“Excuse me,” Mina said quietly, keeping her head down and trying to be as inconspicuous as possible as she reentered the central part of the Fisher Kingdom, cutting through the crowd of people who remained gathered to gawk at the edge of the former Haunted Forest.

  She raised her eyes and saw that her surreptitious movements had been of no use.

  Everyone was looking her way. Some averted their eyes as she took them in, while others stared rather brazenly, but nearly every resident of the Fisher Kingdom knew what their Queen looked like, and those who did not know were being quickly educated on the subject by their neighbors.

  “Y-your Majesty,” began one voice at the periphery of the crowd.

  Then the air was filled with the sounds of questions.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Where’s the King?”

  “Do you know who did this?”

  A few people also moved toward her, until a loud voice stopped them in their tracks.

  “Everyone stay back!” Leo roared. “Give the woman some breathing room! I already gave orders that you were to keep your distance. Don’t make us start arresting people!”

  The ones who had stepped forward pulled back reluctantly, muttering to themselves and looking down at the ground.

  Leo stepped toward Mina and put an arm around her shoulder.

  “I’m going to escort the Queen home,” he added loudly, his neck veins bulging out as he raised his voice once more.

  They cut through the crowd together and walked for a couple of minutes, eyes of the crowd still following them, before either of them spoke again.

  “Anything you can tell me about our situation?” he asked in a low voice as they cleared the outskirts of the mass of people. “Or where your husband is?”

  “Not out here,” Mina whispered. “I’m going to need you not to ask about him again in public. At least not until we have a good idea of what to say.” She resisted the impulse to look down at her Small Bag of Deceptive Dimensions.

  Leo’s eyes widened slightly, but then he took control of his face again. There were still eyes on them after all.

  “Say no more,” he murmured.

  He pulled his arm back down to his side as they grew more distant from the crowd of curious onlookers, but he continued walking with her all the way to the royal apartment.

  “Thank you,” Mina said. She was still mostly focused on her worry for her husband and, to a lesser extent, Zora, both of whom were safely stashed in her Small Bag of Deceptive Dimensions, but she retained enough objectivity to recognize that Leo had done her a big favor by getting her away from the public.

  “It’s what I do,” Leo said in a very contented voice. “Frankly, I didn’t think I would get to do police work again after the end of the world came. I owe your husband for that. Keeping his wife from having to deal with a nosy crowd is the least I can do.” He gave her a firm look for a moment, then added, “You will issue a statement explaining what happened, won’t you? The public is going to need to know about—um, whatever this situation is.”

  Mina nodded. “We will.” She stopped walking. They had arrived at her front door now. “Why don’t you come up, and we’ll discuss it a little bit? You can probably help me out.”

  Leo smiled and looked relieved. “I’m glad I’ll have something to tell my people about this.”

  Even if it’s a lie? Mina wondered. That had been James’s initial plan when she spoke to him. Sell the destruction, and James’s injuries, as the result of an epic battle.

  She put the thought behind her for a moment as they closed the door and began ascending the stairs to the apartment.

  “So, when are you going to tell me where His Majesty is?” Leo asked.

  “Oh, he’s with me,” Mina replied vaguely. She wondered silently if anyone at the door besides James would be able to overhear the conversation she was about to have with Leo.

  “As in, with you in your heart?” Leo asked. “Or is he literally here?” He looked around briskly as the interior of the apartment came into view. “Does James have an invisibility Skill, to go with all the other crap he can do?” He sounded like he wanted to laugh.

  He has a cloak that can make him invisible, actually, Mina thought. Plus a camouflage Skill. Kind of redundant to have both, actually…

  Aloud, she said, “He’s with me in my bag.” Stepping out into the living room, she patted her Small Bag of Deceptive Dimensions where it hung on her hip. Then she turned to face Leo, who was now standing at the top of the stairs too.

  “Oh. Okay. Perfectly normal.” Leo spoke as if he wanted to ask why, but he just looked at Mina and waited.

  “He was in the middle of the impact zone,” she explained. “He’s actually badly hurt, and he didn’t want anyone to see him as I transported him here.” She almost, but not quite, managed to suppress a catch in her throat. As she spoke, she had remembered how bad James’s condition was—and how upset she had been when she saw him.

  “Is he going to be all right?” Leo asked. He stepped closer, as if he was thinking about embracing Mina—but then he held back. Perhaps he had the idea that it might be inappropriate.

  Mina wasn’t particularly touchy-feely with non-family-members anyway, so she did not close the gap.

  “He will,” she told herself as much as him. “James is tougher than anyone knows.” The words came out proud, but with a hint of insecurity.

  A smile tugged at the edge of Leo’s lips.

  “Of course he will. I know he’s tough. Could definitely kick my ass at least.” Leo rubbed his left shoulder as if there was some sudden pain there.

  “Anyway, I’m going to lay him out on the bed and treat him, but first, I wanted to talk to you about what you can say to people.”

  “Yeah, what exactly happened?” Leo asked.

