Thorin pushed off from the rock, put his hands on my shoulders, and spun me around. He tugged the elastic band from my hair and combed his fingers through the knotted strands. As he tugged and twisted, I held my breath. It was such an intimate gesture, really, and I didn’t want to do or say anything to ruin the moment.

“What I want,” Thorin said, “is for you to stay alive at any cost.”

Thorin reached the end of the braid and looped the elastic band around to hold my hair in place. I patted the braid, and it felt smooth and even. Thorin the hairdresser, who would have guessed?

Thorin’s attentions brought him closer to me. His touch burned on my skin, prickling to the tips of my toes. Unlike Val, Thorin was reluctant to reach out to me, which is possibly why I savored his connection. But then I remembered Thorin’s warnings, his bald statements about his own self-interest. I stepped back from him before I did or said anything to invite his criticism again.

For the briefest of moments, Thorin’s brows drew together—in disappointment?—but then his face cleared, and he nodded. We had an understanding.

“Thank you,” I said, motioning to my hair.

Thorin waved aside my compliment. “Are you going to fight me on this? Are you going to give me a list of reasons why you should throw yourself in harm’s way, jeopardizing your whole world and mine so you can avenge your brother’s death?”

I threw up my hand, indicating he should stop. “See, there you go making assumptions, and it’s going to get us in a fighting mood again. You have a valid argument, and I’m going to give it all due consideration. I do want to come with you, want to find Hati and make him pay for killing Mani. But I’m no hero. Not really.”

“What would you do if I were to present Hati to you on a platter?” Thorin asked. “Would you kill him? Give him to the police? Have us banish him to a distant realm, never to return?”

I hesitated. “Could you do that?”

Thorin shrugged. “Maybe. It was possible long ago, but many of those ways were lost.”

“Because of Ragnarok?”

“Yes.”

Could I kill Hati? Did I actually want to see him tortured? I had been crying for justice all this time without really knowing what that meant. I ducked my head, unable to meet Thorin’s eyes. “I’m ashamed to say that I don’t know what I want.”

Thorin tucked his knuckles under my chin and turned my face toward his. “Maybe,” he said, “you should use this time to figure that out.”

The expression on his face revealed an uncharacteristic gentleness. I pulled back before I sank into his touch and gave myself away. “About staying or going. I’d like to have the night to think about it. Can I give you an answer in the morning?”

Thorin held himself still for a moment, but then he bobbed his head. “One more night won’t make a big difference in the grand scheme of things.”

I smiled at him. “Wow, look at us. We had a whole conversation where no one lost their temper and stormed off.”

“I assure you, I have never stormed off from anything.”

I turned and started for the Aerie. “No,” I said over my shoulder. “You’d beat your head against a brick wall and wouldn’t stop until it crumbled or your head caved in.”

Thorin didn’t answer, but I could swear I heard him laugh.

Chapter Thirty-three

I came awake that night, an unspent scream on my lips and my heart beating like an angry bumblebee thrashing against a window. Despite the chill in the night air, sweat soaked my sheets and pillow. I sat up, gasping for breath.

Skyla rolled over and looked at me with one bleary eye. “What’s the matter?”

I coiled the extra blanket from the foot of our bed around my shoulders and slipped out from under the damp covers. “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

“M-kay,” she said, and her next breath was the soft snuffle of deep sleep.

But it wasn’t nothing. Not if I believed all the amazing revelations that had come to me over the last month. Until I’d dreamed of Mani’s murder, I had dismissed most visions as uncanny coincidence or the heightened sensitivity of my subconscious picking up on clues overlooked when my awareness was overwhelmed by too many distractions.

More often than not, surrealism affected the tone of my premonitions, making them hard to decipher. The one that woke me this time was similarly bizarre, but it also elicited sensations similar to those that had assaulted me the night of Mani’s death. Truth and urgency had imbued both dreams. This was one vision I knew better than to ignore or dismiss.

I went to Tori’s apartment and knocked. When she took too long in responding, I knocked again. The floorboards on her side of the door creaked as she crossed to the door from her bed. I waited and clutched my hands together over my frantic heart. When Tori opened her door, irritation flashed across her face before she took in my frantic state. She quickly traded her annoyance for concern. “What is it, Solina? What happened?”

“Nothing yet, I hope. And if we’re careful, maybe nothing will.”

“What are you talking about?” Tori opened her door wider and motioned for me to come into her room.

“I’ve had a bad dream,” I said, wondering if she would laugh me off.

She didn’t. Instead, her eyes widened. “I’ve heard about your dreams.”

That stopped me in my place. “You have?”

“Alek told me.”

“He did?” Blabbermouth. But, then, I had to admit I was grateful Thorin had mentioned my peculiar ability to Tori because it had laid a foundation, making her more willing to listen… and to trust.

“He did, and he seemed quite convinced of their validity.” Tori motioned to a chair in the corner of her bedroom. I sat and clutched my blanket tighter around my shoulders while she went to perch on the top of the thick oak footboard at the end of her bed.

“What did you see?” Tori asked. “From the pallor of your face, I can’t imagine it was good news.”

“It’s never good news. For once I’d like to see when something good will happen. At this rate, I’ll be afraid to go to sleep anymore for fear of what I might see.”

Tori nodded. “Good surprises are always welcome, but when tragedy strikes, don’t people often say they wished they had had more time to prepare?”

“I see your point, but we digress.”

“Yes, we do.” She rocked forward, grasping her knees hard so that the whites of her knuckles showed. “So tell me already.”

“He’s going to die.”

“Who?”

I swallowed, trying to force down the thick lump forming in my throat. “Thorin.”

Tori cackled “Ha!” and then clapped her hand over her mouth, startled by her own outburst. She took her hand away and whispered, “He’s immortal.”

“In my understanding,” I said, “that only means he lives forever, not that he can’t be killed.”

Tori paused to let this sink in. “How? How does it happen?”

“It happens here, I’m sure of it. On the beach out past the house. There was lots of fog making everything blurry and hard to decipher, but I saw him lying there in the surf. There was lots of blood and a spear in his chest.” I patted my own chest at the place where my heart beat under the skin and bones. “Here. In his heart.”

“Gungnir,” she breathed.