A voice.

  "You need to wake up!"

  Panicked.

  "You must wake up!"

  Raw, worried and familiar.

  "Artemis, wake up!"

  My eyes opened. The world was soup at first, everything blurred together like someone had smeared Vaseline across my vision. Shapes moved in the darkness. A voice kept saying my name, deep and familiar, with that thick Québécois accent that turned every "r" into something rolled and guttural.

  The blur resolved slowly. A face. Angular jaw. Deep-set eyes that caught what little light bled in from the hallway. Silver hair combed back with military precision. A nose that looked like it had been broken at least once and healed slightly crooked.

  "Grandpa?" My voice came out rough, barely human.

  I reached for my phone on the nightstand, fingers fumbling across the smooth surface until they found it. The screen lit up, numbers glowing an accusatory blue-white: 4:18 AM.

  "It's only four in the morning, papi," I said, the French slipping out automatically. My brain was too offline to code-switch properly. "Quatre heures du matin. You know what normal people are doing right now? They're unconscious. Comatose. Dead to the world."

  My grandfather, Louis-Philippe Archambault, made a sound halfway between a grunt and a chuckle. The man had fought in places he wouldn't talk about, done things he'd never mention, and survived long enough to become the kind of old person who woke up before dawn like it was a moral obligation.

  "Tu m'as dit to wake you," he said, his accent thick enough you could spread it on toast. "You told me yourself, last night. You wanted to come with me for my walk. And you know I walk early. Toujours. Always."

  The memory surfaced through the fog of sleep. Right. I'd said that. Past-Artemis, full of good intentions and stupid ideas, had volunteered for this torture. Present-Artemis wanted to reach back through time and strangle that optimistic idiot.

  I groaned, the sound starting somewhere deep in my chest and clawing its way up through my throat. Both hands came up to cover my face, fingers tangling in my hair, gripping hard enough to hurt. What had I been thinking? Oh yeah, something about spending quality time with Grandpa while I still could, about being grateful he was healthy enough to walk at eighty-three, about not taking these moments for granted.

  Present-Artemis had some choice words for Past-Artemis's sentimentality.

  "I can go by myself, you know," Grandpa said, and something in his voice made me crack one eye open. Too carefully neutral. Too deliberately casual. "You can continue sleeping as you were. I won't hold it against you, petit prince."

  And there it was, the guilt. Perfectly deployed. Precision emotional warfare from a man who'd probably used actual warfare at some point in his mysterious past. I loved him so much it physically hurt sometimes, like my chest was too small to contain all the feeling.

  "Non," I said, already swinging my legs out of bed and immediately regretting the decision. The floor was cold, the air was cold, everything was cold because we lived in a place where winter tried to murder you for six months straight. "No, I'm coming with you. Just give me five minutes to put something on that won't make me freeze to death and splash some water on my face so I remember I'm a mammal. Five minutes."

  "Cinq minutes," Grandpa repeated, and his voice had that edge that meant he wasn't joking. "And if you're not ready, I go without you. I have a schedule."

  "Yeah, yeah, j'ai compris," I muttered, already stumbling toward the bathroom. "Can't disrupt the sacred routine. The universe would fall apart otherwise.”

  I heard him laugh as he left, a low rumble that meant he was in a decent mood. Small victories.

  The bathroom light hit me like a physical assault. I actually made a noise, something between a hiss and a whimper, blinking away the spots in my vision before I could focus on the mirror.

  The face that looked back at me was mine. Had been mine for seventeen years. Olive-toned skin that had gone sallow over the winter months, like I'd been stored in a basement and forgotten about. A straight nose, not too wide, not too narrow, the bridge of it sitting just high enough to catch light in a specific way. Scattered across my cheeks were freckles, light brown dots that clustered heavier under my eyes and across the bridge of my nose, fading out toward my temples.

  My lips were full, the kind that curved softly even when I wasn't smiling, the cupid's bow pronounced enough that Mamie's friends always commented on it. Pink-toned, slightly chapped from the dry winter air. My jawline was smooth, rounded at the edges rather than sharp, tapering down to a delicate chin. The kind of jaw that didn't jut forward, didn't announce itself. My cheekbones sat high and prominent, creating soft hollows beneath them that caught shadows. My face was long rather than round, oval-shaped, my forehead proportionally large but smooth, unlined.

  My hair was pulled back in a turquoise scrunchie, three-dollar special from Jean Coutu, the curls bunched up and ending just above my shoulder blades. The curls themselves were tight, spiraling in on themselves in that specific pattern that required the right products and prayers to whatever gods governed hair texture. Dark brown, almost black in dim light, catching reddish-copper tones under the bathroom's fluorescent assault.

