by Rick Riordan
“Loki, what do you want?” I demanded. “How do I help Blitzen?”
The god spread his arms. “I am so glad you asked. Happily, those two questions have the same answer!”
“The stone,” Blitz gasped. “He wants…the stone.”
“Exactly!” Loki agreed. “You see, Magnus, wounds from the Skofnung Sword never heal. They just keep bleeding forever…or until death, whichever comes first. The only way to close that wound is with the Skofnung Stone. That’s why the two are such an important set.”
Hearthstone launched into a bout of sign language cursing so impressive it would’ve made a beautiful piece of performance art. Even if you didn’t know ASL, his gestures conveyed his anger better than any amount of yelling.
“Dear me,” Loki said. “I haven’t been called some of those names since my last flyting with the Aesir! I’m sorry you feel that way, my elfish friend, but you’re the only one who can get that stone. You know it’s the only solution. You’d better run along home!”
“Home?” My mind moved at the speed of cold syrup. “You mean…Alfheim?”
Blitzen groaned. “Don’t make Hearth go. Not worth it, kid.”
I glared at Uncle Randolph, who was making himself at home in his zombie niche. With his ratty suit and scarred face, his eyes glazed from pain and blood loss, Randolph was already halfway to being undead.
“What is Loki after?” I asked him. “What does any of this have to do with Thor’s hammer?”
He gave me the same desolate expression he’d worn in my dream, when he’d turned to his family on the storm-tossed yacht and said I’ll bring us home. “Magnus, I—I’m so—”
“Sorry?” Loki supplied. “Yes, you’re very sorry, Randolph. We know. But really, Magnus, do you not see the connection? Maybe I need to be clearer. Sometimes I forget how slow you mortals can be. A—giant—has—the—hammer.”
He illustrated each word with exaggerated sign language. “Giant—gives—hammer—back—for—Samirah. We—exchange—gifts—at—wedding. Hammer—for—S-K-O-F-N-U-N-G.”
“Stop that!” I snarled.
“You understand, then?” Loki shook his hands out. “Good, because my fingers were getting tired. Now, I can’t give half a bride-price, can I? Thrym will never accept that. I need the blade and the stone. Fortunately, your friend Hearthstone knows exactly where the stone can be found!”
“That’s why you arranged all this? Why you…?” I gestured at Blitz, who lay in an expanding pool of red.
“Call it incentive,” Loki said. “I wasn’t sure you’d get me the stone merely for the purpose of Samirah’s wedding, but you’ll do it to save your friend. And, I’ll remind you, this is all so I can help you get back what’s-his-name’s stupid hammer. It’s a win-win. Unless, you know, your dwarf dies. They are such small, pitiful creatures. Randolph, come along now!”
My uncle shuffled toward Loki like a dog expecting a beating. I didn’t feel much love for my uncle at the moment, but I also hated the way Loki treated him. I remembered the connection I’d had to Randolph during my dreams…feeling the overwhelming grief that motivated him.
“Randolph,” I said, “you don’t have to go with him.”
He glanced at me, and I saw how wrong I was. When he stabbed Blitzen, something inside him had broken. He’d been drawn so far into this evil bargain now, given up so much to get back his dead wife and children, he couldn’t imagine any other way.
Loki pointed to the Skofnung blade. “The sword, Randolph. Get the sword.”
Jack’s runes pulsed an angry purple. “Try it, compadre, and you’ll lose more than a couple of fingers.”
Randolph hesitated, as people tend to do when they are threatened by talking glowing swords.
Loki’s smug confidence wavered. His eyes darkened. His scarred lips curled. I saw how badly he wanted that sword. He needed it for something much more important than a wedding gift.
I put my foot over the Skofnung blade. “Jack’s right. This isn’t going anywhere.”
The veins in Loki’s neck looked like they might explode. I was afraid he would kill Samirah and paint the walls with abstract swaths of dwarf, elf, and einherji.
I stared him down anyway. I didn’t understand his plan, but I was starting to realize that he needed us alive…at least for now.
In the space of a nanosecond, the god regained his composure.
