When we walked inside I was startled to see that the place was relatively tidy. I’d never been in one of the safehouses before, but I knew a lot of the guards were slobs. They were used to servants in the palace picking up after them. But this place looked almost homey. Granted, the furniture was nothing special, just basic wooden chairs and a table, and a few couches that looked like they’d seen better days, but there were flower patterned curtains, and there wasn’t a speck of dust on either of the end tables as we walked through the living room.

We found the rest of the guards in the kitchen. Some of them were sitting at the table, cards spread out in front of them, others were leaning against the counter or raiding the fridge. When we walked in they all looked up, and most of them looked shocked to see me and Eli.

“This is…” Bifky stopped in the middle of the introduction. “Oh, uh, we didn’t ask your names.”

Behind us, Bolthur scoffed. “That’s right, you big lummox. You just bought their bullshit story, you didn’t even asked them where they actually came from or what their names are.”

“I told you I’m Valka,” I said crossly. “And this is Eli.”

Eli nodded around the kitchen, his expression surprisingly neutral. I think he was probably trying to remain calm, since the Jotun guards were eyeing him like an eagle might stare down a mouse. He was too obviously a mixed-blood human, not even really half Jotun.

My fingers curled into fists, nails biting into the palms of my hands as I stared around at the guards in the kitchen. There were five of them.  Two at the table and two at the refrigerator, one leaning against the counter, all of them staring at Eli and I suspiciously. There was only one female Jotun, and her gaze switched from Eli to me. She pushed long brown hair over one shoulder and said,

“So, what’s your story? You’ve obviously managed piss Bolthur off.”

“Not that it’s hard,” the Jotun leaning against the counter said. He crossed his arms over his narrow chest and gave me an even stare. He was as pale as the woman was dark. In fact, they were evenly divided, for the most part. A mixture of fire and frost Jotun. But they all looked standoffish, and they were all warriors. It was obvious from the way they held themselves, and I swallowed hard, knowing that any one of them could trounce me if I so much as looked at them wrong.

“She has a message for the queen.” Bolthur’s voice was laced with scorn. “Thinks she’s going to waltz up and get an audience with Loki and Megan.”

“And you’re on first name basis with them, right?” The woman scoffed back at him, then turned to look at me again. “Ignore him, he’s got a stick up his backside the size of an oak tree. If Bifky let you in, he must have seen you were telling the truth.” She gestured at the table where the poker game had been going on. “You both look exhausted, at least have a seat while they try to interrogate you.”

I gave her a grateful nod. “Thank you.”

Eli followed me, and he sat down reluctantly after a moment or two, darting another look around the kitchen, as if he were looking for a way out should this all go terribly wrong. It occurred to me that it might, and that we might have to escape and run to the palace on our own. In the middle of the night.

“She was the missing girl I was telling you about,” Bifky said quickly, before anyone else could interrupt. “Remember?”

“The servant girl?” The pale Jotun’s brows shot up.

“Rumours,” Bolthur growled. “All just rumours over some dumb runaway.”

“Two dumb runaways?” the dark woman protested.

“They’re servants, they weren’t happy with their lot.”

“Let her tell her story.” This was spoken in a deep rumble that made the other Jotun fall silent. It was the one who had been sticking his head in the fridge when we’d first entered. A dark, swarthy-faced individual who’d been studying both of us with a curious black-eyed stare up until now.

“First introductions,” Bifky protested, and he flinched when the deep-voiced Jotun glared at him. “Be polite, Ake.”

“Very well, get on with it.”

“Well you know that’s Ake now.” Bifky rolled his eyes. “And you know the grumpy one is Bolthur.” He ignored the nasty glare that Bolthur was giving him and pointed at the woman. “This is Gunvor, Gunny for short.”

            I blinked at Gunny, and she stared back at me, a challenge. Yes, her name was strange, deal with it. It probably came from some long-forgotten Jotun warrior woman.

            Bifky continued, gesturing at the pale frost Jotun. “That’s Hagen. And the one who can’t tear himself away from the poker game is Yunikan, Yun for short.”

            “Nice to meet you all,” I murmured, knowing there was no way I was ever going to remember all of those names, and that it hardly mattered, since we were moving on to the palace the next morning anyways.

            “Now tell us your story,” Ake rumbled.

            “It’s not a story,” I said sharply, and gave him a stone-faced look when he levelled his dark stare at me. Let him try to intimidate me if he liked, I was used to it, having been a servant all my life. Not to mention, I’d just tangled with blood-thirsty mermaids. A dark look from a royal guard wasn’t going to do much to make me back down.

            “I was taken…” I hesitated. “We were taken, my friends and I. Kalda, and Fiske.”

