28

Present day

“Don’t move.” I reached for Claire, wrapped my fingers around one wrist, and guided her away from the white blossoms she’d uncovered.

Claire stumbled forward with reluctance. “You just told me not to move. Now you’re moving me.”

I flashed a smile and an eyeroll at her. “You just found what we’ve been looking for.”

I bent and reached into the shadows. As I tugged the whole plant free from the soft earth, a new thought finally occurred to me.

I had the plant. I had no way whatsoever to turn it into a form that would be useful to Claire. Preparing a tincture required water, a pan, a heat source…

Shit.

Water, we could find. The well at the city’s center, maybe. Although whether the drawing system still worked, I had my doubts. There had been a lake on the farther side of the city. That would be another long hike, of course.

“Iris?”

“Hang on. I just need to figure out—”

“I’m not feeling so great.”

This time, I heard the slurring in Claire’s words. I whirled around.

Claire lowered herself to her knees. She pressed both hands flat against her chest, just by her collarbone. Her breathing came in fast pants, the movement of her diaphragm exaggerated.

My own breathing quickened.

Choking? No—I could hear the rasp of her breath.

Don’t be stupid.

Hyperventilating. I knelt beside Claire and put my hands over hers. Her panting edged toward becoming a wheeze.

“You need to calm down.” What did people do in this situation? “Try to breathe more slowly.”

Paper bag. Something about a paper bag. Which, like all the things I needed to make a tincture, I was not going to find around here. I cupped my hands and held them to Claire’s mouth.

Claire flinched back.

“This will help. It’s OK.” I had no idea if I was lying.

But Claire stopped fighting me. Her breath warmed my hands with short puffs of air.

Gradually, her exhalations slowed. I kept my hands there anyhow, until finally she lifted one shaky hand and pushed mine away.

Claire settled back, breathing more evenly. Her eyes moved as she sought out my face. A faint smile curved her too-red lips. “Better now. Thanks.”

Despite Claire’s reassurance, despite her steadier breathing, her pupils remained too big. And while she’d been perfectly alert just minutes ago, she didn’t focus on my face now. She didn’t seem to be seeing me at all.

I let out a sigh and sat back on my heels.

This wasn’t going to get better on its own. Claire needed an emergency room, not my half-assed attempts at homeopathic cures.

It was good enough for the Alfar.

The Alfar weren’t here. Papa wasn’t here, not even Willow.

You’re on your own. Figure it out.

I had a handful of Tansy’s Stars. What I didn’t have was time to run around finding water or building a fire or, least likely of all, finding a container whole enough to hold the tincture.

I could go back to the cabin. Faucet, pan, stovetop. Simple. I didn’t technically need an official bridge stone—those had been for the purpose of memorizing a given navigational set, at a time when the Alfar rarely visited the mortal realm themselves. The exercise of visiting and memorizing the standard bridge stones was intended to give a set of vivid enough details that we could anchor the ways we created between worlds.

I’d lived in Midgard for six years. I had plenty of vivid details of locations, one of which was my cabin.

As long as Heimdal didn’t show up. Would he think I’d go back there? Surely not. In fact, it might be the perfect way to avoid him if I had to go back to Midgard. It could be the one place he wouldn’t think to look for me.

Maybe.

“Wanna go home.” Claire leaned against me as she mumbled, but I wasn’t sure she was actually talking to me. She’d closed her eyes. “Joel will help me. I shouldn’t have left him. Gonna prove I love him.”

Irritation skimmed the surface of my barely-restrained panic.

Later. She won’t hear anything you say to her right now, anyhow.

Back to Midgard, then.

Again, I hesitated. Claire’s mention of Joel brought to mind Loki and the swirls of dark chaos that drifted around Claire. Had Loki been tracking me? Using Claire and her boyfriend somehow? Surely bringing Claire to Alfheim had cut him off from her. He wouldn’t think I’d go back to my cabin at Cox Lake Resort, either.

Another thought chased the tail of the previous. If Heimdal and Loki were both looking for me, then how likely was it they’d eventually run into each other?

My throat closed. Because that was how the end of the world began—with the two of them.

And me.

Claire’s forehead rested against my shoulder. She still muttered under her breath, although I couldn’t make out the words.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

If I wanted to help Claire, I had to take her back to Midgard. Start at my cabin, try the tincture—trusting my father’s ways—and then…

And then, if Claire got better, I could leave her there, in my cabin. And I could return here. Maybe bring a few things with me and… What? Stay here forever, the last Alfar all alone in her long-dead world?

I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Right now, I didn’t have time to try.

All the trouble I’d gone to, to avoid the snares that had caused me so much heartbreak the last time. No matter what world I traveled to, I couldn’t seem to escape.

And now I was going to walk straight back toward the greatest heartbreak of them all. On purpose.

Beside me, Claire continued to mutter fitfully.

Maybe it was being in Alfheim that made me hear Papa’s voice so clearly in my head. Maybe I was so tired that my self-interest had worn away to reveal my true Alfar nature, for the first time in nearly six years. But hear my father’s voice, I did.

We are who we are, whatever they name us.

I was Alfar. If I wanted to continue claiming that birthright, I had no choice but to help Claire if I could. If that meant facing down Heimdal or Loki or both, then that was what I’d have to do.

I secured Claire with an arm around her shoulders and made sure the Tansy’s Star was tightly in my grasp. Then I opened the way back to Midgard.