Chapter 2: Black Stone at the Edge of the Drowned Valley

They drove through the night until Scotland happened.

Elliot could feel it before he could see it — the quality of dark outside the window changing, thickening, as if the air itself had more substance up here, more intention. The motorway had given way to A-roads and the A-roads had given way to something narrower and less apologetic, a single lane cut between hills that rose and disappeared into low cloud, and the car's headlights stopped reaching as far as they had before, as if they too understood they were somewhere different now and had adjusted their ambitions accordingly.

He had slept for some of it, or something that was shaped like sleep without the restfulness. When he opened his eyes fully somewhere past three in the morning, Maren had not moved. Same posture. Same careful hands on the wheel. The mirror check every two or three minutes, interval so practiced it barely registered as motion.