  She gave him a hard look, then decided to just tell the truth. It had never gone poorly with Leo before.

  “You can’t tell anyone about this,” she began.

  Leo simply nodded.

  “The System attacked the Kingdom,” Mina said. “We had someone staying here who was a god in disguise. He was watching James, trying to see if James could do some task for the Norse gods. I guess it was pretty important.” She waved her hand impatiently to show how important it was to her and continued, “The System doesn’t want gods visiting Earth right now, so once it registered this fellow’s presence, it tried to destroy the whole area around him. He apparently had some method of hiding where he was, but I guess it was on a time limit or something.”

  “I see,” Leo said, lips pursed.

  “What, you don’t believe me?” Mina asked, evaluating the look on his face. She was ready to tell Leo to leave, if he actually doubted her story. She only needed people who would support her and James around just then.

  “Huh? Oh, sure, I believe you, Mina,” Leo said awkwardly. “If that’s how you say things went down—or how James says things happened. I was just thinking that this confirms again, I guess, that my God isn’t the only god out there. It’s easy for me to default back to standard Catholic and just blissfully forget the shi—stuff we’ve learned. Still, um, processing.” His brow furrowed, and his eyes became distant.

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  Is this how Yulia feels when we talk about the gods? Mina wondered. She knew Yulia had remained devout long after the other sisters in the family lost their faith. Well, I suppose we don’t talk about them very much anyway…

  “At any rate, I don’t think we can safely tell the public what actually happened,” Mina said. “You saw how the crowd was acting out there. They’re already scared. Most people think of the System as a god-like force in the world based on their Orientation experiences—and they’re not wrong. If we told the actual, literal truth, it could give people the idea that the country is disfavored by the System, and people might flee the Kingdom. Which would be bad for us and bad for them. So, James and I were thinking of a different story. We would need the first responders who pick up the wreckage of the scene to corroborate it, though. You in particular.”

  Leo tilted his head side to side and grimaced as if rolling the idea around in his head, then nodded.

  “I think that’s a rational approach,” he said. “They say that behind every great fortune is a great crime. Well, beneath every nation is a foundation of lies and dead bodies.” He shrugged. “This is a good thing to lie about. So, what story are we feeding the people?”

  Mina thought that her friend from Orientation was far more comfortable with lying to the public than she had expected—maybe a little too comfortable—but decided to chalk it up to him agreeing with her judgment of what the citizens could handle.

  “We keep it vague for the moment,” Mina said. “Once James is awake again, he’ll make a full announcement with the complete cover story. But the short version is that a powerful enemy attacked, and James was injured defeating him. Something that fits with the heroic image that my husband has already developed.” She couldn’t help puffing herself up with pride a bit as she spoke. Her husband was a hero, after all—a hero and a leader of such stature that even the gods paid attention to him.

  “I can do that,” Leo said, seemingly oblivious to the shift in Mina’s mood. “Is there anything else I can do for you? Do you need protection while James is recovering? Or should I send someone up to help heal James? I know you and Yulia have healing, but I figure every helping hand adds something. I can look for people who would be discreet until you make the announcement. Even if you just wanted Hilda to come and be a bodyguard, I’m sure she would do it.” He chuckled quietly. “She’s feisty.”

  Mina thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think we need protection. We don’t have enemies here…”

  Her voice trailed off as Leo gave her a very skeptical look.

  “You don’t have enemies that you know about,” he said gently. “Would James agree that you don’t have enemies?”

  “I think he would,” Mina said. She thought of the fact that James could actually observe anything and everything happening inside his territory as he wished, which she could not, of course, say out loud. Then she remembered the monotheists and frowned. “Actually, could you send Hilda? Like you said, she is feisty. Her presence would be pretty inconspicuous. And it would be good if she and I got to know each other a little better, especially if the two of you are, um, seriously involved.”

  She’s also blessed by a Norse god, just like James is now, Mina thought. She might have additional information for us, a message, or some other insights.

  Leo nodded and tried to contain his smile. “Okay, then. I’ll send her.”

  Mina tried to smile back, but the curve to her lips was faint. Her thoughts had returned to the problem of James’s injuries, and the image of them was like a splinter in her mind’s eye.

  “I’ll go,” Leo added, his expression turning sad as he looked toward Mina. “Good luck.”

  Mina dipped her head in acknowledgement.

  “Thank you.” Her voice was very low. She felt suddenly tired.

  The day hasn’t been that long, has it? She shook her head. No, it was morning not long ago. Still is morning. You’re just dealing with a lot…

  “Nothing else I can do?” Leo asked. He looked worried.

  Mina shook her head and made herself give a weary smile.

  “I’ll be just fine,” she said.

  Leo nodded. “I’ll just send Hilda, then.”

  Mina watched him descend the stairs, and then she withdrew to the bedroom. She opened the Small Bag of Deceptive Dimensions and pulled James out of it. For a moment, he was weightless, hovering over the bed Mina had positioned the bag in front of. Then the strange magic of the device released him, and he crashed down with a mercifully soft thud.

