1921, New York

Ashley toddles up to his father, holding two fistfuls of spare change. His father is by a garbage fire, huddled together with a group of other men. He glances over his shoulder at Ashley, who gives him a toothy smile, bouncing over to the man.

"Coins!" Ashley announced, giggling to himself.

"Yeah, I can see that," his father said, smiling sadly. The bags under his eyes were more pronounced in the firelight, his nose ruddy from the cold, his cheeks sallow from hunger.

"Coin, coin, coin." Ashley jiggled the coins, a few clattered to the ground. "Coins."

His father sighed, hand reaching for the coins with cold-stiffened fingers. Ashley gladly dropped the fingers into his hands. "What am I going to do with you?" He muttered. "Are you sure you don't want to keep these?"

Ashley shook his head, pouting. "Nuh, uh."

Back then, Ashley didn't understand the precarious situation they were in, bouncing from streets to temporary hostels while his father searched for any job he could find, but he knew his father needed help and this was all he could think to do at the time.

"Hey little guy, thanks for the help but you don't need to go running of again." He scoops Ashley of his feet and plops him onto his lap, close enough to feel the warmth of the fire. Ashley tried to reach for the flames, giggling to himself. His father pulled him back.

"No, no. You can't play with fire."

"No, no. No," Ashley said, his tone mimicking his father and scrambling away from the fire, face tucked against Jeb's side.

"S'ok, it's okay." His father chuckled. "Do you want to go get something to eat with your coins?"

Ashley nodded and stuck his thumb in his mouth, curls framing his face, bright browns eyes catching the light of the flame as he gazed up at his father.

His father sighed, brushed a kiss against Ashley's head and stood up, Ashley clinging to his shirt. "Come on then, hopefully Marge has leftovers."

Jeb carried Ashley away, whisper-singing a lullaby till Ashley dozed off.

"Tógfaidh Fae míchúramach a bhfuil uathu,

ag sciobadh ógánaigh go Tír na nÓg.

Ag luascadh chomh gaoith is chomh geal le hór,

caprious mar an stoirm agus fuar mar oighear.

Fan nó téigh? Cibé ar bith, scaoileann tú go leor agus gnóthú i bhfad níos mó.

Mar sin, cad a bheidh ann?

Do rogha le déanamh,

ach bí cúramach leis an méid a ghlacann tú.

Mar goidfidh an Fae do chroí

agus ní fhéadfaidh tú a fháil ar ais go deo."

...

Ashley quickly caught up with Del, Ethan lagging. "You've been such a welcoming host," Ashley’s voice dripped with amusement and sarcasm. "What was that about?"

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"I can't help it," Del sighed. "I don't like him."

"At least pretend to be civil."

"No promises, but I'll try." Del paused in front of a set of marble double door which swung open to reveal a circular room with a massive golden and silver spherical contraption in the centre. The ceiling was covered in a map of eight concentric rings and the floor matched. The walls though were different, they depicted scenes from fairy tales and folklore: Hela emerging from a storm atop his steed to streak across the sky, seven youths stepping out of a cave to gaze upon a city so different from the one they'd left behind, Tarō cracking open a jewelled box and turning to dust, Oisin climbing out a fairy mound leaving scarlet haired Niamh behind. A dark skinned man standing atop a manhole cover in a busy New York crossroad, emerald pendant necklace around his neck. The murals all shifted slightly. "Sorrow is one of the circles of hell. It's also one of the least understood. The others are more... charted territory."

"What do you mean?" Ethan asked from a few feet behind, still trying to catch his breath from the sudden onslaught of emotion. He reached out to touch the mural, wrenching his hand back when the image shifted, their eyes all turned to stare at him.

"The other circles are… comparatively easier to get to and encapsulate flaws that match the deadly sins, they are vices, immoral, degrading to the self and others," Del explained. "But sorrow is different. It is an inescapable part of life, not something that taints the quality of your soul."

"So, what am I supposed to do with that information?"

"It gives us a start." She let go of her staff, instead of falling to the floor it shrank to a gnarled twig. "This is a map of our understanding of the paracosmos." She flicked her wand like a conductor and the floor mural tiles rippled to show a zoomed in image of the maps centre.

"This is Disparta, the circle of sorrow and city of wails." She stuck her arm out, after a few moments of nothing happening a book zoomed over Ashley's head and into her hand. "This room is an amalgamation of all our cartography knowledge of the other worlds. As you can see Disparta is noticeably blank. So most of our relevant knowledge is here."

She unfurled her scroll, leaving it floating in the air on an image of a silver-grey skinned demon with rams horns, silver pupil-less eyes and four spindly long arms topped with razor sharp claws. He... they... it...? It towered over the human figure sketched next to it for reference on two unnaturally long digitigrade legs.

"This is The 17th edition of the Compendium of Para-terrestrials." She reached out another hand and a paper thin silver rectangle flew into her hand. "This is a library card take whatever you need within reason and talk to Julia when you're done."

"Julia?" Ethan asked, but Del had already waltzed of.

"The librarian, she processes lending and returning," Ashley answered. "She's right next to the cassette tapes and the ancient cursed artifacts."

Ethan gathered an armful of more books with Ashley's advice and patiently answered every question he had. Soon, they had a whole benchful of books and aged scrolls.

Ashley plopped down on the library bench next to Ethan, who was riffling through the skimming through the books he picked out. "Sorry about Del. She's usually pretty nice."

"Trust me, the feeling's mutual." Ethan grimaced as he picked up the Compendium, unrolling to the portion of the text Del had previously shown him, frowning. He pushed the document aside.

"Are you bored? This place can get boring fast." Ashley asked. For all its opulence, the library was, in practice at least, nothing more than a really big library if you didn’t know what you were looking for.

"No. I'm just... worried about something."

"Something?" Ashley raised a brow, holding back laughter. "How wonderfully vague."

Ethan cracked open a new tome and began to absently skim. "Sure, because you've been so forthcoming." He said with obvious sarcasm.

"What are you talking about? I held up my end of the deal and brought you here." Ashley gestures about. "You can't learn more about magic than this."

"That's not what I meant old man."

"Ah... that."

"Yes. That." Ethan snapped the tome shut, shoving that aside too. "You've been desperately trying to avoid the topic."

"Well, it's just that, you're pretty young."

"I'm 25?" Ethan reiterated, puzzled. "You know that right?"

"Yeah, and I'm more than quadruple that," Ashley leaned back, in his chair then muttered. "Kind of lost track."

"Sure, but we're both adults."

"Yeah that wouldn't stop most older magic-users from calling me a cradle robber." Ashley laughed. "Del's gonna give me so much shit."

"And I won't?" Ethan leaned over, smirking.

Ashley groaned. "Is it too late to distract you with more trinkets?" He fished out a leather pouch which held the extra gifts he'd bought from the market, exaggeratedly waving it in Ethan's face.

"Maybe in a bit, but I have other questions," Ethan stood up and approached the mural, pausing in front of the depiction of the seven youths. "I recognize this story, the seven youths. Does this mean it's true?"

"Yes, although the cause is a little different." Ashley explained. "Less a miracle from God and more a procession of very drunk Fae."

"So..." Ethan starts to cross to the other side of the room. "...it stands to reason the other murals are true."

"Yes?" Ashley raised a brow, wary of where this was going.

He stops in front of the New York mural. "So... what about this one?"

"That's..." Ashley grimaced. "...my father"