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Prologue

In the drea else, a terrible grief that chokes h the tall grass I walk aentle slope It’s not the hillside from my vision, not the forest fire, not anyplace I’ve seen before This is so new Overhead the sky is a pure, cloudless blue Sun shining Birds singing A war the trees

A Black Wing rief is any indication I glance around That’s when I seea suit, black jacket and everything: dark gray button-down shirt, shiny shoes, a striped silver tie He gazes straight ahead, his jaw set in deter else I can’t identify

“Jeffrey,” I murmur

He doesn’t look at et this over with” I wish I knehat he meant

Then someone takes my hand, and it’s faers enfolding ht Christian’s My breath catches I shouldn’t let hi, but I don’t pull away I look up the sleeve of his suit to his face, his serious green gold-flecked eyes And for an instant the sorrow eases

You can do this, he whispers in my mind

Chapter 1

Looking for Midas

Bluebell’s not blue anymore The fire has transforray, and rusty orange, the s shattered by the heat, the tiresblackened twist of metal andat it now, that a feeeks ago one ofaround in this old truck with the s rolled down, letting lances over at Tucker just because I liked looking at hiainst Bluebell’s beat-up, musty seats This is where I fell in love

And now it’s all burned up

Tucker’s staring at what’s left of Bluebell with grief in his stor on the scorched hood like he’s saying his final good-byes I take his other hand He hasn’t said a lot since we got here We’ve spent the afternoon wandering through the burned part of the forest, searching for Midas, Tucker’s horse Part of , but when Tucker asked et it—he loved Midas, not only because he was a chaht Midas was born, watched him take his first shaky steps, raised him and trained him and rode him on practically every horse trail in Teton County He wants to knohat happened to him He wants closure

I know the feeling

At one point we came across the carcass of an elk, burned nearly to ash, which for an awful ht was Midas until I saw the antlers, but that was all we found

“I’m sorry, Tuck,” I say now I know I couldn’t have saved Midas, no way I could have flown carrying Tucker and a full-grown horse out of the burning forest that day, but it still feels like my fault, somehow

His hand tightens in mine He turns and shows me a hint of dimple

“Hey, don’t be sorry,” he says I loop an arm around his neck as he pullsyou out here today It’s depressing I feel like we should be celebrating or so You saved my life, after all” He smiles, a real s I could ask for I tug his face down, finding all kinds of solace in the way his lips ainst th of this boy who stole et lost in him

I failed at my purpose