The elf standing in my office ter than any rational person’s business hours looked like he'd stepped out of a Renaissance painting, if Renaissance painters had been into the whole "tortured by existential dread" aesthetic. Silvanus Nightwhisper. Even his name sounded like something a fourteen-year-old would come up with for their D&D character. He was tall, graceful, and had that ethereal beauty thing going on that made regur humans feel like lumpy potatoes. His golden hair cascaded down his shoulders like liquid moonlight, and his violet eyes held depths that spoke of centuries of wisdom. I hated all of it.

  "Mr. Hunter," he said, his voice carrying that musical quality that all elves seemed to possess, "I apologize for the intrusion at such an ungodly hour."

  "Ungodly hour is right. You know, normal people make appointments, Legos. Use phones. Send emails. Revolutionary concepts, really."

  He settled into the chair with that fluid grace that made me want to trip him just to see if he'd fall like the rest of us mortals. "The matter is quite urgent, I'm afraid."

  "They always are." I leaned back in my chair, studying him. "Let me guess, something's trying to eat your people, ancient curse, prophecy involving the chosen one, or my personal favorite: 'It's complicated.' You mentioned Lisa, let’s focus."

  A hint of what might have been amusement flickered across his perfect features. "You're quite cynical for someone in your profession."

  "Former profession," I corrected. "I'm retired. As of six months ago. Maybe a sign on the door would have clued you in."

  "Yes, but,"

  "But nothing. I'm out. Done. Finished. I've hung up my silver bullets and blessed stakes. My daughter is more important than putting down all you magicals. I did my time, find someone else to be your knight in tarnished armor."

  Silvanus straightened in his chair, and suddenly the air in the room felt heavier, charged with an otherworldly presence that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Right. Elf magic. Almost forgot about that particur party trick.

  "Mr. Hunter, my people are dying."

  And there it was. The line that was supposed to make me care, make me feel guilty for wanting to live a normal life for once. I'd heard variations of it a thousand times over my twenty-year career. My people, my family, my species, my dimension, the pronouns changed, but the desperation was always the same.

  "I'm sorry to hear that," I said, and meant it. "Not long ago, I would be happy as a cm to hear fewer alternaturals in the world, not so much anymore. But like I said, I'm retired."

  He leaned forward, those violet eyes intense. "We are a small colony, perhaps two hundred souls, living in the tunnel systems beneath upstate New York. We've been there for over a century, hidden from the surface world, thriving in our own way."

  "Underground elves in New York. Sure. Why not? I've seen weirder. What does this have to do with my friend?"

  "Six to eight months ago, there was a minor earthquake. Nothing significant by surface standards, but it opened new passages connected to our tunnels. Naturally, we explored." His expression darkened. "What we found was not abandoned caverns, as we had hoped."

  I set down my coffee cup. Despite myself, I was getting drawn in. It was like an addiction, the hunt, the mystery, the puzzle of it all. "Let me guess. Dragon." Lisa had come to me a while back… showed me a grainy pic of what might have been one of the massive lizards, but I turned her away.

  "A dragon, yes. Ancient, powerful, and extremely territorial. The moment it sensed our presence, it decred our entire colony part of its ir. We became, in its eyes, either subjects or intruders to be eliminated."

  "And you didn't just pack up and move? Seems like the smart py."

  "Some of our people have lived there for decades. We have gardens, workshops, and a whole community. We couldn't simply abandon everything." He paused. "Besides, dragons don't typically forget about things that belong to them."

  I rubbed my temples, feeling the familiar tension headache building. "So you hired someone to deal with your dragon problem."

  "Yes. Lisa Parker. She came highly recommended."

  That got my attention. I sat up straighter, suddenly very interested in what Silvanus had to say. "You hired Lisa for your dragon problem?"

  "Yes… she gave us your name, should anything happen."

  Lisa was twenty, a survivor in the truest sense of the word, and could probably kick my ass in a fair fight. Once you add in her magic, I might be in actual trouble. "She's good. Very good. And she's got more sense than most hunters I’ve known."

  “Her Uncle… Tony, I believe… put us in contact with her. She seemed more than capable.”

  Tony. My old mentor, the man who'd taught me everything about the supernatural world. He'd been riding a desk years now due to injury, but his legacy lived on in Lisa. Smart girl. Too smart to take on a dragon alone, even with backup.

  "Makes sense. She offered me the job, actually. Seemed like a good opportunity, but..." I gnced toward the hallway leading to the living room. "I had other priorities."

  "Your daughter."

  I nodded. "Kelly's moving in with me. Full-time. First time in her life we'll actually get to be a real family instead of weekend visits and court-mandated holidays. I wasn't about to risk that for one more job."

