Part of me wasn’t surprised, while another part wished Dagrun had trusted me more. “It wasn’t a genie, Arne,” I said. “Or fae.”
Ellie shook her head. “It was wolf magic, sir. Strong wolf magic. I was worried about the kids when it showed up at Frank’s place.”
I swear I heard Arne kick something. “We know it wasn’t a real djinn. Dag will be home in two or three days. When she’s healed enough, we’ll discuss this at The Hall.”
The elven healers were keeping her for multiple days? How bad were her injuries? “She hid her wounds from me, Arne. If I’d known—”
“If you’d known, she still would have made you take Axlam to safety, son. You and I both know that.”
We did. I did. But I likely would have gone back for Dag. I glanced at Ellie. This time, she squeezed my thigh. “I’ll meet you at the hospital,” I said. We could check on Dag.
“No,” Arne snapped. He sighed again. “Not if you’re a fae magnet, son. Best let Dagrun rest.”
She’d be pulling IVs from her arm and yelling “I’m fine!” at the nurses if she got wind of yet another threat wafting into Alfheim.
“If you wish,” I said.
“I need to rouse Magnus from his jetlag anyway. Meet me at his farm and I’ll have him help you with this fae issue.”
“Magnus is back from New Zealand?” I asked.
Arne hung up without answering.
“Magnus flew in during the blizzard?” Ellie asked.
Not that a blizzard would hamper our elder Freyr elf.
Ellie ran her fingers over her camera. “I’ll stay in the truck when we get to his farm,” she said, “so as not to interfere with the elves.” She tapped the cantaloupe-sized piece of wood on her lap. “We’ll need to go home so I can develop the plates I exposed.”
She looked up at me expectantly.
I’d assumed me staying was now the default. But thinking about it—actually considering where I was going to sleep tonight—felt… nice. We were in the middle of a developing crisis and here I was calmer than I had any right to be because my brand-new relationship made me euphoric.
Ellie smiled. She leaned over the gearshift. “Thank you for figuring out how to get through the enchantments,” she said.
I had no doubts about us. I’d found something worth fighting for. I would fight for it, too. Apprehension, though, continued to knock at the back of my brain. Apprehension that those two fae had sniffed her out, no matter how well her mother cast her enchantments.
I grinned anyway. “Do I get a drawer in the bathroom?”
She poked my thigh this time. “You know the cottage already added space for you next to the sink.”
It had. I smiled.
But something was going to happen. Something always did. We were likely about to roll down Alfheim’s roads toward that happening the moment I pulled the truck out of the driveway.
I had no idea how to stop it, or see it coming, or whether there’d be damage. Maybe the price of being all-in with fae magic would end up being too high. Maybe it’d be another outsider, like St. Martin, or the wolf magic that had masqueraded as St. Martin’s “genie.” I’d already run into a powerful Wolf that didn’t like me. Why not two? I wasn’t lucky enough in love or life for such damages to pass me on by.
If Ellie had seen anything coming in her photos, she would have said. I started up the truck, wondering if I was just being paranoid.
“You make me happy,” Ellie said in a low, husky voice. She wiggled again. “So very happy.”
My girlfriend was wiggling suggestively in the passenger seat of my truck.
Something else new and nice, even if it did sidetrack my poor, awestruck brain. “Beautiful, you are one distracting woman,” I said as I started the truck.
A pop of annoyance rolled from Sal, followed by a declaration that she was sure I’d been enthralled by the so-called helpful fae magic.
I groaned and pulled out onto the road.
“What?” Ellie asked.
“My jealous axe.”
Ellie chuckled. “You and I are going to be the best of friends, Salvation!” She nodded toward Sal’s handle. “Just wait. It’s going to be you and me against the world. And who better to train me in hand-to-hand?”
Sif the Golden would be better for training Ellie in any martial arts. Or either of our mothers.
Family, I thought, and drove us toward town.
