Lionel is looking at a very interesting painting of amazing detail that features Tara and some humans of a complexion more like his own. Oddly, the beautiful piece of art is hanging haphazardly from a magnet attached to a metal box that might be one of the “ice boxes” he’d heard of.

He reaches up to touch the edge, and the sleeve of Tara’s lumpy spare garment falls back, revealing the edge of his soulmark. Is it his imagination, or has it gotten a little faded around the edges? He exhales and closes his eyes. He hadn’t told her that he has looked for his soulmate, sending out missives with every delegation that passed through the Queen’s Palace … even to the Night Elves. He has never heard back. He knows he is too young to get married, but the games of the palace weary him. They feel hollow, meaningless. He’d hoped that with his soulmate he’d have something different. Even if it was just friendship for a few centuries or so. He pulls his forearm to his stomach. Friendship … what if she told him of all her paramours and set off his jealous streak? What if she was like Light Leaf? He shakes his head at his own foolishness. That was the thing about soulmates though; they were supposed to be of accord with you, by definition.

From outside comes a shout from Tara. “Get away! Get away!”

Before he’s even thought about it, Lionel finds himself racing down the hall, grimacing in pain … the World Gate controlled by the Dark Elves is just a few hundred paces down the narrow roadway behind her home. Would they hurt a human to get to him?

Clasping his key tight, he reaches the back door. Through a tiny window he sees Tara in the yard holding her hands above her head being dive-bombed by a familiar bird.

Lionel bursts outside and the cold air hits him like a blow, the near-freezing pavement beneath his almost bare feet makes his soles feel like they’re burning.

The dive-bombing raven is screaming, “Where is he? Where is the elf? We heard you, woman!”

Another bird is ripping at the garbage bag rawking, “Tamales!”

“You’re screaming in Elvish, Muninn!” Lionel shouts at Odin’s winged messenger. “She’s human.”

Flapping to sit atop a fence, Muninn rawks, “Oops.”

Picking up the headscarf that was torn from her head, Tara gapes at the bird. Lionel puts a hand to his face, mortified at how they’ve treated her and deeply disturbed by their presence. He’s used to seeing them in his official capacity. He’s only seen them once in an unofficial capacity when he’d accidentally world walked to Midgard as a child … he doesn’t want to think about what their presence might mean.

Muninn ruffles his feathers, and in English says, “Don’t look at me like that, I’m not the thinking part of this team.”

On the bag, the other raven, Huginn—whose name means “thought”—hops and clacks its beak. “Tamales! Corn, corn, corn, corn, masa!”

Lionel’s skin heats. “Apologize.” The word comes out almost a shout, and he finds himself taking a step toward the raven.

The bird hops back on the fence. “Aw, come on, Lionel—”

The air between him and the bird shimmers.

“Sheesh! All right, don’t turn me into a birdcicle,” Muninn rawks.

Lionel puts his hand down. He doesn’t remember raising it. Had he tried to freeze the bird?

Muninn cleans his wings, defecates, and then mutters in Tara’s direction, “Sorry, whoever you are, but you did call us.”

“I didn’t call you,” Tara protests.

Muninn walks toward her on the fence. “Sure you did, Sweetheart,” and in a facsimile of Tara’s voice says, “Jesus, Odin don’t let Lionel die!” He ruffles his feathers. “Or some such. You prayed, I heard.”

“You prayed for me?” Lionel asks in wonder. Sometimes magical beings hear prayers, but only when it relates to their higher purpose. If Huginn and Muninn were ordered to find Lionel, they might consider it their purpose.

“I—” Tara stammers, in the process of wrapping the scarf around her hair. Pausing, she points at the bird. “Not to him.”

Grasping the key, Lionel takes a step toward her. The day is dreary but he sees Tara silhouetted by a doorway and backlit by sunlight again. He has the sensation that he’s flying, or has broken free. He wants to thank her for saving his life again, and it occurs to him that maybe it’s just his subconscious wanting to bind himself to her because he wants to keep this feeling.

“Right,” says Muninn. “Well, you can’t go back through the World Gate down the street because it’s been taken over by Dark Elves.”

