Hrokr wasn’t with them.
“Where is my son, Frank.” Arne did not ask. He stated as if the loss of our Loki elf was my fault and that it was now my job to go find him.
“I have no idea where your boy is, Arne Odinsson.” Yes, I’d pushed him off Bloodyhoof, but I was not a magical. Finding him in the shifting world of the veil would not be up to me. Nor was I going to apologize.
I had more important needs at the moment.
Magnus’s eyebrow arched as if he was equally surprised and annoyed. He handed me Sal and the scabbard. “She led us to you,” he said.
He’s mine, rolled from the axe. Magnus chuckled. “You’ve been chosen, my good man.”
I strapped Sal to my back. “We’ve already had this conversation, Salvation.”
The throbbing possessiveness ceased as if she’d shut a window. It was still there, I was sure of it, but at least now she had the manners to keep it to herself.
I reined Bloodyhoof toward Arne. “Send me home.” I looked toward Magnus. “I’ll need a truck.”
“No.” Arne watched the kelpie run away. “We will have a war if Hrokr falls—”
“He’s a Loki elf!” I yelled. The rage that this place whipped up suddenly manifested behind my eyes, and magic drifting behind the running kelpie shifted from his pale green to sickly orange. “He’s your problem, not mine!”
“Frank…” Magnus said.
I pointed. “He smells my lake.” He wanted only one thing—his bridle. How long before he transitioned into the part of the real world where he could get it? “He will do harm to…” Damn it. “To the seer if he gets away.” I reined Bloodyhoof around again. “So you send me home right now.”
“Not without my son.”
If he’d been on Bloodyhoof with me, I would have pushed him off, too. Intellectually, I knew finding Hrokr was a priority. I knew anger with the elves wouldn’t get me what I needed. It didn’t matter.
I slapped Bloodyhoof’s rump. “Follow the kelpie, boy!” The kelpie wanted his bridle. He’d lead me where I needed to go.
Bloodyhoof didn’t move. He tossed his head and looked to Magnus for instructions.
Magnus narrowed his eyes at Arne, but he spoke to me. “You had mate magic earlier, at the barn. I sensed it.”
“Yes,” I said. I’d hold my cool. I had no choice.
“It’s gone.”
“Titania stole it.”
Magnus looked right at me. He sniffed. “You will need to deal with the kelpie on your own.”
“I have Sal,” I said.
My axe winked into alertness.
“Magnus Freyrsson…” Arne said.
They were not telling me everything, and honestly, I didn’t care. “The kelpie’s almost out of sight,” I said.
Magnus stared defiantly at his king as he took a long, deep breath. Then he slapped the Yggdrasil tattoo on the side of my head. I didn’t understand the incantation, but I felt it creep across my face.
He’d hit me with another muzzle. I yanked on Bloodyhoof’s mane to turn him away. No more of this. I could still catch the kelpie even if—
A saddle manifested under me, and a bridle and reins on Bloodyhoof’s head.
The spell Magnus had slapped onto my face fully wove itself over my face, but not over my mouth. It covered my eyes.
I saw all the magic. All of it. All the edges and the ebbs and the flows. I saw gates and pathways. Magnus had given me a way to see the natural routing magic of this place. I could find my own way home, if I had to.
The same spell manifested over Bloodyhoof’s eyes, too.
Magnus swung Lucky around and slapped his hand across Sal’s scabbard. “Do what you must to deal with what cannot be, Salvation.” Then he pulled Lucky back and placed his hand on Bloodyhoof’s neck. “Do what you must to get him where he needs to be, Blodughofi.”
Then Magnus Freyrsson, Alfheim’s elf of prosperity and fertility, slapped Bloodyhoof’s rump.
The stallion knew what to do. We both knew what to do.
Together, we chased down a kelpie.
Chapter 19
The kelpie stayed twenty paces ahead. He wove. We dashed. He ducked. We lunged. Yet there he was, in the field, or along the stream, or under the trees, still twenty paces ahead. Every weave, or duck, or skid under logs allowed him to vanish from our view. He hid each time, attempting to use the magic of this place to out-maneuver Bloodyhoof, but Magnus had given us the elven equivalent of magical infrared night-vision goggles. The kelpie tried, but we compensated. Every rock jumped or railroad track crossed, we followed.
His goal was his bridle. My goal was getting to the cottage before it moved. Same place. Same Ellie. He would hurt her if he got there first.
And if he hurt her, I’d hurt him.
The kelpie would discover the level of damage my semi-dead body was capable of inflicting if he got to Ellie first.
The rage told me to kill him. To be the judge of his evil kelpie ways and twist his head from his body like I was pulling a cork from a bottle. Magical or not, that level of violence was also freeze-dried into my bones.
All the tales my father had told to that ship captain came with a grain of truth. I was capable of all the terror of which he accused me. But I would not be the creature he created. I would not embody his fears.
I wouldn’t embody the murderous glee of Victor Frankenstein.
Salvation wanted me to know that no matter what happened, she would always love me.
“You aren’t helping,” I said.
Yes, she was. I worried too much.
She was correct; I did worry too much. But what she worried about and what I worried about were not the same things.
Bloodyhoof galloped along, reacting to every slight shift in the magic around the kelpie, the ones that meant he used his magic to push his weaving and his ducking to their magical extremes.
I still knew deep down what was likely to happen when we crossed the boundary that
