Wrenn dropped her token into the Heartway enchantments, stepped through the shimmer, and… moved.
Dry, furnace-heated air hit her face. Bright midday sun beamed in from massive windows to her left. A multitude of tables, some with their chairs up and some not, surrounded her on all sides.
Across the windows, painted so that it was readable from the outside, were the words “Raven’s Gaze is open for delivery and curbside pick-up.”
This was not Applebottom. From the snow and ice outside, she’d landed somewhere in the mundane world.
Alfheim.
“That was easier than I thought it would be.”
Wrenn whipped around. A woman she did not know sat alone at a table in the corner. She wore a pristine white t-shirt, a black leather jacket, and black jeans. Her boots looked suspiciously like Wrenn’s, as if she’d gotten them off a fae cobbler.
She was not fae, nor was she an elf. Her dark eyes, her lovely straight black hair, and her strong features suggested Native American, but what nation Wrenn didn’t know.
She was definitely a magical.
The woman stood and extended her hand. “You are Wrenn Goodfellow, I assume?”
Wrenn gingerly shook the woman’s offered hand. “I am. And you are?”
The woman grinned. “Raven,” she said.
Wrenn bristled. Raven? The Raven? One of the many aspects of Raven? What the hell was going on in Alfheim? “Are you—”
The woman held up her finger. “You have more important business.” She pointed out the door as a white truck pulled into the otherwise empty parking lot.
Wrenn walked over to the door and peered outside. “Alfheim Wildcat Sanctuary” blazed across the side of the truck and magic blazed off its driver.
“You’re a bit of a peace offering,” Raven said. She gently pushed Wrenn toward the door. “Go on. Benta the Nameless has many tales to tell.”
The magical named Raven disappeared with a fluttering flourish.
Wrenn sighed. How many times in her two hundred years had she been sidetracked by some magical or another? The Courts especially were always in everyone’s business. Seemed Alfheim had the same problem with busybodies.
She pushed open the door and stepped out into the bright sun.
The chill wasn’t so bad. The snow snapped and crunched as it melted and the icicles on the tavern’s roof dripped in a melodic rhythm.
Two big ravens sat in the big oak tree next to the tavern’s walk. They both shimmered in the sun, and when the larger of the two preened its wings, aura sheets of magic filled the tree.
Wrenn waved and both ravens cawed and bobbed their heads in acknowledgement.
Benta stepped out of the truck the moment Wrenn exited the tavern. She closed the driver’s door and walked toward Wrenn.
She wore a different jacket than the one she’d had on in the Paul Bunyan Reserve, this one less puffy and a bright, friendly yellow. The hat looked different, too, but still big and wide-brimmed.
She really was extraordinarily beautiful, more beautiful than the Queen with her gray elven eyes, and she moved like the cat in the picture on the side of her truck.
Benta walked up. “I got a call that I was supposed to come pick you up at Raven’s Gaze.” She pointed at the tavern. “This is Bjorn’s place.” Her lips scrunched up for a second. “Or was. There’s some disagreement right now.”
Wrenn pointed over her shoulder. “I met Raven inside,” she said.
Benta’s lips rounded. “She appeared to you?” She looked impressed. “Raven’s been picky about who she’ll talk to. Mostly just our Queen and—” She inhaled. “She brought you back here on her own, didn’t she? Without asking?”
Wrenn looked back at the restaurant. What was she supposed to say? She’d just been rerouted by the World Raven because she was some sort of “peace offering.” There were things happening here she did not understand. “Yes,” she said.
“Sorry about that.” Benta shook her head. “Anyway, I need to ask you a few questions. Okay?”
Wrenn nodded. “Okay.”
“Victor Frankenstein,” she said.
“That’s not a question,” Wrenn said.
Benta chuckled. “Oh, Victor is a huge question, is he not?”
“Was a question,” Wrenn said. “He’s dead.”
Benta nodded. “He died in Edinburgh about two hundred years ago.”
“Yes,” Wrenn said. “He… lost his head.”
Benta chuckled. “How many of your kind are there?”
Wrenn blinked. Benta had to ask that question, didn’t she? The one Wrenn didn’t know the answer to, not because she didn’t know how many of her kind there were, but whether or not she’d been built. “Victor resuscitated me,” she said. Whispered, really.
Benta’s eyebrows knitted. “You’re not a witch,” she said. “If anything, you’re another jotunn.”
“I can cast a limited number of spells.” She held out her hand to show Benta the spell she used to relocate muscle tension.
Benta sighed. “The magicks you carry are strong and intricate, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from Robin Goodfellow. May I?” She reached and drew her finger along the tattoos around Wrenn’s wrist. “It’ll take some time, but I think we can untangle all of this.”
“I carry gifted magic,” Wrenn said. “I’m Royal Guard. We all do. But the protection spells are my own.”
Benta nodded again. “Oh, honey, you are so much more than Royal Guard.”
Wrenn pulled back her hand. “What do you mean?”
Benta nodded toward her truck. “I think it’s time you met the other of your kind.”
Did she mean Frank? “He…” She inhaled. Ed would not have lied to her. Nor would the elves. Elves don’t lie. “The logs and diaries I have said he called himself Adam.”
Benta laughed. “Victor named him Adam as part of his woe-is-me God complex. When we found him, he didn’t have a name.”
Neither had Wrenn, when Robin found her. All that time with Victor and he’d only ever referred to her as his pigeon, or his darling, or his love.
Benta ushered her toward the truck. “Come,” she said.
Wrenn walked toward the truck, her satchel over her arm and her jitters resurfacing.
She hadn’t wanted this. She had work in Applebottom. And she needed time to process what she’d learned from Ed and the elves before coming back to Alfheim.
But
