“EMMELINE!”

I turn slow from my perch on the bank, my eyes reluctant to leave the swallows that dip through the new cattails on the swollen river. The sun blinds me for a moment and she’s just a shadow striding across the green flats in her calm way.

I pick myself up from the bank awkward-like before I remember I don’t need to favor my bad foot so much. Matisa and Soeur Manon have figured a kind of tincture to help with the pain.

Matisa knows lots of things that can help us: ways to make stores last longer, cures for certain kinds of ailments. Most of her ways come from the land, though some of the supplies they brought have also helped with sicknesses and wounds.

Course, some wounds are beyond healing.

She reaches me and stops. “You’ve been out here all morning.”

“I know,” I say, looking at the woods beyond the flats. “Can’t help watching everything green up.”

We look around at the trees budding out, the small pockets of snow melting slow in their crooks and shadows.

“Talks are in an hour.”

I sigh real deep. “Again?”

She smiles. “Talking is good.”

“If it gets us anywhere.”

She shrugs. “I’m sure we’re close.”

We’re quiet again. The swallows swoop and dip.

She tilts her head at the river. “Being out here—does it bring you peace?”

I swallow hard against the stone that settles in my throat. “Suppose.”

We stand there a moment, listening to the chirrup of the birds, the soft wind. Matisa turns to go. “You’ll be needed at Talks,” she says over her shoulder.

“I’ll be there,” I murmur, looking at the river. “Matisa?” She looks back. “You have that dream again?”

She nods, her eyes serious. I watch her turn and walk back to the fortification, carrying the weight of it on her shoulders. We’ll have to speak on that dream at Talks.

Now that the Thaw is here, we’ve got some decisions to make. It was a hard Ice Up, even with Matisa’s help; we lost three people and had barely enough stores to survive on. Can’t imagine Jameson’s family fared any better after being cast out—doubt they’re still alive.

And Matisa’s been dreaming on a war. A big battle, coming in along the horizon, setting the river on fire. She tells us there are bigger weapons out there—more deadly than rifles and bows and arrows. There are weapons that can turn people to ash, poisons that can destroy their insides, addle their brains. She had the war dream all La Prise, and Isi’s pushing hard for the three of them to return home.

I stare across the bulging waters and up the bank, picturing the sweeping prairies greening up in the sun. Matisa says the land is vast, bigger than we could ever imagine. There might be other places to Discover, other unknowns. I know Matisa’s hoping I will go with her so she and I can figure our dreams.

But there are some people I won’t leave without.

I look back at the fortification. Two forms stand on the top of the north wall. Tom’s blond hair catches the sun as he bends to look at whatever Frère Andre is pointing out.

They’re up there every afternoon now, looking at the woods, at the hills beyond.

He’s Tom again, but better. That spark of curiosity I used to see in his eyes is back, and it shines when I talk about journeying beyond our settlement. He can feel change coming too. And he’s looking toward it with his head high.

I close my eyes a minute and take a deep breath. The memory of La Prise lingers in the breeze, but there’s the smell of new willow budding out and a softness to the wind that comes with the Thaw.

I head back.

When I reach the east gates, he’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed, waiting for me.

“Find anything new out there?” Kane says, that funny smile curving his mouth.

I nod. “Everything.”

He takes my wrists and pulls me to him.

“Careful,” I say as he wraps my arms around his back. “Sister Ann’s been eyeballing us. Fixing to bind us.”

“You can’t be kept. She doesn’t know that by now?”

I want to smile—it’s there, deep down—but I can’t find it.

His eyes search my face. “Em?”

I clear my throat. “She says . . . she says my pa would’ve wanted us bound.” It’s been months, but talking about him still makes my chest ache.

Kane studies me a moment. “You think that’s true?”

I chew on my lip. I think about Pa telling me how he chose my ma and didn’t care what anyone else said. I think about holding on to that rope in the killing cold. Think about heading back into the warmth. And Pa’s face, the very last time he looked at me. “I think . . .” I bring my eyes to meet Kane’s. “I think he’d want me to be happy,” I say, “however that looks.”

Kane smiles. And my stomach dives as he leans in to kiss me.

When he pulls away, I trace a finger across the nick on his temple, where the shotgun shrapnel grazed him. He grabs my hand and brings it to his mouth, drowning me in his black eyes. We stand there clasped together in the bright afternoon, the earth swelling and warming all around us.

The Lost People are gone now, but the breeze pulls wisps from my plait, creeps soft fingers along my neck, whispers in my ear.

And it sounds like hope.

La fin