His hair was pulled back, and his great black robe swirled around his legs. His arms crossed over his chest, holding a bundle of white cloth tight to his body. He raised his golden eyes to meet mine, and the world held still.

I was on my feet before I realized what was happening. Someone was making odd, choked little cries, and it took me a moment to realize it was me. I was crying, or laughing, or some combination of the two. Vali smiled at me. My body flooded with a heat I’d almost forgotten, the kind of white hot rush of arousal and comfort that made me think home. Yes, with him, in his arms. That’s home.

I walked around the table, my legs trembling. Vali shifted, raising the bundle of white cloth in his arms. My breath caught in my throat.

Vali held a baby.

There was an infant in his arms, as tiny and perfect as Caroline’s newborn daughter. The baby had dark hair and light skin, with perfect curving pink lips and little fists squeezed tight against its pudgy cheeks.

“Tell me you wouldn’t take them in,” Loki said.

His voice shot through my chest like a lance. I’d almost forgotten Loki was here. I shot him an irritated glare, then turned back to my husband, standing in the doorway. Vali hadn’t moved.

An uneasy shiver raced down my spine. Vali hadn’t moved at all. I stared at the figure in the doorway. Vali didn’t so much as blink. His shoulders didn’t rise and fall with the rhythm of his breathing. The constant wind off the ocean didn’t twist a single hair on his head. I took a step backward on legs that felt as though they’d just turned to stone.

This wasn’t Vali. My husband wasn’t here, on Asgard, standing in the doorway of his childhood home. This was just some cruel trick.

“You tell me it would matter that you weren’t the mother of that baby he’s holding,” Loki said. “Just tell me you couldn’t open your heart to them. Both of them.”

I tore my eyes away from the vision in the doorway. Loki had his feet on my kitchen table, and his arms crossed behind his head. His eyes sparkled.

“Oh, fuck you,” I breathed. The weight of his cruelty settled on my chest like a stone. “How dare you!”

Loki didn’t respond. He looked like he was struggling not to smile. My hand itched to punch his pale, arrogant face and knock him to the floor.

“How dare you create this...this thing,” I waved my arm at the heartbreaking imitation of Vali standing completely motionless in the doorway. “Just to make a point? Fuck you! You insensitive asshole!”

“Would you turn him away?” Loki arched a delicate eyebrow at me.

“Go to hell,” I spat, sinking back into the kitchen chair. “I don’t know how Caroline can even stand to be around you.”

The corners of his lips twitched up, the exact opposite of the reaction I wanted. “Me neither. But we’re not here to discuss my marriage.”

My shoulders slumped. I leaned forward and dropped my head into my hands as if my body could no longer support its own weight. Seeing Vali again, even just for a moment, and even if it had only been an illusion, left me drained and exhausted. For those few precious seconds before I realized it was all a trick, I had almost felt like my world could be whole again.

Now it was over. I sensed the black weight of my grief and loneliness waiting for me, just outside the ring of candlelight. Or rubbing its shoulders against the window panes, biding its time until Loki vanished, and I was alone again. Only this time, I would be alone forever.

“You’re crying,” Loki observed.

I rubbed my palms across my cheeks, trying to destroy the evidence. “Fuck you,” I said, wishing I could think of a more colorful expletive. Zeke always had at least half a dozen brilliant insults ready to drop at a moment’s notice, but my stupid brain seemed stuck on the f-bomb.

Loki sighed. “You’re going to make me spell it out for you, aren’t you?”

I tried to glare at him, but looking at his face made my vision blur with tears again. He had Vali’s high cheekbones, and Vali’s soft lips.

“If you would accept Vali, with a strange, new baby in his arms, and find it in your heart to love that child—”

“Stop it,” I said. “It’s not just that, and you damn well know it. This child...I mean, my child...she isn’t going to be...normal.”

He laughed softly. “Karen, you married one of the Æsir of Asgard. Surely, you don’t believe Vali expected to have normal children?”

My throat tightened, and my heart fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings. A distant memory resurfaced through the haze of my emotional exhaustion. It was a dream, or what I thought had been a dream. One of the early dreams, back in the pine forest, when Vali and I made love on thick, green moss next to a little stream. Back when I thought Vali was just an expression of my subconscious, a lifeline created by my brain to keep me tethered to this world.

