-Editing note: Added about 800 words and changed all perspectives to 1st person.-

My name is Harry Blackthorn Copperfield Dresden, and I am the oldest man alive.

…sort of…

Okay, so, maybe I should start at the beginning.

Not the beginning, Old Testament beginning, or even the second beginning. I'm talking about the beginning that was a bit before the second beginning, but way after the first one.

Actually, now that I think about it, the beginning of this story starts at the tail end of another.

It started during the night when the Fomor decided to stage a very violent, fiery protest to the state of the world by burning everything down. A mad titan named Ethniu had gathered together many of the supernatural world's misfits and unwanted monsters into an army that assaulted the city of Chicago, my home. She wanted to disrupt the world and bring about a new dark age of humanity, which was more or less the golden age for monsters like her.

To oppose her and her ilk were the Courts of the Winter and Summer Fae, the most powerful human wizards on the planet, a few sparkling vampires, two knights armed with the literal power of God, and a bunch of humans that ranged from police to criminal, and a few ordinary joes off the street that just got swept up in the whole mess. We also had Santa fighting on our side as well.

There was also me. I was one of those powerful wizards who was also a member of the Winter Fae and might have had a friendenemy kind of relationship with one of those vampires at the moment while also being the guy responsible for handing out magical swords with the nails of the Cross in them.

So, it was my team vs Team Evil Goddess, and I had just performed the hail marry slam dunk hat trick play that won us the game. After a very long slog of a battle that took several hours and left Ethniu only slightly battered and a little scratched, we lured her to the edge of Lake Michigan. There, I performed a sealing spell. We had to get her there because near the center of Lake Michigan is a tiny little island that teleports around every few hundred years. Inside that island is a prison of crystal housing a mess of really bad things I don't want to even think about too long, because some of them are big brothers to things like Cthulhu. Once she touched the water, she was in range of the island's magic.

Of my island's magic.

The physical manifestation of what most of my friends who could work computers called the island's AI came out of the water to grab the big nasty goddess and began to pull her under. She tried a mental attack, but her not knowing me enough allowed me to see through it at the last moment.

So, all that there was left for me to do at the moment was watch the nine foot tall woman made of bronze thrash around as I got my breath back and tried to think of what to do about the criminal kingpin standing not too far away from me that had just revealed not ten minutes ago that he was more or less possessed by a fallen angel.

"CURSE YOU WIZARD!" the bronze bitch yelled at me in a voice I could feel in my bones as she was pulled further into the ground, her bronze face beginning to crack. "I WILL NOT ALLOW MYSELF TO BE IMPRISONED!"

I sucked in some air and leaned on my staff, careful not to keep my hands away from the long sharp object at the end that I had used as a focus for the sealing spell. I didn't want to know what that thing could do when it was hooked up to a magical conduit. "Yeah well, that's not really up to you, is it?" I snarked in what were soon to be the big bad's last moments of freedom.

When she got to her crystal cage on my island, I intended to make a visit and spend as much time taunting her about how a bunch of mere mortals were the ones who brought down a majority of her army. It was petty, but then again, so was I.

Marcone moved up next to me and frowned. "Is she doing what I think she's-"

"I CURSE YOU!" the goddess shrieked again as more cracks appeared on her face and light began to shine through them.

A very chilly feeling of dread ran down my spine. She wasn't giving me some lame last minute bad guy speech. She was so unbelievably petty, she was ending her life so she could cast a death curse. I hadn't even thought she knew magic.

"MAY THE ABYSS SWALLOW YOU WHOLE! MAY YOU KNOW NOTHING MORE BUT OBLIVION! MAY YOU NEVER KNOW REST. MAY YOU NEVER KNOW PEACE. MAY YOU NEVER KNOW DEATH! DRIFT THROUGH NOTHINGNESS UNTIL TIME ITSELF COMES TO AN END!"

And with that, Ethniu, last of the titans, and quite possibly the biggest pain in my life exploded in a rush of golden energy that blew away the magic circle containing her. The magic then surged over the beach before it came crashing down on me. I couldn't defend myself in the slightest as a wave of magic washed over me in a wave of untold power.

And then there was…nothing.

…complete…

…and utter…

…nothing…

-Dresden-

"DIE ALONE!"

Those words had haunted me for years. Ever since I was cursed in such a way by a minor wizard with a demon in him before he died. Magic-wise, he had been a scrub, but even the lowest level magic user was nothing to sneeze at when he used a death curse.

Death curses were horrible things; a last second shot at vengeance for any wizard who had the time to speak a few words. The magic was sent out from the casters body, boosted by his death, and sent at whatever target he deemed worthy of vengeance. The range of such magic was unlimited, and although the duration of such magic was based on the power level of the caster, I had a sinking feeling that Ethniu's curse was built to last.

I didn't quite understand what it was that Ethniu's curse had done to me. I didn't die. It seemed like some kind of banishment from the wording, but the end result was something different than being hurled into space or the bottom of the sea.

There was no light, no sound, not even a single sensation. I couldn't feel anything or even move. I couldn't hear my own heart beating like people lay in bed at night can when everything is quiet. Trying to talk didn't work, and even breathing just didn't happen. As time passed, I had to wonder if I even existed as more than just thoughts.

