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Air was the most difficult of all natural elements to control. Few Alfar possessed the knowledge, art, or natural talent to do so, beyond making use of simple seeking spells. Only a handful of the Aesir and Vanir could match Konur’s ability.

Mist did, through the ancient magic. But Mist wasn’t here.

“If you continue,” Konur called, “you will release the creature again. I feel it even now. Can you control it, or will it rampage through this camp, killing everything that stands in its path?”

Dainn got to his knees and pressed his hands to the broken surface beneath them, letting the sharp edges cut into his palms. Ryan ran up to him and knelt beside him.

“Don’t,” Ryan begged. His voice was thick. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see him coming.”

“O … kay,” Dainn whispered.

“Don’t touch him,” Ryan hissed as Konur came to stand over them.

“I will not harm him,” Konur said, dropping into a crouch.

“Even if Freya tells you to?”

“Is this something you have seen in your visions, boy?” Konur asked.

Dainn stared into Konur’s eyes, willing the elf-lord to remember what he had said of the beast moments before. And what it could do to
him
.

“The mortal will be safe, I promise you,” Konur said, meeting Dainn’s gaze.

“Who
are
you?” Ryan asked suddenly. “What do you have to do with the frost giant who attacked Mist at the loft nine months ago?”

The frost giant,
Dainn thought. Svardkell, who had revealed himself to be Mist’s father before dying of wounds received after he had been forced by Loki to attack his own daughter. Dainn remembered briefly speaking to Ryan about the captive Jotunn after the giant’s death had abnormally affected the young man’s mind, but he had given very little detail.

And
he
would never have linked a long-dead Jotunn with Freya’s elf-lord.

“I do not understand you,” Konur said to Ryan. But Dainn saw that his eyes had grown hard, almost threatening, and Dainn realized that Konur
did
understand.

Moving quickly, Dainn seized Ryan’s arm and pulled him away from Konur. Ryan permitted himself to be dragged a few feet and then locked his knees.

“His name was Svardkell,” Ryan continued, mouth tight. “I felt him die. I know you’re connected with him somehow.” He jerked up his chin. “Were you already here then? Did you kill him?”

Dainn tensed, ready to take whatever measures were necessary to protect Ryan. But Konur’s expression changed to one of grim resignation.

“You are far more than you have led Freya to believe,” he said. He glanced at Dainn. “There is something I would tell you. If you could speak, I would wait. But I am confident that my spell will hold as long as I require it to, and perhaps you will trust me when you understand.”

“
Lie,
” Dainn rasped, lunging forward. Ryan grabbed him.

“Why did you put a spell on Dainn?” Ryan asked.

“There are more important matters to discuss,” Konur said. He turned to Dainn again. “Does the boy know that the giant was Mist’s father?”

“Mist’s—” Ryan released Dainn as if all the strength had gone out of his wiry body. “Dainn?”

Dainn nodded, trying to convey his regret with his gaze.

“Evidently he did not,” Konur said. “Does Mist?” Dainn stared at him. “I see that she does.” He met Ryan’s eyes. “It must have been a terrible thing to feel a stranger’s death. But given your close association with Mist…” He sighed. “I do not know how much else you may be aware of, but there are still secrets that must be kept. Secrets that, I assure you, will harm neither Dainn nor Mist.”

“Why should I believe anything you say?” Ryan asked hotly.

“Perhaps you will believe that I, like Svardkell, am Mist’s father.”

19

Find the other fathers,
Dainn thought, setting aside his shock. That was what Svardkell had told Dainn as he died, words which Dainn had never passed on to Mist.

He had no reason to believe Konur. But he did. It was obvious to him now …
now,
when he was helpless to act on the knowledge.

“Mist has
two
fathers?” Ryan whispered. “But that isn’t—”

“We speak of a goddess, young mortal,” Konur said. “I knew Svardkell. He was a good man.”

“But he tried to kill Mist!” Ryan said.

“I did not know how he planned to reach Mist,” Konur said, “but he sought to bring her a message. If he attempted to harm her, it was because he was coerced.”

“Lo … ki,” Dainn managed.

