“I know, I know,” I said as soon as I saw her glaring down at me. “I acted like a jackass toward Tilda today.”

“You certainly did.” She trudged over to me, her boots leaving snowy prints on the creaking floorboards. “You really hurt her feelings.”

“I’ll apologize to her later,” I promised Ember. “I just thought I’d give her some space.”

“Good.” Ember kicked off her boots, then flopped back on the bed beside me. She wore thick leggings under a skirt that flounced around her. “It will suck not having Tilda to train with or work with around Doldastam. But she says she’s coming back after the baby’s born.”

“I know,” I said, without much conviction.

“I mean, my mom didn’t go back to tracking after she had my older brother.” Her eyebrows pinched together and her mouth turned down into disappointment. “And that other tracker Sybilla had her baby two years ago, and she still hasn’t come back.”

“Maybe Tilda will be different.” I tried to cheer Ember up. “And even if she doesn’t come back, she’ll still be in town, and we can still see her.”

“You think she’s wrong, though.” Ember leaned back on the bed, propping herself up with her elbows and looking at me. “You don’t think she should have a personal life, that any of us should.”

“I have friends, and I’ve dated, and I thought it was great when Tilda and Kasper started dating. So it’s not that we shouldn’t have personal lives,” I said, trying to explain my position. “I just think we made an oath to make this job our priority, and having strong attachments can interfere with that.”

“Is that why you and Ridley never hooked up?” Ember asked.

“What? I—we—we never…” I sputtered, and sat back on the bed, moving farther away from her. “We never did anything because neither of us wanted to. I don’t have those feelings for him, and I’m sure he feels the same way. He’s my boss, and both of us could lose our jobs, and now he’s dating Juni, and besides, we didn’t want to. So. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ember raised her eyebrows and smirked at me. “Whatever you say, Bryn.”

“Nothing good ever comes from falling in love,” I told her definitively. “You act ridiculous and lose your mind and you forget what really matters to you, and then you end up sidelined and married or heartbroken and destitute, and neither of those are good options, so it’s better if you just avoid relationships altogether.”

“Gosh, I really hope you don’t mean that, because that just sounds sad,” Ember said, staring up at me with pity in her dark eyes.

I let out an exasperated sigh. “Just never mind.” I stood up, grabbing a sweater off my bedpost, and pulled it on over my tank top.

“What are you doing?” Ember sat up straighter, alarmed.

“I should probably head out. I’m supposed to go over to my parents’ for supper.” If I left now, I’d actually be a little early, but I’d grown tired of talking about romance and Ridley.

“Oh.” Her face fell. “Okay.” She slowly pulled on her boots and got to her feet. “Sorry if I said something to offend you.”

“No, you’re okay.” I brushed it off. “You’re fine. I just have stuff to do.”

Ember left, not seeming totally convinced that I wasn’t mad at her, so tomorrow I’d probably have to spend some time making up with both her and Tilda. But for now I had other things on my mind. Once she’d gone, I moved Konstantin’s file, preferring to hide it in the bottom of my nightstand drawer, underneath odds and ends.

The dinner with my parents had actually been my idea. After I’d read the incident report, going over what had happened with Konstantin in black-and-white, I realized that I needed to talk to my dad and find out what had actually happened that night before I came into the room.

The sun had nearly set by the time I reached my parents’ cottage in the town square. It had been a rare day without a cloud in sight, and the sky was darkening from pink to amethyst as the sun dipped below the horizon.

Before I even opened the front door, I could hear my mother, singing an old Skojare seafaring hymn. I paused, peeking through the kitchen window to see her standing in the kitchen, an apron around her waist and flour everywhere. She always sang when she baked, usually Skojare songs in a mixture of heavily accented English and Swedish, or occasionally Barbra Streisand. My mom had always been a sucker for Streisand.

When I came inside, I closed the door quietly behind me, and she didn’t hear me as I took off my boots and hung up my jacket. As a tracker, I’d been trained to tread lightly, to move about without making a sound, and I’d made it all the way into the kitchen before she turned around and saw me.

“Bryn!” Mom gasped and put her hand to her chest. “You scared the daylights out of me!” She smiled and swatted me playfully with an oven mitt. “Don’t give your mother a heart attack. It’s not very nice.”

“Sorry,” I said, but couldn’t help laughing. “What are you baking?”

“Just a gooseberry pie for dessert.”

“I’m sure it’ll be delicious.” I grinned. “Where’s Dad? I wanted to talk to him before dinner.”

“He’s in his study,” Mom said, but she stopped me before I turned to go. “Listen, Bryn, I need to talk to you for a second.”