  My eyes were dark, brown deep enough to look black unless you were close and the light hit right. Large, taking up a significant portion of my face, framed by long lashes that curled upward naturally. Almond-shaped, sitting under eyebrows that arched in a gentle curve, neither thick nor thin, well-defined without effort. My nose had a slight upturn at the tip, not dramatic but noticeable, softening the straight line of the bridge.

  My neck was slender, the Adam's apple barely visible, just a slight prominence that you'd miss if you weren't looking for it. My shoulders, visible in the oversized t-shirt I'd slept in, were narrow, sloping rather than broad.

  The overall effect was soft. Delicate features that hadn't sharpened with age the way some people's did, staying instead in that realm of smoothness and curves. The kind of face that made cashiers pause, made strangers' eyes linger for a second longer than normal as they tried to sort through visual cues that didn't line up with their expectations. I'd gotten used to the "miss" that would sometimes slip out before the speaker's brain caught up, to the slight confusion in people's eyes before they settled on calling me "hey" or "you" instead of risking the wrong pronoun.

  I know it would probably stop if I cut my hair and tried to grow my hair but sue me but I was self-aware enough to know that I was vain and preferred looking like a pretty bitch instead of something more masculine but also much more ugly to look at.

  What wasn't familiar, what made me lean closer to the mirror and squint, were the dark circles. Calling them circles was generous. They looked like bruises, deep purple-gray smudges that spread from the inner corners of my eyes and bled outward, settling in the hollows beneath. Combined with the grayish tint to my skin, the slight hollowness in my cheeks that hadn't been there a month ago, the tiny crease between my eyebrows that I didn't remember having before, the way my lips looked dryer than they should be even though I'd been using lip balm religiously, I looked like Death had taken a swing at me and I'd barely managed to duck.

  Fuck, I was tired.

  Which was weird. I wasn't the type to get sick easily. Could count on one hand the number of times I'd stayed home from school in the past three years. My immune system was apparently constructed from spite and stubbornness, powering through whatever minor plagues swept through the school. But for the past few weeks, maybe a month, I'd been feeling progressively worse. Not sick-sick, not with symptoms I could point to and say "aha, flu" or "definitely a cold." Just exhausted. Run down. Like someone had installed a slow leak in my battery and I couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

  I'd mentioned it to Mamie about a week ago, mostly because she'd caught me literally falling asleep face-first into my dinner and had immediately activated Grand-Mère Emergency Protocol Alpha. Within an hour she'd called Dr. Beaumont, the family doctor who'd been seeing me since I was six and who probably knew my medical history better than I did.

  If I'm being honest, I'd thought she was overreacting. But that was kind of her defining characteristic, wasn't it? Overreacting about whether I'd eaten enough vegetables. Overreacting about whether I was wearing enough layers before going outside. Overreacting about my health. It was comforting in a smothering kind of way, like being wrapped in too many blankets, warm but restrictive.

  At least with her I didn't have to worry about being an inconvenience. Didn't have to calculate whether asking for help would cost me more than it was worth. Mamie just cared, fully and without qualification, in a way that made my chest tight when I thought about it too much. Unlike my mother, who'd once actually said, out loud, with her mouth, that I should be "grateful" she'd taken me to the emergency room when I'd broken my wrist at thirteen. As if taking your kid to the hospital for a broken bone wasn't, you know, the baseline minimum requirement of being a parent.

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  But I wasn't thinking about Mom. Not at 4:22 in the morning. Not when I had a walk to survive and a grandfather to keep up with.

  Dr. Beaumont had come by the house, because apparently when you had money and history with someone they'd still do house calls. He'd done all the standard doctor things: temperature check, blood pressure, looked in my ears and down my throat like the answers might be hiding in there, asked me approximately eight thousand questions about my sleep schedule and diet and stress levels. He'd poked and prodded and hummed thoughtfully in that specific way doctors do when they're thinking but don't want to alarm you yet.

  His diagnosis? Fatigue. Just, you know, fatigue. Nothing physically wrong with me that he could detect with his doctor tools and doctor knowledge. I was just exhibiting "all the classic signs of someone who needs rest."

  His prescription? "A well-needed period of rest." Which was doctor-speak for "go to sleep, you lil fuck."

  Real helpful. Really earning that medical degree.

  I looked at my bed through the bathroom doorway. It looked so good. So warm. The blankets were still rumpled from where I'd been sleeping, probably still holding my body heat, definitely still comfortable. I could be back in there in thirty seconds. Could close my eyes and drift off and wake up at a reasonable hour like a person who made good life choices.

  But a bigger part of me wanted to go on this walk.

