Darcy was glad Loki was following behind her on the drive back into Las Vegas. She needed time to think, away from him. When Loki had said that he wanted them to get to know one another, she was pretty sure he hadn't meant like that. That was getting to know a little too much. It was such a weird conversation, Darcy wasn't even sure if she wanted to believe everything he'd said.

When she first got the job with him, she tried to Google him, but wasn't able to find much more than a few YouTube videos. Everything else had been pages for some Icelandic cafe, and some Icelandic volcano, or else pages and pages of ancient mythology.

It would have probably been easier if she'd known his last name, but he never gave it out, and she'd never asked.

She checked her mirror every few miles, making sure Loki was still behind her. After she got off the freeway, she couldn't find him behind her at all, but assumed he'd probably fallen behind under the airport. Assuming he'd be able to find his way back, she drove to the hotel and waited in the parking lot for him to catch up. Instead of any catching up happening, her phone rang after about ten minutes.

"Where are you?" she asked.

There was an awkward pause. "I don't know," Loki said. "Why did you leave me again?"

"I got off at the airport. Where are you?" Darcy asked. She sat up and looked out the windows, scanning the cars going by for any peeling black BMWs.

"I don't know. I'm still on the motorway," Loki said.

Darcy shook her head. "Take the next exit and tell me what it is," she said.

Loki went silent for a few minutes. "Sahara," he announced finally.

"Oh my god," Darcy muttered. How the hell did he get so far away? "Okay, take a right and head east down Saraha. And now tell me the first light to come to," she said. She sat back in her seat and tried not to laugh.

"Don't laugh at me," Loki said. "I'm lost and I'm not from this country and your intersections are all a mile apart—wait, what was that?"

Darcy laughed out loud. "I don't fucking know. What was it?"

"I don't know!" Loki snapped.

"Calm down, cranky pants," Darcy said, trying not to so obviously laugh at him. "Just get in the right lane and slow down."

There was another pause. "Emergency signal," Loki said.

"What?" asked Darcy.

"That's what the traffic light said. Emergency signal," Loki told her.

Darcy shook her head. "Ignore it. You want an actual intersection."

"Oh, here's one. Uh. Town Center Drive?" Loki asked.

Darcy had never heard of it. "No idea if that goes through. Keep going," she told him.

Loki went quiet again, and Darcy pictured him scrunched up against the steering wheel, trying to look at street signs while he drove ten miles an hour. She laughed again, but clamped down on it quickly.

"Intersection, but it doesn't have a light," Loki announced.

"Skip it," Darcy told him. "You want something that goes all the way through, so you don't get even more lost."

Loki hummed irritably. "Okay, here's that devil word one. Hoo-whatever."

"Take a right," Darcy told him quickly, before he passed it.

"This is not how I pictured Las Vegas," Loki said after a few moments. "It's so… green."

Darcy laughed again. "Okay, now just keep going until you hit Flamingo, and take a left. If you get lost again, buy a GPS."

She hung up as he shouted at her down the line. With the radio and AC on, she leaned back in her seat with Angry Birds on her iPhone and waited for Loki. Twenty minutes later, Loki pulled up beside her and screeched to a halt. He got out of the car, holding his arms up in exasperation. "Why are you such a bitch?" he demanded.

Darcy rolled her window down. "Why are you calling me a bitch, jackass?" she asked.

Loki walked over to her window, all full of the same indignant rage from the night before. "You left me. Again," he said.

"You're the one who can't follow someone on the freeway. And your phone has turn by turn directions. They all do. Learn to use it," Darcy said.

"I've never needed to use it before," Loki said, as if it mattered.

"Okay, uh." Darcy turned down her radio and locked her phone. "You just called me because you were lost. You would have wound up in fucking New Mexico on your own. You need it." She turned the radio back up and adjusted her seat to be more comfortable for driving.

"Where are you going?" asked Loki.

Darcy looked up at him, wondering how he ever survived on his own. "You still owe me lunch, and I am collecting. Get in, unless you want to drive."

Loki gaped at her and shook his head. She kind of liked seeing him confused like that, and decided immediately that it needed to happen more often. And then she felt a little bad about it, but not bad enough to stop enjoying his confusion. Before he could say anything else, she reached over and opened the passenger side door.

"Get in, come on," she said.

Loki finally walked around to the other side of the car and got into the passenger seat. Darcy watched him struggle to keep his calm as he fastened his seatbelt. "Where are we going?" he asked.

