by Evie Kent
Helga Kristianson smiled back, just as breezy, her cheeks bright red from the chill. February in Norway was the fucking pits: freezing cold, dark all the time, and Oslo was as expensive as Manhattan. But none of that mattered anymore. She was here. The Swede PI I’d hired out of Stavanger had done his job and found her shortly after the new year kicked off. The Helga Kristianson, the right one, daughter of so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so, all the way back to the witch who trapped Loki in that pit for eternity.
“God kveld,” I greeted. Good evening. I’d had a shitload of downtime on my hands while the Swede hunted for Helga, acquiring every piece of information possible about the nursing student who attended the University of Oslo full-time—who was apparently single, had worked as a bartender before starting school, and had a vacation cabin way up north. In the meantime, I had turned my passable Danish into passable Norwegian, and was pleased to finally use it with someone who wasn’t a store clerk, a bank teller, or the doctor I’d seen for the miserable winter cold that plagued me for all of January. “Det er hyggelig å møte deg.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Helga offered as she extended her mittened hand for me to shake, the red woven fabric dusted with snow. She shook her head with a laugh, then hastily yanked her mitten off and gave her bare hand instead. “Your Norwegian is getting very good.”
“Takk.” Thanks. I shook her hand, both of us gripping hard and firm, and bit back my disappointment at not feeling anything out of the ordinary. Helga was the first supernatural being I’d met outside of Loki, and if I hadn’t known going into it that she was descended from a powerful line of witches, I would have had absolutely no idea. How many others had I interacted with obliviously over the years? A lot, probably.
Positively beaming, I stepped aside and gestured for her to come in. “It’s much warmer in here.”
“Oh, definitely.”
Sweet, personable—just like she’d been in our chats. When she pulled off her dark blue cap, a long blonde braid fell over her shoulder, my own fishtail plait a near perfect match. I’d stalked all of her social media, obviously; she had a thing for braids, and I figured the more we looked alike, the less ominous I’d appear when I finally dropped my earthshattering request.
Closing the door behind her, I made an effort not to lock it. Oslo had been way safer than Manhattan in the four months I’d lived here, but bolting a thousand locks every time I shut a front door was a lifelong habit I’d never shake. Still, I didn’t want to scare her off.
As soon as my PI had found her, social media had been my in. We were closeish in age, so my sliding into university Facebook groups and whatnot online had been easy. I mean, her profile was barely private, for fuck’s sake. I could see all her groups, her likes, her dislikes, without even being her friend. Helga had a thing for cycling, and now that she had her own flat—her words, taken from her ad in one of the English-centric groups—she wanted a stationary bike.
And guess who had one to sell?
In mint condition?
Me.
Well. I had one after I read and replied to her ad, forking over two grand for the best model deliverable with two-day shipping and then slashing the price to practically nothing to entice her. We’d been chatting back and forth over the last week, me laying on the charm thick to establish trust, and after her night class this evening, she had offered to stop by to inspect the merchandise. If she liked what she saw, Helga had promised to come back with a rental truck and buy it.
Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
Hopefully we could get this sorted out tonight.
“This is a cozy place. Great location.”
“Hmm? Yeah, it’s been awesome for getting to the university,” I said, the lie rolling off my tongue, arms crossed as I sauntered in after her. I had chosen one of the more expensive Oslo neighborhoods to establish my home base in, but I’d wanted to be central—whatever made it easier to get Helga here. The studio had served its purpose for the last few months; all Scandinavian-sleek, it was full of hard lines and corners, monochromatic and tiled, with functional furniture and a small TV. As a native New Yorker, I hadn’t balked at the rent, and thankfully had had enough in my accounts from Opa’s inheritance to pay for the PI, this studio, and then Helga’s inevitable fee to break the curse.
After that, it would all be gone, every last cent, but that didn’t matter to me—not anymore, not after four months away from him, all those nights spent thinking about the god I loved trapped inside that mountain, miserable and brooding, fearing I would never come back.
