Chapter 4

The plane cut through the darkness and touched down just as the sun was rising.

Warm, golden light poured over my face. It hit me then, with a kind of quiet shock, that walking out of the darkness had been so much simpler than I'd imagined.

I used my parents' savings to buy a small house.

Time moved slowly in Valdoris. Slowly enough that I could spend a whole day just deciding what to eat.

My neighbors were the Bennetts.

Maria Bennett took one look at me and grabbed my hands, her eyes full of concern. "You're way too thin,…