Orval Finkus Offers Hospitality Before Nick Appears

Orval Finkus met the party with hospitality polished sharp enough to cut.

He performed southern courtesy with theatrical force, insisting that the dragonborn reputation for hospitality be upheld. A Blue Wingkin servant brought chilled refreshments, and the whole encounter carried the unease of manners being used as management. Orval was gracious in the way a locked gate can be gracious: smiling, structured, and very aware of who controlled the path.

The party was trying to pass through toward I.J. and Nick.

Then Nick Kremp emerged from the farmhouse.

He greeted Jonah and Ash like old friends, calling them his good friends in a way that felt wrong enough to matter. It was not simply that Nick was alive. It was that he appeared here, at Root Barrel Farm, inside Orval Finkus's controlled little world, after magic aimed at him had produced strange interference and everyone who remembered Point Pringle had reason to doubt their eyes.

The rumor became a person.

The person became a cliffhanger.

Nick stood there, smiling through the impossibility.