“We’re not hunting the desert anymore,” he said. “There’s no need to hike. I’m in a hurry to move on.”

“What did you do with the bodies?” I had noticed when we finished packing up that the wolves were gone.

“Buried them. Seemed the decent thing to do.”

Unshed tears burned in my throat. I said nothing but nodded. The wolves were wild beasts, creatures of the natural world—not my brother, not a friend or a person—but I mourned them anyway. Theirs were three more lives lost to Helen’s scheming. Their deaths weren’t fair, even if they were sick and suffering. At least Thorin had given them quick mercy.

Once we stowed our packs in the back of the Yukon and climbed inside, I jacked up the heater. Thorin maneuvered, slowly and carefully, over the bumpy terrain until we reached pavement. The moment our wheels touched asphalt, he stomped on the accelerator and put the Mojave in our rearview mirror.

Later, when Thorin’s cell phone picked up a signal, it beeped, letting him know it had messages.

“Check those, will you?” He dug the phone from his hip pocket. “It’s probably Skyla wanting you to call her.” He was wrong.

Val’s voice played over the speakerphone: “Baldur’s gone. There is a handbasket on its way to hell, or maybe I should say on its way to Hela, and I’m pretty sure he’s in it.”

“Get to the point,” Thorin grumbled.

“Baldur said something about having found Nina, and he was going to get her. I’ve been calling him ever since. His phone rings straight to voice mail, and he’s refusing to respond to any of my other attempts to contact him. Call me.”

The message ended, and a monotone phone voice announced that Thorin had no new messages.

“Not now…” Thorin groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. “Call Val. Find out what he knows.”

Val picked up on the first ring. “Thorin, thank the gods.”

“It’s me,” I said. “We got your message. Thorin’s driving. I’m putting you on speaker.”

“What happened?” Thorin’s voice carried a hint of exasperation.

“Baldur got a call a couple of hours ago—right after we got back to Vegas. He started acting all secretive, going outside so I couldn’t hear his conversation. A few minutes later, he came into the room and said, ‘I found Nina. I’m going to get her,’ and then he left.”

“You didn’t stop him?” Thorin asked.

“How am I supposed to stop the Allfather when he wants to go somewhere? One minute he was there, and the next”—Val made a snapping noise—“he was gone.”

“He didn’t say where he was going? When he would be back?”

“No. He just went. He looked half crazed.”

“We’re on our way back. We’ll go after him as soon as I get there. Keep your phone at your side. Call me if anything changes. We should be there in another hour or so.” With that, Thorin ended the call and dropped his phone into the console between us.

“You know,” I said. “From the moment I first met him, Baldur seemed a little… unstable. It’s gotten worse.”

“I’ve not seen him like this in a long time. His experience with Helen was…” Thorin scratched his jaw while he thought of what to say. “It was torturous. It broke him. He’s not the person he was before.”

“You’re going after him again?”

“I have to. If Helen gets her hands on him, I’m not sure he’ll survive it.”

“He’s immortal.”

Thorin looked at me from the corner of his eye. “That’s even more reason to keep her from him. She can’t kill him, but she can make him wish he was dead.”

When we reached the outskirts of Las Vegas, Thorin’s phone rang again, and Skyla’s name flashed on the caller ID. Thorin held out the phone to me. “You should probably answer.”

I swiped the Answer icon and uttered the beginning of a greeting, but Skyla cut me off. “Stop talking and listen to me.”

“Okay, okay. What’s going on?”

Skyla’s voice shook as she said, “You have to get out here, now. The Aerie’s been attacked.”

“Attacked? What are you talking about?”

“Put her on speaker,” Thorin said, and I did as he instructed.

“Someone set fire to the place, and it’s burning right now, as we speak. More like a bomb than a fire. It trapped some of the Valkyries in the dormitory wing. They couldn’t get out. They… they…” Skyla muffled a moan, but her grief carried across the airwaves, regardless. “There’ve been women on guard duty since your dream, Solina, but they didn’t know what was going on until it was too late. It all happened so fast.”

“What about you?” I demanded. “Are you all right?”

“I couldn’t sleep, so I was out in the training barn. The dormitories, though… By the time we broke through the fire, she… she…” Skyla fell into weeping again and couldn’t finish her story.

“She who? Who did this?”

Skyla took a deep, wobbly breath, trying to regain her composure. “Tori. One of the sisters here fought her, tried to stop her, but she got away.”

“How many?” asked Thorin, his tone flat and lifeless. “How many were lost?”

“M-maybe half. We managed to save some of the women. Some are still on the fence. They’ve already been taken to the hospital. Maybe fifteen of us are left, but they’re spooked.”

Thorin gripped the steering wheel tightly enough for his knuckles to go white, and the leather creaked in protest. “Skyla, something’s come up. We can’t come to the Aerie right away. I want you to try to hold the survivors together. Don’t let anyone leave. Solina and I will be there as soon as possible, but it may be a day or two.”

“Wait.” Skyla’s tone changed from pained to confused. “What are you talking about? What’s happened that could be more important than this?”

“Yes, Thorin,” I said. “This is no coincidence. Not after my dream about the fire sword. This might be our chance to track down Surtalogi. We have to go before the trail goes cold.”

“I have other obligations,” he growled.

“What the hell is he talking about, Solina? And what dream are you talking about? What sword?”

“He’s talking about Baldur,” I said. “He’s gone again. The dream is a long story. I’ll tell you about it when I see you.”

“Baldur’s insane.” Skyla had moved past confusion and was steaming toward fury. “He’s put everything in jeopardy with his bullheaded pursuit of a ghost. Let him go. This is more important.”

“I agree,” I said.

“Look, Skyla,” Thorin said. “Do what you can. See what you can find out. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”