Darcy shrugged. "Dunno. Do you still want to look for an apartment?" she asked.

"After we get paid," Loki decided. He leaned against the door as Darcy pulled back out onto Flamingo, heading out toward Maryland. "I still need to have more stuff shipped over before next month."

"Okay." She turned left on Maryland, knowing exactly where she wanted to go for lunch. With their detour to Boulder City, and then Loki's detour to Summerlin, it was late enough in the day for Monta to be open. They rode in silence down to Twain, Loki being more preoccupied by what went by his window than anything else.

"I had no idea this was actually a city," he said. "What else are the Americans hiding?"

Darcy laughed. "Most Americans don't even realise that Las Vegas is a city," she said.

The bewildered look on his face as they drove back toward the Strip was almost comical. Worse, it made the bastard a little more human than Darcy really wanted him to be.

"So, why did you come here if you didn't know anything about this place?" she asked.

Loki looked back over to her and shrugged. "I'd wanted to get out of Reykjavík for a while. I heard about the audition here and thought it seemed like a good opportunity," he said.

It sounded like a huge gamble to Darcy.

"What was your back up plan?" she asked.

Loki laughed, high-pitched and without mirth. "Beg my father to pay for a return ticket so I could go home," he said. He looked back out the window again and started to look a little worried. "I'm still waiting for him to find out I left."

Something about the way he said it made Darcy laugh. "He doesn't know?"

"I don't know," said Loki. "I'm assuming not, because he hasn't sent anyone after me."

"Oh my god," Darcy laughed. "How old are you, anyway?"

Loki looked away from the tall buildings that lined what had now become Spring Mountain, as they got closer to the Strip. "Why?" he asked.

Darcy shrugged. "I don't know. I'm curious? We're supposed to be getting to know one another, remember?"

Loki scowled at her and looked away again, suddenly finding the mirror in the sun visor and finding it interesting. "Twenty-eight. How old are you?" he asked.

"Twenty-two." She looked over at him, not sure how much she believed his answer. "I thought you'd be older," she said.

"Now what's that supposed to mean?" Loki asked, scandalised.

Darcy shrugged again. "I don't know. You seem older than that to me." She remembered everything else he'd said, on their drive out to Boulder City. "So you were eighteen when your brother took off?" she asked.

Loki didn't answer, which was answer enough. It was no wonder he was so messed up, Darcy realised. Part of her wondered if that's what she could expect from herself in six years. The rest of her pointed out how stupid that was, because even though she and her mother didn't get along, the circumstances were nothing similar.

And a tiny but insistent part of her suggested that Loki's story was just bullshit, because it was just a little too insane to be true. Darcy did her best to ignore that part until she could do some serious Googling in the privacy of her own home.

"So," said Loki suddenly. "How did you get into magic?"

His question made Darcy smile. "My Grandma took me to see Siegfried and Roy when I was like, five. Way before Roy got eaten. And it was just the coolest thing I'd ever seen, you know? Like, I was five years old, and I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up," she said.

"You got to see Siegfried and Roy?" Loki asked jealously.

"Yeah, I know right?" Even though she barely remembered the show, and never got the chance to see them again before Roy's accident, she was still very pleased with the fact that she'd got to see them live. "I cried when that happened, though. Like, I thought the world was gonna end. It messed me up for a while. I remember coming home from school the day after and turning on the TV, and the local news was talking about it."

"Where was I?" Loki wondered aloud. "I think I was skipping school, because I was hungover."

The image of a seventeen-year-old Loki trying to avoid getting into trouble for being drunk was just a little too much for Darcy to handle. "I bet you're cute when you're hungover," she said.

"No," said Loki.

Darcy pulled into the parking lot for a small strip mall, having to park in front of the little printing shop, because the restaurant was busy as hell, like always.

"What is this place?" Loki asked as they got out of the car. He looked up at the line outside the front door and glared at it.

"Ramen," said Darcy. She locked up the car and went to go secure their place in line before another giant family arrived for lunch.

Loki seemed less than pleased. "The stuff you make in the microwave?" he asked.

"No. Real Japanese ramen, made by real Japanese people. It's fucking delicious," Darcy said. She only went there a few times a year though, because after eating the kind of ramen you make in the microwave on a regular basis, she got kind of sick of any ramen before too long.

"There's a line," Loki said, not stepping anywhere near it.

