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Nick felt his muscles slowly clench as he read.

By the end of his first read of the note, he’d come to a stop in the corridor.

This fuck was talking about Wynter.

He was talking aboutWynter.

Nick’s Wynter. Nick’s wife.

Nick didn’t miss the other implied threats in the note.

He did intend to go after Nick’s friends. He was threatening to kill other people in Nick’s life, not just Wynter. His friends. His family. Probably the kid, and maybe Malek. Maybe even Kit. Maybe even Charlie, or Morley, or Jordan.

But what the fuck was the rest of this shit?

Was he also threatening to take them with him to another world?

Was this guy saying thathewas from another dimension? Was that why he was going after Nick? Maybe he thought Nick knew how to hop dimensions. Maybe he thought Nick had some special knowledge of portals and knew how to get him out.

Maybe Nick seemed to this guy like the old seer at the Tower of London seemed to Nick.

Some kind of magician.

Some kind of portal-hopper with special powers.

That had to be what this meant, right?

The guy thought he was in the wrong place.

That couldn’t be a coincidence. It just couldn’t.

This guy wanted Nick to help him go home.

Nick would be happy to fucking oblige.

He wasn’t about to let this asshole take Wynter or anyone else with him, though. And then there was the other problem. Nick couldn’t do what this asshole wanted. He hadn’t thefaintest fucking ideahow to walk through dimensional portals.

If he did, he would be going on his own one-way trip.

He’d also be taking his family with him, at least the ones who wanted to go.

The old man cleared his throat a second time.

Nick looked up.

Without taking his eyes off Morley’s face, he stuffed the unfolded origami unicorn in his pocket. He cleared his own throat at the same time.

If Morley noticed the note, or anything about what Nick had just been doing, he kept his reaction off his face.

“You ready to go in there?” Morley asked.

Nick nodded. “Of course.”

He glanced around as he spoke.

The upstairs corridor had a thick, black rug on the floor. From what Nick could tell, something similar covered the floor inside the room. The walls were bone white with a number of decorative scrolls covered in Japanese calligraphy next to more paintings done in that modern Japanese style.

Again, no blood anywhere.