The aft deck was black and streaming with rain, the boards slick under my dragging feet, the wind shoving at us both.

Two shapes waited near the stern rail in dark rain slickers.

Aidan.

Fiona.

Their faces lit now and then by the lightning, and there was nothing in them I recognized — nothing of the family they’d played for eight months — only a cold, wet, greedy focus.

“Is she under?” Fiona had to raise her voice over the wind.

“She can’t lift her own head,” Flynn said, and dragged me toward the rail, and bent to lift my feet toward the lower bar.

“Goodbye, Mabel.