“I thought you were a Dark Elf,” Tara says, and the vision evaporates.

“Ruh-roh, Scooby,” says Muninn.

“Tamales!” rawks Huginn.

“You have to go to Mary Bartelme Park,” says Muninn. “There’s a gate there. The big guy would come for you himself but he’s looking for—”

“Shut up, Muninn!” rawks Huginn, something green and mushy dropping from its beak.

Lionel swallows. The “big guy” would come for him himself? He takes a deep breath. No, no, no … perhaps the queen is worried he could give sensitive information to their enemies, and requested the assistance of Odin’s messengers. Yes, that is all. She’s called in a favor.

“Give me some of that, Huginn!” squawks Muninn.

“Ew,” says Tara, her nose wrinkling. “That was mixed in with six-week-old sour cream and a bad avocado.”

Flapping down to the bag, Muninn shrugs his wings and rawks. “We’re scavengers!”

“We should go inside,” Lionel says, feeling suddenly tired and wary. There may not be velociraptors on earth, but they are perhaps only five hundred paces from the gate. They might be overheard.

“No way is it pooping in my house,” Tara exclaims, tying her scarf.

Grasping the key, he sends invisible projections along the block, but he doesn’t sense any magical beings.

He’s distantly aware of Tara muttering, “I pray and get heard by a dirty bird.”

And one of the birds saying, “You should be honored.”

Pulling the projections back to himself, he lets one of them slip through the outbuilding where the chariot sleeps. The apparition winks out near the door that opens from that building to Tara’s little yard.

That was odd. He takes a step toward the door. His other apparitions sense nothing magical in that corner. In fact, they sense an odd absence of all ambient magic around a brown, coppery bag.

Lionel shivers. He’s not sure what it is, but he’s sure it’s wrong. “We have to get inside,” Lionel says, stepping toward Tara and putting a hand on her arm.

“What?” says Tara, her eyes going to his hands.

Has he done something taboo? He can’t bring himself to let her go, but takes a step back, hand still on her. He has to keep her from the wrongness. Trying to explain, he says, “Something is obstructing my magic and—”

The door from Tara’s outbuilding bangs open and a mesh of coppery brown goes flying through the air. It lands on Lionel and he notes that it’s wire-like and sharp. In the periphery of his vision he sees the ravens take off in a flurry of feathers and hears their angry cries. He calls out to Tara, “Run, Tara, run,” and gasps as the words come out in Elvish, not her Midgardian tongue.

Somewhere Tara yells. He hears a thud, a yelp, and in Elvish tinged with the accent of the Dark Elves, “Tie up the Valkyrie, too!”

He pulls the silk cord of his key into his palm and squeezes so tight it hurts, but he feels no magic. The mesh around him is getting tighter, pain explodes in all his limbs, and Lionel can’t think at all.

“Put me down!” Tara cries, trying to wiggle out of the sack she’s in. It’s wire and cutting her face and hands. The sack is being held at her feet and head by figures she can’t make out—other than to realize they’re not wearing cop-like uniforms. They’re not speaking English either, and she has no idea if she’s being understood. They’re moving fast down her alley and she’s rocking, bouncing, and occasionally scraping against the cobblestones.

Behind her, she hears Lionel moan and angry words from her captors in another language.

Lights go off behind her eyes in every color of the rainbow and for an instant, Tara thinks that she must have hit her head. The air suddenly gets ten degrees warmer and she smells decay. She smells fetid water, and her nose wrinkles in disgust. “Lionel,” she calls. “Lionel, where are we?”

Lionel says something, but it’s not in English. Someone kicks her halfheartedly in the hip. She hears a louder thud behind her, and hears Lionel sputter and gag. Tara gulps. Rainbow light—a World Gate. She thinks she read something that @godsofradioshack posted about rainbow light between the worlds. She’s in another world.

She looks around, and from her awkward angle makes out a sort of fort that looks like something from an Old West movie—logs with sharpened tops. Instead of cowboys, there are Indians along the wall, bows in hand. The Indians are of every shade with pointed ears, wearing clothing that looks medieval rather than Native American.

