Whitefish River And feeling with my fingertips, the bottle neck I found.

Bye KO! Thanks for having us <3 Riley will be back sometime in the future, but is being shelved for now.

With Orlaith planning her leave and informing him of such, Riley had no reason to stay.

He looked at the den he had made himself in these last few months, somber as he surveyed the small niche he'd carved for himself -- that he would likely never see again.

He thought of the secrets he'd carried here. Of Esme, of the man he'd found and killed in the pool -- and he thought of how, besides Orlaith, he had very little roots here. No family. No ties.

Just another no-account vagrant passing through.

White snow began to fall in damp and soundless sheets. By the time Riley was gone from Kaistleoki, the ground had been blanketed by a solid inch of snow. He would find Orlaith's trail and follow it out of the wilderness, determined to not lose the one thing that had mattered to him in these months past.