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Chapter Text

Magnus

The new year was only half an hour old and I already hated it. Leaning against the railing of the Chase Space’s roof deck, I watched the fireworks leave colorful sparks on the night sky and tried not to scowl. It felt like they were taunting me, reminding me that yet another year had gone by in which I had failed to accomplish what I had set out to do. 

At least that meant I already had a New Year’s resolution: the same one as last year. And the year before that. With a record like that it truly was a blessing that I was undead.  Technically, I had all the time in the world.  

That didn’t change the fact that it made me feel like a giant loser. 

"Magnus!" 

I turned my back on the fireworks and welcomed the distraction that came in the form of two grinning teenagers — a boy and a girl, two of the newer residents of the Chase mansion. I had forgotten their names if I was being honest. 

“Hey, what’s up?” I tried to smile. All the kids had been looking forward to our little New Year’s rooftop party. I was not going to ruin it for them with my bad mood. 

“Can we get some more chips?” the girl asked, holding out an empty bowl to me. 

I took it from her. “Sure, I think we still have some left in the kitchen.” 

On any other day I would have told them to get the chips themselves, but right now I was more than happy to put several floors between me and the treacherous fireworks. 

I made my way across the rooftop to the stairs, meandering through groups of kids staring at the sky. I passed Hearth, who was adding wood to the fire bowl in the centre of the deck ("Ha, Hearth tending the hearth!" I almost heard Jack say, even though my sword was currently an unanimated runestone), and Blitz trying to figure out how to activate the flash on the old-fashioned camera my uncle Randolph had left us in the house. Neither of them noticed me before I climbed down the narrow staircase that led into our library. Inside, music blared from a loudspeaker. We had pushed the bookcases to the walls for today to make more room, which some of the younger kids, apparently already bored with the fireworks, were now using to play an very elaborate game of charades. 

The rest of the house was uncharacteristically quiet. I hurried down two more flights of stairs to get to the ground floor kitchen. When I got there, I realized that one person had been missing on the roof: Alex Fierro, who was standing at the kitchen counter, which was piled high with tonight's assortment of snacks. Her short emerald-green curls glistened in the fluorescent light with every movement as she did exactly what I had planned to do: refilling a bowl of chips. 

I hadn’t seen her since before the clock had struck midnight, and that was part of why my mood wasn't all that great. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to explore that sentiment right now, so I debated just forgetting about the snacks and sneaking back upstairs, but before I could get my feet to move, Alex turned and spotted me standing frozen in the kitchen doorway.  

She flinched and dropped the bowl with the chips. “Gods, Mags! Can’t you say something when you sneak up on me like that?” 

“Oh, uh, sorry,” I managed to say, immediately annoyed at how flustered I sounded. Sometimes, my brain just decided to short-circuit when Alex was around and I hated it. It was stupid — I saw Alex all day, every day, and I had for almost three years now. Her presence shouldn’t have that effect on me anymore. 

 “What did you want?” she asked and started rummaging through one of the kitchen cabinets. A few years ago I might have interpreted her tone as rude, but now I knew that this was just Alex being Alex: always straight to the point.

“Someone asked for more chips.” 

Alex pulled out a dustpan and brush and used them to point at the chips on the floor. “Well, we can’t eat those anymore.” 

Looking at her, I had to admit that the hour she had taken to get ready this afternoon, before we had left Hotel Valhalla to come here, had paid off. The intricate design of swirling white eyeliner around her heterochromatic eyes and the holographic eye shadow were mesmerizing.

“No,” I agreed and tore my eyes away from her face. It felt weird to linger in the doorway while Alex swept the floor, so I walked over to her. “Let me clean that up.” 

She handed me the dustpan like she had been waiting for me to say that — which was fair, I guess. It was my fault she had dropped the bowl. 

While I swept up the mess, she leaned against the counter and crossed her arms over her fuzzy neon pink sweater. “So, who asked for chips?” she checked, hints of a teasing grin tugging at the corners of her mouth.  

I sighed. Alex knew that I wasn’t good at remembering names and she tried to test me every chance she got. 

I gave her an annoyed look. “The new kids. The boy and the girl who always hang out together.” 

“That’s Nina and Corin. And they’ve been here for almost two weeks,” Alex enlightened me, but smiled softly while doing so, which made me feel better about not knowing the answer. 

“Right,” I said and threw the contents of the dustpan into the garbage. 

“And I thought einherji brains were supposed to be enhanced,” she teased, but that was something that I could do too. 

I grinned. “Well, we’re also supposed to be extremely agile and you just dropped a whole bunch of snacks on the floor so…” 

“Touché” She grinned back before returning to a more serious tone. “You really need to get better at learning names, though.” 

I sighed. She was right, of course. “I know. Sorry.” 

I really was sorry. But there were so many kids coming and going at the Chase Space — more people than I'd known in my entire life —  I just didn’t have the mental capacity to remember everyone's name. 

“It’s okay. I know you’re trying.” Alex pushed herself up to sit on the counter and grabbed a box of chocolate chip cookies from the pile of snacks — as a substitute for the chips, I assumed.

“Cookie?” she asked, grabbed one for herself and handed the package to me.

I leaned against the counter next to her. “Sure.” The snacks for the kids could wait for a few minutes…

I took a bite from a cookie. It was too sweet for my taste but I knew that Alex would love it. 

“How do you remember all the names?” I asked after a few seconds of silence, genuinely curious. There were about forty kids staying at the Chase Space right now. More than half of them had only arrived in the last week, during the holidays, fleeing from terrible families and the freezing cold. Alex knew every single name. 

She shrugged with a nonchalant grin. “Guess I’m just smart.” 

“I’m serious.” 

Her smile softened. “Names are important. I’m hoping that knowing each and every one of them will make even just one person feel more welcomed here… So I’m making an effort.” 

“Okay, now I feel like a bad person.” 

“Good,” Alex replied, but her tone told me that she only half meant it. She nudged me with her elbow. “But hey, it’s a new year. Perfect time to work on yourself. Your New Year's resolution: learn more names.” 

I didn’t respond to that. Because how could I tell Alex that my plate was more than full with the resolution I had already made and that this resolution involved her? Actually, the fact that I didn’t know how to tell her was part of why I was so bad at sticking to my resolutions. 

“You're really good at this, do you know that?” I asked instead. 

“At what? Telling other people how to better themselves?” 

I rolled my eyes, but the playful twinkle in Alex different-colored eyes made my heart jump a little. “No, you’re good with the kids,” I said and meant it.

I was never sure if the Chase Space residents liked me or thought I was lame. When I was younger, I had always felt uncool around other teenagers, and unfortunately that hadn't changed now that I was technically older — which may have been a result of the fact that I didn't look any older. But neither did Alex and it was undeniable that almost everyone here looked up to her as if she was the epitome of coolness. And I couldn't even argue against that.

“You always know what to say and what to do. That’s not easy.” 

If I wasn’t mistaken, she blushed a little at the compliment. “Believe me, half the time I don’t know what I’m doing either… But thanks.”

For a few seconds, silence filled the kitchen. Alex chewed thoughtfully on another cookie, and I wondered for the millionth time what would happen if I just brought up the one problem that had been bothering me for the last three years right now. 

Before I could decide on an answer to that, Alex spoke again. “Are you alright?” she asked, a seriousness in her voice that hadn’t been there before, as if she had also used the silence to consider what would happen if she just asked the question that was burning on her tongue. “All night long you’ve seemed a little… moody.” 

Apparently, I wasn’t as good at hiding my emotions as I had hoped. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said automatically, but Alex wasn't buying it. She raised an eyebrow at me and I immediately gave in. “It’s just— New Years Eve always gets me down,” I explained, hoping to stay vague without lying. Sometimes I felt like Alex could see right through me anyway.  “It always reminds me of everything I wanted to do in the past year but didn’t.” 

To my relief, that explanation was good enough for Alex. She nodded knowingly. “You mean finding Bragi.” 

“Uh, yeah,” I replied, perhaps a little too hastily.  “Yeah. Exactly.” 

That was not what I meant at all. Three years ago, I had accidentally promised Jack, my sword, that I would find the god Bragi and convince him to write an epic poem about Jack’s many heroic deeds. Since then, every time someone asked me how my search was going, I had told them I was working on it. In reality, all I had found out about the god so far was that he hadn't been seen in over ten years — and that had discouraged me so much I didn’t actively work on finding out more either. It was one of those things I planned to put off indefinitely. Of course, I couldn’t admit that — not with Jack, in pendant form, hanging around my neck. And not while Alex was trying to inquire about my regrets. 

“You know, if you need help looking for him, just say so,” Alex said, apparently misinterpreting my worried expression as concern about Bragi. “I’ll help.” 

“I know. Thank you.” I tried to reciprocate her encouraging smile, because what else was there to do? I couldn’t just tell her that my real regret was that I still hadn’t managed to talk to her about us. About what we were, relationship-wise. That would just be embarrassing.

Back when we had been on our way to stop Loki from starting the apocalypse, Alex had kissed me for the first time. It had been a life-or-death situation; we had both been convinced we would die in those icy Niflheim winds — so I had tried not to read too much into it. (Meaning I had declared that kiss the best moment of my life less than a day later, in front of all our friends and a whole army of enemies, but we won’t talk about that). It had gotten really complicated, though, when afterwards, when everything had been over, the worlds as safe as they could be, Alex had kissed me again. At the time, she had told me that she hadn’t decided yet what it all meant to her and that she would get back to me. That had been fine with me. I had waited and my feelings for Alex had grown. Every time she kissed me - which didn't happen often, but often enough — I thought we would finally move forward. So far I had been disappointed. But it wasn't as if Alex had ever shown any signs of rejecting me either.  

So now, three years later, I still had not heard anything from her regarding any potential feelings she might have for me. And I wasn’t quite sure if that was because I didn’t manage to ask, or because Alex was actively trying to avoid any question that had to do with us.

Next to me, she pushed herself off the counter. “Wanna head back upstairs?” 

“Sure,” I said absently, but didn’t move, too deep in thought to realize that my answer required me to. 

I had often thought that maybe Alex was testing me. Maybe she was just waiting for me to give in and put my feelings into words. Maybe she was waiting for me to ask. But then again, every time I got even remotely close, Alex would find an excuse to disappear or to change the subject, as if there was nothing more appalling than the thought of me expressing romantic feelings for her. 

“You coming?” Alex had already walked over to the kitchen door. 

“Uh, actually—” I began without even having consciously decided to. A grim curiosity had built up in my stomach. What would Alex do if I asked right now? “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.” 

Alex stopped halfway through the door. She seemed to know immediately what this was about — of course she did, she always did. She stared at me, any trace of a smile wiped from her face. There it was again, for just a millisecond: the same raw panic I had seen flash through her eyes, like the fleeting shadow of a  passing raven, that I had seen every time I had even hinted at wanting to talk about our relationship — or lack thereof. It was a panic that made it seem like Alex had never been more afraid of anything than the words that could come out of my mouth if she let me. And that scared me a lot more than the prospect of being rejected or laughed at. Alex wasn’t afraid of anything — so what was this?  

With the next blink of her eyes, the panic was gone, so suddenly replaced by an expression of ease that I wasn’t even sure if it had ever been there in the first place. A relaxed smile reappeared on her lips. 

“Right. I almost forgot.” She quickly walked across the kitchen, back toward me. Any question I might have wanted to ask disappeared from my mind. All I knew was that Alex was suddenly much closer than before, her face just inches away from mine, our noses nearly touching at almost the same height. She lingered there for a second, giving me the chance to back off, as she always did. And maybe I should have — I wanted to ask important questions, didn’t I?  But how could I possibly want to back off when Alex Fierro’s lips were so close to mine? I was not that strong-willed.

When I didn’t move, she whispered “Happy New Year,” before letting her lips touch mine.

For about five seconds, I was able to enjoy the kiss. 

The kitchen was quiet except for the soft humming of the refrigerator and our intermingled breaths. I buried my hand in Alex’s soft curls and pulled her closer. Alex’s hands touched my burning cheeks, as her lips moved against mine, sending shivers down my spine.

Then the confusion that was churning in my stomach bubbled up through the swarm of very excited butterflies that seemed to live in my gut, and suddenly the bitter reality returned. She had once again evaded my questions, knowing full well that a kiss like this would leave me speechless.

Was that all this kiss was for her? An evasion tactic to avoid — avoid what exactly? Having to tell me that I was delusional for even suggesting something like a romantic relationship between the two of us? 

I didn’t think that Alex hated me or even disliked me — how could I possibly think that when she kissed me like that? If asked, she would probably describe me as a good friend — a good friend she kissed occasionally. But I just didn't seem good enough to be more than that. It would be a blatant lie to say that this fact didn’t weigh on my self-esteem. What could be so wrong with me that Alex would rather kiss me than answer questions about her feelings for me?

I knew I should break the kiss and insist on getting an answer — or the chance to even ask a question — but I liked having Alex so close, liked the feel of her hands in my hair too much to convince my body to act. And deep down, I feared that if I pushed too far, it could all be over forever. As much as I wanted answers, I didn’t want that. 

The decision of whether or not to break the kiss was made for me a few seconds later. 

A knock sounded through the kitchen and we both jumped. Immediately Alex’s lips disappeared from mine. 

I turned, startled, in the direction of the noise. 

Hearth was standing in the doorway, staring at us. He must have knocked on the door frame to get our attention. He was dressed in black as usual, jeans and a button-up, but for the occasion he had chosen a silver glittering scarf that looked as if it had been knitted with tinsel. His pale face showed a mixture of curiosity and awkwardness.

I tried to give him the most annoyed glance I could manage and turned back to Alex, but she wasn’t there anymore — at least not in human form. Where her face had been just seconds before was now a fluttering hummingbird, its feathers the exact color of Alex’s neon pink sweater. 

Before Hearth or I had a chance to react, Alex the hummingbird shot past both of us and fluttered out of the kitchen. 

I couldn’t really blame her. Becoming a bird and flying away sounded very appealing right now. Unfortunately, I was no shapeshifter, so I was left to deal with Hearth and the burning sensation that the kiss and Alex’s sudden exit left in my stomach. 

“How long have you been standing there?” I signed when I finally managed to look at Hearth after a few seconds of awkward silence. My face was glowing.