“So, here’s the bike,” I announced, crossing from the front door to the storage closet next to the kitchenette. All it had inside was the bike, which weighed a fucking metric ton. Coat unzipped, scarf loosened, Helga hurried over to help me haul it into the main living space.
“Oh, it’s perfect,” she said, her English on point and heavily accented, her eyes bright and eager as they swept over the brand-new exercise bike loaded with all the bells and whistles. She then looked to me, brows knitting. “Are you… sure you want to sell it?”
“Honestly, I thought I’d use it all the time,” I insisted, leaning back against the quartz peninsula with a sigh—like I was so disappointed with the turn of events. “But it’s just collecting dust and taking up space… I realized kind of fast that I don’t like cycling as much as I thought. Might get a treadmill instead. More of a runner these days.”
Shut the fuck up, Nora. I pressed my lips together tightly to stop babbling. The best lie was a simple one—no need to embellish. Helga seemed not to notice, totally enraptured with the bike, crouched down to inspect the gears and the pedals.
“Amazing. It’s in such good condition,” she murmured, inspecting it with curious hands as her perfect English turned to muttered Norwegian. Right. Helga Kristianson was kind of a weirdo for bikes, but whatever. I let her sink into it for two minutes—one hundred and twenty seconds that I literally counted out in my head—then cleared my throat.
“So…” A cold sweat broke out across my palms, my belly looping. Here goes nothing. “Do witches really need to exercise? Isn’t there, like, a spell to help you stay in shape? I would have thought that’d be a perk, or something…”
I trailed off with a laugh, one that wasn’t quite as breezy as my smile at the front door. Helga froze, withdrawing her hands from the underbelly of the bike seat before slowly peering up at me.
“Are you—”
“My name is Nora Olsen,” I told her—because what we had discussed over the last week was mostly true, with a few convincing lies peppered in, “and… I wanted to speak to you on behalf of Loki Laufeyjarson. You know. The god your ancestor imprisoned for all eternity.”
Helga shot to her feet, but I darted in front of her before she could hoof it toward the door. She raised her hands defensively, and I flinched, half expecting a bolt of lightning to fly from her fingertips.
“No, no, wait,” I panic-babbled, hands also up as I took a step back to give her space. And continue to block the door, of course. “I’m not going to hurt you—”
“I doubt you could, human.”
Human. Was that supposed to be a burn? I rolled my shoulders back and forced a smile, nodding. “Yeah, exactly. Look, I just want to talk. Hear me out to the end, and I’ll make it worth your while.”
The goal was to empty my entire bank account into hers, or at the very least promise that, but if it took a few visits that cost me a grand or two each time, I could swing that as well. Opa had left me some wiggle room, thank fuck.
We lingered in a tense standoff for ages, just sizing each other up. I had an extra inch on Helga, but she had magic at her disposal—hardly a fair fight. When it seemed like she wasn’t about to charge through me like a Norwegian battering ram, I lowered my hands and told her everything. Everything. From the kidnapping to the villagers to the crate with a loaf of bread in it. The dress I’d worn for weeks, Loki’s healing abilities and how much I initially lo
athed him. About our games, the crushing loneliness, the ache in both of us as we faced each new day inside that goddamn mountain.
How he helped me escape in the end, putting my happiness and safety above all else—me, just a human.
I carried into my escape, two weeks camping in the woods in October, avoiding everyone and anyone, not making eye contact until I reached a hotel in Oslo—paranoid as fuck, spending another week locked inside my room out of fear that Oskar and his dad had realized I was gone. Searching for her, determined to fulfill my promise. Right up to now, to the knot in my stomach and the lump in my throat. I was just an ordinary girl in love, desperate to free a man who didn’t belong in a cage anymore.
