“Um... how’s it going?”
“Solina,” she said in a nagging tone. How many times had I heard her say my name that way? Too many to remember.
“I don’t think y’all have ever formally met.” I gestured between Thorin and my parents. Am I really about to introduce the God of Thunder to my parents like we’re on a first date or something? “Magni Alexander Thorin, this is my mom and dad, Rachael and Tim Mundy.”
Thorin stood in his most formal stance and bowed from the neck. “It’s an honor to meet you both.”
“Mom and Dad, meet the God of Thunder.”
My mom’s face flushed, and my dad gawked at us as he rose and tugged my mom to her feet. “You’re not being serious, are you?”
I nudged my elbow into Thorin’s ribs. “Show him your hammer. Dad, you’re going to flip when you see his hammer.” My glib performance was an act, a shield to keep Mom and Dad from seeing the real me. Outside, I smiled. Inside, I burned coldly.
Thorin bit back a grin as he fished through his pocket. He presented his fist, twisted his wrist, and Mjölnir in all its majesty appeared as if he had pulled the most astounding rabbit from the most miraculous hat. Thunder clapped outside Baldur’s living room window, and a streak of lightning rent the early-evening sky.
“Good Lord,” my dad said. Mom squeaked and dropped into her seat.
“I know you still have questions,” I said, “and I promise I’ll answer them, but not right now. I came by to pick up some things. Thorin and I have some... hunting to do. If we’re successful, all of this craziness will be over very soon.”
“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.”
