Heart hammering, Hiccup spun. She threw open the storm door and charged back inside. Spotting the brass weapon stand, he grabbed the handle of his father's duel-bladed axe and rushed the black-clad figure.

He flipped the axe in his hands and swiped the handle under the figure. It hit solidly against the thing's leg and the intruder stumbled backward, sprawling on the stair with a heavy clump.

Hiccup lifted the axe high above his head, preparing to bring it down and slice the intruder in two.

"Don't chop me!"

Hiccup stopped short of striking, halted by the familiar voice as well as the tattered dress and pasty grey hair that flowed out from beneath a headscarf.

Stunned, Hiccup lowered the axe.

"Yeesh," Grandmamma said, a nervous tremor in her voice. "You expecting out-of-town relatives or something?"

Hiccup took a step back, unsure of what to say or think.

Or how to feel . . .

Grandmamma sat up, lowering her arms slowly as though she feared Hiccup might change his mind and slice her anyway. Slung over one shoulder, the strap of a heavy-looking messenger bag blended in with Grandmamma's woolen coat.

Inside the bag, Hiccup glimpsed the green binding of a thick hardback book. His eye caught the last word of the gold-embossed title. Mysticism?

Quickly Grandmamma fumbled to cover the book. She looked up, and their gazes met one more.

Despite what happened between them the previous night, there was an undeniable current of secret joy that budded from within Hiccup at Grandmamma's return.

But there was another part of him, a stronger part, that held him back and kept him from betraying any emotion. It brought with it a wave of cold detachment that sent a slow freeze over the initial impulse to start spilling out everything that had transpired since Grandmamma's all-too-sudden departure the night before.

"What are you doing here?" Hiccup snapped.

Grandmamma sobered. Her eyes shifted to the wall. "I came to talk."

"Yeah?" Hiccup said. "I thought you couldn't talk to me. Ever again."

This time, Hiccup didn't hold out for a response. Instead he deposited the axe back into the brass stand with a harsh clang. Folding his arms, he faced Grandmamma again, watching her as she grabbed ahold of the banister and drew herself to a standing position. Her thin frame wobbled under the weight of the messenger bag as she pulled herself up. Hiccup didn't help her. She opened her mouth to speak, but Hiccup cut her off.

"So remember the time that you promised you'd help me through anything?" he asked.

Grandmamma's jaw clamped shut. A look of wilted misery flittered across her features. At first the reaction gave Hiccup the jolt of satisfaction she'd been looking for. A moment later, though, he wished he hadn't said it.

"Look, I came to say I was sorry. After that, if you still want me to go away, then fine I will."

"Or maybe I can just call animal control and save us all the trouble." Hiccup coldly replies.

Grandmamma looks to him with hurt in her eyes, but Hiccup looked her dead in the eyes, emotionless. He wanted Grandmamma to know how bad she had hurt him; but even with all that, he still wanted her help.

"I don't think they're open today." Came a mellow voice from behind them.

Both Grandmamma and Hiccup swung around to find Stoick standing in the doorway leading from the hall to the back room, a steaming mug in one hand. With the bags under his eyes, his beard, and the scraps of hair poking out around his forearms, Hiccup thought he looked more irritable and intimidating than when he's in full-on chief mode.

Hiccup's initial irritation turned into an under-the-lid boil and he trained his eyes on Grandmamma. What startled Hiccup the most was the fact that he actually backed Hiccup up after he offended an elder. Was it because he knew that she had abandoned Hiccup last night? Or because he wanted to help defend his son after so much has happened trying to affect his sanity?

"Morning, Stoick." Grandmamma gave a stilted full-armed wave, like the swipe of a Monstrous Nightmare's tail.

Stoick's eyes narrowed to near slits. "Are you supposed to be here?" he asked.

"No," she replied. "But I know you're not going to kick me out."

At this, Stoick actually looked more amused than annoyed. "Oh yeah?" he said. "Why's that?"

As he tilted his mug to his lips, Grandmamma flashed one of her bright smiles. "It's Snoggletog!"

"Humph," he said, and gave her another once-over before turning his attention fully to Hiccup. "If you want her out, just tell me."

