“I’m sure,” Skyla said, and then she shuddered. “Anything but a city. I feel the layers of grime and gunk building up on my skin. Why do you think I moved to Siqiniq?”
“Because you like snow, and darkness, and cold, and—”
Skyla punched my shoulder and hopped to the floor. “Get dressed. We have to go put on our game faces for Thorin. He’s a pretty cool Boss Man. I’d hate to see him dead.”
Chapter Thirty-four
Skyla and I met Inyoni, Kalani, Tori, Thorin, and Val in the dining room over bowls of oatmeal and hardboiled eggs. They sat at the rustic wooden table but left seats open for the late arrivals. Val swirled his spoon around his bowl, not eating and refusing to look at me. My heart cramped. I never wanted this strangeness between us, but I did want him to ease his bullheaded attempt to claim me. But considering the dangers facing us all, that once he left there was a good chance I might never see him again, I would try once more to make peace with Val, if it was at all possible.
“Tori tells me you’ve agreed to stay,” Thorin said.
Val’s head jerked up, but he kept his gaze focused on his breakfast. Thorin had a bowl as well, but it rested at his elbow, and the spoon lying next to it was clean. Did he never eat?
“We talked about it last night,” I said. “The arguments for it outweigh the arguments against.”
Thorin’s attention shifted to Skyla. “What about you, Ramirez?”
Skyla scraped her bowl and fished out a few stray walnuts. “I’m staying with Solina.”
Thorin tilted his head, and his brows drew together. “What about your job?”
Skyla didn’t hesitate. “My job is protecting her.”
The conviction in her words startled me. I started to say something in her defense, but Thorin beat me to it. “Good,” he said. “You’ll stay on my payroll. I can’t afford for you to quit on Solina because of financial constraints.” His gaze turned to me. “I’m leaving money with you as well.”
I studied Thorin’s face. He kept his emotions guarded, revealing nothing. “You keep acting like this, doing all these generous things, and I’m not going to believe you anymore when you tell me it’s for your own gain.”
“Keep yourself alive. It’s all I ask in return. An investment in you is an investment in my future.”
I grunted at that, but otherwise left his comment alone. I shifted my gaze between Thorin and Val, who kept his attention pinned to his placemat. “You two better get on the road soon,” I said. “You might make it to Vegas by tonight.”
“We’ll be there sooner than that,” Thorin said.
“Oh? Are you going to fly?” They had arrived in a huge, black, king-cab Tacoma, so I assumed they would drive the truck back.
Thorin raised one shoulder then dropped it. “Something like that.” And as if reading my mind, he said, “I’m leaving the truck for you, but I don’t expect you to use it unless utterly necessary.”
“‘Something like that’?” I asked. “What does that mean? Do you wiggle your nose like Samantha on Bewitched and just”—I snapped my fingers—“disappear?” There was more to the gods’ supernatural abilities than they let us see, and curiosity prickled under my skin like an itch that was hard to scratch.
Thorin only arched an eyebrow and shrugged.
“How do you know Helen can’t trace that truck here?” Skyla asked. “I bet you’re not the only ancient dude who knows how to hack a GPS or find you on a traffic cam somewhere. How many toll booths did you go through to get here?”
“The truck is a ghost, I assure you.” Thorin shoved his chair away from the table and stood. Val and the two Valkyries followed after him without glancing again in my direction.
Skyla and I gathered the breakfast dishes and started a sink of soapy water. Skyla pushed up her shirt sleeves and plunged her hands into the suds. “The Valkyries all made up some lame excuses about needing to make preparations and left us with clean-up duty.”
“Why didn’t you tell them to shove it?”
“I’m trying to make nice,” Skyla said, swiping a soapy rag around a bowl before handing it to me to rinse and dry.
I grabbed a dry towel and went to work. “Since when do you care about good impressions?”
Skyla flicked her wet fingers at me, and I retaliated by flinging soap bubbles at her. “I’m good at toeing the line for a cause I believe in,” she said.
“And you believe in the Valkyries?”
Skyla paused in her washing and gazed out the window above the sink. “Tori and I talked for a while. It sort of felt like an interview. She promised to research my family history when things calmed down some.”
I held my breath, not daring to say anything. Skyla tried to come across as blasé, but our common cause had drawn us close, and I knew her well enough to sense how much she wanted this.
“I think all of us were fated to come together,” she said. “You, Mani, Thorin, Val, the Valkyries—and me. Everyone has a part to play in this, and everyone is super-something. What am I doing in the middle of this, if I’m not something else, too?”
I didn’t dare say that Skyla had a part in this because she was the type who refused to be left out. She would push her way into the middle of all the excitement, but then, maybe that was the point. Maybe Skyla was the way she was because she needed to be here, at this moment, doing the things she was doing, doing the things I needed her to do.
“If there is anyone in this world who knows exactly who they are,” I said, “it’s you. If you believe your bloodline is Valkyrie, then I don’t dare argue. Hell, you know yourself so well, I bet you could single-handedly code your own DNA.”
Skyla studied me for a second before turning her attention to the dishes. “If you were anyone else, I’d kick your butt for being a smart-ass. From you, though, I know it’s sincere. Thanks.”
After we finished the dishes, Skyla and I went upstairs to pack our things, but I stopped short of following Skyla into our room. Val’s door stood partway open and inviting. Time to bite the proverbial bullet and go see if it was possible to mend things between us. I didn’t have so many friends willing to defend me against mythological beasts that I could afford to lose any of them, no matter their motivations for helping me. Val and I had three years of history, and the last four months would have been unbearable without him. Before I gave up on him entirely, I had to know whether there was anything salvageable between us.
Val must have heard me, because he came to the doorway of his room before I knocked, and he wore an impatient pout. “What do you want, Solina? I can hear your teeth grinding all the way down the hall.”
“I’ve come to extend an olive branch,” I said. “I care about you too much to let you leave with these bitter feelings between us.”
Val crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorjamb. “I don’t want your apology.”
I reeled back as if Val had returned the blow I’d given him the last time we spoke. He grabbed my arm and pulled me into his room. I was too stunned to protest.