“Fine, Magnus,” he said breezily. “Bring the sword and the stone with you when you bring the bride. Four days. I’ll let you know where. And do get a proper tuxedo. Randolph, come along. Chop-chop!”
My uncle winced.
Loki laughed. “Oh, sorry.” He wriggled his pinky and ring finger. “Too soon?”
He grabbed Randolph’s sleeve. The two men shot backward into the coffin portal like they were being sucked out of a moving jet plane. The sarcophagus imploded behind them.
Sam stirred. She sat up abruptly, as though her alarm had gone off. Her hijab slipped over her right eye like a pirate’s patch. “What—what’s going on?”
I felt too numb to explain. I was kneeling next to Blitzen, doing what I could to keep him stable. My hands glowed with enough Frey-power to cause a nuclear meltdown, but it wasn’t helping. My friend was slipping away.
Hearth’s eyes brimmed with tears. He sat next to Blitz, his polka-dot scarf trailing in blood. Every once in a while he smacked a V sign against his own forehead: Stupid. Stupid.
Sam’s shadow fell across us. “No! No, no, no. What happened?”
Hearthstone flew into another sign language tirade: Told you! Too dangerous! Your fault we—
“Buddy…” Blitzen pulled weakly at Hearthstone’s hands. “Not Sam’s…fault. Not yours. Was…my idea.”
Hearthstone shook his head. Stupid Valkyrie. Stupid me, also. Must be a way to heal you.
He looked to me, desperate for a miracle.
I hated being a healer. Frey’s Fripperies, I wished I were a warrior. Or a shape-shifter like Alex Fierro, or a rune caster like Hearthstone, or even a berserker like Halfborn, charging into battle in my underwear. Having my friends’ lives depend on my abilities, watching the light go out of Blitzen’s eyes and knowing there was nothing I could do about it…that was unbearable.
“Loki wouldn’t leave us another choice,” I said. “We have to find the Skofnung Stone.”
Hearthstone grunted in frustration. I would do it. For Blitz. But no time. Would take a day at least. He will die.
Blitzen tried to say something. No words came out. His head lolled sideways.
“No!” Sam sobbed. “No, he can’t die. Where’s this stone? I’ll go get it myself!”
I scanned the tomb, frantic for ideas. My eyes fixed on the only source of light—Samirah’s spear, lying in dust.
Light. Sunlight.
There was one last miracle I could try—a lame, bottom-shelf miracle, but it was all I had.
“We need more time,” I said, “so we’ll make more time.” I wasn’t sure Blitzen was still lucid, but I squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll bring you back, buddy. I promise.”
I stood. I raised my face toward the domed ceiling and imagined the sun overhead. I called on my father—the god of warmth and fertility, the god of living things that broke through the earth to reach the light.
The tomb rumbled. Dust rained down. Directly above me, the domed ceiling cracked like an eggshell and a jagged canyon of sunlight spilled through the darkness, illuminating Blitzen’s face.
As I watched, one of my best friends in the Nine Worlds turned to solid rock.
Should I Be Nervous that the Pilot Is Praying?
THE PROVINCETOWN airport was the most depressing place I’d ever been. To be fair, that might have been because I was in the company of a petrified dwarf, a heartbroken elf, a furious Valkyrie, and a sword that would not shut up.
Sam had called an Uber car to get us from the Pilgrim Monument. I wondered if she used Uber as a backup for transporting souls to Valhalla. All the wa
y to the airport, crammed in the backseat of a Ford Focus station wagon, I couldn’t stop humming “Flight of the Valkyries.”
Next to me, Jack hogged the seat belt and pestered me with questions. “Can we unsheathe Skofnung again just for a minute? I want to say hi.”
“Jack, no. She can’t be drawn in sunlight or in the presence of women. And if we did unsheathe her, she’d have to kill somebody.”
“Yeah, but except for that, wouldn’t it be awesome?” He sighed, his runes lighting up his blade. “She’s so fine.”
“Please go into pendant mode.”
“Do you think she liked me? I didn’t say anything stupid, did I? Be honest.”
I bit back a few scathing remarks. It wasn’t Jack’s fault we were in this predicament. Still, I was relieved when I finally convinced him to turn into a pendant. I told him he needed his beauty rest in case we unsheathed Skofnung later.
