Neil activated it and the familiar pull of the return journey took hold, and when it released them they were back in the settlement, the ordinary light and ordinary sounds of it settling around them like something resumed after a pause.
Neil looked at the sky for a moment, judging the time.
Then he turned toward his domain and walked home.
…
The shadow under his feet seemed a bit strange.
That was the first thing Neil registered, not a sound or a shape but the quality of the shadow itself near the edge of the path, the way it held its position slightly longer than the light justified before it shifted.
Magnar felt it at the same moment, his body going from the loose and easy movement of the walk home to something entirely still and coiled in the space between one step and the next.
Freya stirred inside him, which was more telling than anything else.
