Thorin looked at me over his shoulder. His breath rushed past my temple. “Trust me?”

I hesitated. “Just a minute ago, you were threatening me.”

“Solina.”

“Okay, okay.”

“Do it. Light up the night.” My period of recuperation at the hotel had restored my powers—not to full capacity, but close enough. My fire show in the warehouse was nothing compared to the energy required to convert to that other state, and I had bounced back a lot faster. I stepped away from Thorin and let the flames out in two blazing fireballs that filled my palms. Oh, and it felt so good, like scratching a hard-to-reach itch.

“Keep it low,” Thorin said. “Don’t burn out all at once.”

I clenched my jaw. “I know what I’m doing.”

Thorin knelt beside me, and my light flickered over him like a campfire. He raised his weapon high, the Hammer of Thor, and brought it crashing down to the earth. Starting from the impact point, a crack shot out across the ground, growing and widening as it went—total special effects moment, but it was real. Thorin and I fell back as the crack turned into a fissure that bloomed into a crevasse six or eight feet deep and about the same width.

The wolves came to the edge, baring their teeth and growling.

“A male and two females,” Thorin said as he drew back his hammer, preparing for a throw. “They’re all wild. Skoll’s not here, but he’s got to be close.”

After a flash of movement, one wolf went rolling, screeching, head over heels like a tumbleweed. It slumped into a furry pile and did not rise again. The other two wolves skittered away.

“Oh my God,” I wheezed.

Thorin grinned at me and leapt over the crevasse, graceful as a lion. He called his hammer back into his fist, and he searched the darkness for signs of the other wolves.

“We can’t keep this up all night,” I said. “I won’t last long at this rate.”

“Just one mistake on their part is all it takes.”

Rocks clattered behind me, and I spun around in time to duck a flying ball of gray fur. The wolves Thorin had sent into retreat had recovered and gone the long way around for a rear attack. One wolf, the gray one, rolled midair and landed at the fissure’s edge. The other wolf, a brownish one, came toward me in a crouch. Thorin threw his hammer as I lunged at the gray wolf, meaning to shove him into the crevasse. The victim of Thorin’s hammer, the brown wolf, barked a painful cry and fell silent. My prey yelped and darted around, moving more like a fish than a wolf. My fingers brushed his coat, singeing him, but he flitted aside before I could really hurt him.

“God, they’re fast,” I said.

The astringent stink of singed fur wafted to my nose. The gray wolf hunkered several yards away and growled at me. He wasn’t Skoll—he was too small and dark.

I bared my teeth and laughed at him, doing my best Skyla impression. “What are you waiting for?”

His muzzle crinkled into a mask of rage, and his teeth glistened in my light. He snarled and leapt toward me. I braced for his impact and called out more flames, but he twisted midleap, landed several feet away, and dashed around the edge of the crevasse, heading for Thorin.

“Thorin!” I shrieked.

He spun, bringing Mjölnir around in an arc that connected with the gray wolf. At the same time, a fourth wolf sprinted forward, appearing like a ghost from the darkness. He leapt for me, teeth bared, snarl ripping apart the night.

Skoll.

I gathered the remains of my fire, imagining nuclear bombs and sunbursts, and lunged to meet him. Skoll shrieked, a howl of mortal pain, and everything went as bright as a million flash bulbs. I was going, crossing over that line, the transition and loss of self. That conversion was happening again, and I couldn’t stop it.

“No, no, not now. Not now,” I said, as if protesting could help.

Nothing could help, though. Nothing could stop me.

But then, a boom of thunder… and another.

A torrent of rain gushed down as though God had gathered all the oceans and poured them over me, and all the lights went out.

Chapter Fifteen

I came back to myself, aware of cold wetness but not much else.

“Sunshine?”

I pried open my eyes but wrenched them shut again when a blinding light stabbed into my field of vision. “Ow!”

“Sorry.” Thorin clicked off his flashlight, and darkness enveloped me again.

I was zipped up in my sleeping bag, snug as a bug in a rug—a bare-naked bug. After freeing an arm from my mummy bag, I raked damp tendrils of hair from my face and asked, “Why am I wet?”

“I put out your fire. Is that how it happened at the lake in New York?”

“Yes.” I heaved a sigh. “I gotta work on it. I can control it up to a certain point, but after that…” I puffed out my cheeks, made an explosion noise, and spread apart my fingers, miming the disbursement of smoke and flames. “It’s all or nothing.”

The fire had burned away my clothing, and yet again, Thorin had seen to the defense of my modesty—what little of it was left.

“Oh God,” I groaned.

“What?”

“I was just realizing…” Realizing I’ve lost count of the number of times you’ve seen my bare behind.

Thorin crouched beside me and watched a pot of water bubbling on my butane stove. He kept his face turned, showing only his profile. Good. Talking was easier without the discomfort of his direct stare.

“Would you mind getting a shirt from my bag for me?” I asked.

Thorin’s lips curled, and even from the side, I could tell he was smirking.

“Already ahead of you.” He pointed at a stack of clothes lying on the ground between us.

I snatched the pile and slithered farther into the sleeping bag. “What do you mean you put me out?” I asked as I wriggled into the leggings and a long-sleeved thermal. “This is a desert. Where did you find—” I remembered the storm. “You went all God of Thunder, didn’t you? Wish I had been aware of it. I bet it was awesome.”

“You weren’t so bad yourself.” Thorin lifted the pot, poured steaming water into a mug, gave it a stir with a spoon from my mess kit, and presented it to me.

I scooted out of the sleeping bag, took the mug, and sniffed—hot chocolate.

“I’ve never seen anything like what you did, not since the days of the original Sol.”

Fresh from the pan like that, the hot chocolate should have scalded me, but I drained it in a couple of giant gulps and held it out for a refill, doing my best Oliver Twist impression: “Please, sir, I want some more.”

Thorin filled my mug again, dumped in two Swiss Miss packets, and stirred it into a thick, sugary mess.