Hiccup looked to him in shock and question. He almost wanted to bash his father for leaving him with the pressure. He looked back to Grandmamma and she stared at him in nervousness. As much as he'd want to just toss Grandmamma out, she had valuable information that could possibly be the link to everything he needed to know. Hiccup stood there for a few seconds, as though debating whether or not to say what he was thinking. Finally he gave a long, loud sigh. "Fine. She can stay."

"Do you want her to?" Stoick asks.

"No, but she has information that could be very valuable to me and everything that's happening." Hiccup said.

"Hmm, funny Hiccup." Gobber injected as he entered the room from behind Stoick. His interchangeable hand replaced with anther mug. "You almost sounded like Hadrian there."

Hiccup and Grandmamma both looked to him in unison, an unnerved look on their faces. He had meant for it to be a joke, but his chuckle was cut short from their faces.

"Hiccup," Hiccup looks to his father. "Is there something going on?"

"A lot, dad. One being Hadrian's back." Stoick suddenly stiffens with anger and a sense of wanting to attack, but Hiccup stops him. "But, he came to me, and I think he, tried to, help me."

Stoick looks to Grandmamma and says, "Start talking."

"No problem," Grandmamma says. "I've got something to show you."

For the next two hours, they had gathered around the table, Gobber offering grandmamma a mug of yak milk, she denied and settled for tea. Hiccup had gone upstairs ad retrieved the ribbon, he now has it sprawled across his knee, his thumb nervously tracing over the engraved initials of his mother.

Hiccup decided to trace all the way back to the night he had followed the hypnotic music of a piano and a woman's voice. He had explained about how he had felt, numb to the hold of the music, captivated by the woman's voice. Then when he heard another voice, the woman suddenly grew weary, agitated.

"It's like she was trying to keep me, seduced. But I ignored her and followed the sound, and I led me to mom." Hiccup explains.

Stoick and Gobber go rigid at the mention of Hiccup's mother.

"She was beautiful." Hiccup speaks, his voice pitching at the end. Tears stinging his eyes, but he smiled. "She looked fairly close to the picture." Hiccup said as he brushed his fingers over the locket at his throat.

"That's beautiful." Grandmamma said, her voice slicing through the moment, soft yet intruding enough to turn his attention away from his thoughts.

He dropped his hand from the necklace with a flutter, and shot Grandmamma a look of irritation. He was still fairly upset with her. He continued on, "She told me to remember who I really was, and she then," he pauses. Stoick and Gobber lean in and Hiccup looks up, straight to Stoick. "She gave me this."

Hiccup brought his shaking hand up and over the table, the purple ribbon draped across his palm. Stoick eyed the ribbon with such intensity, and this as the first time Hiccup had actually watched the blood drain from his face, turning him relatively pale. He reaches out, and Hiccup meets him halfway, knowing he wouldn't have managed to reach even the small expanse of the table.

He takes the ribbon and brushes his thumb across the seam. "Where did you get this?" he breathes.

"I don't know." Hiccup replies. "I just woke up and it was found in my hand."

Stoick stares down at it, his eyes watering.

"Is it possible you were sleep walking?" Gobber asks softly.

Hiccup looks to him and answers with a slow indiscriminate shake of his head. "I would have to know where they were to find them."

"Besides, it wasn't you." Grandmamma interrupts.

Stoick hands back Hiccup the violet ribbon and Hiccup takes it delicately. He folds it and stuffs it in his pocket.

As the conversation dwells on, Stoick is agitated to know that Hadrian has somehow found a way to re-enter the real world. Hiccup explains that while his visit with Astrid leaves less than to be desired, it would seem that they for once share a common enemy. Then he explains about the night of the fog that attacked him and how it practically sucked out Snotlout's essence.

All the dreams trailed back to the previous night, where Grandmamma had fled after revealing Jolene's possible true name.

"Which brings me to my point." She says. "I need to show you all something."

Hiccup watched as Grandmamma threw open the flap on the bag, pulled forth a large green book, and laid it gently on the table.

