"Yes, I suppose you could say I am." He lifts his head like a wild thing scenting the air, clear eyes turned to the sky, then the woods around them. "I'm from a place very much like this, as a matter of fact. I was born in the far north of the Northwest Territories, and I grew up there, also. But I mostly worked in Yukon, before I came to Chicago."

Everything about him, aside from the grief he wears like the black band tied around his arm, lends credence to his words: he's comfortable here, in a way few other Interlopers are. Or perhaps none of them. He likes the cold, he likes the wide arching sky and the long winter nights. He likes the snow under his boots, and the quiet pleasure of being one of the living things moving under a weak morning sun in the trees.

He thinks again about La'an's last message to him: don't lose yourself in this place. It may look and feel like home, but her death is a somber reminder that there are things here, powers at work, which he'd never encountered before. He glances back at Louis, aware he'd been woolgathering. "Have you ever been? To Chicago, I mean."