It had been three days since Freya crossed into the human world—a world she had only heard about in whispered conversations and forbidden scrolls. In that short span, she had learned that time felt different here. The sky didn’t shift as fast. The air didn’t sing with energy. And everything—from the metal boxes called cars to the glowing rectangles humans used to communicate—felt too fast and too foreign.

Freya sat by the large window of the guest room Daniel had given her. Her knees ...