The corners of his mouth lifted in a slight smile — Hearth’s equivalent of a broad grin. “Long enough,” he answered.  

I wished Alex had stayed, if only to tell him to stop looking so smug, because my way of dealing with it was to try to act casual — and fail miserably. 

“What did you want?” I started for the door but Hearth positioned himself in the door frame in a way that signalled that he wasn’t going to let me go that easily. 

“Doesn’t matter anymore,” he replied. “What was that ?” He nodded vaguely toward the kitchen counter where Alex and I had been standing earlier. 

What kind of a question was that? “A kiss,” I signed, trying to keep a blunt expression on my face. If only my cheeks would stop burning.  

Hearth rolled his eyes. “I saw that. Does that mean this is finally happening? ”

“What do you mean?” 

“You and Alex.”  

I avoided his gaze. “We’re not together if that’s what you mean. ” 

 Hearth raised an eyebrow at me. “You just kiss?”

“Is that not allowed?” I forced myself to meet his eyes and regretted it. It felt like his unnaturally blue eyes were staring right into my soul. Elves couldn’t do that, could they?

“It is. If you’re both sure it’s what you want.”

Perhaps Hearth just knew me too well. 

I raised my hands again to sign some kind of response, but stopped myself. Because… what was I supposed to say? 

When it came to Alex, I wasn't sure of anything at all. 

Chapter Text

Alex

Boston was gray and cold, as it had been for what felt like years, and I missed the sun. This winter, it was hiding especially often behind an impenetrable curtain of gray clouds that I wished I could wipe off the sky - then the sun could help me get rid of the insane amounts of snow that had piled up in the front yard of the Chase Space. Unfortunately, the clouds did not move, no matter how hard I stared at them with all the resentment I harbored for them - so it was me against the ten inches of snow that the first night of the new year had brought. 

I was about to plunge the shovel back into the white mass when a snowball hit me in the back of the head. 

“Hey!” I spun around. Nina and Corin, two of the newer kids at the shelter, had volunteered to help with the snow, but apparently a snowball fight was more entertaining than actually working. I couldn't blame them, but I didn't want to participate in anything that would make me even colder.

“Sorry, Alex!” At least, Corin had the decency to apologize, Nina just giggled. 

“I thought you wanted to help…” I muttered. I didn’t want to be a killjoy, but I was freezing and wanted to get back inside as soon as possible. Besides, Magnus and I should probably try to get back to Valhalla in time for the daily battle - but I couldn’t tell Nina and Corin that. Either way, I could use a few helping hands. 

“It’s not like you’re doing much either,” Nina argued, crossing her arms. “You just stare at the sky like you want to kill it.” 

She had a point, but I didn’t tell her that. 

“And we are helping!” Corin pointed to the three feet of walkway that they had cleared of snow before losing interest.  

I sighed. “Okay, sure- don’t you at least want to put on a jacket if you’re gonna have a snowball fight?” I added, noticing that he was only wearing a short sleeved t-shirt. 

He frowned at me, as if I had just suggested wearing winter gear to the beach. “I’m not cold.” 

I just shook my head. That was one of the problems with being eternally sixteen: actual, living sixteen-year-olds didn’t care to listen to me, no matter how many times I told them I was older than I looked. 

Magnus' and my cover story for working at the shelter was that we were young-looking college students who lived in dorms, and honestly, except for the "living" part, it wasn't even that much of a lie. Floor 19 in Valhalla certainly felt like a very chaotic college dorm at times… our curriculum just happened to include killing each other. But that didn't change the fact that we looked like their peers to the teenagers who lived here. 

So I knew from experience that there was no point in arguing, and kept working instead. 

I had to silently remind myself that I liked helping out at the Chase Space - when it wasn’t freezing. What we had done with the old, stuffy mansion was something to be proud of, in my opinion. We had managed to turn it into a place where all kinds of people knew they would be safe and welcomed, no matter who they were. Providing kids in need with something like that, something I would have killed for when I had been homeless, was fulfilling, but I also had an ulterior motive for working here: It meant variety, a break from the entrenched routine of Valhalla - every day was different. Without this, I would be stuck on the same schedule - train, fight, die, resurrect, repeat (hey, they should put that on a t-shirt!) - until the end of the world. That would be the worst afterlife I could imagine. So, really, in the grand scheme of things, it was worth it to freeze to the bone and stand in snow so deep that it trickled down into my boots and soaked my socks. 

After a few minutes, Corin and Nina even picked up their shovels again, because apparently, the snowball fight had already gotten boring. So, there was nothing for me to complain about - until Nina decided that shoveling was boring too and tried to strike up a conversation. 

“So, Alex…” she began, leaning on her shovel. The teasing undertone and her crooked grin immediately told me that I wouldn’t like what she was about to say. 

“What?” I asked anyway, because I was nice. Or curious. Or both. 

“I heard that you and Magnus kissed.” 

The shovel slipped out of my hands. “What!?” My voice sounded high-pitched and panicked, even to my own ears. I swallowed and tried to continue more calmly, but my first reaction had already given Nina everything she had hoped for. She grinned brightly. 

“Who told you that?” I asked, trying to sound as if the idea of Magnus and I kissing was the most ridiculous thing she could have told me about.

“Corin did.” 

Corin, who looked like he was trying to hide behind Nina, peeked around her to defend himself: “I didn’t!”

“You just told me!” 

“I said that I saw Hearth talking to Blitz and the signs I could make out were ‘Alex’ , ‘ Magnus’ and ‘kiss’ .” 

Oh, Hearth, that nosy traitor elf. I should have known that he would gossip. 

“Are you sure you know the sign for ‘kiss’ ?” I tried. Unfortunately, he probably did. Corin had picked up the basics of sign language faster than anyone I knew - but I didn’t want to admit that now. “They must have been talking about something else” 

“It’s this, isn’t it?” He signed the correct sign.  

I didn’t answer, picked up the shovel and tried to focus on the snow while that familiar anxiety that I always felt these days when I was forced to think about my relationship with Magnus settled deep in my chest.

I knew that I shouldn’t have kissed him. I had known from the second my lips had touched his. But I had panicked because there had been this expression on his face, this mixture of fascination and curiosity that had set my alarm bells ringing.  The kiss had been the only way to keep him from starting a conversation that I didn’t want to have with him. Because he wouldn’t like the answers I would have to give him. 

“Is it??” Corin checked again after I hadn’t given him an answer regarding the sign, seemingly genuinely curious. 

It was rude, but I continued to ignore him. 

Of course, Nina still didn’t let it go. “Alex is blushing like crazy right now,” she told Corin, and I became aware of my burning cheeks, which immediately seemed to get hotter. “Do you need more of an answer?”  

Corin mumbled something in response, but I didn’t hear it, too busy trying to get my face to cool down. Hadn't I been freezing just a minute ago?

“So, what?” Nina continued, turning back to me, because she liked to see me suffer. “Does that mean Magnus is, like, your boyfriend?” 

“No, he’s not!” I snapped, louder than I had intended. I didn’t like raising my voice at anyone at the Chase Space, but Nina was really testing my patience. “Now let it go, it’s none of your business, okay?” 

Magnus was many things to me. But he was not my boyfriend. That was a luxury I wouldn’t allow myself. With someone like me it would inevitably end in tragedy, I knew that.

“Okay, calm down…,” Nina said, clearly taken aback by my reaction. “It’s not that serious. Geez.” 

It was that serious, but I couldn’t explain it to two teenagers - or anyone, really.  Who could possibly understand why I could never ever allow Magnus Chase to be anything more to me than a best friend I sometimes, mostly accidentally, kissed?

I tried to continue to work, but the worry kept fluttering in my chest like a trapped hummingbird, reminding me with every flap of its wings against my ribcage that everything was about to change. And it wouldn’t be the good kind of change. 

If others thought the kiss meant something, then Magnus probably thought so, too. And that meant, we were getting closer and closer to the inevitable end of whatever our relationship was, the end that I had been dreading ever since I had started it all with that first of many reckless kisses years ago. 

If he thought our kisses meant anything, I would have to break his heart. And that was the last thing I wanted to do.

I could feel Nina and Corin's curious glances lingering on me. Despite my outburst, I feared they weren't done asking questions. 

Luckily, I was spared by a small, panting voice behind me: "Help!" 

The feeling of luck quickly faded when I turned and saw a child hobbling up the path with one leg covered in blood. 

She wasn’t wearing a coat, despite the cold. Her dark curls looked dry and tangled. The clothes she did wear were covered in grime, torn and bloodstained. 

Living in Valhalla had so desensitized me to blood and gore that it took a few seconds for my brain to realise the gravity of what I saw. A little girl, no older than 10 or 11, should not be bleeding profusely from deep cuts that looked suspiciously like claw marks. 

I heard Corin and Nina gasp behind me as I ran toward the child. The second I reached her, her leg gave out and she collapsed into my arms. 

“Magnus!” I shouted out of reflex, even though I knew he wouldn’t hear me from inside the house. “Nina! Call an ambulance!” 

“NO!” the child in my arms squeaked as soon as she heard the word “ambulance”. Her whole body was shaking from the cold and the pain, still she tried to stand up. “No, I- I have to get inside! Or they will find me again!”

Something in her voice sent a shiver down my spine. “Who will?” 

“The monsters!” 

I didn’t like the way she said “monsters”, her little voice so full of urgency, so I decided that any questions would have to wait. “Okay, we can help you with the wound. Can you stand?” 

She tried to put weight on her leg, but sank back into my arms. Her lower lip began to wobble. “N-no.” She shook her head and started to cry. Frankly, it was a wonder that she had managed to hold it together this long.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” I tried to sound soothing, despite the fact that my heart was racing. I didn’t have enough medical knowledge to know how dangerous these wounds were but they certainly weren’t improving her health. I had to act as quickly as possible. “I’ll carry you, okay?” 

She nodded and I picked her up. With my einherji strength, she barely weighed anything at all, as if she hadn’t had many proper meals lately, like so many kids who came here. I would have bet that she had been on the streets for at least a few weeks.

I tried not to put any pressure on the wound as I ran up to the front door. Corin and Nina stared in shock as I pushed past them.

“Get inside!” I told them and hoped they would listen this time. I didn’t know if those monsters the kid had mentioned were actual monsters - like the dangerous, mythological kind - but I wasn’t going to take any chances. The house, at least, was protected. 

I kicked open the front door with more force than was probably necessary and yelled down the hall again: “Magnus!!” 

If anyone here was a first aid expert, it was him. 

This time he heard me, and the distress in my voice had apparently been obvious enough for him to rush down the stairs at a frightening speed. 

“Alex, what- Oh shit.” He came to a halt at the bottom of the stairs, stumbling a little - “einherji agility”, my ass - when he saw me and the kid. I rushed past him into the living room and placed the crying girl on one of the fancy couches Magnus’ uncle had left in the house. 

“What happened?” Magnus asked after following me without question. 

At the same moment Blitzen came running out of the kitchen, apron still over his designer vest. “Who’s that??” 

“I don’t know, and I don’t know!!” I answered both questions, knelt down next to the couch and shrugged off my coat that now had blood stains on it, which clashed terribly with its bright pink color - priorities Alex!!  “She appeared in the front yard like this!” 

“I’ll go get the first aid kit,” Blitzen muttered a little confused and gently led some kids who had been playing chess in the living room and were now watching curiously out of the room.

Magnus crouched down beside me and took a look at the wound. “That doesn’t look good,” he said, sensitive as he was.

The girl started to cry harder and I gave Magnus an angry look. At least he had the decency to blush. 

“It’s going to be okay,” I said and turned back to the kid. “Can you tell us your name?” 

She swallowed back her tears. “I-Izzy.” 

“Okay, Izzy, I’m Alex and this is Magnus. He knows how to deal with wounds and stuff, so it’s good that you came here.” I smiled at her and she managed to calm down a bit. 

“Here.” Blitz returned with the first aid kit and handed it to Magnus, who took it hesitantly. 

“Alex, don’t you think we should get her to a hospital?”, he murmured. “I don’t think-” 

“No, no, no, no, no!!!” Izzy yelled again, shaking her head vehemently. “I can’t leave, they’ll find me! This house- this house is safe. I can feel it.”

Magnus, Blitz and I exchanged glances. I knew we all had the same thought: If she could feel the rune magic protecting this house from evil, then she probably had some kind of connection to the world of myth.  

“I mean… she’s right about that,” I mumbled after a few seconds of stunned silence. I lowered my voice: “We don’t know what attacked her. And if it’s still looking for her...” 

“Right…” Blitzen muttered and looked at Magnus. “You can fix this, right?” 

Magnus still seemed hesitant. “I mean… yeah, but…” He caught my gaze. “The cuts are really deep.”

I knew, of course, what he was trying to ask me wordlessly. As a child of Frey, Magnus had the ability to heal people just by touching them, and sure, in theory that was an awesome power; I just had my personal issues with it. Whenever he healed someone, he could get accidental glimpses inside their head; could see and experience memories, often very personal ones. He had seen some things in my head this way, that I would have preferred to keep hidden. We had agreed that, aside from the difficulty of explaining the magic of it all, it wouldn’t be exactly ethical to use those powers on the kids here as long as he couldn’t control what he saw in someone’s head. So Magnus had spent the last year practicing normal first aid in addition to his demigod powers - and for most of the injuries that occurred here, it was more than enough. But this was different. These cuts would definitely need stitches, and if Izzy refused to leave the house…-

I hated to admit it, but an exception was probably in order. 

Still, I only nodded hesitantly. “Do your thing,” I said to Magnus but added in ASL: “Don’t look into her head or I’ll kill you in battle later.”

“Okay, chill. I’ll do my best.” 

We had to cut open the leg of her ruined jeans, which made her cry even more - I understood why, those were probably the only pants she owned - but after I promised her to get her a new pair, she managed to calm down. 

Magnus cleaned the wound and bandaged it in the mundane way - mostly to keep up appearance - then he gently laid his hand around the bandage and ‘did his thing’.

Blitz and I tried to distract Izzy a little, so she wouldn’t be too confused by what Magnus was doing, but to be honest, I wasn’t concentrating. Instead, I watched Magnus’ face, as he healed her. Partly because I wanted to catch any hints that he saw something in her head, but also because his face always looked strangely ethereal whenever he healed someone, and it was almost impossible to look away.  

