Still stunned and mostly speechless, I rose from my chair and crossed the room.

The wrinkles in the old woman’s face deepened as she scowled. Her hair stood out around her head in cotton-candy puffs, and she leaned against a slim, knobby cane carved with intricate patterns. “Only her.”

I glanced over my shoulder. Skyla and Thorin had stood up behind me, obviously intending to follow. I waved them back. “Do what she asks, please. I can’t afford for her to change her mind before we know if she can help me or not.”

Before I reached her, the old woman turned out of the dining room and crossed the lobby, heading toward the hotel’s main entrance, moving faster than her cane would have suggested. But it’s not really a cane, is it? If she’s who I think she is, that’s her wand or magic stick or whatever... Even if my lame publicity attempts had somehow caught her attention, I wondered how she had known exactly where to find me. Perhaps she was truly clairvoyant.

How do you know Helen or Val didn’t send her?

That thought stopped me in my tracks. “Um, ma’am.” I raised my voice to carry across the lobby. “I can’t just follow you out that door. I don’t know if I can trust you.”

The wizened woman stopped and turned on her heel, graceful despite her apparent age, spiderweb hair bobbing as she moved. Her expression seemed critical, green eyes cold and hard, deep parentheses forming around her mouth, but she smiled and transformed her face into something radiant and bright. “It’s good to know you aren’t a complete idiot. I can work with that.”

She had stopped near the doors leading outside, and I approached her with hesitant footsteps. “Let’s start with names,” I said.

Close enough to touch now, I held out my hand, offering to shake. Her lips puckered, and she eyed my hand as if I had offered her something unseemly. Instead of taking it, she folded her arms across her chest, hands tucked firmly beneath her armpits. “You’re Solina Mundy.”

My eyes popped wide, and I stifled a laugh. “Well, yeah, but I already knew that.”

“But you didn’t know I knew it.”

“I guessed as much. Or why else would you be here?”

“You’re looking for a völva to train you.”

My heart fluttered like a butterfly in a strong storm. Had I found her, whoever she was, so easily, after all? “And you are a völva, I take it?”

She narrowed her eyes again and thinned her lips but said nothing.

The butterfly sensations settled, and my humor drained away. “Are you always like this?”

“If you are to be a seer, you will have to learn how to find your own answers.”

I stifled an irritated groan. “I think I’ve seen this movie or read this book or played this video game before. Now enters the frustratingly vague fortune teller.”

The lines between her brows deepened. “Are you accusing me of being a cliché?”

I bit my lip and offered an apologetic grimace because, yeah, I had sort of accused her of that. “Sorry?”

Her face brightened again as she laughed. “My name’s Gróa, and I’m just messing with you. My Winnebago’s outside, double parked. We gotta go before I get towed. Getting that thing out of impound always costs a fortune.”

I glanced at the dining room doorway and wasn’t surprised to find Skyla and Thorin there, wearing matching scowls. I turned to Gróa and chucked a thumb over my shoulder toward my loyal companions. “I’m not sure those two are going to let me go anywhere on my own. I’m not sure I want to go anywhere on my own. Not until I know if I can trust you.”

She leaned around me, narrowed her eyes, and grunted. “You’ll be perfectly safe with me, you know. I’m not afraid of those ravens. Or the wolves.” She tapped her temple as she widened her eyes into a kooky stare. “Can see ’em coming from a mile away.”

I gave her an uneasy smile. “Really?”

She blinked at me, wide eyed and grinning. “Wouldn’t be worth my salt if I didn’t.”

“Sunshine?” Thorin asked, having moved up behind me in his usual silent way. Surprised, I flinched and spun around to face him. He narrowed his eyes at my strange new companion. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

Gróa stopped leaning on her cane. She stood up straighter and patted her flyaway hair. She cut her eyes to me, batted her lashes, and waggled her eyebrows. It was almost... flirtatious? Gesturing to Thorin, I said “Um, Gróa, this is—”

“Magni, Son of Thor,” she said. “I’d recognize those cheekbones anywhere. And that nose. The hair too. Shoulders, and...” She scraped her gaze down Thorin, head to toe and back up. She waggled her eyebrows again. I nearly choked trying to hold in my laugh. He shot me a dark look. “Looks a lot like his old man.”

Thorin’s eyebrow arched. “You knew my father?”

She shook her head and waved him off. “Never in person. But I’ve seen him.”

His lips thinned. “Really?”

“Look, I was telling Solina my home is about to get hauled away. I wasn’t looking for a lot of company, but I can see the two of you”—she pointed between Thorin and Skyla, who had made her way across the lobby to join our party—“are willing to make things difficult, and we don’t have time for that.” She turned on her heel and marched toward the exit. “So come on, then, if you’re coming.”

“What about the others? Baldur and the Valkyries?” I asked Thorin as we followed Gróa out to the street.

“Baldur will have to take care of himself. That’s what we all agreed, right?”

Skyla slipped a phone from her rear pocket. “I’ll text Embla and let her know we’ll be in touch. She and Naomi and a couple others were going to head over to Port of Portland and sniff around a little.”

She pushed a stray curl out of her eyes and shrugged. “Does it look like I give a damn?”

I turned to Gróa, who stared at me, eyes wide, mouth slightly agape. “That’s some kind of loyalty,” she said. “You do anything to deserve it?”

I dropped my gaze and shoved my hands in my jeans pockets. “I ask myself that question all the time. Still pretty sure the answer is no. But they don’t seem to agree.”

The old seer picked up her pace. “The Honeywagon’s still here. Good. Let’s get this baby on the road, and then we’ll talk.”

Lo and behold, she had stenciled “Honeywagon” across the back and beneath the Winnebago’s passenger window. When she’d first mentioned her mobile home, I had envisioned something older and more decrepit: a square, lumbering beast on whitewall tires, trimmed in avocado-green paint and lots of rust. This current incarnation, however, was classy with sleek lines and muted colors. She obviously appreciated her comfort.

“We could get you a spot in the parking lot, couldn’t we?” I asked as we trundled up the steps and into the plush interior.

Gróa swung herself into the driver’s seat and fastened her seatbelt. “Nope. A völva never stays in one place too long, honey. I’ve been in Portland for two weeks waiting for you to get here. I’ve nearly worn out my welcome.”

“Two weeks?”

“Didn’t want to miss you. I knew you were coming, just wasn’t sure about the date.”

“Where are you taking us?” I asked as Skyla and I settled across from each other at the little table where Gróa probably ate all her meals. Thorin eased his huge frame into the front of the RV and slumped into the passenger seat. He wore an expression I couldn’t interpret. Irritation? Confusion? Dread? Curiosity?

“Nowhere important right now.” Gróa shifted into drive. The motor home lurched forward, and Skyla grabbed at the table in front of her, her knuckles going white. “We just gotta move.”

Thorin glanced at me before returning his attention to Gróa. “Is someone chasing us?”

She yanked the steering wheel and weaved through traffic. Someone honked. Skyla groaned and bit into her bottom lip. “Not us,” the seer said. “Just me.”

“Why?” He growled.

“Being a seer doesn’t always pay very well. I might have missed a couple of payments on the old Honeywagon.” She patted her dashboard and fluttered her eyelashes at him.