All I could do was think.

So that was what I did.

I thought back on my life, all my twists and turns, as well as the mistakes that I made along the way. That probably took up the most time. I thought about the three women that I had loved in my life. Elaine and Susan had been settled, but Murphy's corpse was probably just getting cold when I…not died.

Murphy, the one constant that had been in my life for better or for ill for the past decade, she was gone. She had died right in front of me, shot in the neck by a lowlife piece of trash that I had managed to find after the deed was done and…

"I'm not protecting him! I'm protecting you!" a dorky little man with a divine lightsaber said as he stood between me and my prey.

…not kill.

Existing in the void, I didn't know what to make of that. Butters had promised that Rudolph would face justice. I knew the little man to be someone whose word was good. But not being there to see it happen was just…

…a waste.

Dwelling on such thoughts was just a waste. I missed Murphy, and I was here, wasting my time by just thinking about her killer.

I cleared my mind.

And just…

…passed the time.

I tried to understand what was going on around me. I was a wizard after all. We didn't just work magic like some middling sorcerer, wizards knew how magic worked. Ethniu had made a big mistake in letting me live. I was going to figure out how to bust out of here, pick up my daughter, and get on with my life.

When that failed, I let my mind wander to other subjects.

I worried over my daughter before knowing that she would be given a good life with the Carpenters. That might have been the one good thing about my not-death. I had tried my best to be a father to her, to be a good man and live up to the example my own father set. But I knew it was just a matter of time before I messed everything up. It was what I did. Now, at the very least, she knew that her father had wanted to be with her, and she got to grow up with better people than me to teach her how to get by in life.

I mentally re-read a bunch of old comics.

I tried to listen to the void, to see if I could even listen.

Why did language work like that, anyway? See if I could listen? How could someone see the act of listening?

Well, I suppose that if someone looked close enough, they could see the vibrations sound caused by bouncing off an object, but that was seeing something in motion, not the sound itself.

My God, was I bored.

I thought I was going insane.

Then I realized I wasn't.

Not in the kind of realization where you think you're sane because you're really crazy. But the one where you know you're sane because you're afraid you may be going crazy. I was afraid of going crazy.

So I wasn't.

See how that works?

…Of course you don't. You can't see how someone is thinking.

Unless you read about it.

Then I remembered old television episodes.

I thought about all the food I used to eat.

I really shouldn't have bothered with trying to diet.

Well, I never really went on a diet, but there were plenty of times that I could have eaten more than I , that might not have ended well for me.

I spent a great deal of time replaying every life and death incident I was ever in and trying to calculate if having an extra ten pounds would have been the death of me.

That was when I had a disturbing thought after however long that took: My life was really dangerous.

I also realized something else after that: I had a really good memory. Impossibly good. I tried and found I could remember every second of every moment that I had conscious recollection of. Even the stuff I had thought I had forgotten.

So, I watched some old movies.

I remembered some old dates.

Not the stuff that came after the dates. I tried that once and found it to be rather pointless. I could remember everything just fine. But there just wasn't any…explosion of passion.

I got bored, decided to remember the entirety of my life, got bored again somewhere in my pre-teen years, and just skipped to going through all the magic lessons I ever had to see if there was anything I had ever learned that explained anything about this situation to me or might lead to a way out of that.

Ten years after that, I remembered I had tried that already and I gave up. So I started doing something more productive and went about comparing the food of my childhood to what I ate as an adult.

After that depressing phase of my existence, I replayed every song I had ever heard in the history of my life, including the commercial jingles.

For one hundred years after that, I read books. All the books I ever read. I read them twice.

I rewatched all the movies I ever saw and was glad I made it to Endgame. Marvel was probably all downhill from there.

A thousand years later, I finished cataloging every single unimportant event of my life just to make sure they weren't worth remembering.

Then I sat up off the stone floor and… Wait a minute…

-Dresden-

I sat up off the floor and just…looked around before finding my staff.

My body felt…tired. Just as tired as it had felt back on the beach, with just as many injuries. It was as if I had been plucked up and placed wherever I was without God only knows how many years I spent in the void.

I wasn't hallucinating. I had actually tried doing that a few times over the years. I tried to create my own coma fantasy so I didn't have to just remember living my life. That way, I could have at least imagined a happy ending for me and everyone. But it never worked. Not to the point I knew it wasn't just me playing pretend. My mind just wouldn't let me become delusional.

After taking a few seconds to breathe, just to enjoy breathing again, I realized that was a bad idea. Wherever I was was nothing but stale air and dust. It was just my luck that the first breath I got to have after a literal eternity was poor and dusty.

I slowly got to my feet. Surprisingly, my body responded better than I thought it should have. It wasn't like people who had been in comas for a month needing to relearn to walk. I was a little rusty at moving, but it was like riding a bicycle. A few uneasy steps and I was moving like I had been doing it all my life.

For a brief, tiny moment, I faltered, and wondered if what was happening was real. Had finally managed to go insane and concocted a delusion to deal with being stuck in limbo for eternity?

But, the lack of anyone else around me on top of the missing pub setup reminiscent of Mac's bar had me throwing that theory away a few moments later. If I was going to imagine eternity away, it would have been in one of the places I loved the most, surrounded by the people I cared for.

