by Kendall Grey
It feels good to fly, even if I’m just a fly flying.
Superfly! (Freddie told me that means a cool, self-confident person, which is exactly what I feel like right this minute—as well as a fly.)
On my flyby, I survey the room. Something black, round, and velvety catches my eye from behind the coat rack next to the door. Alex’s top hat. I smile at my luck.
I continue scanning the place for other goodies I might steal on my way out, but I don’t see anything else of importance.
Damien must be bored with my performance. He retrieves his severed finger and studies it with morbid curiosity.
After making sixty or so laps around his hotel room, I land beside the couch, exhausted but so, so happy. I’m three quarters whole. I just need Ihwaz, and I’ll be complete.
My hand trembles as Othala mutates me once more and releases its hold. I flop on the floor, returned to the body I woke up in, clothed (thankfully), with all appendages intact, which is more than I can say for Damien.
I stretch my rubbery arm and glance at my side, gently poking it. The rib doesn’t hurt much anymore. In the course of my transformation into human form, the broken bone must’ve fused itself back together. I wiggle my left shoulder. The stitches seem healed too. Huh. Buy one, get two free? Sold.
My arms are weak from the sustained wing wagging, and my legs feel like a gelatin snowman in a bouncy house. My heart races. I suspect it didn’t right itself, which is a point of worry on the eve of the Tuesday of my death. I lift a shaking hand to rub my chest and try to catch my breath.
“I need Ihwaz,” I gasp. “Where is it?”
Damien is too busy tearing through the kitchen drawers to answer. He slams each one when he doesn’t find what he’s looking for. Finally, he settles on the roll of paper towels sitting on the counter. He tears off a sheet, drops the finger on it, tosses a few ice cubes from the freezer on top, and rolls it up.
“I’m in a bit of a rush,” he says. “They don’t make fingers like they used to, though the healers in this time are so much better than our bloodletters and shamans. This makes the sixth digit I’ve severed over the years, and I don’t want to lose it permanently. I only have four originals left.”
He’s even more deranged than I thought.
I gesture to the compact little roll. “I thought it would grow back.”
He playfully slaps the air and shakes his head. “I didn’t think you’d do it.”
I grin. I love proving him wrong.
“Ihwaz?” I prompt. “I’m running a race against the sundial myself, and it’s either first place or no place for me.” I look at the nonexistent watch on my wrist. “Pitter patter.”
“I lied,” he says. “I have no idea where it is.”
Son of a bitch. I should’ve seen this coming. Once a monster, always a monster.
“You arsehole. You godsdamned arsehole!” My last shred of hope withers and dies. I’m doomed.
“What can I say? I couldn’t help myself. But hey,” he nods to my pulsing palm, “I did give you Othala, and you got to chop my finger off, which, you’ll be pleased to hear, hurts like a complete bitch.”
“A minor consolation,” I grit out, fighting not to hyperventilate. “You just fucked me five ways to Franang’s Falls.”
He lifts his hands in surrender, the red stain from the wrapped nub of his missing finger growing. “I have faith in your enduring ingenuity. You’re a big girl. You’ll find Ihwaz.”
“Maybe if I had another week.”
“I could help you look.” Easing close, he lowers his voice. “We made a smashingly evil team twelve hundred years ago.”
His intoxicating scent wafts toward me like a lure. I mentally bat it away. “Cut that shite out.”
Damien’s pout reminds me of Freddie, whom I owe big-time for concocting the illusion of the kids.
I swallow enough anger to take the edge off my voice and soften my tone. It’ll do me no good to get on Angrboda’s bad side. “I’m playing on a different team now. And if Freddie doesn’t walk away with that trophy tomorrow night, he might kill me before the Norns get a chance to. If you want to help me, let him win.”
Damien barks a laugh.
“Seriously,” I say. “Freddie will cut a bitch if he loses.”
“Then, he better figure out how to earn it,” Damien replies. His eyes sparkle with yet another attempt at diddling my ovaries. It fails.
