Mist

her during the ride.

When they arrived at Mist’s loft a few minutes later, she paused as if listening for a voice she would never hear again. Her shoulders slumped as she unlocked the door, releasing wards no longer effective against anyone but mortal thieves.

Unwillingly aware of Mist’s pain, Dainn followed her into the entrance hall. She turned right almost immediately into a side hallway that ran parallel to the street, facing a large paned window, and led Dainn to the second door.

“You can sleep here,” she said, her voice strained with suppressed emotion. “I’d give you a room upstairs, but it’s pretty messy up there. I really only use the ground floor. I bought the ware house so I could set up a gym with plenty of room.”

She opened the door to a plain, sparsely furnished room with a narrow bed, a chest of drawers, and a chair painted to suggest a weathered effect.

“I’ll show you the bathroom,” she said. “And I guess you’re probably hungry. I don’t have much in the house right now. Can you make a sandwich?”

The question was absurd, but Dainn wasn’t inclined to quibble. “Yes,” he said. “I would be grateful for the opportunity.” She led him back the way they had come and along the main hallway leading to the kitchen at the rear of the ground floor. The ashes of Loki’s note were still smeared across the tabletop.

Mist went directly to the sink, dampened a dish towel, and wiped up the ashes with hard, fast strokes. She threw the dish towel into a trash can and slapped her palms against each other as if to remove any traces of ash. And Loki.

A pair of large, thick-coated cats—one gray and white, one red— emerged from a small room adjoining the kitchen. The heavy fur along their spines was slightly raised, and they moved cautiously, nostrils flaring, tails low and large eyes watchful as they approached Mist.

Knowing that Mist was observing him with great interest, Dainn knelt to offer his hand to the cats and spoke softly in the Old Tongue. The larger of the animals, the gray and white, chirruped an inquiry but did not come closer. The red and white cat hung well back, refusing Dainn’s overtures.

“I wondered how they’d feel about elves,” Mist said, leaning against the counter. “Everyone knows the Alfar are better with animals than any other immortal, and cats are sacred to Freya. Interesting that Lee is so standoffish.”

Dainn rose. “We understand that the nature of cats is unlike that of any other beast,” he said, knowing it could have been much worse. The cats might have rejected him completely, sensing what he could become.

Mist took a pair of small bowls from a cupboard and filled them with kibble out of a bag kept under the sink. She carried the bowls into the adjoining room. The cats trotted at her heels, glancing back at Dainn from the doorway before seeking their meals.

“All I’ve got is sliced turkey and some Jarlsberg,” Mist said, washing her hands and opening the refrigerator door. “A couple of tomatoes, and lettuce, wilted. Mayo and mustard. Sprite. And some—” She stopped, and Dainn heard her catch her breath. “Diet Coke,” she finished, very quietly.

Dainn assumed that must have been Eric’s beverage of choice, though he had a difficult time imagining Loki with a soda can in his hand. “Water will be sufficient,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “Then I can get rid of these.” She withdrew four cans from the refrigerator, set them on the counter, and then tossed two thin packages on the table. “Bread’s over by the stove,” she said, popping the tabs on the four cans one by one.

Dainn found the bread and plates in the cupboard, sat at the table, and watched Mist out of the corner of his eye as she unceremoniously poured the contents of the cans into the sink and tossed the empty containers into a plastic bin. She gazed into the bin for a moment, then returned to the refrigerator and removed a bottle of amber liquid Dainn recognized as beer. As Dainn finished making the sandwiches, she twisted off the cap and took a long drink.

Dainn pushed one of the plates toward her. She set the bottle down and stared at the sandwich uncomprehendingly.

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

“Alcoholic beverages will not enhance your mental faculties, or your strength.”

She leaned over the table, her stance belligerent. “Do you even drink?”

“On occasion. This does not seem to be one of them.”

Abruptly she grabbed the plate and pulled it toward her across the table. Dainn took a measured bite of his sandwich. Mist filled a glass of water from the tap and set it down next to his plate. He nodded thanks, she took the nearest chair, and they ate in silence until the sandwiches, and Mist’s beverage, were gone.

“You can make a sandwich,” she said with a huff of strained laughter. “Can you cook, too?”

Dainn permitted himself a small smile. “I have been known to make meals out of ingredients of dubious provenance and questionable edibility.”

“And that’s supposed to be an endorsement? Excuse me if I don’t ask you to help out in the kitchen.” She sobered quickly. “I never thought I’d be sharing a meal with one of the Alfar at my own kitchen table. Where in Midgard have you been all this time?”

“There are few places I have not been,” he said. “Most recently in the Himalayas, where I was studying with a lama in Tibet.”

“Oh, boy. If anyone else had told me that, I—”

Her sentence ended abruptly as she turned to stare in the direction of the front door.

“Someone’s outside,” she said.

Dainn heard it as well, a faint brush of cautious footsteps on cement.

“It’s probably a package delivery,” Mist said, starting down the hall. “No Jotunn would make so much noise.”

“We were followed on the streetcar,” Dainn said.

She stopped. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“I determined there was no threat to us.”

She cast him a scathing look and went to the door. “There’s someone there, all right,” she said. “And they aren’t ringing the doorbell.”

“Your visitor is a mortal,” Dainn said, casting his senses wide. “And female.”

“Then I’ll just find out what she wants.”

She flung open the door. There was no one there, nor anywhere within sight. Muddy mid-morning sunlight crowded the shadows crouched at the foot of the wall.

“She’s gone now,” Mist said. “Do you think Loki’s already recruited mortal spies?”

“Perhaps.” He hesitated, considering whether or not he should tell her that she would have to become accustomed to being pursued by total strangers. “I sensed nothing unusual about her.”

She closed the door almost reluctantly, as if she regretted the necessity of sealing herself in with Dainn. “We should have set fresh wards as soon as we got here,” she said. “Are you up for it?”

Dainn’s body ached, and there was a hovering blackness behind his eyes he couldn’t dispel. “We will not be able to stop Loki,” he said, “but we will be warned if any Jotunn approaches.”

“That’ll have to be good enough for now. Same as before?”

He couldn’t risk joining their minds and magic again so soon. He was in no condition to prevent her from unconsciously attacking him as she had before, or keep her from inadvertently provoking the beast.

And this time she might remember.

“I will do it,” he said.

“I don’t think—”

“An alarm ward requires relatively little effort.”

The hollows under her eyes suggested that she was too weary to argue for the privilege. She turned and walked toward the kitchen. Dainn followed. The cats had vanished, though Dainn smelled their presence nearby, just as he smelled once- green grass somewhere behind the loft.

He continued through the adjoining laundry room, out the back door to a tiny yard and sat cross-legged on the brown, weedy patch of lawn. After he had called up the Rune-wards, he paced out the perimeter of the entire