Slowly, my tears became less. Kaycee handed me a tissue and I stared at her in surprise.
She didn’t meet my eyes, as if she was embarrassed to do such a nice gesture. It probably went against her code of being an arrogant bitch.
I blew my nose and wiped my eyes. It was time to be strong. There had to be a way out of this. I was smart, that’s why I’d been accepted to the Academy in the first place. I just needed to clear my mind and let my brain think. Ignore my aching heart and think rationally.
“What’s going on?” Kaycee asked, becoming slightly impatient. There she was, the Kaycee I knew.
“I can’t tell you,” I said quickly and got up, swaying slightly as vertigo made my vision flicker. “But I’m going to speak to the Headmistress now.”
“Wait, what?”
I ran out of the room before she could ask any more questions.
This was probably a stupid thing to do, and I might regret it, but I didn’t know who else to turn to. The head of the Academy had to be clever and know a solution, right?
THE MAN BEHIND THE reception gave me a strange look. I realised I wasn’t wearing my student uniform, so I probably looked like just a random young woman to him.
“I need to speak to the Headmistress,” I said breathlessly. “It’s important.”
He smiled, his voice patronising. “She is very busy. Do you have an appointment?”
“No, but I need to see her. It’s about a teacher.”
He raised an eyebrow. “A complaint? We have a form for that.”
I sighed impatiently. “No, not a complaint. It’s important. I really need to talk to her.”
“Trust me, a lot of people want that, but she’s a very busy woman and doesn’t have time to speak to random people.”
“It’s about Hjalmar,” I blurted.
He didn’t react at all. “Hjalmar?”
I groaned in frustration, trying to remember Hjalmar’s full name. He never really used it, probably because Vikings didn’t have surnames like we did, names that were passed through generations. They called themselves after their fathers if they were guys, and their mothers if they were women. Heather had mentioned her late husband’s name at some point. Think, brain. Think.
Magnus. That would make him... “Hjalmar Magnusson. The teacher. She’ll want to see me, trust me.”
The man started rummaging on his desk. “There was something about him... ah yes, here it is.” He held up a green post-it note. "I'm to..."
A blush spread on his pale cheeks. He pressed a button on his desk and a second later, the holographic image of Headmistress Tape appeared in front of him.
"There's someone here to see you, about Hjalmar Magnusson."
The Headmistress nodded. "Let them in and get us some tea."
"At once, Professor."
I tried hard not to look too triumphant in front of the receptionist, but I couldn't suppress a slight smile when he jumped up and hurried to the door at the other end of the room.
"Keep it brief, she's very busy," he whispered with an annoyed frown before ushering me in.
The Headmistress was sitting behind a large mahogany desk which was bare besides a few small picture frames and a solitary sheet of paper. She signed it with a flourish, then looked up.
"I thought it might be you. Take a seat."
In surprise, I stumbled over my own feet and barely made it to the dark green chair in front of her desk. Luckily, she was inspecting the piece of paper and hopefully didn't me notice me making a fool of myself.
"Is he back?" she asked without preamble.
"Yes, he is," I replied and she smiled at me with true relief. "But I don't know for how much longer."
She put down her pen and leaned back in her high back chair. "Tell me everything."
BY THE TIME THE RECEPTIONIST came with a tea tray, I'd filled her in on how we'd managed to get Hjalmar back. I didn't omit anything. It was better that way. The time for secrets was over. I needed help and I wasn't going to get it by sticking to half-truths. I had immense respect for the Headmistress, and hopefully, she would stand up to my expectations.
The man put a mug of tea in front of me. Professor Tape put some milk and sugar in hers, but the receptionist took the tray and left without offering the same to me. I preferred to have sugar in my tea, but that wasn't why I was here.
"I don't know what to do," I admitted as soon as the receptionist had closed the door behind him. "I don't want to be without him, but I also can't leave the Academy."
The Headmistress gave me a sharp look over the rim of her teacup. "While we don't officially forbid relationships between students and teaching staff, we don't tend to support them either. I'm therefore going to ignore what you just said and will focus on how we can keep Hjalmar safe instead."
I swallowed hard, feeling like a little girl being put into her place by a teacher. When filling Professor Tape in on the situation, I'd not omitted telling her about my feelings for him, but I also hadn't mentioned them as such. She was a clever woman though and it was clear that she knew what was going on. Hjalmar wouldn't just have taken a random student into the past, I knew that, and so did she.
"You may think you're the only one who cares about whether he ends up imprisoned or stuck in the past, but you're not. He's one of my most valuable members of staff and I plan to keep it that way, even if he can't stay on as a teacher. I think we're past that point by now." She took a slow, measured sip of tea, while I was fighting hard not to interrupt her.
"I wasn't able to act while he was in jail, but now that he's free, I may have a way to make him untouchable. There's a new scheme being rolled out at the International Centre for Human Rights. Until now, their focus has been on protecting the rights of people living on this Earth in this moment, but time travel is becoming so common that they've decided they need to extend their remit to past times as well. The ICHR is planning to appoint ambassadors for some of the most important historical people and civilisations. Those ambassadors would have diplomatic immunity."
