“Uh,” I said.

I felt a little thick.

“See?” Bob said. “Your first tiny piece of flesh-free existence, and already you’re lost without me.”

I shook my head. “Look, man, I’m just… just a spirit now. This is just, like, paperwork I’m getting filled out before I catch the train to Wherever.”

Bob rolled his eyes again and snorted. “Oh, sure it is. You get sent back here just as the freaking Corpsetaker is setting herself up as Queen of Chicago, getting ready to wipe out the defenders of humanity—such as they are—here in town, and it’s just a coincidence, business as usual.” He sniffed. “They’re totally playing you.”

“They?” I said.

“Think about it,” Bob said. “I mean, stop for a minute and actually think. I know it’s been a while.”

“Winter,” I said. “Snow a foot deep at the end of spring. Queen Mab.”

“Obviously,” Bob said. “She’s here. In Chicago. Somewhere. And because, duh, she’s the Winter Queen, she brought winter with her.” He pursed his lips. “For a few more days anyway.”

Bob was right. Mab might flaunt her power in the face of the oncoming season, but if she didn’t back down, her opposite number, Titania, would come for her—at the height of summer’s power, the solstice, if previous patterns held true.

“Harry, I don’t want to comment about your new girlfriend, but she’s still here six months after you got shot? Seems kind of clingy.”

“Wait,” I said. “You’re saying that Mab and Uriel are in on something. Together. The Queen of Air and Darkness, and a flipping archangel.”

“We live in strange times,” Bob said philosophically. “They’re peers, of a sort, Harry. Hey, word is that even the Almighty and Lucifer worked a deal on Job. Spider-Man has teamed up with the Sandman before. Luke and Vader did the Emperor. It happens.”

“Spider-Man is pretend and doesn’t count,” I said.

“You start drawing distinctions like this now?” Bob asked. “Besides, he’s real. Like, somewhere.”

I blinked. “Um. What?”

“You think your universe is the only universe? Harry, come on. Creation, totally freaking huge. Room enough for you and Spider-Man both.” He spread his hands. “Look, I’m not a faith guy. I don’t know what happens on the other side, or if you wind up going to a Heaven or Hell or something reasonably close to them. That isn’t my bag. But I know a shell game when I see one.”

I swallowed and pushed a hand back through my hair. “The Fomor’s servitors. Corpsetaker and her gang. Even Aristedes and his little crew. They’re pieces on the board.”

“Just like you,” Bob agreed cheerfully. “Notice anyone else who pushed you a space or two recently? By which I mean that you only recently noticed.”

I scowled. “Other than everyone around me?”

“I was sort of thinking about the one behind you,” Bob said. His expression grew suddenly serious. “The Walker.”

I took a slow breath. He Who Walks Behind.

It was only now, looking back at my crystalline memories and applying what I’d learned during my adult lifetime since they happened, that I could really appreciate what had gone on that night.