When we got to the airport, I helped Hearthstone wrestle our granite dwarf out of the station wagon while Sam went into the terminal.
The airport itself wasn’t much to look at—just a one-room shack for arrivals and departures, a couple of benches out front, and beyond the security fence, two runways for small planes.
Sam hadn’t explained why we were here. I guessed she was using her pilot-y connections to get us a charter flight back to Boston. Obviously she couldn’t fly all four of us under her own power, and Hearthstone was in no shape to cast any more runes.
Hearth had spent his last bit of magical energy to summon Bubble Wrap and strapping tape, using a rune that looked like a regular X. Maybe it was the ancient Viking symbol for shipping materials. Maybe it was the rune for Alfheim Express. Hearthstone was so angry and miserable I didn’t dare ask him. I just stood outside the terminal, waiting for Sam to come back, while Hearth carefully wrapped up his best friend.
We’d come to a sort of truce while waiting for the Uber car. Hearth, Sam, and I all felt like stripped high-voltage wires, supercharged with guilt and resentment, ready to kill anyone who touched us. But we knew that wasn’t going to help Blitzen. We hadn’t discussed it, but we’d formed a silent agreement not to yell and scream and hit each other until later. Right now, we had a dwarf to heal.
Finally, Sam emerged from the terminal. She must have stopped by the restroom, because her hands and face were still damp.
“The Cessna is on its way,” she said.
“Your instructor’s plane?”
She nodded. “I had to beg and plead. But Barry’s really nice. He understands it’s an emergency.”
“Does he know about…?” I gestured around, weakly implying the Nine Worlds, petrified dwarves, undead warriors, evil gods, and all the other messed-up things about our lives.
“No,” Sam said. “And I’d like to keep it that way. I can’t fly airplanes if my instructor thinks I’m delusional.”
She glanced over at Hearthstone’s Bubble-Wrapping project. “No change in Blitzen? He hasn’t started…crumbling yet?”
A slug wriggled down my throat. “Crumbling? Please tell me that’s not going to happen.”
“I hope not. But sometimes…” Sam closed her eyes and took a second to compose herself. “Sometimes after a few days…”
As if I needed a reason to feel guiltier. “When we find the Skofnung Stone…there is a way to un-petrify Blitz, right?”
That seemed like I question I should have asked before turning my friend into a chunk of granite, but, hey, I’d been under a lot of pressure.
“I—I hope so,” Sam said.
That made me feel a whole lot better.
Hearthstone looked over at us. He signed to Sam in small angry gestures: Plane? You will drop Magnus, me. You don’t come.
Sam looked stung, but she held her hand up next to her face, index finger pointing skyward. Understand.
Hearthstone went back to packaging our dwarf.
“Give him time,” I told Sam. “It isn’t your fault.”
Sam studied the pavement. “I wish I believed that.”
I wanted to ask about Loki’s control over her, to tell her how bad I felt for her, to promise we would find a way to fight her father. But I guessed it was too soon to bring up all that. Her shame was still too raw.
“What did Hearthstone mean about dropping us?” I asked.
“I’ll explain when we’re in the air.” Sam pulled out her phone and checked the time. “It’s zuhr. We’ve got about twenty minutes before the plane lands. Magnus, can I borrow you?”
I didn’t know what zuhr meant, but I followed her to a little grassy area in the middle of the circular driveway.
Samirah rummaged through her backpack. She pulled out a folded blue piece of cloth like an oversize scarf and spread it on the grass. My first thought: We’re having a picnic?
Then I realized she was aligning the cloth so it pointed southeast. “That’s a prayer rug?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s time for noon prayers. Would you stand watch for me?”
“I…wait. What?” I felt like she was handing me a newborn baby and asking me to take care of it. In all the weeks I’d known Sam, I’d never seen her pray. I figured she just didn’t do it very often. That’s what I would’ve done in her place—as little religious stuff as possible. “How can you pray at a time like this?”
She laughed without humor. “The real question is, how can I not pray at a time like this? It won’t take long. Just stand guard in case…I don’t know, trolls attack or something.”
“Why haven’t I ever seen you do this before?”
