But who?
I turn to look at my double’s desk. She might be my darker half, but even at my worst, I doubt I’d ever order pork. It must have been delivered here while I was busy tying her up. I glance at the big doors beside the desk. They’re beautiful, carved from ancient wood, polished to a sleek, waxy shimmer, and etched with spiraling runes and scrollwork.
I look down at the lunch, then nod and wrap my fingers around the edges of the platter, carefully lifting it off the table. It’s time to meet my boss.
The doors shimmer as I approach, wards reaching out to examine their new guest. They flicker and vanish an instant later, seeming to find me acceptable, and admit me to the private office of Finemdi’s chairman.
A massive window takes up the entire back wall, silhouetting a high-backed chair and an equally enormous stone desk. The monolith’s a strange black-and-gray mix of minerals—slate, granite, sandstone, obsidian, and more—tumbled together with a beautifully raw and unfinished feel. Ragged, splintered edges and asymmetrical outcroppings make it seem like it belongs on a mountaintop, not an executive office. Only a large portion in its center is smoothed, a flattened surface with room for a computer and other office accessories, yet something tells me it was sanded down over centuries, not by craftsmen in a workshop.
A spiral staircase of bronze and gold cuts through the room to the right of the desk, an immaculately tooled column leading to unseen levels above and below. Heavy shelves and display cases are set against the walls, full of odd trinkets and artifacts. Just beside the desk is a large platinum birdcage, every line of its cylindrical shape stamped with runes. It, like the rest of the office, is bizarrely unoccupied.
I frown, looking for this lunch’s owner. Something buzzes in my ears, an odd hum with a familiar cadence, but I can’t find the source. I’m not even sure I actually heard it. Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why? Standing here feels like that, like I’m missing something I once knew. There’s a strange twitch to the air around that cage and behind the desk, a barely there shimmer I can’t quite bring into focus. I take a few more steps into the room and the buzz sounds again, this time a little clearer. That flicker at the desk is more pronounced, and I feel like I can remember more of it.
It’s like I’m seeing and hearing something, then immediately forgetting it.
This is giving me a headache. I turn away from the desk, letting my attention drift to the items set against the wall. They’re … eclectic. Some cases and spaces on the shelves are empty, yet trembling with the same uneasy amnesia I get from the desk and cage. I try to ignore these, focusing on the contents I can see.
Many of them are your expected arcane doodads and priceless baubles. You know, the standard incomprehensible gadgets and legendary items from antiquity. Puzzle boxes, rune stones, grimoires, swords and shields, jewelry and armor, you get the idea. Mixed in with these relics, however, are odd collectibles. There are signed copies of several novels, including Eight Days of Luke and American Gods, a few Sandman and Journey into Mystery comics, framed posters from a weird mix of movies, including The Mask and most of the recent Marvel films, and all sorts of action figures, busts, comiquette statues, and film props, all of—
“Yuz wa plaaaz wifsomzng?” The buzz returns, almost clear enough to tease apart. My eyes dart away from the collection, returning to focus on the desk again. The blur, sitting behind it. Staring at me. It’s—I can almost—Dammit, I know there’s something—
The masquerade shatters.
“Freya?” the man behind the desk asks, but I’m too busy getting my mind blown to reply. It’s like something’s broken in my head, a dam I never knew existed, memories and knowledge bursting, rushing, waters tearing away cobwebs of deceit. Snakes and skin changers dying, their colors running, pooling to form the shape of a myth, a foe, a face.
There’s a man in that chair. He’s been sitting there since I entered the room. There’s a raven in that cage. It’s been watching me the entire time.
“She tires of you already,” the bird says in a deep, heavily accented baritone, cawing happily.
The man sighs and flicks a pen at the cage. “Impossible,” he says, smiling as the raven flaps its wings and glares at him. “I’m naturally distracting.”
