It was like trying to eat broth with a fork. I just couldn’t get hold of the stick. My hand went through it time and time again, no matter what I tried. I couldn’t even get the damned thing to wiggle.

I wasn’t ghost enough to help Sir Stuart. Not like that, anyway.

“Sir Stuart?” I asked quietly.

I could see only one of his eyes. It half opened. “Hmmmm?”

I squatted down on my heels next to the circle. “It’s Harry Dresden.”

“Dresden,” he slurred, and his mouth turned up in a faint smile. “Pardon me if I don’t rise. Perhaps it was something I ate.”

“Of course,” I said. “What happened?”

“I was a fool,” he said. “Our attacker came at the same time every night. I made the mistake of assuming that was true because it was as soon as the attacker could assemble his forces.”

“The Grey Ghost,” I said.

Sir Stuart grunted. “Arrived at dusk, sooner than I would have dared the open air. No mob of spirits this time. It came with half a dozen mortals and they set the house on fire. I was able to get Mortimer out of the house in time, but they’d set a trap for me in the backyard.” One hand gestured at the circle within which he lay. “He was taken at the command of the Grey Ghost.”

I frowned. “These mortals. They could hear the Grey Ghost?”

“Aye,” Sir Stuart said.

“Stars and stones,” I growled. “I could barely get two people in Chicago to hear me. This joker has half a dozen? How?”

Sir Stuart shook his head faintly. “Would that I knew.”

“We’ll find Morty,” I said. “Let me figure out how to get you out of there, and then we’ll go find him.”

He opened his eyes fully and focused on me for the first time. “No,” he said in a gentle voice. “I won’t.”

“Come on,” I said. “Don’t talk like that. We’ll get you patched up.”

Sir Stuart let out a small laugh. “Nay, wizard. Too much of me has been lost. I’ve only held together this long so that I could speak to you.”

“What happened to our world being mutable in time with our expectations? Isn’t that still true?”

“To a degree,” Sir Stuart said affably, weakly. “I’ve been injured before. Small hurts are restored simply enough.” He gestured at his broken body. “But this? I’ll be like the others when I restore myself.”

“The others?”

“The warriors who defended Mortimer’s home,” he said. “They faded over time. Forgetting, little by little, about their mortal lives.”

I thought about the soldiers I’d seen battling the enemy shades and wraiths—silent, severe, seemingly disconnected from the world around them. They’d fought loyally and ably enough. But I was willing to bet that they couldn’t remember why they did so or who they were fighting.

I imagined Sir Stuart like the rest of them—a translucent outline, his empty eyes focused on something else entirely. Always faithful. Always silent.