So, where I was, it was real.

Unless it was the Nevernever. Then, the meaning of the word real got a little…dicey.

I decided to test that theory, and reached out to tear a hole in reality so I could step through the veil that separated the real world from the sort of real world.

As I performed the magic, I felt the world warp and twist like normal, but instead of the fabric of reality breaking to reveal some twisted version of itself that was hidden behind reality, I felt a powerful rebound. It blew me back nearly five feet before I fell on my butt. The unpleasant reminder of what pain felt like was quickly followed by a psychic scream from all around me. If it had been something physical, my ears probably would have been bleeding.

Instinctively, I covered my ears with my hands. But it didn't do anything. The sensation I was experiencing wasn't a sound. It was something more ethereal, even if my mind could only process it like noise.

Then, as the shrieking stopped, I heard a rumbling from behind me.

As well as to the side of me that didn't have a big dark in ominous opening in the rockface.

And then above me.

Creatures of all shapes and sizes, from green-skinned little men with oversized pointy ears to overly hairy dogs that were drooling fire started coming out of the walls. Followed by more of them sprouting from the floor and ceiling. They were just coming out by the dozens all around me.

And I felt like I had just gone five rounds with a titan.

"Crap," my mouth choked out in the first words I had spoken in forever. My throat cried out for water and as I turned to run towards the entrance to the cavern I was in, my legs felt like they were about to turn into it to accommodate my thirst. My gas tank was so far into the empty that the needle had broken off and spun all the way around again.

If I had been a normal man, a normal wizard even, I probably would have dropped down and died.

But, I did have an ace up my sleeve. I was the Winter Knight.

I had more or less sold my soul to a sort-of evil fairy queen a few years ago in return for the power to save my daughter. For the promise of becoming her hatchet man, I was given the Mantle of Winter, a blessing of Fae that made me the equivalent of a gold medal athlete on top of granting me a few ice-based powers.

Powers that let me seal the tunnel I dashed into behind me with a small glacier and create a floor of ice both behind and in front of me as I ran. The ice didn't bother me at all as I ran on top of it like it was normal asphalt. Things of all shapes and sizes continued to claw their way out of the rock around me as I ran down the tunnel, but none of them could find proper footing and allowed me to easily leap over their fallen bodies like a parkour master as they struggled just to stand up on the difficult terrain.

With the danger all around me, the pain in my body faded and I found myself able to run even faster. The Mantle would let me ignore broken bones and torn muscles until the job was done. But the backlash was going to be killer.

I ran without knowing where I was going and barely any knowledge of what I was doing. Instinct and the need not to die guided me more than anything else as I ducked, dodged and weaved through all manner of horrors. When I broke out into another massive cavern, I plowed through the mob by using what was left of my magic to knock a twelve foot orc out of the way before I made it to the other end of the cavern and sealed the entrance.

And then, I fell to my hands and knees, gasping for breath.

Mantel or no, my body had limits. Even when I couldn't feel them.

After ten seconds that took far too long, I got back up and got ready to defend myself from…nothing.

Nothing was coming out of the walls, ceiling or floor of the tunnel I had found myself in.

Even the air felt different for some reason. Sweeter and less oppressive.

But, any hope I had of making the breather I had a full on short rest came to an end when something smashed into my wall of ice from the other side. The barrier held, but just because it was magical ice that resisted being melted by a warm summer day didn't mean it was invincible.

So, leaning on my staff/spear, I slowly hobbled down the corridor in hopes of having avoided the mass of monsters after lighting my amulet so I could see more than two feet in front of my face.

A few minutes later, my hopes were starting to become emboldened when I saw the unlit torches on both sides of the cavern. Then, my hopes took a beating when I exited the tunnel and found myself standing in a crater with stairs carved into the side that went upwards in a long spiral.

A very long spiral that I couldn't see the end of in the limited light that my pentangle was emitting.

"Seriously?" I demanded in a weak voice that nearly cracked my throat open. I really needed something to drink.

With not much other choice, I started making my way up the stairwell. An hour later, when I finally reached the top, I stared at the doors in front of me that looked like they went to an oversized elevator.

This is ridiculous, I thought to myself as I lurched over to the doorway. There was a crank on the side with odd writing on top of it. Not illegible writing, odd writing. The letters, or at least most of them, were in English. But it looked like it had been written by an overly ambitious first-year art student that favored his half-assed style over legibility.

'Use crank to open in case of emergency' it read.

When I finally got the door open enough to slip through, I entered a world of classic architecture. The hallway I began walking down was large enough to drive several trucks through at once and looked like it had been designed with ancient Greece in mind. Everything was marble and gold, or at least something that could pass as gold.

After coming to the next door, I looked up at the sharp object on the end of my staff, and reached up to unscrew it before putting it back in my trench coat before I put the topper back on to turn it from a stick with a hole in the top to a classic wizard's staff.

Then, I stepped out…into an empty bank lobby?

That was the closest thing I could think of when I got the second oversized door open and walked out into the large room. Ignoring the gigantic marble columns and plush sofas meant for waiting customers, there were numerous stations along the wall beside the door I came out of that were behind bars that resembled old teller desks from the 1900s.

