“A shame you have to leave tonight,” my dad said.

“And all the way to Bar Harbor!” Mom chimed. “You watch out for moose on the road, you hear?”

I cringed, wishing I hadn’t just lied to my parents about where we were going. And why we had to leave tonight.

“It’s been such a pleasure meeting you,” Vali said, slipping between me and my parents. “Next time will be a longer stay, I promise. And I want the recipe for that moose roast!”

My mom laughed as her cheeks darkened. “Oh, it’s just garlic and salt. Nothing fancy.”

She turned to hug Vali, her eyes bright. Vali was so tall her head barely came to his chin. I stared, trying not to let my mouth fall open. In all the time I’d been married to Barry, I could never once remember my mother hugging him. Not even at our wedding.

“You need anything for the drive?” Dad asked as we opened the front door. A gust of frigid air swept between us.

“We’ll be fine,” Vali said. “Thank you so much for your hospitality. It’s been a real pleasure, Mr. and Mrs. McDonald.”

My parents beamed as I stepped through the front door. They love him, I thought, shaking my head. One dinner, and they love Vali already.

“See you again soon,” I said, trying to ignore the shimmer of tears in Mom’s eyes as she closed the door behind us.

We walked down the driveway and around the bend of McDonald’s Auto Repair’s small parking lot. As soon as we were out of sight of the house, the air around Vali rippled slightly, like a heat shimmer. Then he was once again wearing his black leather and fur, with Hrotti strapped to his back. I reached for his hand, and our fingers interlaced.

“For fuck’s sake, don’t wear that in Evanston,” someone growled.

I jumped. Loki was standing under a tree next to the driveway, his arms crossed against his chest. Vali scowled; Loki ignored him.

“Are you ready?” Loki asked.

I nodded and tried to look confident. My throat suddenly felt very dry.

“Good.” Loki clapped his hands together and walked to us. “I need you to picture it.”

“237 Monticello Place,” I said. “Evanston, Illinois.”

Loki shook his head. “No, not the address. Picture it. Close your eyes, and take us there.”

I clenched my hands into fists. 237 Monticello Place was the last place in the world I wanted to picture. It had been Barry’s house before it was mine. Well, before it was ours; it had never actually been mine. A trim Victorian, walking distance to the University, the kind of elegantly pretentious home most professors could never hope to afford. Of course, most professors weren’t Barry Richardson, with his illustrious family history and multiple vacation homes.

A Japanese maple grew in the front yard, shading the sidewalk and the wrap-around porch. In the summers I had put hanging ferns on that porch, but at this time of year the porch would be empty, the wicker rocking chairs and their pastel pillows in storage. The sidewalk would be clear, neatly shoveled by the company Barry paid every winter. There would be an orange bucket of salt by the front steps...

“Good enough,” Loki said.

A tingle of electricity moved through my body, and a gust of wind blew back my hair—

—I opened my eyes.

Vali, Loki, and I stood on the sidewalk of Evanston, Illinois, in the fading light of early evening. We were staring at 237 Monticello Place.

“Damn,” I whispered.

“Do you want me to join you?” Loki asked.

I shivered. Loki looked perfectly normal, aside from the flaming red hair and unnaturally pale blue eyes. He wore a black suit with a thick jacket, a perfectly acceptable Chicago businessman outfit. Still, there was something disconcertingly feral about him.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I think this is going to be weird enough with just the two of us.”

“Very well. Call Caroline when you’re done here,” he said.

Without another word, Loki vanished. I blinked, staring at the spot where he’d been standing. A few pale ice crystals shimmered in the empty air. “That’s...very disturbing.” I said.

“Tell me about it,” Vali muttered.

With a deep breath I pulled away from Vali and squared my shoulders. “Well, let’s do what we came to do.”

I hoped I sounded braver than I felt.

Salt crystals crunched under my boots as I crossed the sidewalk and walked toward the front porch. I held my breath as I stepped past the orange bucket to climb the front steps, trying to tell myself he might not even be home.

