We walked through my friend’s silent, sleeping house. The Carpenters were early to bed, early to rise types. Inexplicable, but I suppose nobody’s perfect. Uriel led me upstairs, past two more guardian angels, and into one of the upstairs bedrooms—one that had, once upon a time, been Charity’s sewing room and spare bedroom. Hapless wizards had been known to find rest there once in a while.

We went through the door and were greeted by a low, warning rumble. A great mound of shaggy fur, lying beside the room’s single, twin bed, rose to its feet.

“Mouse,” I said, and dropped to my knees.

I wept openly as my dog all but bounced at me. He was obviously joyous and just as obviously trying to mute his delight—but his tail thumped loudly against everything in the room, and puppyish sounds of pleasure came from his throat as he slobbered on my face, giving me kisses.

I sank my fingers into his fur and found it warm and solid and real, and I scratched him and hugged him and told him what a good dog he was.

Uriel stood over us, smiling down, but said nothing.

“Missed you, too, boy,” I said. “Just… kind of stopping by to say good-bye.”

Mouse’s tail stopped wagging. His big, doggy eyes regarded me very seriously, and then glanced at Uriel.

“What has begun must finish, little brother,” Uriel said. “Your task here is not yet over.”

Mouse regarded the archangel for a moment and then huffed out a breath in a huge sigh and leaned against me.

I scratched him some more and hugged him—and looked past him, to where my daughter slept.

Maggie Dresden was a dark-haired, dark-eyed child, which had been all but inevitable given her parents’ coloring. Her skin tone was a bit darker than mine, which I thought looked healthier than my skin ever had. I got kind of pasty, what with all the time in my lab and reading and running around after dark. Her features were… well, perfect. Beautiful. The first time I’d seen her in the flesh, despite everything else that was going on at the time, somewhere under the surface I had been shocked by how gorgeous she was. She was the most beautiful child I’d ever seen, like, in the movies or anywhere.

But I guess maybe all parents see that when they look at their kids. It isn’t rational. That doesn’t make it any less true.

She slept with the boneless relaxation of the very young, her arms carelessly thrown over her head. She wore one of Molly’s old T-shirts as pajamas. It had an old, worn, iron-on decal of R2-D2 on it, with the caption BEEP BEEP DE DEEP KERWOOO under it.

I knelt down by her, stroking Mouse’s fur, but when I tried to touch her hand, mine passed through hers, immaterial. I leaned my head against Mouse’s big, solid skull, and sighed.

“She’ll have a good life here,” I said quietly. “People who care about her. Who love kids.”