It was a short walk, and a pleasant one. Across the wide central green of the campus, then along the dark winding path known as Philosopher’s Walk that twisted, with gentle slopes on either side, behind the law school, the Faculty of Music, and the massive edifice of the Royal Ontario Museum, where the dinosaur bones preserved their long silence. It was a route that Paul Schafer had been carefully avoiding for the better part of the past year.

He slowed a little, to detach himself from the others. Up ahead, in the shadows, Kevin, Kim, and Lorenzo Marcus were weaving a baroque fantasy of improbable entanglements between the clans Ford and Marcus, with a few of Kevin’s remoter Russian ancestors thrown into the mix by marriage. Jennifer, on Marcus’s left arm, was urging them on with her laughter, while Dave Martyniuk loped silently along on the grass beside the walkway, looking a little out of place. Matt Sören, quietly companionable, had slowed his pace to fall into stride with Paul. Schafer, however, withdrawing, could feel the conversation and laughter sliding into background. The sensation was a familiar one of late, and after a while it was as if he were walking alone.

Which may have been why, partway along the path, he became aware of something to which the others were oblivious. It pulled him sharply out of reverie, and he walked a short distance in a different sort of silence before turning to the Dwarf beside him.

“Is there any reason,” he asked, very softly, “why the two of you would be followed?”

Matt Sören broke stride only momentarily. He took a deep breath. “Where?” he asked, in a voice equally low.

“Behind us, to the left. Slope of the hill. Is there a reason?”

“There may be. Would you keep walking, please? And say nothing for now—it may be nothing.” When Paul hesitated, the Dwarf gripped his arm. “Please?” he repeated. Schafer, after a moment, nodded and quickened his pace to catch up to the group now several yards ahead. The mood by then was hilarious and very loud. Only Paul, listening for it, heard the sharp, abruptly truncated cry from the darkness behind them. He blinked, but no expression crossed his face.