“Jerk.” I head for the door.
“You’ll be back,” he calls behind me, “and Mummy and Daddy and their three wee ones will be one big felonious family again. The brakes on Ragnarok have been lifted. With Hel, Jormundgandr, and Fenrir awakened, it won’t take long to rebuild our dynasty. The modern world will fall in no time, and our names will live on in glorious infamy for ages to come.”
“Uh, okay.” This mustache-twirling villain speech is worthy of that idiot Loki he plays on Asgard Awakening, not the real-live Hag of the Iron Wood.
Blocking Damien’s line of sight to the coat rack with my body, I tug open the door and turn invisible the same moment my fingers snatch Alex’s hat. I tuck it up the back of my shirt. Through the crack, I scan the hall for Freddie and Alex. I frown when I don’t see either. They must’ve figured out how to cast the spell from a distance.
“Good luck,” Damien snickers.
Saluting him with twin middle fingers he can’t see, I slip out and hop the elevator to the lobby.
When the cool spring air hits me, Othala gets a hankering to reprise an old role the new me has yet to play. I sneak around to the back of the building, flap my arms into a pair of majestic, two-foot-long wings, and fly home as a hawk to Gunnar Magnusson and my friends.
When I reach our hotel room, everyone is there, chatting about the performance tomorrow. Gunnar Magnusson lurches to his feet.
“Good news?” he asks.
“Some good, some bad. I found Alex’s hat.” I sweep its flattened form from my shirt and toss it to him. It pops open midair. The gemstones embedded on the underside glow.
Alex’s dark eyes light up as he catches the top hat. He clutches it to his chest. “Loki, thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
I flutter a dismissive hand. “No biggie. I also got Othala back.” I lift my thrumming hand and turn to Freddie. “I can’t believe you did it. How did you pull it off?”
Freddie looks puzzled. “Pull what off?”
“Hel? Jormundgandr? Fenrir? Duh?”
Confusion riddles his face. He slowly shakes his head. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Of course, you did,” I say, hitching my hands to my hips. “All that talk of getting the band back together so we can take over the world? It was brilliant. You knew just what to say to get to Damien.”
“Your text told us to wait, so we’ve been waiting,” Freddie argues. “You said you’d let us know when to fire the spell, but we never got the order.”
A chill shoots up my spine like a fierce arctic wind. Feeling woozy, I sit down on the bed.
“I didn’t send you any texts,” I say, my guts churning like a windmill.
“Yes, you did. Everyone on the group chat got it.” Freddie grunts and pulls his phone out. He scrolls through his messages, frowns, and freezes. “It was just an hour ago. Where did it—”
Darryl Donovan checks his messages. Gunnar Magnusson and Alex follow suit.
Darryl Donovan points at the screen with disbelief. “It was here. We all saw it.”
“What’s going on, Loki?” Gunnar Magnusson asks, his brow wrinkled.
My pulse races. I don’t know whether to be terrified or elated.
“Someone is playing us.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tuesday/Tyr’s Day
After the twin bombshells of my children’s mysterious reappearance and my friends’ phantom texts, I’m up all night. No way I can sleep with so much speculation darting between my ears like a relay runner handing off one baton of thought to another. Not to
mention, the promise of my impending death plays on a loop of worry and angst. I’m surfing the wave of an adrenaline cocktail with a high-octane gasoline chaser when the sun’s rays stretch over the horizon.
Gunnar Magnusson fell asleep around 3:00 a.m. He’s been snoring beside me ever since. His mouth twitches in reply to whatever dream is dancing inside his head. A dimple hides under the thatch of this thick, reddish-blond beard. It calls to me like a red button with a sign above it that says, “Do not press under any circumstances.” I poke it and smile despite the weight of the world bearing down on me.
He smacks his dry lips a couple times. I’d be happy to wet them for him, but I mentally tighten the reins on Kenaz and steer the wild stallion into a quiet stall in the barn of Laguz’s restraint.