Gold foil glinted on the cover and spine, revealing floral motifs and elegant lettering. The book's yellowing block of pages looked almost too thick for its own binding. Curious, Hiccup edged closer to Grandmamma. A Guide to Jewish Magic, Myth, and Mysticism the embellished title read. The subject of the matter sent a worming sensation through Hiccup's lower stomach. It made him wonder – and dread – how the information contained in the book connected to what Grandmamma knew.

Grandmamma didn't wait for him to start asking questions, though. Opening the behemoth volume, she began flipping thorough whole sections at a time, as though searching for a name. The chunks of pages slapped against one another until finally, Grandmamma stopped the page she halted on depicted a single letter, a large and elaborate L. Hiccup's gaze followed the path of Grandmamma spindly fingers as they slipped to the top right-hand corner of the book, hooking the thin, almost filmy paper. This time, she turned each separate sheet slowly, the pages whispering against on another as they lifted and settled into place once more.

As Grandmamma leafed through, Hiccup caught glimpses of strange symbols and squiggly character – probably Hebrew – interspersed between long sections of English text.

Hiccup shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He fiddled with the cuffs of his sleeves, then folded his arms, waiting and yet somehow knowing what had to be coming.

Grandmamma continued to turn page after page, past engravings and artist's renderings of scroll, past detailed diagrams depicting interlaced wheels and six-pointed stars, past human figures cloaked in robes and draped in scarves – until she turned one final page.

An intricate engraving of a beautiful woman unfolded itself, the artwork filling the entire left-hand side of the book.

The image sent a shock wave through Hiccup.

Black hair coiled around the woman's head in thick snakelike tendrils, intertwining with the length of her arms. It twisted upward, too, writing through the air above her as though caught in a gale. Her white hands clutched and pulled at the swaths of gauzy fabric straining to tear herself free from coils of cobwebs.

The lacelike curl of her lashes lay folded down, fringing closed lids, creating spidery shadows against her cheeks.

Innately, Hiccup knew the woman couldn't be sleeping. Her expression seemed too intent and aware, as though she was gazing far into the future.

At the woman's feet, ghouls converged, a mess of sharp tangled limbs and withered frames, of gaping hollow skull faces and howling mouths filed with serrated teeth. Even though they weren't an accurate rendering of Hadrian of Scrimshaw, Hiccup had no doubt that was who the wasted creatures were meant to depict.

In the background of the etching, the craggy branches of pencil-thin trees poked out from a decorative border that framed the picture. The hunched forms of inkblot birds dotted their knotted boughs.

"Soooo," he heard Grandmamma say, "I'd ask if this was ringing any bells, but by the look on your face, I can practically hear them myself."

Hiccup offered no response.

How was this possible? Here before him was the same woman Hiccup had encountered, face-to-face, in the dreamworld. The only thing missing was the silver rim of light that had surrounded her, like the ebbing glow that haloed the winter moon.

Staring straight down into the open book, Hiccup let his eyes shift to the text that filled the opposite page, right below the title, which read "LILITH" in swirling capital letter.

He shook his head as he sank to his seat, closer still to the book, and stared hard at the writing, waiting for his brain to remember how to read.

He could see the words, identify them as being words, but for someone, he couldn't seem to concentrate enough to decide their message. He was too distracted, too swept up in a nebulous world of flashing images and floating memories.

Only one word swam into his focus long enough for him to register its meaning.

Demon.

"Now you know why I left," Grandmamma said softly.

Even through his confusion, Hiccup could still detect the residue of guilt in Grandmamma's words. If their roles had been reversed, if he had known these things that Grandmamma had, that she was involved with something beyond a vengeful spirit or malevolent ghost, Hiccup had to wonder if he would have acted any different.

Against his will, his eyes insisted on shifting back to the engraving.

"What does it mean?" Hiccup asked.

There was a pause, and then a quiet shifting of fabric as Grandmamma adjusted her seated position next to Hiccup. As she settled, bracelets tinkling, she began to read aloud from the book. Hiccup turned his ears to the sound of Grandmamma's voice, though his eyes remained fixed on the etching.

