Skyla could have slapped me or punched me in the gut, and it would have hurt less. My breath left in a gasp. Tears burned in my eyes. There I was, like the hundreds of motorists around me, rolling down the highway, so unassuming, so normal. But inside that ordinary SUV, I struggled to maintain my composure because otherwise I would blow Val, the Yukon, and possibly several innocent travelers into smithereens. Otherwise, I would prove Skyla right.
Val, being the strong, sensitive type—ha ha!—detected my distress. He reached out and grasped my free hand, a gesture of solidarity.
“Solina, I’m sorry.” Skyla’s tone softened. “That came out all wrong.”
I said nothing. I could say nothing. She was sort of right. She had stated the truth, and I had no right to criticize her for it. Still, I felt betrayed.
“Look,” Skyla continued. “None of that matters. What I really need to tell you is that Embla, Naomi and I are already on our way. We hit the road first thing this morning. We’re nearly to Corvallis, but we’re rerouting to come after you.”
“You’re what?” I said, nearly speechless again. My mind reeled.
“We’re not leaving this to you and Val alone,” Skyla said.
I sighed and dragged my fingers through my hair, and the scrape of my nails against my scalp soothed me.
“Solina, tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking,” I said. “I’m pissed, and I feel a little betrayed, but at the same time, I’m relieved. I was freaking out. The possibility of confronting Grim with that sword and Tori… She’s kicked my ass so many times, and she wasn’t even trying hard.” I heaved a breath. “And you’re right about my fire, although I want to bust you in your face for saying it.”
Skyla laughed, and something about her humor relieved the heartache she had given me moments before. “You’ve got guts, girlfriend.”
“‘And girls with guts survive.’ I know, I know. Doesn’t feel like I have guts. Feels like I have a ball of quivering nerves.”
“But you’re going through with this anyway?”
“Going through with what? I have no idea what’s going to happen. I still might chicken out. Or Grim might feel diplomatic and sign a treaty or something.”
“You won’t chicken out. Not when you know you’ve got three kickass Valkyries at your back.”
“And Val.” I turned my gaze to my companion. He squeezed my hand but rolled his eyes.
“Yes,” said Skyla, her tone flat as a Nevada highway. “We got Wotan, too. Hooray.” She cleared her throat and regained some of her previous spark. “We’re probably less than two hours behind you. We’ll put some pep in our step and try to catch up to you. Keep us in the loop with Tori’s twenty. And don’t do anything until we catch up to you.”
“Tori’s twenty?”
Skyla huffed. “Her location. Twenty is radio code for location.”
“But we’re on the phone,” I said, purposely obtuse.
“Girlfriend.”
“Okay, okay.” I read her our nearest mile marker and promised to call her the moment Tori changed her route.
We drove and drove, and the afternoon wore on, and the sun fell lower in the sky. I had dropped back until Tori’s car appeared as a light-blue dot in the distance. Val reassured me that his supernatural—and therefore superior—vision had not lost sight of her, but the distance virtually guaranteed Tori wouldn’t notice us following. Highway signs indicated points of interest along the way, and I made an educated guess about her destination.
“Portland?” I asked. “You think she’s going to Portland?”
Val bit his lip and shook his head. “No. She said she’d be there, wherever there is, around sundown. We’ve got another two hours before then.”
“What’s after Portland?”
“If she stays on this highway, then it’s possible she’s heading to Seattle. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Tori didn’t drive to Seattle, though. After nearly three hours on the road and crossing the border into Washington, she exited onto Highway 12, heading east. The nearby billboards advertised local tourist attractions and a ski resort called Crystal Mountain.
“Crystal Mountain?” I said as Val texted Skyla the exit number. “They’re going skiing, and Grim had her stop by the house to pick up their skis?”
“It’s near Mount Rainier,” Val said. “Back country. It’s starting to make some sense.”
“It is? How?”
“I told you we collect places. I have the place in Siqiniq with my roommates, right?”
“Hugh and Joe, yes?”
“Right. But that isn’t the place I call home. Not really. It’s a façade, just like Grim’s house in Corvallis is a pretense. It’s an accessory for whatever persona we’re currently wearing. Asgard was our true home, but we’ve made replacements, here, in Midgard. When we’re not playing a role, when we can shed our masks and be who we really are, we all have that one place we like to go, the place where are hearts live. It’s a sacred place.”
Val’s confession—for in a way, that’s what it was—sank to the bottom of my heart, like a heavy secret. He had confided in me, sharing something I sensed was deeply personal for him and maybe for all the Aesir. I wanted to ask him what landmark he had chosen for his sacred place but thought better of it. Thorin had used the term “need-to-know,” and the location of Val’s true home likely fell under that category. If Val wanted me to know, he would tell me.
“Do you think that’s where Tori is going? To Grim’s sacred place.”
“It would mean he holds her in very high esteem.”
“I got the impression from talking to her that they have that kind of relationship.”
“Or he wants her to think they do.” Val’s voice lacked any emotion.
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Grim is a manipulative bastard.”
“Aren’t you all? When it suits you.”
Val turned and gave me a harsh look but didn’t try to defend himself. “Mount Rainier, Alaska, Baldur’s home at New Breidablik, they all resemble one another, geographically speaking. It’s not a coincidence. The mountains, the snow—they were integral features of Asgard. We prefer these places because they remind us of a home we can only visit in our memories.”
“Thorin has one of these places, too?”
Val pursed his lips. “He does.”
“And Grim’s might be near Rainier somewhere.”
“It’s my working theory. Whether it proves true or not depends on where Tori leads us and what we find when we get there.”
“Why don’t you know where Grim lives? Don’t you all send each other Christmas cards or anything?”
Val snorted. “After Ragnarok, after all those years of being stuck together in Gimle, we were more than happy to allow each other some well-deserved privacy.”