My hand trembled as I pressed the doorbell, releasing a cascade of melodic chimes on the other side of the frosted glass. The world began to blur a bit at the edges; I forced myself to breathe, trying to slow the runaway thrumming of my heart.

The hallway light flickered on, and Barry’s silhouette appeared in the doorway. A sharp pang lanced through my chest at the sight of those familiar, slightly stooped shoulders. How many years had it been since I’d seen Barry fucking Richardson?

The door swung open, and warm air billowed out.

“Hello?” Barry said.

Our eyes met, and his mouth stayed open, his lips moving soundlessly.

He looked older, I realized with a shock. He had more gray hair around his temples, and he wore a different pair of glasses. Could those possibly be bifocals?

“K-Karen?” he stammered.

I realized with a flash of panic that I had absolutely no idea how to explain what we needed. “Hi, Barry. I, um—”

“Come in,” he said. His hand trembled slightly as he pulled away from the door. “Come in, please, it’s freezing outside.”

“Thank you.”

I stepped over the threshold. Vali followed and stood next to me in the entry hall of the home where I’d spent three years of my life. Barry pulled the door shut behind us.

I coughed slightly to clear my throat. “Barry, this is Vali Lokisen.”

Barry and Vali shook hands. Then they both turned to me.

“We, uh, we need your help,” I said. I took a deep breath and slowly realized I knew exactly what to say. “It’s a ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ thing.”

When Barry and I were first dating, we heard the song “Brown Eyed Girl” everywhere we went. At first it was almost a joke. We’d pull up to a gas station to fill his Lincoln, and “Brown Eyed Girl” would be playing over the loudspeakers. We’d go out to the North Avenue Beach on a sweltering summer day, and we’d overhear “Brown Eyed Girl” at the hot dog stand. Barry would turn on the radio as he made me breakfast after the first night I spent at his house, and sure enough, Van Morrison came over the airwaves, singing about making love in the green grass.

At some point it moved from funny to disconcerting, and then it became a joke again. Eventually “Brown Eyed Girl” grew to become shorthand for anything we couldn’t exactly explain, or any time things got a little crazy.

Barry’s eyes widened behind his unfamiliar glasses. “Sure, Karen. Of course, I’ll help. What do you need?”

I shifted uncomfortably on the Persian rug that had once belonged to his great-grandmother. “I promise I’m not crazy,” I said, “but I need to know something about dragons.”

Barry blinked and adjusted his glasses. “Dragons?” he asked, as if perhaps he hadn’t heard me correctly.

I could feel my cheeks flush. “Yeah. I, uh, need to know what they’re after. Typically, I mean. And how to stop them.”

It was very quiet in the entry hall of 237 Monticello Place. Barry’s enormous grandfather clock ticked hollowly in the living room.

“Hypothetically speaking, of course,” Vali added. His confident voice filled the narrow space.

Barry shook his head. “Yes, of course,” he said. “Let me just get a few things from the study. I’ll meet you in the dining room.”

He adjusted his glasses again and backed out of the hallway.

“So,” Vali whispered, “that’s Barry fucking Richardson.”

I brought my hand to my mouth to cover my smile. “That’s him.”

Vali nodded. “He’s a good man.”

“He is.”

I remembered what the dragon showed me, remembered Barry’s laptop hitting the floor as he ran to the backyard to save my life.

“He’s just not the man for me,” I whispered.

“He most definitely is not,” Vali said, with a smile.

****

BARRY RICHARDSON WAS in his element. He’d spread books and charts across the dining room table; he even pulled in his whiteboard from the study. Vali, Barry, and I had been talking for hours, and I was embarrassed to discover how little I knew about his life’s work, even after being married to him for almost three years.

“So, it’s not just about a hero with a big sword?” I asked, catching Vali’s smile out of the corner of my eye.

“Oh, heavens, no,” Barry said, running a hand through the wild tangle of his graying hair. “In fact, most of those ‘dragons’ were not, properly speaking, Wyrms. Instead, they were things like, oh, enchanted dwarves, or the like. The actual Wyrms, the Foes of Old, well, it took more than some knight in shining armor to pacify them.”

