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"What’s this?" he grunted

Shelby could see that his hands were chapped and red frohly on the horses’ reins to slow the to a stop just short of Miles’s bright blue baseball cap

"No, no, no," Shelby one pale

Thein the thick runt, and swooped it up in the blink of an eye

Shelby heard Miles s hard

A quick swipe against the man’s already filthy trousers and the cap was halfway clean Without a word, he turned andthe hat inside the tarp behind hireen hoodie She tried to iine this man’s reaction if she were to pop out fro weird clothes from the future and try to take back his prize It was not a cal idea

In the tied on the reins; the cart started rolling to town again, and his song entered its twelfth off-key round

Another thing Shelby had screwed up "Oh, Miles I’m sorry"

"Noe definitely have to follow him," Miles said, a little desperate

"Really?" Shelby asked "It’s just a hat"

But then she looked at Miles She still wasn’t used to seeing his face The cheeks Shelby used to think of as babyish seeular, and his irises were speckled with a new intensity She could tell by his crestfallen expression that it definitely wasn’t "just a hat" to hiood-luck taliset that look off his face

"Okay," she blurted out "Let’s go get it"

Before Shelby kneas happening, Miles had slipped his hand through hers It felt strong and assured and a little ied her toward the road "Come on!" She resisted for an instant, but then her eyes accidentally locked with Miles’s, and they were super-crazy blue, and Shelby felt a wave of exhilaration kick in

Then they were running down a snow-dottedpast crop fields that were dead for the winter, covered in a sleek sheet of white that draped the trees and spotted the dirt road They were heading toward a walled city with towering black spires and a narrow, hing for no reason Shelby could ever have put into words--laughing so hard she nearly forgot what they were about to do But then, when Miles called out, "Ju snapped into place and she did

For a

A knotty log forh to balance on Their feet skiraceless luck--

For a moment Then the cart hit a rut and rattled fiercely, and Miles’s foot slipped and Shelby lost her grip on the canvas tarp Her fingers slipped and her body flailed and she and Miles were flung backward, sailing doard, into the runted Her rib cage throbbed She wiped the cold y stuff She looked up at the cart growing sone

"Are you okay?" she asked him

He wiped his face with the herinned "Do Francesca’s face if she found out where ere right now" Miles’s coutted

Still, she would play along Shelby loved to impersonate their stately Shoreline teacher She rolled out of the puddle, propped herself on her elbows, stuck out her chest, and pinched up her nose "And I suppose you’re going to deny that you were purposely atteacy? I’ine what the faaancypants board of directors will say And have Ito track you tn--"

"No, Frankie" Miles helped Shelby up from the mud as he deepened his voice to do his best ihtly more relaxed dele se toilets really should teach thean with noble intentions"

Noble intentions Finding Luce

Shelby sed, feeling a somberness settle over her They’d been a teaether

"We didn’t give up on her," Miles said softly "You heard what Daniel said He is the only one who can find her"

"You think he’s found her yet?"

"I hope so He said he would But--"

"But what?" Shelby asked