Nova's POV
The paper in the snow said four words.
Finish the letter, Nova.
Her mother's handwriting. Again. On paper that was fresh not aged, not softened at the edges the way the letter in her pocket was softened. New paper. New ink. Written recently, by someone who had her mother's handwriting and a thirty-year-old face and silver eyes and the ability to disappear from a walled garden in bare feet without leaving footprints.
Thorne picked it up before she could.
He looked at it for a long moment. His face was doing what his face did when he was thinking hard and had decided not to say anything until the thinking was done.
"Someone has been watching us," he said. "Long enough to know about the letter. Long enough to know you haven't finished it."
"Seraphine," Nova said.
"Or someone she sent."
"The woman from the infirmary"
