EV B2 Chapter 43:

As I started to approach the place where Alana and I had been training, I pulled out the token and contacted Jorg. After a quick greeting, I just told him, "It's done. As good as you're going to get, anyways."

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, though he sounded neither excited nor disappointed.

"Well, he's dead. I did my best to pin it on another faction, but... well, I think it's as good as you'll get."

Jorg was silent for a second. "Very well. You'll find an extra bonus waiting for you when you talk to Loki next."

"Thank you," I said and closed the connection. I didn't really want to talk with him right now. As reasonable as our interactions had been, it wasn't doing me any good.

My mind was still far from perfectly calm, but it was not so far gone that I didn't recognize that I needed some time to sort stuff out for myself. Influences like Jorg or Loki, as pleasant as I might find their interactions, were probably not the healthiest. No. I would talk to Loki later.

And as much as I looked forward to having Alana to talk to, I really wanted to talk to Astrid. She at least had a more perspective view of me. Alana was, well, a bit infatuated, maybe. Or did I just still have this hero worship that I definitely didn't deserve?

When I made my way up to the room, I didn't find Alana training as I had expected. Rather, she was sitting on a chair in front of a table—a small table with an array of food placed on it, with a bottle of wine and a pair of glasses.

She gave me a smile as she saw me come in and stood to greet me. When she hugged me tight, her hairline reaching—her hair tickling the underside of my chin as she squeezed into my chest—I felt myself relax. Some of the tension I had been carrying faded away as I embraced her back.

"It went well?" she asked.

I nodded before gently separating us from the embrace. "Yeah, I'll tell you all about it in a second. But one—how do you manage to find that?"

She smiled and tapped her nose.

I looked at her. "Come on."

"Well, if you can just get it yourself, you don't need me," she said, still refusing to divulge the secrets.

"I don't need wine that much. I just have—well, I never really looked, but didn't think it was very common."

"It's not," she said. "So don't expect people to find it often. And this is okay wine, but the food's not too bad."

I sat down and looked at it. It was not the simple bread and meats that I was used to. Still, rather there were some spices and—well, not that many spices, as spices were hard to come by in Valhalla—but at least the meat and bread had been prepared with a level of attention to detail that no cook besides the one who served Loki had.

It was almost like a beef Wellington—the bread wrapping around a cut of juicy, rare meat. And the bread flaked as I cut into it, and it was still warm.

"Okay, I know. You couldn't buy this anywhere."

Alana smiled. "I never really liked cooking that much, but with boosted stats, I can remember what the cooks back at home did."

I paused, my second bite halfway to my mouth. I set it down slightly and looked her in the eyes.

"Thank you. This means a lot."

It had been a while since I had a home-cooked meal—since long before I had died.

"I know it doesn't really fit someone of your stature to be cooking," I commented.

She waved it off. "Oh well, once I died, I was no duchess-to-be or anything like that. Besides, someone of your stature doesn't cook either."

I shrugged. "Well, remember, I wasn't always Alaric. There were times when I had to cook for myself," I said with a smile and a feigned shudder. "But my—well, late wife was a significantly better cook than I was."

Alana's face didn't flicker, but I could sense a hint of awkwardness at the mention of my previous marriage. I had told her the broad strokes of it, but we never got into details about my previous life—not to the extent that she had wanted to. I had left that vague as well once I got to Valhalla. Things mattered much more in the context of the relevant situation.

I could tell she wanted to ask, but I wasn't ready to talk about it. So I simply let the moment pass, and we ate in silence.

When I was about halfway done, I swallowed and gave a detailed recounting of the encounter I had with Brother Peter. Seeing Alana listen with no judgment made me feel better about my decisions. But... well, that only went so far.

"So what now?" She asked.

I tapped my chin. "Well, I'd like to find out what's going on with Astrid. With a group of three, we can do most things. It would be great to fill out a party, but I need people I can trust. We're starting to get too many secrets to just grab random people. And then afterward... well, I think we try to work on getting you, and maybe Astrid, to class. She might have managed that already, though. And moving on to the next hall of Valhalla. Because—" I waved around. "Well, this is better than the lesser hall, at least for me. I'm starting to get tired of it."

