The man from the snowstorm takes a deep breath; a slow exhale. There’s truly no way he can deliver any of this information without sounding like a lunatic, without delivering pain and literally ripping her world apart at the seams, but there’s no alternative. Not if he wants to see her again as anything more than a distant wisp, out-of-reach, untouchable, dreaming of other worlds and other lives.

“I don’t know exactly why he’s not around; one of the many things I now regret not having asked you. I do know that you named a small ratty kitten after him, though. Small Yngvi. The one he gave you; the cat’s my favourite of all your massive menagerie since he happens to be partial to me. The dog prefers you.”

He’s grasping at straws, any piece of Gwenaëlle he can dredge up, waiting for something to echo and feel true. His neck is tight, shoulders strained; he doesn’t look over her shoulder to deeper into the cabin where there might or might not be an Avvar in the bedroom. Schrödinger’s husband.

“But I imagine Yngvi might have left because— Asher Hardie died of an infected wound. Years ago now. I’m sorry. Gwenaëlle, none of this is real.”