Midnight hair falls in ringlets, framing erratic eyes. One moment, they’re a warm, welcoming brown. Then the light shifts and they gleam with indigo highlights and malicious glee. Another twitch, and they’re a deep, alluring red, treacherous and unhinged. His face is long and fair, graced with a sharp nose and an eternally amused half smile, yet touched by a ghost of pain, even torture. He wears a gloriously dark business suit, its tie patterned in alternating loops of black and gold, a nest of silken snakes.
I remember him. Can’t help but remember. He should be dead. How is he not dead?
This is the man who destroyed my people, who slaughtered our most beloved son. Trickster, liar, murderer, shape-shifter, freak. This is the creature at Finemdi’s heart, the architect of blasphemy and perversion, and my sworn foe? Oh, how the fates must laugh.
I hold out the tray, smiling, and speak to him for the first time in centuries.
“Your lunch, Loki.”
21
FOOL’S ERRAND
FREYA
“Something on your mind?” he asks, leaning back in his chair and nodding at a bare spot on his desk.
I saunter over and place the tray there. Something on my mind? Something on my MIND? Why aren’t you DEAD? How’s THAT for a question, you backstabbing coward?
Gah, this is bad. I need every wit about me, and right now my thoughts are a storm of shock and outrage. How is this possible? How is he alive? Why him and not Freyr? Why not any of my friends? The Valkyrie thrashes and rages in my breast, telling me to kill him, kill him now, don’t wait to listen, to chat, to do the stupid dance you’re going to—
CRAM IT, I think back, forcing that voice down through sheer will, telling her vengeance will come, that I need answers first. “Just wondering the real reason you made me,” I say aloud, trying to pick a question that will get him talking without revealing my deception.
“I could’ve sworn I told you. Ages ago,” he says, eyes bouncing down at my chest, then back up again.
Oh, EW!
“You always have another motive,” I say, desperate to stay a step ahead. “Another plan. You don’t need to go to this kind of trouble for a familiar face.”
“No, I didn’t,” he says, tilting his head. “And yes, I do.” A shrug. “What’s it to you?”
“Can’t a girl be curious?”
“Ah. I’m not the only one with secrets today, am I?” His eyes glitter, flicking from green to blue. “You have a trade in mind?”
Oh, I’m so screwed. This charade’s not going to last. The creature in that chair is a literal god of lies, a living font of plots and twisted machinations. I’m not even an apprentice in this field, and here sits the grandmaster.
How is this EVEN A DEBATE? the Valkyrie screams. Lying tongues matter little after YOU CUT THEM OUT.
“I do happen to have a secret or two saved. For a rainy day,” I say, pleading with her to shut up.
“Really?” he says, suddenly eager. “I feel a drop.”
“I asked first.”
He laughs, eyes alight. I glance at the raven as he does. The bird’s gone deathly quiet, examining me with unnerving directness. “I’m not used to giving things away for free,” he says at last.
I put my hands on his desk and lean toward him. Judging by the way he’s been staring and the lust that drips from his mind, I think I have the proper—and appalling—idea about the nature of “our” relationship. “Did you think I’m any different?” I say in a fierce, knowing tone.
His eyes flicker rapidly as he stares at me. Then he scoffs. “Oh, that’s enough,” he says, chuckling. “Please, don’t take offense—you’re honestly not bad. Time was, I would have indulged you further, but at some point you’re going to
embarrass yourself, and who wants that?”
Crap. “Excuse me?” I say, hoping I’ve misheard.
“You’re not her.” He draws a curvy silhouette in the air with two fingers. “Freya. Full points for getting in here, though. What are you after?”
He points at the display cases. “Trinkets? Take two—they’re small!” He spins his chair and strikes an imperious pose. “Or is it me? Are you a hilariously deluded assassin? Haven’t had one of those in ages.”
Ugh. That fell apart even faster than I feared. I sigh, pushing away from his desk and flopping into one of the chairs in front of it. “What’s it matter?” I say. “Game’s over.”
“Game’s just beginning,” he says. “Who sent you? I just love the idea there’s someone left to challenge.”
“Don’t you care who I am?”
He waves a hand. “Only if you don’t play. Then you tell me after all kinds of horribly tedious unpleasantness. So play. Who are you here for? Why?”
