I came to on the earthen floor of the sweat lodge. I was shaking uncontrollably as much from the thrust of the travel as from the sense of helplessness and hopelessness.

Jack had seemed so angry, yet oddly resigned to his fate. Though he withered under her touch, he didn’t fight to escape. As if he knew, somehow, that it was pointless. And judging by what I’d overheard, Brigid wanted it all, not just my world — which was Jack — but the world, too.

I sat up, lifting my heavy-as-barbells shoulders. Brigid had Jack. Did she intend to use him to deep-freeze us all? Regardless, Brigid had Jack. I’d do whatever it took to stop her — and to free him.

Jinky and her grandmother were still with me in the low tent. How long had I been gone? And how could they stand it? It was so cloyingly hot. The steam from the water poured over the hot rocks, and the smoke from the smudge wand still had the place banked in a fog that could rival both London and San Francisco — combined. Despite the creepy sensation of them both watching me, waiting for me to say something, I needed a minute to recover. All I could think about was Jack. If that was the past, where was he now? And what had Brigid meant when she said he won’t be wasting his energy on emotions much longer?

Finally, Jinky’s grandmother spoke, pulling me from my sulk. When Jinky handed me a cup of water, I noticed something bordering on respect in her dark eyes. The drink was cold and delicious and almost as rejuvenating as Jinky’s small nod of approval. The old Sami woman’s conversational tone changed, and she began chanting in an odd, choppy rhythm. She also added more water to the rocks, again shrouding us in a cloud of steam.

When the old woman finally stopped talking, Jinky translated, “My grandmother says that the spirit breath is now ready to take you on the second cycle. During this cycle you will find guidance.”

Round two? I hardly knew if I was up to it. My breathing was labored, and it was so very, very hot. And with the crazy steam funneling all around me, I couldn’t see. I felt sick to my stomach and so tired I couldn’t even lift my arms, never mind fly again. All the while, Jinky’s grandmother was reciting a phrase over and over. But guidance sounded good. I’d take some of that. Though I hardly had the energy to blink, never mind visualize. The air in the tent grew so heavy I could have pulled it up to my chin like a blanket, which reminded me of how very sleepy I was.

I came to feeling a glorious ribbon of cool breeze tickling me. It felt so great to be out of that stifling heat. Still groggy, I sat up, struggling to process my surroundings, until I realized, with a start, that I was on Hinrik’s boat. We were adrift, waves licking up the sides of the pitching wooden craft. A gray mist gathered in shifting patches, obscuring the gulls who screeched their presence. I stood and made my way to the stern, where Hinrik, with his back to me, cast a net out into the water.

“Where are we?” I asked. “Where’s Jinky?”

He turned to face me, and I gasped. This wasn’t Hinrik at all. Though he wore the same knit cap and navy jacket, the guy before me was much taller and broader.

In a sweeping gesture, he removed his hat, revealing a head of light brown curls. He was younger than I expected, my own age. And if not classically handsome, attractive in some inexplicable way. “Ah, there you are,” he said, smiling.

Despite being in the middle of the sea with a complete stranger — on a vision quest, no less — a sense of comfort washed over me. “There you are” implied an expectation and the “ah” a kind of welcome. His voice, too, was soothing. Although accented, it was fluid and confident.

“Who are you? And where are we?”

“I am Marik, a messenger.”

“A messenger? From who?”

“King Marbendlar and Queen Safira.”

“Who?”

Marik stretched to an imposing height. The fog had settled, collecting eerily at his feet. “King Marbendlar and Queen Safira, regents of Vatnheim.”

“Vatnheim — like Water World?” I asked.

He nodded.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I’d only just resigned myself to the concept of Brigid being some kind of Snow Queen. Now the Water King and Queen had sent a messenger. I opened my eyes, half expecting a line of otherwordly figureheads to have formed behind him.

“You say you have a message?”

“I do,” Marik said. “And an offer to present. Even before the recent summoning of the Bifrost Bridge and the resultant wedge . . .”

Ho, boy.

“. . . discord among the realms had been building.”

Discord? Not a good start. And definitely not something you want to crack the seal on.

“Humans are”— Marik continued —“an impatient species. In their haste to develop, they have irreversibly altered not only their own world but the other realms, too.”

I inched closer to Marik, daring even to brace my arms upon the railing. The way he said “humans” insinuated that he was not. I regarded him: two arms, two legs, all the parts of the face in the right place and in proportion, appealing even. It was then that I noticed a stirring in the water. Below us, the sea was teeming with fish. They pulsed back and forth as if a single organism.

“As Midgard warms, we all warm.” The once-cheery quality of Marik’s voice had gone flat and sad.

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Vatnheim has suffered for Midgard’s excesses. We have seen our resources dwindle. We have seen the extinction of creatures and the rise of pestilence and disease.”

The plunk of something breaking the surface again drew my attention to the water. A billowy cloud of orange mushroomed in and out, coming tantalizingly close to the surface, only to draw back down again. Marik followed my eyes to the strange movement, grinning. And as if the scene weren’t dramatic enough, that eerie music came wafting over the wind.

I had so many questions, yet I found myself unable to speak.

Marik nodded as if aware of my temporary impediment and continued, “Our worries were many before your plight, which has further disrupted the order of the worlds.”

Yowza. My plight discussed in the same sentence with world order. Otherworld order, at that.

“Queen Safira hopes that your recent prophecy of a cleft-tailed siren is a portent of the future. She and all her people hope for an heir to carry on the royal line, but even she suffers the consequences of the environmental plague.”

Cleft-tailed? As in split-tailed? Oh, no. Just like the crown-bearing mermaid I’d made up — kind of borrowed, really, from the Starbucks logo — at my first bestowal when Hulda said she sensed a fourth presence, one representing the water element. Her words came to me: “A very powerful symbol. The mythological siren. Dating back as far as the goddess religions themselves.” Except the guy standing before me was no myth.

“Queen Safira believes,” Marik continued, “that the door between our worlds was opened for a reason. A wedge when applied at any of the power places weakens them all. To this end, we know the location of a portal to Niflheim, and, with our assistance, your safe passage can be arranged.”

“Assistance,” I said, my voice returning high and clear. “How? When?”

“A bargain must first be made,” Marik said. “There is one, in particular, who is willing to help. The very skin off her back, should you need it. The bargain, however, being: when the time comes, Leira — to whom the waters are home — must be returned to the sea.”

I remembered the minstrel’s story of Leira the selkie. Ofelia’s warning, also, flashed across my mind: “A pact once made may not be broken.” And I thought of Jack. Where is he? And how do I get to him? Thinking about Jack, I was overcome with dread. In that moment, I’d have agreed to anything, risked everything.

“Do you accept?” Marik asked.

“I do.”

“Then you will receive a gift.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Take heed, it is a gift,” he said, enunciating each word slowly.

Uh. OK. “Thank you, a lot?” I tried. Before Marik could reply, something smacked the surface of the water hard just beyond the spot where we stood. I leaned over the railing to get a better look when I felt myself falling forward.