Tara sits at a desk in her office, head bent over an Elvish scroll.

There’s a knock at the door, even though it is open. Looking up, she sees Dr. Eisenberg just outside. Beckoning him in, she gets up and closes the door fast. The room is shielded with the magic-blocking Promethean Wire stuff, making it impossible to magically spy and see what they’re talking about.

In a rushed voice, she says, “I think this scroll is talking about radiation, Dr. Eisenberg. To magical creatures, radiation is just another sort of energy. They can use magic to turn radiation into other sorts of energy. I don’t understand the physics of it, but I think maybe you will. If we could turn radiation into light, or heat, or electricity …” They could rid the world of dangerous radiation. Lionel’s gift of languages keeps on giving.

She glances at him. His eyes are downcast.

“I know it’s not what the Pentagon guys want but …” she says.

His shoulders sag.

“What is it?” she whispers.

“Another group of refugees are joining the lab this afternoon,” he says, referring to the Dark Elves of the new Dark Elf Underground Railroad. It had just been forming before Tara was abducted. That was the source of Eisenberg’s cryptic, “If you see something, call me ...” statement.

In exchange for Elvish aid with magic, some unnamed VIPs in the federal and local governments have seen to it that Dark Elves have fake IDs. Eisenberg, Tara, and others see that they get schooling, housing, and paid positions in Chicago’s research institutions.

Tara’s stomach feels like lead, and then he says what she already knows. “By the descriptions I heard, there was no sign of Lionel.”

Tara bows her head and looks at the scroll, the Elvish script running together in a blur. “He’ll be safer in the Dark Lands,” she says.

“So would you,” says Eisenberg.

“I wouldn’t do anyone any good there,” Tara mutters.

“Hmmm …” He pushes his glasses up his nose. “I think he’ll come back. Nothing stops—”

“Don’t you dare say true love,” says Tara.

“I was going to say nothing stops a man who’s made up his mind,” says Dr. Eisenberg. “And it sounds like he has.”

He’s going to launch into his “across-the-world trek to woo his beloved Irma.” It’s a sweet story, but Tara’s not sure it applies to her and Lionel. There are so many obstacles between Lionel and her—besides Odin, prejudiced elves, and velociraptors, their cultures are very different. She comes from a mixed-culture household. She’s seen how well it can work out, but her parents were very clear on the challenges as well. Her mother always said they’d vowed early on that they’d make their own culture and to grow together as they grew old. Lionel and Tara had made no such promise.

“I’m so sorry, Tara,” says Eisenberg, instead of telling his and Irma’s story again.

She nods.

“For you and the lab!” he exclaims. “All the most talented elves are going to the University of Chicago.” He scowls. Just the name of the elite, private university tends to make him do that. “One of our new hires has minor training … but that’s nothing like how you described Lionel’s abilities.”

Tara rubs her eyes. Of course he would be thinking of the lab … She reminds herself that the translations she’s worked on this morning may save millions of people … maybe not from Odin, but from humanity’s own foibles.

Taking a deep breath, Tara asks, “No word from Naleigh, either?”

Eisenberg shakes his head.

Tara nods. They’d only heard from him once since she’d returned. Lionel had been imprisoned when he’d returned, but then the Light Elves tried to overtake the fortress. In the confusion of the battle, Lionel had disappeared. Naleigh believes Lionel slipped out of the fortress and across enemy lines.

“I really am sorry, Tara,” says Eisenberg. “For you … even more than the lab.”

She melts a little. “I know.” Eisenberg isn’t completely self-absorbed. The doctor just doesn’t have a filter on what he’s feeling. On the one hand, sometimes it feels insensitive; on the other hand, he keeps singing her praises to Dean Kowalski even though they fall on deaf ears. And he helps the Dark Elves because he sees it akin to helping Jewish refugees before WWII.

Holding out a hand, he says, “Let me see what you’ve translated so far.”

She hands him her notes. Pushing up his glasses, he sits on her desk.

Her phone chimes and she says, “I’m meeting my mother for lunch.”

Peering over his bifocals, he says, “Do you have your magic detector?”

Nodding, Tara pats her purse. Afraid that Odin might try to snatch her away, Eisenberg insists she take one everywhere. Tara’s pretty sure from what Thor, Odin himself, and the Norns had said about the “hunt for Loki” that Odin has bigger fish to fry … for now.

Eisenberg holds up a finger. “If you start getting a beep—”

“I’ll hit your number on speed dial and haul back here,” Tara assures him, gesturing to the magic-blocking Promethean Wire.

He nods, and turns his attention back to her notes. Tara can see he’s already in his “mind palace.”

