“What about an alarm?” I asked. “Should we hurry?”
Val pursed his lips and arched an eyebrow. “Do you think we call the cops? Do we want the law digging into our affairs?”
“Um, no?”
“I’ll bet you Grim doesn’t keep anything of value here, anyway. This is just for appearances. If anyone stole anything, he’d just buy a replacement.”
“There’s probably not much chance we’ll find anything useful here, is there?”
“Leave no stone unturned.” Val tugged me farther into the house.
A quick perusal of the downstairs revealed nothing, and only Grim’s office looked regularly used. We searched desk drawers, a filing cabinet, and bookcases. When we found no map with an X marking the sword’s location, no hastily scribbled note saying, “Don’t forget to pick up Surtalogi from the dry-cleaner,” no verbose ghosts or glowing arrows pointing us in likely locations, Val herded me up the stairs to investigate the second floor.
Hotels and model homes had a more lived-in appearance than Grim’s house.
“It really is for show,” I said, standing in the middle of the master bedroom. “And not a very good one. Who would believe he actually lived here?”
We found no laundry, no personal effects on the nightstand by his side of the bed, and the furnishings looked as though they had come fresh from a photo shoot for middle-class interior decorating.
I stopped and inhaled a deep breath. “It smells like carpet and paint.”
“Maybe he has a really thorough housekeeper,” Val said. “But if he does have guests, why would they wonder? Who would have a reason to question? People are mostly lazy about the truth. If lies are easy and convenient, people will usually accept them.”
“You speak from experience?”
“You disagree?”
“I don’t accept lies, even the easy ones. I think I’ve proved that.”
“You are an exception, a very perplexing and often infuriating one.” Val stepped closer and scrubbed a thumb over my lip, wiping away my pout. “I respect you for it, Solina. But it won’t do you any favors. There’s safety in believing lies.”
“So Helen would have left me alone if I had just believed Mani died in some mundane manner? I don’t think so.”
“No.” Val shook his head. “She still needs you dead, but she wouldn’t have bothered taking up the fight against anyone else.”
I thought of Kalani and Inyoni, who was not innocent but so young and naive. “Are you trying to say it’s my fault other people have been hurt by Helen?”
Alarm flashed across Val’s face. “No. I’m absolutely not saying that.”
“What are you trying to say?”
Val exhaled a noisy breath and tossed his hands out at his sides. “Whatever it is, I’ve fouled it up. All I meant was that Grim keeps up the lie—we all keep up this lie about who we really are, and it keeps people safe, ourselves included. Our kind don’t die, but it’s not so hard to make us hurt. That’s a very fearful thing when you know suffering can last an eternity.”
What kinds of hurts had Val suffered that could last for an eternity? And do I really want to know? Probably not. Not today anyway.
“Well, I—” I started.
Val put a hand over my mouth, silencing me. Downstairs, a door slammed shut, and footsteps resounded off the kitchen’s tile flooring. Val dragged me to Grim’s walk-in closet, eased open the door, stepped in, and pulled the door closed behind us.
The footsteps, accompanied by a familiar voice, pounded up the stairs. “No,” Tori said. The bitch. “I’ve just got to grab a few things, and I’ll hit the road.” After a moment of silence, she said, “I’ll be there around sundown at the latest. Probably before then.” She paused again, and I gathered she was on her phone, maybe with Grim. “Okay. Got it. I’ll see you then.”
Tori’s footsteps clacked on the bathroom-floor tiles. The clinking sounds of something—Toiletries? Cosmetics?—carried to the closet. Val and I held our breaths, and my heart pounded frantically against my ribs. I didn’t fear discovery, really. Even if Tori found us hiding in the closet, at most we would lose the advantage of secrecy. It’s not like she’d attack us. Or would she? Maybe her arrival was providing the break we needed, though. She was going somewhere, meeting someone. If Grim wouldn’t lead us to the sword, then Tori gave us our next best lead. Val must have thought the same thing. His grip on my arm tightened, and he pulled me closer.
Tori left the bathroom and went back downstairs. Val and I exhaled but stayed in the closet, still and silent, until a downstairs door opened and closed, signaling Tori’s exit.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.
Val nodded. “Follow that Valkyrie.”
Careful not to give ourselves away, Val and I slunk away from the house and climbed into the Yukon. I let Tori’s blue Subaru go a good distance down the road, but not out of sight, before I started our truck and pulled away from the curb.
“Where do you think she’s going?” I asked. The question was mostly rhetorical as I assumed Val and I had drawn similar conclusions. “Grim?”
“That’s my guess,” Val said.
“But where? Where would he go?”
“When you’ve been around as long as we have, you tend to collect places—homes, hidey-holes, temporary and long term. He could be anywhere. Or nowhere.”
Tori led us through town on a route that delivered us onto I-5, heading north. She merged onto the highway, and I dropped back, letting several cars fill the space between her Subaru and our Yukon.
“I’m going to check in with Skyla,” I said, digging my phone from my pocket. “See if the Aerie has heard anything.”
“You think that’s a good idea? I thought the idea of sneaking away in the night was because we don’t trust the Valkyries.”
“I trust Skyla, and I think it would be a good idea if someone knows where we are. Just in case.”
Val waved his hand as if saying, Fine, do what you like.
