Crap. I suppose some supernatural Cesar Millan training techniques were too much to hope for. “Pretty much, yeah.”
Hel closed her ember eye and gazed at me with the lambent one. “The world tree’s roots are deep and vast. I shall remain here, pouring all the strength that is in me into them. For so long as this second Yggdrasil stands and the Norns may nourish its roots from the sacred spring, Niflheim endures. I endure.”
I nodded. “So we defend Yggdrasil at all costs.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “My lady, you should know that I plan to approach the, um, Greek Persephone under a flag of truce tomorrow, and beg her one last time to call this off.”
Oops.
Hel’s left eye opened, glaring with hellfire and fury. “You mean to beg?” Yep, there were those trembling rafters. “Beg? In my name?”
My knees were knocking, but I held my chin high, an answering anger stirring in me. “Yes, my lady. I do. But not in your name. You named me your liaison, and as such, I represent not just you but the entire community of your demesne, eldritch and mundane alike.” I gestured overhead. “You’re talking about my friends, my family. If we fail on the morrow—” God, again with the archaic language. “If we lose tomorrow,” I said doggedly, “it doesn’t just mean the demise of Little Niflheim. It means the destruction of my entire community. It means the loss of one of the few remaining places in the world where magic exists with space to roam free and wild, not dying a slow death in crowded cities. So, yes, I’m willing to beg on behalf of my people. All my people.” I took another breath and exhaled, turning my hands palm outward. “What else do I have to offer other than my pride?”
Hel kept glaring.
Mikill approached the throne and murmured into Hel’s ear. She closed her eyes and listened.
Mikill stepped back.
“Forgive me.” Hel opened her lustrous right eye. “Betimes it takes the tender heart of a mortal to remind us of our duties.” She bent her gaze on me. “I cannot bow my head to the Greek Persephone and beg for mercy. That is not the way of gods and goddesses. But I give you my leave to do so on behalf of your community.”
I stifled a sigh of relief. “Thank you, my lady.”
“Is there aught else?” Hel inquired.
I shook my head. “No, my lady.”
The Norse goddess of the dead beckoned. “Then kneel before my throne one last time, Daisy Johanssen, and receive my blessing.” As I knelt before the throne, Hel rose and laid both hands upon my head: the fair white hand and the withered black claw. She spoke words that tolled through the depths of Little Niflheim in a language I didn’t recognize, and I felt the power of her blessing settle into my bones, as deep and strong as the roots of the world tree, and as cold and crystalline as the waters of the sacred spring that nourished them.
With that, I was dismissed.
Mikill drove me back through the transparent ranks of the watching dead. Thinking about what had transpired, I asked him to slow down and stop for a moment as we approached the Norns, engaged in the endless chore of drawing buckets from the spring and watering Yggdrasil II’s roots. They paused in their labor, but none of them spoke.
“Um, hi,” I said awkwardly to the youngest Norn, the one who’d laid the soothsaying on me in the first place. “I just wondered . . . that thing Hel just said about the tender heart of a mortal . . . that wasn’t what you meant when you told me to trust my heart, was it?”
After a moment’s hesitation, the Norn who looked like a maiden gave her head an infinitesimal shake. The Norn who looked to be about my mom’s age laid a hand over her heart, and the oldest Norn, the Norn who looked like a kindly grandma, pressed one silver-taloned finger to her lips.
All three of their misty, colorless eyes—well, all three Norns, all six eyes, you get the idea—began to shine with a bright white light, like those freaky angel schoolboys in “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which happens to be one of my mom’s favorite music videos from her tween years.
“The Norns can reveal no more, Daisy Johanssen,” Mikill said quietly. “Not without breaking the skein of time.”
I waited until we emerged under the starlit sky to ask him a question. “So . . . what happens if the skein of time is broken?”
“The entirety of existence would unravel,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“The entirety of existence?” I echoed.
Mikill gave me a brief glance. “Yes.”
“So what happens to the Norns if Yggdrasil falls?” I asked. “And what happens to the skein of time if the Norns pass?”
