Sophia seemed so certain of her words.
Then Sophia called out to Akeyla, “Mr. Frank’s going to find Marcus Aurelius.” She looked up at me and grinned. “It’s not really a lie, is it?”
I’d long suspected someone was caring for my wayward hound. “No,” I said. That someone must be Ellie Jones. “No, it’s not.”
Hrokr bent down and looked Sophia in the eyes. “Thank you for remembering me, my dear. I owe you a boon.”
She gave him a quick hug.
“Now, do you remember what I told you to tell the first elf who comes?” he asked.
She thought for a second. “I see the truth,” she said.
“Yes! Yes. Good.” Hrokr straightened again to speak to me. “If my father has another of his conniptions about mundanes, it’s not prophecy. Alfheim already has her seer.” He winked at me. “It’s truth.”
The kids were not acting as if this strange elf was a danger. Perhaps he wasn’t. But any elf I didn’t know who called me neighbor set off all my alarms.
Hrokr gripped my elbows this time. “Time to go, darling! The evening reset has already happened, that’s why you don’t understand all this, but her concealments haven’t closed yet.” He looked at his wrist as if he wore a watch. “You have… twenty minutes? Maybe thirty before that cottage of hers shutters for the night.”
“I can get through Ellie’s enchantments if I go now?” I asked.
Hrokr touched his finger to the tip of his nose, then pointed the finger at me.
“Which way?” I glanced out at the blizzard raging outside Akeyla’s bubble of magic. “Why are you helping me?”
“I told you already.” He turned me in the direction I suspected was perpendicular to the lake. “Off you go, young man. The kids are alright. They have this.”
A massive, dire-wolf-like adult werewolf leaped out the trees and into Akeyla’s bubble of warmth. He shook and immediately pressed his snout against Axlam’s cheek.
“Gerard!” I said.
Hrokr leaned close again. “He can’t see or hear you.”
Sif appeared next. She immediately ran to the kids.
Two more werewolves arrived, along with Arne and Bjorn, who immediately augmented Akeyla’s bubble and wove a spell to draw the silver out of Axlam’s bicep.
Hrokr Arnesson tugged on my arm. “This way.”
Lennart and his wolf appeared next. He scooped up Akeyla, now with Sal on her shoulder, and took Sophia’s hand to lead them away from Arne and Bjorn, who, like elven paramedics, were spinning intricate healing spells around Axlam.
Three more wolves arrived and formed a circle around Axlam and Gerard. The other elves formed their own circle farther out, a levy really, and waited.
Maura appeared, as did Benta and the remaining elder elves. Lennart handed off Akeyla, who stood with the circle. He leaned down to listen to Sophia’s words, then nodded and turned his back to the circle. His hand moved and…
Ed, flashlight in hand and fully bundled in winter gear, walked through the spaces between the blowing snowflakes.
“Daddy!” Sophia shouted.
He gasped and dropped to his knees to hug his daughter. Lennart touched his shoulder. They spoke, but I couldn’t hear, though I knew what he said. Lennart pulled Ed into the circle with his daughter.
“Well, look at that!” Hrokr said. “Dad’s gonna be pissed.” He slapped my shoulder. “Still, there might be hope for us elves yet, huh?”
“Is Axlam okay?” I asked.
He gave me another shove. “All is well in Alfheim! Go on! The window closes.”
They did seem to have everything under control. “Thank you.”
He extended his hand again. This time, I shook.
“Remember what I said.” He vanished into the thickening snow.
A new gale blotted out what I could see of the wolves and the pack, and I turned in the direction the strange elf with the gray hair and black eyes had pointed. He’d said I had twenty minutes, thirty tops, to find my way to Ellie’s cottage.
I had vague memories of notes telling me I needed to get inside her concealments, otherwise I’d never remember her. I also had vague memories that I really didn’t know what Ellie Jones wanted.
I trudged forward anyway, taking the scouring blizzard wind and now-blinding snow directly in the face.
A wolf ran by so quickly its brown and white fur blended into the storm’s gray. The snow roared, and the wolf moved through the cold as if what raged around us was nothing at all.
Another dire-wolf-sized beast followed. He slowed for a moment and sniffed the air, then howled for his pack to follow.
A sleek black wolf appeared. She stopped, but she did not howl. A second massive wolf padded up to her side. He sniffed at her ear and nuzzled her neck. A third smaller, black wolf trailing brilliant violet-blue magic pushed between the two larger wolves’ legs.
Bjorn, Sif, and Benta appeared, one on each side of the family, both casting beacons into the cold night.
More of the pack ran by, with more elves. Gerard howled, and Remy, now off in the distance, responded.
The magicals of Alfheim disappeared behind a wall of snow.
They were okay. They would finish the run unmolested.
I returned to trekking though the blizzard, looking for a woman I did not remember. A woman who, like Axlam’s World Wolf, was always there, always nearby, always touching me somehow.
Ellie Jones, the phantom around whom I built my perception of the world.
I saw no trees. I sensed no logs, or forest, or the lake. Only the wind and the ice. Only the gunmetal shadows and the sting of the cold. Had I gotten turned around? I closed my eyes against the ice onslaught. The wolves howled. The blizzard roared. And I stood alone against the storm.
A dog barked.
I opened my eyes. “Marcus Aurelius?” I called. “Here, boy!”
He barked again as if commanding the veil of the storm to part, and trotted up to my legs.
Like me, he was coated in snow and ice, and also like me, it didn’t seem to bother him all that much. He shook, and snow released from his
