Chap­ter 218 of All the Col­ors of the Dark sees Saint dri­ving twen­ty miles from Mon­ta Clare, pass­ing scenic vine­yards and bustling fruit stands along the way. She even­tu­al­ly arrives at the Shaw house, a place that evokes mem­o­ries of her child­hood, par­tic­u­lar­ly of her piano lessons. Across the street stands the Nix house, sim­ple yet well-main­tained, with its fresh­ly paint­ed white exte­ri­or and a porch that gleams in the sum­mer sun­light. As Saint takes in her sur­round­ings, the thick sum­mer air wraps around her, and she paus­es to admire a pris­tine okame cher­ry tree. She inhales deeply, prepar­ing her­self for the task ahead, before draw­ing her gun with deter­mi­na­tion. The house looms ahead, and the mem­o­ries asso­ci­at­ed with it weigh heav­i­ly on her mind, adding emo­tion­al lay­ers to her mis­sion.

Saint care­ful­ly inspects the area, her foot­steps crunch­ing the grav­el as she moves toward the back of the house. The beau­ty of the land­scape stretch­es out before her, with dis­tant canola fields in bloom, emp­ty sta­bles stand­ing qui­et­ly, and a rid­ing mow­er left aban­doned in the shade. As she approach­es the kitchen door, she is sur­prised to find it unlocked, and with­out hes­i­ta­tion, she steps inside. For a moment, she los­es her­self in the role she must play, call­ing out for the Chief, a lapse that makes her briefly for­get the seri­ous­ness of her duties. The kitchen, with its out­dat­ed yet metic­u­lous­ly clean decor, doesn’t pro­vide any imme­di­ate answers, so she instinc­tive­ly moves down a hall­way, pro­pelled by a sense of urgency.

The hall­way leads her into a bright den, its deep syn­thet­ic shag car­pet con­trast­ing with the sim­ple fur­nish­ings. Vas­es filled with wild­flow­ers, care­ful­ly picked from the prop­er­ty, add a touch of life to the oth­er­wise qui­et room. As she sur­veys the space, she notices three guest-ready bed­rooms, all unoc­cu­pied, but an unset­tling feel­ing begins to creep in when she hears the faint sound of water run­ning in the bath­room. Her instincts sharp­en, and with her gun at the ready, she gen­tly opens the bath­room door. The sound of the water flows soft­ly, but the sen­sa­tion of unease lingers, urg­ing her to remain vig­i­lant in the uncer­tain sit­u­a­tion.

After step­ping out of the bath­room, Saint takes a moment to gath­er her­self in the open air, feel­ing the sun’s warmth as she walks toward the sta­bles. The sight of Nix, cheer­ful­ly work­ing with a shov­el and flash­ing a smile, imme­di­ate­ly cap­tures her atten­tion. Near­by, hay bales are stacked by the door, while hors­es graze con­tent­ed­ly in the dis­tance. Despite the phys­i­cal dis­tance between them, Saint stead­ies her gun on him, the weight of their shared his­to­ry set­tling in her heart. Nix’s com­ment, “Just like I taught you,” under­scores the deep bond they share—a bond that, despite its com­plex­i­ties, is root­ed in love. Even as she remains focused on him, there’s a pro­found con­nec­tion that endures, tran­scend­ing the years and the emo­tion­al dis­tance that now sep­a­rates them.

Saint’s jour­ney through the famil­iar yet emo­tion­al­ly charged land­scape is marked by a sense of ten­sion and nos­tal­gia. The house and sur­round­ings bring back mem­o­ries, some pleas­ant, oth­ers filled with pain, but they all tie back to a life she once knew. Each step Saint takes, from the kitchen to the bath­room to the sta­bles, reflects her method­i­cal approach to the sit­u­a­tion, yet it’s clear that the emo­tion­al weight of her past is always present, affect­ing her judg­ment. As the nar­ra­tive unfolds, Saint is not just nav­i­gat­ing the phys­i­cal space but also grap­pling with the emo­tion­al ter­rain of her his­to­ry with Nix. Their con­nec­tion, both ten­der and com­pli­cat­ed, serves as a reminder of the lay­ers of their shared past, which con­tin­ues to influ­ence their present actions. The ten­sion between their unre­solved feel­ings and the task at hand cre­ates a pow­er­ful under­cur­rent of emo­tion, dri­ving the plot for­ward as Saint moves clos­er to con­fronting the com­plex­i­ties of their rela­tion­ship.