Since I didn't want to be arrested for trespassing in whatever this bank-like place was, and I had actually spent a few years calculating just how my luck worked out of sheer boredom, I very carefully and very quickly made my way to the exit of the building. When I got there, I noticed another poorly written sign in Bad English.

'The dungeon will be closed Saturday at 10PM until 8AM Monday for remodeling of the entryway'

The words were followed by a date I didn't recognize.

And some more text. 'All residents, please use the elevator access located outside the tower for entry into the higher floors and residences.'

The dungeon… I read again, dumbfounded. Then I pitched the bridge of my nose and rubbed it. It was hardly the most insane thing I had seen in my life. It didn't even get into the top one-hundred.

I took in a breath and slid the door open before I stepped out into the cool night air. No guards were in sight, and so I carefully closed the door behind me and made my way down the steps with none the wiser of my trespass.

Surprisingly, I had actually managed to get away with my crime without anything bad happening. Then, the lightning crashed overhead before rain started to fall in buckets, and I was relieved to see that the path of my life hadn't changed.

-Dresden-

The rain made it hard to tell what time it was.

Not because I couldn't see far enough to find a clock or anything like that after I left the first floor of a ridiculously tall tower that made me think somebody was trying to build an homage to Babel. The Mantle of Winter gave me some impressive nightvision based on some magical perception I was still figuring out the mechanics of.

There were no clocks that I could see from the street, and being a wizard had the annoying side effect of turning all electronic technology into fiendish monsters whose betrayal was always sudden, if predictable. So I didn't have a watch. I definitely didn't have a smartphone, nor did I have the unholy union between watch and phone that Dick Tracy predicted oh so many years ago.

The rain made it hard to tell what time it was because it kept all the people who could work technology off the street. And I do mean all the people. I walked in random directions for over an hour and failed to spot a single soul. On top of which, all the shops were closed down, so simply going inside the local flower shop for assistance wasn't an option either.

What made things worse was that after an hour, the Winter Mantle decided that the threats had passed and let my body remind me that I had been very tired and sore before I had run the marathon of death in the underground network of tunnels.

I was about ready to pass out when a sound caught my attention. I made my way around the corner of the alleyway I had been walking down and saw something that gave me some hope. There was an open door with a soft light coming out into the street. Through the door, I could hear the familiar sound of people talking, some rowdy cheering, and all the other noises that happen when you mix people with alcohol.

There was also a young woman standing near the door who had just dumped a load of garbage into a bin that was probably too close to the bar's back entrance for a health inspector to approve of. She looked like she was in her late teens or early twenties, and was dressed in a green maid's uniform, complete with a little white headpiece. Everything about her was practically designed to be cute, from her silvery hairdo that was a cross between a bun and a ponytail, to the surprised but not shocked look in her eyes that, unless I was so tired my eyes weren't working correctly, were also silver.

"H-Hello?" I stammered out, my throat reminding me it wasn't a good idea to talk right now as I held up a hand and leaned more on my staff while I avoided getting any closer. The last thing I needed was the girl to scream and run away from the crazy hobo before I even got the chance to talk. "Excuse me, can you get the manager? I need to use the phone in your bar. It's an emergency."

The girl's body language changed as I spoke. She went from slightly cautious mid sentence to putting her back up by the time I was done. For a brief moment, the feeling in the back of my neck that spoke up every now and then whenever I was in trouble started tingling, but it stopped by the time I looked back behind me.

When I turned my attention back to the girl, I caught her eyes moving from something on the roof across the street and back to me before she slowly walked down the stairs. The curious look on her face had returned. "What…did you say you needed, sir?" she asked in English, although it had a strange accent that I couldn't place.

"A telephone," I told her before realizing my mistake and holding up my hands. It wouldn't go well if the only person I found to ask for some help decided not to because I blew up her smartphone after touching it. "Inside. I need a landline."

The young woman that was a bit taller than Murphy reached out and grabbed me by the wrist with a surprisingly strong grip. The curiosity in her eyes was gone, replaced by a steely resolve I had not been expecting. "You need to come with me immediately," she said in a no nonsense tone that didn't expect no for an answer before she started pulling me towards the door.

I was too tired and confused by the abnormal reaction to resist more than a few stumbling steps before the strange young woman pulled me along up the stairs and into sensory nirvana. My nose was assaulted by the smell of half a dozen dishes that set my mouth to watering as we stood in a little hallway that opened up to the kitchen and another door not far off to my right.

"Nyah, Syr!" an odd sounding girl's voice rang out before another maid/waitress appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. It was only after I saw the brown cat ears on top of her head I realized the odd sound I heard before was more akin to a cat's meow than a human's exclamation of surprise. "Table five's order is ready."

Before her name was out of the other girl's lips, the expression on her face had changed. Syr gave the catgirl an apologetic look and raised her freehand in a half-done beg. "Sorry Anya. I need to take fifteen. Can you cover for me while I borrow the breakroom?" she asked before adding, "I'll let you take my tips for the night."

That's a catgirl, my tired mind managed to tell me. The strange creatures that were very loosely based off Japanese nekotamas had come to infest comic book conventions as of late. Seeing one in real life threw me for a loop.