  "A noble sacrifice."

  "Not sacrifice. Choice. There's a difference."

  Silvanus was quiet for a moment, studying me with those ancient eyes. "Lisa Parker entered the dragon's ir over a week ago. She has not been seen since. We fear the worst."

  The coffee suddenly tasted bitter in my mouth. Lisa was smart, careful, professional. She wouldn't take unnecessary risks. Though she also operated by her own rules. After Tousard, no one heard from her for weeks.

  "She give you any kind of timeline? Check-in schedule?"

  "She said she would contact us within a week, two at most. Before she departed, she gave us your name and address. 'If something happens to me,' she said, 'go to Derek Hunter.'"

  I stood up, pacing the perimeter of the office as I thought through the facts. Somewhere out there, a dragon might be sitting on a pile of gold with Lisa's bones decorating its ir. Or maybe she was trapped, injured, waiting for rescue. Or maybe she'd found a way to complete the job and was just lying low until the heat died down.

  "I'll think about it," I said finally, turning back to face the elf.

  Relief flooded his features. "Thank you, Mr. Hunter. That is all I ask."

  "Don't thank me yet. Thinking about it and doing something about it are two different things entirely."

  I walked him to the elevator, making polite small talk about the weather and the city while my mind raced through possibilities. Dragons were tricky. Ancient, intelligent, magically powerful, and absolutely ruthless when it came to protecting their territory. They were also, historically speaking, really good at killing monster hunters. This was beyond any creature I had encountered before.

  The elevator doors closed on Silvanus's grateful expression, and I stood there for a moment in the sudden silence of my penthouse. Lisa missing.. Tony would grill me over the coals if I sat by and did nothing. I needed more information.

  I made my decision.

  "Kelly!" I called down the hallway. "Get your things together. We're going to the beach."

  "Now?" Her voice came back muffled, probably from under a pillow. "Dad, it's the middle of the night, not exactly prime tan weather."

  "Different beach, sweetheart. Pack light, but bring warm clothes. I need to talk to an old friend."

  Because if I was going to come out of retirement to save Lisa Parker's stubborn ass, I wasn’t going to be deciding on a whim.

  Some things were more important than staying retired.

  ~ - ~

  The drive to Rockaway Beach took an hour in early morning traffic, with Kelly alternating between sleeping against the passenger window and asking increasingly pointed questions about why we were going to the beach before dawn. I gave her the standard parental responses, variations of "you'll see" and "trust me", while navigating through Queens toward the Atntic.

  "Dad, this is weird even for you," she said as we crossed the Marine Parkway Bridge. "Random visitors in the middle of the night, trips out to the beach with no warning."

  "Things are… a little more complicated than they seem, Kells…."

  "Uh-huh. That's why we're driving to the beach at five in the morning with a duffel bag full of weapons in the trunk."Sharp kid. Too sharp for her own good sometimes. "How do you know there are weapons in the trunk?"

  "Because you're you, and this isn't exactly a normal father-daughter bonding trip." She stretched and yawned. "Also, baseball bats and the like are sporting goods for most, but not for a security consultant… and not with how angry you seemed loading them."

  Kelly was too smart by far, likely got that from her mother. Just another reason to take coming out of retirement seriously, there was near no way I would manage keeping it secret from her. I turned into the beach parking area as the first rays of sunlight painted the horizon orange and gold. The pce was mostly empty except for a few early morning joggers and the occasional seagull looking for breakfast. But I wasn't here for the scenery.

  "Stay close to me," I said, getting out of the car. "And whatever happens, whatever you see or hear, don't freak out."

  "Define 'freak out.'"

  "You'll know it when you feel it."

  We walked along the sand, my eyes scanning the beach for what I knew had to be here somewhere. The morning air was crisp and salty, with that particur smell of ocean and possibility that beaches always carried. Kelly trudged beside me, occasionally kicking at pieces of driftwood or shells.

  "What exactly are we looking for?" she asked after we'd walked for about ten minutes.

  "You'll know it when you see it."

  "Dad, if you say that one more time, I'm going to,"

  "There."

  About fifty yards ahead, sitting on the sand like it had been there forever, was a small circus-style tent. Cream-colored canvas with burgundy trim, guy-lines stretched tight, and a hand-painted sign that read "FORTUNE TELLER" in elegant script. It looked completely out of pce on the empty beach, which was exactly why it belonged there.

  "Okay," Kelly said slowly, "that's definitely not normal."

  "Normal is overrated."

  As we approached the tent, I noticed something that always impressed me about Renaud: not a single grain of sand clung to the pristine canvas, despite the ocean breeze that should have been coating everything in fine grit. Some things about the supernatural world never stopped being elegant.

