“So we find the key while she’s training. I’ll unlock the door, let Val get a good look at the inside. We’ll get the key back to her before she notices it’s missing.”
“Then,” Skyla said, “we can come back later, when no one will notice. Val can jump into the room and let us in.”
With our plan in place, Skyla left to go find Embla and make a date for a morning workout. I went upstairs to seek out what remained of my lasagna dinner and found a few noodles and cheese crumbs left in the pan. I sighed and started cleaning the kitchen mess.
“Sit down,” said Val, who tugged me to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair. He pushed me into it, and I didn’t resist. “I’ll get the dishes. I don’t know what it is with you and your fondness for pulling all-nighters, but you’re going to make yourself sick.” Val turned to the sink and filled it with water. He crumpled the aluminum pan that had once held my lasagna and tossed it into the trash can. “In fact, you should go to bed. There’s nothing more that can be done tonight.”
I rubbed my eyes and rested my hand in my chin. “Sleeping’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Lately, it’s all bad dreams. I wake up more tired than I was when I started.”
Val squirted a healthy dose of dish soap in the sink before making neat piles of pots and pans for hand washing. He bent and loaded plates and glasses into the dishwasher.
“How very domesticated of you,” I said. “A god doing the humble chores of a housekeeper. Can’t you wave your magic wand or something?”
Val turned and smirked at me. “I’m not sure it wouldn’t end up going the way of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Besides, there’s comfort in manual labor. Your hands are busy, leaving your mind free to wander.”
“And where does your mind wander, Val?”
Val rolled up his shirt sleeves and plunged his hands into the sink to scrub a greasy saucepan. “When you’ve been around as long as I have, there are lots of things to think about. I think about the old days, the friends I’ve had and lost.” He winked at me over his shoulder. “The new ones I’ve made.”
“Is it hard being ancient?” I meant the question half as a joke.
However, Val took it seriously. “It’s lonely.”
“You’ve got friends.”
“Not many who know the truth. When you have to keep things from people, it makes it hard to get close to them—and human relationships are so temporary.” He turned and looked at me again. “And the ones who do know the truth, they either want to use me for something, or they push me away out of fear for what I am.”
“Not all of us,” I said.
Val shook his head. “You’ve pushed me away, Solina. You fear me whether you admit it or not.”
I nodded. “I fear being hurt. I’m afraid of being used.”
“So you see, we’re not all that different.”
“Except for the fact that you’re immortal, and I am very not. I don’t get as much time as you do to recover from mistakes. You must understand my need to be careful.”
Val narrowed his eyes. “There’s careful, and there’s wasting time.”
“It’s a thin line,” I said.
“One that you are treading oh so carefully.”
I chewed on that thought for a moment but could formulate no response. I stretched, yawned, and rubbed my face again. “I’m beat. I wonder where I’m supposed to sleep.”
“I put your stuff in the room you stayed in last time you were here,” Val said.
“Oh? It survived?”
“A little smoky, but it’ll do.”
I shuffled out of the kitchen and up the stairs to my room. Val had dismissed me without uttering a single lascivious crack about my solitary sleeping arrangements. His uncharacteristic grimness would have worried me, but then I found my room, the big four-poster bed, and my pajamas. I didn’t worry about Val anymore after that, and the moment my head hit the pillow, I didn’t worry about anything else, either, not even my promise to keep Thorin updated. Tomorrow, I vowed as I drifted into the warm, fuzzy fog of sleep. I’ll call Thorin… tomorrow.
Chapter Seventeen
“Solina. Get up.”
I rolled over and pulled the bedcovers over my head. Skyla ripped the sheets and comforter away and smacked my hip. I cracked open an eyelid and focused on Skyla, who stood over me, grinning. Excitement shone in her face. Behind her, the pale-purple sky of a predawn morning peered through my room’s window.
“Whaaat?” I whined.
“I’m going out to the barn. Are you going to look through Embla’s things, or what?”
I yawned and rubbed my eyes. “It goes against my religion to get up earlier than God does. Where’s Val?”
“He’s waiting out in the hall. Get dressed and get a move on.”
I groused some more but did as she said, sliding out of bed half awake and drunk with early-morning drowsiness. Skyla slipped into the dark hallway, and Val came in to take her place.
“What are you doing?” I grumbled, poking through my bags for something to wear. “I gotta get dressed.”
“Don’t let me stop you.”
I frowned at him and pulled out a long-sleeved shirt, underwear, and a pair of jeans. Grabbing up my toiletry bag, I shuffled down the hall to the bathroom to brush my teeth and dress in privacy. When I returned, Val was standing at the window, looking out at the scenery.
“What is it?” I hopped on one leg while pulling a sock into place.
Val turned to me and smiled. “It’s beautiful out there, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “It is. I wish I took more time to enjoy it. Mendocino is really a stunning place, out here on the edge of the world.”
“So, why don’t we enjoy it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s do something fun,” Val said. “Everything is run or fight all the time. Let’s go down to the beach and look for shells or go into town and find somewhere good to eat for dinner tonight.”
“That sounds like a date.” I slid my feet into my boots, wrapped a cotton scarf around my neck, and went to join Val at the window.