  She allowed herself to exhale and relax slightly, and she put the bag away.

  I’ll get Zora out of the bag once Yulia comes home from work.

  Her understanding of the Small Bag of Deceptive Dimension’s functioning, from occasional experiments, was that items placed inside were effectively in suspended animation. Leaving Zora inside the bag hopefully made it less likely that her condition would worsen before some healing could be applied. This was especially important, because despite what James had said earlier, Mina wanted to focus on healing him until either he was better or it was necessary for her to focus on Zora.

  You understand, right, skapi? she thought. Your mother is wonderful, really, I admire her very much. Since my mother died, especially, she is a great role model. An intelligent and strong lady. But I do not love her the way I love you. I could never prioritize her life over yours, even if you try to act tough, as if you were not in terrible pain…

  Mina cut that train of thought off. She could feel herself about to become emotional, and now was not the time for that.

  She took a hair band out of her bag and quickly placed her hair into a loose ponytail, to keep it from falling in front of her face. Then she set to work with Laying On Hands, healing James of his most serious injuries.

  Mina’s mind locked on and focused so exclusively on James that she missed the sound of her stomach growling and the feeling of fatigue slowly settling over her bones. She managed her Mana so skillfully that she was able to continue the exercise for hours. She would have probably persisted into nightfall if Yulia had not come home.

  As the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs rang through the apartment, Mina shook herself slightly.

  Oh, is it that time already? she thought. She felt the sudden emptiness around her middle and smiled despite herself. Then she glanced down at James, and the smile turned to a slight frown. I’ve made barely any progress in all that time. The worst of the injuries looked slightly better. James’s body no longer looked like it might fail at any moment. But to Mina’s non-medical eyes, it still appeared as if he was a permanently crippled patient—or at least as if he would require years of recovery to move properly again.

  He had dozens of broken bones still, almost every inch of skin was bruised, and there was dried blood from a dozen wounds where his shattered armor had punctured or sliced into his skin—though the lacerations were closed now. They had not been among James’s most life-threatening injuries, but Mina had treated the shattered armor cuts because she found the blood flow from those wounds distracting.

  The main contribution I made was fixing the spinal damage and some of the head trauma, Mina thought. It was a miracle James was able to talk earlier at all. She suddenly felt his absence keenly, for the first time in hours, and had to hold back tears.

  I know you’re with Alan and Mitzi, but it would be great if you could come back here and just talk to me for a little while.

  “Sis, are you okay?”

  Mina looked up. Yulia stood in the doorway.

  For once, Mina had nothing to say. She felt the tears gathering in the corner of her eyes, and she thought anything she might say would cause them to come rolling down her cheeks.

  Fortunately, Yulia saved her from talking. Yulia’s eyes darted away from Mina’s face to the supine form on the bed.

  “Oh my gosh,” Yulia said. “James…”

  The teenager stepped forward as if pulled by invisible strings toward her wounded brother-in-law. She looked upset and afraid.

  Mina turned her head away and made as if to look down at James. But she actually used that movement as a chance to cover her wiping away her tears with the back of her hand—as casually as she could, although she felt Yulia glance up at her just after the gesture.

  “What happened?” Yulia asked.

  Mina opened her mouth and then sensed motion in the doorway of the room again.

  Both women turned, and then Mina relaxed again.

  “I was going to mention that I ran into her outside,” Yulia said.

  “Leo said you might benefit from someone watching the apartment,” Hilda said. “I didn’t want to come in and disturb anything, so I loitered outside for a while.” As usual, she spoke with a clarity and directness that seemed to Mina to suggest hidden depths, hidden knowledge. As if she knew exactly what she would have been disturbing—and what the consequences of interrupting the healing process might be.

  Mina nodded. “Thank you. Do you mind giving us a minute?”

  “Not at all,” Hilda said. “The kids are in there.” She tilted her head toward the area of the living room just out of Mina’s view. “I’ll watch them while you guys talk.” Hilda gave a small, sympathetic smile and then withdrew somewhere out of sight.

  Mina closed the door behind the woman. She didn’t know if it would do any good, and she was beginning to trust Hilda, but better safe than sorry.

  “James was badly injured by what we’re going to say was an enemy he defeated,” Mina said.

  “What we’re going to say…” Yulia let her voice trail off.

  “Don’t ask unless you want to know the answer and have to lie about it anyway,” Mina said.

  Yulia nodded. “All right, sis. Do you want my help?”

  Mina took her hands and smiled weakly. Some of the burden was off her shoulders.

  “Of course I do,” she said. “You’re better at healing than I am.”

  Yulia smiled but looked a little worried. She probably knew that if Mina was admitting any kind of weakness, the situation was worse than it seemed.

  “Besides James, there’s someone else we need to heal,” Mina said. “That’s part of why I need help…”

  Then Mina’s stomach growled. The two women giggled awkwardly.

  “All right, first dinner,” Mina said in a grudging tone. “Then healing.”