From the Manuscript

The cold in the Yukon wasn't a temperature; it was a weight. It pressed against the glass of the window, searching for a hairline fracture, a single point of weakness where it could slip inside and reclaim the heat of the room.

Nikolai sat in the dim light of the architect’s lamp, the blueprints spread before him like a map of a life he no longer recognized. He could see the structural flaws now—the parts of the foundation that were built on silence rather than stone.

"Truth is rarely found in the light," he whispered to the empty room. "It’s the things we leave in the shadows that eventually come looking for us".