Skyla made a sound in the back of her throat. “Don’t lie. You think he’s hot.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “Even I wouldn’t lie about that.”

“Go call him.” Skyla grinned. “Tell him I was a Valkyrie after all.”

I pushed away from the counter and slipped my arm around Skyla’s shoulder for a brief hug. “Somehow, I don’t think he’ll be surprised.”

But I didn’t find out whether Thorin was surprised by Skyla’s lineage. When I ducked up to my room to give him a call, his phone rang and went to voice mail. After several failed attempts to reach him, I left a message assuring him no further emergencies had arisen, and I urged him to call me as soon as he could. I fingered the chain around my neck, and the gold radiated heat from where it had lain close to my skin. Despite its warmth, a cold shiver snaked over my skin.

Thorin said he could use the chain to locate me if something happened to me. But if something had happened to him, how would I know? How would I ever find him?

Chapter Eighteen

Old paper and beeswax candles scented the air in the Valkyries’ library—a welcome respite from the smoke. The room’s antique furnishings and tapestries sent me back in time to another century, one with suits of armor. Except for books and scrolls and some musty old furniture, the library was empty. All the Valkyries had gone to bed except a few who patrolled the grounds outside. Hope nobody gets a sudden late-night craving for historical records.

“So, we’re looking for some kind of book that tells you how to commune with the dead?” Val asked.

Skyla’s brow furrowed. “I guess so. Unless you got a better idea.”

No one did.

We pawed through the stacks of books and scrolls. Some things were obviously unrelated to our search, and I passed over them after a quick glance. I paused here and there to read pages in journals and diaries that referenced the Valkyries’ interactions with battles and wars throughout history. I found one that mentioned World War II. The journalist had served as a Night Witch, a member of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment of the Soviet Air Forces. Without the need to fulfill the Aesir’s ancient charge, the Valkyries found other ways to meet the call of the battlefield. What a history lesson those diaries would have made. But I’m not here for a history lesson.

Eventually, I worked my way to a scroll-stuffed cubby hole. The first parchment roll revealed a genealogy record. Tori said the Valkyries kept track of their bloodlines, and there lay the evidence. I dug through a few more, looking for a trace of Skyla’s past. Before I could find her, though, I found a scroll detailing the lineage of Mani and Sol. I wheezed. My knees turned to water, and I plopped to the floor.

“What?” Skyla rushed to my side. “Did you find something?”

“Look at this.” I handed her the scroll, which she stretched across an empty desk.

Val pulled me up to my feet, and we stood behind Skyla, reading over her shoulder.

Skyla ran her finger down line after line until she found an entry for Mani and me. “Look,” she whispered. “It’s you.”

In bright, illuminated inscriptions, a record keeper for the Valkyries had marked every generation in the Mundy family line where a pair of twins had appeared. Sometimes, they were a hundred years or more apart, but they happened frequently enough to show the trait persisted in our family. Our very distant blood connection to the original Sol and Mani came through my father. Seeing it laid out in print, for thousands of years, gave my history gravity and a tangible reality.

“How did they know?” I asked.

Skyla shrugged. “Birth records are easy to find. Maybe it’s the librarian’s job to watch out for these kinds of things.”

Those scrolls confirmed that, in some subtle way, Mani and I had always been together.

“He isn’t really gone, then, is he? This is proof that someday, some part of his spirit and mine will be together again.”

Skyla blinked, and her face went slack. She swept a finger over Mani’s name, scribed in shimmering, silver ink. The names blurred together when tears gathered in my eyes. I blinked and backed away, taking several deep breaths to recover my composure.

“It’s like a pedigree,” Val said. “We can breed you and get top dollar.”

I grunted and smacked his shoulder. “Too bad there aren’t any suitable studs.”

Skyla opened her mouth to form a retort but stopped. Her face softened. “Do you think there might be a chart for me?”

“That’s what I was looking for in the first place,” I said.

Val huffed. “I thought we were looking for instructions on contacting the dead.”

“I was, but when I stumbled on these scrolls, I thought about Embla having those pictures of Skyla, and I thought there might be more proof in here.”

Skyla peered up at me, her eyes shining and earnest. “Would it bother you to keep looking?”

“Not at all,” I said.

We worked late into the night, stopping a few times to retrieve drinks and snacks to fuel our research. I finished the pile of scrolls without finding specific mention of Skyla’s family, and none of us knew what that meant, but sometime in the early morning, Skyla discovered what we originally had come for.

“Look,” she said, “a grimoire.”

“Oh, oh,” I said, “I know what that means. A book of spells.”

Val’s mouth twisted into a quirky frown. “How’d you know that?”

“I read.”

“The old Valkyries weren’t witches who chanted spells,” Val said. “They lived in our realm and traveled to Midgard, Earth, whenever Odin asked them.”

“Things have changed, haven’t they?” Skyla asked. “You don’t live in Asgard anymore, and there is no Valhalla. The Valkyries had to come up with another way.”

“So what do you need?” I asked. “Eye of newt, wing of bat?”

Skyla briefly smiled as her eyes grazed back and forth over the spellbook’s text. “Looks something like a séance. Draw some runes, meditate, set a conducive atmosphere. The most important thing is the person attempting to make contact be sensitive to the spirit world, which the Valkyries inherently are.” Skyla looked up. “Give me some peace and quiet. I’m going to give this a go.”

“You don’t need us to sit in a circle and hold hands?” I tried not to laugh.

“Do you need a crystal ball?” asked Val, who wasn’t holding back his laughter at all.

Skyla ignored him. “Shoo. Both of you, out.”

I trudged up the basement stairs with Val, my body heavy with exhaustion. He reached over, put a hand on my shoulder, and squeezed. I imagined those strong fingers digging into the tense muscles in my neck and craved the relief it would bring, but inviting Val to my room for a massage session meant inviting the worst kind of trouble. I sighed, letting out my exhaustion and frustrations in a long breath.

“Tired?” Val asked.

I started to assure him I was fine, but my step fell short and I stumbled on a stair. Val caught me and swept me up in his arms.

I squealed. “What are you doing?”

“You promised we could have some fun today.” Val carried me to the top of the stairs before setting me on my feet.

“I walked with you on the beach after dinner,” I said as we crossed the open foyer leading to the staircase.

“You stayed a pace ahead of me the whole time, and the wind blew so hard I couldn’t hear myself think.”