            Ake’s dark brows creased. “Fiske is not a Jotun name. It’s…”

            “Wolf,” I said. “They took him too. And now she’s dead, and he’s back there somewhere.” I felt immediately defensive when the Jotun gaurds exchanged looks, like they were judging me. A rush of heat rose up my neck and into my face. “He was wounded and wouldn’t have made it. He let me go, because we knew I needed to come here and warn the kingdom, the queen and king need to know. Humans have somehow come into Jotunheimer.”

            There was mostly silence, and then a few snorts of laughter from the others. Bolthur said sharply, “See? She lies.”

            “I do not lie,” I said angrily. “They took me and Kalda, they experimented on us.”
            “You have no proof of any of this,” Ake said firmly.

            Until now I had been holding myself back, not wanting to admit what I might have to do in order to prove myself. I didn’t have proper control over my power, it was still too new, and I might kill someone I didn’t want to kill. But now….now the anger was beating in my chest in time to my heartbeat, now I wanted nothing more than to reach into Bolthur’s chest and rip his heart out. But I couldn’t.

            But Ake was right, I needed to prove myself.

            Jotun aren’t like humans though. We don’t have the same amount of water in our bodies, so we’re not as susceptible to what I can do. I could feel all of them in that moment, every inch of them, every bit of water in their bodies, and it wasn’t enough. They probably wouldn’t be able to feel anything that I actually did. And besides, even if I could manipulate it, I didn’t want to actually kill any of my own people. Not even Bolthur, if I was being serious. Killing them wouldn’t get me any support, that’s for sure.

            Thinking fast, I turned away, towards the kitchen counter, towards the sink. “Let me show you, then, if you won’t believe what I’m telling you. I’ll demonstrate something they did to me while I was there. Then you will believe.”

            I reached out, turning the taps on, letting the water flow and bounce off the stainless steel insides of the sink. The other Jotun moved cautiously behind me. I could hear Botlhur grumbling to himself about how ridiculous this was, that they shouldn’t be indulging me, and Bifky telling him to shut up for just two seconds.

            Ake came to stand by my left elbow, looking over my shoulder. He was silent, and his silence seemed to signal to the other gaurds, because they went quiet too.

            I let the water run over my hands, feeling the cold smoothness on my hot skin, letting it soothe me. It was funny, but I realized that I’d missed it. After being under the ocean for hours I thought I would never feel that way, but the water was like balm now, it calmed me down, made me feel like everything was going to be alright. Maybe the Ocean King had been right, the water called to me.

            Now I could feel it, stretching out my senses, feeling every atom in the water as it fell between my fingers and over my hands, washing down my arms. I shut out everything, the impatient shifting of the Jotun behind me, the low growls of Bolthur’s dissaprovement. Even Eli, who was fidgeting and clearly nervous right next to me.

            Eyes closed, I turned my hands upwards and willed the water to fill my palms, nudging it into place, holding it there so that it collected in the palms of my hands and stayed. Then I turned, and my eyes flickered open. Ake was staring down at my hands, blinking.

            I was holding an unusual amount of water, and none of it was dripping out between my fingers, as it should be. But this wasn’t going to be enough to impress them. Taking a breath, I pushed my hands up, throwing the water into the air. Ake and Gunny both flinched back, as if they were expecting a face-full of water.

            Instead, it stopped, freezing in midair. The water droplets sparkled under the lights, hanging in the air, some of them in perfect spheres, other paused in mid-spray. I lowered my hands carefully, using a tiny thread of my attention to hold onto the water. It was surprisingly difficult, I found. It wasn’t like simply ripping the water out of someone, or pushing the water, I had to hold it up, sort of surround it so it continued to be suspended in mid-air.

            Gunny was the first to break the silence. “You’re a…water Jotun.” She breathed the words gently, eyes fixed on the droplets, as if she was afraid they would fall out of the air if she spoke too loudly.

            Ake was shaking his head. “That’s impossible.”

            “There were rumours,” Yun said slowly. “I’ve heard about this, and their association with the Sea God.” He looked at me sharply. “Who are you really? Do you work for him?”

            I had a pang of fear at the look he was giving me. Perhaps this had been a terrible idea. What if they detained me, thinking I was an enemy or something?

            “Don’t be foolish,” Bifky said. His forehead was creased, his face set in concern. “It’s obvious she was telling the truth. What did they do to you there?”

            Eli cleared his throat, startling all of us. To his credit he didn’t flinch when all the Jotun levelled critical stares at him. He pressed on. “Gene manipulation. They experimented on her.”

            “And who are you?” Bolthur strode forward, pinning Eli with his dark glare, backing him up against the kitchen counter. “What is a human doing in our safe house?”

            Eli stammered something, but I interrupted. “Leave him alone.” I ignored his glare, concentrating on collecting the water droplets in my palms again. Then I let it trickle out of my fingers and into the sink, a little reluctant to release the water at all.