The Luminiferous Ether had also turned up to visit the Bermuda Triangle, although just for the weekend. On these occasions it always overindulged, then cried over the past. Its fame had waned back in the nineteenth century; people no longer even believed in it, thanks to diligent scientists and “progress.”

Life as a global celebrity—even when you were long washed-up—was taxing, which was why it was so important to take breaks. But the Northern Lights, the Bermuda Triangle and the Luminiferous Ether had agreed this time that the breaks were just not working anymore. They were tired. Fed up.

They wanted to go home.

But the Otherworld didn’t want them back. Or, at least, it would not agree to take them until it had expelled all its galloglasses, which was going to take forever. The Realworld didn’t really want to let the Northern Lights go anyway, because it liked them. The Bermuda Triangle was a different story, of course, and therefore the subject of many complex negotiations being conducted by the Guild. But complex negotiations took a very long time.

So when the nice man with the clipped northern European accent had turned up on the Astral Plane near Bermuda and asked for a meeting, it had been granted. And what an interesting proposal he had made! If the Bermuda Triangle, the Northern Lights and the Luminiferous Ether would agree to meet him above the Old Town (they had been given precise coordinates) on the evening of the twenty-first of December, then he would guarantee that they could go back to the Otherworld. All they had to do was help him with a bit of magic. How hard could that be? The Luminiferous Ether helped people with magic all the time, and even though it was supposed to be neutral it sometimes gave things a little nudge in one direction or another.

The Bermuda Triangle turned around for one last time, swallowed a ship and an airplane, and looked at the place it had called home for so long now. Then, with a last sigh, it nudged the Northern Lights, who was quite glad to be going back to more familiar territory. Together they shook the Luminiferous Ether and told it to pull itself together (it was still moping around despite promises to take it back to a place where people valued and believed in it). Then the three vast entities set off.

Dill Hammer handed Maximilian his lunch box.