Exiting her office and then the lab, she steps into the hallway and hears her mother’s voice in the receptionist’s office. “Yes, Tara got herself a date with a surgeon from Rush.”

Tara sighs. Her mother doesn’t know anything about her trip to Alfheim or Asgard. When Tara had joined the Underground Railroad, she’d been warned, “If you want your family to stay safe, you won’t let them know.” Last weekend, her mother had arranged for Tara to meet said surgeon at a block party. “Helping” Tara is the only way Tara’s mother knows how to show love.

She swallows. Her mother had wanted to straighten Tara’s hair as soon as she’d gotten back from vacation. But Lionel had loved Tara’s natural hair, and his unclouded vision of it had let Tara see it with fresh eyes. Tara had given up so much for her mother, her country, and her world … her hair she decided to keep. When she’d told her mother she didn’t want it straightened, her mother had burst into tears. “But Tara, if I don’t do your hair, what do we have?”

And the thing is, besides kinship and time, her mother and Tara don’t share very much. It’s not the same as not loving one another; they’re just very different.

With a sigh, she heads into the office. Her mother is leaning over the front desk, saying, “He’s so tall and handsome, he’s from Englewood, and he got scholarships to med school—”

“Hi, Mom,” Tara says. “Ready for lunch?”

Penny and Jayla, the secretaries, both smile at her in a way that says, “You’ve been holding out on us, woman.” Tara smiles back tightly.

Tara’s mom turns and winks at her. “I just know you’ll find your soulmate soon!”

Tara sighs. “I’d settle for my cellmate.”

Everyone laughs. Tara doesn’t cry, which she figures is pretty strong of her. She’d set her cellmate free, and he’d never said he was coming back. She is still a prisoner of her feelings for Lionel … how long is she going to wait before she sets herself free?

“Max Lund?” the woman behind the counter says, studying Lionel’s identification. She is surrounded by glowing boxes. A strange sort of glass and metal tablet on the counter is beeping faintly. The woman’s eyes fall on it.

“That is what I am called.” Lionel says, careful not to lie. He thinks he can, but he is proud of his Elvish heritage.

Narrowing her eyes at the tablet, she says, “You’re one of those Norwegian researchers, aren’t you?”

That is the nation Lionel and his fellow elves have supposedly emigrated from.

“You’re early,” she says before he can answer, sparing him from having to say something long winded like, that is what my immigration paperwork says, which would skirt the truth of the matter.

“Everyone else is having their English evaluated,” he explains. Or their ability to magically translate English. “My language ability is nearly perfect and the evaluator let me out early.” Nothing could have kept him in that room with Tara so close.

“Uh-huh,” says the woman.

“I’m looking for Tara Gibson,” he says quickly. “I heard she belongs to this lab.”

She blinks at a spot on his chin where his eyes appear to be to her—he’s illusioned himself to look more Elvishly short. He’d had to. Due to Odin’s well-meaning negotiations, he is still officially “a Light Elf.” Even after Naleigh's testimony, many of the Dark Elves are suspicious of him. A disguise is necessary.

The woman points to his right. “Her office is right over there, but she just left for lunch.”

“I’ll wait for her,” Lionel says, already heading in that direction. He reaches the door that has a placard with her name on it. It is slightly ajar, and he hears the rustle of paper inside. Heart beating fast—maybe the woman was wrong—he pushes the door open and steps in. Instead of Tara, there is a plump little man sitting on Tara’s desk, a notebook in his hand. He looks up at Lionel and says something that is completely gibberish.

Lionel tilts his head and says, “Pardon?” and realizes the word came out in Elvish, not English. “Excuse me,” he says, and again, it is Elvish. Also, the man is looking him directly in the eyes. Lionel scans the room and sees the same curious wire on the walls that had blocked his magic in the Dark Lands. He backs quickly out the door, and the man’s eyes fall back to his chin as his illusion comes back to him. The little man blinks.

Lionel decides right then that if he is staying on Earth, the first thing he is going to do is take those ESL courses and learn the language—really learn the language.

Behind him, he hears one of the women at the desk with the glowing boxes say cheerfully, “So, Tara has a date with a surgeon from Rush, now.”

Lionel’s eyes go wide, and he rushes back to the desk, even as the little man cries out, “Wait!”

Lionel pretends not to hear. Reaching the woman, he demands, “Tara is going to have surgery? Where is she? Is she at a …” Heart clenching in his chest, he struggles for the English word. “Hospital?”

The women stare at him, and the only sound is the beeping of the little glass and metal tablet. And then they both laugh. “You are from Norway!” says one.