Vali leaned across the table, his face resting on his hands. “So, what did they want?”

Barry raised an eyebrow. “The story is a virgin, right? The sea-dragon Cetus demands the maiden Andromeda. The dragon of Saint George wants the local princess. But—” Barry stopped to scribble the circle-and-cross symbol for woman on his whiteboard, “—the older stories don’t specify young women. Just women. And not only women, women of nobility. Of certain lines, you know, ancient lineages.”

The room suddenly felt much colder. Níðhöggr’s words echoed in my head. And have you come to stop me, Karen, daughter of Elizabeth, granddaughter of Claire, of the line of Orleans? Shivering, I tried to force myself to pay attention to the conversation.

“And what happens to the women?” Vali asked.

Barry shrugged. “Well, they get eaten, presumably. Metaphorically, or literally, I suppose. They’re a sacrifice, the sacrifice that saves or sustains the world, if you like. But it’s interesting to note they’re not just maidens - that’s a modern twist on the stories. In the older versions they’re grown women, sometimes even queens...”

Barry’s voice faded into a pleasant background hum as I stared out the window. The sun had set hours ago, and Barry’s small backyard was lit with the golden glow of the streetlights which gilded the tips of the branches on the crabapple tree. Sacrifice, I thought. The sacrifice that saves the world.

The sacrifice that keeps Yellowstone from erupting.

My head spun. The room was too damn hot, then too damn cold. I felt like I was about to pass out.

“Excuse me just a minute,” I said, pushing my chair back from the table.

Before I could stand, a familiar grumble filled the dining room.

“Is that—” I paused. “Is that the garage door?”

Barry’s cheeks flushed before he cleared his throat and regained his composure. “That will be Danielle,” he said. “Excuse me.”

Barry left the room, and I turned to Vali.

“Vali,” I whispered. My voice trembled. “That’s it. Níðhöggr wants a woman. That’s what will keep Yellowstone from erupting.”

Vali frowned. “But how the hell do we find the right woman?”

I opened my mouth to tell him what I knew, the certainty that ran through my body like an electric current, when Barry cleared his voice from the doorway.

“Karen,” Barry said, “this is Danielle. My fiancée.”

Danielle was slight and blonde, with close-cropped hair and an athletic build. She wore a tailored pea coat which looked expensive, and her pink lips curved into a nervous smile. She wasn’t quite as pretty as I would have expected, and she exuded an air of nervous energy which spoke of an affluent upbringing. She looked, I had to admit, like a very good match for Barry.

“Very pleased to meet you,” I said, extending my hand. “We were just getting ready to leave.”

“Oh, you’re welcome to stay!” Her words bubbled out in an almost frantic stream as she gave me a delicate handshake. “I just picked up dinner. If I’d known we had guests—” She looked up to give Barry a slightly accusatory glance. “Anyway. It’s nothing particularly special, just one of those roast chickens from Whole Foods. But you are welcome.”

Vali came to his feet with a very charming smile on his handsome face. I tried to catch his eye and shake my head. He ignored me. “We’d love to join you,” he said.

****

“YOU’RE SURE I CAN’T give you a ride somewhere?” Barry asked as we stood together in the entry hall. Wind rattled the storm door, drowning out the cozy splash and hum of the dishwasher. Dinner had gone surprisingly well, for a meal shared with my ex-husband, his fiancée, and my current lover. That had been almost as disconcerting as talking about how to stop a dragon.

“No, we’re fine,” I said. “We’ve got a ride.”

“In fact, I’ll go meet them now,” Vali said. He turned to shake Barry’s hand. “Thank you so much. For everything.”

Vali slipped out the door, a blast of cold air following in his wake, and I was alone with Barry in the foyer.

“He seems like a good man,” Barry said, nodding toward the door.

“He is.” I smiled. “He said the same thing about you.”