Two elves are arguing near her. She’s dropped unceremoniously on the ground, and struggles to free herself, but is abruptly hauled up again. A few minutes later, she’s passing through a gate made of logs. All around her are dark alien trees and swamp. She hears Lionel give a low moan, and is ridiculously grateful he’s coming with her.

Their captors take off at a lope. Sharp grasses poke at her, and she sees strange black shadows swoop above. Tara picks at the net that’s carrying her, but the wire is too strong to break with her fingers. She tries with her keys and gets them ripped away. She squints at the wire … it’s in a weird shape … octagonal. She’s heard Eisenberg speak about “Promethean Wire,” a sort of “cage that inhibits dark energy within it.” She bites her lip. Could that be why Lionel seems to be so helpless?

The bag bounces, and she feels the netting biting into her skin and warm sticky wetness on her cheeks. She tastes blood, but the cries from Lionel make her realize that he’s got it much worse. She’s not sure how far they’ve gone when she hears voices, and sees figures with pointy ears in rag-like clothing around her. They have what look like machine guns strapped to their backs … AK-47s like Loki’s minions the Dark Elves?

She remembers Lionel apparently isn’t a Dark Elf. Why didn’t he tell her? And whose side is he on?

They go up a gentle rise, and the ground goes from being stinking mud and water to dry packed earth. She thinks she sees a few squat buildings, and then is carried into a dark interior that smells like mildew. She hears footsteps and what sounds like curses. Before she knows it, she’s unrolled from her bag onto a floor covered with sharp, dry grasses. As she struggles to get up, two more elf men throw Lionel next to her, and he lets out a horrible cry of pain. Unsteadily rising to her feet, Tara lunges over him, trying to block the exit before they close it, but their captors slam a barred door lined with the same octagonal mesh in her face.

Tara stares through the bars, sees a rough stone wall and a tiny window through which dim light penetrates the gloom. “Why are you doing this?” she shouts. She shakes the bars, but the lock doesn’t give, and the mesh cuts her fingers. Pain makes her take a step back. She feels wetness on her face that isn’t blood. Taking a deep breath, she remembers the words her father used to tell her when they were wiring houses. “Whenever you get frustrated, slow down and think. Less haste is more speed, Tara.”

Taking a deep breath, that is half a sob, she focuses on how her cage was made. Through eyes blurred by tears, she notices that the mesh is soldered to the bars with thick alloy bands. Tugging at a joint, she only manages to hurt herself and backs up with an angry cry. The contortion of her cheeks makes her cuts burn. Reaching up, she finds welts. She jerks her hand away, and sees blood on her fingers.

Forcing herself not to touch and infect the wound, she pats down her pockets and groans. She left her phone at home. She could have used the light.

On the floor, Lionel moans again and Tara goes over to him. “What did they do to you?” she whispers.

His face and hands are scratched and bleeding like Tara’s. But he also has a sheen of sweat upon his brow, and he’s doubled over on the floor, clutching his shins, rocking slightly, the silken cord and key still around his wrist. The key is the old-fashioned kind. Either their captors didn’t notice it or figured rightly that it would be useless to cut through the mesh.

Lionel moans again and Tara doesn’t know what to do, other than push his sweat-slicked bangs away from his face and pull his head into her lap. He looks like he is in agony.

“Lionel,” she says. “Lionel, do you understand me?”

Lionel’s eyes flutter open, and he shakes his head. “Llee wanlewee, nil.” He hisses and closes his eyes.

He doesn’t understand her. He’s not touching the bullet wound, although she can see the wound is starting to weep again. He’s rubbing his shins …

He said earlier that something was obstructing his magic in English. But then they’d been trussed up and he’d called out in what she thinks was Elvish. The wire has to be the magic-stopping Promethean stuff she’d heard about … Tara begins digging through the straw and the damp ground beneath it. About half an inch beneath the dirt, her fingers scrape across more wire. She tries prying at it with her finger, but it doesn’t budge. Her eyes dart around in the darkness. It must have an edge that might be a weak point. She looks at the doors of the cell where the mesh had been so carefully soldered … or maybe it wasn’t.

She takes a deep breath. She’s got to check.

