We both ended up getting food. I got a sub sandwich the size of an actual submarine, and he got a bowl of tomato soup. I tried to chew as fast as I could, hoping that Erik wasn’t watching me make a total pig of myself. After I had settled my gurgling stomach, I wrapped up the other half of the sandwich for later and looked at him. He was spooning up the last of his soup, and looked up just on time to catch me staring. I blushed to the roots of my hair it felt like.

“Um, how is it?”

“Great, how was your sandwich?” He smiled, and I nodded that it was good, then worked up the courage to say, “I think something weird is happening to me.”

He quirked a brow at me, and I took a deep breath and continued, “My hair is getting lighter. It’s white now…” I pulled my knit cap off, letting my bright hair fall down around my shoulders, surprised when Erik’s grin grew wider. “What?”

“Beautiful,” he said, and I blushed bright red again. He laughed. “Most of the other girls have pale blonde hair, but yours…well, you almost look like a pure-blood.”

I bit my lip, brows furrowing. Was he implying that I was some kind of mutt? He seemed to pick up on the thought, because his smile slid a little. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. I just mean that most of the other half human girls have very light blonde hair. Your hair has lost all pigment.” He gestured to his own head. “Like mine. That’s normal for us.”

“My eyes have gone lighter too.” I hesitated. “Is that…normal? Am I turning full Frost giant or something weird like that?”

Erik rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It could be that your father’s genes were simply more dominant than the other men that were sent out.”

That gave me pause. “Tell me about that.”

“About the experiment?”

“Yeah, Loki only told me a little. I’d like to hear you explain it.” I folded my arms over my chest, wondering if his explanation would sound a little less “evil scientist” then the original version.

Erik rubbed the back of his neck. “Queen Eira is very forward thinking. While some of us violently oppose relations with humans, she knows that we have to be realistic. We’re a dying breed, and if we don’t mingle with humans, we’ll be gone in another thousand years or so.”

“That still sounds like a long time.”

“Not when you live a few hundred years,” Erik said.

I choked on my water. “What?”

“Sorry.” Erik looked sheepish. “I shouldn’t have sprung that on you. I just take it for granted.”

“No kidding,” I sputtered, wiping the corner of my mouth. “You’re serious though? How long will I live then? How long do…I dunno, hybrids live?”

“Probably around two hundred years, or at least, that’s been my experience.” Erik was trying to hide a smile at my look of utter disbelief. “It’s true. I swear.”

My head was reeling. I would live to be two hundred? That meant I would outlive regular humans. Suddenly I was seeing the sandwich shop through new eyes. All these humans would be dead, dust and bones, and I would still be alive. I would even outlast the ten year old kid that was messily devouring a grilled cheese sandwich over in the corner – and the curly-headed little girl that danced around her mother’s legs demanding a rice crispy square from the basket of treats on the deli counter.

Erik was quiet, letting me take it all in. I turned back to him abruptly. “And this…this thing that happens. How I accidently turn stuff to ice. Can it be controlled? I was upset the other day and I froze the bathroom sink…” I stopped, aware that he was trying not to laugh. “Well, I’m glad you think it’s funny.”

“I’m sorry.” He attempted a straight face. “I’m sorry. Don’t worry, if you come back to the palace with me I can teach you everything about your powers. I can help you have full control of them.”

It was tempting, “You mean, so I’ll never accidently freeze someone if you train me?” He nodded, and relief flooded through me. That alone was incentive to go with him, but I still wasn’t trusting enough. After Loki's mind-tricks, I would be stupid to just go with him, trusting blindly.

“This is going to take some time.” I fidgeted with a strand of my newly lightened hair. “I…I’ll want more information, and…I want to know more about what will happen before I go with you.”

Erik shrugged. “Of course, it’s the only smart thing to do. I know you must have more questions.”

“Tons,” I agreed. “I want to know more about your queen. What’s she like? And why am I with foster parents? Why couldn’t I be with my real parents…I mean, at least my mom?”

Erik frowned and scratched his head. “That’s a tough one to answer. At first, the children did stay with their biological mother, but there were…problems. The male Jotun do not make good husbands to human women. Most of them just went back to the palace after the duty was done, and that…” He trailed off, obviously trying to think about how to word things.

“It pissed the women off.” I laid back against the seat and crossed my arms over my chest again, shooting him a severe look. “And who the hell can blame them? They basically knocked those women up and then left them with a kid.”

“Yes,” Erik agreed, still fidgeting. “So the queen changed the program.”

“So that they were knocked up and then they took the baby away, leaving the women with nothing.” I glared. “That doesn’t seem right.”

He ran his fingers through his brilliant blonde hair, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t agree with the program, but the queen believes it is necessary so that we don’t die out.”

“Is it so hard for you Jotun to have kids?” I frowned.

“Jotun women do not conceive easily. Perhaps once every three or four hundred years, because we live so long. However, we are at war. We’re losing people, people we can’t just wait around to replace.”

“So you guys used human women to mate with.” I sunk lower in my seat now, narrowing my eyes at him, and he looked desperate to steer the conversation in a different direction.

“Some of the men stayed,” he protested. “Some of them loved the women and stayed with them.” He lifted up his hands in protest. “What can I tell you? It’s a flawed system, we know that. If we could do it differently we would, but we can’t. It’s either this, or face extinction.”