Only we weren’t making love that night. We were talking. Or, more specifically, I was talking. About Meredith. I was describing her perfect little hands, and how long and delicate her fingers looked against her baby blanket. Barry held her tiny fingers and said she’d grow up to be a piano player.

I cried, of course, as I told Vali things I would never once share with another person in the six long years since Meredith’s death. But Vali was crying too, even as he held me to his chest and ran his fingers through my hair. His entire body shook as he mourned the loss of a baby he’d never met. A child who wasn’t even his.

Vali told me once that I had talked about Meredith, and I said I didn’t remember. I don’t think you wanted to remember, Vali had replied.

I bit my lower lip so hard the metallic tang of blood filled my mouth. Why would I want to remember that now?

Loki took his feet off the table, and the front legs of his chair returned to the floor with a resounding bang. He took a deep breath, ran his fingers through his bright red hair, and leaned forward.

“Look. Karen. If you don’t want to go home, fine. But you can’t stay here. Even if Óðinn wanted you here, which he most certainly does not, this is a bad place for you. Surely, you can see that?”

I nodded, too numb to think of a response.

“I can set you up somewhere else. Not Midgard, of course. I think even if you were in the Australian outback, Vali could sense it.” Loki’s eyes drifted to the windows again, and his fingers drummed on the table. “Maybe Jötunheimr. It’s cold, but you’re used to that. I could give you money and land. Set you up as a wealthy widow.”

A thick coil of anxiety wrapped my chest, tightening around my heart. Loki was offering me a fresh start, some safe haven for me to raise my child. Why did it taste like ashes in my mouth?

Loki’s chair scraped the stones of the floor as he pushed back from the table, coming to his feet. “Well, that’s it,” he said. “Those are your options: home or Jötunheimr. You choose.”

I closed my eyes, burying my head in my hands. My cheeks were hot and damp with tears. That horrible, beautiful vision of Vali in the doorway refused to leave my mind. His smile. The way his eyes danced when he saw me, how his entire face seemed to brighten. And how ready I’d been to fall into his arms. Home, I’d thought.

“I—” I hesitated, trying to swallow. My mouth had gone completely dry. “I’m scared.”

“Karen.” Loki hesitated. I looked up to see a strange expression on his face, one that made me think of Caroline and the baby.

“We are, all of us, scared,” he said.

My entire body shivered, and I pressed my palms against the table, as if I could use the furniture to steady myself. For a heartbeat, as I came to my feet, I seriously thought my legs would refuse to hold me up. Loki waited while I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then walked to him and took his hand.

“So, what’s it going to be?” he asked. “Love or fear?”

I tried to force my lips into a smile. “You’re right,” I said, my voice cracking. “This isn’t my house. My home is in Montana. With my husband.”

Loki nodded, the air around us shifted—

—And I was staring at a red wall in a dark room. I blinked as my eyes adjusted. It was a familiar red. Sedona Sunset red.

My heart hammered at the cage of my ribs. This was my wall, in my living room, the one I’d painted myself. I turned very slowly. The windows were dark, and my house smelled good, like caramelized onions and spices. Low music drifted from the rectangle of light falling through the kitchen door, and it was suddenly hard for me to breathe.

“Have fun,” Loki whispered. He let go of my hand.

“No,” I hissed. “You can’t just leave!”

Loki grinned at me in the darkness. Then the space beside me was empty, and I was alone in my own living room.

“Hello?” Vali’s voice called from the kitchen.

My legs trembled, and my thoughts scattered like snowflakes. I opened my mouth but no sound came out.

“Loki? Was that you?”

The living room light flashed on, almost blinding me. Something crashed to the floor with a sharp, metallic clang that reverberated around the room. I glanced down to see one of my little saucepans on the floor and burgundy splatters across the carpet.

Vali stood in the kitchen doorway, frozen, his eyes so wide they seemed to take over his face. He gave a sharp, strangled sort of cry, then ran across the room to crush me in his arms. My legs gave out, and I fell against his body. I pressed my head against his neck, breathing in his wild scent, feeling his heartbeat race against my lips. Nothing had ever felt so good. Nothing had ever felt so much like home.

I opened my mouth to explain, or to apologize, but all I was able to say was, “I love you.”