Exit to the Right ??

First, Flo looked up in surprise, then it changed into apprehension, but he moved toward the door to the entrance hall. Matis waited until he had squeezed past him, before he pushed himself away from the fridge. He motioned for the others to stay behind, and followed Flo. His fingers played with his wedding band, still new but already a part of him. "I go with you," he announced just outside the kitchen.

Flo spun around. "No, you don't."

"Answer me this," Matis continued unfazed by Flo's resolute refusal. "Do you even expect Nott to be still mistress of her own realm?"

After a glance back, Flo pushed Matis into the room next to the kitchen that was the living room. Only there he whispered at Matis, whom he held pressed to the door, "You know as well as I do that the Duch-pack wouldn't give any single person the power of two secrets to wield over them." He pushed himself away. Both of his hands ran through his hair at the same time. "Ida had been a rookie mistake. In later years, they would have disposed of Nott quietly and quickly, after making sure they knew where Ida was hidden. They have missed their chance, didn't dare to go back."

"Didn't dare until now," Matis completed Flo's sentence. "Isn't that what you meant to say?" he asked, though Flo's desperate eyes were all the answer he needed, given before the question.

"And there we have the last of the Duch-packs motivation, the question you didn't want Justin to ask. With a bunch of rebellious heirs running around, they went back to close one of their unsolved chapters and found out that Nott couldn't take them to Ida." Matis waited, not for Flo's nod, but until he looked up. Matis had spent enough time wrapped in his cloak of truths that he thought, to own exclusively (and most he did, because they weren't truths but assumptions), that he knew that he needed a connection, when he sought to convince Flo of another path. "This isn't just about us, Flo, and it isn't simply about making humans more pliable. Nor is it solely about making profits from instability, chaos and war. Once they learned that Ida was hidden, they drew the same connection between her and Wisdom and your immortality that we did."

Flo's eyes closed for a moment. It was pain, but it didn't cover more than the span of a blink. "Yes, this is their big endgame," he confirmed holding Matis' eyes. "They try to destroy everything that ever opposed them, to make their power over the Tree absolute. With Ida they can promise immortality as the biggest prize for perfect subordination. In this moment, everything depends on the humans' intelligence and those who strive to use it, those who seek and find their way to Ida – Ella."

"You are the only one who knows where this place really is, am I right?" Matis continued to squeeze Flo like a lemon for every last bit that he had held back, that Flo had thought that he should spare his friends.

"Yes."

There was one more thing that needed to be dragged out, one more thing Flo hadn't told about the dimension of the sacrifice, he had been planning. Their stares were a contest now, Flo daring Matis while at the same time begging him not to ask.

Matis did. He had died too many deaths not to put the ultimate consequences of Flo's plan into words. What was thought worth doing, should be worth speaking of first. Free will was ultimately based on the ability to inhibit instincts. That required forethought. Thought required language. "That's why it was necessary to make the Duch-pack trust at least one of your children. In case they learned about your stunt and captured you, it's Autolycos task to kill you, because they wouldn't. They'd torture you for eternity, keep you locked up, but wouldn't allow you to die."

Flo broke their eye contact first. He looked up as if asking for help from the skies. His jaws worked, fanning muscles here and there. And he swallowed. It took him a while until he was ready to speak again. "If I don't show up at Nott's door, the Duch-pack would just go on and on, posing a danger to everyone. So, I go and buy you time. After I had checked in with Perdita, I've hidden Persemper as I once hid Ida's castle. I take this secret with me as well." He seized Matis by his shoulders and shook him. Or maybe it was simply that his hands trembled. "You have to focus on beating them."

Matis cupped Flo's face, stubble and all. "You think Perdita can work, Hel, anyone, after you are dead?" He gave a gentle push, then blasted off their connection. "Besides, you know what would happen as soon as you are captured? Perdita would run to rescue you. She did break into Vlad' office when we wanted to nail him for being a major crook, remember. She has no regard for her own safety. And I don't think I would hold her back. On the contrary, I would come with her."

Flo dug his fingers into his temples. "And how would you being captured with me help any? Because I have no illusions that this isn't a trap. Once we step inside, we will not get out again for the time being."

"I don't have any such illusions either, especially not after my father warned me that I would be back soon in his presence and that it then wouldn't be any pleasure at all," Matis yielded a secret he hadn't shared yet.

"We would end up each other's whipping boy."

"They can't kill me. I am already dead," Matis grinned with the strength of someone who chooses rather than was forced into a fate. Flo wasn't at that point yet, and thus didn't share his humor. Matis didn't need him to, but he wanted him to listen a little longer. "Hear me out. Hel said Nott's realm is submerged in darkness. Do you want to feel around for the container? Carry a torch? I come with bolts. Where I go is light." To enforce his point sparks sparkled between his fingers. They turned into something more substantial. "I come with a hammer too. Together we might even stand a chance." The mighty hammer that dangled from Matis hand as if it was a foam toy looked even more barbaric between a plush couch with patchwork throw pillows and a low glass top coffee table. "And if not, it's all about buying time, isn't it? We tell the others, involve them into the full plan so that they are kept away by knowing what is going on. Having us both means the Duch-pack will think themselves at an even greater advantage when trying to break us. Each other's whipping boys – you said it. We can endure that for a while, can't we? In the end, we both live - with a chance for flight and fight. All I ask is, die another day." By the end Matis was panting since he had foregone breath for a chance to finish before Flo could interrupt him.

Flo's eyes wandered while his thought wandered, too. They came to rest at the heavy silver ring on Matis left hand. "Does Justin know about this?"

"I know," Justin said from the door. It was clogged by a man, a young woman, a horse and a wolf. They all nodded when Justin continued, "You were not as clandestine with your silent good byes as you might have thought. Thus, we figured out Autolycos' role early on, and agreed that we couldn't let it happen, not if there was another chance." Justin was a lot of things to the group – friend, lover, even subordinate - but he was the warrior earning the sword on his back when he spoke next. "The course Matis has just suggested, is the right one. I support it. I promise to take care of Perdita, Hel and Ida."

"Perdita will be so mad at us." Flo shook his head, but he said it in expression of his agreement, and a bit of his defeat. The group, his friends, had checkmate him.

"Better mad than dead, if you ask me," Matis shrugged, the relief flooding down his shoulders so heavily that they sagged. "Not that I am not thoroughly enjoying my afterlife."

"You did not just promise again to protect me, Justin?" Hel asked into the leaving tension.

Justin crossed his arms, his face a picture of innocence. "Not at all. I have no time while knitting to take care of that as well."

"Good for you." Hel looked from Matis to her father. "So, it is decided?"

The two men locked eyes, this time as partners and not opponents. "Yes."

Hel slung her arm around Slepnir's neck. "It will all be fine." But not even Garmr looked convinced.