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own.”
    Bree turned her back on Keeva and fled home. She wouldn’t stop trying to save Heath because of a death threat. She’d kill the heron tomorrow. Mad Mia could take the blood, and Bree would bring the bird to the bonfire to be roasted. Heath would live. Keeva would have her dinner. Both tasks completed. Simple as that.
    Bree lay awake that night, listening to the distant crash of waves and Heath’s labored breathing.
    “Did Sparrow visit?” she whispered to Lock.
    “Crap, Bree,” he gasped. “I didn’t know you were awake.”
    You’d have known if you had used your ears , she thought, rolling her eyes in the dark.
    “He’s got a fever,” Lock said after a moment.
    “And?”
    “And Sparrow thinks it will break.”
    “The wound’s not infected?”
    “She didn’t say.”
    Bree sighed. “What do you think, Lock?”
    “I think it’s not good. I think . . .” Bree couldn’t see him, but she heard him sit up, and she imagined his gaze skimming over Heath’s bed to settle on hers. “Come outside with me?”
    Bree complied.
    Beneath the glow of the moon, Lock looked troubled. A wrinkle was visible between his brows.
    “I didn’t want to wake them,” he said, jerking his head at the door. He sunk to the ground and leaned against the hut. Bree did the same. “He’ll be okay, right? He has to be. This is Heath. He’s sick every month. If he was going to die, it would have been from blood loss when they pulled the spike. He’s . . . he’s not supposed to go before me. I’m not supposed to outlive him.”
    Bree dared a glance Lock’s way, and spotted a tear on his cheek. She’d never seen Lock cry, and even now it seemed impossible. Like she was looking at a stranger. For a moment Bree thought of telling him about Mad Mia and the heron, but she took his hand instead. His fingers were calloused and rough, like hers—hands of work—but they seemed stronger, sturdier. Twice as large. Like he had twice everything she did. Twice the love in his heart and pain in his chest. Twice the need for Heath to live.
    She bit back her words. If the heron failed, if it didn’t work—Bree didn’t want to be that girl again. The one who chased the promise of a fable. She didn’t want to let Lock—or Heath—down.
    A shadow moved on the other side of town, threading between two huts and pausing just beyond the bonfire ring.
    “That’s Maggie,” Lock said, pulling his hand from Bree’s. No wonder he’d been lying in bed, waiting . He stood and Bree protested.
    “I need to clear my head,” he said.
    “I thought that’s what we were doing.”
    “This is different.” He looked down at her, frowning. “Don’t wait up for me.”
    Bree watched him leave. And then she kept watching the spot where he’d disappeared between the trees, hoping he might reappear. Alone. Muttering an apology. Thanking her for holding his hand. Asking her to hold it again.
    She let the waves crash a dozen times before she stood and slipped inside.

SIX
    IT WAS MIDDAY AND THE heron hadn’t reappeared.
    Bree’s butt was numb and she had a cramp in her neck from craning it at such an unnatural angle. She was beginning to fear she’d wasted her morning. Maybe the bird wouldn’t appear until dusk. Maybe it only ever appeared at dusk. If it didn’t show, Bree would need to find food in a hurry. She hadn’t checked her snares in a few days. It wouldn’t be much, but if she snagged a rabbit, it would buy her time. Keeva couldn’t banish her when she still brought in food . . . could she?
    Saltwater already had plenty of fishermen. And Bree wasn’t contributing to the village’s growth. Most of the girls her age had a child (or at least one on the way), but Bree had eyes only for Lock, and it seemed every boy on the island but Lock was aware of it. They steered clear. (The horrible, snapping monster-of-a-girl she’d been in the years following her mother’s death probably helped account for their distance.)
    Still,