“It really is,” he agreed. Pan stood behind me, with an arm on either side of me and his hands on the rail. “I knew you’d love it up here.”

“Thank you for making me come up here to see this.”

“I figured they could spare you for a few minutes,” he said.

No sooner had he said that, than a loud commotion broke out on the lower level, and Pan groaned and dropped his head.

“The Ten,” he grumbled.

The Omte Queen Regent had been kind enough to lend us ten “warriors,” and the motley group had shown up at our hotel room on Tuesday night, and we’d been traveling with them ever since. It had not been easy or pleasant getting a sheltered, unruly bunch of trolls through three separate airport layovers, but we had somehow managed.

The Ten—as we had nicknamed the group—were Knut, the airboat bellboy with no military training; Benner, a sixteen-year-old guard in training; Jennet, a veterinarian and volunteer firefighter; Alfie, the middle-aged bouncer with anger issues; and several other equally qualified Omte citizens.

All of them could, at best, be described as having minimal training to fight a warrior cult and interdimensional monsters. But they were also better than nothing, so we’d have to make do with what we had.

“I should go down and make sure they don’t break another chair,” Pan muttered.

There had been an incident at the Newark airport, but fortunately, Jennet had powerful enough persuasion to convince the human security that there was nothing to see long enough for us to get out of there.

The ferry was the first time I’d been able to relax a little, since it was only trolls on board. The boat was open to humans, but September was off-season for tourism in northern Sweden, so most of the islands were closed up for the winter.

But even without human witnesses to worry about, I didn’t want them trashing the boat. Pan and I went back downstairs, where Knut was holding back Alfie, while Alfie pointed and swore at Jennet.

“You’re losing it, Alfie!” Jennet yelled at him.

“You’re a lousy sliffa!” Alfie shot back.

“Hey, hey!” Pan shouted, using the deep, authoritative voice he used as a peurojen to keep the giant woolly elk in line.

Everyone fell silent, and Alfie finally stopped struggling to get free from Knut’s restraint.

“We are almost there,” Pan said. “Can you keep it together for fifteen damn minutes?”

“What changes when we get to the island?” Alfie asked.

“What happens there is that I am no longer responsible for you all.” Pan put his hands on his hips and surveyed the group of large Omte. None of them were ogres, but most of them were tall, muscular, and a tad overweight.

“Who is our commander?” Alfie asked, not for the first time.