“Well, trouble is already there, so I’m ahead of the curve,” I said with a smile.
“You’ll have your team,” Olivia Carpenter told me.
She looked tired. Tired from helping to organize a resistance, tired from being a mum to a small bundle of never-ending energy, but mostly tired from spending every waking moment when she wasn’t working worrying about Tommy. I knew it ate at her. Knowing he was out there somewhere but not knowing where. It was tough for her daughter, Kase, and Olivia’s young son, Daniel, but Olivia was burning both ends of the candle. I understood. I’d been doing something similar, but I’d also had people to punch to let out my frustrations, while Olivia just added them to the ever-growing list.
I walked over and hugged her, feeling her sag against me. “You need rest,” I whispered.
“I need my husband,” she said. “Go home; be with Selene and Astrid. We’ll come find you in a few hours.”
“Business first,” I said. I told everyone what had happened on the ship, and when they were done listening, they agreed with pretty much everything I wanted.
“Mordred can’t go,” Jinayca said. She was one of the Norse dwarves and had been a large part of the rebellion since its inception so many years ago. She was also one of the smartest people any of us knew, so when she spoke, everyone listened. “Sorry, you’re a king now.”
“And a king should lead,” Mordred said sternly.
“Yes,” Jinayca said. “And we need to stop Gawain, stop Avalon’s plans for DC, and we need to find Atlantis. If you go to DC and involve yourself in matters there, we’ll have to send a guard with you, and then we’re putting everyone in one basket with no clear way forward afterward. We need to be proactive. Arthur and Avalon want us to react to everything they do, to keep us off balance. We can’t win this way.”
“And your plan is?” Hel asked.
“We need to find out how Gawain got into the Earth realm,” she said. “I assume you have some contacts, Mordred.”
Mordred nodded. “I have one or two, yes.”
“A request from a king would be better than a request from me,” Jinayca said.
“You want me to be more statesmanlike,” Mordred said. He looked over at Hel.
“I agree with her,” Hel told him. “Gawain would only try to get you involved in a fight you don’t need to be involved in. We all go to DC, and then Arthur launches something else, and we’re all there fighting. Jinayca is right.”
Mordred nodded, but I knew how much he wanted to confront Gawain. “Right, let’s figure out who is going where,” Mordred said, leaning back in his chair. “Nate, go home and rest—that’s an actual order. We’ll get your team together. You have a few hours. See your wife and daughter.”
There was no point in arguing; besides, I wanted to see my family, so I did as I was told and went to my home at the far end of the city. You could see the realm gate temple on top of the hill from where we lived. The four-story building looked like a Roman villa, something Leonardo had been keen on. He’d called it a touch of class for the classless, which Selene had found hysterical, and I’d tried not to tell him to piss off. I’d failed, but at least I’d tried.
There were guards posted outside my home, which didn’t exactly make it look welcoming, but Mordred had insisted, so I’d gone along with it. To be fair, we were a few minutes’ walk from the nearest neighbor, so it wasn’t like they were going to terrify the locals.
One of the guards opened the large black metal gate and nodded to me. I returned the gesture as the door to the villa opened and Selene walked out, followed by a slowly tottering Astrid, who saw me and yelled until I picked her up. I gave Selene a kiss before we walked back inside.
“Whatever mission you’re going to go on next, I’m coming,” Selene told me as I closed the door.
“We get to go kill Gawain,” I said, bopping Astrid on the nose and making her giggle.
“About fu—” She caught herself before she finished. “About fudging time,” Selene said.
Chapter Four
NATE GARRETT
City of Solomon, Realm of Shadow Falls
After Astrid had been born and my father had been murdered in Asgard, Selene and I had settled in Shadow Falls, agreeing it was the safest place to live. We took turns going on missions, because neither of us wanted to sit around all day, but that meant not spending much time as a family. It had been a hard year, although the last few months had been easier with the appearance of Eos, Selene’s sister.
Eos had moved into our home. Her children had moved to Shadow Falls, too, because it was safer for them. Arthur wasn’t above going after the families of people who had helped us. I’d come back from a mission to discover Eos firmly ensconced. We’d discussed it before I’d gone, but I hadn’t realized I’d be coming back to a done deal.
If anyone ever told you that having someone who was essentially your sister-in-law living with you full-time was weird, they were right. It was really weird, but either way, Eos was wonderful with Astrid. She knew she wasn’t a warrior, although she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, and her days as an assassin were long behind her. Now, she just wanted to protect her family.
Eos walked down the stairs as Selene and I sat on the large comfortable sofa, Astrid in front of us playing with one of the approximately five million toy cars that had seemingly appeared in the house over the course of our living here.
“So how bad was it?” Selene asked me.
I gave a rundown of what had happened, culminating with me being told about the mission in DC.
“We’re going to DC?” Selene asked. “I’ve never been there.”
“How?” Eos asked. “You’re thousands of years old, and you’ve never been there?”
“You’ve never been to Ireland,” Selene countered.
“Touché,” Eos said, taking a seat nearby. “Have you heard from Father?”
Hyperion was in Helheim helping to resettle the hundreds of thousands of people who had been displaced by Avalon before their eventual defeat. It had turned out he was good at the job, although being one of the most powerful beings ever born probably went some way toward others treating him with respect.
“When this is all over, we’ll go to Helheim,” Selene said. “I think Hel is missing the place.”
“I think Mordred would be happy for the break away from being king,” I said. “He’s still not exactly used to it.”
“I don’t think he ever will be,” Eos said.
“Speaking of you Horsemen,” Selene said, “have you seen Judgement?”
Astrid threw a green car at me and laughed when I picked it out of the air with magic and dropped it back in her lap. There was a time when using magic in Shadow Falls had been unpredictable and wild, but over the years, as I’d increased in power, I’d learned to control it better. “She’s in the forest to the north,” I said. “She doesn’t do well around crowds of people.”
“She’ll come with us to DC,” Selene told me. “You should ask her.”
“She does like hitting people,” I said thoughtfully. “And I think the higher the rank, the more she enjoys it.”