  I couldn't explain it, not in a way that would make sense if someone asked. I just wanted to be around Grandpa. Wanted to listen to whatever random observations he'd make about the neighborhood or the weather or the state of the world. Wanted to watch him do his thing, this ritual he'd been doing since before I was born, probably before my mother was born. Wanted to be part of it, even if it meant waking up when the universe itself was still asleep.

  So I turned on the tap and splashed cold water on my face. Shocking. Brutal. Effective. Did it again. Ran wet hands through my hair, tightening the scrunchie. Brushed my teeth in rapid, aggressive strokes that probably weren't doing my gums any favors. Quick pit-check to confirm I didn't smell like something that had died and been reanimated. Good enough.

  I threw on clothes in a sleep-deprived frenzy. Black jogging pants, the fleece-lined ones because winter in Montreal was basically a six-month assassination attempt. A baggy t-shirt from some 5K run that Mamie had guilt-tripped me into doing two years ago, the fabric soft and faded from too many washes. My beat-up tennis shoes, once white, now a mottled grayish-beige from too many encounters with slush and road salt and the general grime of urban winter. Grabbed a hoodie for good measure, gray, oversized, comfortable. Tightened my hair.

  Four minutes and thirty seconds. Practically Olympic-level speed dressing.

  Grandpa was waiting by the front door, already wearing his good winter coat, the dark gray wool one that made him look like he was about to negotiate a Very Important Business Deal with the squirrels. His leather gloves were on, the expensive kind that actually kept your hands warm instead of just looking nice. He looked me up and down with that assessing gaze that probably had evaluated subordinates back in whatever military context he refused to discuss.

  "I almost believed you went back to sleep," he said, and was that approval in his voice? Hard to tell with him sometimes.

  I scoffed, jamming my hands in my hoodie pocket. "Of course not. I'm not a quitter."

  Something crossed his face then, quick and strange. His expression shifted, softened, and for just a second he looked sad. Not sad, that wasn't quite right. Grief-stricken? Pained? Something that made my stomach twist. But it was gone so fast I almost convinced myself I'd imagined it, a trick of the harsh entryway light.

  "Oui," he said, and his voice had gone soft, gentle in a way that made my chest feel too tight. "Yes, you're indeed not. You're the kind of person to cling to the things you hold dear no matter what."

  I blinked. Was he complimenting me? It sounded like a compliment. But the way he said it, the sadness underneath, made it feel like maybe it wasn't entirely positive. Like maybe holding on too tight was its own kind of problem.

  Before I could ask, before I could even begin to formulate the question, he clapped his hands together and the moment shattered.

  "Anyway," he said, back to his usual brisk tone, "assez niaisé. Enough dilly-dallying. It's time to go. I hope you can keep up."

  I grinned, trying to project a confidence I absolutely did not feel. "Of course I can. Who do you think I am? I'm young, you're, what, like a hundred and twelve? I got this."

  "Eighty-three," he said dryly. "P'tit morveux."

  He opened the door and February hit me like a wall of malice. The cold had teeth, had claws, had apparently decided that 4:30 in the morning was the perfect time to remind everyone in Montreal that nature was actively hostile to human life. I hunched my shoulders, tucked my chin into my hoodie, and watched my breath crystallize in front of my face.

  Grandpa set off at a brisk pace, his stride long and confident and completely unbothered by the fact that it was still dark out and the temperature was probably somewhere in the "why do humans live here" range. I matched him step for step, determined to prove that I could absolutely keep up, that I wasn't so exhausted I could barely function, that I was fine, totally fine, completely fine, and, wow, okay, we'd been walking for maybe ten minutes and I was already starting to fall behind.

  My legs felt heavy. Heavier than they should. Each step required more effort than it had the last time we'd done this walk, which had been, what, two weeks ago? Three? My breathing was getting labored faster than it should, little puffs of visible breath coming quicker, shallower. I could feel the cold settling into my bones, making everything ache in that specific way that cold does when you're already tired.

  Grandpa was pulling ahead. Not by much, just a few steps, but I could see the gap widening. He walked like a man twenty years younger, back straight, shoulders squared, each step purposeful and measured. Meanwhile I was over here trying not to look like I was struggling, trying to keep my breathing even, trying to ignore the way my chest was starting to feel tight.

  "You're falling behind, petit prince," Grandpa called back, not even breathing hard. How? How was he not even breathing hard?

  "No I'm not," I lied, pushing myself to speed up. My legs protested. My lungs protested. Everything protested. "I'm just, you know, enjoying the scenery. Looking at the, uh, the trees. Very nice trees we have here in Montreal."

  "The trees are covered in snow and it's pitch black."

  "I have excellent night vision."

  He laughed, that low rumble that meant he was onto me but would let it slide. For now.