"'Lilith, also known as Li-li, Lila, or Lilitu, is one of the oldest recorded demons in existence,'" Grandmamma read, the tone in her voice suggesting that she wasn't relating anything she didn't already know. "'References to Lilith date as far back as antiquity, and she makes her appearance in a multitude of cultures, eras, and regions, including the Highlands, Greenland, and Iceland. In modern times, she is revered by some occult circles as a goddess. Translated literally, her name means "night."'"

Fine threads of ink curled upward and chased one another downward, spreading their way across the page like veins infused with black poison. They connected and layered with one another, intertwining and weaving in and out to depict the curve of a delicate wrist, or to convey the motion of wind through the swells of gossamer veils.

"'She is the harbinger of nightmares as well as death, destruction, and insanity. Said to reign in an alternate dimension, a bleak and desertlike twilight version of reality, Lilith has long been hailed as the queen of mental darkness.'"

With the utterance of these words, Hiccup's thoughts flashed to the dream, where he watched himself destroy the village. Sorrow crept over his fear as he remembered the way he had stared at himself. Eyes devoid of both light and hope. The way he watched himself stare at his father, it seemed he didn't believe he was real. In that moment, the Hiccup he stared at, had seemed hollow, so utterly lost. Consumed.

"'In some traditions, Lilith is considered to be a succubus, who enters the dreams of young men, seducing or otherwise influencing them.'"

Drawing a shaky breath, Hiccup forced his eyes shut. But the image from the book remained, drifting forward in lines of glowing white, highlighted against the black backdrop of his eyelids.

Doing his best to ignore the image of Lilith, he attempted to call to his memory the exact words Hadrian had used to describe Jolene/Lilith.

Despite his efforts, only one sure word surfaced through the jumble. Need.

Hiccup's expression hardened, he opened his eyes, realizing for the first time just how well this demon had chosen her target.

"'Lilith can take many forms, such as a bright, starlike light or a white owl,'" Grandmamma continued. "'Most often, however, she assumes the figure of a snow-skinned woman cloaked in white with large onyx eyes. Those who have seen her describe her as a possessing a strange and unearthly beauty, characterized in particular by masses of thick ebony hair.'"

As Grandmamma read on, Hiccup soaked up each new bit of information and began to piece them together with all the events that had led to this moment. The ten-point star. Snotlout's sudden drain in youth. Jolene's repeated visitors. Like jolts of electric current, his thoughts raced ahead of him to make one connection after another until his mind became an electric conduction of linking sequences.

This creature had stalked him before entering his dreams. She had watched him and waited for just the right moment. And then she lured him into her world, making him an offer he could not refuse – an escape hatch into a realm that, to him, must have been beautiful to him.

Through deception and seduction, Lilith had found a way to access that hollow part of him that yearned for connection. Like black oil, she had poured herself in, filling his mind, his heart, and eventually his dreams. Dreams that had not only given her strength, but had opened a gate to this world.

But there was something that was left unsaid that buzzed in Hiccup's mind like an angry bee. It was something in that horrid lullaby Scrimshaw had sang last night.

"Guileless son, your spirit will hate her,

The flower who married my brother the traitor.

And you will expose, Her puppeteer behavior

For you are the proof, Of how he betrayed her Loyalty."

Spirit will hate. Brother the traitor. Jolene's puppeteer behavior. Proof.

The words seemed to connect all on their own. But was it possible?

Could Jolene had targeted Hadrian first, being he's connected to Hiccup? Used him as a power source, until she found out about Hiccup and used Hadrian to get to him. That would explain the 'married' portion, along with him being a traitor. Hiccup pieced together the story in his head.

Jolene craves essence. So she targeted Hadrian until she found out about their connection. Then she left him behind and went after Hiccup. Hadrian, feeling betrayed, had somehow escaped to warn Hiccup about Jolene's deception. Now that Hiccup knows what's going on, he's literally living proof of how Hadrian had betrayed Jolene.

And in turn, he has now become a prisoner to his love.

In short, she had exploited that very characteristic of Hiccup and Hadrian's that so many chose to judge them by.

Aloneness.

