MIRACLE OF MIRACLES, Nola strengthened as soon as she reached Sweden. Her pains faded, the sense of fatigue vanished and she started resting well, her brain free of fog. While she no longer dreamed about the golden god, he continued to speak inside her mind with an increasingly snarly tone. She’d heard:

—Please, take your time, princess. I don’t mind being tortured for another thirteen hundred years.—

—Useless royals.—

—Do you want someone else to rule your world?—

Every day she endured a new mental tug-of-war. He couldn’t be real, but he had to be real, but he couldn’t be, but he had to be. On the plus side, his aphrodisiac voice kept her body in a state of sexual arousal without a hint of sickness, no matter how often he complained, and she loved and hated the wonderful, terrible sensations.

Nola had tried to respond to him, and failed. Clearly. Not once had he ever answered her questions.

What’s your name?

Why did you stop showing up in my dreams?

Will you do a striptease for me?

She wanted to enjoy every day, hour, minute in Sweden, but every day, hour, minute, the desire to reach Russia magnified, until urgency ruled her thoughts.

Finally, though, the day, hour, minute arrived. She and Vale rented a car and hit the road, with Vale at the wheel, and Nola in charge of navigation.

Now, excitement ruled her. Golden god—GG—here I come!

“You are practically foaming at the mouth,” Vale said with a little laugh. “What’s going on?”

Selective mutism wouldn’t let her spill the truth, so she’d have to approach this a different way. As Carrie used to say, If you can’t go up, go down. If you can’t go down, go around. If you can’t go around, kick that mofo to the ground.

“I have a weird question.” While Nola loved to read romance novels in her spare time—she might have given up on love, but baby, she sure did like to read about others taking the plunge—Vale watched sci-fi movies and went gaga for all things supernatural.

“Shoot,” Vale said. “You know you can ask me anything, any time.”

Here goes. “Do you believe telepathy is possible?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Vale responded without missing a beat. “I believe there’s a grain of truth in every myth, legend and ability, and that we can do anything we can imagine.”

“Why do we have no irrefutable proof of... I don’t know, aliens or something?” Wait. What if people with supernatural abilities couldn’t admit the truth? What if they experienced, say, selective mutism? “Let me rephrase. If superpowers are real, why aren’t mutants taking over the world?”

“Maybe we are.” Vale wiggled her brows. “I mean, I don’t want to brag, but I have the power to make grown men cry.”

Nola snickered.

“What brought this on?” her sister asked.