animals pulled her from it. Either way…”

“Enough.” He shuddered. “It’s all too gruesome to consider. You’re lucky no animals found you out there.”

“I didn’t exactly linger,” I said as I wiped my eyes. “Once it was all clear, I couldn’t stay there a second longer than I needed to. It hurt too much.”

“I’m sure it did, dear.”

My skin crawled when he used endearments like that. I knew he didn’t mean them.

“I’m very sorry you’re going through this. We’re all going through it with you, and you have our full support. As always.”

“Thank you, Uncle George.”

“I’m sure you must be exhausted by now.”

I nodded, standing. That was the perfect exit point. “Yes, I am. I can’t wait to clean myself up.”

I said too much, and it was clear from the way his eyebrows knitted together over his long, thin nose. “You don’t look very dirty to me. In fact, you look downright clean.”

“I’ve been washing in river water for days,” I shrugged. “Even this old thing. I had to beat it against a rock, can you imagine? Like back in the olden days.”

He nodded slowly, thoughtfully, not taking the bait. “It strikes me as odd that someone like you, normally so calm and methodical, left without taking so much as a change of clothing. Or shoes.” He looked pointedly at my feet.

Damn him. He would think of that, wouldn’t he? The slimy bastard.

I scrambled in my head for a believable excuse. “I wore shoes when I left,” I explained. “But they were so filthy and muddy and waterlogged after a few days, I left them behind. You know I have no problem being barefoot.”

“That’s true.” He seemed to accept my story.

“As for a change of clothes…” I shrugged. “I was in a hurry. I never thought it would take me as long as I did to find her. I knew she was planning on a hike, I knew where she generally liked to drive out to when she did that. She took me with her a few times.”

“How did you get there?” he frowned.

“Since she took the car, I hitchhiked.” What a pathetic excuse!

George’s face reddened, then turned almost purple. “You what? Don’t you know how dangerous that is? Why in the world wouldn’t you take one of the other cars? I’m sure anybody would’ve let you take theirs.”

I saw a way to turn things around. “That would’ve meant letting somebody else know what I planned to do—and I knew it would get back to you, and you wouldn’t like it. You would tell me not to go. Wouldn’t you?”

His anger seemed to subside, if only a little. “I suppose you’re right, but I still don’t agree with your methods.”

“I’m safe, and I’m back. So it all turned out as well as possible—at least, as well as possible without Jasmine.”

He stood with a sigh, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry about that. I truly am. You know how headstrong she was. How unlikely it was that she would ever listen to the opinions of others.”

Yes, including yours, you jerk.

He tried to hide his secret glee that she was no longer a thorn in his side, but I knew better. I could see right through him, just the way Papa always could. The way Jasmine could, too.

She never let him get away with anything, always citing what our father would’ve done in any given situation. In his eyes, it was probably as if Papa were still alive. Still giving him trouble and making it impossible for him to lead the clan as he wanted to lead it.

“Yes. She insisted on driving through the mountains, when I told her not to.”

“Precisely.” I fought the urge to vomit at the outright disgust I felt for him.

He steered me toward the door leading out to the hall, and I couldn’t get there fast enough. Anything to be away from him and his questions and his peering, knowing eyes.

I could never be sure if he was telling the truth. I didn’t know if he fully believed my story or not.

“Take care of yourself now. You need to rest. You need to process this, as we all do.”

“I do. You’re right. Thank you, Uncle George.”

“And if you need anything, just let me know.” He guided me out to the hall and nodded his goodbye before I turned and walked away.

I reminded myself to take slow, measured steps even though all I wanted to do was run. I wanted to run far, fast, to put as much distance between us as possible.

Only when I reached the winding staircase which led up to my haven did I put on some speed. Every step put me one step closer to the only solitude I would ever know.

Nobody dared set foot in my room—it was the only hard-and-fast rule I had. I told them it was a matter of guarding the supplies, and the rest of the clan seemed to accept this as the full truth.

They didn’t know how deep my need for space and time and peace ran. For them, life meant sharing every moment with each other, living as one large, extended family. I just wanted to be alone.

I could breathe again with the door locked behind me. I leaned against it with a heavy sigh, looking around as I did.

My sanctuary.

The only good thing about being back home. The familiar smells warmed my heart—good thing, too, since it needed all the warming it could get.

I set my bag down on a work table and took a seat by the window.

Putting things back in their proper place could wait. I had other things on my mind.

I opened the windows to let fresh air inside, then leaned my elbows on the sill and looked out over the grounds and even further. Out to the mountains. Which one was Jasmine’s home? Smoke’s home?

I could think of him now.

With my stories told and accepted—I hoped—there was time to let my heart wonder about him again. How could I have been so wrong about him? How could I have deluded myself into believing he cared about me? Was I that lonely? That desperate? I had never thought of myself as a desperate person before. I wasn’t like the girls who came to me for love potions, and there were many of those.

Girls whose faces fell when I told them there was no such thing as a love potion. Love wasn’t the sort of thing that could be forced. It had to happen on its own.

I was smarter than them. I was above it all. Or so I’d always thought.

Mama used to tell us stories about a girl who lived in the top of a tower. She would look out the window all day and night, hoping for the day when her prince would come and save her. I used to wonder what that girl did with the rest of her time. Wasn’t she bored? What sense was there in sitting and looking out a window day in and day out? I’d always kept my questions to myself, since I knew Mama would laugh in that gentle way of hers and Jasmine would tell me to shut up and just enjoy the story. Even then, when we were little girls, she was always the vocal one.

I thought about that girl in the tower as I sat in a tower of my own, pining away for a man I could never be with. No, not just a man. A dragon. I had to keep thinking of him that way, otherwise I’d romanticize him and make it that much harder to live without him. It was already hard enough.

Even so, even though common sense told me to stop wasting my time, I still thought about him.

I wondered; did he miss me? Would he think of me? What went through his head whenever our eyes met, and a shiver ran down my spine? What was he feeling in those moments? When we’d find our way to each other’s sides without saying a word? What was he thinking then?

Stop this.

I shook my head when my practical side took over.

You have work to do.

And I did.

I got up with a determined sigh and turned my back to the window.

By the time the sun rose, I had put away the supplies I had taken to the cave and had already started making more salve to replace what I’d used on Jasmine.

But still, the window was open.

And every so often, my eyes drifted out toward the distant mountains.