Creating a pillow of straw, she shifts Lionel’s head to it and begins crawling across the cell floor on her hands and knees. Her heart falls when she finds the first soldered edge between the floor and the wall—the adhesion is robust and she knows she won’t be able to tear it apart. She feels up the wall, and finds that the mesh is fixed to it with metal staples she can’t for the life of her get her nails under. She almost gives up, but then, more to keep moving, she begins feeling along the corner of the wall and floor where two pieces of the mesh are joined together. She bites her lip. The two pieces are soldered together every six inches … she rounds one corner on her knees, and then another … and comes to a gap where the person—or elf—doing the soldering got sloppy. With a gasp, she feels for the next junction, and finds another sloppy gob of solder. The next is the same. Feeling her eyes get hot with hope, she pulls back the wire. It bites into her fingers, making her grimace in pain, but it gives, creating a hole just wide enough to slip a hand through. Hearing footsteps outside the cell, she throws straw over her handiwork and moves away from the spot fast.

An elf with a scar down his cheek thrusts a bottle through the bars. He looks at Lionel and snorts. Looking at Tara, he narrows his eyes. “Mizulle,” he says, and walks away. Tara looks at the bottle. Made of a brown glass, it has a stopper on a metal hinge. She waits until she hears a door slam, and goes back to her task. She has no idea how long she works, Lionel’s pained pants egging her on, but she manages to pull a small section of the wiring away from the floor, bloodying her fingers in the process. The cell has become completely dark. It’s night, she supposes. She works by feel until her mouth is so dry it’s painful to swallow and her stomach is clenching, but she’s only pulled away a few inches of wire.

She catches sight of an orange glow and throws down some straw again, just before she hears footsteps outside the door. A man bearing a torch points at Lionel and growls in another language.

Tara growls back, “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“Valkyrie,” he hisses, the only word she thinks she might understand before he releases a string of incomprehensible syllables.

Lionel’s eyes flutter open. “Valkyrie nil. Midgardelle.”

“Midgardelle nil!” roars the elf. He vanishes for a second, but comes back with a chair, and sits staring into the cell. Unable to return to her task, Tara edges closer to Lionel. He’s breathing heavily, his hair is drenched with sweat, and he’s curled in a ball. She glances down his body and notices his abs and belly button peeking from beneath her sweatshirt. And then her mouth falls open—the sweatshirt has become tight on him. Lionel stretches out with a moan, and his ankles and the bottom of his calves peek out from the cuffs of the pants he borrowed. Wincing, Lionel grabs his shins and curls into a ball again.

She remembers the police officer saying, “They can make you see what they want you to see.” Why would he want to appear shorter before, though? And then she swallows, remembering Lionel saying shapeshifting would be terribly painful. He doesn’t look like he’s turning into an animal but …

“Lionel,” Tara whispers. “Are you growing?”

He doesn’t understand, of course. He murmurs again, “Llee wanlewee, nil.”

Tara’s tall, and she had growing pains as a girl. Her pediatrician aunt had told her it wasn’t uncommon for children to grow as much as a quarter inch a night … Lionel’s growing much faster. Remembering her own pain, Tara moves down to his legs and begins massaging his shins like her mom had done. Lionel uncoils at her touch. For a moment, his eyes meet hers. Wincing, he begins rubbing his arms and looks away. Tara’s brow furrows … His face looks like his proportions are changing. His jaw bones are becoming more prominent, and it might be an illusion of the light, but she swears she sees the shadow of a beard under his chin. He hadn’t seemed to need to shave while he stayed with her. He looks … more human, she decides, but the points of his ears are still peeking out from his hair, now dark with sweat and mud, and his features are still too finely chiseled.

She knows she can’t look much better. Her face is a mess of bloody cuts, and her scarf is gone—she’s probably got straw in her hair.

Outside the cell, the man with the torch says something in a sneering voice. Tara doesn’t even bother to look. She’s not sure how long she cradles and rubs Lionel’s legs … but she’s sure it’s hours, and also that Lionel’s bones are getting longer beneath her fingers. By the spasming of his toes, she’s pretty sure the growth is everywhere. She doesn’t stop until he falls asleep. It might be unconsciousness because the guard starts screaming something outside the cell and it doesn’t wake him up.