“It is as I have said. If Yggdrasil falls, it is the end for all of us.” Mikill gunned the dune buggy up the steep slope of the bowl. “I believe it is unlikely that the passing of the Norns would break the skein of time,” he shouted above the roar of the engine. “Even they are but one thread in it.” As we hurtled over the crest, he downshifted and lowered his voice. “Although I may be mistaken,” he added thoughtfully. “It is a deeply entangled thread.”
Wolves swarmed out of the darkness, their eyes reflecting green in the dune buggy’s headlights. Seeing it was us, they backed away. I stared at Mikill. “You believe it’s unlikely? You may be mistaken?”
“Only the Norns know for a surety, Daisy Johanssen.” Mikill put the buggy in park, letting the engine idle. “And they cannot say without—”
“Without breaking the skein of time,” I finished for him. “I get it.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “No offense, but this would have been useful information to have earlier, Mikill.”
“I did not realize you lacked it,” the frost giant said simply. “Nonetheless, you possess it now.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I do.”
Mikill held out one massive pale-blue hand, gazing at me with his slush-colored eyes. “I wish you good fortune on the morrow.”
I clasped his ice-cold hand. “And you.”
Fifty-two
It was quiet at the campsite.
There was no sign of the various trolls, ogres, and bogles. Stefan and Cooper were sitting and talking beside the campfire, which had burned low, but the rest of the Outcast had bunked down for the night. All of the Fairfax werewolves except Cody scattered after my return and headed for whatever dens they’d made for themselves, having relegated their camping equipment to the Outcast.
With wolf-Cody trotting at my side, I joined Stefan and Cooper.
“Do we have a strategy?” Stefan glanced up at me.
“Sort of.” Mrs. Browne’s teakettle was still whistling softly on the spit above the embers. I unhooked it and poured myself a mug of tea, then sat huddled on one of the surprisingly comfortable benches Mrs. Browne had fashioned out of deadfalls. “We need to protect Yggdrasil at all costs.”
“And the hellhound?”
“Will attack friend and foe alike,” I confirmed. “If Garm falls, four frost giants will take his place. The dwarves have laid traps beneath the sands. Oh, and there’s a slight possibility that if we fail and the Norns perish, it will break the skein of time, and the entirety of existence will unravel.” I blew on my hot tea. “I don’t suppose either of you were aware of that particular fact?”
Stefan’s incredulous stare probably looked a lot like mine had. With his nihilistic streak, Cooper looked less shocked, but apprehensive. The unraveling of existence sounded a lot like the eternal void of nonexistence.
Cody . . . Cody’s ears were pricked forward attentively, but I couldn’t tell what was going through his wolfy head or how much he understood.
“No,” Stefan murmured at length. “I was not aware.”
Cooper gave a humorless laugh. “It’s funny, innit?” he said. “This war . . . when you asked us to fight it, big man, I thought, why not? We all did. Loyalty’s important to our kind, and win or lose, the Outcast would survive.”
“According to Mikill, the broken-skein-of-time scenario is considered unlikely.” I sipped my tea, eye
ing Cody. “Would you care to shift and join the conversation?”
Cody laid down in the sand and rested his long muzzle across one foreleg. Apparently not.
I couldn’t blame him. Right now, I’d rather be a wolf, too.
“This changes the stakes,” Stefan mused. “Forgive me, Daisy. I was wrong to attempt to dissuade you from approaching Persephone.”
I took another sip of tea. “She’s a little nuts, Stefan. Do you think it will make a damn bit of difference to her?”
“I think we’d best pray it does.” Cooper got to his feet abruptly. “And fight like blazes if it doesn’t. All right, then. Since there’s nothing else for it, I’m off for my bedroll.” Following his lead, Cody rose smoothly and loped into the dark woods. I gazed after him, wondering what that was all about. Maybe it was easier for Cody-the-wolf than Cody-the-human to see Stefan and me together.
“Do you think Cody understood what we were talking about?” I asked Stefan.