I thought about the dreams I kept having, about the charitable feeling- feelings of love even – that I had for the queen. The real life queen didn’t sound particularly nice though. Should I mention the dreams? It seemed too personal, too weird. I would tell him next time. Maybe they would stop before then.

Erik shifted in his seat. “Listen, you’ll have to stay at another hotel for the night, and whatever you do, don’t turn your cell phone on. Whoever was trying to find you before will know right away if you do. If it were up to me, I would come watch your hotel door to make sure that bastard, Loki doesn’t show up, but I know you don’t trust me yet either.”

Polite protest died on my lips. What was the point? “No, I don’t. Not yet. I want to though, you have no idea how much I want to trust somebody right now.” My chest tightened, and for one horrible moment I thought tears might spring to my eyes. It would be utterly humiliating to cry in the middle of the busy sandwich shop. Suddenly Erik’s hand was on top of mine, warm and reassuring.

“Megan, I promise I’m on your side. I know this is all weird and crazy and scary for you. I’d like nothing better then to take you back to the palace and show you how safe and happy your friends are there. I do wish you could trust me, but I know I’m also a stranger. You’re smart to be wary. Go to a different hotel for the night. Meet me here in the morning again. Okay?”

I nodded silently. His hand on mine was sending tingles all the way up the length of my arm. When he pulled away I felt a little lost. Erik rooted around in his pocket and came out with an envelope. “This is from the queen. She knows what’s going on, and she doesn’t blame you. She wants you to have this, because she knows how tough it is to be on your own and all alone.”

I took the envelope gingerly between two fingers, as if it might contain a very tiny, very flat bomb. Erik smiled, and I noted that the corners of his ice-blue eyes crinkled the tiniest bit. Laugh lines.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “it’s nothing alarming. Wait till I go to open it though. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Tomorrow, same time.”

He gave me a little wave and turned, taking his drink with him, and I watched him walk out the door and walk past the windows of the shop, giving me one last grin before he was out of sight. I jammed my hat back on my head, glancing around furtively. No one was looking my way. I decided to wait for a few minutes, at least ten, before leaving.

The white envelope was still in my hand, looking innocently blank. There was no writing on the front, nothing to indicate that this was from some sort of mystical queen. I slid my finger under the flap and tore the corner, widening the gap I’d made to peer inside. My stomach gave an exited little lurch as I spotted a thin strip of faded brown. Money. The queen had given me an envelope of cash.

My mind was racing now. Had she given me the money to prove that she could be trusted? I was running out of cash quickly, and now I would be able to afford a nicer hotel to stay the night in. I slipped the envelope under the table, making sure I wasn’t flashing around large wads of cash, and counted my spoils. My jaw dropped. The queen had given me a thousand dollars. I shut my mouth with a click, shoving the cash back inside the envelope and then into my bag. She was a queen, of course she could afford to just throw away a thousand bucks. But still….a small part of me, some little corner of my heart, warmed up to her. Maybe it was from too many hours alone and scared, but it gave me a sort of brief flush of warmth to think that maybe she was watching out for me.

Loki’s face flashed in the forefront of my mind, which put an end the warm-and-fuzzies abruptly. I had trusted him too. What could be another motivation for giving me money? Could you trace bills? Could you tag them so that you knew where they were being spent? It didn’t seem impossible. Would she use them as some sort of tracking device? I was starting to sound like a paranoid nut job. Even if she had wicked intentions in the end, it was far more likely she would try to win my trust. Erik had had more then ample opportunity to whack me over the head and drag me off, cave man style. I decided I would use the cash.



I used some of it to take a taxi several blocks down. I didn’t want to get a hotel too close to the sandwich shop, in case anyone saw me coming out of it and tried to follow me on foot. The hotel I decided on wasn’t ritzy, but this time there would be no risk of bed bugs, and the doors had much sturdier locks on them. I told myself this was a good thing, but something told me that a plain old lock wasn’t going to stop a Jotun if they wanted in. I paid for my room, handing the money to the person behind the desk, a woman with a broad, cheerful face. I was just about to turn to go upstairs when an idea struck me. “Um.” I leaned forward, elbows on the desk, keeping my voice low. “Look, can I ask you something?”

The woman leaned closer, her face intensely curious. “Uh huh?”

“I’m…staying here by myself. Does your hotel have policies about…I mean, like if anyone were to come here and ask you if I was staying here, would you tell them?” I was thinking about the detective who had come looking for me, and I blurted out the first lie I could think of. “My dad…he isn’t very nice. I’m going to my Aunt in California, but my dad is after me. He’s a detective, working with the police force.” I rubbed my arms and shivered, like I was remembering past abuses. It was probably totally hammy, but the woman seemed to believe it, because her eyes widened, and she leaned across the desk toward me,

“Oh honey, don’t worry. We have people come here all the time, hiding from mean husbands and such, and sometimes even in witness protection. We’re not allowed to let anyone up.” She leaned forward and whispered, “But if a detective comes calling, I’ll accidently point him in the wrong direction.” She winked.

I gave her a huge, relieved smile. “Thank you so much.”

Key card in hand I started for the elevator, feeling a little smug.