The word drew Hiccup's thoughts away from Grandmamma's voice and back to how Hadrian never had any real friends. It made Hiccup realize how Lilith must have squeezed her way into a similar chink in his own heart. Now Hiccup thought he finally understood why Hadrian had gravitated toward Outcast Island. In the cracks of their village and the lights of their lives Hadrian had discovered a light much like his own. Hadrian had been able to draw parallels between them. He had found a kindred spirit.

Well there's a plot twist.

"You're not like the others"

Hiccup tilted his head as the words floated through his mind, drowning out his own thoughts as well as Grandmamma's voice as she continued to read aloud.

It was what Lilith had said to Hiccup that night he had invited her to his house, or rather she showed up and asked to talk.

"You're special, even in regard to those who have come before you."

Hiccup felt his skin prickle as the voice spoke within his head again. The sound of it, crisp and resonant, as merciless as it was melodious, electrified the hairs on the back of his neck. A crawling sensation of being watched stole over him. He frowned as Grandmamma's voice began to fade, ebbing away into a distant murmur, replaced by a faint ringing noise.

His focused snapped to the etching.

The woman's veils – they moved.

Hiccup felt the blood drain from his face. He went still as, line by line, the etching began to animate itself. And yet he knew Grandmamma wasn't seeing any of it because she just kept reading, her voice a dim murmur to Hiccup's right. Hiccup blinked deliberately once, then twice at the etching. But now the branches seemed to be moving too. Like clawed hands, they scraped and scratched soundlessly at the age. All the while, the ringing in his ear grew, loud enough to drown out Grandmamma's voice entirely before converging into a multitude of unintelligible whispers. Whispers that seemed to be coming from the entanglement of hollow-faced creatures surrounding the swathed figure of Lilith. Like a knot of interlacing serpents, they began to writhe, their skeletal limbs snagging in the tattered scraps of fluttering white veils.

Then the woman's eyes snapped open.

Two black pits bore into Hiccup, causing his breath to catch in his throat.

The woman's lips parted. Her mouth opened wide, allowing a rushing sound to issue forth, like a kissing surge of wind through autumn trees. It grew louder as tendrils of ebony hair danced and whipped across the page like black smoke. In one great whoosh, the birds in the background of the image took flight from their perches.

The rasp of their hoarse caws and the flap of wings joined with the hissing whispers until it all rose into a hellish cacophony, converging with the woman's glass-shattering scream.

Hiccup fumbled for the book, knocking Grandmamma aside in her effort to grab it and slam it shut. But it was heavier than he'd expected, and it slid from his hands, tumbling between them. Its spine cracked when it met with the floor, and then it fell flat against the wood with a thud, still open. Hiccup scrambled backward, away from the book, and crashed into the chair, knocking them both to the floor with a thump. He clapped his hands over his hears but couldn't block out the monstrous screech emanating from the book.

In the corner of his vision, he could see Stoick shouting at him.

Then everyone froze, all of them staring at the book as it began to move on its own. One heavy half tipped itself upward, as though pulled by magnetic force. It fell onto the other half with a sharp slam, squelching the piercing shriek at last.

An entire minute passed before anyone of them made a move.

"What . . . just happened?" Gobber asked in a small voice while Hiccup removed quaking hands from his ears.

"It moved," Hiccup said. "The picture. Did . . . did you see it?"

"I saw the book . . . move," Stoick said. Then there was silence between them again, enough that hiccup could hear Stoick swallow before he added. "Just now."

"You didn't hear the . . . ?" But Hiccup didn't bother finishing his question. It was already clear that none of them hadn't seen or heard what he had.

Hiccup tried to steady himself, willing the thundering of his pulse to slow, willing his nerves to steady themselves and his increasingly tenuous grasp on reality to return.

Reality. The thought of what that word caused him to utter a short, sharp laugh because, by now, it had begun to lose it meaning.

Hiccup felt Stoick's eyes on him, and turning his head, found himself caught in the beam of Stoick's widest, most fearful stare.

It made Hiccup want to laugh again, because it only went to show how much he really was on his own. Even if Stoick wanted to help him, how could he? How could anyone when they couldn't even see the things that he could?

Still, the moment with the book made him wonder.