  "Derek Hunter." The voice came from inside the tent before we'd even announced ourselves. "You're earlier than I expected, but then again, time is such a flexible concept, isn't it?"

  I held the tent fp open for Kelly, who hesitated for just a moment before ducking inside. The interior was rger than it should have been, physics took a holiday around certain people, with Persian rugs covering the sand floor and oil mps providing warm, flickering light despite the dawn breaking outside.

  The man sitting behind the small table was exactly as I remembered him: tall, lean, and wearing an immacute white suit that seemed to glow in the mplight. His dark skin was ageless, though I'd known him for fifteen years and he'd looked exactly the same the entire time. The white top hat sitting on the table beside him was spotless, as if sand and salt air were merely suggestions that didn't apply to him.

  "Hello, old friend," I said.

  "Derek." He smiled, and his teeth were as white as his suit. "Please, sit. Both of you."

  Two chairs that definitely hadn't been there when we entered now faced his table. Kelly shot me a look that clearly said 'I told you this was weird,' but she sat down without comment.

  "Kelly Hunter," he said, turning those impossibly knowing eyes toward my daughter. "The girl who will change everything. I've been looking forward to meeting you for quite some time."

  "Um, hi?" Kelly gnced at me nervously. "Dad, who is this guy?"

  "Someone who sees things," I said. "Things that haven't happened yet."

  "All things that will happen, have happened, and are happening," he corrected gently. "Time is a river, my dear, not a straight line. I simply stand at a pce where I can see both directions."

  "That's... unsettling," Kelly said.

  "Truth often is." He folded his hands on the table, and I noticed he wasn't wearing gloves despite the morning chill. "You have questions, Derek. The same question you always have when you come to see me."

  "Should I take the job?"

  "Ah, but that's not really the question, is it? The real question is whether you can live with the consequences of either choice."

  I leaned back in my chair, studying his face for any hint of what he was seeing in that river of time. "Lisa Parker is missing. Possibly dead. I could help, but it means breaking my promise to give Kelly a normal life."

  "Normal." He chuckled, a sound like wind chimes in a gentle breeze. "As if such a thing were possible for either of you." His gaze shifted to Kelly. "Tell me, young dy, what do you see when you look at that mp?"

  Kelly followed his pointing finger to one of the oil mps hanging from the tent's frame. She stared at it for a moment, then frowned. "It's... flickering. But not like a normal fme. It's like it's flickering between different colors. Blue, then gold, then something that isn't really a color at all."

  My blood went cold. "Kelly..."

  "That's impossible," she continued, still staring at the mp. "Fire doesn't do that. Fire is just fire, right?"

  The fortune teller smiled sadly. "I'm afraid normalcy was never in the cards for your daughter, Derek. The gift runs strong in her bloodline."

  "What gift?" Kelly looked between us. "What are you guys talking about?"

  I closed my eyes, feeling the st of my retirement pns crumble to dust. "We'll talk about it ter, sweetheart. You could just tell me if Lisa is okay and make this easy, but that has never been your style, has it, Renaud?"

  "Both paths before you hold significant pain," the fortune teller said softly. "One leads through darkness and loss, where you will question every choice you've made. The other leads through regret and the weight of inaction, where you will wonder about every choice you didn't make."

  "That's not exactly helpful."

  "But," he continued, "one path you will not walk alone. And sometimes, my old friend, that makes all the difference."

  He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small cloth pouch, pcing it on the table between us. "For the road ahead. You'll know when to use it."

  I picked up the pouch, feeling the weight of something metallic inside. "Thank you."

  "Don't thank me yet. The river ahead is treacherous, and the currents run deep." He looked at Kelly again. "But she will be your anchor. Remember that when the storms come."

  We sat in comfortable silence for a moment, listening to the distant sound of waves and seagulls. Then he stood, straightening his white jacket.

  "Your time here is finished," he said. "Go. I’ve told you all that I can. Now all I can do is offer you the best of luck, all of you."

  Outside the tent, the morning sun was fully up, painting the beach in brilliant gold. I turned back for one st look, but the tent was gone. Just empty sand and the whisper of ocean breeze.

  "Dad?" Kelly's voice was small, uncertain. "What just happened? And what did he mean about me having a gift?"

  I put my arm around her shoulders, guiding her back toward the car. "I guess we're about to find out, kiddo.”

  Because sometimes trying was all you had, even when mysterious fortune tellers cryptically warned you about rivers and storms and gifts you didn't want your daughter to have. Sometimes you just had to step into the current and hope you were strong enough to swim.