Emma Fisher was five years old when a shadow stepped through a burning doorway and left her an orphan. She saw a face bent low in the firelight. She has spent fifteen years trying to unsee it.Jake McKellar came east from Colorado with a brother's death on him and a compass he has no right to carry. He works the Appalachian ridges alone, keeping his life small enough to survive.At a remote winter shelter, four people are waiting to be found. Not all of them are alive.