I knew there was something I was supposed to be remembering, something that was supposed to be familiar about him, safe, but those were fleeting thoughts and feelings that left as soon as they came and slipped between my fingertips like water in a sieve.

The goblin held out a hand to me as if he were trying to coax a frightened animal closer to him, and I raised my chin to meet and keep his gaze as I took an unsure step forward, then another, and then another after that until I crossed the invisible line between the worlds.

“Not very hard now, was it?” he said, voice soft, still in the tone of trying to calm a frightened creature.

A blast of coldness hit me the minute I stepped over the border. How is it the temperature is so much colder a few steps away? I wondered as my body began to shake violently, and I clenched my jaw in order to keep my teeth from chattering. I was wrapped in furs from my family and yet they did as much to the bone-deep, chilling cold as if I were naked and exposed.

The goblin eyed me calmly, still. “Noble effort,” he murmured. “And very symbolic, the clothes. But only clothes specifically made in the Permafrost will keep you from freezing to death. Here.” He reached to unclasp the cloak around his shoulders. It was dark and heavy, bearskin maybe, or shadow cat, and I stood still, frozen to the ground by fear, as he brushed aside my hair and placed the cloak over my shoulders and gently closed the clasp in front of me. The cloak did seem to block out most of the chilling blast I was receiving where it covered my body, though I was still unbelievably cold.

He was still looking at me, somewhat expectantly. Did he want me to thank him? I wasn’t about to thank him when he was ripping me away from my family and home and everything I’d ever known.

This man, this goblin, was taking me to what was most likely my death. Thanking him for a stupid cloak was out of the picture.

“You’ll be happy there,” he said, as if he could read my mind. Maybe he could. “You were born to be in the Permafrost. I know it. You’ll know it too. Now come on, we won’t be walking far. I have horses up ahead.”

The utterly preposterous promise brought a bubble of laughter I was barely able to hold back. Who was he to say I’d be happy, that I was meant to be born there? I knew myself and my own mind much better than he ever could, and both of those things filled me with the desire to run straight back across the border into my own world. Hel, I would now if I didn’t fear for the safety of my family.