I grinned, encouraging her delight. If she felt at all invested in Baldur and New Breidablick, it was on those sympathies I had to lean. “Definitely.”

A full smile unfurled across her lips, and a deep shade of pink crept into her ears. Nina fidgeted with the fringe on her placemat. “Didn’t you have something else you wanted to talk about? You said there were two things.”

I nodded. “Helen is going to try her best to kill us all. I need you to promise you won’t help her. Promise you won’t let her in through the proverbial backdoor. Even if things get desperate and siding with her might seem advantageous, promise you won’t do it. Promise you won’t break Baldur’s heart.”

She stared at the table top and knitted her brows. Her throat worked. She balled her fist on the table. “I don’t want Helen to win. I don’t want to go back to living that way.”

“That’s not a promise.” Why did it matter? Whether she made a vow or not, it changed nothing. Helen would still come. We would still have to fight.

Baldur had one of those restaurant-style pots that kept water hot all the time. It made coffee almost instantly, and when the brew finished dripping, I poured two mugs.

Nina took her cup without looking at me. “For what it’s worth, I promise. I want what Baldur is offering.”

Her promise should have been enough, but I had shed my guilelessness over the past few months. Trust but verify, they say. Bracing myself, I slid my hand over Nina’s and reached for her mind. As I had hoped, our conversation drew her thoughts of Baldur to the surface.

Our connection revealed images of the late-night suppers he cooked for her—all her favorite foods. He knew without asking what they were. He brought her tea—oolong with a splash of cream and a hint of sugar, just the way she preferred, but she had never told him those details. She thought of the day before, when she was feeling especially despondent. He played recordings of Bessie Smith and Sidney Bechet, jazz from her favorite musical era. He never touched her without asking, and even then, he was careful his posture never intimidated or threatened her in any way. He held her when she cried and didn’t ask questions, never made her explain her tears.

Her thoughts shifted to flashes of images she had once dismissed as dreams, night terrors, in which she repeatedly found herself aboard a flaming ship next to Baldur’s dead body. She knew better now—not nightmares but memories of dying from a broken heart.

Her thoughts stuttered across a litany of moments with Helen—lavish gifts distributed with sharp words, cold shoulders, long absences, opulent living conditions and plenty of everything, but so much loneliness...

As casually as possible, I drew my hand away from Nina’s and stood, severing the connection. I went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of half-and-half. “Baldur wants you to go to the basement and stay with my parents until this is over.”

She glanced up at me as she spooned sugar into her mug. “Nowhere is safe from Helen.”

I closed the refrigerator. “I tend to agree with you. But I’d also love to have someone who knows a little about what’s going on stay with my parents. I’m sure they’re more than a little freaked out right now.”

She huffed a nervous giggle as she poured in the cream. “They’re not the only ones.”

“I could also use a little moral support when I explain what’s going on to them.”

“Moral support isn’t my strongest suit.”

I took up my own coffee mug and sipped. “I’ll take what I can get.”

After we finished our coffee, Nina and I tromped down the basement stairs, dread making our footsteps heavy. My parents sat close together on Baldur’s sofa, talking quietly to each other. Light from the TV flickered over them, but they had the volume low. Although I couldn’t make out the words, the tone of their conversation sounded serious and fearful. My dad looked up at me first. The worry lines on his forehead deepened as he stood and pulled my mother up beside him. “Solina. Baldur asked us to come down here but wouldn’t say why.”

I raised my palm like a policeman stopping oncoming traffic. “Most won’t make sense. But I’ll try to explain it if you’ll try your best to believe me.”

Dad glanced at Mom. They held each other’s gaze as if communicating telepathically. Perhaps couples who had lived and worked together as many years as my mother and father could read each other’s minds. My dad nodded and swallowed. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”

I exhaled and slumped into a chair perpendicular to the sofa. I motioned for my parents to sit. Without a word, Nina glided to the opposite side of the room and took a seat at Baldur’s desk. A moment later, the blue light from the computer monitor illuminated her face.

“Baldur’s told you most of it, right?” I asked. My dad nodded. “Okay, I’ll start with what’s happened since I last saw you.” I talked, and my parents listened, rarely interrupting. They absorbed everything in semistunned silence. “And now we’re all here, and it’s our last chance to end this thing.”

