11

Present day

I froze where I stood and peered into the gathering dark along the tree line behind my cabin. Listening. Waiting.

I felt it again. My magic whispered, not a far-off memory of power, but unseen white light filling the air around me. In the tight darkness of midnight, wispy streamers of color danced just out of sight, winking like invisible prisms.

But I could feel them. They were there.

I reached for the white light, not with my fingers but with my mind.

The light hesitated, and when it moved, it moved sluggishly. Magic is less strong outside its native world, I recalled. But slow or not, the light came, drowning me in its brilliance.

Joy clutched my heart. The colors embraced me. For a long moment, I simply stood there, head tipped back and tears on my face, like a woman welcoming home her long-lost lover.

In the back of my mind, I felt the gravity of what the return of my magic meant. It took a little longer for that feeling to formulate into words.

It means I can go home.

I inhaled sharply, as if the wave of homesickness that struck me had a physical weight. I ached to weave the white light I held into the forms that would open a bridge, right then and there.

But another understanding was trying to dawn, one that came with a warning tingle. So I forced myself to just breathe, slow and cautious breaths as I waited for the shrieking elation of my returned power to settle. As it did, as I calmed, fearful confusion as sharp as my previous joy darkened the moment.

What had changed? After years of being blocked from my magic, I wanted more than anything to dive into the colors, to open the bridge and rush to—

To where? Alfheim? That world no longer lived. Asgard’s golden woods and emerald meadows? No one would be waiting in those woods or meadows for me.

And my magic had been taken to begin with for a reason—one I’d eventually puzzled out and even understood, although I hated how the decision had been carried out. What it boiled down to was that the Aesir hadn’t trusted me.

Which raised the question again—what had changed? Why had my magic been restored, and how?

And then a new question crept into the midst of the others, scattering them like birds in the presence of a sharp-clawed cat.

Who might be coming to take back my magic?

I released the white light I’d drawn close and peered again into the darkness of the surrounding woods. This time, it wasn’t light and colors I looked for. I backed up the steps to the deck, slow with caution and feeling my way as I strained to see or hear or feel any movement in the darkness. If more than the colors approached me, I wanted to see him coming.

A heart-pounding moment later, my elbow brushed the deck’s railing. I turned toward the cabin door and snatched it open.

Silence greeted me, laced with the reassuring bitter-sweet of oil paints and coffee. I closed the door behind me and breathed deeply, trying to orient myself to this new world that was just like the old.

Except that my colors sang again. Despite my fear, my blood danced in reply.

I stood in the large central room of my cabin and tried to reason my way into what I should do next. Denim and seams scraped my palms as I rubbed them against my jeans.

My restored power zinged through my veins. Colors seemed more vivid, edges in my cabin sharper, the air crisper. I felt stronger. More alive.

No one is taking my magic again. This time, I won’t let him.

Which brought me to the thing I’d been contemplating off and on all day to begin with.

Decision made. Time to go.

I was across the room and through the door to my bedroom before I’d even finished the thought. The back of my closet netted an empty suitcase and a pair of well-used cardboard boxes.

I didn’t need to think about packing—this was a practiced exercise. Open the drawers, fling folded clothes into the suitcase. Empty the bathroom counter and medicine cabinet on top of the clothes. I yanked bedding off the mattress and lumped it into the laundry hamper atop the handful of clothes already there.

Bedroom, packed.

The cardboard boxes went into the living area with me. One was for the few kitchen items I deemed worthy of bothering with. The cabin had come furnished—everyplace I’d lived since being exiled to Midgard had come furnished—so I didn’t have to fuss with pots and pans and plates. What room was left in the first box and the entirety of the second became the target of packing up the remainder of my belongings—brushes and bottles and tubes, palettes and sketch pads. I could toss a few of the dried paintings and unused canvases into the back of the Jeep loose.

If there was time.

I have my magic back. I need to go.

Leaving the packed boxes on the counter near the cabin’s front door, I gathered loose clothes into one arm, hangers dangling precariously from them. I flung open the front door, reached for my suitcase with my free hand—

—and nearly ran face first into Claire, standing square in front of my door with one hand lifted toward the bell.

Claire. Here? At this hour?

Claire’s big dark eyes had been freshly ringed in black eyeliner. Red lipstick nearly as dark blotted her mouth. Same pants, but she’d changed her blouse to a black linen number with geometric cutouts.

As I whipped open the door, Claire flinched back. But then she just stood there, dressed in her usual black on black wardrobe combination and blinking like a waking child. Strands of her jet hair fluttered in the night breeze.

Slowly, Claire’s head bobbed as her gaze traveled to my arms and what I held in them and then back to my face.

“Take me with you.” Claire whispered, her voice a barely audible rasp.

As I had earlier that day, I caught a whiff of what I assumed was stale pot smoke hanging in the air around Claire.

I hesitated. Beyond Claire, the Jeep waited. Two, maybe three trips with my scant belongings, and I could be behind the wheel and moving.

Claire blinked again. “Please. I don’t know where you’re going, but take me with you.”

Hadn’t I decided to escape emotional connections? But also as I had earlier in the day, I felt compelled to at least ask.

“What happened, Claire?”

Claire’s eyes welled up. “There’s this guy…”

Impatience rolled over me. I’ve heard this one already.

“You can’t run from your problems, Claire.” The words felt stilted and trite and far too harsh as they fell from my mouth.

Claire continued as if she hadn’t heard my attempt to cut things short.

“We got high.” Claire blinked. “Earlier tonight. Just smoked some hash. But.”

Claire paused, shifted from foot to foot, and glanced past me.

I should invite her in. But my next thought was, I don’t have time for this.

“He’s really amazing.” Claire said it like a mantra.

Like she’s trying to convince herself.

I frowned. “If you’re so upset about him all the time then I don’t see how amazing he could be.”

“I think he slipped me something stronger.” Claire blurted these words like she had to force them around the edges of the other.

I frowned harder.

“The things I see and feel when I’m with him…” Claire’s expression drifted back toward dreamy. “It’s just so… much. Like, I can really sense the psychic world.”

“Claire.” I forced myself to sound stern. But also patient. I need to hurry. “This guy is drugging you?”

Claire’s eyes welled up again. Tears smudged her black-rimmed eyes. “I think… maybe. Yeah.”

She needs help. You cannot just leave her when she needs help.

I glanced again toward the Jeep. The colors of my recently-returned magic danced along my skin, chiming their added chorus to my sense of urgency.

Heimdal could be coming.

“Grab a box.” I stepped to one side of the open cabin doorway. “And get in the Jeep.”

Claire’s eyes widened. A smile flickered beneath her brick red lipstick.

But the smile faded before it really got started. Claire glanced back at her van, parked alongside my Jeep, as if reconsidering her request.

I do not have time for this.

“If you’re coming with me…” I side-stepped Claire and hurried toward the Jeep, speaking over my shoulder as I went. “Then grab a box. And get into the Jeep.”