They waited.
The deck faced north. Mountains cut black silhouettes against a sky still holding the last blue of twilight. Stars were emerging — first one, then ten, then too many to count. The cold was sharp and clean, the kind that made every breath visible.
Lily was wrapped in three blankets. She'd insisted on all of them. Leo had one — the blue one — and sat pressed against Franz's side, tablet in his lap. Arianne held a thermos of hot chocolate. Franz's arm was around her shoulders.
"How do we know when they'll come?"
"We don't." Franz's voice was quiet. "We wait."
Lily sighed. "I'm not good at waiting."
"Neither am I."
Arianne said it without thinking. Lily looked at her — really looked, the way Lily did when she was assembling evidence.
"But you waited. For Uncle Franz. That's what he said. He waited years and you waited too, you just didn't know it."
