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Swords were the suite of intellect, and the North the direction of winter black. If forced, Silver would run the numbers and make the hard decision that he’d have to. Adam did not want to see that happen, mostly because he knew how it would go.

Despite all their manners and grace, Alfheimr would show its teeth if faced with an invasion. The Lost Ones would die en masse. So Adam had stopped it. He’d cut off the head to save the body. There hadn’t been any other way, and most of the time, he believed that.

Yet the question of how remained. How had the Wolf intended to accomplish his goals? He could spirit walk, sure. He’d set up the Wilcox family so he’d inherit vast wealth when he escaped the Between, but to lead an army onto another plane? That took power Adam hadn’t seen him display.

He promised us wishes, Lily had said.

Maybe the Wolf knew something Adam didn’t. He’d said the Between was full of lost things, lost magics. Adam had assumed that his grand promises of change had been lies, but maybe there was some truth to them and in that place, a means of achieving his goals.

Either way, he was gone now. Lily and the others were lost in a new way.

The knight had implied that faced with what had almost come to pass, things would change, but Adam suspected that Seamus was right. Any solution Silver might find would come too late. He thought of the miner, whose anger was almost as palpable as his desperation.

Adam didn’t turn the music back on. He let the relative quiet wash over him until the others arrived. Shiri opened her window and Adam resisted the call of a latte.

The free stuff in Jesse’s office would have to do.

Adam didn’t like his dreams of the future lately. Vic’s would have to be enough for both of them.

Adam texted Dautre to let him know what time he’d be off work. Adam gave him the address and asked him to meet him around the corner. He did not want to have to explain the elf to Jesse and the crew, no matter how good a glamour Dautre could weave.

“You look tired,” Dautre said as Adam approached.

“Thanks. I am. There is too much going on, too many mysteries, too many questions.”

“Will you be cold where we are going?” Dautre nodded at Adam’s coveralls.

“Probably, but we should get going. It’s already night there, right?”

Adam had no idea what North’s bedtime was.

“Yes.”

“Let’s go then,” Adam said.

Dautre nodded and wrapped Adam in his magic.

Teleportation was a skill. As far as Adam knew, most elves possessed the ability, but some were better at it than others. Dautre was talented.

He brought them from Denver to the spirit realm and back to earth in a blink.

They stood on the mansion’s front porch.

At this altitude, without any light pollution, the stars were endless. Adam could see the Milky Way and tell the planets from the stars. Half-full, the moon seemed larger too, but that might only be his imagination.

It was indeed very cold.

Dautre knocked. The door opened for him.

Adam had only been here by day before. The main hall, an expanse of white marble, white walls, and other colors in shades of Karen, felt even emptier without daylight. The beetles that arched their way up here and there glowed faintly blue, lending an icy tone to it all.

It felt even lonelier like this, by night.

“I will wait here,” Dautre said.

Adam wondered what he would do, but the elf snapped to a sort of attention, as stiff and expressionless as a soldier on guard.

Adam wandered.