Barry nodded again, thoughtfully. “You seem to be doing well, Karen. I read your last article, in Nature.”

I tried to keep my mouth from falling open. “You read my article?”

“Of course. Nature’s a big name. That’s quite an accomplishment.”

“Thank you.” I glanced toward the kitchen. “I like her. Danielle. She’s...very nice.”

Barry wore a thin, private smile. “Yes. She is.”

Silence fell between us, heavy and thick. I glanced at the darkness outside the front door, where Vali waited for me.

“I never thanked you,” I said. “I want to thank you now.”

Barry stared at me, his brow creasing.

My cheeks burned. “You cancelled your class. Your favorite class. To come home and be with me.”

Barry tilted his head slightly to the left, like he always did when he was confused but didn’t want to admit it.

“Barry, you saved my life,” I said, the words tumbling out in a rush. “I never thanked you for saving my life.”

“Oh.” His cheeks reddened slightly, and he ran a hand through his hair.

I looked down at my hands. “I’m glad,” I said. My voice was so pinched it was almost a whisper.

Barry cleared his throat. “Oh, Karen. There’s no need to thank me. The world is a better place with you in it.”

I blinked the tears from my eyes and leaned forward, hugging him. The familiar contours of his body stiffened in my arms. “You take care,” I whispered, patting his back.

He cleared his throat. “You too.”

We stepped apart, shifting awkwardly.

“And thanks for your help,” I added, pulling open the heavy front door.

“Anytime,” Barry said.

His head was still tilted to the left. Barry used to look like that a lot when we were together, I realized; head tilted and slightly confused, as though we never could quite manage to speak the same language.

I pulled the door closed behind me and walked toward Vali.

****

“SO NÍÐHÖGGR WANTS A woman,” Loki said, leaning back in his chair.

We were back in the strange, airy room, with its wall of windows opening on a sparkling sea, sitting around the table with Loki and Caroline. Little Adelina lay swaddled in what looked like an enormous white shell, which hovered and swung several feet off the polished floor. Three translucent balls spun in the air just above the shell. I was trying not to stare at them, which wasn’t easy.

“But not just any woman,” Vali said. “Someone special, someone with a specific lineage. How the hell are we going to find some random woman of ancient lineage?”

Loki fixed me with his oddly pale blue eyes. Despite the warmth of the room, I felt cold.

“Karen,” Loki said, “what exactly did Níðhöggr say to you?”

I hesitated, my throat suddenly dry.

“Níðhöggr doesn’t talk,” Vali said dismissively. “And neither of us got close enough to talk, anyway.”

“No.” My voice sounded very small. “Níðhöggr talked to me.”

Vali’s face fell. “What? But you told me you saw—” His voice faltered.

My heart clenched. “I did see...things. Horrible things. From my past.” I took a deep breath, trying to banish the mental image of Barry’s tear-stained face and crooked glasses. “But after that, yes, I saw Níðhöggr. We...talked.”

Loki tilted his head. “And you got what you wanted,” he said.

I shivered. An inescapable cold feeling was pooling in the pit of my stomach. “Yes. I got Vali.”

“In exchange for...?” Loki prodded.

“No!” Vali cried, jumping to his feet. “I know what you’re getting at, but you’re wrong, damn it! It can’t be Karen! Look, if Níðhöggr wanted her, Níðhöggr would have taken her when she was there!”

“Shush.” Loki waved a dismissive hand at Vali. “Let your woman speak.” He turned back to me with those burning pale eyes. “What exactly did you and Níðhöggr discuss, Karen?”

I couldn’t bring myself to look at Vali. “He—or she—called me ‘Karen, daughter of Elizabeth, granddaughter of Claire, of the line of Orleans.’”

Vali groaned and sank back into the chair, his head in his hands.

“Go on,” Loki said.

“And then she, or he, asked if I’d come to stop it. When I said no, Níðhöggr said...” I tried to swallow around the growing lump in my throat. “Níðhöggr said we could make a deal.”