He had his eyes closed, peaceful as if he were asleep, but his eyebrows were deeply furrowed with effort. He had put his hair, which was in dire need for a trim, into a loose ponytail this morning, but a few strands had escaped and were hanging in his face. Only Izzy’s voice made me resist the urge to tuck them behind his ear.

“It tingles,” she said, curiously turning her eyes from Blitzen - who had tried unsuccessfully to distract her by telling her about how he had hand-embroidered his vest  - back to Magnus. “Hey, you’re glowing.”

She didn’t even sound particularly surprised by that fact.

“Ehm….” Magnus didn’t seem to have noticed that he was indeed surrounded by a soft golden aura. The worried tension around his mouth told me that his mind was somewhere else. In fact, he was suddenly very pale and looked like he was about to throw up. Still, he tried to give Izzy a half-hearted explanation: “I’m not. That’s, uh, the sunlight.” 

Not the best excuse, since the gray winter sky barely let any light into the room. I wondered what he had seen in her head that distracted him like that and if I had to kill him for it. But that was a question for later. 

 I caught Blitz’s uncertain glance, and I knew that he had the same thought as me: Izzy seemed to see the things exactly as they were - which was interesting, to say the least. Usually, humans didn’t notice supernatural details like a glowing Magnus. We had learned in the past years that it was sometimes different with children - they were more observant than adults. So it didn’t have to mean that Izzy wasn’t fully human, but… -

I gave Magnus a look that hopefully conveyed something like” you idiot” before turning to Izzy to distract her from Magnus’ glow. There was at least a slight chance that she was somehow connected to our world, but until we knew for sure, we couldn’t explain the fact that Magnus had inherited magic healing and sunshine powers from his godly dad.

 “How are you feeling? Any better?” 

Luckily, she lost interest in Magnus’ glow without any further explanation and instead wiggled her leg a little. “It’s… much better,” she said, her voice still shaky from all the crying, but steadier than before. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.” 

“See, I told you, it’s gonna be fine.” 

I sank back to sit on the floor, relief flooding through me. My hands were shaking. This had definitely been the most nerve-wracking end to a morning of snow-shoveling I could imagine.

Chapter Text

Alex

We remained huddled around the couch for a few more minutes as Magnus suggested that Izzy should continue to lie down since she had lost so much blood.

My head was spinning with worry. I wanted to bombard the kid with questions about "how" and "why" and "what", but she looked so relieved to be able to relax for a few second that I forced myself to wait until later. The others seemed to agree and we stayed mostly quiet until Izzy suddenly sat up and announced: “I’m hungry”. 

Blitz and Magnus helped her, still a bit wobbly on her leg, move to the kitchen. Before I could follow, I spotted Corin and Nina peeking into the living room from behind the half-closed door. 

“Is she okay?” Corin asked meekly when he noticed that I had seen them. The dramatic interruption of our conversation earlier seemed to have shaken them both.

I nodded. “She’s alright. Magnus took care of her. And it wasn’t as bad as it looked.” 

“Do you know… what happened?” Nina nervously twirled a strand of her maroon hair around her finger. “She said she was attacked.” 

“We don’t know yet. But whatever it was, we’re safe here. Don’t worry,” I quickly reassured them and maybe myself as well. I knew that whatever had attacked Izzy wouldn’t get through the protection spell that surrounded the house - but I still made a mental note to ask Hearth to check the rune barrier when he returned from the grocery store. Just in case. 

“Can you two make sure that the others stay out of the kitchen for a while?” I asked. Neither of them looked like my attempt to reassure them was making them feel better, so giving them a task was probably the best way to distract them. “Just so she can get some rest?” 

They both nodded quietly and disappeared in the hallway. Maybe they listened to me more often than I thought.

I took the moment alone to breathe. 

Even though I had told them not to worry, I was very much allowed to worry. In fact, the more I thought about it, now that the shock of suddenly having an injured child in my arms had worn off, the stranger it all seemed. 

How had she known to come here? What or who had attacked her? Was it still looking for her, as she had said, or was that just her panicked mind speaking? 

I walked over to the bay window on the other side of the room and glanced outside, half expecting to find myself face to face with some horrible monster trying to break through. But the street outside was empty, gray and quiet as ever. 

Had Izzy been a specific target, or just in the wrong place at the wrong time? The thought of someone or something hurting homeless kids at random made my stomach churn with fury and my hands clench into fists. 

“Hey, are you coming?” 

I flinched and spun around to see Magnus lingering by the door. He must have noticed that I hadn’t followed them out of the living room and came back to check on me. Sometimes he was so annoyingly considerate that it made me want to yell at him. 

I didn’t have the energy to yell, so instead I just mumbled: “Sure.” 

I thought he would go back to the kitchen, expecting me to follow, but he hesitated. 

For a second, my chest clenched with anxiety. Since New Year's Eve, I had dreaded every moment alone with Magnus - it was only a matter of time before he would use those moments to bring up the conversation that I had narrowly managed to avoid again. I couldn’t avoid it forever, and he was aware of that. Though, he surely wouldn’t choose this most inconvenient of moments to give it a try, would he? 

 Fortunately, he had a different question for me. “Are you okay?” 

Like I said: Annoyingly considerate. If it hadn’t been for the ball of anger and worry churning in my stomach, I might even have found it endearing. “Yes.” 

He approached me cautiously, as if he feared I would turn into a mouse and scurry away. “Really?” 

I sighed, the wave of anxiety washing away at Magnus’ gentle gaze. 

“I’m just… worried,” I admitted hesitantly. “If there’s a monster or something out there attacking homeless kids on the streets..-.”

Magnus’ face told me that he wasn’t any less concerned. “I know… But we’ll figure it out, okay?”

I knew he was trying to sound reassuring, but it wasn’t working. If anything, his tone made me worry more. 

“What did you see in Izzy’s head?”

His expression changed to a half-apologetic, half-pained grimace, as if his face was trying to show me that he was both sorry for looking into her head and disturbed by what he had found there. 

“Later, okay?” he replied after looking at me like that for a few seconds. He didn’t ask me how I knew he had seen something while healing her. To be honest, I wouldn’t have known the answer either. “Let’s talk to her first. I don’t really know how to make sense of it yet.” 

Reluctantly, I had to agree that this sounded like a solid reason to postpone the conversation. 

I gave him a silent nod, and together we walked into the kitchen, where we were greeted by Blitz raising a knowing eyebrow at us, as if talking alone for a few seconds was the most scandalous thing he could think of. 

Why was everyone in this house suddenly obsessed with our relationship?

I avoided looking at Magnus and instead glared at Blitz, for reminding me of this other thing that was weighing on my heart.

I took a seat at the kitchen table, next to Izzy, who was already devouring her second PB&J sandwich at a frightening speed. 

Magnus and Blitz sat on the other side of the table, and a silent conversation passed between us. “Question time?” “Question time!”

“So, kid…,” Blitz began, luckily taking the lead because I wouldn’t have known which of my million questions to ask first. “What happened to you?” 

Izzy swallowed the last bite of her sandwich, and her eyes, which now showed that haunted expression I had seen on so many children’s faces here, wandered between the three of us, as if she were assessing whether or not she could trust us. She fixed her gaze on Magnus as she said haltingly: “The monsters… they- they’re always there, no matter where I go. I thought it would help to run away but they found me again. I kept telling them to go away but today… they cornered me and…-” Her voice broke and she wiped away a few tears. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Magnus said, probably feeling pressured to reassure her since for some reason she continued to look at him specifically. “You’re safe here now.” 

“Can you describe these monsters for us?” I asked, taking over his role as the insensitive one. I couldn’t help it; I wanted to know what was going on here. 

Izzy pressed her lips together, as if trying not to cry and shook her head. “Y-you wouldn’t believe me. No one does.”

“We will.” I immediately realised that that hadn’t been the best thing to say. How often did homeless kids hear things like that; how often had I heard things like that, when I had lived on the street? “We are different”, “We won’t hurt you’”, “You can trust us” - only to realize that such promises were nothing but lies. 

As expected, Izzy shook her head even more vehemently and pressed her lips together tightly, as if to show that they were sealed for now. She lowered her eyes to stare at the tabletop and absently traced the lines of the wood grain with her finger. 

Blitz gave me a look, his eyes clearly saying “Great! You messed up,” before turning back to Izzy: “Okay, kid, you don’t have to tell us right now. You can talk to us, though, whenever you feel ready.” 

Izzy didn’t react and continued to run her finger over the table. 

“You said you ran away,” Magnus tried again after a few seconds of uncertain silence. “From where?” 

She finally looked up again, focusing on Magnus as if she had no desire to talk to anyone else. “The foster home they sent me to. I- I couldn’t stay there. My mom told me- I had to go and find my dad. So that’s what I’m trying to do.” 

A sad expression appeared on Magnus’ face, as if he already knew the answer to his next question. “What happened to your mom?”  

“She... died. I- I couldn’t save her,” Izzy replied quietly, her gaze drifting far away. “But before that... she said, I had to find my dad.  I promised her that I would.”

“And you thought you would find him… here?” Blitz asked. “In Boston? In this house?” 

Izzy wrinkled her forehead thoughtfully and took a few moments to articulate her answer, unsure of how much she could or wanted to tell us. “This city just… felt right,” she began cautiously. As she spoke, she started to tap out a rhythm with her fingers, as if the wooden table were a keyboard. “And when I got to this house, I just knew that this was where I had to go. It felt.. safe. But- but before I got here, the monsters caught up with me-” Her voice trailed off, leaving me with more questions than before. 

The explanation of how she had found her way here didn’t sound like something a regular human child would describe. I would have bet money that this father she was looking for wasn’t from this world. 

I read the same conclusion in the faces of Blitz and Magnus, but the time for questions seemed to be over. Izzy had silently started to cry again. 

We shouldn’t put her under any more stress than she already was. 

“You did well, kiddo,” Blitz tried to console her and handed her a fancy handkerchief from the pocket of his vest. She took it and blew her nose loudly, without even appreciating its fine embroidery. “Your instincts are good, you’re right: This place is safe. You can stay here, if you like. For as long as you want. Maybe we can even help you find your dad.” 

She looked up with round eyes. “Really?” 

“Yeah,” I rejoined the conversation. “There are a lot of kids like you living here.” 

Well, maybe not many kids who were being hunted by mysterious monsters, but certainly kids who had run away from foster homes. 

She seemed to weigh her options for a second, her gaze wandering back to Magnus, who was beginning to look uncomfortable under her  intense focus on him. 

“Okay,” she finally said. “I’ll stay.” 

With that, it was settled. I took on the task of showing Izzy the sleeping quarters and getting her new clothes, as promised. 

She didn’t seem to have any trouble walking anymore, and as I led her up the stairs, she began to look around curiously. 

“How many people live here?” she asked me when we passed a group of teens, including Corin and Nina, sitting in a corner on the first floor and playing Jenga. They all eyed Izzy with interest, but I shook my head, trying to tell them wordlessly not to bombard her with questions. 

“Right now, almost thirty people,'' I said and led her away from the group. “But only about ten of them are staying here permanently, everyone else comes and goes as they please.”

Recently, with the cold and the snow there had been more coming than going, but I knew that once the weather improved, the house would feel much emptier again. 

We climbed another flight of stairs to the second floor. Since we had converted the Chase family mansion into a shelter, its layout had changed quite a bit to suit our requirements. With funding coming directly from Odin himself, and a few ideas from Magnus' cousin Annabeth, who was working on a Master’s degree in architecture, we had fully transformed the first two floors. What had once been Randolph's study, was now two large dormitories, mostly for people who weren’t planning on staying long. Right now, though, I led Izzy toward what had formerly been the bedrooms of Randolph’s long-dead children. We had changed the layout, so that the two spacious rooms were now three smaller ones, each with two bunk beds in them, for those who decided to stay longer.

I knew that one bed was still vacant in the room furthest away from the stairs where one of my favorite residents, Chloe, was staying. Yeah, I know, I probably shouldn’t have favorites, but Chloe was the coolest kid I had ever met. Besides, she was only thirteen, so probably the closest to Izzy’s age. Maybe they could become friends. 

On our way to the room, I stopped by the dresser in the hallway where we stored donated clothes, for everyone who needed them. “Do you know your pants size?” 

Izzy looked down at her torn and bloodstained jeans and shook her head, so I just pulled out the two smallest pairs I could find. “These might be a bit too large, but they’ll do.” 

“Thanks.” She took them from me and actually managed a small smile. 

“You will probably need some shirts, too, until we can buy you more…” I opened another drawer. “Do you have a favorite colour?” 

“Hmm, I like pink.” 

“Hey, awesome, I love pink too.” 

I found two pink sweaters and handed them to her, but she barely looked at them and instead watched me, her head tilted to one side as if she was trying to solve a puzzle. 

“Are you a boy or a girl?”

Usually, I didn’t like this question and I would have answered with a snide comment or not at all. Because usually it was asked by passive-aggressive idiots who didn’t deserve a proper answer. But Izzy’s small voice only sounded mildly curious, so I decided to answer honestly: “Right now I’m a boy, but I might be a girl later on.” 

Her eyes widened. “That’s possible?” 

I shrugged. “Sure. Most people stay one gender, but I change a lot.” 

“Cool!” 

I chuckled. Kids were awesome. My life would be so much easier if every conversation about me being genderfluid went like this. 

We grabbed the clothes and headed for the bedroom.

“If you’re a boy, though, can you still like pink?” Izzy asked as we entered the room. 

There wasn’t space for a lot of furniture: One bunk bed on the left, one on the right, both with two lockers at the foot of each bed and curtains that could be drawn in front of the beds for privacy. It wasn’t exactly luxurious, but judging from my own experience in Boston’s homeless shelters, it was a lot better than the other options. 

The room was empty of its other residents, which was a shame - I had hoped to introduce Izzy to Chloe.

I put the folded sweaters in one of the lockers to my left before answering her question. “Of course. It’s an awesome color. Everyone should get to like it, don’t you think?”

Izzy let her eyes wander around the room for a second before looking back to me. “Yeah, I guess… but the lady at the foster home always said pink is for girls and blue for boys.” 

I wrinkled my nose. “That sounds stupid, if you ask me.”

Izzy nodded eagerly. “She was stupid! I hated her. She never believed me about the monsters either.” 

“I’m sorry about that.”

