“You think you’ll ever go back to it?”

“I’m not sure there is such a thing as going back anymore. But I’ll always be a baker in my bones.”

A timer dinged. Nina turned and slid on an oven mitt. She opened the door, pulled out two pans, and set them on the counter. She gestured to the tins. “Be my guest.”

Gingerly, I plucked a hot muffin from the pan and juggled it until it cooled. After peeling away the paper, I broke the muffin in half, and steam seeped from the center, bringing out a strong orange aroma. Dark bits peppered the muffin’s interior. Not chocolate. I’d smell that.

She leaned forward, watching, obviously eager for my opinion. I bit in, chewed once, and froze as the flavor combination spilled over my tongue. Orange, definitely, and an incongruent saltiness. Still holding a partially chewed bit in my mouth, I said, “Olives?”

She grinned, a purely childlike, innocent expression without a spark of malice. “Like it?”

I gulped, and the muffin slid down my throat like a rock. “Mmmm.” I forced a smile. “That’s… unique.”

“Baldur doesn’t have much in his kitchen. I had to be creative.”

Creative. Riiiight. “Well, I think you nailed it.” I set down the rest of my muffin and hoped Nina wouldn’t notice if I didn’t finish it.

She waved at the muffin tins. “Have as many as you want. I don’t have much of an appetite.”

“I think I’ll get coffee first. I usually need caffeine as soon as I wake up.”

She nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

I paused as I reached for the coffee pot handle. “Did you make the coffee?”

“Nuh-uh. Baldur made it.”

Relieved, I grabbed the pot and poured a cup. “Speaking of... Where are the guys?”

She shrugged. “Haven’t seen them in a while.”

“Did they say anything about leaving?”

“Maybe they did, and I wasn’t listening. It’s not like they would take me with them.”

I finished doctoring my coffee and sipped. No surprises—just the way I liked it. Since Nina and I had successfully conquered small talk, I attempted a weightier subject. “I have what may seem like a strange question for you.”

She leaned against the counter and stared at me, both eyebrows raised, and motioned for me to continue.

“Before Baldur found you in the hospital, he followed a rumor that said Helen was holding you in some warehouses in the desert near the border of Arizona and Nevada. We all went there looking for you, but instead, we found Skyla and several dozen cargo containers full of stone statues. But they weren’t really statues. Helen used her magic to animate them and turn them into soldiers.” I watched Nina’s face and searched for signs of understanding or recognition, but her expression remained impassive. “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know anything specific. Helen was involved in a lot of business, and she kept me out of most of it. All I know is what Baldur has told me.”

I believed her. Why would Helen give all her secrets away to a foster daughter she planned to send to Baldur? She wouldn’t risk Nina sympathizing with us and giving us insider information. Still, I had to ask. “Do you know if Helen has any more places like the one in Nevada? Any more warehouses or big tracts of land.”

She shrugged. “I’m sure she has dozens. That woman has more money than God. But do I know of anything specifically?” Her shoulders slumped. “Helen kept me in the dark about many things and made it clear that she’d cut me off if I didn’t obey her implicitly.” She raised her dark eyes and met mine, staring at me unwaveringly. “She was a cold bitch, but I never went hungry or homeless thanks to her. I also never learned how to take care of myself. She enabled my helplessness because she knew it would keep me loyal and dependent. She certainly never held me in enough regard to tell me her secrets. And I didn’t ask. The guarantee of a warm bed and a full stomach, as well as the threat of losing them, can be powerful motivators sometimes.”

I returned her stare, studying, evaluating. Then I turned away, dismissing the subject and accepting Nina’s explanation as truth. “Do you know if any of the Valkyries have called?”

She shrugged again. “No idea.”

The muffins had stopped steaming, so I plucked them from the tins and set them on the counter to finish cooling, even though I planned never to eat another one. The task kept my hands busy and gave me something to do other than stare at Nina. “You’ve been with Baldur around the clock. Anything seem familiar yet?”

Her nose wrinkled, and she shook her head. “Not familiar. But not bad either. Baldur’s...” A smile snuck onto her lips. “He’s all right, I guess.”

