Chapter Fifteen

“You look like death dug up from the grave,” Skyla said. She dumped several packets of Splenda in a huge cup of coffee and passed it to me. Her dark skin hid all but the worst bruises and scrapes, but she still looked like a wolf’s chew toy. She grunted and eased into a chair that kept a vigil at my bedside.

“I’m glad you like it,” I said. “Vogue named it the new look for fall.”

Thorin’s meds had kept me in a haze for a couple of days, but my healing had progressed to the point that, as long as I didn’t make sudden moves, a handful of ibuprofen managed the pain. But caffeine withdrawal was proving to be a bitch, so I raised the coffee cup and drained half of it in one giant gulp.

“Wow,” Skyla said, pausing with her own cup halfway to her lips.

“I think eighty percent of my pain and discomfort was due to coffee deficiency.”

“Has it started working yet?”

“Why?”

“Because we need to talk.” Skyla leaned forward, put her elbows on her knees, and cupped her chin in one hand. “Are you ready to dismiss coincidence?”

“What do you mean?”

“That attack was no fluke.”

I groaned and fell against the pillows, then groaned again when that hurt.

Skyla arched an eyebrow. “You deny?”

“No.” I frowned. “It’s all connected.”

“Of course it is.”

“But how?”

Skyla puffed her cheeks and blew out the breath; the dark curls lying over her brow danced in the gust. “Have you ever felt out of place?”

I squinted and shook my head, not understanding.

“Okay, what I mean is, to put it bluntly—”

I interrupted. “You, blunt?”

“Snark all you want, but you are not who you thought you were.”

“Yeah, I got that. So, who am I?”

Skyla sighed and stood. She went to the window and gazed out at the bay. “I have some guesses. I researched while you were in oblivion, and I want to run some things by you.”

Thorin appeared in the doorway, materializing like a ghost. He had a real knack for that, I’d noticed. “I’d be interested to hear your conclusions as well,” he said.

Thorin was polished and refined in a charcoal suit and crisp shirt and tie. His hair gleamed like spun gold. Instead of refining him, the suit sharpened his angles and exaggerated his dangerousness. Although, with him, it was probably no exaggeration. Thorin tugged an upholstered chair from the corner and settled it beside Skyla’s seat.

The three of us stared back and forth at each other, wondering who would go first. Finally Skyla exhaled and slunk to my bedside. She plopped into her chair. “I was poking around at wolf myths like shape changers, skin walkers, werewolves, and loup-garou.”

“Loop-ga—” I began.

“Not important,” Skyla said, cutting me off. “But looking into wolf legends led me to two wolves in Norse legends. Guess their names.”

“Skoll and Hati,” Thorin said. “Get to the point.” He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest.

Skyla huffed but did as he said. “Skoll and Hati are two wolves who chase the sun and moon deities through the sky each day and night. In the Norse version of the apocalypse, called Ragnarok, the wolves eventually catch the sun and moon and eat them. Now, do you know the names of the sun and the moon?”

Skyla had described my dream, the words growled by the wolf. I shoved the thought away, not yet ready to accept what this coincidence might mean. The root of Solina came from the word for sun, but Chapman corresponded with none of the words I knew for the moon. “I can guess, but why don’t you tell me?”

“Mani for the moon,” Thorin said. “Sol for the sun. Are you trying to imply Chapman and his sister have something in common with mythological figures?”

“She glowed,” Skyla said.

“So you say.”

While they argued, little beads of sweat popped out on my forehead. Time for another round of ibuprofen, though I might have preferred a dose of Thorin’s oblivion instead. “That’s another weird coincidence,” I said, interrupting Skyla and Thorin’s heated dialogue.

“What do you mean?” Skyla asked.

“Our names. Twins run in our family on my father’s side. Somewhere down the line, I had a great, great—I don’t know how many ‘greats’—grandmother from somewhere around Germany. Her name was Solaberga, and she had a twin brother named Manfred.” Skyla scrunched her nose in distaste. “Yeah, my reaction too,” I said. “My mom said those names were too old-fashioned, but Dad really wanted to respect tradition and blah blah blah. Solina and Chapman were a compromise, keeping the roots but modernizing the names.”

“You think your parents know something?” Skyla said. “Or was it just fate?” She said the word on a ghostly breath and waggled her eyebrows in a melodramatic way.

I giggled. Thorin rolled his eyes. “Maybe I’ll ask them next time I talk to them,” I said. As if I would ever mention this to Mom and Dad. “Accepting all you say is true, then how do the two of you play into this?” I tried to readjust into a comfortable position, but such a thing didn’t exist. I gave up and gritted my teeth. “Wait, I know. Skyla, you were the Good Witch, and the wolf was the Wicked Witch, and Thorin was the Wizard of Oz.”

Skyla snorted, and the corner of Thorin’s lip twitched. “I won’t argue about being a witch,” Skyla said. “But I think I’d prefer if you called me a Valkyrie.”

“I obviously need to read from a wider pool of resources,” I said. I had heard the term before but couldn’t place the why or wherefore. The night I touched Thorin at the restaurant in Anchorage, I had seen a vision of him as an ancient warrior, so I decided to track that path. “What about you, Thor-in?” I said. “Are you the God of Thunder in hiding? Is that a hammer in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

Thorin flashed his teeth at me. “Anytime you want to know, Sunshine, I’ll be happy to show you.”

Sunshine? He had said the word sarcastically, almost as an insult, but at least he wasn’t calling me Miss Mundy again. “So,” I said, pressing my fingertips together into a tent shape. “I’m supposed to believe my brother and I are the sun and the moon, Adam Skoll and Harold Hati are wolves, and you”—I looked pointedly at Skyla—“are a Valkyrie.”

“I think so,” she said.

“Gracious, those were some good drugs you gave me, Thorin. Y’all are going to get a kick out of this when I wake up and tell you all the crazy stuff you said in this dream I must be having.”

“You glowed,” Skyla said again.

“What’s with you and that word?”

“Can you reproduce the effect?” Thorin asked.

“Sure, recharge my batteries and flip my switch.”

“What were you doing right before it happened?” Skyla asked.