Ethan looked at her face, completely free of suspicion, and felt an odd mix of disappointment and relief swirling inside him. He kept his voice low.

"Then what happened?" she asked.

"I climbed until it got dark. I was so tired I couldn’t go any further. I thought, since I’d come up this far, maybe a wolf or a tiger would just eat me and be done with it."

Ivy raised an eyebrow. "Wolves and tigers? In Riverburg? Those mountains are barely ...