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“Why should I promise you anything?”

“Because it all has to do with what’s happening and what’s going to happen to the Earth, and the people we care about. It could all go to hell if anyone finds out before the … the right time.”

“Your visions,” Gabi said slowly.

“Yes.” Ryan took a deep breath. “You may hate me when I tell you, but someone else has to know. Will you listen?”

In the end, she did. He told her almost everything but the part he still had to figure out himself, the part he couldn’t predict. He told her about Mother Skye, and how she’d taught him to control his visions so he wouldn’t have seizures or be helpless when they came. He told Gabi how, when he’d returned, he’d spent several days just watching and moving quietly around the compound, trying to decide if he could get someone to help him before he came out into the open.

“Why didn’t you come straight to me?” Gabi demanded. “Why did you have to hide at all?”

“It’s different than it used to be,” he said. “I’m not the same, Gab. I wish we could go back, but—”

“We can’t. I know.”

The way she spoke gave him hope that maybe she would understand. So he kept talking, explaining how he’d found Eir and realized what was happening to her.

“You knew she was dying?” Gabi asked, pacing around the room as if she was looking for something to punch.

“Yes,” Ryan said. “I knew she was going to die no matter what anyone did. She knew it, too. When I asked her to help me, she understood that it would make it … happen faster.”

“Why? Why would helping you hurt
her
?”

“Because…” Ryan met her gaze, though he was scared half to death. “I can see things more clearly now. Things that might or might not happen depending on what someone decides to do. I can see turning points, when the future might change. And right now …
now
is really important. This week, this month. I don’t know exactly, but even though I can see stuff, I can’t say anything about it. Because if I do, terrible things could happen.”

“But you told Eir?”

“Some of it, yes. I asked her to do something I couldn’t, hoping the consequences wouldn’t be so bad.”

“But she died!” Gabi started to cry again, though she didn’t make a sound. “What did you ask her to do?” She dropped down beside him. “Ry,
what did she do
?”

All at once he understood that he couldn’t tell her after all. Not because he didn’t trust her, but because Gabi would probably decide that
she
had to warn Mist about Freya, regardless of the risk.

“I’m sorry, Gabi,” he whispered. “It isn’t safe to tell you any more than I already have.”

“So you aren’t going to trust me?”

“For your sake, Gab. I don’t want you to get hurt, too.”

“Maybe you should let
me
decide. Eir was willing to die—”

“And I won’t let it happen to you!” Ryan shouted.

She looked at him for a long time, her face full of anger and fear and confusion and grief.

“You
are
different, Ry,” she said at last. “I used to always try to protect you, but now you’re trying to protect
me
.”

“That’s why I left without telling you,” he said, pleading with his eyes and his voice. “If I make one mistake, everything could go wrong. Everything could
end,
Gab.”

“So you’re more important than Mist, or Freya, or anyone else? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Not more important. But if I interfere, I have to be completely sure. And I may only have one or two chances. They have to be the
right
ones. And there’s still so much I can’t see.”

“This Mother Skye didn’t train you too well, did she?”

“She did her best,” Ryan said, trying not to sound defensive.

“And she found you through a vision?”

Ryan couldn’t bring himself to tell Gabi how Koji Tashiro had been involved. The lawyer had deceived him, and Gabi. He wasn’t what he’d seemed to be. But if he’d been dangerous to any of them, Mother Skye would have warned Ryan.

“She can’t act on her visions of the future anymore, even in small ways,” he said. “That’s why she needed me to help fight Loki, and for Midgard.”

“But who
is
she?”

“I’m sorry, Gab. She asked me not to tell. I can say that she’s old. Old as the gods. Someday, I promise you’ll understand.”

“Sure,” Gabi said bitterly. “Just like everything else.”

“Gab…” He took a risk and reached out to touch her. She started to move away, but stopped and let him put his hand on her shoulder.