“Date … as in courting!” says the other woman. “Though the way her mother is talking, you’d think the marriage date is already set.”

“Mm ... hmmm … she says they got along well.”

The other woman laughs. Lionel takes a step back, stunned. He thought … it’s only been a few months. His breath comes fast and ragged. A few months … was it years to someone who hadn’t lived to thirty?

“Sir!” cries the little man. “Wait!”

But Lionel is already in the hallway. He immediately makes himself invisible. Leaning against the wall for support, he shambles to the nearest exit. The little man, waving a blinking tablet, cries, “Come back!”

Lionel flings himself through the heavy exit doors, his mind filled with only one thought … he has to get away.

“Your hair looks so pretty like that,” Tara’s mom says.

“I like it a lot, Mom,” Tara replies, touching the braid her mother had done for her. It crosses her crown, keeping those few loose coils determined to flop in front of her face out of her eyes. The rest is loose. The strands would stretch nearly six inches if she straightened them, but not straightened, they appear only about two inches long. Thick and dense, they frame her face.

“I think we should dye the ends blonde,” her mother says, gesturing with her hands. “It will make it look like a real halo. If you don’t like it, or just get bored, we could cut off the tips.”

Ordinarily, Tara might think that sounded fun, but she remembers Lionel saying of her natural hair color, A halo suits you. All she can manage is a shrug.

Her mother frowns and taps her spoon on the table. The silence stretches uncomfortably between them. Tara is about to ask if her mother has had any interesting customers today when her mother blurts out, “When are you going to tell me about what happened between you and Lionel?”

Tara blinks, and her mother says, “You’ve been so odd since he was over.”

“Nothing happened,” Tara says automatically, and her heart turns to lead. There’d been no time for anything to happen. Not for the first time, she finds herself daydreaming about having had to take a long bus ride from Iowa—or wherever in farm country they’d popped through the World Gate. She bites the inside of her lip, eyes heating, fingers curling at the thought of the Norns stealing those hours.

Her mother’s eyes narrow. “Hmpf. You know, if he broke your heart, the best thing to do is get out there. Start dating again. You hold onto these things too long.”

“Mom ...” Tara starts to say, and then her phone rings. She waits it out, trying to formulate what to tell her mother, and it buzzes with a text. And then it buzzes with another. And another. Her mother frowns, and Tara apologizes, “I’ll turn it off.”

Slipping it from her purse, she glances down and notices a text from Eisenberg, right above the text from John, the surgeon her mom’s trying so hard to set her up with. She’s been ignoring John’s text. She almost ignores Eisenberg’s text, too—the little snippet she can see doesn’t have their code for Asgardian invasion—and she doesn’t want to encourage him texting her during lunch hour, but she can’t help reading.

It was him!

Across the table, her mother says, “Tara?”

She blinks. Swipes, and instead of going to her settings, begins reading Eisenberg’s rapid-fire thread.

He was here.

He was tall! But ears!

HE RAN AWAY!

Think he is on Polk. Can’t see him. Invisible?

It was him.

Tara’s breath catches.

A final text comes.

I don’t know how I scared him! Please don’t let him go to U of C!

“If you answer those texts you’ll only encourage your boss to text you nights and weekends,” her mother says.

Tara looks up at her. “Mom, I love you, but I’ve got to go.”

“What’s going on?” her mother asks.

“My cellmate has come!” Tara says, throwing some money on the table and grabbing her purse.

She strides from the restaurant, and then it occurs to her that if Lionel made himself invisible, something terrible must be happening. She breaks into a run, darting through the traffic on Taylor Street, cutting across Ashland Avenue at a diagonal, heading northwest. She dashes west as soon as she reaches Polk, races under the Polk Street L station, and across Hermitage, her heart beating in her ears. At the intersection at Wood Street, she catches her breath. Looking south, she sees only students. Looking west, she sees Dr. Eisenberg, his head bent over a magic detector. Tara breaks into a jog. She’s just passing the entrance to the courtyard where a troll once emerged when her magic detector starts to beep in her purse.

She stops, and looks into the courtyard. A troll? Or Lionel? Or Lionel and a troll … she sprints into the courtyard and the magic detector’s beeping becomes louder. Taking the device out of her purse, Tara spins, trying to locate the source of magic. There are no trolls, no students, no faculty, and no Lionel … just the ancient gothic architecture of the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical School, and a slightly unkempt garden. A few birds trill and her magic detector beeps, but the sounds of busy Ashland Avenue, cars, and Polk Street are blocked by the ancient building.