"I see that," said Darcy. "It's this or Domino's. Take your pick."

Loki scowled even more. "I hate Domino's. I am not eating Domino's."

"How do you know?" asked Darcy.

Loki gave her a flat, unimpressed look. "We have Domino's in Iceland. And it's disgusting."

It wasn't the answer Darcy had expected, but she wasn't sure why. "Seriously?" she asked.

"Yes. We get your terrible food and your terrible music," Loki said. He finally stepped up onto the sidewalk to join the rest of the line, but probably only because there was shade there. "How long is the wait going to be?"

Darcy looked up the length of the line. "I don't know. Half hour, maybe?" she guessed.

Loki sighed and rolled his eyes. "Why do you have to wait for everything here?" he asked.

"Only the good stuff," Darcy told him.

The older couple in front of them both turned back to look at them. Darcy smiled and shrugged. She and Loki were the only white people in the entire line, and now they were also the centre of attention.

"He's cranky if he doesn't get his lunch early enough," Darcy told the couple in front of her.

"Does he ever get his lunch early enough?" the woman asked.

Darcy laughed. "No," she said.

Loki rolled his eyes again and turned away. By the time it was their turn to be seated, Loki had wandered away completely, leaving Darcy alone. By then, she was starving and had no idea where Loki had gone, or why he had gone, but she figured he'd probably either find his own way back or call her in a panic again. She felt bad about taking a table for one, and ate quickly to make up for it. When she got back out to her car, she found Loki sitting outside on one of the benches with a McDonald's bag next to him.

"Seriously?" she asked. "You couldn't fucking wait in a line, so you walked to McDonald's?"

Loki looked up at her, looking more than a little sick. "I regret it," he said.

"Yeah, I bet you do," Darcy said. She tried not to laugh as she unlocked the car to let him in. "Oh my god, what is wrong with you?"

Loki practically melted into the seat, leaning back against it and looking up at the ceiling. Darcy turned on the AC to as high as it would go and let Loki cool down before she started driving and made him carsick on top of everything else.

"I want to go home," Loki grumbled.

"Home home, or hotel home?" asked Darcy, not sure if it was a legitimate request, or empty whining.

"Hotel home," Loki said.

"Okay." Darcy pulled back out onto Spring Mountain and pulled into the far right lane as she cut across traffic. "You really can't just wander off like that out here. It's not even hot yet, and you can get really sick from walking around outside for too long."

"It's hot. It's very hot. What are you talking about?" Loki asked.

Darcy shook her head. "Just wait until you experience a hundred and ten," she said.

Loki groaned again and covered his face with his hands. "I hate it here."

The rest of the ride back to the casino was quiet. Darcy had planned on just dropping Loki off in the parking lot and going home, but when she stopped by the stage door, he hardly seemed to notice.

"Are you all right?" she asked as she killed the engine.

"No," Loki said.

Every AC vent in the car was pointed straight at his face, and he still looked like he was going to throw up. His fast food lunch probably wasn't helping either.

"Okay, come on," she said. She got out of the car and walked around to open Loki's door.

It was a few long moments before he noticed at all. When he finally did, he looked up at her tiredly and hauled himself to his feet. "I need to lie down," he said.

"Yeah, you do," Darcy agreed. She unlocked the stage door and walked with Loki inside, in case he passed out and fell over. There was a couch in the green room, but it didn't seem like the best place to leave him, so she led him out to the hall. "Where's your room?" she asked.

Loki looked around like he didn't quite recognise anything. Finally, he nodded down the hall to the left, and led the way to what Darcy hoped were the rooms. Luckily, the Key Largo wasn't a sprawling Strip casino, and had hallways that all led to somewhere logical.

Loki's room was up on the third and highest floor of the hotel, overlooking the pool. Darcy helped him in and let him collapse on the bed while she looked around the suite. It was bigger than she expected it to be, but still on the small side, as far as suites went. One bed, a separate kitchenette with a microwave and a binder full of laminated menus, and a surprisingly large bathroom, but that was about it. There was a small balcony out the sliding glass doors that faced the pool. Darcy was tempted to go stand outside to see the view, but she pulled the blackout curtains shut instead and turned on the air conditioner under the window.

"You okay?" she asked.

Loki was lying face down on the bed, and grumbled into his pillow. That probably meant he was fine.

