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“I’m not defending her. I just understand.”

“Love for her son motivated her to do something rash. It follows that having failed to change the world to fit him, where he would belong, she would escalate.”

“Wait, you know about North?”

“Yes, and I pity the boy, though I cannot intervene without his mother’s consent. To even begin, she’d have to tell me of his existence.”

Adam exhaled. One more secret down. Only one remained, the heaviest of all.

“It can’t be easy to be all alone at his age. He’ll hit puberty soon. He should be around other kids.”

Then there was the problem of his magic. He’d need training to use it, to master it. If Adam understood from his long-ago lessons with Perak, elves felt the first rush of their adult power when they came of age. Combine that with mood swings, and Adam feared for the house in the Alps and any cross-country skiers in range of a hormonal tantrum.

“Adam . . . North is, as I understand it, half human.”

“Yeah, so he’s a kid. I grabbed him some comic books and stuff.”

“I was a hundred when we were together. For my kind, mentally and physically, we were both youths.”

“Right. You were a teenager.”

They both were. It had been passionate and awkward and intense.

“I am not privy to the specifics of his birth, but I’ve known of North for nearly fifty years.”

Adam tried to do the math.

Silver helped. “If humans are fully mature at say, twenty-five . . .”

“Give or take some years.” Adam tried not to be affronted.

“Then North is not a child. He came of age some time ago.”

“We need to get to the Alps,” Adam said.

“Please, sire,” Dautre said. “It may already be too late.”

Silver stood and dismissed the ice wall with a wave.

“I should be there. I know him. I know the house a little.”

“I agree. Get back to your body. We’ll be right there.”

33

He barely had time to sit up before there was a knock at the door. Adam checked the peephole and found the hallway full of elves. Glamours or not, they were not subtle. He turned off the alarm, opened the door, and held up a hand.

“Give me time to lock the door, please.”

He did and had barely pocketed his keys before Dautre’s magic took him.

They emerged in a broad half circle, swords or guns drawn.

“No Argent?” Adam asked Silver.

“The aftermath at the tower requires the Guardians’ attention.”

Adam nodded. It made sense, but he’d have liked the extra firepower.