Mist

charcoal on precious handmade paper that could never be replaced.

It didn’t come naturally. Far from it. Her emotion kept getting in the way, and the staves rippled like heat waves on pavement. But after a while she began to get the hang of it, fixing each stave in place while she constructed the next, and the next. She was vaguely aware of time passing without having any idea just how long it took, so intent on the images that she barely noticed when Dainn began to sing.

He started very softly, barely more than a murmur. Slowly his voice rose, and Mist had to struggle to hold onto the shapes in her mind.

She had always been immune to the heroic poetry and song of the skalds of Asgard. Even Bragi, bard of the Aesir, had hardly been capable of moving her. No elf ’s song had ever come close.

That was why she didn’t understand her reaction now. It was impossible for any of the Alfar to sing badly, but Dainn’s voice was extraordinary. It moved through the air in eddies and swirls like water in a stream, ever so gently threatening to carry away whatever it touched. There could be no doubt of the power of its magic.

A prickle of bone- deep awareness washed through Mist as Dainn’s mind brushed hers. Her tattoo flared to the point of agony, and the shock almost made her cry out. When she tried to withdraw, she found that she was caught as surely as Fenrisulfr in the magic rope Gleipnir, lost in the intricate, labyrinthine melody of the song.

Yet nearly as soon as she felt Dainn’s intrusion, he touched the Rune- staves in her mind, plucking them like strings on a harp, gathering them into a sphere of ethereal light. She “saw” him working as if through foggy glass, deftly manipulating five of the staves and weaving them like the channels of a braided river, giving the Runes power they didn’t possess as individual symbols.

And beneath it all, far under the surface, Mist felt him. His essence bled through the mental link between them—vivid, saturated colors that resolved into emotion: Anger. Shame. And that sorrow, profound and unmistakable.

Sorrow for the years of isolation, apart from his own people? Alfar were seldom seen alone. Until she had made the decision to give up the old duties and embrace a “normal” life, the centuries of isolation had gotten to her, too. For an elf it must have been infinitely worse. Dainn might as well be sentenced to solitary confinement in a Third World prison, deprived of light and air and the comfort of even a single elven voice.

That might account for the anger and sorrow, since he didn’t even remember how he had come to Midgard. But the shame . . . was that because of his failure with Hrimgrimir?

Without understanding what drove her, Mist let herself fall deeper into his emotions. In an instant she passed from a fog of tangled sensations into a clamoring jungle of twisted vines, thorny bushes, and broad, waxy leaves in every conceivable color of green, the kind of forest that had never existed in Asgard.

And hiding in the shadows was a thing. It moved within a cage woven of thorny vines—a hideous creature, as mindlessly vicious as the wolves that would swallow the sun at the end of the world. As she swept through the canopy toward the cage, the thing took shape and form, materializing in front of her, a hulking beast with black pits for eyes and razor teeth.

Hatred, living and breathing and ready to devour anything that crossed its path.

Mist didn’t wait to get a better look. She clawed her way out of the vision, leaving the darkness behind her, and found herself alone again in her own mind. One by one the staves dissolved, leaving a stark afterimage like the neon tracings of over-bright lights inside her eyelids.

Shielding her face, Mist jumped to her feet. She staggered toward the door, desperate to shake off Dainn’s mental touch and the thing she had sensed inside him.

Or thought she had sensed. How could one of the Alfar—or any being allied with the Aesir—harbor such a monster in his soul? Or had she created it herself, out of her fear of the profound contact between them, of her own irresistible compulsion to uncover the secrets she sensed he was keeping from her? Had she shaped that fear into a creature she had some hope of fighting with the skills she knew she possessed?

Stumbling into the kitchen, she leaned heavily on the table. Yes. That was all it was. Her imagination. And fear she could learn to overcome . . . if she ever let this kind of thing happen again.

And she didn’t plan on it. Next time Dainn needed this kind of “help” . . .

She heard his nearly silent footsteps on the linoleum and stiffened. He came to a stop few feet behind her.

“Are you well?” he asked.

She couldn’t miss the note of concern in his question, and she didn’t really understand it. She’d walked out on him without a word, probably messing up all his careful work.

Had he sensed how deeply she’d delved into his mind?

Turning slowly, she looked at his face. There was no anger in it, only the same worry she’d heard in his voice. Worry and exhaustion, as if the magic had drained what strength he had left after Hrimgrimir’s attack.

Maybe that had been his problem all along. He couldn’t use magic without weakening himself to the point of—what? Burning himself out somehow?

Mist was just becoming aware of how tired she felt.

“I’m all right,” she said. “You?

“It doesn’t matter.” Dainn touched the ash-Runes on his forehead. “I think I know where Loki has gone.”

“Where?”

“ ‘Gullin’ is its name,” he said.

Golden. As in Golden Gate Park.

“Then he did go back to the Park,” she said, starting into the hall. “There is another place by that name, is there not?”

Gods. How stupid could she be? A golden passage. A bridge between worlds.

The Golden Gate Bridge was nearly eight miles northwest of Dogpatch as the crow flies, farther on surface streets. Dawn was just breaking; traffic would be picking up, but that was the least of her worries. She had to hope the Volvo had one more gallop in her.

“I know where it is,” she said. “Can you tell if Loki has left Midgard?”

“No.”

“I guess we’ll find out when we get there. I think it would be a good idea for you to have a weapon, just in case. I don’t have any firearms, but—”

“No weapons.”

“This isn’t the time to be stubborn,” she said. “If a frost giant could get the better of you, Loki could do a Hel of a lot worse.”

“I will not let Loki harm you.”

“That’s funny,” she said. “I’m more worried that I may not be able to protect you.”

“You will not be required to.”

Further argument was a waste of time. Mist knew she was about to find out the hard way just how magically proficient Dainn really was.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

4

Mist dashed out the front door, barely pausing to lock it with a brief spell before continuing on to the driveway. She already had the Volvo in gear and was pulling out by the time Dainn had jumped into the passenger seat.

“If you have any spells that can work on an engine,” she said, “you’d better use them.”

“You know Alfar magic is not of a mechanical nature,” he said dryly.

She was almost relieved he was back to sarcasm. Of course, he was right. Elf magic was of nature and growing things—or, apparently, in at least one case, digging into someone else’s thoughts. But even that had used imagery of nature.