Alana shrugged. "I'll follow you wherever."

The way she said it with such ease made me slightly uncomfortable, but I pushed that down, as there was nothing I could do about it. Not realistically.

"I think the first thing to do is talk to Loki, though. But I don't think I'm ready for that today."

"Really?" Alana asked. "You never seem to mind talking to Loki."

I frowned. Usually, I didn't, but I was starting to feel as if he was a bad influence, so to speak. I didn't vocalize that—just shrugged.

"There's a time and place for each friend. It depends on how they fit into your life, I suppose. And now I need to recover. And... well, Loki is a chaotic influence."

"How do you want to recover?" she asked with a smile.

I was purposely obtuse. When I pointed to my stack of books, I said, "I think I'm just going to read. There might be something I can do to push towards getting a skill as well, but then maybe I'll meditate and try to improve my magic for a bit. You can join me or keep practicing."

We both worked and trained late into the night before Alana fell asleep, sitting against the wall beside me as I read, stretched out on the floor. I didn't really need the sleep, but I, too, decided it might be good for my own mind to have a real break. I closed the book and set it off to the side before lacing my hands over my chest and letting my mind slowly drift into dreams.

I had expected my dreams to be turbulent—maybe guilt-ridden. After all, it was the first time I'd killed a man in cold blood. But they were peaceful. Maybe the reading or the conversation had helped me move on. But when I woke, I was rested. And my mind felt... comfortable enough?

When Alana brought up talking to Loki over breakfast, I didn't shy away from the idea, and we headed out first thing in the morning to find one of Loki's dens.

Once we found the correct symbol on a sign and made our way past the avatar working the shop, we were down in the familiar long hallway, where the concierge desk had us wait a few minutes while the area was prepared.

It was a classic American diner, with booths covered in shitty vinyl and waitresses running around with coffee pots, serving faceless customers as the sound of diesel trucks rattled and rumbled outside. I blinked in surprise as the scent of hash browns and cheesy grits wafted over me. This was not at all what I pictured Loki doing. Still, I saw him in his suit, a plaid baseball cap the only nod to the environment, as he gave Alana and me a little wave from a booth off in the corner.

We walked through, and just as we sat down, a pair of mugs with piping hot coffee was slammed down in front of us by a waitress who had already left by the time I turned to ask for some water as well. I sighed and lifted an eyebrow as I looked up at Loki.

"What's with the rustic vibe?" I asked.

Loki just shrugged a shoulder. "I'm just in the mood. Just the mood. Besides, I wanted to take you for breakfast."

I let it drop and launched into my desired topic of conversation.

"So, I'm here about Astrid now. I think I've waited long enough. Is she all right?"

Loki drummed his fingers on the table. "You could say so. She was given a task—a fair task," he said when I gave him a look. "Not by me either, so you can't blame me. And, well, she completed it well enough. Enough to earn the blessing and what she was looking for. But it may have landed her in a little bit of hot water and... well, now I think you might be able to help her out."

I felt my eyes narrow as I leaned forward. "What has she gotten herself into?"

"Well, you know, there's no technical law in Valhalla. Not in the way you might think of a mortal city. But there are certain things that are frowned upon—kidnapping, rape, and stuff like that. Another one of those is selling drugs."

I raised my eyebrows. "Astrid is in trouble because she was selling drugs?"

"Well, she's been kidnapped because she was selling drugs, so no one's really in trouble. It's more of a gray area where those who care about enforcing the very loose rules let things play out. And... well... Astrid's patron doesn't quite have the resources at the moment to go up and free her outright."

I leaned back, closing my eyes. And when I opened them, I saw Loki sitting there, smiling innocently.

I kept forgetting that he wasn't my friend. Well, maybe he was—but that didn't mean he had my best interests at heart. The second I had stepped through one moral barrier and thought I was going to move on to my own tune, here he came, dropping this on me. Pulling me deeper in.

But really, what could I do?