Konur’s eyes narrowed. “Another crime for which he must pay, among ten thousand others. But now, perhaps, you will understand that I would never hurt my own daughter. I care for her deeply.”

“You still haven’t proven that you don’t work for Freya,” Ryan said.

“Have I attempted to kill your friend?” Konur said, nodding toward Dainn.

“Will you stop Freya if she tries to hurt Dainn or Mist?”

“What are you implying?”

“She—” Ryan turned bright red and clamped his lips together. That was when Dainn was sure that Ryan knew what Freya intended.

But it made no sense that he’d keep such knowledge to himself. Perhaps, if Freya had somehow discovered what he knew, and threatened him …

But surely she would have had him silenced, permanently. Short of such foul measures, she couldn’t stop Ryan from taking a risk, even a very dangerous one, to help a friend. He was not afraid for himself.

Dainn broke from his thoughts to find that Konur and Ryan were still speaking, Ryan asking questions and Konur clearly growing more angry by the moment. Calling on the attenuated natural life that still clung to the fragments of buried ships and old piers—once transported from other parts of the old city to extend the city’s reach into the bay—Dainn drew that life into his body, and ran. With every pounding step his speed increased, until the beast began to rise, pumping his veins full of animal vigor.

Then the shockwave hit him, and he knew no more.

*   *   *

“She is awake, and wants to see you,” Konur said.

Mist raked her fingers through her loose hair. She’d barely slept, and she longed for a shower the way Odin’s wolves Geri and Freki hungered for meat. But it had been nearly twelve hours since she and Freya had returned from the battle for Sleipnir, and all that time Mist had been haunted by the question she had never quite found the right moment to ask.

She’d hoped she’d think of another way to learn the truth. Freya still had no reason to admit any complicity in Danny’s attempted murder. And once the accusation was made, there would be no going back.

Pushing the pile of reports across the table to Roadkill, she got up and tried to clear her thoughts of names and numbers and locations. It had been remarkably quiet on the streets since Sleipnir’s abduction; the Jotunar bully-boys who drew Mist’s warriors into alley fights and midnight battles had all but vanished.

If both Danny and Sleipnir were lost to Loki, at least for the time being, it made sense that he wouldn’t attempt any kind of assault. Considering that Mist had managed to put off her “mass summoning” of mortal allies once again, she wouldn’t be ready if Loki decided he could afford to throw all caution to the winds. She wondered if she should go to Ryan and learn if he’d foreseen trouble in the near future.

But she’d promised him she wouldn’t ask. And he wasn’t talking. As she threw on her jacket, Mist realized that she hadn’t laid eyes on him or Gabi since just after Ryan’s reappearance.

She hadn’t talked to Dainn since his recapture, either. He’d been unconscious when Konur brought him back, and she hadn’t even taken the time to make personally sure he was okay.

She put that thought out of her mind, along with all the others. “Give me a few minutes, Konur,” she said. She took the shower, restoring her hair to its natural color, and followed Konur across the street.

Bryn met her at the front door—Bryn, alight with vitality for the first time since she’d voluntarily taken on the job of Freya’s personal assistant. Her brown eyes sparkled; her skin and hair, nearly the same tone, were glossy with health. Her petite, wiry body seemed to shed raw energy like a storm about to break.

“Mist!” she said, holding out her arms.

It took Mist about another three seconds to realize what was wrong. She stopped abruptly, and Konur nearly ran into her.

“Where’s Bryn?” she asked, her voice beginning to shake.

“I see I didn’t deceive you,” Freya said, lowering her arms. “No matter. Bryn is perfectly well. She lent me her body for a time, but her soul is quite safe.”

“Where?”

“Because of her generosity, I had the strength I needed to secure her soul in one of the Treasures … the one she once carried for the Aesir.” She touched her chest, and Mist saw that the Falcon Cloak hung in its tiny feathered pouch from a cord around her neck. “She will be safe here, against my heart.”

“What happened to the body you occupied before?”

“I have placed a spell upon it, to hold it in stasis until it can be properly healed and returned to its rightful owner in Ginnungagap.”

“You had no right to take Bryn,” Mist said, still caught up in a fog of denial and disbelief.

