A startled look crosses her face then, along with the realisation that she hadn’t actually considered that question, or outright asked it of someone else. Should’ve thought of it.

“I can’t say for certain since I haven’t seen them myself,” Brigitte says. She trusts in firsthand experience, in what she can confirm with her own eyes. “I have only been here a few days and it was already winter. But others have been here longer, and have been talking about a southern farm for spring, and growing crops? So it can’t be this cold all the time. Although I don’t like the idea of—”

Spring is so awfully, impossibly far away, along with the horrifying thought of still being here by the time the ground blooms green with grass and the trees regrow their foliage. Her voice tapers off. This had seemed temporary. She had wanted it to be temporary. It’s a flicker across Brigitte’s expression, a sudden twist to the corner of her mouth, before she distracts herself by pulling up another heavy wooden chair and planting herself in it, so she’s not still standing awkwardly above him. It brings her lower beneath Maine’s eyeline, but she doesn’t mind. It’s almost as if the woman is more comfortable with her jaw at a slight defiant tilt upwards.

“I hadn’t thought what it might be like, being here that long,” she finally admits.