Helga said nothing throughout all of it. She just stood there, staring, waiting for it to be over, her expression seldom veering away from suspicious. When I’d finally vomited out the whole story, I grabbed at the kitchenette peninsula again, needing the support to stay standing. My knees threatened to buckle, but I held firm, waiting, the truth out in the open now—shared with someone for the first time since I’d escaped. Even my few friends and family that I’d reached out to in November still thought I was just frolicking around Scandinavia, quarter-life crisis fully engaged.
At long last, Helga turned her back on me and drifted over to the futon. She sat at the edge, elbows on her knees, staring at the faux fire program I had going on the TV.
“Nora,” she said with a sigh, the electronic flames catching in her eyes. “You know why he’s there.”
“He started the apocalypse centuries ago,” I said flatly, icy relief flooding my veins that I could finally talk to someone about this—someone who wasn’t Loki. “But, he didn’t, you know, push everybody over the edge. There were three—” I held up my fingers to emphasize the point. “—necessary acts to kick-start Ragnarok. He was in prison, you know, again, when the others performed the following two. He just joined in on a war that was already happening.”
She shot me an incredulous look. “And that excuses him—for the death of Baldur, for all the atrocities that followed?”
“Fuck no.” I pushed off the peninsula and drifted to the other side of the pull-out couch, settling on the flimsy armrest. “Look, I get it. He deserved to serve time. He can be a huge asshole—I’m not oblivious to his flaws. But eight hundred years is enough, don’t you think?”
“Are you one of his acolytes?”
“I…” My cheeks warmed. Was I some Loki fanatic? Not exactly. “Uh. No. Look, he has amazing powers. Healing, luck, prosperity… He could help so many people around the world, and he’s finally ready to do good. Change the narrative. Make a fresh start—”
“And did the father of lies tell you that himself?” Helga interjected, the question followed by a cold, humorless laugh. She then plopped her hat back on her head, stood, and zipped up her coat. Every step closer to her leaving made my chest tighter and tighter, to the point that when she finally marched toward the door, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“No,” the witch said decidedly, her tone final, her stride confident. “No, I won’t—”
“Eighty grand,” I choked out, flying off the futon after her. She stopped suddenly, and I drew a pathetic, stuttering half breath, still stuck in panic’s clutches. At least that had gotten her attention. Slowly, Helga faced me again; I did my best to compose myself, flipping my braid over my shoulder and squaring off with her like I really meant business. “Look, I hate that I know this, but you’re in debt. A lot of debt. I know your ex took your credit cards and bled you dry while you were together… And fuck him. My ex is a piece of shit, too. I’m sorry. But I know you’re struggling financially, and I can pay you eighty thousand dollars if you break the curse for us. It’s literally all I have to my name, but it can be yours tomorrow if you do this.”
Helga’s confidence faltered, her cheeks turning bright red as soon as we made eye contact. The PI had included details of all her finances in his report, including screenshots of cryptic tweets that suggested she was still struggling nearly a year after her shitbag ex-boyfriend ran up her credit cards. I hated to take advantage of that, but obviously it was a trigger point—and if this was the button I needed to push to get Loki out, then so be it.
“After the eighty grand, you’ll get a yearly stipend for the rest of your life,” I told her, hoping the promise of financial security until she died was enough to sweeten the pot. Loki and I hadn’t exactly discussed it, but he had found a way to make that fucking village thrive; he could do the same for Helga, at the very least, once he stopped bankrolling all those assholes.
Slowly, Helga unzipped her coat, then pulled off her hat. She shook her head, fidgeting with her nails, and sighed.
“Nora, we’ve all heard about his curse. It’s like… our coven’s legacy,” she admitted softly. “The story passes from mother to daughter, witch to witch, just so we know. And…” Her cheeks hollowed like she was biting at them, and when she finally met my eye again, something unreadable glinted back at me—something that made my heart skip a beat and my blood run cold. “And to break a curse like that, the process is as violent as it was to make the curse. Do you understand? Are you prepared for that?”
I straightened, adding a bit of steel to my spine. “Whatever it takes.”