Tara’s hands clutch the magic detector so hard her fingers hurt. She is afraid to use Lionel’s name—she doesn’t know how many spies Odin has, or where they all are. Instead she says, “I know you’re here! Show yourself!”

Her magic detector beeps … and she holds her breath.

Lionel almost drops his spell as Tara dashes into the unkempt courtyard. She spins around, her beautiful face pained. Her magical talismans—or un-magical talismans—had saved him and his mother in the Dark Lands … and now he’s causing her pain. “I know you’re here!” she cries.

He follows her eyes as she scans the courtyard, her face frantic. The great schools of sorcery in Alfheim have gardens that are immaculately manicured to the last blade of grass. Is Midgard like Asgard? Does it not value its magic masters? He doesn’t know, and that makes his heart sink. He’d thought the greatest obstacle between Tara and himself was time, but maybe it’s the differences in their cultures. He’d come back to her, naively thinking that she’d wait for him. He remembers the women’s words in the “lab.” Tara’s mother has plans for her wedding. Is it possible she couldn’t wait for him? Was her marriage arranged?

“Show yourself!” Tara cries, clutching a strange beeping device in her hand, and Lionel rolls back on his feet. How does she know he’s here?

She spins again, and Lionel blinks because she’s surrounded by blue skies. He’s hallucinating again, or seeing visions … His invisibility slips away without his volition.

Tara’s jaw drops, and she takes a step back. “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else …” Her voice drifts off.

Lionel blinks, and realizes he’s kept his illusioned disguise—she sees a shorter, smooth-faced man with brown hair pulled back to hide his ears.

He lets out a breath. Should he speak? Would she recognize his voice?

Her eyes narrow at his chin and then go wide. She takes a step forward, eyes still unnervingly too low. “Did you find her? Your mother?”

She recognizes him, and he doesn’t want to hide anymore. “Yes,” he whispers.

Tara comes forward, arms outstretched, and her hands connect with his chest instead of wrapping around him, because of the illusion he wears. She’s so close, and he can’t care about her upcoming marriage, or the eyes of any of the Midgardian sorcerers who’d given him an ID, thinking he is a Dark Elf. He lets his illusion melt away, and pulls her into his arms.

Tara holds Lionel’s hand as she drags him into the lab … he’d pulled her into his arms so easily, had rested his chin on her hair, but now his steps are slow and heavy. She is afraid to let him go. If she lets him go, she’ll wake up and this will have been a dream. It already feels too dreamlike. He’s too quiet; he must be in trouble.

Dr. Eisenberg is already back in the lab when they enter. “You found him,” he says.

Tara looks back. Lionel is back to being short and Elvish again. His hair is dark blonde, his face is clean-shaven and pixie-like, but his eyes are the same icy blue as ever. She’d recognize them anywhere.

“Yes, Dr. Eisenberg,” Tara says.

Lionel whispers, “So this is the dangerous Doctor Eisenberg?”

It’s the longest sentence he’s said.

Dr. Eisenberg peers at him from over his glasses. “Me? No, I’m not dangerous at all.” He looks at Tara like he’s just swallowed a frog. “I’ll go now … Tara, take the day off if you need to convince your friend to stay.” With that, he leaves … fast. A tiny part of Tara registers him leaving, but mostly she’s just worried about Lionel. Something is wrong; she can feel it.

Pulling him into her office, she shuts the door with his hand still in hers, and turns to look at him. The Promethean Wire is blocking his illusion. He’s tall again, and his ears are pointed, but he has a neat beard—something she never saw on any elf. His hair and beard are the same brown as the illusion’s … even his eyebrows are darker, but his lashes are still light. Dyed, she realizes. The jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers he’d been wearing have become the sort of rough trousers and tunics she’d seen in the Dark Lands.

Perhaps seeing the direction of her gaze, he touches his hair. “Illusion is less taxing if it is based on reality.” His eyes drop. He looks at their hands.

“You’re in trouble,” Tara says, clutching his hand to her stomach. “Aren’t you? Odin is coming for you … you have to go back to the Dark Lands. You can’t stay.”

“Can you stay?” he asks, tilting his head, eyes hard. “You and Dr. Eisenberg are in as much danger as I am,” Lionel says, stepping closer. She feels his breath on her forehead, and shivers when he whispers, “When Odin finds Loki … he’ll come for you and him as well as me.”

Tara gulps. She lets out a breath, and tries to imagine her and Eisenberg continuing their research in the Dark Lands. Would they be able to set up a lab in that fortress she’d seen when they’d first gone through? The one that is constantly under siege? Could the squabbling branches of her government put aside their differences and approve funding for such a project … She scrunches her eyes shut. It would never happen.

“My work … my life is here,” Tara says.