If Lilith, or Jolene, already had what she wanted, if she had Hiccup's sanity, and Hadrian locked within her world, then why show herself here and now?

Because, Hiccup thought, she must known that Hadrian had found a way to reach him, to communicate. She must known he'd visited him in a dream.

Hiccup felt himself beginning to smile, while within his chest, a warm spark of courage ignited like a fire. It brought with it a flash of clarity: Despite everything, he was still a threat.

"Hiccup," Gobber said, "I'm not liking that look on your face right now. It's giving me the willies."

"Great now how am I supposed to take that thing home with me now?" Grandmamma adds.

Feeling calm for the first time in what felt like a decade, Hiccup drew himself slowly to his feet. He went over to the book and, stooping, scooped it from the floor. It didn't feel as heavy as it had before. He tipped it into one hand and passed the fingers of his other hand along the spine probing for any cracks or breaks. He felt everyone watching him as he went to the table and slid the book back into the back messenger bag.

"Sorry I let it drop," Hiccup said. "From what I can tell I think it's okay."

"What we're wondering," Stoick said. "is if you're okay."

"I'm fine. Especially now that I understand what it is I'm dealing with."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Lifting his arms above his head, Gobber knocked his wrists together as though he were calling a foul. "Back it up there, boy. I think this is all getting a little thick up in that smart head of yours. What we're 'dealing with'" – Gobber paused long enough to insert air quotes, his fingers hooking like raptor claws – "is actually more likely the one doing the dealing. With us. And don't get me started on your usage of the word 'understand.'" Again with the raptor quotes. "What I need for you to understand is that there is no understanding. We're a pair of windup toys to this thing. Do you hear me? As if that wasn't painfully obvious from whatever weirdness it was that just-"

"It doesn't matter," Hiccup said, cutting her off. "It doesn't change anything."

"Uh, on the contrary, demons can change a lot of things," Grandmamma said. She raised one hand, ticking off fingers. "Let's see, their shapes, for example. Minds. They can change their minds. Other people's minds, in some cases." She gestured to the book in the messenger bag. "Inanimate objects, apparently. Oh, not to mention they can change you. Into somebody dead."

"What I meant is that it doesn't change the fact that I still have to fight this thing."

"Don't you get it?" Grandmamma said. "What do you think I've been trying to tell you this whole time? You can't fight it! Hiccup, this creature, this entity . . ." Her hands grasped and wrung the air in front of her, the right words evading her at every pass.

Hiccup turned away and started pacing the floor, thinking.

If only he could remember the dream with his mother. If only he could recall more of the details. Why had it seemed so real when it was happening and so amorphous now?

"Are you listening to me?" Grandmamma said. "I'm telling you that what's happening here is bigger than you or me or Stoick or Gobber or any of this put together. If you saw something just now, which I know you did, then that means it's trying to get to you. That means it can get to you. It's already put its spell on you. You'll always be drawn to her no matter what. She's already gotten you! Hiccup are you hearing me when I say she can kill you?"

"So could Alvin." Hiccup suddenly interrupts. Not breaking his gaze from the floor.

"That's not the point! I'm trying to dial through that stubborn brain of yours. We're talking about a demon here. Believe me, you can't fight it with force and expect to win!"

Hiccup stopped pacing. He wheeled on Grandmamma.

"So is this why you came back?" he asked. "To try and get me to back down? To tell me to forfeit before I even try? That I shouldn't fight back?!"

"Honestly?" she said. "If I thought it would do any good, I might try."

Hiccup gaped at her. "How can you even say that? Especially when she could be even more dangerous if she does get my powers?! Weren't you the one who cornered me and told me I needed to do something?!"

"I never said we shouldn't do something," Grandmamma said, anger building in her voice. "I just don't know if going to face her is the right something."

"Hiccup," Stoick interjects. "If this costs you your life, I don't want you doing this alone."

"What else is there? How else am I supposed to beat this thing?" he turns to Grandmamma. "Did you happen to bring a book with you that answers that question?"

"No!" Throwing up her arms, Grandmamma plopped down on her seat. Bracing one hand at her brow.