Anya gave Syr a pensive look before she crossed her arms. "Okay, but you're going to have to deal with Mamma Mia if she thinks you're slacking off, not me-ow."

She meows. She's a meowing catgirl, my very astute and logical mind surmised as the girl turned around to show me her mobile tail.

Syr didn't waste a second before she more or less dragged me along down the hallway while I barely managed to put one foot in front of the other to keep from falling on my face. She brought me down to the door on the other end of the hallway that led to a cramped room with a small table in the middle, and half a dozen other things in each corner like boxes and various iron skillets that told me this place was more of a storage area than one meant for relaxation.

She practically threw me in one of the seats, then stood on the opposite side of the table before looking me up and down with a frown. Despite her cutesy looks, I got an uneasy feeling as she studied me with her eyes. It was like I was being stripped bare and she was gazing at my very soul.

So, after exchanging confusion for some backbone, I sat up a little straighter and decided to return the favor. I was tired, and confused, and the part of me that didn't like being pushed around was starting to push back. I locked eyes with the young woman and…got a very uneasy feeling when nothing happened.

When a wizard locks eyes with someone, we get this little thing called a soul gaze. The eyes are windows to a soul, and wizards are allowed to look through them to see inside to the core of another person's very being. It's not anything as cheesy as mind reading, or some kind of little thing that you can just shrug off if you see something scary. What you see is seared into your mind forever, impossible to forget.

I was injured, I was tired, and I was getting a little fed up by being hauled around by a little waitress from some fantasy maid cafe. So, I think I can excuse myself for doing the jerk thing by potentially traumatizing the cute girl in front of me by doing something that sent a kraken recoiling in horror not too long ago.

I locked eyes with the girl and frowned at her…and she blinked.

But that was all that happened.

"Hm?" Syr moaned before she stood up a little straighter. "Sorry, I'm being rude." She sighed and sat down across from me. "I got a look at you and-I'm sorry," she tried to begin again before leaning over a tiny bit and reaching up to rub her head. "How to tell you this."

"You're not human," I said evenly while only wondering after I said it if laying that card on the table was the best idea. If Syr was really some kind of eldritch abomination, I could buy some more time by playing along.

Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second. The statement had caught her off guard. "How did-" she said before her eyes moved to my staff. "Right, wizard." Then she frowned at me and gave me a look I had seen in all its incarnations, on the faces of just about every member of the female gender. "Did you just try to soul gaze me?"

Before I could answer, she let out a tiny sigh and crossed her arms before looking away from me. "Great, now I feel like a hypocrite," she grumbled before her expression softened. Then it saddened and she actually had me feeling bad before she spoke. "No, I'm not…human."

"Uh…sorry," I couldn't help but apologize.

Syr sighed and shook her head. "No, it's my fault. Dragging you inside, doing all this. I just saw you and overreacted. It's no wonder you're nervous," she said before taking a deep breath. A silence hung in the air for a few seconds before the girl started giving me a steely eyed look again. "My name is Syr Flova, and I give you my oath that me and mine shall do you no harm while you are a guest under this roof, where all are welcome."

The last bit of unease and tension slowly left my body upon hearing those words. Whatever Syr was, I got the feeling she was old, like old testament old. Things like her put a lot of weight into oaths and ancient traditions, such as the guestright. As long as I didn't throw the first punch, it didn't matter if Syr was an elder dragon that could melt continents, she would do nothing to hurt me.

I stood up, with the difficulty obvious to anyone with eyes to see thanks to the Mantle not caring to deaden my pain when I wasn't in danger, and held out my hand while making sure I wasn't giving the correct pronunciation of my name. That was dangerous when you talked to stuff as old as the little girl in front of me. "Harry Dresden."

Syr rushed out to give me a gentle handshake. Then, her mouth ticked up a little. "Wait, you're a wizard from England…named Harry?" she asked with a tiny giggle. "A little on the nose, don't you think?"

A mention of a reference, more for dumbfoundingly, a modern reference nearly made me collapse. It took a second for my mind to work through the shock before I could pretend to be offended. "I'm American," I told her before the semi-formal response when two fans of the book came to mind. Not that I was one of those rabid fans that lived the stuff, but… "Griffondor."

Then, my rigorous indignation was immediately undercut by the sound of my stomach rumbling.

Syr's amusement only increased and she pulled her hand back to do a very poor job of hiding her mouth. "Slytherin," she said after laughing a bit. "Now, let me go get you some food."

Then, her mood declined so sharply that it sent a shiver down my spine. "And give you some bad news."

-Syr-

I steeled myself as I closed the door to the storage room behind me and walked until I came up to the window. A slight tap on the glass brought a man in a white uniform down from his hiding place. "Privacy," I mouthed before the guard disappeared. Allen was a hothead, but he would obey me.

I hated having bodyguards following me all the time, but they were a necessity.

"Don't tell me you're trying to bring in another stray."

I looked up at the mountainous woman standing at the end of the hallway. I kept my face calm and emotionless along with my mind. If I allowed myself to feel for the poor child in the room behind me, I wouldn't be able to do what was needed. "I don't think the uniforms will fit him very well," I said without any humor in her voice. "But he does need food for the night. Give him whatever dish is ready that has hearty portions of meat. Beef or chicken." From what I could recall, that was what his people preferred.

