I glanced at Ben, too tired to feel surprise anymore. “You have your soul back? When did that happen?”
“You sacrificed yourself for him,” Imogen answered before he could. “It is that act which redeems the soul. Didn’t Benedikt tell you?”
“No,” I said, just enjoying the sight of him. He was so handsome he took my breath away, but it was more than just the pretty package that made my soul sing—it was the Ben inside who completed me and made me more than I was when I’d started out. “No, he didn’t.”
You’re going to yell at me about that later, aren’t you?
Oh, yes.
“How are you doing?” I asked Imogen, concerned by Ben’s comment that she was vulnerable. “Have you heard from Günter?”
Her expression darkened. “No, and I must admit I’m concerned about his welfare, despite Benedikt’s assertion that he was only using me to get at the Vikingahärta.”
Ben snorted. “Why else would he disappear the moment Francesca appeared?”
“Regardless of that, I’m sorry you lost him,” I told her.
She smiled, blushing a little. “Don’t be too sorry on my behalf. Finnvid has been most attentive in consoling me.”
“About him—” Ben started to say.
“Another time,” I interrupted.
He hrrmphed in my head.
“I can’t wait for you to have daughters, so you can worry about them for a change,” Imogen told him, then turned back to me with an exclamation. “You were busy with your new sister, so Eirik wished for me to tell you that he and Isleif have gone into town to search for someone named Nori. Evidently they caught sight of him earlier today.”
“Again? I wish I knew what Loki’s son is doing in Brustwarze. I wonder if he was who Mom . . . hmmm.”
“Who knows? I will be by later to sit with Miranda,” Imogen said with a kiss to each of us.
I closed the door, thought about lecturing Ben, and decided to take a different tactic.
“What was that for?” he asked when I was finished mapping the inside of his mouth.
“You have your soul back. I’m happy for you, Ben.”
Petra came out of my mother’s room at that moment, her eyes red. “I never knew. I just never knew she was alive.” She sat down at the table as if her legs were about to give out. “Of course, now I’m going to have to see this man you say is my father. He’s in town here, isn’t he? Can you give me his address?”
I sat in a slump at the table, Ben making a more graceful appearance. I was too tired to care. I leaned against him, my fingers twined through his as they rested on his thigh.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Ben said, pain lancing him. “The house is destroyed.”
“Destroyed? How? Why? When?”
Ben briefly told her about our evening’s activities at de Marco’s house.
“The light, or whatever it is that Naomi blasted me with, set the chapel on fire. Although the exterior of it and the house itself were made of stone, the interiors were wood, and the whole thing went up in a blaze. I only vaguely remember it because I was a little rummy from the blast, but luckily the Vikingahärta took the brunt of most of it, saving both Ben and me from annihilation.”
“What’s a Vikingahärta?” she asked, her eyes huge.
I pulled from my pocket three twisted metal bits. “This is all that remains of it. I just hope to the skies that Loki never finds out about it. As it is, I’m going to have to explain to Freya that I’m now helpless against him, and won’t be able to banish him like she and Frigga expected.”
“That’s sad,” she said, prodding one of the broken triangles with the tip of a finger. “And de Marco? What happened to him and the woman who attacked you?”
Ben’s fingers tightened.
I know it looks bad, my love, but you have to think positive. We will save him.
“Both disappeared in the confusion of the fire,” Ben answered in a flat voice that said so much about his emotions. “As did David.”
“Your therion brother?” She frowned. “Was he burned in the fire?”
“No.” Ben’s jaw tightened. “De Marco took him.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “If there’s anything I can do . . . I know we just met, and things are a bit weird and all, but . . . well, I guess we’re family now.”
“Yes, we are.”
Ben’s grief and guilt swamped me. Petra must have sensed it, because after a few more minutes of questions about recent events, she excused herself, saying she had a room in town, and would be back later that day to see if Mom had woken up.