Sam shrugged. “I pray every day. Five times, as required. Usually I just slip away to somewhere quiet, though if I’m traveling or in a dangerous situation, sometimes I postpone prayers until I’m sure it’s safe. That’s permissible.”
“Like when we were in Jotunheim?”
She nodded. “That’s a good for instance. Since we’re not in danger at the moment, and since you’re here, and since it’s time…do you mind?”
“Uh…no. I mean, yeah, sure. Go for it.”
I’d been in some pretty surreal situations. I’d bellied up to a dwarven bar. I’d run from a giant squirrel through the tree of the universe. I’d rappelled down a curtain into a giant’s dining room. But guarding Samirah al-Abbas while she prayed in an airport parking lot…that was a new one.
Sam took off her shoes. She stood very still at the foot of her rug, her hands clasped at her stomach, her eyes half-closed. She whispered something under her breath. She momentarily brought her hands to her ears—the same gesture we’d use in ASL for listen carefully. Then she began her prayers, a soft, singsong chanting of Arabic that sounded like she was reciting a familiar poem or a love song. Sam bowed, straightened, and knelt with her feet tucked under her and pressed her forehead against the cloth.
I’m not saying I stared at her. It felt wrong to gawk. But I kept watch from what I hoped was a respectful distance.
I have to admit I was kind of fascinated. Also maybe a little envious. Even after all that had just happened to her, after being controlled and knocked unconscious by her evil father, Sam seemed momentarily at peace. She was generating her own little bubble of tranquility.
I never prayed, because I didn’t believe in one all-powerful God. But I wished I had Sam’s level of faith in something.
The prayer didn’t take long. Sam folded her rug and stood. “Thanks, Magnus.”
I shrugged, still feeling like an intruder. “Any better now?”
She smirked. “It’s not magic.”
“Yeah, but…we see magic all the time. Isn’t it hard, like, believing there’s something more powerful out there than all these Norse beings we deal with? Especially if—no offense—the Big Dude doesn’t step in to help out?”
Sam tucked her prayer mat into her bag. “Not stepping in, not interfering, not forcing…to me, that seems more merciful and more divine, don’t you think?”
I nodded. “Good point.”
I hadn’t
seen Sam crying, but the corners of her eyes were tinged with pink. I wondered if she cried the same way she prayed—privately, stepping away to some quiet place so we didn’t notice.
She glanced at the sky. “Besides, who says Allah doesn’t help?” She pointed to the gleaming white shape of an airplane making its approach. “Let’s go meet Barry.”
Surprise! Not only did we get an airplane and a pilot, we also got Sam’s boyfriend.
Sam was jogging across the tarmac when the plane’s door opened. The first person down the steps was Amir Fadlan, a brown leather jacket over his white Fadlan’s Falafel T-shirt, his hair slicked back, and gold-rimmed sunglasses over his eyes so he looked like one of those aviator dudes in a Breitling watch ad.
Sam slowed when she saw him, but it was too late for her to hide. She glanced back at me with a panicked expression, then went to meet her betrothed.
I missed the first part of their conversation. I was too busy helping Hearthstone lug a stone dwarf to the plane. Sam and Amir stood at the bottom step, trading exasperated hand gestures and pained expressions.
When I finally reached them, Amir was pacing back and forth like he was practicing a speech. “I shouldn’t even be here. I thought you were in danger. I thought it was life and death. I—” He froze in his tracks. “Magnus?”
He stared at me as if I’d just fallen out of the sky, which wasn’t fair, since I hadn’t fallen out of the sky in hours.
“Hey, man,” I said. “There is totally a good reason for all this. Like, a really good reason. Like, Samirah didn’t do…anything that you might be thinking that she did that was wrong. Because she didn’t do that.”
Sam glared at me: Not helping.
Amir’s gaze drifted to Hearthstone. “I recognize you, too. From a couple of months ago, at the food court. Sam’s so-called math study group…” He shook his head in disbelief. “So you’re the elf Sam was talking about? And Magnus…you’re…you’re dead. Sam said she took your soul to Valhalla. And the dwarf”—he stared at our Bubble-Wrapped carry-on Blitzen—“is a statue?”