"He'd be untouchable," I whispered, echoing her words.
She nodded with a proud smile. "One of my better ideas. They'd never appoint someone who's imprisoned, but now that he's free, they will. We need to move fast. I already had a chat with my contacts at the Centre earlier today, but now that you've confirmed his whereabouts, I can get the ball rolling, so to speak."
"What will his role entail?" I asked breathlessly, hope blooming within my chest.
"A lot of time travel," she said, still smiling. "He will have to observe the past, make sure that no Time Agents interfere with events that shouldn't be changed, keep an eye on the treatment of any historic persons extracted from their time for information or other reasons, and many other things. He will be very busy, but he will be based here at the Academy occasionally."
She put down her cup in a very obvious sign that our conversation was at an end. "I will make some calls. Don't leave the Archive, I will send for Hjalmar when everything is sorted."
I nodded and got up. "Thank you, Professor."
There was a lot more I wanted to say, but she was already pulling a tablet from a drawer.
Just when I was about to leave, she cleared her throat. "I'm sure an Ambassador will need an assistant. A work placement for an Academy student, maybe?"
Grinning, I closed the door behind me, ignoring the strange look the receptionist gave me.
ᚴᛅᛒᛁᛏᚢᛚᛁ 3
The others were still in the Archive when I returned. As soon as I entered the small room, Heather got up and embraced me in a warm, gentle hug.
“You alright?” she asked.
I nodded, not wanting her to let go. My mother gave hugs like this. I missed her far more than I’d let myself accept. Now that I was in Heather’s arms, I realised how much I wanted my mum. She didn’t know about Hjalmar yet, nor about the others. She didn’t even know that I’d been assigned Vikings as my topic of study. Maybe I could meet her somehow. I’d
broken lots of rules already, what would one more count. I hoped she had the care I’d been promised she would get. Carers coming to visit her several times a day, help her with the household, make sure she took her medication. One of the drugs she was taking made her a little forgetful, so it had been one of my jobs to remind her of what she needed to do to stay well.
“The boys have had a chat,” Heather whispered, a smile playing around her lips. “It was rather enlightening.”
I instantly stepped back to look at the three men. Asger and Hjalmar were sharing a sofa, and there was no doubt that the two of them were related. Asger’s beard was a little wilder and his shoulders were broader from his hard physical work, but their faces were the same. And their expressions. They were hard to read. Was it expectation that they looked at me with? Or something else entirely?
The Archivist was on the sofa opposite, his long legs stretched out in apparent relaxation, but his smile was tense.
Heather took a seat next to him, leaving me standing. I wasn’t going to choose who of them to sit with, so I stayed standing, watching them all.
“Good?” Asger asked in his heavily accented voice. I was going to have to give him some English lessons. And improve my own Old Norse. As much as I already felt connected to him, we couldn’t be in a relationship without proper communication, and I wasn’t going to let Heather or Hjalmar translate for me all the time. There were some things that I wanted to keep private.
I pushed away those thoughts of the future and focused on the present.
“Yes, good.” I gave him a tense smile, then turned to Hjalmar. “Professor Tape has a plan that might enable you to stay.”
“I can’t,” he protested, but I didn’t let him talk.
“Listen, you big Viking oaf. She’s working hard to give you a chance of a normal life, so don’t be a martyr before you even know what we might be able to do.”
He raised an eyebrow. “We?”
“Well, the Headmistress. She’s talking to some Human Rights centre about making you an ambassador for Viking rights. You’d have diplomatic immunity.”
“Genius,” the Archivist muttered.
“An ambassador?” Hjalmar asked sceptically. “I don’t think I’m ambassador material.”
Heather chuckled. “You also said that when they made you a teacher, and look at you now. You’d make a great ambassador. You’ve lived in both worlds, speak both languages, understand the needs of both cultures. You’ll be perfect for the role.”
“Ambassador?” Asger asked in confusion and Heather quickly spoke to him in Old Norse. I understood the word for people, but that was about it. Studying the language was moving to the very top of my to-do list. As good as I was with reading runes, that wasn’t helping me right now, unless the Vikings decided to write me love letters. A love rune stone, now that would be something special. Maybe I could put it in the garden of my future home...
Asger roared in laughter when Heather finished her explanation and slapped his brother on the back. Hjalmar cringed, clearly uncomfortable at the prospect of being in such an important role.
I went over to him and sat on his lap. His arm snaked around my waist, and I wished we were alone. We had some reacquainting to do.
“You’ll be great,” I reassured him. “And you’ll be able to have a normal life. Well, normal for a time travelling Viking.”
He snorted. “I might have some sway with my local Viking community, but people here look at me with suspicion now already. How will they react when they find out that I was in prison? Just because I have immunity doesn’t mean that the rumours will simply go away. It will undermine my authority before I’ve even started the job.”
“Since when do you care about what other people think?” Heather asked with a cheeky smile. “That’s not how I raised you.”
“I don’t care,” he grumbled.
“Let’s wait what Professor Tape manages to achieve,” the Archivist said diplomatically. “And for now, Lainie will be able to continue her studies. With you two gone, I’ll keep an eye on her.”