The rewards outweighed the risk, surely. Loki could literally save people. He could put an end to famines and droughts. Persuade warlords to back the fuck off. Heal the unhealable with nothing but a touch. There was so much he had to offer the world, and my heart insisted that after eight centuries of penance, he was ready for that.
“His powers will benefit the world,” I added. “He can heal people and—”
“I know what a god can do,” Helga said curtly. Of course she did. Was it common knowledge in the supernatural community, or were the women in her family just experts on the god I loved? From the muddled look on her face, there was no telling either way, but she continued to fidget and sigh, pacing between the door and my tiny kitchen, until finally she just stopped, the air around us stilling. “So, eighty thousand… American dollars?”
I nodded, desperation making my mouth dry, the lump in my throat swelling. Just say yes. Just say yes. Time slowed as she considered the offer, and a few minutes later, her leaning against the peninsula, me standing in the middle of this miniscule apartment literally shaking, Helga’s gaze slid to me, her eyes more gold than brown now, and it felt like she could see right through me.
“Do you love him, Nora Olsen?”
“Yes,” I whispered—choked, my first time admitting it out loud. The witch gnawed at her lower lip for a moment, then cleared her throat.
“Would you die for him?”
I blinked back at her, mouth opening but no words falling out. Because what the fuck was I supposed to say to that? Would I end my life for Loki? I… I had no fucking clue.
My brain was just static, but my heart suddenly raced, a fire sparking in my gut. Helga took my silence as answer enough.
“That’s what I thought,” she muttered, turning on the spot and marching for the door.
“Yes.” I stumbled after her, spitting out the word in a panic, terrified she might walk away for good if I didn’t. Slowly, Helga rounded back to me, her eyes wide, eyebrows inching up her forehead. I took a few deep breaths, my fingers tingly and numb but my head unnervingly clear, my heartbeat strong. “Yes, I will.”
I loved him, and he deserved to be free. In the grand scheme of the universe, Loki’s life added so much more depth than mine. Mine was fleeting, over in a flash, while he had an eternity to make the world a better place, to right wrongs and fix the mess Ragnarok had left for his people. He’d fight it, but… I could be just another piece in the tragic backstory that turned him into a superhero. They all needed that push, right? In the comics, the movies, the books—the hero needed a reason to fight.
Holy fuck.
I hadn’t woken up this morning thinking I’d sign my life away for him, but what othe
r choice did we have? If the supernatural existed, then maybe there was an afterlife, too. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, floating around on puffy clouds and playing harps without a worry or care.
So, why did I feel like throwing up?
Like screaming bloody murder and hightailing it out of Norway for good?
Fuck.
What the actual fuck am I doing?
“Are you sure you love him? That’s the only way it works.” Helga cracked her knuckles on one hand, then the other. “Or you die for nothing.”
I swallowed thickly, staring down at her hands with a wary frown. Was she gearing up to murder me right here and now? Loki would have prepped me for this if he knew, right?
“Yes,” I told her, voice hoarse and soft. “I love him.”
And I was fucking petrified to admit it suddenly, but that didn’t change the fact that it was true. Helga and I fell into another stare-off, both refusing to blink first, until she finally tossed her hat on the counter, then shrugged off her coat.
“I want forty today,” she remarked, confident now—like she had officially made up her mind, “then forty when the job is done. After, I want eighty thousand US dollars a year for the rest of my life.”
“That’s, uhm…” I found myself nodding, mind full of static again. Was this really happening? Had I just set something in motion that I would live to regret?
Or, you know, die with regret?
No.
I took a calming breath, then held out my hand. No, this was the way it had to be to get him out. No one said it would be easy, and freedom was never free—there was always a price.
After all this time, after falling for my dark god, I was ready to pay it.
“Deal,” I said, and we both shook on it. Helga held on for a few seconds longer than necessary, like she was offering me one last out, but I just gripped harder, shook firmer.