He’ll see through any lie I tell, I think, feeling hopeless. I’m about to say, “Me,” and bring it all crashing down. The word’s on my lips when I realize there’s one more option: the truth, again.
“Ares,” I say, throwing the name before me like a shield.
His smile widens. “Fascinating. And Freya?”
“I have a personal interest in her.”
“So close to wanting to ask who you are,” he says, grinning with far too many teeth. There’s an odd tic to his mouth, and for a moment he wears the curving fangs of a wolf. They’re gone in a flash, a ghost of animal hunger. “But no, I have a better idea. You and I are taking a little trip.”
“What? Where?”
“You came for Ares, didn’t you? Well, I happen to know precisely where he is. So come. We’ll meet him, have a nice chat, and discover what your future holds.”
No, no, no, I think, feeling my stomach seize. This is not how I wanted a face-to-face with my old enemy. I can’t just tell Loki that, though, so how on earth do I get out of this without dropping my true identity or walking into a deeply dangerous reunion?
“Just like that?” I ask, mind racing and heart hammering. “How do you know I don’t have some evil plan to kill him or something?”
That gets me a high-pitched titter, and something in his neck seems to vibrate. “Maybe you do. But how else can this end? Locking you away? Letting you go? How dreary. You have business with Ares, that much is clear, and I’d prefer not to draw it out—I’m a very busy man, you know.”
“Don’t let me keep you,” I say, holding up my hands. “Wanna pencil me in for next week? How’s your Thursday looking?”
“Packed, m’fraid,” he deadpans, drumming his fingers on the desk. “Got an opening around right the hell now, though.”
He pauses, waiting to see how I’ll react, and I stay quiet, trying not to let him know how frightened I am.
“Terrible things happen if you don’t accept,” he adds after a moment. One of his eyes elongates, its pupil turning reptilian, and I have to work to repress a shudder.
“Do any nice things happen if I do?”
“Sure, why not? I’ll … uh…” He looks around, seeming to care little for the terms. “Give you something from here. And tell you why I made that Freya.”
“Surprisingly reasonable,” I say. “I, uh, accept.” Not that I had a choice. At least I’ll get something out of this, and buy myself a few more minutes to think of a plan.
“Shocking,” he says. “Treasure first? Or secrets?”
“Why her?” I ask.
“Secrets, then,” he says, suddenly grinning with the jumbled jaw of an anglerfish. He nods at the office around me. “What do you see?”
I look around, trying to understand what he’s getting at.
“Big office? Trophies?” he suggests, teeth shivering.
“Victory, I suppose.”
That gets me a little frown. “Meaningless. Oh, I understand it might not seem it to you—you’re quite naive, after all—but wait a few centuries, and even a seat of power such as this can become a hollow place.”
“I don’t know,” I say, nodding at the cage. “You have your little friend.”
He snorts. “Muninn is hardly a gracious companion.”
The bird huffs.
“So you were lonely?” I say. “That’s it? How disappointing.”
The frown returns, deepening. “I cannot deny my lack of peers, but it’s hard to feel neglected when none are your equal. ‘Lonely’? Please. That is assumed. No, my poison is simpler: boredom.”
“So she’s just…?”
“Novel. An experiment. I mean, I’ve won, haven’t I? Finemdi culls the gods, and with trickery as the centerpiece of my mantle, the lie at its heart ensures I grow in strength for every moment of its existence. The only beings who might guess the truth are convinced I’m dead, and the greatest among them think they’re dead, too.”
He gets out of his chair and begins walking toward a large section of the display cases, and I realize the same veil that screened him from my mind has lifted there, as well. My jaw drops as I realize what was hidden: Thor’s hammer and belt, Odin’s spear, Sigurd’s sword, Fenrir’s chain. Bottomless drinking horns, a kettle shimmering with the mead of poetry, my—oh, oh—my cloak of feathers, my necklace—
“Brísingamen,” I whisper, throat rough with desire. Mine, a greedy voice inside me hisses, drowning out my rage with the strength of her longing.