“Does that mean you’ll stay with him?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go.” Nina leaned a hip against the counter and folded her arms across her chest. She stared into the distance, eyes unfocused. “If I stay, I get luxury and a good-looking man who sees to my every need.” She waggled her eyebrows at me. “I’d be an idiot to leave.”

I peered into my coffee mug. “He loves you. A lot.”

“He loves a memory.”

“Maybe.” I had thought something similar on occasion. But Nina and Baldur had come together countless times throughout the ages. They always found each other. They made a family. They stayed together until she died, again and again. On the one hand: romantic. On the other: tragic and disheartening. It was a wonder either managed to function on any level of sanity. If I had been subjected to that fate, I would have made a padded room my permanent residence. “But he’s damned committed to that memory.”

I drained the rest of my coffee, rinsed my mug, checked the dishwasher, found it mostly empty, and set my cup in the top rack. “He’s a good man. He’s saved my life more than once. And he’s spent so much time looking for you. You should give him a chance.”

Nina waved, a gesture encompassing the whole room. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

I nodded, not knowing what else to say. Baldur deserved greater advocacy from me, but relationship advice required more experience and sensitivity than I could offer. Who was I to advise Nina when I didn’t know how to handle my own personal interactions? “I’m going to look around for the guys. See if they’ve found out anything.”

She nodded, grabbed a muffin, and tossed it at me. I caught it. “Take one for the road.”

Clutching the muffin like a sweaty sock, I scurried out of the kitchen. Maybe the birds will eat it.

I wandered around inside, calling for Thorin and Baldur, but no one answered. The massive house swallowed my voice, and I felt miniscule and insignificant. New Breidablick personified regality in its own distinct style—a combination of hunting lodge and elegant country estate, modern, yet rustic. Baldur had created a home for both a Viking god and a twenty-first-century man who enjoyed air conditioning and flat-panel TVs.

When I found neither Thorin nor Baldur inside, I extended my search to the grounds. I stepped out onto the stone patio and braced against the biting temperatures. Standing at the railing, gazing into the expansive views of the peaks and valleys composing Carson Range, I felt I could jump and fly away.

But I don’t fly. I only burn.

Baldur cultivated a vineyard and kept bees. His small horse herd grazed in the pasture at the bottom of the ridge. He also raised sheep and goats. And dogs. His two Great Danes, Geri and Freki, must have caught my scent or heard the opening door. They bounded around the corner of the house and ran up to me, tongues lolling, jowls flapping, drool dripping.

As they crowded around me, pressing their huge, heavy bodies against my thighs, I rubbed their velvet ears and crooned at them. “Good boys… Who’s a bunch of good boys?” They panted and pushed each other aside, both eager for my attention. “Want a muffin? Who wants a muffin?”

I raised Nina’s baking atrocity and waggled it as if it were an enticing treat. Maybe to them it was. Both dogs’ rear ends plopped down. They sat up, chests out, ears perked, tails whapping a steady beat against the patio’s stone flooring. I broke the muffin in half and tossed it to them. Geri and Freki lunged, caught their treats, and swallowed the muffin halves in a single gulp. They both sat again and stared at me, doe eyed and pleading.

I brushed my hands together and showed them my palms, fingers splayed. “That’s all I have. If you want more, you’ll have to talk to Nina.”

Freki, the spotted harlequin to my left, cocked his head as if considering.

Geri, the blue with the silvery coat, woofed, an imploring sound resounding from deep within his chest.

“That’s all.” I waved my hands.

Freki huffed, his jowls billowing. He stood and trotted away. Geri eyed me once more before he turned and followed his buddy. I stepped into the yard behind them, but they turned to adventure somewhere down the hillside. I set a path straight across the yard toward the barn.

The smell of livestock greeted me when I stepped through the door: a mixture of feed, fur, manure, tangy hay, and the sharp astringency of cedar chips. Baldur, or one of his part-time workers, kept the barn pristine and orderly. The goats and sheep bleated in a pen outside, alert to movement on the inside. They probably expected me to come feed them something.