“It was her choice,” Freya said with an air of impatience. “I hear that Sleipnir is in the wind. I thought you would consider it a priority to regain him and retrieve the Aesir.”

“You think you can manage that now?”

“Bryn has a remarkable store of power she has never been able to tap,” Freya said. “I will be able to do many things.”

“Bryn has power?” Mist asked. “Magic?”

“I always sensed it, which is why I kept her near me.”

“You always intended to do this, didn’t you?” Mist took a step closer to Freya. “What else have you tried to do without mentioning it to anyone else? What about—”

“Mist,” Konur said, laying his hand on her shoulder. She felt a spell coursing through his fingers and into her body, and turned sharply to face him.

“What are
you
afraid of, Konur?” she demanded.

Say nothing
.

The voice was in her head, the way Dainn’s had been more than once before the beast had begun to interfere. The way Freya’s had been when she and Mist had fought for Sleipnir, telling Mist to strike. To
let go
.

She stared at the elf-lord defiantly, prepared to disobey his unspoken command. But it was as if the mental contact had extinguished all her doubts about him. If he’d placed a spell in her mind, she couldn’t detect it.

“Konur is afraid of very little,” Freya said, as if there had been no pause in the conversation. “Now, I suggest we waste no time in beginning the search for the Steed. Of course, we must work closely together. I would not wish to overtax this body as I did the other.”

Mist took a deep breath. “You want to join our powers,” she said.

“And our minds. If you had not resisted this joining in the past, we might easily have stopped the protest without speeding the deterioration of my other body, and prevented Sleipnir from being taken.”

Might,
Mist thought. Or might not. But with so much at stake, she had no sound argument to offer against trying Freya’s method. And if she could see into Freya’s mind, she might learn what she wanted to know.

And Freya could do the same with me,
she thought. All her doubts could be exposed. Everything she knew about Danny, and Dainn, and other subjects she’d chosen not to broach with her mother.

“I’m willing to try,” Mist said. “But only if there’s a way we can blend our abilities without invading each other’s thoughts.”

“That would require a fine degree of control,” Freya said, displeasure in Bryn’s husky voice. “But children must always keep secrets from their parents. We shall attempt it.”

Mist inclined her head, the most gratitude she was willing to extend. “When do you want to start?” she asked.

“I am ready,” Freya said, spreading her hands wide. “If you are presently free of obligations…”

“I’ll talk with my advisors and make sure I’m covered. We need privacy, I assume?”

“I would suggest the small warehouse you have not yet refurbished. We will not be disturbed there.”

With a brief nod of acknowledgment, Mist asked Konur to select an elven guard to stand watch over the unfinished warehouse. While she arranged to have council members assume her regular work—enjoining them not to tell anyone else that she’d be temporarily unavailable—Freya prepared the warehouse’s interior to her liking. Mist finally dropped by the Alfar camp to make sure that Dainn was well and left without seeing him. Joining magically with a mother she didn’t trust seemed more palatable than confronting Dainn face-to-face.

Returning to the loft for a hasty snack, Mist found Anna waiting in the kitchen. Her face seemed strange to Mist, and not only because they hadn’t talked much in the past few weeks. There was less delicacy in Anna’s features: the bone structure seemed more pronounced, the jaw firmer, the brow stronger.

But it was Anna’s soft, hesitant voice that asked her about Sleipnir.

“Have you found him yet?” she asked, twisting her hands together at her waist.

“Sit down,” Mist said, pointing to a chair. “It’s only been a little over twelve hours. What’s got you so upset? Worrying about Sleipnir isn’t part of your job description.”

“Everything seems to be going wrong,” Anna said. She stood behind the chair but didn’t sit. “Now that almost all the Treasures are accounted for, I’m not much good to anyone.”

“That’s not true,” Mist said. She leaned over the table, trying to make sense of Anna’s mood and remembering that she’d seemed equally disturbed when Mist had returned from the protest. “You and the other IT people are doing important work by monitoring what Loki and his followers are up to around the city. Just because we haven’t acted on all the information doesn’t mean that—”

“I’m failing him,” Anna whispered.

“Who?”

Anna seemed not to hear Mist. “Why didn’t Fenrir take Sleipnir to Loki?”