Lionel’s mouth is dry as bone and his vision is dark around the edges, but he’s able to see that it is a human woman hovering over him. She has golden brown skin and black hair, but her features are indistinct and blurry. He knows he should be afraid, but when he tightens his fingers on his key, he doesn’t feel danger … only hope. But did she understand him? Magic wants them to understand each other, he reminds himself.

Key tight in his fist, he lets magic guide his words. “I won’t hurt you.”

He has the impression of her lips pursing. “Yeah, I know that. But I might be hurting you …” Her words are soft, slow, measured, and that reassures him. She is not afraid. Something he learned as a farm boy on the edge of the Golden Road, wild creatures that are fearful are as dangerous as ones that are hungry.

She continues, “I think you may need to go to a hospital. You’ve been shot, and it’s bad.”

“Hospital?” he whispers. Magic can only translate words between languages when there is a corresponding word between them. This is apparently a thing that elves don’t have.

“A place with lots of doctors,” she whispers.

His heart seizes at that, remembering stories from Einherjar recruits who talked about human “healers” sawing off injured limbs. He grabs her arm. “No, please. I … magic … there will be no infection, not even … lockjaw.”

He blinks. Surprised they have a name for the disease that is the bane of elves cut by iron implements. If they also suffer from the disease, why use iron?

His vision clears enough to see her bite her lip. “Do you need anything?”

“Water,” he croaks, feeling a wave of dizziness. Grasping the magic key in his hand, he closes his eyes and retreats into himself to survey his injuries. The muscle and fascia in his leg is torn, and he’s had to shut down the nerves around the wound, but he’s sealed up the vessels, and entry and exit points on his leg have scabbed over. There’s no sign of the deadly bacterium that causes lockjaw.

“Here,” she whispers.

He opens his eyes, unsure if she was only gone for a short while, or if he’d lost consciousness. She offers him a strange sort of clear canteen. He lifts his head. She puts a hand behind his back and presses it to his lips.

The water is cool, and although it has a strange aftertaste, it is very palatable. He feels his lucidity returning with every gulp. When he finishes the canteen, he lays back down. The abode’s light is dim, but enough to reveal his benefactor’s appearance. Not all humans are beautiful. Their environment and lack of magic means they often suffer from malnutrition and infection, but the old elves say that beautiful humans are more beautiful than elves can ever be. Their features are not as regular, their forms more varied even in health. Lionel has met five wild humans in his lifetime. The first three, Hannah, Abraham, and their newborn, Benjamin had been malnourished, frightened, and in pain when they’d met. The other two had been companions of Loki. The elder had been charming for her gnome-like appearance. The younger woman had unremarkable facial features and odd proportions.

This human is healthy and her features are striking. She has an aquiline nose that he’s seen in Odin’s Einherjar from Midgard’s Western Central continent, her eyes have a slight tilt to them, her lips are full. Black hair, the texture he’s seen most commonly on Einherjar from the African continent frames her face and sparkles … he blinks. The sparkles come from water droplets. For the first time, he notices the sound of raindrops on the roof. She dragged him out of the rain, and is now soaked through … just like him. He shivers, looks past her, and his eyes widen. Behind her is one of their metal chariot beasts. He scoots backward and pain lances from his wound and seemingly everywhere else.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

He hisses angrily at himself for being an idiot—obviously she and the machine have some sort of understanding—but also, “They make you sleep with the machine-animals?” Last time he was in the human realm it was before this region’s civil war. He’s heard since then that the institution of slavery has ended, but an Einherjar of African and American heritage recruited during the second world war had told him, “There is no more slavery in the United States in this day and age, but we’re still segregated and unequal.” It’s exactly like that Einherjar had said.

Her lips purse, perhaps never having considered the inequity before. “Machine-animal?”

His eyes go to the chariot.

Her eyebrows shoot up. “Yeah, um … do you think you can walk if I help you? I can take you inside. It’s going to get cold tonight and I don’t like putting a space heater out here.”

The words seem mostly gibberish, as they are already inside, but he needs to be accommodating. He nods.

“Okay,” she says. Putting his arm over her shoulder, she helps him to his feet. Upon standing, he’s hit with a wave of pain and again, it’s everywhere. It makes his vision foggy and dark, but he’s dimly aware that she’s taller than him, and her shoulders are broad enough to be a recruit for the Valkyries. They reach a door at the corner of the room, and she says, “Oops! I forgot.” She reaches backward with her spare arm in a strange sort of wave, and says, “Good night.”

The machine-beast gives a cheery beep and flashes its lantern-eyes.

Summoning all his persuasive magic, Lionel reassures it, “I mean your mistress no harm.”

The woman gives him a funny look, and the chariot doesn’t give him a cheery beep.

They hobble out into the night, through a tiny garden, and up a few cement steps. She does some odd things with her free hand to the “security system,” and opens a door. He is bathed in warm yellow light and hit by a gust of comfortably warm air. She guides him down the hallway to a room painted with a scene of cheerful animals on a savanna. The short journey has left him exhausted, and he practically dives out of her arms into the bed. It is more comfortable than he would have thought. He thought humans slept on straw.

“Do you need to get undressed?” she asks.

The world is getting dark, and Lionel shakes his head. The chamber is warm, even though he is in in damp clothes. A moment later, a large blanket encompasses him and he’s warmer still.

The woman steps away, and he is struck by her silhouette—she has been as gentle as one of the queen’s healing maidens—but with her grace, strength, and wild beauty, she could be a Valkyrie. But a Valkyrie would never be as kind to a “short, scrawny elf.” He tightens his fingers on the keychain, and as magic races through him, he feels the same sensation of hope he had before. “Thank you …” he hears someone whisper. “… for saving my life.” She flicks a finger and the lights go out. The open doorway behind her glows even brighter in the gloom. The magic of the silken cord that marks his office thrums through him. He goes to sleep, the memory of hope warring with something else deep within his consciousness.

Tara stares at herself in the bathroom mirror. The memory of the elf passed out among her younger cousin’s stuffed animals in the spare room is in stark contrast to her own reflection. He’d looked ethereal and young even in obvious pain. Magical. She is a mess. Her makeup is smudged, her mascara is running down her face, and after looking at the elf’s skin, she feels like her pores are as large as the craters of the moon. She looks old. Also, some girls can really rock the natural fro, but Tara isn’t one of them. Her hair type is what they call 4B: dense, tight curls that when not wet defy gravity, and never manage to look smooth and polished. Once a high school teacher had said her natural hair looked like a Brillo pad. Now it is a soggy, poofy mess. Sighing, she picks up a towel and begins drying it out. Tomorrow she’ll be wearing braids or a headscarf.

Tomorrow …

There is an elf in her spare bedroom being chased by people who are dangerous and violent. What is she going to do with him tomorrow?