“I didn’t want this,” he whispered. “I never did. If I hadn’t seen Mist in that dream … if I’d listened to you, and we’d just gone away instead of—”

“
Maldito,
” Gabi said, the word filled with anguish. “It ain’t your fault. You said certain things happen depending on what someone decides to do. I could have made you leave, but I didn’t.” She grabbed his hand and held on to it with so much strength that Ryan thought she might crush his bones. “Why did I have to lose Eir and get you back at the same time?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “If I could trade my life for hers—”

She leaned over and grabbed him, locking her arms around his shoulders and hugging him hard. “
Idioto
.
Estupido
.” Her tears dribbled on his shirt, and he found himself crying like a baby. The knot in his heart began to unwind.

“I need you, Gabi,” he said when he could talk again. “Will you help me?”

Gabi let him go and looked into his eyes. “Eir said to hold on to each other. I’ll do whatever I can.” She turned back to the cot and uncovered Eir’s face gently. “I don’t know what we’re going to do without—”

She gasped, and Ryan stared at Eir’s face. She looked … normal. Not shrunken, not old, but young and beautiful and strong.

“
Madre de Dios,
” Gabi murmured. She crossed herself and bowed her head. “
Está
en paz
.”

Ryan had never really been sure that there was a God with a capital
G.
At least not one that would hear a person’s prayers. But he was grateful that, somehow, Eir’s death had turned into something so peaceful. As if she really had been ready to go.

“I need to get the Apples back to the vault,” Gabi said, rising again.

“The vault?” Ryan asked.

“It’s protected by hundreds of spells. Freya, Mist, the Alfar, all of them put their magic into it.”

“And you know how to get in?”

“Mist trusts me,” Gabi said, pride lighting her face.

“Will you let me come with you?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded. “I trust
you,
” she said.

Gabi led him though the warehouse, out into the cold, windy afternoon, and across an expanse of concrete parking lot to another decrepit factory. Though he couldn’t see them, Ryan could feel many watching eyes, not all of them mortal. No one was going to get into this place unnoticed.

Apparently Mist really
did
trust Gabi, because she’d given her a series of spells that counteracted the others. “The opening spells change every day,” Gabi said by way of explanation. “Only three other people know them.”

As she entered the vault to replace the pouch in its nest of velvet, her hand brushed a piece of what looked to Ryan like some kind of staff, snapped raggedly in unequal halves. She gasped and snatched her hand back.

“What is it?” Ryan asked, touching her shoulder.

“Something … I don’t know.” She stared at the broken staff and slowly reached for it again. Her hands began to radiate warmth, and when she touched the polished wood she made a little sound of surprise.

Ryan looked on in astonishment as the two pieces of the staff slid toward each other. They came together with a click like a key fitting into a lock, and a moment later there was one flawless object extending well beyond the edge of the case, a beautiful weapon inscribed with Runes and all kinds of intricate Norse designs.

“
Mierda!
” Gabi said, awe in her voice. “I didn’t know I could do that.”

“You … healed it?” Ryan asked.

“I don’t know.” She ran her fingertips along the length of the staff, murmuring to herself. “
Esto es de locos,
” she said. “It’s alive.”

“What?”

“I mean, it
was
alive. There’s a place where…” She muttered again. “Where a soul used to be.”

“A
soul
?”

“That’s what I said,” she snapped. “I don’t get it any more than you do. I’m just telling you what I feel.”

Ryan wondered if the idea was as crazy as it sounded. The Treasures were special. No one—not even Mother Skye—knew what their ultimate purpose was, but from the very beginning Mist had been instructed to find them before Loki did. Everyone assumed they were weapons, but until Gabi had told him that Mist had given her permission to try using the Apple seeds on Eir, he’d thought no one but the gods could do anything with them.

In a way, he thought, the Treasures might symbolically carry the “souls” of the Aesir in terms of what they had been in Asgard, and what they hoped to be in the future.

Or maybe that was bullshit. Whatever it was, Mist obviously hadn’t known about it. Or about how to fix the staff.

“I’m gonna have to tell Mist what I did,” Gabi said, staring down at the staff. “How can I explain what happened? I shouldn’t even have been touching it.” She lifted her head. “Shit, how am I gonna tell Mist about
Eir
?”

