“Here we go again,” Finnie muttered as the mist enveloped us.

The room faded away.

This time, we didn’t fall.

But I cannot tell you how happy I was when the frozen tundra and snow-tufted pine trees formed around us.

Safe.

Alive.

Home.

I saw movement and looked that way as I felt the others shifting in around me.

The movement was Apollo. My view was from the back and he was walking away but I saw he was carrying something in his arms.

I didn’t have a chance to see what it was before he thrust his arms forward and whatever he was carrying flew through the air and landed in the snow.

I saw it then.

A body in a black dress rolling through the snow.

I felt an arm go around my waist and looked right.

Finnie was there.

Another arm went around my waist and I looked left.

Cora was there.

Beyond Cora was Circe.

I slid my arms around the women at my sides.

The men (obviously save Apollo) closed in at our backs.

Valentine and Lavinia moved in toward Circe.

Franka, Derrik and Noc moved in next to Finnie.

My eyes went to Apollo when I heard him give a sharp whistle and my breath caught in my lungs when the wolves slunk out of the woods.

Hundreds of them.

Maybe thousands.

I was right yesterday.

Helda was f**ked.

He twisted to look at Valentine.

“Wake her,” his deep voice growled.

“As you wish, chéri,” Valentine replied then threw out her hand in an idle gesture.

I looked back to the witch in the snow.

She was pushing up on her arms, looking around.

But I didn’t have much time to pay her attention.

Apollo was speaking.

“Justice be done,” he stated, and without delay, turned his back to the witch, his cloak flying out behind him awesomely, and he sauntered our way.

The wolves also didn’t delay.

As one, they pounced.

She got out one shriek.

Then nothing but growls, snarls and the sickening sound of moist tearing.

I swallowed.

Apollo, fortunately blocking my view of the carnage, walked right to me.

When he stopped in front of me, I drew in a deep breath and tipped my eyes to his.

His were still pissed.

He again thought he’d lost me and he didn’t like that much.

I had to do something about it.

So I offered him part of what I had to offer him.

“Are the children okay?” I asked.

“Yes,” he grunted.

“All of them?” I pushed.

“Yes,” he repeated tersely.

“The guys? Are they all right?” I queried.

“Yes,” he bit off.

Hmm.

It seemed all was okay and he was still pissed.

“All of them?” I pressed. “Frey’s guys. Lahn’s guys—”

“Yes, Maddie,” he clipped out.

“Okay then, do you think there’s time for me to put on my kickass dress and attend the gale? It’ll be boring, what with no intrigue afoot, but I’m thinking I’d like to try my hand at dancing.”

He stared down at me.

He did this for a while.

Then his hands shot out, grabbed hold of me and I slammed into his body as I watched him throw back his dark, handsome head and burst out laughing.

I wrapped my arms around him and smiled.

My job was done.

Epilogue

A Bag Filled with Hope

Needless to say, once the dome of protection went down and the Winter Palace was attacked by hewcrows and something called toilroys (the troll-like creatures I saw on Specter Isle), and seeing as all the windows had been blown out and not all of them had yet been boarded up, pretty much everyone was freaked so the Bitter Gales had been postponed.

Thus, my kickass dress was still hanging in my room and I had my fingers wrapped around Apollo’s arm as he guided us behind Tor and Cora, who were behind Circe and Lahn, who were following Frey and Finnie to a sitting room in the Winter Palace.

We entered and I saw Valentine and Lavinia sitting next to each other on a couch. Derrik was standing beside the fireplace. Queen Aurora was sitting in a chair. Franka was in a corner, looking like she wanted to be anywhere but there. And Noc was standing at the boarded window, the other Circe not too far from him.

All eyes had come to us as we entered. Seeing as the room was huge, there was fortunately plenty of seating so I was able to take a much needed load off when Apollo claimed a chair, seating me on the arm and curling his arm around my hips.

I wasn’t sure who was in charge of the operation. I just knew when he spoke that Apollo was going to take charge of the debriefing.

“You first,” he ordered, his voice curt, his eyes on Derrik.

“I infiltrated Specter Isle,” Derrik replied.

“I could guess that part,” Apollo returned.

Derrik turned more fully to Apollo and crossed his arms on his chest.

“It was not difficult to convince them there was a reason I was angry and would turn traitor,” Derrik stated confusingly.

“I can imagine not. The question is, did you turn traitor?” Apollo inquired.

Derrik’s face got hard. “Don’t ask that, brother.”

“Uh…just to say,” I quickly put in to this baffling exchange. “When the rescue mission commenced, Derrik was all over incapacitating Helda.”

Derrik’s face got soft as his eyes turned to me.

“Your purpose in doing this?” Apollo queried and Derrik looked back to him.

“Being with them, I could not know your plan and I could not get away to share theirs. All I knew was that both of you would have them. And I would be in the position to do something when they played out. I couldn’t do much. But in the end, I was able to do something.”

“This is true, mon loup,” Valentine put in. “Our Noctorno of my world was sent there to dispatch Edith, as well as incapacitate Helda. This last was the difficult part that made it quite risky for him to go. However you wanted her alive. I daresay those three didn’t consider firearms entering the picture, or our handsome other world Noctorno. But I suspected it would not take long for them to recover from the death of Edith. The elves had to focus on resurrecting Lavinia so they could use her as the conduit to Specter Isle and then drain Minerva. It was most fortunate your man was there. It made things easier on us all.”

Wow.

Lavinia had actually been dead.

And the elves resurrected her.

They were powerful.

Apollo turned his attention to Valentine. “Right, then, as you’ve explained that, it’s clear you had this plan in place, a plan you did not share, when we already had a plan in place.”