find Fen watching her. It was news to him. She saw a flash of surprise in his eyes along with worry and regret and grief before he looked away.
“Julian won’t be reliable until he’s matured and had some training,” Elin said. “Skuld visions are notoriously difficult to interpret. It could be that the bridge falls because of something we do to protect the witch.”
“Very true. It’s a complication and another reason why we need to bring Raquel with us. She’s our insurance plan.” Aiden glanced at Fen as if braced for an argument. When Fen didn’t object, he said, “Aside from Raquel, who I’ll brief separately, you all know what to expect when we cross. We follow Rane. Raquel will pull the witch from the ice as quickly as possible. And—yes, Michael?”
“What’s keeping the witch from escaping now?”
Rane answered, “Surtr found a binding charm. I think—Kamis thinks—it’s what they’re using to drain him too. I’ve seen it through the ice, but it’s wrapped around his ankles. Probably why they froze him into the ice in the first place. They’re not manacles. It’s a black chain that doesn’t appear to be attached to any kind of lock.”
“Was it rune-marked?” Raquel asked.
Rane grimaced. “I imagine that it is, but between the color and the distortion of the ice, I couldn’t tell.”
Raquel leaned forward to see past Grace. “I have a file of pictures on my laptop of all the magical artifacts retained by the clans. There are a few that might be similar to what you’ve described. Would you mind stopping by later to take a look?”
“Not at all. I can drive back into town with you after we’re done.”
“Did he say anything else we need to know about?”
Rane shook her head, black hair stark against her pale skin.
“Grace?” Aiden looked at his wife and for an instant, Raquel saw it again—a softening in his eyes, a warmth in his voice. The Odin was a real man after all. It was almost eerie, like seeing a granite statue coming to life.
“He didn’t say much. He pushed a barrage of impressions down the link. Mostly, his acceptance of his own death, his concern for us and the bridge. There’s an image of earth and Asgard and Vanheimr connected by...threads of light. You know the one in Hallie’s textbook?”
Aiden walked over to the bookshelf and picked up a thick book wrapped in a hot-pink-butterfly-print book cover. He flipped through until he found what he was looking for and brought it to her.
Grace nodded. “That’s the one.”
Raquel recognized it. She still had the same book in her bedroom at home. She’d left it behind with her collection of dragon figurines and that well-worn picture of Christian. Grace hadn’t been raised clan, and she seemed to be searching for the right words to explain what the Vanir had tried to communicate.
Raquel reached for the book. “May I?”
Aiden released it into her hands. She scooted closer to Grace and traced the threads with her fingertip. “This, we think, is the reason why Asgard didn’t fall completely. The bridge from Muspelheim was severed, which is why the demons can’t return to their home world without help from the Vanir.”
“Which they won’t give until we’re all dead,” Grace said.
Raquel nodded. “But Asgard is still connected to both Midgard and Vanheimr. This is Asbru, the bridge we use to cross into Asgard. It’s one bridge formed of many threads. The colors in the picture are just to differentiate between the threads, but that’s why they call it the rainbow bridge. The threads split off from the bridge to wrap our planet and anchor the bridge. They do the same to Asgard. When we open a portal to make a jump between clans, we follow one of the individual threads, not the bridge itself.”
Understanding brightened Grace’s eyes followed by a shadow of uneasiness. To Aiden, she said, “He showed the bridge unraveling, but it started with one thread and there were far fewer threads binding it to the Asgard side than ours. Can it be so weak?”
Aiden looked to Raquel for an answer, but she had none to give. She hoped that wasn’t true, hoped the Vanir witch was only trying to scare them off. She was powerful, but no ?sir living or dead was powerful enough to fix Asbru.
Fen watched Raquel leave with Rane. He didn’t even have to push aside the lacy curtains Grace had hung in the front window to do it. He wondered if that’s why she’d picked the lace. Grace liked to know what was going on around her at all times. It had something to do with the things she’d seen in her job as a private investigator but more to do with the way she’d grown up, he thought.
She came to stand next to him now and wrapped her arm around his waist. There was a time not long ago when Grace had flinched every time someone touched her. Aiden seemed to have cured her of that. Fen resisted the urge to curl into her for comfort. He wasn’t a little boy, and there were still a few of his men wandering around the house. And Aiden...well, he was already pissed off that Fen had challenged his decision.
He looked down into Grace’s upturned face. “Didn’t see this one coming did you.”
“Nope,” she said. “And I’m a Verthandi not Skuld. There’s a difference. I can’t see the future.”
“So you keep telling me. Are you sure you didn’t just keep this one to yourself for the entertainment value of watching it knock me off my feet?”
Her brown eyes lit. “She knocked you off your feet?”
“Like a jotunn taking down a toddler. There was nothing pleasant about it, so you can wipe that goofy romantic grin right off your face.”
Her smile widened and she hugged him tighter before letting him go. “Maybe the pleasant part will come later.”
“Brat,” he said without heat. “There’s not going to be a later. Christian—”
“Christian never loved her. He came to talk to Aiden last night about the possibility of reworking the contract. He seemed...frustrated by the mess of it, but he wasn’t heartbroken. You’re the hot mess...and Raquel doesn’t look like she’s been sleeping either.”
Raquel’s car bumped down the driveway that would need to be regraded in the spring, and Fen turned away from the window. “She would be happier with Christian than she would be with me.” Grace opened her mouth to object, but he held up his hand. Grace hadn’t been raised clan and didn’t see all of the possible complications. “How many happy hound relationships have you seen?”
“Your parents.”
He shook his head. Everyone held them up as an example. “You didn’t see it from the inside.”
“That doesn’t mean it would be the same for you. I might not have been raised clan, but Raquel was. Trust her to know what she’s getting herself into.”
He smiled then because he couldn’t help it. She didn’t understand Rocky at all. “She leaps into trouble with both feet. You saw her face right after she crossed over, all starry-eyed and drooling when she saw Christian.”
“But she figured it out soon enough.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “And the runes on her leg?”
“Everyone makes mistakes, Fen.”
He grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair. “I know that. I just don’t want to be one of them.” He dropped a kiss to her forehead and headed for the door. “Stop worrying about me.”
“Fen,” she called out and he turned. “What happened with Carly?”
Of course, Grace would know about that. By now, everyone in town probably knew what a pathetic fool he was. And they didn’t even know the worst of it. Gods willing, no one ever would.
“Nothing happened. Nothing at all.”
It had been Audrey’s idea to come out to the scenic overlook to break the news to their mother. Five miles outside of town. A steep drop. Total isolation. Raquel arched one brow at her sister. “Nice place to dispose of the body.”
Audrey smiled enigmatically and leaned against the hip-high stone wall. “I didn’t know about this either, Mom. Not until this morning.”
Raquel shook her head and turned to look at her mother’s retreating back. On impulse, she spun back to the cliff and shouted into the gorge. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying as she’d hoped. The sound echoed, empty and hollow, before merging with the dull rumble of thunder. Audrey glanced nervously at the sky. Raquel followed her