Lionel being asleep makes her feel alone, and the guard being there makes her more afraid. Trying to tear back the wire from the floor had at least kept her busy. Without something to do, her mind starts to wander. Tara’s never really thought of herself as being a particularly imaginative person—but she starts conceiving of every way she can possibly die, not least of which is simply being stuck in the smelly, damp cell forever. The elves outside had looked kind of medieval, and not in the charming Renaissance Faire way that Lionel had. She remembers an absolutely horrific snippet of a Discovery Channel episode about the history of torture devices, and the torture devices of the European Dark Ages in particular.

She looks over her shoulder. Angry elf is still sitting on his chair, sulking. At her glance, he yells at her again.

“I can’t understand you!” Tara snaps.

He snaps back.

On the floor, Lionel whispers, “Mizulle.”

Tara blinks at him.

“Mizulle,” he says again, and Tara remembers, that’s what the man had said when he dropped the bottle in the cell. Scrambling on hands and knees, she retrieves the brown glass vessel, and quickly figures out the metal “hinge.” The stopper comes off with a pop. She smells the contents—it smells like nothing—or water.

“Mizulle,” Lionel whispers again. She hands the bottle to him. Half sitting, resting on an elbow, he stares at it a moment, and then offers it to her. “Tara.” He licks his lips. “Mizulle.”

She’s tired, hungry, parched … and it might be because she’s terrified, but she lifts an eyebrow and snickers when she takes the bottle. “Trying to make me your poison tester?”

Lionel shakes his head sadly. “Llee wanlewee, nil.”

“You don’t understand me and can’t appreciate my sense of humor,” she says. She looks down at the bottle in her hand. Better to die by poison than a lot of the other things she can think of. She tips back the bottle. Expecting something barely palatable, she’s surprised by how fresh and clean the water tastes. She takes another sip, and hands it to Lionel. “It’s safe, you can drink now.”

He opens his mouth as though he’s about to respond, and she waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah, llee wanlewee, nil.”

In the dim light, Tara sees Lionel give her a weak smile. “Tara wanlewee.” He tips back the bottle and drinks two sips himself.

“Midgard elle, nil!” roars the guard, approaching the cell door.

Lionel looks up and the light of the torch illuminates his face. She’s struck by the deep hollows under his eyes. Lionel says a few curt words to the guard, which makes the guard curse back. Tara’s eyes are riveted on Lionel. She’d swear that his face has become broader, and his features more pronounced.

The guard sits back on his chair with a few angry words, and Lionel’s eyes return to Tara’s. With a hesitant hand, he reaches up and cups her cheek. He says some words that Tara can’t understand, but she thinks the tone sounds an awful lot like, I’m sorry.

She lets out a breath. Maybe she should be angry at him—she gets the feeling he knew more about the danger he was in than he’d told her. What had he said to the birds? The Dark Elves are at the gate. But she’s too scared and too tired to be mad. He presses the water to her, and she takes a few more grateful sips. “Thank you,” she says, passing it back. He just shakes his head before taking a few more sips of his own.

In the chair outside the door, the guard laughs.

Tara’s skin heats, and something in her boils over. Twisting to look at him, Tara hisses, “Fuck you!” It’s a stupid thing to say. She never swears. It had been drilled into her that that is not how a lady talks, and it’s not like he even understands … but just as she thinks that, the man’s eyes get wide. Rocking back in his seat, he stares at her a moment, and then he gets up and scurries out of view. Tara hears a door slam, and muffled shouts.

Climbing to her feet, she beckons with her hand for Lionel to follow her to the corner of the cell.

His brows rise, but he stands, takes a step, and nearly falls over. He straightens, and Tara’s breath catches. He’s taller than her—even in her boots. Lionel looks down at her, and then lifts his hands and gazes at them with an expression of pure terror. His hands fly to his ears. He touches the points and closes his eyes. Tara can read the relief in his face. And then his hands go to his jaw and the look of terror returns. They don’t have time for this. She takes his hand and squeezes it. “You’re still hot, Lionel,” she says. And he is. He’ll be even better looking when he puts on a few more pounds.