His brows reach for each other, and he slowly opens his eyes. The blue of them shocks me. He doesn’t take his glasses off much, but I like how vulnerable he looks without their protective layer in place. I can see inside his soul better.
“Good morning.” I curl my balled fist under my chin and stare.
“Is it?” he asks, squinting at the window. He draws the covers over his head.
“We’re both alive. That constitutes a good morning.” I pull the sheets away and stare some more.
He scoots closer and wraps me in a full-body hug. Tucking my head under his, I succumb to him, absorbing his addictive warmth. If—when—things go south, I’ll need this positive energy.
“I dreamed of you last night,” he murmurs into my hair.
“Dream or nightmare? I’m flexible. Equally adept at starring in either.”
“Dream. We were on a beach in Iceland,” he says. “You said you were afraid of dying. I reminded you of something you told me before: It’s never too late to change your paradigm.”
“What was my witty comeback?”
“You said you were a wise woman.”
“Technically, Darryl Donovan is the wise woman,” I say. “I stole that line from him.”
He shrugs. “Either way, it applies.”
What if Darryl Donovan was right? What if I just need to view my current predicament in a different way so I can find alternative solutions?
I reluctantly disentangle myself from Gunnar Magnusson’s arms and roll onto my back, flipping a handful of hair on top of my head. “The children Damien and I saw on the TV last night aren’t mine.”
He props up on an elbow. I try to avoid looking at his bare chest as the sheet falls away. I fail.
“How do you know?” he asks.
I stare at the ceiling. “I had a run-in with my daughter Hel when I was in the hospital. I thought she was the product of a fever dream, but she was too real. Skuld later confirmed some things she said. Anyway, the Hel on the TV didn’t look like her. She looked the way she did ages ago. Time hadn’t affected her appearance, but there were definite distinctions between the old Hel and the one I saw in my vision. They were not the same person.”
“You think someone could’ve,” he purses his lips and searches for the right words, “projected your kids the way they thought you’d remember them? And if so, who? Why?”
I shake my head. “Odin and Frigg want me dead, and he’s made it clear he wants to stop Ragnarok, not start it. I doubt either of them is behind this. Damien seemed as shocked as I was, and he actually handed my rune over on seeing our spawn. The most logical explanation is that they were the real deal, but something was off about the whole performance.”
“Skuld?” Gunnar Magnusson asks.
“That’s what I thought. But what would she have to gain? She and the other Norns only care about destiny.”
He shrugs. “Ragnarok doesn’t get more ‘destiny’ than re-releasing Loki’s children on the world. And the faked texts we got from you suggest a higher power than your average Asgardian is at work.”
“True,” I say. “Skuld has the skills to write whatever plotline—or plot twist—she wants into my future.”
But Skuld would know exactly what my spawn look like now, assuming Jormundgandr and Fenrir are still around.
They were masterfully created poppets with rehearsed mannerisms and enough knowledge of the originals to be convincing to their own parents, Laguz says. But they weren’t real.
Perplexed, I kick the covers off my knees. “We have a long day ahead. Better grab breakfast and run through our routine a few more times before the show.”
“Loki.” Gunnar Magnusson thumbs my arm. His good luck hamingja necklace swings from a leather thong under his throat. “I know you’re putting on a strong face, but you don’t have to do it for me. You’re afraid of what’s going to happen today. I am too. Be tough with everyone else, but be real with me.”
I smooth his mussed hair. “I’m scared, but I won’t let fear get in the way of enjoying the day. We’ve worked hard for this. Freddie deserves his award. If he doesn’t win, he might kill me himself.”
“Don’t joke about stuff like that,” he says.
“Freya has always been an attention-seeker—”
“And you’re not?” he teases.
“Oh, I am,” I admit, “but this pageant poses a direct challenge to her honor. Let’s help her win and sort out the rest when it’s over. I’m tired of worrying about dying.”
Gunnar Magnusson lowers his palm to my bent knee. He always delivers warmth when I need it most.