Chapter 9
Shortly after Ed and his family moved to Alfheim, when they were first getting used to winters with snow, he’d told me how surprised he’d been at the speed with which the Minnesota Department of Transportation cleared the roads. The kids had expected snow days every other Tuesday. He’d expected chains on tires and blizzard conditions solid from the Winter Solstice to the Spring Equinox.
He was about a century too late for that. Winter life in modern Minnesota was more about keeping your wiper blades in good condition and making sure your boots were waterproof. Plus every year, a day or two after Samhain, Arne went out to the Alfheim County MnDOT Maintenance and Operations Depot and charmed all the plows.
He clearly hadn’t done so yet this year.
The road from my place to Magnus’s stables was close to impassable. As the sun moved into late afternoon and the temperature began its slow slide into nighttime chill, what had been snow was now crusty slush on its way to becoming ice. Bloodyhood handled it well, but Ellie did not.
The road curved. Bloodyhood’s back end continued on in the direction we had been going while its front end compensated by going a little too far in the opposite direction.
These things happen when driving on ice. Bloodyhood is big, heavy, and brand-new, so it was just a little fishtail. I easily drove through it. Nothing to worry about.
Ellie sat ramrod-straight in her seat and white-knuckle-gripped the door. A little yip escaped her lips.
I was beginning to suspect that this was the first time her cottage had moved her into extreme winter conditions. Not that Minnesota had more than a few storms’ worth of extreme conditions every year. “I’ll teach you how to control a slide like that,” I said.
Bloodyhood bounced along over the crackling ice, which did nothing to settle nerves or stomachs. Ellie stared out the windows, still gripping the door, with the yellow hat pushed up on her forehead so that the pompom brushed the headrest every time we hit a particularly deep rut in the ice.
“Foot off the accelerator. Eyes straight ahead. Don’t overcorrect,” I said. “We’ll practice in a parking lot. It’ll be fun.”
She tossed me a you cannot be serious look.
Sal wanted me to know that she was picking up distinct waves of incredulousness from the so-called helpful fae magic. It might affect my enthralling. I was to be careful.
My axe was tattling on my annoyed girlfriend in order to protect me. I was in the middle of the most bizarre love triangle on Earth.
“Is the whole winter going to be like this?” Ellie asked.
What did Arne say about the fae? Sharks smelling blood in the water. The same thing happened in Alfheim when tourists asked the local mundanes about the weather. Eyes brightened. Lips curled ever so slightly. We got a live one! reverberated through the entire population and all that Minnesota Nice became the perverse thrill of egging on the cold-based terror of non-locals.
After two hundred years, that thrill affects me as well, but I held back the reflexive need to say the local favorite of “Just wait until January when it’s too cold to snow.” Or the other popular response of “Shoveling too fast will give you a heart attack, ya know.”
“You’ll get used to it,” I said.
She blinked three times. Her hand released from the door panel. Then she broke out into a hearty laugh. “One of the locals in Alice Springs said exactly the same thing about the heat.” She tapped the tip of her nose. “Same expression. Same tone of voice.” She shrugged. “Different accent.”
I laughed, too.
“They
had firenadoes.”
I shrugged. “Snownadoes here.”
Her eyes widened. “Seriously?”
I shook my head. “They’re mostly snow dust devils. Except that one in spring of 1816. That wasn’t fun.”
She slumped back into her seat and adjusted the yellow hat and its big white pompom. “Can we move someplace with nice weather? California, maybe?”
I almost said “Earthquakes.” But then I realized she’d just said we.
Why was I stunned? Because I was stunned. After this morning, the last thing I should be was stunned.
Yet my screaming raccoon was back, and this time, he was laughing.
Red crept up Ellie’s jaw to her cheeks.
I reached across and took her gloved hand in mine. She looked down at our fingers, then up at my face with the same openness and vulnerability I’d seen in the kitchen this morning.
She squeezed my fingers. “Both hands on the wheel, handsome.”
I’d never get used to handsome. If I was honest, I actually found it kind of annoying, in the same way I’d find sweet widdle cuddle-bunny annoying.
She let go of my hand and pointed down the road. “That’s an animal transport.”