Lionel pulls away, his fingers slip from hers, and she finds herself grasping at empty air. Walking over to her bookshelf and studying the titles, he says, “I suppose your life is here.”

The distance between them makes her ache. “… and you must live it.”

Tara shakes her head, and has a sensation like she’s falling. She’s going to lose a second man due to her overdeveloped sense of duty and obligation. Her nails bite her palms. The thing is … she can’t change direction … too much is on the line.

Lionel bows his head. “I should congratulate you, of course.”

“Congratulate me?” Tara whispers.

He looks over his shoulder at her. “On your marriage.” The words are as flat as any he’s delivered to Odin, and the tone makes the words a jumble she can’t discern. What happened to the closeness between them?

… And then the words do sink in. “Marriage?”

His brows draw together, his lips turn down, and Tara actually feels her heart lift to see some emotion from him, even if it’s anger. “Your assistants already informed me of it,” he says, his voice bitter.

Tara’s hand goes to her mouth, and she feels torn between laughing and crying. “I’m not getting married, Lionel!”

Turning to her, he shakes his head and locks his hands behind his back. “They said that your mother has set the date.”

Tara nods. “I’m sure that she has. But I haven’t.”

“You’re courting …?” He takes a step closer to her.

Tara shakes her head. “No, no, I’m not.” She starts to laugh at the same time a tear slips down her cheek. She’s not courting, though not for John’s lack of trying. If she’d met him before Lionel, she’d be head over heels … John is a good man; handsome, considerate, interested in something permanent. He also thinks that the World Gates should all be closed—as though they could be. Before Lionel, Alfheim, and Asgard, she would have agreed with him. Now she knows humanity can’t hide and they must adapt.

And also …

“Do you think I could get over you so quickly?” she whispers.

Lionel takes a step toward her. “I don’t know … I don’t know your culture, and we didn’t make promises. You would be within your rights to …”

There’s only a step between them, and Tara closes it. “I couldn’t let you go that easily. I’m not made like that.”

Lionel reaches for her, releases a breath, and lets his hands slide down her side to her hips. Heat trails in their wake. It radiates from his fingers straight to her core. Her lips buzz with the kiss she wants so very much.

Lionel bows his head. “May I court you, Tara?”

“Yes,” she whispers. Oh, yes, yes, yes, now kiss me.

He huffs softly, and presses his forehead against hers. “I don’t even know what human courtship entails.”

Her left hand winds around his neck; her right caresses the point of one of his perfect ears. “We go on dates ...” she says, her voice breathy. His body is tight against hers, and she can feel he wants her as much as she wants him.

“Dates?” he asks, and she realizes her brain had said that final word in English.

“To … the theater,” she supplies. “To meals, on long walks together.”

“I don’t want to wait … let’s begin this courtship now. We can … go to a meal. The person on the orientation said there are places to get food around here, and gave me currency.” Lionel straightens, starting to pull away. Tara holds him fast.

“Lionel,” she says. “I can’t go on a date with you right now!”

He meets her eyes. Tilts his head. “Why not?” he asks, voice strained.

Eyes locked on his, both hands caressing his ears, she says, “You’ve been away so long. I can’t sit across the table from you. You’d be too far away … Maybe we could just go back to my home?”

His head drops forward, but then she leans back. Eyes wide, she says, “Unless that is too forward in your culture. It’s not something I would normally do—but it’s you … and I ...”

Lionel’s eyes slip closed. He chuckles. “No, it’s not too forward at all.” He pulls their bodies flush again, sending shivers of warmth through her. He drops his forehead to hers, and she softly caresses his ear again. Frustratingly, he does not kiss her. In a soft voice, he murmurs, “I should tell you, you’re right, protein bars are foul … but velociraptors really do not like pepper spray, antibiotics are wonderful, and also I think you might have misrepresented your rank here, because your talisman worked … I have never known of any sorceress who could create a talisman that could charm a kraken. Inky helped my mother and I escape a troop of Light Elves.”

Tara’s fingers pause and her eyebrows lift, wondering where this is going.

“I must thank you, for all of that,” he says in a hushed whisper. “You saved my life and my mother’s. I am debt bound now to protect your life—from Odin, and from Dark Elves that may have less than noble intentions here.”

“You can’t indebt yourself to me!” Tara protests.

His hands still. “Yes, I can, and bind myself to you in doing so.” His icy blue eyes meet hers. “I am realizing, just now, how much we don’t know about each other and our cultures … I need to be bound to you.”

Tara gulps, and her eyes get blurry and hot, understanding what he’s saying. We’re going to have some misunderstandings, but I wa