Izzy grinned at me very brightly for someone who had sustained a serious injury just half an hour ago. “It’s okay. I’m here now!” 

She turned away from me and faced the beds. Her eyes wandered up. “Can I have the upper bed?” 

“Sorry, only this one’s free, right now.” I patted the pillow of the bed under the one Izzy was eyeing. 

I saw disappointment in her eyes, but she didn’t get a chance to voice it as the door to the room opened. Chloe peeked inside. 

Chloe was thirteen and trans - which was why she was living here and not with her terrible mother who had kicked her out as soon as she had expressed the slightest hint of questioning her gender identity. I guess I liked her because her story reminded me of my own, but also because I admired how quickly she had regained her happiness after arriving here. Looking at her now, with her purple bob - which I had dyed and cut for her - the sparkling eyes behind her glasses and her cheeks glowing with excitement, she looked nothing like the miserable, malnourished child, Magnus and I had picked up on the street a few months ago. 

“Alex! Is it true that we got someone new?” She leaned sideways to look around me and catch a glimpse at Izzy. 

Word of her arrival had spread faster than I had thought. I assumed Corin and Nina hadn’t managed to keep quiet for long. 

“Yup,” I said and took a step back to reveal Izzy. I knew she would need a friend here and Chloe was always quick to make  friends. 

“Hi,” Izzy said, giving a shy little wave. 

“Hi! I’m Chloe. And you?” 

“Izzy.” She managed to smile at Chloe. “Do you sleep in this room too?” 

Chloe nodded and grinned brightly. “Yes! We’re roommates now.”

I decided to start making the bed for Izzy and let the girls talk but I kept listening with one ear. 

“Which bed is yours?” 

“That one,” Chloe pointed to the top bunk Izzy had been eyeing earlier. 

“Can we switch?”

“Hm, no, sorry…,” Chloe replied, sounding genuinely apologetic. 

I shook out the pillow and remembered how excited Chloe had been about getting the top bunk bed. It had been the first time I had seen her smile brightly. 

“I really like it up there.” 

“Oh…,” Izzy said. I hoped she would accept Chloe’s answer, but apparently she didn’t. She said: “But I really want that bed.” 

There was something off about her voice when she said that. I didn't think much of it - children could be stubborn, and after all Izzy had just been through a rather traumatic event - still I decided to intervene. I turned to Izzy. “If Chloe doesn’t want to-” 

“Okay,” Chloe interrupted me, to my surprise. “You can have the bed. We’ll switch.” 

“Cool! Thanks!” Izzy said, grinning from ear to ear. 

I turned to Chloe. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?” 

She didn’t look too bothered by her decision. In fact, there was no emotion on her face at all. 

“Yes,” she replied simply. She climbed up the ladder to what was now Izzy’s bed and pulled off her sheets. Within a minute, all of her bedding and the belongings she had stored on the sideboard of her bed, were moved to the bed beneath. 

“Thanks,” Izzy said again, as she climbed up the ladder to inspect her new bed.

“Yeah,” Chloe replied, a look of slight confusion settling over her eyes. “No problem.” 

Something told me that there was a problem. I frowned and wanted to ask again if this was really okay, but Chloe already turned to leave the room. 

“I told Nina I’d be back… I should go,” she mumbled and left, no longer excited about the new resident. 

For a second I stared after her, confused as to what had just happened. Izzy hadn’t done anything, Chloe had clearly agreed. Still, something didn’t feel right. 

“What did you-” I began, but Izzy was already somewhere else with her thoughts. 

“Alex?” she asked, bouncing happily up and down on her newly acquired bed. 

“Uh, yeah?” I took my eyes off the door and turned to look up to Izzy. 

Her expression became more serious, as if she was about to reveal a big secret. “Can I tell you something?” 

“Sure.” 

“I think I know what brought me here. I didn’t tell you before because… it’s a little weird.” 

“Yeah? What was it?” I asked, trying to keep my curiosity from showing.

“That boy. With the magic hands. The one who healed me.”

“Magnus?” I frowned. So she had definitely noticed that the healing had been supernatural - and she didn’t seem to mind. Which was strange. But even stranger was that she thought Magnus had brought her here. 

“Yeah.” Izzy nodded again, scanning my face carefully, as if prepared for me not to believe her. I tried to look encouraging, and she continued, slowly, trying to find the right words: “Sometimes I… I dream of music. And when I wake up, the music tells me what to do… where to go. It told me to run away from the foster home.” 

“The… music from your dream told you to run away?” 

Izzy nodded eagerly. “Last night it happened again. I dreamt of a forest filled with music. The same music I always hear. But in this dream all the trees were growing and moving, as if they… as if they were dancing to the music. He was there, too. Magnus. He was glowing, like he did just now but much, much brighter. When I woke up, the music was still there, in my head. I thought it led me to this house, but now I know that it led me to Magnus. I think… I think these dreams might be messages from my dad.” 

Okay, now I was really confused. The questions in my head accumulated until one spilled out: “Why do you think your dad has something to do with this? And why would he send you to Magnus?” 

Izzy thought for a second, swinging her legs, which were dangling over the edge of her bed, back and forth. “My mom always said…-” Her voice got heavier, just like it had when Magnus had asked about her mother, “-she said that my dad sends her songs and calls her in her dreams. She always said that he would do the same for me, so that I could find him one day. This dream last night felt like maybe that was it. ” She sighed. “But I have no clue why he would lead me here.” 

“Who is your dad? And why can he send songs through dreams?” These seemed like very important questions. My hopes that Izzy’s situation had no supernatural causes were dwindling by the second.  

“I don’t know,” she answered both questions. “Mom never talked much about him. Just that he told her in her dreams that he needs help.” Izzy shrugged but looked uncertain, like that fact bothered her too. “That’s why I need to find him. To save him.” 

I stared at her for a second trying to organize my thoughts. “You don’t seem to think any of this is unusual… glowing people, monsters, dreams from your dad-” Most kids would probably freak out with half of those things on their plate. The fact that Izzy was talking about it all so casually was concerning, to say the least. “Is all of this normal to you?” 

She shrugged with an expression as if my question made her uncomfortable. “I don’t know, I've always had weird things happen to me.” 

She studied my face. I didn’t know what she found there - probably something like utter confusion - but  her eyes darkened. “You think I’m crazy,” she stated. The disappointed tone in her voice told me that she had gotten this reaction before when talking about her father.   

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” I said, after hesitating for a second too long. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe her, but I didn’t like the sound of any of this. “You just have to admit, it’s a bit… surprising. Not exactly what I usually get to hear when new kids come here,” I tried gently and smiled. 

But Izzy didn’t smile back. She folded her arms across her chest and avoided my eyes. “I know it’s weird. But it's the truth.” 

“Then we will find out together what all of this means, okay? Believe me, my life is also quite strange. Magnus’s too - he glows sometimes, as you saw.” I didn’t want to immediately confront her with the whole truth about me and Magnus as long as there was even the slightest chance that she was a normal human girl, but I had to give her something to make her feel better. No one was supposed to feel like a weirdo at the Chase Space. 

It worked. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. 

“That is weird,” she said. 

“Right?” I grinned back. “We’ll find a way to figure out what’s going on with those monsters and your dreams. But right now, the important thing is that you’re safe here.” 

Fortunately, she seemed content with that reassurance for now. 

We forgot about dreams, fathers and weirdness. Or, at least, I pretended to forget about it; in reality, my head was spinning with everything I had heard. 

I showed Izzy to the bathroom, where she finally changed out of her blood-stained clothes and torn jeans. When she was done, I dropped her off at the Jenga game we had passed on the way up and told Nina to keep an eye on her. 

Sure, I could have asked Izzy a million more questions about her mysterious father and the monsters that chased her, but she had been through enough for one day. Besides, I doubted that she had any real answers to my questions. She was better off getting to know the others. 

Also, I needed to tell Magnus about what she had told me - that she thought her dreams led her to him. That seemed like a rather vital piece of information. 

I hurried down the stairs and almost barged into the kitchen, when I heard voices from inside and managed to stop at the last second. 

“-... your relationship with Alex,” I heard Blitz end a sentence, his voice uncharacteristically serious. 

Without even thinking about it, I turned into a honeybee. I probably should have flown back upstairs and stayed there until this conversation - whatever it was - was over, but nosiness and the fact that I seemed to be a main talking point made me buzz into the kitchen, staying close to the ceiling, so I wouldn’t be noticed. My initial intention to tell them about Izzy’s revelation was almost forgotten in my tiny bug-brain. I wanted to hear this conversation. 

I settled on the ceiling near the kitchen cabinets and took in the scene that presented itself beneath me. 

Hearth had returned with the groceries and Blitz was packing them away halfheartedly while talking to Magnus. Hearth tried to help, but seemed too interested in the conversation to turn away and risk missing something while lip-reading. Magnus was still sitting at the table where I had left him, looking like he was desperately trying to find a way out of the conversation. The way his eyes darted around the room in mild panic would have made me laugh if I hadn't been a bee. He had chosen Blitz and Hearth as his parental figures, now he had to deal with the awkward talks - personally, I would just prefer it if those talks didn't involve me. 

"I think my relationships are still my business…," Magnus said through grinded teeth, staring at the tabletop just as intensely as Izzy had done before. 

“Sure…” Blitz shrugged and pulled a box of spaghetti out of the shopping bag. “But just a few weeks ago, you told me you and Alex are just friends and now I hear you’re making out in public, so you kind of have to expect some questions.” 

“Okay, we didn't- !” Magnus began, but seemed to be at a loss for words at Blitz’s shameless exaggeration and I agreed with him.

 We had not made out in public. It had just been a single kiss in a very empty kitchen! Why did everyone have to make such a big deal out of it?? 

Magnus shot a grim look at Hearth. “Why did you tell him that??” 

Hearth didn't look very sorry as he signed “Sorry ” with a grin. 

“I have a theory, and you can tell me if it's way off, but I don't think it is-” Blitz continued, still waving the pasta around as he spoke. He seemed to have entirely forgotten about the groceries, "-... you don't even know what is going on between you two." 

“Of course, I know…,” Magnus mumbled and Blitz and Hearth both raised their eyebrows at him. Mentally, I raised an eyebrow as well, anticipating his response. Because to be honest? I wasn’t sure what it would be. 

Magnus’ cheeks burned when he finally looked up from the table and said: “We’re… keeping it casual. Taking things slow…” 

Blitz and Hearth exchanged a look. 

“For how long have you been taking it slow?” Hearth signed, a slight smile around his lips. 

“...A while?” Magnus knitted his eyebrows, as if he was silently trying to calculate the exact amount of time. 

Watching him from above, my tiny insect heart pulled itself together. I knew exactly for how long: two years, six months and twenty-three days since I had first kissed him, when we had nearly frozen to death. Not quite as long since I had taken the emergency exit and told him I couldn't give him an answer about what we were just yet. I knew that because every day since then I had dreaded the moment when Magnus would realize that he still hadn't gotten that answer yet and that I was desperately avoiding all conversations about that fact. 

“Is taking it slow so bad?” Magnus asked after deciding that ‘a while’ had to suffice as an answer. 

“No, absolutely not,” Blitz assured, but continued to exchange glances with Hearth. As so often, I suspected that they were having an entirely different silent conversation. I had always admired how they didn’t need any kind of language to communicate and somehow just instinctively understood each other - I had never had that with anyone and I doubted I ever would - but right now it was driving me nuts. I wanted to know what they were thinking. 

Magnus didn’t seem to get the gist of their silent exchange either, furrowing his brows in growing annoyance: “Who are you to talk about taking it slow? Didn’t it take you like three years of living together to start dating??” 

Magnus had been particularly shocked to find out that two of his best friends had started dating after we had finished our world-saving quest, and he was still upset about the fact that everyone but him had seen it coming. 

Instead of being ruffled by the comment, Hearth and Blitz exchanged grins. Gods, they were just so corny sometimes. 

“Yes, but we were busy,” Hearth signed, turning his eyes away from his partner and back to Magnus. “Protecting you, saving the world.”

“You and Alex haven’t been busy in a long time, have you?” Blitz continued and added with raised eyebrows: “Plus, we weren’t constantly making out before we started dating.” 

“Exactly.” Hearth gave Magnus a self assured smile. 

“We are not constantly making out-”, Magnus started to defend himself but gave up.  He shook his head. “I honestly don't know what you are trying to tell me.” 

Hearth rolled his eyes. “Do you ever talk to Alex about your relationship?“

“Or are you both just assuming that you’re on the same page?”, added Blitz. “Because it really seems like you are.”

Magnus opened his mouth to speak, but quickly closed it again. His face grew pensive and he took a while to think. 

Nervousness crept through my small bee form. 

When he finally replied, his voice was quiet: “Well… not really. I’m trying to give Alex some space.”

“By never talking about your feelings?” 

“It’s not like I haven’t tried.” A defensive tone crept into his voice. 

He was right, of course. He had tried several times. So far, I had always sensed when, every few months, he worked up the courage to ask me about my feelings or tell me about his. So far, I had always managed to crush his courage - no matter how terrible it made me feel. That way, he always forgot about it - or at least pretended to forget about it - for the next few months. I had hoped that my narrow escape from that dreaded talk yesterday would have the same effect, but if Blitz and Hearth continued to give Magnus ideas, I doubted I would be able to discourage him for another few months. 

Magnus continued: “Alex just always finds a way out of every conversation that could even remotely have anything to do with us or my feelings or-” He finished his sentence with a groan and shook his head. “I don't know what else I’m supposed to do.” 

The hint of desperation in his voice felt like a punch in the gut. 

Couldn’t he understand that by avoiding this conversation, I was trying to preserve the tiniest spark of happiness I got from occasionally kissing him? That I was protecting his heart as much as my own? Couldn’t he understand that I kept him from asking questions because it would kill me if I had to lie to him and say that I had no feelings for him? Couldn’t he see that every step forward brought our relationship closer to an inevitable tragic end, almost as certain as Ragnarok itself? Keeping him at a distance was simply a safety precaution for both of us.

Of course, he didn’t understand any of that. How could he? But how could I possibly begin to explain it to him?

Avoiding conversation was the only option that wouldn’t drag me into a flurry of misery. 

It had worked so far - for almost three years. And now Blitz and Hearth had the audacity to tell Magnus to actively start those tricky conversations??