Darcy started to make her way over to him to make sure he wasn't going to choke on his own hair or something, when she saw a stack of papers on the dresser by the door. She looked over at it, but went to Loki instead.

"I'm gonna go, okay. Call me if you feel like you're getting worse," she said.

Loki grumbled into his pillow again. He might have been telling Darcy to go away, so she figured she'd listen to him. On her way out the door, she stopped just long enough to steal a glance down at the contract Loki had signed with the hotel. His full name was right there on top, and Darcy silently repeated his last name to keep from forgetting it. She finally had a name to Google. Loki Odinson.

She drove home and quickly ran up to her apartment, repeating his name over and over to herself. As soon as she was inside, she powered up her laptop and waited for it to take it's sweet time to get going. As soon as Chrome came up, she put Loki's name into the search bar, and immediately got a page of relevant results, instead of a bunch of random junk. She clicked on his Facebook page, which was impossible to read, but seemed to be maintained primarily to promote his show back in Iceland. She assumed that what was written on the posts was Icelandic, and not just a bunch of keymashes with funny symbols, even though funny symbol keymashes was what it seriously looked like.

Darcy clicked into the photo albums, going through all of the pictures one at a time. A lot of them were backstage sorts of pictures, with Loki posing with fans and getting drunk after shows. He was with a tall blonde woman in a lot of them - his former assistant, Darcy assumed. The pictures that were from the actual shows were all presented without any context, making Darcy wonder if his arm was supposed to be on fire and if the angry raven was part of the show or if it had actually escaped. There was a video as well, and for the first few seconds, Darcy was surprised that it was in English. But he had said that he'd based his entire show off of being English, so that at least had not been a lie.

The video was a two-minute clip of Loki messing around with a sword. He pulled someone up from the audience in the small club and gave the guy the sword, telling him to make sure it was a real sword. The guy didn't seem to know what to do with it, and started swinging it around a little drunkenly, so Loki took it away again. He told the guy that he'd been wrong about the sword, and that it wasn't a sword at all. The video quality was too poor to see exactly what Loki had done, but with a twist and a flourish, the sword became two.

They weren't the same swords Darcy was using for their box jumper. Darcy wasn't sure what their deal was until Loki stacked them together, and without any warning, easily swallowed them both at once. Just watching it made Darcy's gag reflex flare up in sympathy. When Loki pulled both swords out of his mouth again, holding one in each hand, he took a deep bow and then turned to the man he'd brought up from the audience. He tried to give the guy one of the swords as a souvenir, but the guy shook his head and backed off warily.

Part of Darcy hoped that routine would make it into their show, just so she could use it as an excuse to learn how to swallow swords. Especially since Loki had already promised to teach her how to eat fire once everything was settled in with the show.

Darcy went back to Google and scrolled through the results, trying to remember the name Loki gave for his brother, but all she could remember was Sven. On a whim, she searched Loki's name again, telling Google to only query CNN's site. She got two whole results from the search, and when she clicked on the first link, it was an archived page with no images. It was a short article about Iceland's political upset after the son of the President of Iceland appeared drunk on television and made a massive jackass of himself.

Surprisingly, Loki was mentioned down toward the bottom, as if the President thought that he could avoid being called a xenophobic lunatic as well if he made sure everyone knew he had a younger son who was adopted from immigrant parents.

Most surprisingly was that everything Loki had told her in the car was true, according to CNN. Looking at the page on her browser, Darcy started to feel bad about not trusting him in the first place. Just with the way the article was structured, she could even see how he might have been given the impression that he wasn't as important as his brother. Add in a completely unprofessional sort of career choice on top of it all, when everyone else in his family had gone into politics, and it was no wonder Loki hated everything around him.

Darcy closed out of the browser so she didn't have to look at the article any longer and picked up her phone. She felt like she should call him or something, but she had no idea what she'd say. And he was sick in bed and probably wanting to die.

Instead of phoning Loki, she dialled the only other person she thought could help. She expected to get his voicemail, but when Fischer actually answered, Darcy was almost startled into dropping her phone.

"Hey, uh. I didn't know who else to call. I just took Loki back to his room, but you might want to send someone up there to make sure he isn't dying or something. I don't think he has heatstroke, but he was pretty sick," Darcy said.

"Oh, jeez. Okay, yeah. Thanks for letting me know," Fischer said, shuffling something around as he spoke.

"Yeah, no problem," Darcy said. She hung up and looked down at her phone, not sure what she was supposed to do next.