“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.”
The roads wound and curved as we drove deeper into the mountains. Dusk’s dark hues settled around us, heightening our tension and foreboding. Val, still watching with preternatural vision, warned me that Tori had slowed as we approached an area that the road signs called Mineral Valley. I eased back on the accelerator as she veered right onto a smaller road. I asked Val to text Skyla again and hoped the message went through despite the patchy reception.
“Fall back a little further,” Val said.
“Are you sure? It’s hard to believe you won’t lose sight of her.”
“Trust me,” Val said. “Hawks can see from about a mile away, right? Hawks have nothing on me. It works sort of the same way that we move through space like we do.”
I gaped at him. “You can blip your eyesight through space?”
“Not exactly, but that’s the best way I can explain it.”
“It’s magic,” I said. “Or whatever it is that makes you guys tick.”
“It’s what makes you tick, too, Solina. It’s the same force that gives you fire.”
“Sol gives me my fire.”
“You are Sol,” Val said. “The more you embrace your powers, the more indistinguishable you become.”
