He was messing with Titania. He had to be. No way an elf—any elf, Loki or otherwise—would cower the way he was unless it was part of a distraction plan.
Titania’s frown deepened. She, too, didn’t seem to believe what she saw. “You shame your mother’s memory,” she spat.
Hrokr flipped from contrition to attack mode so fast I barely registered his hands forming his spell.
The sigil hit Titania full in the face. She squeaked and jerked, and pawed at it in much the same way I’d pawed at the gag spell.
The antlered helmet tilted. A flare of magic surged upward toward the clouds above and she whipped the spell back at him.
Hrokr spread his arms and took the flashed-back magic full in the chest.
He coughed and buckled over, and for a split second, I swear I saw all the chaos of Loki under his glamour. All the slipperiness and the wanton disregard for everything but his own consuming fire.
Yet he did what he claimed was his true version of his aspect: He’d protected the vulnerable. He’s stepped between the sheep and fae-thrown harm.
Titania turned in a circle and raised her arms. “O-dins-soooonnnnn!” she yelled.
Up by the barn, a bubble of magic formed around an opening in the fence as two men walked through side by side, each with their outside hands up as if mirroring each other.
Arne and Magnus pooled their magic in much the same way as the two real dryads had in the woods near my home.
With each step closer, they dropped more of their glamours, and by the time they were halfway to us, their ears stood tall and their ponytails waved behind their heads. They weren’t armoring-up, though, and instead manifested finely-woven and intricately-embroidered elven tunics over leather pants and tall, substantial boots.
Arne carried Sal in a scabbard on his back. She touched my mind, but otherwise stayed silent.
Titania threw me a look. Her nose twitched, then she returned her attention to Arne and Magnus.
“Well now, aren’t you two superior specimens of elven masculinity,” Titania drawled.
“Mom!” Ellie snapped. “What are you doing?”
Titania nodded toward me. The antlers wobbled slightly as if they hadn’t quite settled again after Hrokr’s magical slap. She grabbed the helmet and a soft, sweet twing rang out when her gloves hit the metal. “I came because he got through, which is not supposed to happen, daughter.” She sniffed. “He’s a nice size, though.” She winked again. “Lovely in that big-biceped way.” She waved dismissively at me. “The tattoos are a bit much.”
Hrokr groaned.
She whipped her head and the antlers around again. “And what do I find when I come for a visit? Is this how you make your mother proud, little Loki boy?”
“Leave him alone, Titania,” Arne said as he walked up.
The magic around Arne and Magnus glowed with such brilliance I had to squint. They might be wearing their finest elven fabrics, but they were both on the verge of calling up their armor—and fully dropping their glamours.
That moment at the barn, the moment when Arne went All-Father, it shimmered just out of sight in much the same way as Ellie had when I was inside Hrokr’s concealments. Magnus, too. Freyr walked among us in all his terrifying beauty, sexuality, and strength-giving.
They were their gods, Arne and Magnus, not just elves.
Titania didn’t seem to care. Or, more precisely, she seemed to expect that they would show her their true faces. She was the Queen of the Fae, after all, and they owed her that respect.
Magnus smoothed the gold and silver stitching on his tunic. “Nice to see you again, Oh Great and Terrible Fae Queen,” he said in his best Hey, beautiful voice. He grinned and did one of his flirtatious half-winks.
Magnus Freyrsson had just turned a simple, diplomatic greeting into a god-worthy pick-up line.
Titania laughed. “We all cried the day you two left the enclaves of Europe.” She nodded her antlers in their direction. “So sorry about your little Christian Ragnarok.” She tapped her chin. “Both of them, really. That second one wasn’t much fun for us fae, either.”
“You know we didn’t leave because of the Ragnarok, Titania,” Arne said.
“Yes, yes.” She shrugged and pointed at Hrokr. “Guess he’s not a rumor anymore, is he?”
“I’m sorry, Dad!” Hrokr hugged the poor ewe tighter. “It’s not my fault!”
Then he did something I would have kicked him for, if I’d been close enough.
He squared his shoulders and held his head high. “It’s Victorsson’s fault!” He waved his hand in the general direction of Alfheim. “He invited the fae-born seer into town and now she’s here.” He pointed at Titania.
Ellie gasped but she didn’t shrink away. She spread her hand in front of me as if to take the brunt of whatever the elves would have tossed our way if they could see us.
Arne sighed. “Frank had nothing to do with our hidden seer arriving here, Hrokr.”
“Well, he broke her concealment enchantments and now grandpa’s goons showed up and the seer’s mom and—”
“The hidden seer who makes all those extraordinarily useful photographic plates is your daughter, Titania?” Arne interrupted.
Titania put her hands on her hips in mock offense. “Would you expect such exquisite work from a mere sprite, Odinsson?”
Magnus grinned. “We only ask because she could have been another sister.”
Titania grinned right back at him. “Such a flirtatious elf.” The grin turned into a smug smile.
Ellie curled her arms around my waist. “They’re going to scare the cottage,” she whispered.
If the cottage got too frightened, it would move. Ellie would vanish. I’d lose her. “Will your mother’s presence override its need to move?”
She shook her head. “Only if she interferes.” She looked up at me. “Mom set the cottage’s enchantments. She set the concealments. That’s why I can’t stop it from moving on my own. I may be the battery but I don’t have access to the programming, so to speak. Mom can give it commands. I can’t.”
The cottage would do what it was meant to do—protect Ellie by moving—unless
