Hunter McCormick drove the last roof beam home and felt the first snow land on his neck. He had built this cabin all summer, log by log, for the woman he loved. He planned to finish it, fill it with warmth, and ask her to marry him inside these walls. But the frost came a month early. Ice already crusted the water bucket. The roof was open to the sky. He climbed down and checked the sod he'd cut for the roof. Frozen stiff. He could not lay it in this cold. Without that layer, the cabin would leak heat all night. One night in an open shell, and the pipes would crack. His stove sat inside, useless without a sealed roof above it. His dog barked from the porch. The little black, white, and tan pup pawed at something under the steps. Hunter waved him off. "Not now, boy." He needed a fix, fast. He grabbed his axe and headed for the tree line to cut fresh boughs. Snow fell harder. His breath fogged. He could layer green branches over the open beams. It would not be pretty, but it might hold the heat until morning. At the tree line, a fox stood watching him. Bright eyes, red coat, calm. It did not run. It turned and trotted a few steps, then looked back. The pup shot past Hunter's legs and chased after it. "Get back here!" Hunter followed, cursing. The fox led them both around a low ridge. Then it stopped. Behind a wall of trees stood two magnolias, huge and white with bloom, though the world around them froze. Their thick leaves formed a dense green roof. Beneath them, the ground stayed dry and warm. Hunter stared. The trees blocked the wind. Their canopy would shed snow better than any boughs he could cut. He looked at the fox. It sat, watching, as if it had known. He worked fast. He hauled the stove down the ridge on a sled of planks. He dragged blankets, tools, and the water bucket. The pup ran beside him, tail high. By dark, Hunter had the stove lit under the magnolias. Heat filled the sheltered space. He would not freeze tonight. He sat by the fire and let his shoulders drop. The pup curled against his leg. The fox lay a few feet off, close enough to trust. Then Hunter looked back toward the ridge. His cabin stood dark and open, roof still bare. Everything he owned now sat out here, under two trees, far from the frame he had built for her. He had saved himself. But the cabin he meant to propose in was farther from finished than this morning. And the frost would only deepen. He fed the fire and stared at the empty shell on the hill. Tomorrow he had to find a way to close that roof. Or the cabin, and the question inside it, would wait through a whole hard winter.

The stove kept Hunter warm under the magnolias, but the ground did not. Three nights now he had slept on frozen dirt with only a blanket. His back ached. His hip went numb by dawn. The dog burrowed against him, shivering. Hunter woke before light and stared at the canopy. He needed a bed, off the ground, tonight. He had the tools. He had his father's old sketches folded in his pack, lines of a barn that never got built. He studied the joints his father drew. A simple frame. Four posts, cross rails, a slat platform. He could cut it from the planks he'd hauled down. He set to work with the axe and hand saw. The pup watched, ears up, chasing every falling chip. By noon he had four posts sunk and rails pegged. Then a voice came from the tree line. "You built a whole house on a hill and now you're sleeping in the yard." Hunter turned. A man stood at the edge of the canopy, dark hair, dark eyes, a coffee cup in his hand though there was no coffee for miles. Sky. His friend from town. Two months ago Sky's boyfriend had vanished into the Faewilds, and Sky had barely slept since, chasing a way in before the gate sealed for good. "You look worse than me," Hunter said. "That's fair." Sky crossed to the frame and toed a post. "This holding weight?" "About to find out." Hunter laid the slats across the rails. Sky knelt and held the ends while Hunter pegged them tight. They worked without much talk. Sky lifted, Hunter fastened. The pup carried a stray peg in his mouth and dropped it at Hunter's boot. "Why not just finish the cabin?" Sky asked. "Frost cracked the plan." Hunter drove a peg flat. "This buys me the winter." Sky nodded once. "I know about buying time." He didn't say more. He set the last slat and stood back. Hunter tested the platform with both hands. It held. He piled the blankets on top and pressed down. Solid. Dry. A foot above the cold ground. He sat on it and felt his shoulders drop for the first time in days. "You'll sleep now," Sky said. He drained his empty cup out of habit. "Thanks to you." "You'd have done it alone. Slower." Sky looked toward the ridge, toward the dark cabin shell against the gray sky. "That's still the one that matters. The one you want her in." Hunter followed his gaze. The bed solved tonight. But the cabin sat open on the hill, roof bare, the question still waiting inside it. He had traded ground-sleep for a plank bed. He had not moved one board closer to the walls he built for her. "It matters," Hunter said. "I just can't reach it yet." Sky set the cup down. "Then we figure out the roof next."

The bed held all night. Hunter woke warm for the first time in days, the dog curled at his feet. But warm was not the problem now. He sat up and looked past the canopy to the ridge. The cabin stood open against the gray sky, roof bare, walls waiting. He had two shelters and could only work one. Down here he stayed alive. Up there sat the thing he was really building. "You can't split yourself in two." Sky stood by the stove, warming his hands over the homemade heater. He had stayed the night. He held his empty cup again out of habit. "You keep the fire down here. You climb up there to work. By dark you're froze and behind on both." "I know the math," Hunter said. He pulled on his boots. "I lose the winter if I sit here. I lose the cabin if I don't." Sky drummed his fingers on the cup. "Then stop sitting here." He nodded at the stove. "That thing keeps you alive because of the heat, not the trees. Take the heat with you." Hunter looked at the heater. Sturdy. Hand-built. Heavy, but not too heavy for two men and a sled. He had built it to warm a hole under the magnolias. He had never thought to move it back up the hill, into the half-built walls it was made for. "The cabin's got no roof," Hunter said. "Wind cuts right through." "So hang a tarp. Block the north side." Sky set the cup down. "You don't need a finished house to burn a fire in it. You need walls and a stove. You've got both up there. You just left one down here." Hunter stared at him. The plan was simple, and it had been simple the whole time. He had been guarding two places because he was scared to give up the safe one. He grabbed the sled from behind the woodpile. They worked the heater loose from its base and eased it onto the planks. The dog barked and circled. A flash of orange moved at the tree line, the fox, watching them go, still as ever. Hunter and Sky hauled the sled up the slope, boots slipping on frost. His arms burned by the top. They set the stove inside the cabin walls and stacked kindling. Hunter struck a match. The fire caught. Heat climbed the bare studs and filled the space between the walls he had built for Amanda. For the first time since the frost, he stood inside the cabin and was warm. "No more yard," Sky said, breathing hard. "You live where you build now." Hunter nodded. He had one shelter now, not two, and it was the right one. But the wind still found the open roof. Snow would come through the gap. He looked up at the bare rafters and knew the next fight. He had bought his way back onto the hill. Now he had to close the sky over it.