“You do still owe me one.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “I do?”
“We were supposed to have dinner together in Vegas, remember?”
“That was before, Val. The last time we were here, things didn’t end so well between us. We’ve never talked about that.”
“We can talk about it tonight.”
“That doesn’t sound like fun.”
“Dinner, Solina. That’s all I’m asking. As friends.”
“Friends?”
Val shrugged. “It’s up to you. I’ve learned the hard way not to push you.”
Giving in to Val would end badly, I suspected. But I missed his familiarity. I missed the part of him that had been a good friend. He hadn’t been acting like himself lately, and I wanted to know why.
“I don’t want to leave the Aerie,” I said. “But I’ll meet you at the beach after dinner.”
Val exhaled and smiled. He motioned toward the door. We left the house in silence, taking care to muffle our steps and let sleeping Valkyries lie. We encountered no one as we crossed the yard to the outbuilding, where the clash of metal announced Skyla and Embla were already at work in the gym. Val waited outside while I slipped into the shower room at the front of the building. The bright white room smelled of soap and harsh cleaners. Embla had bundled her bath things and a change of clothes on a bench near the community showers, but a quick check uncovered no sign of the library key.
Outside, I collected Val from his hiding place in the shadows and headed for the main house. “The key’s not in there,” I said. “Unless she’s got it on her right now.”
“We need to look in her room.”
“I don’t
know where her room is. If she was in the dormitory wing that burned, then we might be in trouble.” My breath hitched, and I paused midstep. “What if the key burned, too?”
“I’ll bash in the freaking door, Solina, or I’ll pin down one of the sisters and sit on her until she talks. All this sneaky bullshit is getting on my nerves anyway.”
“Yes, we know subtlety has never been your forte, but I’m not eager to announce our activities to the whole Aerie just yet.” My gaze unfocused as I considered what to do. My brain hurt from all these unusual planning and scheming exercises. “I’ll go back inside, find someone awake, tell them I’m looking to talk to Embla, and which one is her room? Simple, right?”
Val didn’t argue, so I told him to hang out in my room until I had need for him. My ears popped, and he blipped out of sight. I choked on a breath of surprise, wondering if I would ever get used to that. I skipped up the house’s front porch steps, pushed open the front door, and stepped into the foyer. At the sound of voices coming down the hallway, I turned.
Two women, Amala and Naomi, if I remembered correctly, greeted me with warm smiles. I pursed my lips and put on an expression I hoped looked like genuine confusion and stopped in their path. “Sorry to bother y’all, but I really need to talk to Embla. You know where her room is?”
The tall woman, who I thought was named Amala, pointed at the ceiling. “She’s upstairs in the left wing, across from the bathroom, but I don’t think she’s there. She usually goes out to the gym in the mornings.”
“Oh yeah?” I turned and glanced at the front door. “Well, maybe I’ll check out there.”
“We’re going to breakfast,” said Naomi, a compact, dark-skinned woman who wore her hair in a soft poof haloing her head. She looked angelic, but I had seen her training in the gym. She was fierce and lethal with fists or blade. “Why don’t you come with us? Embla will probably be back soon. Maybe you’ll see her in the kitchen.”
I bit my lip and tried to look apologetic. “I’m not much of an early eater. I might come grab some coffee in a few minutes, though.” I stepped aside and let the two women pass before I turned and headed to the stairway leading to the second floor. The left wing had survived the fire, but the end of the hallway connected to the dormitory wing, so the structure had suffered a lot of damage. Smoke had marked everything, tinting the walls a sad, greasy gray, and the floor had buckled in places. I eased down the hall, looking for the bathroom and the room across from it.
The fact that Embla occupied a room in the main house spoke to her seniority in the Aerie. The youngest women lived in the dorm and shared a large communal bathroom. Embla probably shared her bathroom only with Tori and—before the fire had claimed her life—Aoi, another of the older women at the Aerie.
Someone had cleaned soot from the surface of Embla’s door, and its warm wood gleamed in comparison to the dirty walls around it. I turned the knob, and the door creaked open. Entering someone else’s room without permission or knowledge felt like a violation. My stomach rolled over in protest, but I discarded my misgivings and stepped farther inside. Embla had obviously cleaned. Her room showed no sign of the fire other than a faint smoky odor that would probably linger in the walls for years to come. She had furnished her apartment with simple charm: an antique, wrought-iron bed, an oak dresser, and a small bedside table with a brass lamp. I went to the little table first and fished through the bric-a-brac on top—hair pins, silver hoop earrings, reading glasses, but no key.
I fell to my knees and peered under her bed. Embla stored several pairs of shoes and an old metal box under the dust ruffle. I slid the box from under the bed, unhooked the latch, raised the lid, and found a bundle of photos. The box contained no keys, and I should have put the pictures away, but something about the subject of the first photo aroused my curiosity.
The initial image showed two young women hugging each other as they posed for the camera with huge smiles. They resembled each other—Embla and another dark-skinned woman who could have been her sister.