I was about to change back to my human form and fall from the ceiling just to stop them from continuing this talk, but Blitz’s next comment stopped me. 

“You know, kid, it’s great that you’re trying to respect Alex’s boundaries, but you shouldn’t have to ignore your own feelings. That’s not fair” 

“Who says I’m ignoring my feelings?” 

“You made a big declaration of love in front of a million enemies on the Ship of the Dead,” Hearth signed slowly, as if explaining something to a small child. “You want more than whatever this is.”   

Magnus’ face turned even redder than it already was. “Okay, first of all… it wasn’t a declaration of love, I was literally trying not to die.”

Neither Blitz nor Hearth seemed convinced. 

“But… we’re right?” Blitz asked, his eyebrows sliding impossibly high. 

“Why exactly do I have to have this talk with you?” 

“Just answer the question.” 

Magnus rolled his eyes, but his cheeks were still burning. The answer poured out of him like water through a broken dam. “Yes, okay. Maybe I do want more.” 

If I were human right now, I was sure my cheeks would burn as brightly as his. 

“I want to know how Alex feels about me without having to guess all the time. I want to know if he even cares about me. I want to go on cheesy dates and hold hands and stuff like that. And I want to tell him how I feel because otherwise I think I might actually explode sometime soon.” 

Blitz and Hearth stared at him for a second in surprise and Magnus himself looked as if he couldn’t believe all those words had just come out of his mouth. 

I couldn’t believe it either. A cold certainty spread through my tiny insect body: we were getting closer to the end. I could only try to delay it for so long. If he felt like that… - it was time to jump off the moving train before it was too late. 

“Okay, now, that was dramatic,” Blitz commented. 

“Whatever,” Magnus grumbled and concentrated his gaze on the table. “What do you want me to do about it, though?”

“Tell Alex what you just told us,” Hearth replied, rolling his eyes again at Magnus’ denseness.

“Ask him out on one of those ‘cheesy dates’ that you want,” Blitz added with a teasing grin.

“What if he says no?”

“Then at least you have a definite answer.” 

Magnus chewed on his lip. “Don’t you think the way Alex avoids these questions is already enough of an answer?” 

A tiny spark of hope shot through me. It pained me that he thought that, but if it meant he would stop asking questions, it was a pain I could endure. 

Blitz opened his mouth but didn’t seem to know what to say.

Hearth was the one who ruined it: “I don’t think so. Alex is not someone who avoids questions that he already knows the answer to. Something else is going on here, ” he signed, now with a serious expression. “And you deserve an answer. ” 

When had Hearthstone become so frighteningly perceptive? And why did he have to be the one to give Magnus advice? 

I had enough. I detached myself from the ceiling and flew out of the room. In the hallway, I quietly turned back into a human and immediately the feelings that had been too much for a bee to feel came rushing over me. 

My chest seemed to tighten and I could hear my own heart pounding in my ears. Whether it was anger at Blitz and Hearth for meddling in our relationship, anger at myself for apparently causing Magnus to ‘ignore his feelings’ or fear of the questions he would ask me, I couldn’t tell.

I think fear was the prevalent feeling. It was always there, somewhere in the back of my mind. Sometimes just a tingle, sometimes, like right now, something as tangible as a sound - like the humming of a sharp blade that was headed for my neck. It hadn’t struck yet, but it would, sooner rather than later. 

It was fear of the answer I would have to give Magnus, whether I wanted to or not - and of the pain I would inflict by never being able to explain to him why. 

Chapter Text

Magnus

“Think about it,” Blitz said and finally turned his attention back to the groceries that had been forgotten during the mortifying exchange I just had to endure. “An honest conversation won’t hurt either of you.” 

I lowered my eyes and stared at the tabletop - I practically knew the pattern of its grain by heart now. A cocktail of shame, annoyance and desperation churned in my stomach and I was starting to feel sick because of it. I knew Blitz and Hearth were right, even though I didn’t want to admit it outright.

‘An honest conversation’, ‘A definite answer’ - those were scary concepts. The fear of getting rejected so epically that I wouldn’t be able to live it down until Ragnarok was even more present now, after Alex’s latest evasion of my questions - because even though Blitz and Hearth had tried to convince me otherwise, I just couldn’t think of a logical reason for Alex’s avoidance that wasn’t related to him not wanting to embarrass me. 

But still - a definite rejection would be better than the constant uncertainty I had felt around Alex for the last three years. Never knowing if our relationship would ever actually grow into something different or if that hope was just wishful thinking on my part was driving me crazy. 

If only I was steadfast enough to actually get the chance to ask...

I got up from the chair. Today had been confusing enough - it was time to take my feelings out on some reckless Vikings during the daily battle. 

“Thanks, guys,” I said, trying not to sound too pessimistic. Who knew, maybe this wouldn't actually end up as painfully embarrassing for me as I feared. “I think you might be right."

My friends eyed me suspiciously, apparently not having thought that I would listen to them - but I had to admit that maybe their advice wasn’t the worst.  "I’ll try to-” 

“Who’s right about what?”

My heart dropped when I saw Alex leaning against the kitchen door frame. How long had he been listening?? 

I tried to read the answer on his face, but it seemed as cold and expressionless as stone. Alex wasn’t usually an open book, but most of the time I could read something on his face - if only the hint of amusement in a slightly raised eyebrow. Occasionally, though, he managed not to let a single emotion show and I hated it. Especially in moments like this. 

Hearth and Blitz both looked from me to Alex and back, as if they expected me to start the relationship talk right now - which definitely wasn’t going to happen. 

I wished they would stop grinning so stupidly. 

“Ehm…,” I said, eloquent as always. “Blitz is right about, uh-” I looked around the room. The first thing my eyes caught was the bag of groceries. “Bananas. Bananas have gotten way too expensive recently.”

Alex raised a single eyebrow at me, his face otherwise remaining blank. “O...kay?”

“Inflation is insane,” I tried again and wished I was able to kick myself in the face. Did you know that I had once drunk a magic potion that was supposed to turn anyone into a world-class poet? Yeah, I wouldn’t believe that either. 

To my relief, Blitz decided that I was pathetic enough to deserve saving from Alex’s puzzled stare. “What’s up? Is Izzy settling in okay?” he asked, his voice as casual as I had tried to make mine. 

“Yeah, I gave her the free bed in room three.” Alex turned to Hearth and signed: “Can you keep an eye on her?”

Hearth nodded and Blitz asked, frowning: “Are you leaving?” 

“Yeah, I’ve got to get back to the hotel. Can’t miss Freaky Friday!” Alex said with an enthusiasm in his tone that sounded slightly forced and turned to go. 

I frowned at him. Today was the first Friday of the month which meant that we couldn’t use our usual weapons, but had to fight the daily battle with a randomly assigned weapon. The hotel management joyfully advertised these days each month as ‘Freaky Friday’ and didn’t seem to realize that everyone in the hotel hated it. Alex, in particular, couldn’t stand not fighting with his garrotte. Normally he wouldn’t miss a chance to skip it - so why the sudden eagerness to get home? 

In my head, several possibilities battled to get picked as the most likely one: Either Alex was in an exceptionally good mood, so much so that he couldn’t even be bothered by the hotels ‘fun’ ways of keeping things interesting. Or he was in an exceptionally bad mood and didn’t care which weapon he used to take it out on our fellow einherjar. Maybe he had heard part of our conversation - and was either thrilled or pissed off by what he had heard. 

Pessimistic as I was, my mind chose the latter as the most likely option. But still…- 

“Wait, I’ll come with you,” I said, before he could get far. On the one hand, because I probably really  should try to be on time for the battle - neither Alex nor I were great at following rules, so we regularly skipped it, when we were busy at the Chase Space, but I didn’t want to make a habit out of it… I did not want to get on Odin’s bad side. On the other hand, I wanted to use the opportunity to hopefully find out what was going on with Alex - and if, despite my best guesses, he was in a good mood, maybe I could use the way home to maybe ask a certain question - if I found the courage to do so. 

If I wasn’t mistaken, the slightest hint of exasperation flickered across Alex’s face as I followed him - not a good sign, probably - but his expression was blank again when he shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.” 

Cool, so I was getting crystal clear signals today. 

Alex grabbed his coat from the rag and turned to leave. 

I threw a last advice-seeking glance at Blitz and Hearth. Since they both just shrugged - helpful as always - I hurried to follow Alex.

“You’re being weird.”  

We were already halfway back to the hotel and Alex hadn’t said a single word the entire time - not even to suggest we take the subway, though I knew he was freezing - which meant my plan to find out what was going on with him wasn’t working well so far. I thought stating the obvious might be a good way to get the conversation going - admittedly, maybe not my best idea. 

“Wow, okay, rude, Magnus,” he said, but didn’t look at me. He was staring straight down the sidewalk, as if he was trying to shorten our route to Valhalla by sheer willpower. 

“No, I mean…-” Why could I never find the right words around Alex? “- ... you’re not talking to me.”  

Great, now I just sounded needy. 

“I have nothing to say.” 

“Sure, because today was completely uneventful,” I mumbled. 

Alex didn't react for a while as he was busy sticking his tongue out to an old guy walking past us, who was casting a strange look at Alex’s pink coat - though I doubted that it had anything to do with its color in this case, but rather with the fact that it still had quiet a lot of Izzy’s blood on it. 

Alex seemed to notice that too as he looked down at himself. He sighed and finally said: “I guess, the whole thing with Izzy, just upset me.” 

Okay, that made sense. Alex had appeared agitated since he had found Izzy. The fact that apparently there were monsters out on the streets of Boston attacking children was definitely concerning. Now I felt a little dumb for not having given this very real issue a single thought since Blitz and Hearth had occupied my brain with other, definitely less important problems. 

Alex, clearly, had not forgotten about those things so easily. His silence might have nothing to do with our conversation, or with me at all. Of course not. Not everything in Alex's life revolved around me. 

“Right… yeah, me too,” I mumbled meekly and it wasn’t even a lie. Just because my mind had been occupied with other things didn’t mean I didn’t care. “But don’t worry, we’ll figure out what happened to her.” 

Alex didn’t seem reassured, still staring grimly at everyone who passed us, as if hoping to happen upon the child-attacking monster in question. 

“None of it makes sense,” he said after a while. “Izzy said she felt drawn to Boston, which would make sense if she had some connection to our world. But Norse demigods usually don’t get randomly hunted by monsters like that, right?” 

I just nodded, not wanting to interrupt him now that he was talking to me again. 

“And she said the monsters have been following her since she ran away, so at least a few days…-” 

“Much longer than that,” I said, as I was reminded of what I had seen inside Izzy’s head while healing her. I hadn't wanted to tell Alex about it before because I had hoped that Izzy would maybe give me another explanation for what I had seen, but since that wasn't the case, I might as well tell him. “When I healed Izzy, I saw something-” 

“-and I will kill you for that later,” Alex interrupted, sounding only half-serious. 

I rolled my eyes. He knew I couldn’t control what I saw in someone’s head when I healed them, but he still got mad every time. It was kind of unfair. I understood where he was coming from, and of course I would prefer to stay out of people's heads, too, but if the choice was between giving up some privacy and dying from something like an infected wound, I think most people would choose the first option. 

“Sure, you can try,” I said, even though we both knew that if Alex really wanted to, I wouldn’t stand a chance. 

And, I know, getting death threats from friends must sound brutal to normal people, but for us, knowing that dying had no real consequences in Valhalla, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Most of the time, my friends and I tried to stick together during the battles, but sometimes it was just fun to kill each other. I had stabbed TJ once over a lost video game, for example. Alex and Mallory would kill each other on a regular basis just to see who was faster. So, I would only mind a little if Alex really did try to kill me later. 

“Anyway…” Alex brought me back to the topic. “You were saying?”   

“Right.” I tried to put into words what I had seen, while somehow avoiding thinking about my own mom - Izzy’s memories had hit a bit too close to home. “I think those monsters that are following Izzy… they killed her mother.” 

“Oh.” 

“Izzy found her as she was dying. She was…-” I swallowed. The image of the unknown woman, her face and chest torn to shreds by what appeared to have been claws, surrounded by a pool of blood that her daughter knelt in, shaking her desperately, was burned into the back of my eyelids. Like I said, I really would prefer not to see inside people's heads. I usually didn’t like what I found there. “She was really badly injured. With her last words, she told Izzy to go find her dad because he needed her help.” 

“Tasking a kid with saving her dad like that is kind of… a lot. No wonder she’s so desperate to find him, if that was her mom’s dying wish…,” Alex mumbled. His dark eyebrows were knitted together tightly in concentration. “How is Izzy still alive if those things - whatever they are - have been after her for so long and even killed her mother? It’s strange that they would spare her, right?” 

I just shook my head. “No idea.”

“And speaking of strange: What’s up with you…? ” 

“Uh, me?” I looked down at myself, but I didn’t see anything unusual there, just torn jeans and a washed-out green shirt under my black-and-white flannel jacket. Maybe there was something on my face? 

Alex turned his head and looked at me for the first time since we had left the Chase mansion. He frowned at me.  “Oh, right, I forgot to tell you about that,” he said in a tone like that was my fault. 

“About what?” 

His brown and amber eyes flitted across my face. "Have you, by any chance, recently picked up a magical musical instrument that can transmit signals through dreams?"  

“No??” What ?

“Okay, then something weirder is going on here.” He shrugged and stared down the street again. 

I was beginning to feel like I had missed a major part of this conversation. “Please explain?” 

Alex rubbed his forehead. “Izzy told me about this dream she had. It showed you, and you were glowing - I guess that’s why she wasn’t surprised to see you heal her. And now she is somehow convinced that you brought her to the Chase Space.” 

“Wait, what?”  That was weirder.

“She said she hears this… music in her dreams, that guides her to wherever she needs to go.” He glanced at me sceptically. “Today it brought her to us… or to you specifically. She thinks the dreams are messages from this father she is looking for, but why he would lead her to you…- no idea.” 

“That- that doesn’t make any sense,” I began, hesitantly. I mean, I had noticed that the kid had stared at me quite a lot during our conversation, but I had assumed that was due to the fact that I had healed her. What Alex was saying didn’t explain anything. Except…- I felt my heart drop. 

“Wait, you don’t think…-” I paused, the thought was too absurd to say it out loud. Thankfully, Alex helped me out.