My mother had lost the flush that typically adorned her cheeks. Her eyes sat deeper and darker in her face than usual. “You said we’d be safe here, Solina.”

I scraped my fingers through my hair and leaned back in my chair. “I did say that, and I still think it’s the safest place for you. You were too vulnerable at home. Baldur has had men watching you, but we were never confident it was enough. Helen could have gotten to you, used you as leverage.”

“So what do you want us to do?”

“Stay here, stay out of the way, and try not to worry.” I pointed to the beautiful woman sitting in the rear of the room. “This is Nina, Baldur’s wife. She’s going to stay with you.”

Nina looked over the top of the monitor and cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Well...you are his wife,” I said, “in a metaphysical sense.”

Nina shrugged and returned her attention to the computer.

My dad glanced at Nina before looking back at me. “What are you going to do, Solina?”

I cracked my knuckles and rolled my shoulders. “I’m going to fight.”

As if to underscore my words, thunder boomed loud enough to rattle the house. I rose to my feet. My dad shifted as if to stand, but I waved at him, urging him to remain in his seat. “Stay here, please. I already know the things you’d say to try to convince me not to. Please don’t. I won’t stay. I have to help them.”

Thorin’s thunder exploded again. I turned and jogged up the basement stairs before my parents could protest. Outside the first-floor windows, the sky had gone twilight purple from the thickening storm clouds. Diluted light glowed in the windows, casting dark shadows over the interior. A streak of lightning tore apart the sky. Bright, phosphorescent light flared over the landscape as brief as a heartbeat before fading away. Specks of color floated in my field of vision. I blinked them away as I hurried outside.

Thorin’s voice rose above the clamor of his storm, and he spoke in his ancient tongue. I followed his voice and found him beside Baldur in the broad expanse of land spreading out before New Breidablick’s front door. Baldur’s estate sprawled over several thousand acres, and he had told me before that the closest neighbor, a beef rancher, lived miles and miles away on the other side of a distant ridge. A protracted battle would eventually draw attention from mortal authorities, but perhaps Helen thought our battle wouldn’t last that long. Most likely, she didn’t care. In her mind, this was the beginning of the end.

“Where’s Helen?” I stepped to Thorin’s side. He pointed to a distant mountain range, but the fading light camouflaged everything beneath a cover of shadows. “I don’t see anything.”

“You will soon enough,” he said. “Baldur’s wards act like an invisible brick wall. You throw something against them long enough, they’ll eventually crumble.”

“How far out are they?”

“Just over a mile.” Baldur gritted his teeth. “It’s the extent of my reach. If I tried to push the wards any farther, they’d be too weak to be useful.” He stood firm, legs braced wide, eyes focused on some faraway point. But an unusual pallor had crept into his skin, robbing him of his ruddy complexion and leaving him pale and waxen.

“Is Baldur doing okay?” I lowered my voice out of consideration for Baldur’s concentration.

“Helen has been here for over an hour.” Thorin studied the Allfather with an appraising gaze. “She’s been throwing her soldiers at the wards like cannonballs. We underestimated the size of her army. I’m afraid Baldur will give out before her golems do.”

Hairs rose along the back of my neck. At first, I mistook it as a reaction to the static electricity surrounding Thorin or a primal response to fear, but no. My sixth sense had picked up on the presence of someone new behind me.

“Brother, Allfather... Solina.”

I spun on my heel and gasped. Fire pooled in my palms. “Grim,” I snarled, baring my teeth. My stomach churned, and stinging, ice-cold revulsion chilled my blood.

Grim raised his hands and stepped back. He lowered his eyes and waited for me to decide whether to attack him or not. Thorin’s heavy hand settled on my shoulder. Holding me back or lending support? Hard to tell.

“I’m not going to burn him.” I’d had more than enough of killing people with my fire. For a certain wolf, however, I’d make an exception. “But I know better than to face him empty-handed.”

A deep flush stained Grim’s cheeks. “You have no reason to believe me, Solina. But I swear to you—I mean you no harm. I owe you a life debt.”

My fire retreated, and I stepped closer, fists balled at my sides. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’ll do everything within his power to protect you,” Thorin said. “Even if it means giving his own life to do it.”

“Ha! That only happens in Hollywood, like Morgan Freeman in that Robin Hood movie.”