He stares at her, rubbing his jaw. He needs to snap out of it.

“Lionel, you’re okay,” she whispers. When his eyes show no comprehension, she lifts herself to her tiptoes and kisses his cheek. Stubble bites her lips. He’s surprisingly warm and she hopes he doesn’t have a fever, and then she wonders if the warmth is just her own flush.

Taking his hand, she pulls him over to the corner. Sitting on her heels, she lets go of him, then gestures for him to help her, and begins pulling at the wire.

Lionel doesn’t bend down to help. Reaching up frantically, she grabs his hand and pulls him down. He shakes his head and murmurs something.

Tara lets out a huff of frustration. She doesn’t know anything about magic, but maybe they can pull back enough wire to crawl out the old-fashioned way? And digging like a mole in a dark corner is infinitely better than doing nothing. She jerks his hand over to the edge of the wire. “Help me with this!”

Scowling, he runs his hands over the edges.

Tara pulls back a few inches more, and his eyes widen. He slips his hand into the gap in the wire, looks back at Tara with wide eyes, and begins pulling furiously at the wire with her. In a moment, they have a section of bare dirt exposed, about as long as Tara’s arm, but not quite wide enough to fit a head through.

Lionel lays flat on his stomach with his face above the dirt. Beckoning with his hand, he says “Tara,” followed by a string of Elvish. His brow creases. He gives another yank and the mesh parts a little more. “Here, Tara,” he says, patting the dirt beside him. “Lie down.”

Her heart leaps in comprehension, the hole in the mesh barrier is wide enough they can communicate again. Lying down beside him, Tara whispers, “If we pull it back further, we may slip through. It could take some time though and—”

Lionel puts his fingers to his lips and Tara falls silent. Reaching forward, he ever so gently touches her face. She feels heat race from his fingertips to every part of her, and she scrunches her eyes shut, embarrassed.

“There, no hurt,” Lionel whispers, dropping his hand.

The warmth in her face remains … but the stinging of her cuts has vanished. She touches her face and finds only smooth skin where once there had been welts. Her eyes go to his leg. She can see the dark brown stain of blood through the pants. She swallows. He’s on her side, Dark Elf, Light Elf, Sidhe, Unseelie … whatever. “Lionel, we have to get you fixed before me,” she says, and starts to tug at the wire.

“Telekinesis not work on door,” he says. “Wire is there.” He sounds defeated, even though they’ve achieved so much already.

“I’m not giving up,” she says, but then she hears footsteps outside the cell. Throwing grasses against the exposed section of the ground, she quickly spins, grabs the water bottle, and leans back against the wall, trying to look casual. Scrambling up, Lionel settles next to her. The warmth of his body radiates up her side, and she almost cries again—in relief. They’re in this together, she’s not alone.

Two elves appear at the door, and Tara hears others behind them. One is the angry guard guy, though he doesn’t look as angry now. The other is someone new. He looks a lot like Lionel had before, slight, pale, blonde, beautiful. The only way she would have been able to tell them apart before is that this elf’s eyes are brown. Clearing his throat, he says, “Do you speak English?”

Tara’s mouth drops open.

The one beside him mutters, “Midgardian elle, nil.”

“I speak English,” Tara replies.

The man who had spoken rolls back on his feet and says something in Elvish—if that’s what the language is. Lionel puts his hand on Tara’s leg, just above her knee and replies in their language. The second elf dips his chin and responds … again in Elvish.

“You know it’s not polite to talk in front of someone who can’t understand?” Tara says.

The elf who had spoken English looks back to her. “I’m Naleigh, once of the Queen’s Kitchens.” His eyes fall on Lionel and his lips turn up in a snarl. “But I’m Naleigh of the Dark Elves now, and I am free.”

Lionel doesn’t respond. Naleigh turns back to Tara. “There has been a mistake. You were not our target, only him. We will return you home.” Issuing some orders in Elvish, he pulls some archaic looking keys from his pocket and opens the cell. Before Tara can blink, five other elves stream in. They’re all bearing crossbows except one with a wicked long gun … Tara’s heart skips a beat.

… And then she realizes all of them are aimed at Lionel.