Free 0765332108 (F) by Susan Krinard Page A

steppes.”
    “Then why haven’t you convinced him to play more of these ‘games,’ if that is how he perceives them?”
    “Because his mind is far more powerful and delicate than you can imagine. He may not be capable of making complex moral judgments as yet, but this will cease to be a game if he begins to truly grasp what you are asking of him, and why.”
    “And you’ll be sure to tell him that what I ask of him is wrong. Immoral.”
    “You continue to overestimate my influence on him. He still spends much of his time barely conscious of his surroundings.”
    Dainn glanced at the monitor, and Loki followed his gaze. Danny was sitting cross-legged on the bed, his seemingly ten-year-old face as expressionless as his father’s, his wiry body rocking to a rhythm only he could hear. His nurse, Miss Jones, was temporarily away, but Loki knew that his manner seldom changed even when she was in the room with him.
    “For most of the time I spend with him, he is as you see,” Dainn said, echoing Loki’s thoughts. “I have told you many times that Danny is not a tool to be manipulated like your other servants. He is still only half in this world, but if you push him, he may shatter.”
    Shifting in his chair, Loki scowled. “I know that you have a bond with him that I do not, and that was precisely the reason you were given charge of him. But he is not as disconnected from the world as you seem to believe. He can take images from our minds and create manifestations capable of acting as living beings. Yet he has not raised even a single one of the simple incarnations I have requested. Is that, too, a game you have failed to play?”
    “All the shadows he raised in the past were familiar to you, or to me. These mortals you wish him to duplicate for your political machinations are hardly real to you .”
    “If that is the difficulty, I must simply take you to meet them. Given your affection for mortalkind, y ou will find them real enough.”
    Raw emotion flashed across Dainn’s face, but Loki was unable to interpret it. Hope that he might find a chance to escape? Fear that Loki’s suggestion might finally enable Danny to do what Loki wished?
    “Why don’t you just admit that you have attempted to convince him to spirit you both away,” Loki said, “perhaps even to the camp of my enemies?” He smiled. “Oh, but that would hardly be wise … unless you wanted him dead.”
    Dainn didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. He had been the one to tell Loki that Freya had intended to kill Danny on the steppes.
    Loki remembered Freya’s first meeting with Danny. He and Loki had been searching for a way out of the Jotunheim Shadow-Realm, and had encountered Freya engaged in the same activity. Even then, she had sensed what Danny might become.
    “Perhaps you believe Mist would protect him,” Loki said. “Apparently she has some affection for him. But as I recall, you said that she defended Danny against one of Freya’s elves, not the Lady herself.” He tipped his snifter to examine the last drops of liquor gleaming against the crystalline amber beads. “Odd, that. Mist would never believe that one of Freya’s Alfar would try to harm him.”
    “Clearly, Freya has some Alfar who are willing to obey her without question. Mist simply assumed that her opponent was a Jotunn posing as an elf. She never realized that Freya meant to—” He broke off, clearly unable to finish the sentence.
    Loki signaled for another refill and dismissed Nicholas. “You say that Danny doesn’t remember her, or Freya. But what of the beast?”
    The muscles in Dainn’s jaws tightened. “He never saw it.”
    “Never? My Jotunar reported having seen it fighting at Mist’s side at the portal.”
    His words clearly came as a shock to Dainn, but then Loki hadn’t been entirely forthcoming about what his men had witnessed on the steppes.
    “Danny was with Hild and Sleipnir then,” Dainn protested, a little paler than he’d been a few