  We kept walking. My grandmother always said the early morning was when the world was most honest, most itself, stripped of the performance that daylight required. I wasn't sure I agreed. Right now the world felt hostile and cold and like it wanted me to go back to bed, which honestly, fair.

  The streets were empty except for us. Street lights cast pools of sickly orange light that made the snow look yellow-gray instead of white. Our footsteps crunched on the packed snow on the sidewalk, the sound oddly loud in the pre-dawn silence. Somewhere a dog barked, singular and sharp, then stopped.

  I tried to focus on something other than how tired I was. Looked at the houses we passed, the ones I'd seen a thousand times but never really looked at. That blue one with the crooked shutters. The red one with the garden that was an explosion of vegetables in the summer and just lumpy snow now. The gray one where the old lady lived who always waved from her window except she probably wasn't up yet because normal people were still asleep.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. Probably a notification. Probably not important. I ignored it.

  "Fais attention," Grandpa said, and I looked up just in time to avoid walking directly into a mailbox. "Watch where you're going."

  "I was watching," I lied again. "I was just testing it. Making sure it was solid. For, uh, public safety reasons."

  "Of course."

  The gap between us kept widening. Not dramatically. Just gradually. Inch by inch, step by step. He wasn't walking faster. I was walking slower. I could feel it happening and couldn't seem to stop it. My body was running on fumes, the kind of deep exhaustion that sleep didn't fix anymore.

  Dr. Beaumont had said rest. Just rest. But I'd been resting. I'd been sleeping nine, ten hours some nights and still waking up feeling like I'd run a marathon in my dreams. Something was wrong. I knew something was wrong. But nobody could tell me what, and that was almost worse than having an answer, even a bad one.

  "You know," Grandpa called back, slowing down a bit, letting me catch up, "it's okay to admit when you're struggling."

  I caught up to him, breathing harder than I wanted to be. "I'm not struggling. This is just my face. I always look like this."

  "No, you don't."

  He stopped walking entirely, turned to face me. The street light behind him turned his silver hair into a halo, made his face hard to read. But I could hear the concern in his voice, could feel the weight of his attention like a physical thing.

  "Artemis," he said, using my full name instead of one of his nicknames, which meant he was being serious. "When was the last time you felt good?"

  The question hit harder than it should have. Because I couldn't remember. Couldn't pinpoint a moment in recent memory where I'd woken up feeling refreshed, where I'd gone through a day without fighting the urge to lie down and sleep. When had this started? Gradually enough that I hadn't noticed until it was already bad.

  "I'm fine," I said automatically. The lie came easily, well-practiced. "Just tired. Dr. Beaumont said I need rest, so I'm resting. It'll pass."

  "And if it doesn't?"

  I didn't have an answer for that.

  Grandpa studied me for another long moment, his dark eyes searching my face like he could read the truth written there in the hollows under my eyes and the grayish tint to my skin. Then he sighed, a heavy sound that seemed to carry more weight than it should.

  "Bon," he said finally. "On continue. But we're walking slow. And you tell me if you need to stop."

  "I don't need to,"

  "Artemis."

  The way he said my name, flat and final, shut down any protest before I could make it.

  "Fine," I muttered. "We'll walk slow. But I'm keeping up. I'm not a," what was that phrase he always used? "J'pas un pissou."

  "Language."

  "That's not even a swear word, that's just,"

  "It's crude."

  "You say worse all the time!"

  "Yes, and I'm eighty-three, I've earned the right to be crude. You're seventeen. You have to at least pretend to have manners."

  I wanted to argue, wanted to point out the hypocrisy, but I was honestly too tired. So I just followed him as we started walking again, slower this time, a concession to my failing body that I both appreciated and resented in equal measure.

  The sky was starting to lighten. Not properly, not sunrise yet, but that pre-dawn blue-gray that meant morning was coming whether I was ready for it or not. Street lights were still on, fighting a losing battle against the growing natural light.

  Birds started making noise. Not singing, not yet, but making those weird pre-dawn sounds they make, like they were warming up for the actual performance. Crows, probably. Montreal had a lot of crows. Grandpa said they were smart, said he respected that. I mostly just thought they were loud.

  We walked. I kept up. Barely. My legs felt like they were made of lead, like someone had replaced my bones with something three times as heavy. My breathing was definitely labored now, no hiding it. Grandpa didn't comment, just kept matching my pace, staying beside me instead of pulling ahead.

  The houses started showing signs of life. Lights coming on in windows. Cars starting, engines rough in the cold. The world waking up slowly, reluctantly, to face another February day in Montreal.

  Newsflash: even while walking slowly, I couldn't keep up with him.