Ryan felt sick all over again. He didn’t want to face them. He’d always known it would be hard to meet Mist again, but Dainn would be the worst. Knowing what Dainn was, how it could go wrong, but not being able to see that moment when the elf would have to make his most terrible choice, or exactly what that choice would be …

Just like with Mist.
She’d
have the biggest choice of all.

“It’s okay, Ry,” Gabi said, reading him as easily as always. “I won’t tell her anything you don’t want me to.”

“Just … don’t say anything,” he said. “For now, let me handle it. I don’t want anyone else to be hurt.”

“Yeah,” Gabi said. She met his gaze. “You seen Freya yet? In person, I mean?”

“No.” He shuddered. “I’ve heard people talking about her.”

“Bad things, I hope.” Gabi wrinkled her nose. “She no good, Ry.”

Ryan almost laughed, but he knew she’d take it the wrong way. “The war hasn’t gone any better now that she’s here?” he asked.

“Depends on what you mean by ‘better.’ But I don’t trust her, and I don’t think Mist does, either. My advice, just stay away from her.”

“I plan to,” Ryan said, wondering if he could keep that resolution. “Gabi … how is Dainn?”

Her eyes widened. “You don’t know?”

A leaden weight settled in the pit of Ryan’s stomach. “Did something happen?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she mumbled, looking down again. “He’s gone, Ry.”

“Gone? Where?”

She told him. He had to sit down on the floor afterward, dizzy with the knowledge that he’d never so much as envisioned the scenario she’d described.

“I’m sure he didn’t go willingly,” Ryan said, arguing more with himself than with Gabi. “He was afraid of the beast taking over, hurting—”

“Mist was always ready to help him, no matter what he did.” Gabi’s voice rose in anger. “She should never have trusted him.”

“But
something
made him do it. Something—” He broke off, remembering his last meeting with Dainn … how Dainn had let him go to Tashiro without trying to stop him. The elf had said he’d soon be incapable of harming Ryan. Did that mean he’d already expected to leave?

But then why would he tell Ryan to call him and Mist if he needed them? Ryan couldn’t think of any explanation but that Dainn hadn’t known exactly what was going to happen to him. He’d made one of those important choices.

There was something in play here that not even Mother Skye had anticipated.

“I’m sorry, Ry,” Gabi said softly. “Maybe he thought he could help Mist by going to Loki. I don’t know. But Freya … Ry?”

Freya
. Ryan clenched his teeth together. Gods knew what the Lady had told Mist about Dainn.

“Does Mist hate him now?” he asked.

“She doesn’t talk about him,” Gabi said. “But I don’t think so. Not the way she
should
.” Gabi sighed. “
Ay, joder
. I know how you felt about—”

“Forget it,” Ryan muttered. “Listen, you decide when you should tell Mist about Eir. I’m going to stay hidden until I know it’s time to show myself.” He shivered. “I’m really sorry, Gabi. And I promise I’ll tell you everything as soon as it’s safe.”

“I know, Ry. I know.” She bit her lip and lifted the Staff carefully, one hand on either side of the former break. “I’m never gonna be able to fit this back in the—”

All at once the smooth wood broke apart again, neatly and soundlessly, and Gabi was holding the two halves as if they had never been “healed” at all. Ryan couldn’t tell if she was upset or relieved. She moved quickly to replace the pieces in their case and closed the lid, murmuring the sealing spell.

“You go now, Ry,” she said, still chewing on her lower lip. “I’ll check in on you later.”

Ducking low, Ryan crept out of the building and started back for the infirmary. A figure moved among the shadows between two of the warehouses as he passed by, but he made himself keep walking and didn’t look back.

5

Loki tossed his overcoat to the butler and sauntered into the marble foyer. There were very few real mansions left in San Francisco, but this house in Pacific Heights could truly be called one of the most expensive and elegant in the city. Indeed, in the entire state.

Not, he thought a little sourly, that he could choose any other place in California, even if he wished to. Though he’d abandoned his suite in his downtown headquarters five months ago, fully separating his personal life—and Danny—from his many business interests—he was still confined to San Francisco. Confined, that was, if he wanted full access to the bridges.