The room was absolutely silent. Even Adelina’s shell cradle made no noise as swooshed rhythmically through the still air. Loki arched an eyebrow at me, and I felt my cheeks burning.

“I got Vali,” I said, softly. “Níðhöggr said it might as well give me what I want, as long as I...” The breath caught in my throat.

“As long as you what?” Loki pressed.

My shoulders slumped. “As long as I try to stop it. At the time, I-I didn’t know what that meant. But I guess Níðhöggr wants me to come willingly. Knowing what I’m doing.”

Vali smacked the table with his open palm. The sharp crack reverberated through the room, making me jump.

“No.” Vali said, his dark hair swirling as he shook his head. “Karen, no. You can’t do this!”

Tears swelled behind my eyelids, blurring his handsome face. “I’m sorry,” I stammered.

“There’s got to be another way,” Vali said, frantically looking from Loki to Caroline. “She can’t be the only woman of that line!”

Loki’s eyes met mine in the gentle sunlight filtering through the open windows. “Karen. Is this something you’re willing to do?”

I closed my eyes, thinking of Yellowstone. I remembered the first time I’d seen the wolves of the Leopold pack sprinting together across the vast Lamar Valley, their powerful bodies rippling as they wove through the sagebrush. I remembered my first summer hiking in Yellowstone, when I’d come around a bend in an aspen grove and startled an entire herd of elk, their shaggy black necks rising simultaneously to gape at me. I pictured the high, vaulted ceilings of the lodge at Old Faithful, echoing with the shrieks of children.

“Yes,” I said. “If it’s what it takes to stop Níðhöggr, then I’m willing.”

“No!” Vali hissed. “There’s got to be another way! Let’s find someone else!”

Loki pushed back from the table. “Stop it. You know there’s no one else. And you know time grows short. Time was already short when you decided to face Níðhöggr on your own.”

Vali and Loki stared at each other. The air between thickened. I stood and wrapped my arms around Vali’s broad shoulders, pressing my face against his neck and inhaling his rich, wild scent. He trembled in my arms.

“Vali, if Níðhöggr blows up Yellowstone, it’s going to be a worldwide ecological disaster,” I said. “There’ll be four inches of ash covering the corn fields in the Midwest.”

Vali pulled away from me and staggered to his feet. “So what? You and me, we could run. We could go somewhere else. Another Realm, even.”

“No. Vali, people would die. Millions of people would die,” I said.

Vali grabbed my shoulders. His golden eyes burned in his pale face. “I don’t care about millions of people! I care about you! You’re worth more to me than millions of people.”

I took a deep, jagged breath and leaned into his broad chest. His heartbeat thundered against my cheek. “I can’t,” I whispered. “I can’t.”

Vali’s arms wrapped around me, crushing me to his chest. “Oh, damn it!” His voice cracked. “I love you, Karen.”

Loki cleared his throat. “We should go,” he announced. “The wards have only grown since I saw you last, but I can still reach your house. And I can drive you from there.”

I nodded against Vali’s trembling chest and tried to blink away the tears threatening to spill down my cheeks. “Okay,” I whispered.

“Stop,” said Caroline, looking at Loki. “Karen, do you have any idea when Níðhöggr wants to, uh, destroy things?”

“What?” I asked.

“Do you think it’s going to be tonight?” Caroline asked. “Or did you get the sense Níðhöggr was waiting for you?”

I frowned, trying to remember Níðhöggr’s words. “Waiting, I guess. But I don’t get the feeling Níðhöggr is especially patient.”

“And the point of this is...?” Loki asked, raising an eyebrow at his wife.

Caroline smiled at him. “Darling, you could at least give them a night together.”

“Ah. Of course,” Loki said. “I’ll see both of you in the morning.”

The room swirled around me. I closed my eyes, clinging to Vali’s chest—

—and it was again very cold.

I opened my eyes and saw the front porch of my own little house. The light above my front door shone bravely against the darkness.

“Where are we now?” Vali asked. His arms were still tight around my shoulders.

“Home,” I said. “We’re home.”