* * *
Anthony arrives home at a quarter to five, and I surprise him with a roast and potatoes I picked up from a local restaurant.
“I was only half-joking when I wrote that note this morning,” Anthony says. His eyes are red and his face isn’t as vibrant as usual.
“And I only half-cooked it,” I say. “So tell me everything.”
“Maureen called and she wants me to prepare the Portal of Blufire so we can leave in a few days.”
My eyebrows rise up. “The what?”
He takes a bite of his dinner. “This is really good, Sonia, I didn’t know you were such a talented cook.” He scoops up some mashed potatoes. “It’s a portal where we are immediately transported to Wraithsong Island. All portals lead there.”
“Like an instant transfer?” I ask.
“I guess you could call it that,” Anthony says, “I’ll show you after dinner.”
“It’s here in this house?”
“Yes. There are three of them actually, and Maureen owns one of them. Well, technically she stole it from the governesses. They used to have two.”
“Who has the third one?”
“It is an exhibit in the Viking Museum in Oslo, but the Norwegians don’t know what it is or how to use it,” Anthony says.
Was that why she had lived in Norway? “So, you walk into it and—zap?”
“Zap—I like that word, but no, it’s more of a scorching blaze. It almost feels like your skin is being burned off,” he says.
My face twists. I’m not looking forward to traveling through it. Scorching and blazing aren’t exactly things I want to experience.
“Shifting gears, Skuld, the Lightálfar I met in Arizona, told me that they’ve been on Maureen’s heels for years, trying to track her down,” Anthony says.
“Why were they after her?” I ask.
“Because…” He clenches his glass so hard his fingertips turn white. “She killed some of them.”
“That’s horrible,” I say.
He nods. “And she stole many things from them too.”
“What kinds of things did she steal?”
“Important things, they say, but they weren’t too specific.”
“Are you being vague on purpose?” I have had enough of everybody’s vagueness.
“No, she took things like important scripts with formulas and spells and also ancient weapons,” he says solemnly.
“Well, now we can make it all right again, right?”
“I suppose we can try. It’s like our whole world just exploded, and now we’re left to clean up the mess.”
“Nothing is so bad that we can’t fix it.” I reach for his hand, but he withdraws it right away. His rejection of me stings deeply, even though I’m not sure if I would want him to accept me. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No, there’s not.”
“We can’t afford to have any lies come between us, Anthony,” I say.
“Just because I’m not prepared to share my innermost feelings with you, doesn’t mean that I’m lying to you.”
“You can trust me to understand whatever you tell me; I hope you see that,” I say as sincerely as I can and I mean it.
“I know I can,” he says, gulping some water. “I guess this situation is so much more serious than I thought. Many more lives are at stake than yours and mine and the other Huldras.”
“I suppose we’ve been a little lax on things lately.”
He glances at me. “A lot more people are going to be involved in this, and we’ll have to put our personal differences…and feelings aside.”
I know immediately that I don’t want that at all and I’m frightened by my nearly complete change of heart. “So what kind of powers do the Lightálfars possess?”
“I don’t really want to talk right now,” he says, lifting his plate with him. “I’ll finish eating in my room. I’d prefer it if you stayed down here for a while.” He gets up and leaves.
I remain sitting for a while, not knowing exactly what to do or how to read the situation. Did I say or do something wrong? I try really hard not to read into his actions tonight, but fail miserably. Since he said we need to put our personal feelings aside, I feel like I have lost something of immense value, but then again, if I never really had it, how could I have lost it?