“And if you’re not successful?” Dad asked.

“Then we keep hunting.” Or the wolf gets me instead, I’m dead, and the world ends. But my dad didn’t need to hear that.

I threw my arms out at my sides. “Hugs before I go? Get them while they’re hot.” Stunned and uncertain, my parents let me approach and gather them into an embrace. “I’ll be back before you know it. I swear.” I chucked my thumb over my shoulder in Thorin’s direction. “I mean, look at this guy. You think he’s going to let anything happen to me?”

He spun Mjölnir’s handle through his fingers like a baton. At the end of the last rotation, the hammer shrank, and he stuffed it in his pocket. I smirked at him. Show-off.

“It’s not like we can tell you no anymore,” my mom said. “You’ve obviously got things under control here.”

“I wouldn’t say that...” I absolutely would not say that. “But you shouldn’t worry, okay? Promise me you won’t worry. You won’t even have time to miss me.”

Dad cocked his head, and his brow furrowed. “We’ll always miss you.”

“And we’ll always worry,” Mom said. “We’re your parents. Nothing can take that away.” She glanced at Thorin and narrowed her eyes. “Not even mythological gods.” She pressed a hand to her forehead and grimaced. “Did I really just say that?”

I laughed. “You’re taking it better than I thought you would.” Maybe I hadn’t given my parents enough credit. Either they had more strength than I had expected, or they had learned something from the ordeal of Mani’s death. Perhaps I had been wrong to assume the experience hadn’t changed them. It had certainly transformed me, turned my world upside down, and shaken loose my courage and intrepidness. It had shaken loose my darkness as well.

A hot wave crashed over me like a fever, and I shuddered. Seeing my mom and dad again had reinforced our growing differences. They may have crawled out of their cocoon and formed a more realistic outlook about the world, but a divide existed between us, a rift none of us could cross.

“All of this has obviously changed things,” my mother said as if reading my mind. “This new path for your life isn’t something we’re really equipped to handle.”

“There’s no going back to the way things were,” I said. That possibility died with Val. It had probably died long before, but the events in that cave were my event horizon, my point of no return. The sooner we all accepted that, the sooner we could leave it behind. “I’m not the girl I was before.”

My mother took my hands between hers and stroked my knuckles. “I’ve mourned you, Solina. I thought I had lost you, same as I lost your brother, and I grieved that loss.” I inhaled, forming a reply—perhaps an apology—but my mother shook her head and gave me a look that silenced me before she continued. “I’m glad I was able to do that, because you’re right. The girl you were before is gone, and because I’ve already mourned her, maybe I can let her go and accept that you’ve become someone else.” She pulled me into another embrace, and her shoulders trembled. “Promise me that when this is over, you won’t shut us out. Promise that, somehow, we’ll still be family.”

A lump had risen in my throat, so I said nothing. Instead, I squeezed her as hard as I could. Catching my father’s gaze, I nodded at him and mouthed the words I couldn’t say: I promise. His shoulders slumped, and he nodded back, smiling.

I let go.

Thorin slid an arm around my shoulder, tugged me against his side, and said something vaguely polite about the pleasure of meeting my parents. Then he led me out of Baldur’s living room. From the closet of my New Breidablick bedroom, I grabbed a couple extra changes of clothes and my winter gear. After I zipped and buttoned my parka until only my eyes showed above the high collar, Thorin nodded, and I read it as a gesture of his approval.

I clicked my heels three times. “There’s no place like Amchitka...There’s no place like Amchitka...”

He snorted, rolled his eyes, and wrapped his arms around me. Then away we went.

“This does not look like my visions of Amchitka,” I said. Instead of a barren wasteland covered in snow, Thorin and I stood before a log-and-river-rock cabin framed in the glow of a floodlight, illuminating a quaint rustic scene that surely adorned an Alaska travel brochure somewhere. A gravel pathway in front of the house led to a larger lodge next door before winding down to a waterfront dock hosting a collection of seaplanes and fishing boats. Cold wind tore at my parka, and darts of icy rain pattered on my hood, but at least no snow had fallen recently.

The cabin’s front door opened, and Skyla and Embla stepped under the glow of the porch light. The two women hesitated, their posture going stiff and alert. Then they recognized us and relaxed. Skyla stepped forward, leaned against the railing, and waved. I grinned and waved back.

“You’re brave,” Thorin muttered in my ear, “and I’m strong, but I’d still rather not face Helen’s hordes with just the two of us. We’d be foolish to waste the Valkyries as a resource.”

“If we can trust them.”

“Yes. If.”

“What did you say this place was? Salmon something?”

“King Salmon.” He nodded. “I’ve led more than a few fishing trips around here.”

“Adventure for the weekend warrior who doesn’t want to get too far from his comfort zone.”

“My clients never complained.”

“Why would they?” I motioned to the deluxe accommodations as I started toward Skyla. “I’ll bet this place has a spa. And a bar.”

“There’s a spa,” Skyla confirmed. “Hot tubs, massages, pretty good food in the lounge, too.”

“You sure know how to get stranded in style.” I jogged the steps up to the porch. “Hello, Embla.”

The older woman nodded in greeting.

Skyla embraced me, and I hugged her hard enough to squeeze a grunt from her. “Be careful, or it’ll make you soft.”

She cuffed my shoulder. “You take that back.”

I sniffed the air near her hair. “Lavender and... rosemary?”

She scowled. “I tried, but it won’t wash off.”

“You smell like a girl.”

“You trying to pick a fight, Mundy? What are you doing here, anyway? I thought the deal was you were going to get your parents and hang out at New Breidablick while Boss Man snagged his brother from Val.”

Heat flooded my cheeks, and I looked away. “Yeah, well, plans changed.”

She stood still and silent for several heartbeats. “What happened?”

Thorin cleared his throat and stepped up beside me. He glanced at Embla before he turned and stared off at nothing. “Val’s dead. That’s all that matters for now.”

Skyla flinched and stifled whatever she was about to say. “Okay. Well, that’s one less thing to worry about.”

When I said nothing, she hugged me again.

I let her rub my back until Thorin shuffled his feet in an obvious gesture of impatience. “Let’s get out of the cold. I’m sure Solina could use something to eat.”

“Hmm, now that you mention it...” I pulled away from Skyla and patted my stomach. The morning’s helping of eggs and toast had disappeared, and my recent bouts of sickness had left me empty and hollow.

“Take her in and feed her,” Embla said. “I’ll do a check around the perimeter.”

Skyla turned on her heel and led Thorin and me inside toward the kitchen. “There’s sandwich stuff in the fridge. I think there’s probably a leftover pizza in there too.”

She rambled off a list of snacking options as I shrugged off my heavy parka. Several other Valkyries lounged in the living room, watching TV, eating, flipping through the contents of their phones. Siobhan looked up and waved as we passed by. The other two women mostly ignored us.

“I’m going to head outside.” Thorin paused in the kitchen doorway. “Get a look around. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“We’ve kept a round-the-clock patrol, Boss Man.” Skyla narrowed her eyes at him. “We haven’t let our guard down.”