“- that she’s a child of Frey and somehow sensed you?” He said with a frown, seemingly having read my thoughts from my face. “Maybe.” 

“No, that can’t be,” I said, but I wasn’t so convinced of that myself. “My father would have told me if I had… a sister.” 

Alex raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure about that?” 

I opened my mouth, but immediately closed it again. Because, actually… no. I wasn’t sure at all. One could never be sure with the gods. “But… music? My dad has nothing to do with music, does he?” 

Alex shrugged. “Not that I know of. I mean, Jack sings a lot and he was Frey’s sword once… but other than that-”

We walked past the The Thinking Cup café and I peeked in through the front windows, hoping to find Samirah hunched over a cup of coffee, studying for an exam. But of course, my favorite ex-valkyrie was never around when I needed her expertise. Until last summer, before she had graduated from high school, she had stopped by the Chase Space at least once a week; now that she had gone off to college at Bridgewater to study aviation science, we saw less of her. I missed her, though she did her best to visit Boston on the weekends. 

She would know what to do with Izzy, I was sure - but she had a normal life now, full of unfair college professors, exams, and a wedding to plan. She didn’t have to plague herself with any more supernatural mysteries - unlike Alex and me. 

“And anyway, that still wouldn’t explain why those monsters are after her,” Alex continued, steering my thoughts away from Sam. “Do you think Jack could sense a child of Frey?” 

“Huh… I don’t know. Maybe?” I had dropped Jack off at the armory this morning, since Friday was his self-care day - yes, my sword needed a self-care day, what about it? - so he hadn’t met Izzy yet, but I figured that he could probably tell if she was a child of Frey. After all, he had recognized me when I had pulled him out of the Charles River all those years ago. “We can bring him along next time and see what he thinks of Izzy.”

“Yeah, but only if he stays a rune stone. I don’t think Izzy should have to deal with a talking sword on top of everything else…,” Alex said and I had to agree. Jack could be exhausting enough for people who hadn't just been through a traumatic event. 

We walked in silence for a while, both lost in our own thoughts, but it didn’t feel as awkward anymore. We were only a few blocks away from the hotel when a cool breeze began to blow sleet and rain into our faces. 

“So, wait…” I spoke up again, as another thought crossed my mind. I picked up the pace to keep up with Alex, who was walking faster now that there was wetness added to the cold. “If my dad really is her dad and he needs help… should I be worried about Frey?”

I didn’t want to have to worry about gods. That only meant trouble. 

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Alex muttered from under the hood, which he had pulled over his face. He didn’t sound particularly worried about my dad. “Maybe something entirely different is going on here.”

That wasn’t exactly reassuring, but I didn’t tell Alex that.

We reached the fifteen-foot limestone wall that enclosed the hotel and prevented mortals from entering. From the outside Valhalla looked like an eight-story mansion, but actually those walls contained around 500 floors, several interdimensional intersections and more undead warriors than anyone could count - but the people around us on the sidewalk would never know about that, of course. 

“Okay,” Alex said, just when I was about to ask which of the hidden entrances we would use today. “See you later.” 

He walked straight toward the wall, and without even stopping, he changed into an eagle, spread his wings, and soared over the barrier into Valhalla’s courtyard. 

I stared after him. “What? Wait!” I shouted, stunned by the sheer unfairness of this sudden exit, but to no avail. Alex was out of sight and I - unable to fly after him - was left standing on the sidewalk.

“Shit-” I muttered, suddenly becoming painfully aware of the fact that I once again hadn’t taken the opportunity to talk to Alex in private about what was bothering me so much. 

A woman pushing her twins in a stroller past me, gave me a scolding glance for swearing, before I came to my senses and started sprinting around the next corner towards the Forever 21. Maybe my chance wasn’t gone just yet. The entrance through the store’s sports department wasn’t my favorite, but it would get me straight to the eighth floor, which meant I would have a head start since Alex would have to take the elevator from the lobby. Maybe I could meet him on our floor and talk to him, before the battle started. 

I was positive I would explode - or at the very least die very quickly on the battlefield - if I didn’t manage to get at least this one worry out of my head. 

I ran through the store. The employees hardly seemed to notice me. I guess they were used to odd people running towards their sportswear - or Odin had put a spell on them, who knew? 

I fought my way through the rack of colorful leggings and seconds later stumbled out into one of Valhalla’s many corridors. Chatter and laughter reached me from the conference rooms to my right. I didn’t know what time it was, but no one seemed prepared for battle yet, even though Alex had been in such a hurry to leave the Chase Space. I tried not to dwell on that fact. 

During the elevator ride up to floor 19, I noticed my heart racing and I wasn’t sure if my sprint here was the reason for that. The speakers were playing an old-Norse version of Sinatra’s Fly Me to the Moon, as they so often did. Sometimes the song annoyed me a lot (I hoped they would change the elevator playlist at some point during my eternal stay  here), but now I decided to take it as a good omen. Maybe it was the hotel’s subtle way of telling me that I shouldn’t lose my nerve now. 

I got off on the 19th floor and waited by the elevator doors, unsure if I had been quick enough. The hallway was completely deserted, no sign of Alex or any of our hallmates. I tried to calculate the minutes that had passed since he had left me outside. Alex usually liked to stop by the front desk in the lobby and say hi to Hunding. If the bellhop was in a chatty mood, that could take a minute or two and if Alex- 

Ding. 

The doors of the second elevator opened and stopped my silent calculations as they revealed Alex looking down at his phone. 

I probably should have taken a second to think, but the words were already spilling from my mouth: “Alex, actually, I wanted to talk to you about- WAAH!”

The second I opened my mouth, Alex flinched at my sudden approach, dropped his phone and turned into a snarling hyena. This, in turn, startled me so much that I let out a high-pitched scream that I was not proud of - but hey, in my defense, hyenas looked a lot like wolves. 

So, yeah, I was so good at this. Somebody should give me a medal. 

“What was that for??” I asked, my voice still shriller than usual. 

Alex, the hyena, growled at me again before turning back, looking no less dangerous in human form. “By the gods, Mags, I told you not to startle me like that!” 

“And you didn’t have to leave me outside just like that,” I countered, hoping not to sound too huffy. 

The angry gleam in Alex’s eyes subsided as he bent down to pick up his phone. He chose to ignore my comment. “I was this close to ripping your throat out, you know?” 

I didn’t know how to respond, but when Alex stepped out of the elevator and turned to walk towards our rooms, I followed him. 

“And besides, how did you get here so fast anyway?” 

“Forever 21,” I said, “I ran.” 

Alex frowned at me as he stopped in front of the door with his initials. “Why?” 

Okay, now or never. “Uh… I wanted to catch you before the battle.” Almost subconsciously, I studied Alex’s face intently, waiting for the reaction I knew would come. “I was hoping we could talk.”

There it was again: The utter panic hiding behind Alex’s gleaming eyes, for just a second.

As if he could sense that I saw it, he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. Suddenly he looked incredibly tired, his shoulders slumped, his breaths heavy, as if nothing drained his energy more than talking to me. 

My heart sank. 

 “It’s been a weird morning, Magnus… Give me some space, okay?”

“Oh, yeah… sure,” I said, trying to keep any sign of disappointment out of my voice. It was nothing personal. The day had been a lot. It only made sense that he needed some space. It probably had nothing to do with me, it was just bad timing. I knew all that. And yet… I couldn’t shake the feeling that something between me and Alex was going magnificently wrong. “See you later?”  

He gave me one last sceptical frown before disappearing into his room, loudly closing the door behind him. 

I let out a sigh. Why was this so hard?

Chapter Text

Magnus

“I LOVE fridays!” TJ exclaimed as he, Alex, Mallory, Halfborn and I stepped onto the battlefield later that day. Holding a shield and a long hunting knife, he grinned broadly at the sight of countless einherjar, equipped with a wild array of weapons from every corner of the world and every century,  charging into battle.

“I hate Fridays,” the other four of us said in unison.

“How can you say you ‘love’ this?” Mallory asked, side-eying TJ sceptically. “You can’t use your own weapon either.” 

She stared up at the spear she had to use today. It sat awkwardly in her hand and looked much too long for her short stature. She probably wouldn’t be as deadly with this weapon as she was with her trusty knives, and she was well aware of that fact.

TJ turned back to us, his smile waning a bit at the sight of his unhappy hallmates. 

Like him and Mallory, we had been assigned new weapons for the day - and no one was pleased with what they’ve gotten.  Alex, who preferred close-range combat and was also a terrible shot, had been issued an old-fashioned crossbow. I had to settle for a heavy axe that made my arms ache just from holding it. Halfborn had to use an assault rifle and was probably the most dissatisfied with his weapon. Being a true Viking, he generally hated all weapons invented after the 10th century, and never made a secret of that. 

“Okay, yeah, this is not ideal," TJ admitted. “But… look around. Nobody knows what they're doing today. The playing field is totally even.”

He did have a point. If somehow possible, the battlefield was even more chaotic than usual. A few feet ahead, a Viking I only knew in passing hit himself in the head with the spiked flail in his hand and died instantly; another guy used a bow to knock out everyone around him with it - he didn’t seem to have any arrows. 

TJ grinned again. “We’re going to win today!”

No one bothered to inform him that, technically, there was no way to ‘win’ the battle. On the contrary: if you somehow managed not to die, people would give you weird looks for days afterwards. We all knew how seriously he took these battles. After a few decades of being here, you just had to convince yourself that there was a point to all of this, I suppose. 

“Guns are cowardly!” Halfborn complained instead, glowering at the weapon in his hand. He looked like a very large and bearded toddler who wasn’t allowed to play with his favorite toy. “I will never use this weapon during Ragnarok, so what’s the use?!” 

I silently agreed with him - I was not going to grab a battle axe at the end of the world either. I knew that the hotel staff tried to keep things interesting for those who had already spent centuries here, but why couldn’t they do that by… I don't know, organizing an excursion to Disney World or something? 

“Stop complaining and get moving!!” Mallory snapped at Halfborn over the increasingly deafening sound of thousands of swords clanging against each other, shots being fired and people screaming in pain. A few bullets from a gun I couldn’t see strayed to where our group was standing and Mallory had to duck. 

“See, they’ve already seen that we’re an easy target. I don’t want to start the New Year by dying after less than five seconds today!” She threw an angry glance at Alex, who had startled Mallory last week by turning into an elephant as we had charged into battle, resulting in Mallory getting crushed by a boulder before she even had the chance to fight. 

Alex rolled his eyes at her angry stare. “Sorry about that… again” 

The five of us started to move onto the field as a group. Technically, these fights were everyone against everyone, but like I said, our floor usually liked to stick together.

“Any plan?” I asked, trying my best to keep the axe in front of my chest. The first warriors were already dead, probably half of them because they couldn’t handle their weapons, and the ground got slippery with blood, which didn’t make staying together easy. 

“I’m assuming…-” Alex began and pointed at TJ, who was gleefully staggering ahead toward the cluster of hills south of us “-...we’re gonna take a hill.” 

I sighed. “Of course we are.”

TJ loved hills. Sure, it was a decent battle strategy to try and gain the high ground to be able to fire down at your enemies… the problem with that was just that we rarely ever made it far enough up a hill for that plan to work. 

Still, we followed him through the chaos. I tried not to focus too much on Alex while trying to stay alive. I hadn’t had another chance to talk to him so far, and I wasn’t entirely sure if I even wanted to anymore. Maybe it would have been best just to run into a sword -  then I would get a few hours of being dead to think it all over. But sadly, despite doing this every day, I couldn’t just turn off my survival instinct and continued to dodge and deflect every weapon that got too close as best as I could with the bulky axe. It wasn’t easy, but Alex in front of me was struggling even more. 

“Arghh, I hate this stupid thing!” he yelled, hitting the crossbow like a malfunctioning computer. The weapon was clearly not made for running across a battlefield, and Alex didn’t even get a chance to string it properly, let alone shoot it. It also didn’t offer any protection from outside attacks. 

“I’ll cover you,” I said - possibly overconfident, since I was barely able to defend myself - as Alex continued to struggle with stringing the bow. 

It went well for about five minutes. We ducked behind trees, boulders, and the occasional decorative house. Alex and I came close to getting our heads smashed in when none other than Davy Crockett, wielding a giant war hammer, took aim at our group - but he quickly got distracted as Halfborn charged at him empty-handed, having cast aside his ‘cowardly’ weapon. They both disappeared in the chaos and honestly? I had no idea who would win, because even without weapons, Halfborn managed to be quite deadly. 

We moved forward, TJ still leading and clearing the way. He was surprisingly skilled with that hunting knife  - which was fortunate, since neither Mallory, Alex, nor I managed to do much besides stay alive. 

Then suddenly, just as we had reached the small forest at the foot of the first hill, an arrow coming from my right narrowly missed my butt ( that would have been embarrassing!) and instead embedded itself in Alex’s thigh.  

“Ah, fuck,” Alex said, as if an arrow sticking out of a leg was only a minor inconvenience. His leg gave out and he staggered. Mallory and I quickly rushed over and Mallory grabbed Alex’s arm to provide support before I had the chance. 

“Can you heal him?” she asked me when she saw that the wound wasn’t life threatening, just painful. 

“I’d really rather die,” Alex hissed through clenched teeth. I knew that that wasn’t an exaggeration by any means. 

Mallory sighed, as if she had expected this reaction.

“And, by the way, it’s ‘her’ now,” Alex added, but Mallory had already stopped paying attention to her and instead turned to me. 

“We need all hands on deck if we don’t want to look like the biggest losers. And since Halfborn, that idiot, has disappeared…- just heal her, alright?” She pushed Alex’s arm from her own to my shoulder ignoring Alex’s protest. “I’ll help TJ. Come join us as soon as possible.”

She ran after TJ, who was already halfway up the hill, but was being shot at by a group of knights in full medieval armor, all equipped with revolvers - have you ever seen medieval knights with guns? Definitely terrifying. 

I quickly pulled Alex in between a blackthorn bush and the massive trunk of a fallen tree to give us a few seconds to breathe. 

“Don’t even try to heal me, Chase!” Alex hissed, pushing herself away from me as soon as I sat her down on the forest floor. She dropped her crossbow and without much ado pulled the arrow out of her leg, grunting in pain. 