“Took some doing, of course,” Loki says, running a hand over a case containing an assortment of magical rings. “But considering how often the Fates used Thor and the rest to upend my designs, well, let’s call my little mock Ragnarök an investment in privacy.”
He flicks the glass of the display case. “Want to know how I knew you weren’t her?”
“I’m just dying to,” I say, trying to hide my awe with sarcasm. I can’t stop staring at my necklace, following its priceless lines as my mind whirls. If what he says is true … it’s all a lie? My brother, Freyr, lives? Odin, Thor? If the Twilight of the Gods never happened, if it’s all smoke and mirrors and we were forced to believe …
But HOW? And where are they?
“There’s no need to be snide,” he says, looking at his collection. He walks over and points at my necklace. “She looks at this every time she walks in. Don’t think she even realizes. Can’t help herself.” He turns back to me. “You didn’t. First time that’s ever happened.”
I scowl. Such a simple thing. Not that I knew my treasure was here, of course.
“I’ll admit I was curious about more than companionship,” he says, then tilts his head and looks at me with the golden eyes of a lion. “I’m curious about so many things.”
“Get used to it,” I say, determined to keep as much from him as possible.
He smiles, teeth quivering into serrated wedges for a heartbeat, giving him the mouth of a shark. “I’ve tried not to edit myself too heavily,” he says. “I’ve seen gods fall apart under the weight of conflicting beliefs. Faking Ragnarök was enough—meddling further would have tempted fate—so I left well enough alone.”
There’s a pause as he watches me again, and then he leers. “Including the desires,” he adds.
I return what I hope is an indulgent smile. It’s tremendously difficult, considering all I want is to smash his head against my necklace’s display case and clasp it around my neck as I grind his skull to powder.
“The legends never made a pairing of Loki and Freya,” he continues, sauntering back toward me. “But they did say she was the most beautiful of us all. However distasteful I find it, I am a part of those myths, of that pantheon, and the belief that she is the loveliest woman in the world is, by definition, a part of me.”
He shrugs. “I had to see if it was true.”
“And you could never risk using the real Freya, ’cause besides the fact she’d sooner spike your head on a flagpole than show you affection…”
“Yes,
yes,” he says, giving an irritated wave. “She’d know I was alive. Might start looking for the lost ones, might manage to break the spell.”
Well. This explains why Lugh never saw another Norse god: Finemdi’s actively avoiding us. Loki would have done everything in his power to avoid bringing a single member of the Æsir into the fold on the off chance they’d manage a peek behind the curtain. It’s almost hilarious. Thousands of years of playing the villain, and now the ultimate thorn in our side can’t mess with his favorite marks if he wants to maintain the masquerade.
Delicious irony aside, this ranks among the best news I’ve heard in my long life, because aside from imperiled ol’ me, the rest of my kin remain beyond Finemdi’s grasp. They’re all out there somewhere, even the lost ones, the ones I thought Ragnarök had claimed. I feel something trill in my heart at the thought, at the sudden realization of what this really means: My pantheon is not dead. For centuries, I’ve fought for myself, lived with the expectation that I was the last of a shattered faith … and I’m not.
Death does not separate us, only magic—and that happens to be my area of expertise.
Despite the heart-stopping danger, I’m abruptly elated to have come to this snake’s lair. I can do more than restore myself to glory now; I can restore everything, rip my peers from the history books and splash them across the stars once more, set the Norse atop the world and reclaim our rightful place as the greatest gods to walk the earth.
All because Loki let slip a secret to the one goddess he really shouldn’t have.
“Then, despite your best efforts, she shows up after all,” I say, filling in the blanks and trying to keep a smile off my face.
“It was a surprise to see her at Impulse,” he says, giving no sign he’s noticed my delight. “But ultimately a pleasant one. Running into her was the spark.”
“Running—?” I repeat, confused. When did I ever see him before?
“Then she vanished with the rest of the station and, well…”
“The idea remained,” I finish for him. “And a rather enticing profile.”
“Couldn’t resist,” he says with a bounce of his eyebrows, drawing close and placing his hands on my hips.
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