"Look, Hiccup." Stoick said. "I'm sorry. We're. . . I'm not too keen on the prospect of attending my son's funeral. It's just that I know you don't understand what this all really means."

"And that's why I came here to today." Grandmamma interjects. "So you'd have some idea of what you were walking into. You want stop this thing. You'll do what it takes. I get that. I do. But there's something you should consider about why this all happened in the first place."

She paused before continuing and drew in a slow breath, her hands knotting in her lap.

"Demons . . . they don't just waltz into your life and take over for no reason," she said, her voice going soft again. "They might knock on the door, but ultimately, you have to be the one to invite them in."

Hiccup sent her a questioning sidelong glare. "What are you saying?" he asked. "That I brought this on myself? Grandmamma, she lured me! The book says that! You read it yourself!"

"I don't think it's a secret to anyone that you opened the door when it knocked. There's no denying that you went seeking her out in return. You said yourself that you thought she was beautiful. No matter how conscious you are, you're still under her control. All it takes is a single glacne."

Hiccup pursed his lips. Unable to counter the accusation, he folded his arms and turned from Grandmamma, then made his way to the fireplace, where he stared at the burning embers and small flickers. He could've sworn the flames grew brighter as he approached them, feeling his anger.

"Look, Hiccup," he heard his father say. "I know it's not something you want to hear, but somebody has to say it. Some part of you wanted this to happen. To just disappear and leave all your troubles behind in the troubled world where it belongs."

Hiccup's gaze narrowed, his eyes following the glowing fissure trailing across one log. He turns and looks to the skylight above his bed, his eyes following a large crow as it swooped down from a neighbor's roof. Rounding the oak in the view of the skylight, it flittered to perch on one of the snow-dusted branches, only a short distance from a second, larger crow he hadn't noticed until now. He hugged himself tighter as they cawed at each other, the fathers around their necks bristling.

"There's one more thing you need to know," Grandmamma said.

Hiccup remained quiet, torn between wanting Grandmamma to continue and wishing the bombardment would cease.

"I already told you about the hamsa right?"

Outside, the smaller of the two birds took off, dive bombing the larger, who swooped out of the way just in time Then they flew off together, one chasing after the other, their squawking echoing through the neighborhood.

"The hamsa." Hiccup repeated. Lifting a hand to his collar. He brushed the silver metal of the charm, which had grown warm against his skin. "For protection right?"

"Yes, so don't take it off."

Hiccup's fingers left the charm. He walked away from the fire and plopped on the floor where Toothless came up and nuzzled his cheek.

"Well, there's a reason, why I gave it to you besides the holiday." Grandmamma said as she rifled through an outer pocket of her messenger bag. "I saw your mother last night."

Like striking a flint in the dark, this snapped everyone's attention to her, but she seemed unfazed.

"I saw her last night she told me to give it to you. She said, 'Make sure you protect my boy!'" she mimicked with an authoritative finger, like she was motioning to a child who did a wrong doing.

Hiccup almost wanted to crack a smile sine it did mimic something a mother would do to correct a misbehaving child.

"The whole time, the two of us were just wandering around this mazelike garden, all enclosed and made up of tunnels covered in roses."

Hiccup looked to her in curiosity, eyes narrowing.

"A rose garden," Grandmamma said, and removed a white sheet of a paper form her bag. "Sort of like a network of rooms and tunnels covered in roses, all of them red. That's the only way I know how to describe it."

Images of a dome shaped room surrounded by roses flashed through Hiccup's mind, even though he'd never heard of such a place. He could even picture a screen of falling petals, the velvety slips of red tumbling between him.

"At first, we were alone. But then I saw someone moving through the garden. When he passed by one of the archways, he stopped to look in our direction, like he was surprised to see us there. And then I woke up. But not before I realized who it was." Grandmamma stood.

Hadrian, Hiccup thought. Not only had Grandmamma dreamed about a strange new place, possibly Jolene's hideout, she'd seen Hadrian there too. That would explain why wasn't there at Hiccup's house, and Scrimshaw was instead.

"Hadrian?" Hiccup asked in a whisper.

Grandmamma nodded. "Yep. It was him."