It has been a hell of a three-day night. Three dog night? Whatever it was. Gwilym stirs, body as close to entirely limp as it is possible.

     Ravens and years both fly, and flocks like months have ticked across the sky of time. You are king of ever growing territories, hillocks and mounds, meadows of former chaotic and corrupted earth, now transformed to the renewal that the Holly King brings, always with the sacrifice of blood and toil.

     ... You are staring... uncertain... wary and wise...

     "You've made a right mess of a perfectly evil tower," Aeron says, leaning back with his hands propping him upon on the stone.

     "When do you get started? Right after Yule? Father Christmas Strikes Back?" Davydd cackles at that and reaches for his whisky. That was so good, he has to drink to it.

     "Brawd." He rises and he takes a look at you. You, Your Majesty. He felt the crowning.

     "Come with me," the Holly King tells you, wine running like blood down through his hair and dripping from his mouth. "I will guide you and show you the way."

     "... I have chained my every dancing atom into a divine seat in the Beloved's Tavern. What I have learned... I am so eager to share..."

     "No matter the temptation," Gwilym murmurs, "I do not want to hurt you, Prospero. Or us. I try to funnel my temptations into what you will not be harmed by, even if exasperation might occasionally make your eyebrows lift at me."

     "You have no idea how brightly you shine. How ...tempting your energy is. How to tame it, for an instant, is one of my greatest pleasures and delights. You are like holding lighting. Like putting one's head in the tiger's mouth."

     A moment's pause is all there is. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. I understand your part of the argument. I can understand his regret. I ...appreciate it more... what he was going through, or I imagine he was going through, when we were young.

     Here stand two kindred spirits, bound by family, blood, bad habits and emotion. But though they speak the same language, and though they stand not ten feet apart, there's a chasm between them, these men, neither of them a bridge-builder.

     I could cheat. I could cheat so well that I could rob you blind and you would never know it. I have diced with such devils and won, kept my skin and bones intact and lined my purse with money not only from rascals but from reprobates.

     "Consider this your invitation," he says after a moment. "When you're ready to join me out here," his gaze trails across to the wide horizon of Infinity, "...you will. When you are meant to. It will be good... not to walk the shadows alone."

     "It's a good deal more goddamned interesting than cricket..."

     When they shake hands, it is like the Captain of All the Ships of the World shaking the hand of the Pirate King...

     The body disappears, pulled into the darkness by loyal hands, and Iovis Macarelli strides away from his evening's correspondence.

     "Well, I have a heart like a raisin. A prune. But... I will tell you something," he whispers now. "When I am with you, I can feel it growing plump again with blood, Gwilym. I can almost feel it beat again, like it did when I was young. And alive."

     "Would I be happier in knowledge or ignorance? Let's ask Adam, shall we? I believe that is the quintessential question of the universe, my brother. For now, give me the illusion of ignorance. If you are still seeing him in a year, then... come confess, my door will be open for you as always."

     Amice, my heart is like a fig left to dry in the sun. It is shriveled and small. You could serve it like pesto on a cracker, it is nothing. Flavorful but then gone in an instant. And yet, in it is pumping new blood, humming with the power that is in your blood. I feel something. I do not know what it is. But I feel it like pleasure and I feel it like pain. It is a confusion, a puzzle. What is it, what is it -- it beats with that question.

     "You are in my blood," he groans, "... like Caravaggio's disease. You burn there, and I find no rest from my want, amice."

     Havoc's son rushes at you, its various mouths clamping. It lets loose gargling strangles, like someone choking on blood. Its breath is worse than even Iovis can describe. It smells of chaos, fear, and disorganized guts.

     Now you see it. Now you don't. He is a veritable illusionist in the exchange, the sleight of hand and redirection covering the slide of the envelope into the inside of his coat.

     A guitar pick rolls and flips, finger to finger, leaping, effortlessly leaping, faster. And faster. It is a blur of motion, faster and faster until it becomes a streak of red and blue hovering above his hand like an aura. The pick, a guitar. Are you playing me, shadow-lord?

     The alley's darkness surrounds him until he dissolves in it, a glance given in the direction he believes you to be. And he slips away with a taunting chuckle. You want me? Catch me. Kill me. Thrill me. Iovis Macarelli steps into the Void.

     He moves faster than any human. So fast, that human eyes would catch only one motion in five -- and this is all without breaking into a run. He is simply walking but at the speed of shadow...

     "No whining on the astral plane," comes the intonation of his voice. Rhodri looks at you, cocking up an eyebrow. He saves whatever other commentary he may have for later. "What are you drinking?"

     Putting the hearth's poker back in its stand, Iowerth turns to you. "It is an outer cold," he assures. "Winter is a season for contemplation."

     From the labyrinths of London's shadows to those that exist Between Places, leading lastly to Otherworldly covers of darkness, I began to walk.

     "The last time, I ended up tied to the bed with my own necktie, you six months pregnant and ... wait a minute," he chuckles, "...that was a fan-fucking-tastic night. Alright, you drive a hard bargain. I'll sleep with you...but I want to be respected in the morning..."

     Gwilym rolls his eyes, his hands lifting to scrub at his face. "He looked ... almost Arabic, or Greek, or - something. But not quite. And I looked at him, because he was looking at me, and he didn't look away when he saw me looking at him. And his eyes reached out and hit me. And oes... oes, my ears are still ringing..."

     As you napped, your father stood over you smiling a moment. You look like you've worked hard. You've at least worked hard at looking like you worked hard (he knows the well from which you sprang).