Dust. It settles over the town like a sheet someone purposely draped there.

The car shivers besides them in the heat. Its beat-up engine dies down slowly, sputtering.

"This is it?" says the girl with the ribbon.

Rotting wood and cracking paint. A ghost town. Even the tumbleweeds have better places to be.

"This is it," responds the man with the hat.

There are eyes searching these curious strangers from boarded-up windows hardly two stories up, every occupant alerted to this newness.

Each pretends that the hair on the back of their necks hasn't risen.

The doorbell doesn't work. They glance at each other and take deep breaths and try not to choke on the debris in the air, and step inside the apartment hoping the floor does not cave in beneath them.

The woman has ringlets that rush from beneath her cloche in orange-red rivers. Her shirt is white, her skirt is plaid, her shoes are flat; she appears entirely nondescript, save her eyes, which are bright and hungry and searching. She examines Violet with a burning scrutiny the moment they walk into her room-slash-temporary-office.

They stand on opposite sides of the bed: Moxie Mallahan with her arms crossed on one, Lemony and Violet on the other. As Moxie looks the latter up and down with a hard gaze, she says, "So this is her. The orphan. The youngster. The Baudelaire. Is it true you killed a man?"

"Moxie," Lemony warns.

Her eyes snap to her old friend's for only a moment before she looks back to Violet. "Oh, sorry. Where are my manners. Is it true you're in some way responsible for the death of a certain reporter?"

"Moxie," Lemony says again. The anger in his eyes is not completely in Violet's defence—this is his brother they are talking about, after all.

"Partly," answers Violet, pulling herself up straight although she is shaking. She has been wrestling with the grief over this topic for far longer than anyone realises; the weight of the guilt is heavy on her shoulders and it hurts like hell.

But she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she were unable to shed some of the blame. Having recently forced herself to come to terms with the fact that circumstances would not have allowed the first Snicket sibling to survive if she herself didn't exist, the truth feels liberating. "I tried to save him. I did all I could."

"But it wasn't enough," Moxie presses.

Violet has to keep herself from flinching. "It wasn't enough."

"This one's strong, Snicket," says the journalist, satisfied. She uncrosses her arms and holds out a hand. "Moxie Mallahan, though I'd prefer it if you could keep that name between us. Freelance journalist. Nice to meet you."

Violet shakes it—it has been so long since she has had such normal human contact. Moxie frowns.

"Grip's flimsy," she says to Lemony. "Malnutrition. From what I've heard, you've been pretty alright out on the island, with your sister and all. Since your sister's not here and neither is Klaus, and you obviously lost strength you weren't able to regain with this fool of an on-the-road chef, I'm guessing—shipwreck?"

A chill runs down Violet's spine as Moxie tears away layer after layer of her situation. "Yes."

"Look at that, all in awe at my deductive skills. Sorry, Violet, just bluffing. I know it was a shipwreck for another reason."

"Did you tell her?" says Violet, looking hesitantly to Lemony.

He shakes his head. "We haven't spoken in months."

"He's telling the truth. I'm sure you've noticed that Snicket here is a bit of an introvert. Not even the nice kind; too much self-pity. So, I've got good news and bad news. Good news, I may know where your brother is. Bad news, he may have no idea who you are."

Violet's hands push into the firm mattress of the bed as she struggles not to fall over. She hardly knows which fact to address first, finally settling on a soft, "Where?"

"Just off the west coast of Norway," Moxie says, appearing mildly delighted. She is now pulling newspaper clippings from a thick folder that no doubt serves as just one section of a travel-sized archive. "You'd have done better to stay up at Stain'd; it's quite a bit closer. Fortunately, he's been rescued by royalty, and is currently being cared for by the queen, which is rather exciting. And, he's just as smart as ever—can't remember his own name, but hasn't forgotten so much as a definition. He's managed to catch the interest of the crown prince, who is taking him down to Denmark, of which he is also a prince. Presumably Mr. Heir Apparent will take him to either Zurich or Vienna from there to get him treated for the amnesia."

Moxie hands Violet several articles, most written in what she assumes is Norwegian, the others in varying accented scripts. "The story hasn't made it past the Nordic countries. Lucky for you, I read Swedish. This photograph is of him, isn't it?"

She taps a blurry black-and-white square on the side of one of the pages. The boy on which the picture is centered looks lost, his hair a dark mess, squinting hard at something outside the frame as if he straining to see. Which he is, because it is Klaus, and he always was so terribly blind without his glasses. Violet holds a hand to her mouth and fights to push back tears. She manages a shaky nod. That's him.

Her emotions conflict. Her relief that her brother is okay is overwhelming on its own, but the knowledge that he has lost his memory is devastating. In that moment, she finds herself praying to—someone. Something. Anything. That he will remember her, that he will recall the two years that stretch like an terrible dream behind them, that she will not have lost one of the only people in the world who understands what it is like to live with nothing but a faint glow of hope and just enough strength to breathe.

Moxie allows herself a gentle smile. Her freckles become more pronounced in the crinkle of her nose, and in that moment Violet finds this blunt, to-the-point reporter almost endearing. "That's what I thought."

Violet reaches for Lemony before she topples. He catches her in his arms and she hugs him tight, one hand still clutching at the bundle of papers, the other clinging to his coat as she buries her face in his shoulder. How quickly she dissolves from the steadfast, stone-faced woman into the young wreck of a girl she knows she is. "Thank you," she whispers.

Lemony is too surprised to reply. He is wide-eyed, blushing furiously, unused to both the gratitude and physical interaction. Moxie suppresses a senseless grin at the sight.

After a few seconds, he grows accustomed to the weight of her, the shape, the feeling. "Two Baudelaires down, two to go," he says softly, running a hand through her hair. He quickly finds the gesture is a deep mistake. This is how he used to hold her, this is how her fingers clung to the fabric of his suit, this is how her hair felt after a night of firefighting. This is Beatrice and it isn't all at once.

Lemony is sick to his stomach. He pulls away from her, choking on his own breath, holding on just long enough to set her down on the bed.

Violet feels justly discarded. She folds her arms and watches as Lemony backs up against the dresser and turns to place his forehead against its edge, muttering quietly to himself. The situation fast turns uncomfortable for the two remaining women.

"You really are suffering from malnutrition," Moxie says, if only to ignore the author in the room.

"Oh, I've no doubt," says Violet.

They're both still staring at him and he is unduly aware of this; it doesn't do a thing to reel in the waking nightmares and he can't—

"Possibly bear to look at either of you right now," he says aloud.

"Have you thought about maybe seeing a therapist?" says Moxie.

Both Violet and Lemony are at once so appalled by the idea that neither of them say anything.

"Or maybe not," she says.

Hot, heavy silence.

"Unspoken tension aside, do you think I could tag along with you to Norway?"

Three starving souls in a taxi in the desert.

The beat-up engine starts up slowly, sputtering.

Red hair, speak the whispers of the boarded-up windows, red hair and ribbons and hats.

Little fingers dare to peek out from creaking doorways.

"Is someone watching us?" whispers the girl with the ribbon.

"Always," says the woman with the red hair. "You get used to it."

The car rolls out of the town shivering in the heat.

Dread. It settles over them like a sheet someone purposely placed there.

She is a liar.

They all are.