I wasn’t sure if that was the smartest move, since the wound was bleeding heavier now - but maybe Alex wanted to die quickly, who knew?

I held my hands up. “I won’t.” 

I hated to see Alex in pain, but this wasn’t a life-threatening situation - at least not in any way that mattered - regardless of how dramatic Mallory and TJ were acting about it. I would never dare to heal Alex against her will if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

The spot between the tree trunk and the bush turned out to be a decent hideout. Several groups of warriors passed by in the next few minutes without noticing us. 

“So, what? We’re just gonna stay here until someone kills us?” Alex asked after a while, peering over the trunk. 

I shrugged. “I guess…” 

“We could always kill each other,” Alex suggested. 

“I think TJ will be pissed if we do that - if he’s not dead already.” 

“Right…” Alex took her hand away from the wound and eyed it for a moment. “Give me a few more minutes, then I’ll be fine again.”

I gave her a sceptical glance. As an einherji, she healed much faster than mortals did, but I highly doubted that she would be ready to storm into battle anytime soon. 

She looked back unwaveringly and nodded vaguely in the direction where TJ and Mallory had disappeared. “You can go ahead.”

“Nah, I’ll wait with you.” The choice between keeping Alex company and plunging back into battle with an unfamiliar weapon wasn’t exactly difficult. 

She shook her head with the typical you’re-so-stupid expression, but if I wasn’t completely mistaken, there was also something like affection in her gaze, and that made my heart feel a million times warmer. “Okay, and what are we gonna do here the whole time?” 

Call it reprehensible, because Alex didn’t even have the chance to run off like she had done yesterday after our kiss, but the first thought that came to my mind was that this was the perfect opportunity to bring up the question that had been burning on my tongue. 

“We could, uh, just talk-” I began awkwardly, half expecting to get shut down immediately. 

But for once, Alex didn’t seem to see where I was trying to head. “Yeah? About what?” she asked absent-mindedly, while she concentrated on finally stringing her crossbow. 

It was terrible timing, I knew that. We were in the middle of a bloody battlefield, and the possibility of both of us dying in a matter of seconds was extremely high. But it felt like this was the best chance I was going to get. So, I took a deep breath. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about, anyway.”

Alex seemed to realize her mistake the second I opened my mouth. With a click, the bow string snapped into position, but Alex seemed to have entirely forgotten about the weapon in her hand. For a second, pure horror flashed through her eyes, then she stared at me as if I had lost my mind - maybe I had. “Now, Magnus??” 

Yes, okay, that was a very valid question, because - again - we were in the middle of a damn battlefield… but it was too late now. “I wanted to talk to you about … what we are.”

Alex just continued to stare at me, horrified, as if I had just gutted a puppy in front of her. She seemed to be screaming at me with her eyes alone: “What the actual hell are you doing?? “

 An icy lump formed in my throat. 

Around us, the sounds of battle got louder. I heard swords clashing just a few feet from where we were hiding and arrows whizzing by. It looked like we were going to get company soon, so I should probably get to the point, if I wanted to get answers. 

“I- I mean, are we a couple?“ I forced the words out of my mouth without actually knowing what I was going to say. “Or- or would you like to be? I mean- ugh, this is stupid -”  

A shout rang through the air: “Someone’s hiding in that bush!!” 

My time was up, so I tried to finish my incoherent stammering: “Should we, I don’t know, maybe go on a date or something?” 

“What??” Alex shouted as we both threw ourselves to the ground to narrowly avoid a volley of arrows. 

I wasn’t sure if that was a I-couldn’t-hear-you-because-we-are-being-shot-at ‘what’ or an are-you-out-of-your-mind ‘what’. With my luck, it was probably the latter. 

Alex crawled around the tree trunk and managed to stumble to her feet, though her wounded leg was obviously still hurting. I followed her, because I definitely didn’t want to get pierced by a hundred arrows while hiding like a coward. 

I barely noticed who had attacked us, only that several warriors chased us away from our hiding spot and that, thank the gods, it wasn’t the knights with the guns. 

We were quickly forced to stop running, as they managed to surround us. Alex spun around and hit several of them in the head with her crossbow, while I realized too late that I had left the stupid axe by the tree - so all that was left for me to do was dodge clumsily swung swords and various projectiles. 

I would definitely be dead in a few seconds - the only reason I wasn’t yet was that our attackers didn’t know how to handle their weapons, either - so I decided to use my last moments to answer Alex’s ambiguous ‘What’ before I would lose the vital function to do so - I knew that I wouldn’t make it this far again. 

“Would you like to go on a date with me?” I clarified, louder than probably necessary. 

“Ooohhhh,” said some of the warriors around us, too invested in the situation to remember to kill us for a few seconds. 

I felt my face burn. The look on Alex’s pale face, so full of terror, as if the idea of a date with me was a million times worse than Ragnarok itself, made my heart ache. 

Or wait, no. Actually, that was the small arrow that pierced my chest. Someone had shot me straight through the heart. 

“Oh,” I heard myself say, but it sounded very far away.

Only when I fell to my knees did I see that it hadn’t been one of the attackers who had hit me… but Alex. 

I couldn’t tell if it had been an accident or not, but either way, it was definitely a solid answer to my question. 

Seeing what she had done, she dropped the crossbow and looked down at me, her expression so pained that for a second I assumed she had been hit at the same time. But she remained on her feet. 

I barely registered the pain in my chest, but my vision blurred.  Alex’s face, staring down at me, looked like it was surrounded by a green halo. 

“We don’t do stuff like that, Mags.” 

I didn’t get a chance to think about what that meant because a second later, everything around me went dark and I fell into nothingness.

When I woke up in my bed a few hours later, the song You Give Love a Bad Name by Bon Jovi was stuck in my head: “Shot through the heart and you’re to blame ”-  yeah, that sounded appropriate. 

I let out a deep groan, as the memories of the battle caught up with me. 

I had made a complete fool of myself in front of Alex and a couple of centuries old warriors. Even worse: it had been for nothing. I was left with more questions than answers. 

My heart clenched, and that had nothing to do with the fact that it had been shot a few hours earlier. Alex’s last words from before I had died played in my head like a broken record: “We don’t do stuff like that, Mags.” 

 What did that even mean?? It definitely wasn’t the clear answer Blitz had promised me - it was anything but that. 

Sure, the fact that she had shot me after I had asked her out, probably counted as a “no” but… why? Why didn’t we do “stuff like that”? And why was I so unsure if I even wanted to know the answer? 

By now, it was probably about time for dinner, but I didn’t want to leave my bed and face Alex. 

I turned around and pressed my face into the pillow, hoping to somehow disappear into it. Unfortunately, my talking sword wouldn’t let me. 

“HEY, Señor, you’re awake!” Jack's voice suddenly boomed through the room. I jumped and almost died again because Jack’s blade was hovering right next to my pillow. 

I rolled away so fast that I fell off my bed. “Gods, Jack! Some space, please!” 

“Sorry.” Jack hovered closer - clearly not knowing the definition of ‘space’ - and the runes on his blade glowed a deep orange. “It took you so long to regenerate.” 

I had tried to tell him not to call my daily death and resurrection a “regeneration” because that reminded me of Doctor Who - and sadly it wasn’t nearly as cool, I didn’t even get to change bodies - but as usual he didn’t listen to me.  

I got up from the floor. “Yeah, well, it was an embarrassing death.” 

I wasn’t kidding. For some reason, the really stupid deaths took a lot longer to reset than the heroic ones. Maybe that was Valhalla’s method of encouraging its inhabitants to do their best every day - that obviously wasn’t working on me, though.

“Oh, I heard,” Jack giggled. My situation had to be really embarrassing for my sentient sword to giggle at me. “The armory is talking about nothing else.” 

I still didn’t understand how Jack communicated with other, not so talkative weapons, but apparently Valhalla was a real hotspot for weapon gossip. 

I sighed. “That’s just great.” 

“Don’t worry about Alex, señor. You don’t need a lover,” Jack said, a bitter undertone creeping into his voice. “You have me!” 

Yes. My sword was jealous. He didn’t show it much, and I knew he liked Alex, but with his history (my dad had given him away for his one true love, long story) he tended to get possessive when it came to his owner’s relationships. 

Well, good for him, that Alex had no interest in taking our relationship anywhere….

“Oh, by the way,” Jack said, as I walked through the circular atrium to my kitchen to get a glass of water - being dead could leave a really funny taste in your mouth. I don’t recommend it. “Your cousin called about three times.” 

“What?” I stopped in my tracks and patted my jeans for my phone. Of course, it wasn’t there. I had a habit of losing it. “Wait, which cousin?” 

“How many cousins do you have?” 

“A few. Blitz for example-...”?” 

If Jack had eyes, he probably would have rolled them. “Yeah, but I mean the smart one. Your phone is on the kitchen counter, by the way,” he added, helpful as always. 

I hurried over to grab it. I hadn’t heard much from my cousin Annabeth in the past few weeks. That wasn’t necessarily out of the ordinary, since neither of us used our phones frequently and led busy lives, but I couldn’t deny that I missed her a little. 

Jack was right. She had tried to call me three times in the last two hours. That definitely was out of the ordinary. 

A queasy feeling spread through my stomach as I hit the ‘call back’ button. Gods, I really hoped she was all right. 

No one picked up. I waited for a few moments and tried again, but to no avail. She hadn’t left a message either. 

“Shit…,” I mumbled. Annabeth’s life was even more complicated than mine. Being a Greek demigod was much more dangerous than a Norse one, in my opinion. They usually didn’t live long enough to become adults (I mean, I hadn’t either but… not the point), but Annabeth and her boyfriend Percy had actually made it to college. She had invited me there once, a few years ago, to New Rome, a community in California exclusively for demigods. It was definitely the craziest place I had ever been, but it also seemed relatively safe - as safe as any place could be for a demigod. Plus, Annabeth was smart. Definitely the smartest person I knew (though, Sam came very close). So, I didn’t really expect anything to happen to her but… who knew? Life was fragile when you didn’t get to resurrect every day.

At least I didn’t get a chance to let my thoughts spiral with worry because the gong announcing dinner sounded through the hotel. 

I sighed. I did not want to go to dinner, like, at all. 

I tried to tell Jack, but my sword wouldn’t listen. “No, no, no, you’ve got to eat well, boss,” he said, gently nudging me towards the door with the tip of his blade. “Good nutrition is the backbone of a great warrior.” 

I wanted to protest that I didn’t want to be a great warrior, I wanted to be a sulky teenager who just got rejected by his crush. Unfortunately, as a sword, Jack was pretty good at hustling someone through a room if he wanted to. Seconds later, I stood by the door because I didn’t want to get impaled. 

“You’ll have to face Alex sooner or later anyway,” Jack said as he pushed me into the hallway. 

“What in Hel’s name was going on with you guys during the battle?” TJ started the conversation as I took my seat at our floor’s table in Valhalla’s massive dining hall. He looked quizzically from me to Alex, who was sitting at the other end of the table, and back. 

Alex didn’t spare me a single glance and instead stared down at her plate with a look on her face that made me guess she didn’t enjoy being here any more than I did. 

“I was counting on your help,” TJ continued unswervingly, “we could have won!”

“There’s no way to win the battle, TJ,” Mallory dared to inform him. “Besides, you got shot in the head by a knight. Someone who was born centuries before guns were even invented. I don’t think Magnus or Alex could have helped with that.” 

I appreciated that Mallory was trying to put in a good word for us, but TJ wasn’t having any of it: “Some backup wouldn’t have hurt!” Again, he looked at me and Alex expectantly, waiting for an answer. 

I had no idea how to explain what had happened without embarrassing myself further, so I was glad when Alex finally shrugged and said: “We were caught off guard and then Magnus died.” 

It was nice of her not to mention my failed attempt to ask her out but… that was so not what had happened.

“You shot me!” I exclaimed in my defense and leaned forward to stare at her angrily. Because, yes, I was angry about getting shot. There would have been other ways to reject me… like talking, for example - but that seemed to be the one solution that Alex avoided like the plague. And it was starting to drive me crazy.

Alex briefly met my gaze and for a second a strange tension twitched across her mouth. Then she looked away and said roughly: “It was an accident, okay?? The stupid crossbow didn’t work properly.” She listlessly poked her fork into her food, but didn’t actually eat anything, while Mallory, Halfborn and TJ exchanged curious glances. 

I tried to ignore them and the fact that my face felt very hot. 

“Also,” Alex added after a few seconds of tense silence and looked up again, now suddenly with a smug grin, as if she had just found the perfect explanation for her behavior. “I told you I would kill you if you looked into Izzy’s head. You even said I could.” 

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Yes, Alex had warned me that she would kill me, and we had joked about it. But I was sure that we both were aware that the problem wasn’t that she had killed me, but that she had killed me to avoid talking to me. 

Something in my stomach seemed to be biting and churning and I doubted that had anything to do with the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything yet. I had tried to avoid facing Alex because I had expected to get humiliated even more than before. What I hadn’t expected was to get so angry. “Sure, that explains everything,” I said bitterly, holding Alex’s cold gaze. 

I wanted to know what her problem was. Why couldn’t she just tell me to my face what she was thinking? Why did she rather shoot me instead of telling me that she didn’t want to go out with me? If she really had panicked, why couldn’t she just apologize instead of making up lies?

For a few moments, the air between us was probably dense enough to be cut with a knife. Then, without warning, Alex stood up so abruptly that her chair toppled over and hit the floor loudly enough to make some of the other warriors around us turn their heads in curiosity. She ignored them and walked away without another word.

“Uh… did we… miss something?” TJ asked, surprised that the conversation he had started had ended here. Mallory and Halfborn looked no less confused. 

I decided not to answer and hoped that my friends couldn’t sense my aching heart.

Chapter Text

Magnus

The day after the disastrous battle began even more puzzling than the last one had ended - if that was even possible. 

When I found Alex standing at my door on my way to breakfast, my heart dropped to my knees. I had not expected her to speak to me at all today, or ever again. But instead of giving me the cold shoulder, she acted as if the day before had never happened. 

“Hearth texted me. They could use some help today,” she said, gesturing with her phone in her hand. “Do you wanna head over there after breakfast?”

I blinked at her, my mouth open for a second too long before I managed to stutter: “Y-yeah, sure.” 

Alex frowned at me amusedly, as if she was trying to figure out what was wrong with me, before turning away and heading down the hall. 

