Chapter 1

I had knocked over the glass beside my bed.

Water was spreading across the floorboards, slipping beneath the rug. Mom would be upset if it left a mark.

I crouched to wipe it up.

My hand passed through the glass.

Across the room, a girl lay beside the door, one arm outstretched. Her lips had gone blue. An inhaler rested just beyond her fingers.

I knew that girl.

I was still wearing the dress I had chosen for my birthday.

For a while, I waited for my chest to hurt again.

It didn’t.

I had died.

Grandma had died two winters ago. I remembered the stillness of her hands, the way everyone whispered around her bed. I had never thought being dead would feel so much like being left behind in a room.

I wanted her.

Instead, I looked toward the window and saw our car pulling back into the drive.

Maybe Mom would remember something. Maybe she would come back.

She used to come back for me.

When I was seven, she and Dad took me to a home for orphaned pack children. Dad went every winter to deliver supplies. That year, I was allowed to help.

A little girl sat alone beneath a window, holding a stuffed rabbit by its remaining ear.

I offered her a cookie.

She broke it in half and gave one piece back.

Her name was Lily. She was six, and she asked if I would visit again.

I thought about her all the way home.

“Could she stay with us?” I asked that night. “We have so many empty rooms.”

It took months of visits and meetings before she moved in. I counted every day.

On her first night, she stood outside my bedroom with her rabbit tucked under her arm.

“Can I sleep here, big sister?”

I moved over before she finished asking.

For years, I thought bringing her home was the best thing I had ever done.

We built blanket forts. We shared secrets. When thunder frightened her, she climbed into my bed and held my hand until she fell asleep.

Mom used to kiss both our foreheads.

Dad used to carry us upstairs, one under each arm.

The box began as a game for little disagreements. Who chose the movie. Who got the window seat on a trip. I remembered winning sometimes. I remembered Lily laughing when she won, too.

Grandma never liked it when Mom brought the box out for anything more serious.

“If both girls need you, you make time for both,” she said. “You don’t leave it to a stick.”

Back then, Mom would sigh and put it away.

After Grandma died, there was no one left to make her.

Still, things didn’t truly change until the year before my eighteenth birthday.

Lily started crying behind closed doors.

If I asked what was wrong, she said she was fine. Later, Mom would call me into her study and ask why I had told Lily she wasn’t really part of our family.

I hadn’t.

“You may not remember saying it,” Mom replied. “She remembers hearing it.”

After that, every disagreement seemed to prove something about me.

If I wanted time alone with Dad, I was excluding Lily. If I asked for something she wanted, I was reminding her how much I’d had before she came.

The box came out more and more.

One evening, I drew a short stick and watched the cook serve Lily’s favorite shrimp pasta. Mom knew shellfish made me ill.

“There’s bread in the kitchen, Nora. We can’t change the menu every time you lose.”

The pantry was full. A second dinner would have been no trouble.

I ate toast by the sink so Lily wouldn’t think I was trying to spoil the meal.

Another night, I had a fever. I asked Mom to stay until I fell asleep.

Lily appeared in the doorway, saying she’d had a nightmare.

Mom held out the box.

I drew short.

“You’re older,” she told me, already turning away. “You understand.”

Ethan used to wait by the gate so we could walk to training together. Then Lily said the route made her nervous, and he began leaving early to take her.

He always promised we would have time later.

We had grown up together. We were dating, but we hadn’t exchanged marks or formed a mate bond. He said there was no need to rush.

I believed him.

The night before my birthday, he kissed my forehead and promised dinner.

By morning, Lily had asked him to come to the park.

“She finally feels safe with us,” he said. “We can celebrate tomorrow.”

I practiced drawing after he left. I tried closing my eyes. I tried reaching to the bottom. I tried choosing quickly, before I had time to be afraid.

Short. Short. Short.

I thought something was wrong with my hands.

That was why I joined the two sticks.

I only wanted to know what winning felt like again.

But cheating was wrong.

I looked at the girl on the floor.

I’m sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t have lied.

A key turned in the front door.

I lifted my head.

Mom had come back.