It didn’t take us long to catch up. We were behind at least five identical trucks. They were all inching along as if there was an accident up ahead. I peered around the trucks as best I could and sure enough, up ahead, cop lights reflected off the side of the lead eighteen-wheeler.
All the transports carried sheep. Big ones, too. Their baaing overpowered the roar of the truck’s heater, so they weren’t all that happy, even if they were fat, healthy, and giving off lots of indistinct flutters of magic that floated away through the slats.
“Who transports sheep in the winter?” Ellie asked. “And so many?”
The magic wafting from the transports wasn’t unusual. We had a lot of magic-protected animals in Alfheim. “Elves,” I said. Though moving sheep right after a blizzard seemed a bit reckless, even for elves.
The indistinct magic coming off the second truck flared just enough as we passed to make me squint.
Not everything the elves did was my business, but sometimes I wished the non-elder elves would tighten up their spellwork.
We inched forward to find Ed Martinez’s cruiser in the middle of the road, lights on, blocking access to Magnus Freyrsson’s grand stable and horse breeding operation. Red and blue flashed with a headache-inducing rhythmic cadence that bounced disjointedly off the snow.
All the trucks were turning onto Magnus’s property. I really didn’t think much of it, since Magnus did own the biggest and most prosperous farm in Alfheim County.
I stopped next to Ed’s car and rolled down the window. “Arne sent me out.” I pointed at the lovely hand-carved Freyrsson Stables sign and leaned a little out the window. “We might have a fae problem.”
Ed frowned for a split second before his face returned to cop flatness. He’d switched out his normal brimmed Sheriff’s hat for a beanie, and a large “Alfheim County Sheriff’s Department” logo sat right between his eyes as if his detective sense had turned into a literal third eye.
He looked exhausted, too, with dark circles under his brown eyes, as if he hadn’t slept. Which he probably hadn’t, since he’d been pulled into the run. But at least he and his daughter were safe.
He glanced around me at Ellie. “Ma’am,” he said.
“Ellie Jones,” she said. “We’ve met but you don’t remember me.”
“Sophia does.” The audible low noise that rolled from his body sounded as much like a growl as it did a groan. He looked up at the road as another transport rolled by from the other direction. “Stay away from my kids,” he said.
This was not good. Not while we were dealing with yet another magical crisis. “Ed,” I said.
He held up his hand. “My wife wants to move down to The Cities. Said at this point, I could come in as a Chief Deputy Sheriff in one of the suburban departments. I told her I’d talk to my contacts in Ramsey and Carver Counties.”
Ellie leaned toward the window. “Sheriff Martinez, I’m—”
He waved her off. “I won’t remember anything you say.” He slapped Bloodyhood’s door. “We have sixteen accidents this morning with the snow, and I’m here keeping tabs on freakin’ sheep because Magnus Freyrsson thinks he’s just as much in charge as Arne Odinsson. Go.”
He’d dealt with vampires for us. He’d handled the mundane issues caused by Dracula and St. Martin. But none of that had affected his children. Putting himself in danger was one thing. His family? Absolutely not.
I nodded. “Let’s talk later.” I was the closest thing to another understanding mundane Ed had here in Alfheim.
He grunted and waved us through.
“How long has that been brewing?” Ellie asked. “And now he has a touched daughter.”
“I don’t know.” Though he’d been frustrated with the elves for quite a while. Frustrated with the magic and the threats that came with it.
I should have been paying better attention. Ed was a friend.
I pulled Bloodyhood onto the wide plowed-and-salted drive to Magnus’s village—because if I was honest, that’s what it was.
Freyrsson Stables was its own localized economic engine, complete with multiple housing options—ranging from a set of understated townhomes for the stable staff and their families, to Magnus’s old 1886 mansion which he’d turned into a bed and breakfast, to his massive new mansion hidden away in the trees from the farm’s major dealings.
There were also meeting spaces hidden in the barns and buildings, because he liked to do a lot of his other business dealings here among his grand Percherons and Fjord horses. Nothing said “prosperous” to an investor like Magnus’s gorgeous stallion, Bloodyhoof himself.
