Her brow furrowed. “Only the normal early pulls as evening sets in. We should have a couple of hours.” She blinked a few times as if she couldn’t quite read the signals from the cottage. “But it’s tired from last night’s work.”
“Okay,” I said. The mate magic tightened into a swirling veil of sparks around us, making it hard to see Titania and the elves. “What if we run? If we get back to the cottage before sunset?”
She pressed against my front. “It didn’t move Chihiro.”
Which meant it probably wouldn’t move me.
Arne opened his arms wide. “I hereby welcome our seer to Alfheim.” He stared directly at the queen. “As King of this enclave, I officially extend the protections of Alfheim to the fae-born witch daughter of Queen Titania.” He continued to stare at her. “We will not interfere with her concealment enchantments and trust Frank Victorsson to continue interfacing for us.”
Ellie squeezed my hand.
Arne nodded toward Titania. “Satisfied?”
All sound stopped. No wind. No rustling or murmurs from the barns. No chittering or chirping, either.
Titania sighed. “It doesn’t matter, Odinsson. You have been hiding my stepdaughter’s son from his grandfather. You and I both know this cannot stand.”
Stepdaughter’s son… Arne’s fae princess… Gotland… She was all things feminine…
None of Arne and Magnus’s animosity had been about Ellie. It had all been about Hrokr.
Magnus twitched. He flicked his hands and a sigil appeared between Hrokr and Titania. Another appeared in front of Arne and Magnus.
“It would be best if you left now, Titania,” Magnus said. “No harm. No foul. We will handle Oberon’s sentinels on our own.”
Her laughter filled the pasture and the four sheep baaed in response. “Oh, you sweet, sweet, handsome elf man.” She threw wide her arms. “The moment he figures out you’ve been hiding his grandson from him, he’s going to hex your crops, steal your daughters, and buy up your little town so he can mow it under. You know that.”
Neither Arne nor Magnus moved, nor did the sigils.
“Why do you think I’m here, Titania?” Magnus asked.
He could have taken half of Alfheim’s elves and started a second North American enclave long ago. He could have moved down to The Cities and become the founder of several great Minnesota industries.
Magnus Freyrsson stayed in Alfheim because the best protection for the entire Upper Midwest against an angry, hex-throwing Fae King was an equally terrifying Freyr aspect elf.
Arne and Magnus had just shown Titania that they had a tool the fae did not—they worked together. The enclaves had their politics, but the world’s elves would come if Arne called.
They would come for their Odin elves. So would the werewolves. As would I. And now Ellie, too. So who was the true King here?
Arne grinned. “Your daughter lives with us now,” he said. “This is your fight, too.”
He’d back her, if she asked. If he could trust her. If she, too, would come when he called.
Her posture shifted. She was thinking about what a fae war would mean, and what it might cost her to become the Fae Empress.
Her shoulders dropped ever so slightly as if the weight of the unspoken words between these moments had fully landed on her person.
She might act a trickster, and bully Hrokr and her own daughter, but she was Queen, and as such, such grand schemes must be fully considered. Rashness is what got you dethroned.
The defiant anger returned.
There was no way we’d get to the cottage in time if she forced a move. None at all. I coiled my hands under Ellie’s backpack to hold her as closely as I could.
“No, she doesn’t, Odinsson,” Titania said. “The boy, neither. He’s fae. He comes with me.”
“Leave me alone!” Hrokr yelled.
Arne blinked. The Loki man-child whose power rippled around him with almost as much strength as his father’s, the problem child Arne had hidden all these years, was about to be ripped away from his father in much the same way as Ellie was about to be ripped from me.
Taken. Kidnapped. And most likely lost forever to the fog of fae-generated concealment enchantments.
I picked up Ellie and set her behind me. She squeaked, but didn’t argue, and pressed herself against my back.
Titania laughed. “Aren’t you gallant.” She nodded to Arne. “The big semi-dead ones make good paladins, do they not?”
His eyes rounded. He’d just realized I must be here along with Titania’s daughter. But the concealments made the realization vanish as quickly as it appeared.
Titania chuckled. “I built your concealments to last, Ellie my girl.” She pointed at Arne as if he was the root of all the troubles that caused her to set the spells. “They’ve kept you safe all these years.”
“I’m safe here, mother!” Ellie gripped my arm. “With Frank. With these elves. There’s a pack here, too. A large, strong pack with three Alphas. I want to stay.”
Titania shook her head and her antlers tilted again. “I will take you home. The cottage will do as I tell it and follow. From there, it can take you someplace safe from elves.”
“It likes Frank. It wants to stay here, too!” Ellie said.
In the shadow of her helmet, Titania’s eyes physically brightened as if her magic had burned through her skull into the mundane world. “We’ll see about that.”
Arne’s magic pulsed. “Let us talk this through.” He tightened his sigils. Salvation, from his back, threw out her own wall of magic to supplement his, and he took a step toward Titania.
“Tell that blade to be quiet,” Titania snapped. “Do not bring more ills into this moment! It’s bad enough you brought it to this meeting.”
Sal again receded into the background.
“Come up to the barn,” Magnus said seductively. “Visit the horses. We can ride together through the snow.”
Titania balled her hands into fists. “Your stallions are not a fair trade, Magnus Freyrsson. Not for my daughter’s life.” She hit him with a bolt of searing magic so bright we all cringed.
Magnus staggered. He