He gave me a wink, a promise that he intended to continue what we’d started before. A pleasant shiver ran down my back.
“I stay,” Asger growled. “My Lainie.”
He reached over and put a hand on my thigh. It was such a possessive gesture that the shiver increased, giving me tingles all over my body.
I wondered what the men had discussed while I’d been gone. They all seemed to be aware of each other’s intentions now. How I wished someone had recorded their conversation. Hopefully, Heather would give me a summary later on. I needed to know how they’d reacted to the fact that all three of them were interested in me and that I had no intention to choose.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the Archivist said, his eyebrows arched as he took in Asger. Even though the Viking was wearing clothes that could almost pass as modern, there was something distinctly Norse about him. A raw, untamed energy bubbling beneath the surface. He wasn’t going to fit in here, nor would he bother to try. His brother had years of experience in living here, but Asger would stand out like a... well, a Viking in modern society.
“I stay,” Asger repeated.
“Maybe we should ask Lainie what she wants?” Heather suggested gently. “Maybe she wants to focus on her studies, and having all of you around would be quite the distraction, I imagine.”
I blushed a little. It was strange having the mother of two of my – well, what were they? My boyfriends? That sounded wrong. They weren’t boys, they were grown men. My men? My Vikings? My harem of guys? I was going to have to come up with a fitting description.
“Yes, what do you want, sweetie?” the Archivist asked.
I stared at him. “Sweetie? Seriously?”
He shrugged. “That’s what they say in films.”
“Films?” Asger asked but the Archivist ignored him.
“Should I call you something else instead? Darling? Beautiful?”
I cringed. “Lainie will be fine. This isn’t a cheesy romance movie full of blushing girls and sexy men.”
“Are we not sexy?” Hjalmar asked, swinging me around in his lap until I was forced to look at him. His eyes were blazing, and heat pooled in my chest, my belly and other parts of my anatomy.
“Ehm...” I stuttered, but luckily, Heather saved me.
“Please don’t call my boys sexy in my presence,” she chuckled. “There’s only so much a mother can take.”
“Agreed.” I turned around again. “Anyway, the Headmistress is talking to the Human Rights people just now and will send someone down here when she has news. Guess it’s us waiting again.”
“Seriously though,” the Archivist said, not letting go of the topic. “You should stay here. Your training is important and you’ve already missed two weeks of lessons. Although of course I’d be happy to help you revise.”
Once again, he winked. Cheesy. I needed to tell him to stop that. He seemed to get his social skills from films, so no wonder he was so over the top. He’d been holed up down here for far too long. Not that I had any more experience with relationships, but at least I didn’t wink.
“There might be a slight problem with that,” Hjalmar said slowly. “I’m the only Viking Studies teacher at the Academy and I doubt I’d have the time to teach regular classes if I actually become an ambassador. Maybe they’ll assign you a different time period. It’s only been a couple of weeks so there’s still time to start a completely different subject.”
I shook my head. “I’m not interested in other subjects. I need to study Old Norse so that I can talk to Asger. It wouldn’t make sense for me to be sent to other times when I’m perfectly placed to travel to Viking times where I already know people and have locals to guide me.”
“Maybe I could give you some private tuition. You attend general time travel classes here and then you can accompany me for a week or two at a time. Or if my mother could somehow get a time bracer again, she could pick you up
here and take you to her place for regular immersions. Asger could teach you and you could teach him.”
“She’d get to spend time with all of us,” the Archivist said with a hopeful smile. “Without all of us surrounding her at once.”
He said that as if it was a bad thing. Maybe I wanted to be surrounded by them... But he was right. For now, it was better to have them one at a time, and to focus on my studies. I needed to think with my brain, not my ovaries.
“Asger in the past, the Archivist in the present and Hjalmar in both,” I summarised.
“I’m in the past too,” Heather said with a chuckle.
“Yes. You are. It will be nice to come over for tea,” I replied diplomatically.
She laughed again. “Don’t worry, you’ll get to stay at Asger’s house, but I’ll be there if you have questions or want some girl time. Also, he’s a rubbish cook so if you want proper food, come to my place.”
“I cook good,” Asger protested, but shut up when his mother raised an eyebrow at him.
“There’s one thing though,” I muttered, not quite sure how to broach the subject, especially with Heather in the room. “Before we all split up, I’d like to spend some time with all three of you at once. To... ehm... talk things through.”
Hjalmar’s grip on me tightened. It seemed like he knew what I was alluding to.
“I think that can be arranged,” he whispered, his breath hot against my neck.
“My apartment is very secluded,” the Archivist offered. It seemed he was trying very hard not to smile.
A bell sounded in the office and he jumped up to see who was interrupting us. I tensed up. What if it was time agents come to arrest Hjalmar again? Or Priscilla Priest’s men to silence us after all? I reached out and Asger gripped my hand. If something was about to happen, at least we’d all be in it together.
The Archivist returned to the room a moment later, the Headmistress at his heels. She walked straight to Hjalmar and me and handed him a sealed letter.
Betraying Her Vikings Page 2