“I won’t let anything bad happen to you,” he says, his eyes hard and resolute.
I want to laugh at his foolishness. Instead, I lean up, tag him with a soft kiss on the lips, and whisper, “Thank you,” into his mouth.
His body tenses as I climb out of bed. He tracks me like an alpha wolf watching over his mate. For a moment, I believe he could protect me from the Norns themselves.
After breakfast in the hotel restaurant, the boys and I head toward our rooms to get ready for our big day. Freddie shunned me through the entire meal, physically turning his body away from me and glowering every time I spoke. I thought I’d broken through some of the anger and made progress with him last night. Guess not. Even though I earned it fair and square, his rejection hurts after all we’ve been through together.
As we navigate the clusters of people sprinkling the lobby, I tug Freddie’s sleeve. He jerks his arm away.
“What do you want?” he sneers.
“A word with you,” I say, glancing to our friends. “Alone.”
He glares at me. A vein throbs between his well-manicured eyebrows. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“It’s important,” I say.
“Lots of things are important,” he snipes. “Like makeup and costumes, which I need to start working on presently.”
I stop and fold my arms over my chest. “Why are you being so antagonistic?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” His tone shifts, and Freddie is no longer home. This is a hundred percent Freya. “Maybe because I woke up this morning with a headful of bad memories. Like the countless times you aired out my dirty laundry for all of Asgard to judge and gossip about. And how you laced my dinner with prunes the night before I was wed. And, oh yeah, let’s not forget the swarm of midges you let loose in my bed chamber while I was holed up in mourning, crying countless tears over my husband Odr’s disappearance.”
I start to retort that her bed chamber was frequented by no fewer than ten men in the first week of Odr’s absence, but wise Laguz zaps me quiet before I open my mouth.
“Shall I go on?” she demands.
Up ahead, Gunnar Magnusson turns to me expectantly. I wave the guys away.
“Please, Freya.” I’m still adjusting to the gender flip, which is just as confusing as my own has been. “There are things I need to tell you. Stuff the others can’t know about.” The I’ve-got-a-secret angle always worked on gossipy Freya before. I cross my fingers and pray my lure will take.
She huffs and tosses a glance toward Alex, who’s waiting for her. A silent conversation passes between them. Alex nods and follows the others do
wn the hall, leaving us alone. I escort Freya to a quiet corner of the lobby.
She sits in a plush, oversized chair and crosses her legs, furiously kicking the top one. “Make it snappy. We have a crown to claim.”
I inhale a deep breath and blurt, “Darryl Donovan is Thor, and Gunnar Magnusson is Sigyn. Neither of them knows.”
The jerking leg halts. Mouth agape, Freya blinks three times in succession. “You’re kidding me.”
I shake my head.
“This is one of your tricks.”
“I wish,” I say, “but I can’t lie.”
She falls back into her seat, gaze darting around the lobby. I imagine she’s running through the implications of my confession and delighting in my plight.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asks.
I lean closer and tentatively scoop her hands into mine. She doesn’t pull away. “Because I’m going to die today, and I want you to give Gunnar Magnusson his rune when I’m gone.”
I open my purse and spill some bone chips into my palm. I pick through them until I find Sigyn’s and hold it out for Freya’s inspection. She accepts it, turns it over, rubs a thumb over the worn symbol.
“I lost half of the runes I recovered from Nine Realms to Odin in a parking lot brawl, but I want you to have the rest,” I say. “Keep them safe and return them to their rightful owners. I can’t stop Odin, but maybe you can. The other Asgardians will be pissed when they wake and learn of his plan to let us die out. I was going to form an army of Æsir to take Allfather down, but since I’ll be out of commission, that task now falls to you.” I pour the remaining runes into her cupped hands.
She stares at the chips, poking through the pile, marveling at each one. “Why me?”
“Because Freddie is my friend, and I trust him,” I say. “And I want to make amends for how I treated you, Freya.”
Her eyes gloss with wetness, and she looks away, blinking. “Thank you,” she whispers.