Val ducked out of my room, and Skyla followed him. I shut the door and shuffled through the mess of clothes in my bags. I settled on a pair of leggings that looked relatively clean and a long knit shirt showing only a few wrinkles. Besides a case of major bedhead, I didn’t mind what the dresser mirror reflected. For the first time in days, I looked rested, less pasty and pale, and more like my old self.
“Good morning, beautiful,” Val said when I stepped out of my room.
He swiped a mug from the counter and presented it to me. He was showered and still damp around the edges. His T-shirt clung to his skin, and he smelled like bath soap. Beautiful as always but easy to resist, Val was a Da Vinci sculpture left in the elements to tarnish. Thorin, also looking fresh as a daisy, sat on the living-room sofa, staring intently at his phone.
“Um, thanks.” I took the coffee cup from Val. “Why all the sweet talk?”
Val slipped an arm around my hips and held me in a loose embrace. “I’m just happy to see you alive and well. I take it you had a rather close call.”
“Skyla’s the one who got shot.”
“But Skyla isn’t the one who almost got eaten by Skoll.”
“A little birdie’s been clacking its beak.”
“A big birdie,” Baldur said, coming from the bathroom freshly shaved, his hair damp from a shower. “It was such a miraculous story—I couldn’t hold back from singing your praises.”
I ducked away from Val’s hold and said, “I hope you sang Skyla’s, too. Without her, we would have all been lost.”
“Of course,” Baldur agreed. “But it was your persistence that saved the day. And we still don’t have the entire story. Skyla told me that when she found you, you already had your own escape quite under control.”
“Not under control.” My stomach swirled as I remembered just how close I had come to being a Skoll snack. “Not at all. I didn’t tell you all the worst of it.”
I summarized what had happened after Val and I separated at the warehouses. I told them about finding Skyla and about Nate splitting us up. Then told them about the improbable and incredible existence of Helen’s stone warriors and my nearly fatal hide-and-go-seek game through the containers housing them. As they listened, my audience’s faces showed varying expressions of amazement, disbelief, and anger.
Val had the decency to stare at his toes when I looked his way at the end of my story. If the decision had been left up to him, we would have run away, and the others would be badly suffering… or worse.
“What is she planning to do with an army of rock robots?” asked Skyla.
Baldur, Val, and Thorin looked at each other and shook their heads.
“We can only make assumptions,” Baldur said. “But we don’t know her plans for sure. We can guess, however, that those stone soldiers aren’t merely robots as you say. Most likely, they are vessels for her undead hordes.”
“Undead hordes?” Skyla asked. When Baldur opened his mouth to answer, she held up a hand. “No. Don’t tell me. We’ve got gods, wolves, and swords, and that’s all I can deal with right now.”
“Baldur,” I said, “you said Helen’s reenacting events in the same order as before. Where do the golems come in?”
“At the end.” He smiled sadly. “After Hati and Skoll swallowed the sun and the moon, there was a great war between good and evil—Aesir versus the agents of Chaos. Helen brought her undead army to fight on her behalf.”
“This was when Odin and Thor were killed, right?” I asked.
Baldur swallowed and nodded.
“So the agents of Chaos won.”
“That time. They won that time because it was how it was meant to be. This time…” Baldur shook his head and looked away.
“If it’s true that she’s doing things the same way as in the past, then that is her weakness. The thing we have to exploit.”
“In what way?” Skyla asked. She sat on a bar stool, her legs tucked up underneath her, wearing a man’s undershirt and large blue-striped boxers. Baldur’s? A white bandage covered her gunshot wound, and its location suggested the bullet had done more than graze her.
“Maybe we can predict what she’s going to do next and stop it,” I said. “We were really, really lucky last night. Stupid lucky. Helen underestimated us.” When Thorin flinched, I remembered the tranquilizers they used on him and the poisonous mistletoe for Baldur. “Well, she underestimated Skyla and me, anyway. Next time, she’ll be more careful, more prepared.”
“There won’t be a next time,” Thorin said. “We’re done chasing shadows. I agree with Solina.”
Wait, am I hearing things?Thorin just admitted to a room full of people that he agreed with me? I swallowed another sip of coffee—caffeine withdrawal might have been making me hallucinate.
Thorin stood and crossed the room to stand at Baldur’s side. “I’m sorry, but Nina is the least of our worries. Helen uses her to distract us, but we have to let her go for now. We have to reprioritize, and first on the list is removing the threat of Skoll. With the certainty of Solina’s life restored, we can focus on other goals.”
Baldur looked stricken by Thorin’s pronouncement. He dropped his shoulders but bobbed his head. “You’re right. I’m afraid I’ve been compromised as an effective leader. I default to your judgment in these matters from now on.”
“Wait a minute.” Val waved his hand as if clearing the room of a disagreeable odor. “It doesn’t work like that. Baldur, you were tasked by Odin, the Oracle, and by fate itself to take the role of the new Allfather. That’s not something you can give away on a whim.”
“I’m not giving it away,” Baldur said. “I’m delegating. Throughout this ordeal, Magni has remained objective and detached from his emotions, an important skill for a leader in war, and make no mistake, Vali Odinson, this is war.”
“Detached from his emotions?” Val said. “If that were true, then we would have never come on this wild-goose chase in the first place. Thorin is loyal to you to a fault. Why should your authority default to him? Are you saying I’m compromised? That I cannot do what needs to be done?”
“You know I am Odin’s grandson by his firstborn,” Thorin said, “if you want to compare family lineage. And yes, Val, you have proven repeatedly how you frequently think with your”—Thorin’s eyes swiped over Val’s figure—“libido. You are capricious, and your loyalty is questionable.”
“Just because I’m not a blind follower doesn’t mean I can’t—”
“Boys!” I said, playing referee again. “Can we do this King of the Jungle fight later? Let’s work on devising a cohesive plan. Let’s end this thing while I’m still young enough to have a normal life.”
“A normal life?” Skyla said. “You think you can go back to some mundane existence after all this?”
“White picket fences, two-point-five kids, and the American dream?” Val asked and took my hand. He rubbed a thumb over my knuckles and squeezed.
I shrugged one shoulder. “Sure, why not?”