The women in the pictures aged, and the photos showed the woman who wasn’t Embla standing beside a handsome young man in uniform. In the next photograph, the woman held a baby. The baby turned into a toddler, a little boy, then a preteen. Then the pictures showed another baby, a little girl. Eventually, the images focused solely on the girl. All the next photos had either been taken from a long distance or had the grainy texture of a telephoto lens. I studied the woman and her two children, wondering why they held such interest for Embla. Maybe she simply cherished her family, and her connection with the Valkyries had impeded their relationship.
I thumbed through a few more photos in the stack and stopped cold.
In the latter part of adolescence, the girl in the photos was unmistakable. She stood in a grassy yard in front of a building that looked like a high school. Other teenagers milled about, but Skyla stood alone, her arms folded over her chest, a blank, unassuming look on her face. Dark hair hung in long ringlets to the middle of her back, but the bright eyes, strong chin, and sharp cheekbones formed her unmistakable face.
Skyla’s pose and stance suggested she was unaware of the photographer. What did it mean that this picture was here, in Embla’s room? My brain whirred like a set of old gears. It hiccupped and sputtered but produced no answers. I shoved the picture into my back pocket. The rest I set back in the box, which I returned to its place under the bed.
I had spent a lot of time studying those photos and didn’t know how much longer I had until Embla returned to her room. Panic tingled through my nerves. My pulse thrummed, and my hands shook as adrenaline drizzled into my bloodstream. Faster. Move faster. I pawed through Embla’s dresser, the only other piece of furniture in the room, and in the top drawer I found a jewelry box. The lid creaked when I opened it, which sounded like a scream to my raw nerves. Inside the box lay a strand of freshwater pearls, an old princess-style diamond ring, and a thin silver chain threaded through an old skeleton key. I rubbed my thumb over its tarnished surface. That’s got to be it.
I closed the jewelry box, slid the dresser drawer back into place, and eased out of the room, careful to check for sounds of approaching footsteps. When I judged the way clear of witnesses, I dashed down the hallway and burst through the door into my room. Val was reclined on my bed, feet crossed, head pillowed on his hands, twined behind his head.
I pursed my lips and narrowed my eyes at him. “Comfortable?”
Val ignored my question and rolled off the bed. “You found it, didn’t you?”
I dangled the key on its chain before his face. “Take it. Get down to the library, get your mental image, and get back up here so I can put it back.”
Val took the key but paused to brush a hand over my temple. “Calm down, Solina. I could hear your heart beating from across the room.”
“I’m no good at this cloak-and-dagger stuff.”
“We don’t have to worry about the CIA recruiting you, huh?”
I swallowed—anxiety had dried my throat. “Go, Val. I’m ready to be done with this.”
Val smiled, winked, and—pop—disappeared. I held my breath until he returned. He passed me the key, and I snatched it, scurried down the hall again, and dumped it into Embla’s jewelry box. As soon as I put my hand on the door to leave, I heard two voices in the hallway. One belonged Skyla, so the other was presumably Embla.
“I think you’re going to be surprised,” Embla said. “Just give me a second to grab it.”
Floorboards creaked outside the bedroom door. My insides turned to ice. Following a desperate impulse, I dropped and rolled under the bed. Through the crack beneath the dust ruffle, I watched the door open, and Embla’s feet stepped into the room.
She went to a closet, moved things around, and said, “Ah ha!”
I held my breath, paranoid Embla would hear air shushing through my nose.
Whatever she found had captured her attention. She stood at the closet, fidgeting with something. I inhaled a shallow breath and held it again, mentally urging her to leave. With my nerves already strung to their max, I nearly screeched when someone knocked on the door.
“Embla?” Skyla asked.
I breathed out a silent sigh.
“Oh, Skyla, I found it.”
Skyla stepped into the room. She sucked in a breath that sounded like awe. “That’s it? It’s really lovely.”
“Isn’t it?” Embla said.
“And you don’t mind if I use it?”
“You’ve got quite a way with a blade, and I think you’ll find this one fits you perfectly.”
“I can’t wait to try it.”
Both of them turned and stepped back into the hallway, and Embla pulled her door shut behind her. I exhaled and lay in place, relishing the relief that flooded through me. With my composure restored, I rolled out from under the bed, pressed my ear to Embla’s door, and then slipped out into the hallway, closing her door behind me. Val met me at the landing to the stairway.
“What the hell happened?” he whispered when I drew up to his side.
“They came back too soon.”
“I know.” Val brushed my shoulders and back, shooing away dirt and dust bunnies. “Skyla came into the room and freaked when I told her you were still putting the key back in place.”
“I heard them coming and hid under the bed—classic espionage technique. Maybe I should work for the CIA after all.” I told him about the conversation I had overheard and gave him the picture of teenaged Skyla.
Val looked at it, and his brows drew together. “What’s this?”
“I found it in a box in Embla’s room. There were stacks of them, mostly of Skyla growing up, but there were pictures of a woman who must be Skyla’s mother and a boy who must be her brother.”
Val’s blue eyes flicked up to mine and held my gaze with a hard look. “Are you going to tell her?”
Arctic Dawn (The Norse Chronicles Book 2) Page 17