He shook his head. “I cannot say, but we will speak on the morrow.”
I moved over to sit beside him. “How likely do you think unlikely is?”
Stefan put his arm around me, and I nestled against his side. “I do not know the answer to that, either, Daisy.”
We sat like that for a while, watching the shifting play of light and shadow in the dying embers.
Stefan pressed a kiss against my temple. “I would like to hold you in my arms tonight, Daisy, but I do not think it wise.”
Neither did I, for a number of reasons. “I know.”
“There will be other nights, Hel’s liaison,” Stefan said with a firm surety I wished I felt.
Leaning over, I kissed him. “There had better be.”
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sleep that night with my mind reeling as it was, but as soon as I crawled into my old sleeping bag, nestled in a cozy woven shelter that Mrs. Browne had made for me, I was out like a light.
I had the nightmare, though.
Once again, I broke the world.
This time the familiar nightmare was mixed with images of the universe unraveling like a tapestry and laced with snippets of conversation echoing through my unconscious mind. I awoke to overcast skies, the smell of bacon frying, unexpected visitors, and the sense that I’d forgotten something important.
The bacon—bacon and eggs, actually—was courtesy of Mrs. Browne, who was hunkered by the campfire, a long-handled cast-iron skillet in one hand and a spatula in the other. Household brownies were one of the few fey who didn’t abhor the touch of iron.
“Good morning, dearie!” she greeted me cheerfully, sliding a pair of perfectly cooked sunny-side-up eggs onto a tin plate, deftly snatching a few pieces of bacon from the skillet to accompany the eggs. “Eat hearty, child. ’Tis a big day today. No utensils, I fear, but there’s trenchers of bread over yonder,” she added.
Skrrzzzt ambled over with an empty plate and a hopeful look in his magma-glowing eyes. “Any chance of seconds, Mrs. B?”
Mrs. Browne whacked his hand with her spatula. “Leave the rest for the mortals, greedy-guts!”
Glancing around the campsite, I saw a dozen members of the Fairfax clan, now in human form, attacking plates of bacon and eggs with hunks of crusty bread. “Where did all this food come from?”
Mrs. Browne patted the picnic basket beside her. “Why, I brought it, dearie.” She gave me an indulgent look. “Some things are bigger on the inside, you know.”
I smiled at her. “So I’ve heard.”
At that moment, we heard an uninvited vehicle approaching from behind our campsite. I wouldn’t have thought a stretch Hummer limousine was actually capable of off-road travel, but damned if that wasn’t what was making its way through the woods and across the dunes toward us.
For a few heart-stopping seconds, I thought it must be an ambush. Since the law was one of the tools Persephone had used against us, we’d assumed she would abide by it and that her attack on Hel’s demesne would take place on property that was now legally hers. But no, it was too slow and clumsy an approach for an ambush, and the Outcast and the Fairfaxes had the Hummer surrounded in an instant. Stefan yanked the driver’s door open, and the driver came out with her hands up.
“Oh, for goodness sake!” Lurine emerged from the rear of the giant limo. “We come in peace, sweetie.”
Not just Lurine, but my mom, Jen, Lee, Sinclair, Stacey, Casimir . . . crap, the whole coven, my entire Scooby Gang, and a few other people, too.
“No,” I said without thinking. “Oh, no, no, no!”
“Look, I know what you’re thinking, Miss Daisy.” Casimir came toward me, hands spread wide in a placating gesture. “But we might be able to help. With the whole coven here, we can cast a protection spell over the basin.”
“Against a goddess?” I shouted at him. “Are you out of your mind?” I gestured toward my mom, Jen, and the others. “And what the hell are they doing here?”
“No one expects the protection spell to hold, Daisy,” Mom said quietly. “We’re here to bear witness.”
“To bear—” It was what Mikill had said of the dead. I stared at my mother, at a loss for words.
“They’re here under my protection, Daisy,” Lurine announced. “I promise to keep them safe.”