“Wow,” Ellie said.
“This is why enclaves hoard their Freyr elves.”
She pointed at the little café next to the tourist entrance to the horse barns. “There have to be rules about showing off like this.”
“There are rules about personal enrichment. No greed. All wealth-building must be done in the service of the local economy.” At least that’s what Arne said. All the elves lived comfortably, but none of them skated through life on trust funds. Benta worked to benefit her sanctuary. Arne and Dag worked to build a prosperous Alfheim for the local mundanes. Even though we weren’t one of the rich Metro suburbs, our schools were some of the best in the state.
And Magnus… well, Magnus Freyrsson worked all the time. Between the Stables, Gullinbursti Reclamations, the cargo plane business, the auto dealerships, and all his resorts and tourist businesses, Magnus was responsible for a significant portion of Alfheim’s economic stability. So he wasn’t showing off. He was signaling that this place was as much his Hall as it was our Odin elves’.
Arne’s brand-new, blood-red, standard-issue electric Honda sat in front of one of the barns. Getting here before we did must have involved plenty of magic, especially with the roads, but there he was, leaning against the also-deep-red wall next to the door as if we were two hours late.
Right next to his Honda sat Magnus’s also-brand-new, also-electric, midnight-blue Porsche Taycan.
Ellie pointed again. “Now, see, Oberon would string up his Second before he allowed him to drive a nicer car.”
“I doubt Oberon’s Second is a Freyr aspect,” I said. Freyr aspects had exceptional taste in all things prosperous. “Having a Magnus as their Second is our King and Queen’s way of showing off.” Magnus Freyrsson could walk into any enclave on Earth and be its King within hours, yet he preferred to live here in small-town Minnesota with his buddies.
I parked off to the side out of habit. I handed Ellie my keys. “Just in case,” I said.
She tucked them into her pocket.
Ellie laid her hand on her camera. “Should I take photos?”
She was worried about offending the elves. “The magic around this place is quite beautiful,�
� I said. “The sheets of energy here are more like true aurora than most other magicks.”
She grinned as if a warm memory had surfaced. “There’s a place, in England somewhere, I don’t remember where…” She did a small frustrated shake as if, like so many other memories manipulated by her enchantments, she couldn’t quite recall what she wanted. “Anyway, it’s a gateway into my mother’s realm.” She looked back at me. “The fae tend to make the ways into their realms enticing. Small, too, so only one person can pass through at a time, and to make them hard to find. But they’re always eerie. And lovely.” She waved her fingers. “Tingly and rush-inducing, like a rollercoaster.”
I squeezed her fingers. “Sounds like the gate into The Great Hall.”
Magnus Freyrsson stepped through the barn’s door and out into the snow. If he had jetlag, he wasn’t showing it in his glamour. He appeared impeccable, as one would expect of Magnus Freyrsson, except for the tastefully styled, zippered wool sweater jacket. It fit him perfectly and set off the silver rings and the chain around his neck, yet screamed in a bold black, white, and red stylized wave-turbulence pattern shot through with tiny lines of blue, green, and yellow.
He rolled his shoulders and frowned as if he noticed Bloodyhood, but didn’t notice because Ellie watched him from the cab, and the whole confusion made him sad.
Ellie sucked in her breath. “I forgot how handsome he is,” she muttered. “Even in his glamour.”
Every one of my facial muscles tightened. I squinted and the part of my upper lip directly below my nose tried to yank my mouth into an angry sneer all because Ellie commented on a phenomenon as natural and true as the sunset.
Magnus Freyrsson was exceptionally beautiful, even for an elf. He’d been a silent movie star. Mundanes loved him. He brought joy and success to Alfheim. And he’d given me my wonderful new truck.
But still.
Ellie’s eyes widened. “You’re jealous! Oh, Frank.” She leaned across the gearshift and kissed my cheek. “He’s terrifying. They both are.”
I blinked. “What?” Magnus wasn’t scary, and Arne was less terrifying than Dag.
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