Mia frowned down at me. "You're giving me orders?" the head of the House of Hospitality asked evenly.

The real question went unasked, and I gave a briefest of nods before giving a very showy wince for anyone that was going to wander by. It was time to play my role again. "I'm sorry," I said in the sweet voice customers were used to hearing from me. "It's just that he's an old acquaintance of an acquaintance. Can you see what you can find laying around for him, please?"

After giving me a loud groan, Mia rolled her eyes as spoke as she turned away. "I'll whip something up. He's not going to starve to death in ten minutes. Wash some dishes while you're waiting."

The command told me how upset she was with me. Dishes were the one thing I hated about being Syr. The washing part anyway.

As I moved out into the kitchen area, I found Ryu fighting a losing battle against an ever-increasing horde of dirty plates and silverware. With one hand short out in the dining area, they had pulled Chloe to take care of tables.

"I'll wash. You dry," Ryu told me simply before I took my place to her right.

Grateful for the busy work, I tried to organize my thoughts.

A human, from America…with knowledge of that Rowling woman's works. I should have asked, books, movies, or series, I scolded herself. But, it did allow me a rough estimate of the time he came from. Late 1990s to the First Ending. He also couldn't be that old and probably looked his age, which was rare for a wizard.

Harry Dresden…now that I had time to listen to my own thoughts, something about that name was familiar to me. It tickled memories from tens of thousands of years ago…but, try as I might, I couldn't place it. Had I heard that name before, or was it just my mind playing tricks to try to make things more interesting?

Not that there wasn't enough to draw my attention without a personal connection. He was an old type of human, the original species that was the origin of just about every sapient creature back home.

There was also his soul to consider. It was damaged, but he still acted stable instead of like a raving madman. Whatever had harmed him wanted him functional. Just the thought of something that would harm a human like that made something deep inside of me that I tried to keep held down while at work stir in anger. Something like that boy was much too precious to be harmed in such a way.

There was also the magic that had been wrapped around his soul. A dark, feral thing that was attempting to mold the boy Dresden into something else. It looked familiar, but it had been so long since such ancient magic had been possible in the lower world that all examining it did was make me feel annoyed at the reminder that the life I was living now wasn't the world that once was.

Still, he was the last precursor human in existence. Something I hadn't even known was a possibility. Well, there is that girl up North, but…she doesn't really count, I told myself as an annoying reminder popped up in my memory.

"Something wrong?"

Ryu's voice cut through my thoughts like a hot knife through butter, and I looked over to see she was still washing dishes and adding them to a growing pile that lay between us. Then I realized that the plate I had been cleaning was the same one I started with and let out a sigh. "Sorry," I said before setting the plate I had down and pulling a dish from the growing pile Ryu was leaving me.

After finishing her current plate, Ryu looked over and down to me. "Is the guy you brought in causing you trouble?"

I didn't want to give anything away, so I just looked at the wall ahead of me as I tried to think. How was I supposed to explain this? It wasn't as if the pub we were in didn't have a few strays. The vast majority of the staff were criminals, unwanted by society, or just lost kittens with nowhere to go. But I didn't want that boy hanging around too long either.

Eventually, I went with the trusty, "It's complicated."

"Mr Bell kind of complicated or-"

"What?" I asked as I turned all the way towards my best friend with a look of disturbed shock.

But she isn't your best friend, a little voice reminded me. If she knew the truth, you would never be friends. None of the precious children in the Hostess of Fertility would be.

I told myself to shut up and made myself focus on the conversation at hand. "That's a completely different thing!" I told her before she went back to drying dishes. "That…he…he's just a friend of a family member. That's all. I was pretty shocked to see him here. That's all!"

Ryu actually stopped cleaning dishes and looked at me in surprise. Which meant I had made some kind of mistake. Nervousness began to rise up inside of me as the elf looked down at me with a pair of piercing green eyes. "What?"

"I think that's the first time I've ever heard you mention your family," Ryu told me before her expression became one of steely concern. "Is everything okay?"

I could see the concern welling up inside of her and what she really meant by that question. Translation: "Do you need me to get rid of him for you?"

My mood quickly softened. Instead of being nosey, Ryu was putting her personal curiosity aside to make sure I was okay. So I held up my hands to block her concern and help calm Ryu down as well. "No, no. It's nothing bad. I've just had so little to do with my, uh…hometown for such a long time, I'm just a bit discombobulated."

"Well, if you need some help, I'm always here," Ryu offered.

After thanking the elf for her concern, I saw Mia coming towards me with a steaming plate of food that was too high up for me to see what was on the plate, and a large mug of what she was pretty sure was apple cider. "For that boy you brought in. I'll carry it for you."

I gave a tiny nod and led Mia down the back hallway where the employee break room was. "So, you're going to be playing with this one too?" the large dwarf asked when we were alone.

The hostility in her voice got an equal response from her. With a surprise that had just walked up to my back door, I was just about at my limit for tonight. "Excuse me?" I growled.