I transferred my stare to her. “Aren’t you under the threat of a curse worse than death? And how are you going to keep them safe if Persephone brings a goddamn private militia?”
“I’m not intervening in the battle, cupcake,” Lurine said. “But Persephone can’t deny me the right to defend my friends.”
“We’ll retreat if we have to.” It was Dawn Evans who spoke—Dawn Evans, who I realized had been driving the behemoth. She lifted her chin as I shifted my stare to her. “Ah told you ah drive a mean Humvee.”
I shook my head in dismay. “I don’t understand. Why?”
Dawn exchanged a glance with her husband, Scott, who had a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. “What your mom said about bearing witness? She’s right,” he said simply. “And at least there’s two of us here know what we’re doing when it comes to a war zone.” Lurine gave him a significant look and he flushed. “Or, um, three, I guess.”
“Daisy, I have a feeling it’s important,” Sinclair said soberly to me. “I don’t know how or why, but you need us here.”
I turned around and walked away. My co-commanders Stefan and Cody—the latter back in human form—fell in beside me.
“It’s your call, Daise,” Cody said. “But if it were up to me, I’d send them away.”
“I heard that!” Stacey shouted behind us. “You can’t send us away. This is my family’s property!”
Ignoring her, I walked farther down the path to the basin until I could see Yggdrasil II’s immense trunk looming through the trees. El Arbol, the Tree.
“Do you think the young sorcerer may be right?” Stefan asked me in a quiet voice. “That their presence serves a purpose?”
I gazed at Yggdrasil II. “I don’t know. But down in Little Niflheim, the dead have gathered to bear witness. Maybe it’s fitting that the living should bear witness above. Especially if . . .” I glanced at Cody. “Did you catch that whole possible-unraveling-of-existence bit last night?”
“Yeah.” He blew out his breath. “We understand things differently as wolves, but I understood it, all right.”
I came to a decision and returned to the campsite to address my friends and family. “There’s something you should know—” I began.
A snowdrop fairy burst into our midst, hovering on quivering wings, her head crowned with delicate, drooping white petals. “The invading goddess approaches!” she shrilled, pointing toward the north, just as we’d expected. “Half a league yonder! Her forces come in haste bearing cold iron!” The fairy shuddered with profound distaste. “Many vehicles and many men!”
Shit.
Cody and his relatives were already stripping in preparation to shift and take to the wooded dunes where they had their
weapons cached. Belatedly, I hoped they’d remembered to cache spare clothes, too.
“Daisy!” Cooper called to me, straddling his dirt bike. “If you’re going to get into position to meet Persephone, we’ve got to move now!”
“Never mind,” I said to everyone. “I don’t have time to explain. Stefan will do it if he can. Just know . . .” My voice caught in my throat. “Just know I love you all a lot, okay?” In that moment, I didn’t even care that I’d included Stacey Brooks in my declaration.
“Daisy—” Mom began.
I shook my head at her. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.”
Stopping briefly at the cozy nest Mrs. Browne had made me, I snatched the pillowcase I’d brought from home and shoved it in the pocket of my black leather jacket, then climbed onto the back of Cooper’s bike.
We roared around the rim of the massive basin, fishtailing in the loose sand. It would have been a spectacular view if I hadn’t been in a state of near shock. The lean forms of wolves streamed ahead of us, vanishing into the trees.
I was on my way to beg a demented Greek goddess for mercy, try to avert a war, and possibly the end of the entirety of existence.
And I was scared out of my fucking wits.
Fifty-three
Cooper dropped me off on the far side of the rim. In the vastness of that space, he and his bike looked small as he made his way back to camp. Across the basin, our forces looked insubstantial as they spread out along the crest. Even the hellhound Garm didn’t look that big from this vantage point.
Hell, everything looked small in the shadow of Yggdrasil II, standing as tall as a skyscraper. It seemed impossible that anything could possibly threaten it with serious harm.
Then again, a lot of people had felt that way about the World Trade Center. I shivered in the dank March chill, feeling very small and very alone.
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