I nodded. “Trust me.”

Skyla inhaled a breath, blew it out, then shoved her foot onto the bottom rung and pulled herself up on the ladder. I climbed up behind her, trying to shine the flashlight on the access door’s latch. Skyla reached up, flipped the latch, and threw open the door. Going through it felt like crossing a magic portal. Inyoni had brought me up here a few days ago to show me where she liked to meditate and recommended I find a spiritual place of my own.

“Helen doesn’t seem like a supernatural power, either,” Skyla said when I joined her on the roof’s flat surface. The wind whipped her hair about. She tugged her jacket hood up and huddled her arms around her. “But she is. They all are. So are you.”

“You might be, too,” I said and tugged Skyla to the roof’s edge so she could see the ocean below us, reflecting the dim moonlight. “I really think you might be right about being a Valkyrie. These women are like you—fierce, passionate.”

Skyla snickered. “You have a crush on me, don’t you?”

“Maybe.” I pinched my fingers together. “A little teeny weeny one.” I leaned against the edge of the roof and stared off into the distance. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Skyla, but what took y’all so long to find me?”

Skyla crossed her arms over her chest. “You could have called and given us a hint.”

“I lost my phone. And if this place has a landline anywhere, I’ve never seen it.”

“It’s pretty remote.”

“And maybe I was pouting a little bit, too. I think I put too much faith in Val’s and Thorin’s abilities to protect me. They’re obviously as fallible as regular men.”

“Oh yeah?” Humor sparkled in Skyla’s brown eyes. “You’re just now figuring that out?”

“Thorin seemed awfully familiar with Tori. Didn’t he know right away where to go?”

“He didn’t know who took you at first. None of us did.”

“Tori said she left a hint.”

Skyla frowned. “We didn’t figure it out until after Thorin went to Helen’s people and threatened to grind their bones into bread. He was totally fee-fi-fo-fum about it. Helen refused to show her face, and she denied knowing anything about what happened to you. Thorin stormed through all of Las Vegas for close to a week, roughing up Helen’s employees, searching her properties—she has a lot of properties, by the way.”

“We were afraid to leave, afraid you’d call or show up on your own. We watched the sky like hawks, looking for signs that the sun was gone, even though that was stupid because Mani is gone and the moon still comes up.”

“Girlfriend”—I put an arm around Skyla and gave her a squeeze—“you’re babbling.”

Skyla ducked her head and laughed. “I’m sorry. But we were really freaked out for a while.”

“So, how’d you figure out that the Valkyries had me?”

“We found some of your stuff lying on the sidewalk. Your room key, your lipstick. Your phone and everything else was gone, of course. Thorin is a pretty savvy guy with a computer, especially for an ancient dude. He figured out how to track the GPS on your phone. I wasn’t there when he found the guy who had taken your stuff. Thorin didn’t give me the specifics and I’m sure it wasn’t pretty, but he came back with your phone, your purse, and a white swan feather that the thief had sworn was lying on top of the pile when he took it from the sidewalk.”

“We didn’t know what to think about it at first, but then Thorin went to messing with it, rolling the tip of it between his fingers like he thought he could make it talk or something. I was there in the living room with him when he figured it out. He jumped up, looked at the ceiling, and said, ‘Son of a bitch. The Valkyries took her.’”

“What’s a feather got to do with it?” I asked. “I know they call this place their Aerie, but it’s not like any of them actually fly.”

“A lot of times they are pictured as having wings. In an old story, one of the Valkyries posed as a swan when she came to earth.”

“So Thorin figured it out and you, what, jumped on a plane and hightailed it to California?”

“Well, it took Thorin another week to find someone who could tell him the Aerie’s location. Apparently they don’t stay in one place for very long.” Skyla snickered again. “They migrate.”

“And, now, here you are,” I said.

Skyla shrugged. “Here we are.”

“Where’s Baldur?”

“He stayed behind in Vegas. He got kind of funny after you went missing. I think he hoped that in searching for you we might find something about Nina, but we had no luck. The trouble with Nina is we don’t even know she really exists. Maybe she was never reincarnated in the first place. When we told him about going to the Valkyries, Baldur stopped talking and just hid out in his room.”

I clucked in sympathy. “Poor guy. I can guess how he feels.”

Skyla smiled sadly. “Yeah. He’s not taking it so well.”

“So, what do we do now?”

“I don’t know.” Skyla shrugged. “Guess it depends on Thorin and Val—and on you. You seem happy here.”

“I am,” I said in all honesty. “These women are wonderful, and they have all taught me so much.”

“Do you want to stay here?”

“I think I do,” I said. “I feel safe here, and I still have a lot of work to do.”

Skyla talked me into showing off some of my new moves, but the chill night air and the stiff winds eventually chased us back to the warmth of our room. I pulled off my sweater, meaning to put on my pajamas and go to bed, but a knock sounded at the bedroom door. “Solina?”

It was Val. I grimaced and looked at Skyla to see if she had a guess about what he wanted, but she only shrugged. “It’s time to pay the piper,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

“Thorin wasn’t by himself in his quest for you. We were by his side, ready to pillage, plunder, and raze the entire city of Las Vegas if that’s what it took.”

“Skyla, I can’t ever thank you enough. Mani was lucky to have someone like you in his life, and I am lucky to have you too, but Thorin and Val were more worried for themselves than for me.”

Skyla motioned to the door and the man waiting on the other side. “Why don’t you tell that to him?”

I sighed and let my shoulders droop. “Don’t wait up.”

Skyla snorted and climbed into bed. “As if.”

I opened the door. Val tugged me into the hallway, leading me toward his room and away from Skyla’s ears. “Did Skyla tell you everything?”

“I think so,” I said.

“I was out of my mind about you, Solina.”

“I wish I could have told you not to worry when I was safe all along.”

“Were you?” he said, stroking the lightest of touches over my cheek. “Every time you leave me, you come back beat up and broken, either by grief, or wolves, or the damned Valkyries.”

“I’m not beat up,” I said. “Not this time anyway.”