"Girls you bring around, you feel sorry for and we take them in. It's what I respect out of you the most," Mia replied with an even tone as she frowned down at me. "Boys, you play with them like they're a toy. Don't deny it. That little runt you've been looking at the past few weeks is just something shiny and new to kill your boredom for a while."

I wanted to refudiate my retired lieutenant, but the large woman knew me too well. Bell Cranel was special. He had a soul unlike any I had seen before, and a very special set of skills that let him overcome things that should have left him dead in the ground; if just by the skin of his teeth. He was both entertaining and cute. Something I found delightfully amusing, and maybe a little endearing.

But, he also fit within the paradigm that had been created in imitation of what came before. No matter what he did, or how he grew, the options for his development only lead down so many predictable paths. That wasn't to say he might manage to break the mold, but I had been let down too many times by both boys and girls who could withstand my presence.

The child behind the door was different. He came from the previous creation. Harry had an upbringing that couldn't be replicated anymore, and a breadth of experience that no living human could hope to have. He was an unknown in so many ways that the possibilities couldn't be mapped out in the mind of a deity. To top it off, there was an air of danger about him. His soul was tattered and beaten, but still holding onto a mortal core, despite something trying to twist his insides into a new shape.

For the first time since I came down to Earth, I didn't know how to deal with a mortal.

And it excited me in ways I thought impossible.

After taking a deep breath, I wrapped myself up in my lie and pressed down the thoughts that were raging in the forefront of my mind to the back of , I opened the door and stepped inside the little room, taking a seat as Mia gave the boy his meal and drink. The large woman smiled down at him as Dresden actually slurped up some drool from the food in front of him. "Anything else you need?" Mia asked.

"Leave," I said in no uncertain terms before Dresden could answer. "What we are about to discuss is meant for his ears alone. Make sure that none of the girls indulge in their curiosity."

The look on Mia's face turned to one of concern for a moment before she nodded. She knew when to obey, still. As soon as the door closed, I looked back on the man, and her vision turned to one of sympathy. Do you want to finish your meal before we begin?" she asked. "I fear that what I'm about to say might cause you to lose your appetite."

Dresden gave a tiny snort. "That's not going to happen," the wizard told me before he cut into the large roast of meat that Mia had prepared with her usual skill. "So, what's going on? Where am I? This isn't the Nevernever, but I don't remember elves walking around without some kind of glamour. And catgirls are a new one to me."

An uncomfortable admission made its way up my throat. "Yeah, I love Chloe and Anya, but anime left its mark on us when it came time to rebuild things." We really should have gotten the basics right before trying to reinvent the wheel or indulge in childish fantasies.

But, we were gods. Humble wasn't something deities did very well.

"You didn't answer my question," Dresden challenged me as he raised his fork to point at me with it. "So stop dropping hints about things meant to derail the conversation."

I blinked. That hadn't been my intention, more of a force of habit when dealing with mortals. Straight forward wasn't something gods did well either. I let out a loud sigh to give him a genuine apology. "Sorry, old habit," I told him before taking a deep breath. "Although, those questions aren't going to give you the answers you want, I'll tell them to you anyway. By some means I don't yet understand, you were preserved for a long time and transported here. So for your location, this is Labyrinth City Orario. It was built over the entrance to a focal point of evil and destruction. The people of this city hold back the monsters that spawn underneath it and venture down into the dungeon that lies beneath us to keep their population in check, so that we aren't overwhelmed by sheer numbers."

When I finished, I realized how silly that must sound to an outsider that never even heard of the dungeon. He was even looking at me in an odd fashion. A nervous laugh escaped my lips. "I know it sounds outlandish, but life tends to be stranger than fiction, sometimes."

"Only sometimes for you?" Dresden asked with a smirk before he took a cut of meat and ate it so quickly I was worried he'd choke to death. Just how hungry was the boy?

Before he could finish chewing, I moved on to the heavier topic. "Before we continue, I need to tell you. This is not the world that you came from. It's not even the same reality that you grew up in," she explained before taking a deep breath. "Judging from your comment about Harry Potter, you lived during the period shortly before a time we refer to as The End."

Dresden stopped eating with his food halfway to his face and gave me his full attention. I didn't want to be dramatic, so I needed to keep this as simple as possible.

"We don't exactly know how it happened. The Almighty had forbidden interference with the race of man, but allowed our continued existence on Earth. The Aesir had also long since given up their stewardship of the Gates to the Sidhe," I grumbled at the end. Which was quite personal for me. If our kind had been watching the children, the world would not have ended. "So, we indulged ourselves. Most of the playboys, models and rockstars of the time were gods, like me. I was an actress by the way. We still had our power, we just couldn't do anything without giving up our divinity, so we were caught off guard when The End began.

"The Gates were breached, and the Veil was torn open by a flood from the Outside," I told him while wrestling with the uneasy feeling in my gut. "Reality was undone as natural laws became more like suggestions. The universe broke apart before our eyes and…I can't call what happened to the morals dying. They were simply undone. When it began, the Almighty took his followers and true believers before disappearing completely. The gods and surviving spirits were given Heaven as a refuge to rest and recover from the death of existence.

