. . .

“Who’s that?” Peter asks.

She’s a space princess, who’s also an assassin. She’s dressed in a poofy dress with a bustier. She’s carrying an umbrella even though it hardly ever rains in space. She’s jumping from scissors to scissors, transferring momentum from herself to them, or vice versa, in order to speed up as she heads to Earth.

“Some sort of fairy godmother,” the Devil guesses, vaguely.

“Really?”

“A lot of people are coming to Earth now,” says the Devil. “I mean, in the absence of Hans.”

“He sounds like he was a pretty good guy,” says Peter.

“No,” says the Devil.

“No?”

“If he were a human,” says the Devil, “he’d be in Hell; but the rules for the svart-elves differ.”

“Oh,” says Peter.

Maria is practically superluminal now. She’s just a great long streak with an umbrella; but even so Peter sees her wink at him as she goes past.

“It’s a big world,” says the Devil, and Peter cracks a smile.

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