Norway was a different kind of freezing. It was cold in a way that made the Carpathians feel like early spring.
We flew into Tromsø. Calling it a town felt generous; it was more like a handful of lights stubbornly clinging to a thin strip of coast, trapped between a sheer wall of black mountains and even blacker water. The sun didn't actually rise here this time of year. It just hovered somewhere below the horizon for a few hours, bruising the sky a deep purple, before finally giving up and letting the dark take over again.
Dorian was waiting at the tiny airport. He looked different. Thinner. Older, somehow. The grey at his temples was more pronounced, and the lines carved around his mouth hadn't been there when we saw him in Switzerland. But his eyes—that same flat, slate grey he'd inhe