"After some time, the flood ended, the proverbial waters receded, and the gods went back to the lower plain to drive what was left of the Outside away. Then we…patched reality back together," I said while spitting the word out. It wasn't a good enough description of what happened, but verbal language couldn't do the explanation justice. "After that, we remade the mortal races, and…took some liberties with the old human model. But, as much as any of us hate to admit, we are not the Almighty. Our creation is fragile and imperfect. An imitation of what existence was before. It strained to hold itself together under our combined weight. So, we left and let the moral races find their own way."

The explanation finished, or at least the first crumb of it done, I felt the crushing weight of history pressing down on me. No deity liked going over that part of our shared past. I had wanted to get it over with as soon as possible and made a mental note to take a nice long bath when I was back home in Folkvangar to scrub off the mental feeling of dirt it left all over my body.

But, Dresden was a child of the Almighty. The law did not apply to him, and if the man started asking questions to a random child on the street, I knew it wouldn't end well.

…

…

… "So…why is everything written in English?" he asked.

I…kept myself from looking at him like he was an idiot. Was that the first question he wanted to ask? With a bit of self control, I just shrugged. "Like I said, most of us were in the entertainment business when the world ended. English was the common language for that field."

"You keep saying we," Dresden mumbled. "So…you're a deity? Like Hades?"

Old habits made me tense up. Admitting what I was about to say was something I had avoided for over twenty years. "Yes. I am a goddess. Take a good look at me if you want. I keep my light as dim as I can in this form, it shouldn't hurt you beyond a small headache," I told him. At least, I thought it wouldn't hurt him if I was hiding myself. Could a mortal's eyes piece through the veil of lies a goddess could manifest? It was a question that had me begin to worry I might have made a miscalculation.

What happened the last time a wizard looked upon one of us with his Sight? There had to have been at least one, but I couldn't remember if their eyes exploded or not.

Just to be sure, I tried to pull myself in and make my presence as small as possible.

There was obvious consideration on the man's face before he sighed. "That's not something I want to remember seeing forever," he said before raising a finger to point at me. "But there's a problem with your story. You said this world can't hold a god, but you're here sitting pretty."

I almost missed the question. Had he looked at me, or not?

"When we descend, we put the majority of our power in check," I explained. "Think of it like luggage on an airplane. It's there in the overhead compartment, so we can pull it out if absolutely necessary, but it's going to cause a headache for everyone involved. I'm basically your average…slightly athletic eighteen year old girl that can use a few tricks as a goddess. Stuff that can fit into my purse. Pale imitations of what I could really do. But enough to keep things interesting.

"And, full disclosure, there's dozens of gods in this city because of the monsters living below us," I added as an afterthought. I didn't want him sticking his nose in every little thing and getting snatched up by someone else. It was finders claimers in Orario, and I had managed to get my hands on the boy before anyone else this time. "We can't use our power directly, but we can empower our children so they can keep the monsters of the abyss sealed away."

Dresden frowned. "Why tell me all this?"

I found myself pausing at the question. I didn't want to scare him off or give him reason to walk away from me, but there was something deeper to it. The truth was, it was out of pity. "Because I feel sorry for you," I said before pausing to let that sink in. It also gave me time to think about the best way to tell him what he needed to hear, the best way for him to hear it. "Plus, you're a wizard, Harry. You're probably naturally inquisitive and have a need to find things out for yourself. Probably causing me a very big headache in the process. So I can either have you killed, or be upfront as possible to make sure you don't go running your mouth and ruining things for me here as you stumble around like an idiot that has no idea what's going on. I'm just making sure you don't burn the place down to get your answers and disrupt my perfect little life."

"Your perfect life? You work in a bar, as a waitress," the human said in a challenging way.

I felt my anger rising at that one. How could he insult my choice of life like that? "I like being a waitress."

When the wizard backed down, silence reigned in the room again. One real good look at him and I could tell, it was all too much for him to respond in a manner true to himself. He was too tired and battered to freak out about things, but even after half-processing half of all that information, his whole life was turned upside down in a short span of time, and it hurt him. I could see the color of his soul twist and writhe as it struggled to deal with being told everyone and everything he ever knew was gone. He was just lashing out at the nearest target.

The meat he was holding was lowered back onto his plate, and Dresden simply stared ahead, his eyes going out of focus.

I let out a little sigh and stood up. I longed to talk with him, pick the man's brain and find out how he got to my city. The old magic wasn't nearly as restrictive as the new system that had been created by the gods to empower our children. If he could still use it, the possibilities of future events increased exponentially. But, pushing him too far too fast would be disastrous.

And cruel, I told myself before frowning at the thought. Right and wrong were such an annoying thing to a goddess. Being the bad girl had plenty of attractive things about it and was usually the most expedient path to getting what I wanted, but tended to weigh on me at the oddest of times. Usually when I was giving a random family of mortals their food the next day.

Freya always hated it when morality got in the way of her fun.

"I'll let you have your privacy, Mr Dresden," I told him before pausing at the door. "This isn't an inn, but Mamma Mia does have a few rooms upstairs for…people with nowhere else to go. I'll have her put you up for a few days."

Before I could close the door all the way, I caught a glimpse of the man looking up at her with a puzzled expression. "Did you seriously just call her, Mamma Mia?"