I stared after her. I had barely slept, wondering all night how to talk to Alex without embarrassing myself even more. And now Alex was acting like nothing had happened? Had I somehow imagined the whole thing?? 

We left the hotel together after breakfast, and Alex’s behavior continued to make me question my sanity. Nothing hinted at her dramatic exit during dinner yesterday or the fact that she had shot me - which I was still a little miffed about. 

We took the subway because yesterday’s rain and the freezing night had coated the sidewalks with a slippery layer of ice. 

Once we had squeezed into the back of a subway car packed with morning commuters, Alex turned to me. 

“Did you remember to bring Jack?” she asked, still sounding very casual, cheerful even, which confused me immensely. Today she had swapped her blood-stained pink coat for an elegant green trench coat, which she wore over a green knit sweater with a white collar peeking out, a rose-colored pleated skirt and black tights. The outfit was finished off with dark green platform boots, that made her an inch taller than me. I tried to ignore how good she looked, adding a splash of color to the crowd of  drab black and brown winter coats around us. Instead, I tried to focus on her question, but I had already forgotten what she had said. 

With a glance at my non-existent reaction, she added: “We wanted to find out if Izzy is a child of Frey, remember?”  

“Oh, right,” I said, pulling the rune stone out from under my sweater. “Yeah, he’s here.” 

Alex pointed her finger sternly at the pendant: “Okay, now listen, buddy: When we get to the house, pay attention to Izzy. She's about 10 and has dark curly hair. Find out if she might be Magnus' sister. But you can't turn into a sword around the children.  You have to wait until we're alone again. Do you understand?” 

Jack, who most likely wasn’t paying attention anyway, didn’t answer, but that was probably for the best, because a few commuters around us were already peering over their newspapers to watch the green-haired girl telling a necklace not to turn into a sword - if the necklace would respond, I was sure I would have to put some of my first-aid training to use.  

As we exited the subway station at the Hynes Convention Center, Alex whistled a cheery tune and skipped across the frozen sidewalks with light-footed strides, while I struggled to keep up without slipping - granted, her choice of footwear was much more appropriate for the weather than my worn-out sneakers.  

While skidding along, I tried to make sense of Alex’s behavior. Sure, it was nice that she wasn’t mad at me anymore (why exactly did she have a reason to be mad again?) and it was great that there wasn’t as much awkwardness between us as I had expected, but somehow this didn’t seem like Alex.

By the time we had reached the Chase Space, I had come to the conclusion that either she must have had an incredibly therapeutic pottery session last night, or she was putting on this show to hide her true feelings from me. 

The more time I spent with her that day, the more I leaned toward the second option as the most likely explanation. The mask she had put on was good, but it crumbled from time to time. Her smile seemed forced; every time I looked at her, she quickly looked away; and she actually tried to engage in small talk with me - Alex hated small talk. 

The worst part was, that this show didn’t even make me feel any better. It gave me the impression that I had done something incredibly wrong. Had I? Sure, the timing had been terrible, but was it really so unreasonable to finally ask for concretization of our relationship after almost three years with no answers?  

I desperately hoped to catch Hearth or Blitz alone for a few moments to ask them what in the nine worlds I was supposed to do now, but the morning was too busy. The bathrooms had to be cleaned, I had to give a whole lecture on how to make a bed to some kids and we had to block the stairs to the rooftop, which had turned into an even more dangerous ice rink than the sidewalks. 

I didn’t manage to talk to Izzy either, because Blitz was giving her and two other newcomers a sewing class to show them how to make some simple clothes for themselves, so Jack didn’t get a chance to scan her for Frey powers - or whatever he could do to possibly sense her parentage. 

Around noon, Alex and I decided to start cleaning the library, which we had neglected since we had hosted our New Year’s Eve party there. 

Normally, I would have welcomed spending an indefinite amount of time alone with Alex in the library, but today it just made me nervous. 

“Yuck!” Alex said as we moved the last of the rearranged bookshelves back into place. “What even is this?” 

I looked over to her. She held up her fingers, which were covered in a gooey, slightly moldy white mass. 

“Looks like someone left their cake on the shelf,” I said, pointing to the heap of frosting and cream that was resting on the shelf, right where Alex had put her hand. I carefully picked up the plate and threw it in the trash bag. At least, it hadn’t smeared any of the books.

“Who puts cake on a bookshelf and leaves it there?” Alex complained, staring unhappily at her hand. She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, it smells!”  

I frowned at her, amused. “You spend every day on a battlefield where you come in contact with people’s guts all the time, but some moldy cake is too much?” 

I knew I shouldn’t have said that when Alex gave me a wry smile. “Oh, so if you don’t have a problem with it-” 

I barely dodged her hand, when she reached for my sweater. 

“Eww, stop it,” I laughed. 

She didn’t stop and we launched into a childish game of tag through the library. We laughed and scurried around the bookshelves, and for a second everything was normal - just two friends being silly with each other.

Then I managed to grab Alex’s arm to hold it away from me. She could have easily pulled it free, as I wasn’t holding on tightly, but instead she grinned mischievously, pulled me towards her - and kissed me. 

My brain froze in surprise. It was more of a reflex than a conscious decision to kiss back.  

Something about it felt incredibly wrong, but with Alex’s lips on mine, my shell-shocked mind couldn’t immediately figure out why. It took me about half a minute to tear myself away from Alex, and even then, something inside me was protesting.

“Alex,” I began hoarsely. Her face was still just inches from mine, which was why I couldn’t get my voice to work properly. I gently pushed her away. “What are you doing?”

Alex immediately backed off, pulling her arm out of my grasp. Her face was once again unreadable, but I noticed the small hints that a storm was brewing beneath the surface: The left corner of her mouth twitched tensely, and she didn’t meet my eyes, staring slightly past me. 

“Kissing you, obviously,” she replied, her voice dry. “What did you think? Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?” 

“What, no. I just-” 

I didn't know what to say. She almost made me believe that I had somehow only dreamed about the battle yesterday, but the challenging glint in her eyes told me that she knew exactly why I was asking and wanted to see if I had the nerve to explain. 

A burning sensation swelled in my chest. 

“Look, you know, if you don’t want to kiss, just say so and I’ll stop,” Alex said with a shrug, when I didn’t finish my sentence. Her voice sounded emotionless except for the tiniest quiver at the last word. “But you kissed back, so-” 

“No, no that’s… that’s not it,” I stammered. Frustration threatened to overwhelm me. I swallowed, hoping to push down that burning ball that was creeping up my throat. “You know that’s not it!” 

I felt like I was being toyed with and it was killing me. I liked Alex. I liked spending time with her and being close to her. I liked kissing her. But not like this. Not when I did not understand what any of it meant to Alex and she didn’t care to explain. 

I closed my eyes for a second to collect my thoughts without having to see her confusing expression. 

Alex stayed quiet. Maybe she noticed that she had pushed too far. 

“Okay, so… just let me get this right…” I began slowly as the words finally fell into place, trying to keep my voice calm. I opened my eyes again. Alex still didn’t meet my gaze. “You want to kiss me…- but you don’t want to go on a date with me or… be a couple?” 

I waited for a few seconds, but Alex didn’t reply. She kept staring at the shelf behind me as if it was a million times more interesting than what I had to say. 

So I continued: “I mean, I am just assuming that you don’t want to, since you shot me instead of answering when I asked you about it yesterday.”

“I told you it was an accident,” Alex said quietly. The stone facade that hid her feelings began to crumble faster now. The twitching around her mouth became more obvious, and I saw how hard she clenched her jaw.

“A very convenient accident,” I replied just as quietly. 

My frustration subsided the longer I studied Alex’s face. She didn’t look like she was toying with me, she didn’t look like she was enjoying any of this. She looked like she would rather be teleported to the icy planes of Niflheim and freeze to death than continue this conversation. And that confused me so much that I wondered if it was even worth getting answers. But I had made it this far, I couldn’t back out now. 

“Please, just… just say anything about this,” I continued softer. I hated how desperate I sounded, even to my own ears. “Tell me how it is.” 

I knew, deep down, what Alex would say, if I forced her to talk about our relationship. Gods, I knew, I was practically begging her to officially dump me. And sure, that would hurt - because, like I said, I liked Alex- but at least it would finally give me an answer. I would probably be okay with it, eventually, if I would only finally hear it from her mouth. 

She forced herself to look at me. Her eyes flitted across my face, the familiar panic behind them. A small, strained smile appeared around her lips, and she took my hand in hers (the one without the cake on it), carefully, as if I were made of porcelain. 

When she finally spoke, her voice, usually so full of sarcasm, sounded sadder than I had ever heard it: “Can’t we… can’t we just leave things the way they are?” She squeezed my hand lightly. “This is good, isn’t it?” 

My heart felt like it had just gained a hundred pounds. I looked at our intertwined hands, which fit together perfectly. 

I still did not understand anything, had no clue what exactly the issue was. Yes, this was good, and it had been good all along, but moving forward didn’t mean that it would get worse, did it? 

A gloomy certainty weighed on my chest. Maybe I was the issue. Maybe I wasn’t good enough for Alex. Maybe she just did not have the same overwhelming feelings for me that I had for her. Maybe I was just barely good enough to make out with occasionally, while she secretly waited for someone else to come along. Maybe Alex was just too nice to say that to my face.  

I opened my mouth, but didn’t get a chance to speak - and honestly, it was better that way, because I probably wouldn’t have said anything that would have regained me some dignity - when a voice from the entrance of the library said: “Uh… hello?” 

Alex let go of my hand and gave me one final pained glance before putting her cheery mask back on and stepping out from behind the shelf where we had ended up. 

“We’re here! Oh, hi, Izzy!” 

Izzy’s name made me wince a little, as it made me painfully aware of the fact that Jack had been hanging around my neck during the entire exchange between me and Alex. I would need to have a serious talk with him to keep him from leaking this to Valhalla's armory gossip.  

“That’s her,” I whispered as quietly as I could to the runestone, which felt pretty stupid. “Don’t become a sword!” I added, which felt even stupider. Then, I also came out from behind the shelf. 

“Hi, Izzy!” I said as I saw her standing by the door, looking around the library in awe. When her eyes caught me, she beamed at me and I waved awkwardly. The idea that she might be my half-sister still felt very overwhelming and I definitely didn’t have the emotional capacity for it right now, so I tried to push the thought away. 

“How was your sewing class?” Alex asked with a smile, and I wondered how she managed that when she had looked so incredibly sad a second ago. I tried to smile too, but I was pretty sure that it looked tense on me. 

“Did you make that shirt ?” Alex continued without waiting for Izzy’s answer and pointed at the baby blue t-shirt Izzy was wearing, genuinely impressed. 

“Yes!” Izzy exclaimed, turning her eyes back to Alex. “Mr. Blitz helped me with the measuring and cutting, but I did most of the sewing,” she told us, “it was fun! And Mr. Blitz also promised to make me some pink jeans!” 

“That’s amazing.” Alex nodded knowingly as if to say, “Ahh, yes, pink jeans, the pinnacle of fashion .”

Izzy looked up and down Alex’s outfit with a curious look. “Are you a girl today?” 

 “Yeah. But that has nothing to do with me wearing a skirt,” Alex explained patiently, “anyone can wear skirts, you know?” 

Izzy nodded thoughtfully and regarded Alex for a few more seconds with a very serious expression for such a young child, before deciding: “You look very pretty.” 

“Why, thank you!” Alex said and gave a twirl. 

I agreed with Izzy, but that fact was not something I wanted to dwell on right now. “What brought you up here, Izzy?” I asked instead.  

“Oh, I was bored and Mr. Blitz said if I wanted to I could help you with some bookshelves or something?” 

“Yeah, we had a little party up here a few days ago and we were just putting everything back in place and cleaning up,” Alex explained and held up her right hand. “I stuck my hand in moldy cake.” 

That made Izzy laugh. 

Alex walked over to the small kitchenette in the back of the room and started to wash the frosting off her hand. “Oh, and by the way, you don’t have to call anyone here Mr or Mrs or anything,” she clarified while doing so, “Blitz is just Blitz.” 

“Okay.” Izzy began to move curiously through the library, occasionally tilting her head to read the title of a book. 

I felt stupid, just standing there awkwardly, so I grabbed the broom from behind the door and started cleaning the wooden floor of dust and any more potential food leftovers.

“I’ve never seen so many books in one house before!” Izzy said after a few moments of silence, her eyes shining as she wandered the shelves. 

Once again, I felt justified in our decision to keep the library. When we had started renovating the house, we had debated whether or not to get rid of it and turn the space into something more functional, but homeless kids love books, as Alex and I knew from our own experience. So over the last few years, we had added many titles to Randolph’s collection of history and mythology books. These days, everyone could find a book to love here. I had to admit that I was quite proud of our collection. We had everything from middle-grade fantasy to Shakespeare plays to ancient epics. 

I would have liked to recommend some books to Izzy, but since I was busy sweeping the floor, Alex beat me to it. 

She followed Izzy to the other end of the room - her hand now freed of the cake. “You like books?” 

“Sure,” Izzy replied. “But I’m not very good at reading… it always takes me a really long time to finish a book.” 

“That’s alright,” Alex said encouragingly. “You can pick any book from here and keep it for as long as you want.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah. And we have some graphic novels and comics, too. Here, let me show you.” 

I let the two of them talk and continued my work, while trying to hover nearby, so that Jack - who hopefully was paying attention - could have a look at Izzy.

“Hey, what’s up there?” Izzy asked after a while, just as Alex pulled out the first Warrior Cats book for her. 

Izzy pointed at the stairs to the roof, which we had temporarily closed off with caution tape. 

“That’s our rooftop, but we can’t go up there right now," Alex said. “It’s frozen from yesterday’s rain. It’s like a very dangerous ice-skating rink up there.”

That had definitely been the wrong thing to say, as Alex also seemed to realize promptly.

Izzy practically began jumping up and down with excitement. “Ohh, I want to go up there, can we go up there?? Please?" 

I chuckled softly and went back to the kitchenette to get the dustpan. Alex would have to see for herself how to get out of this situation. 

“No, like I said, it’s dangerous. You could slip and hit your head, or even tumble off the roof,” I heard her explain calmly. 

“I want to go up there, Alex.” 

Something in Izzy’s voice sent a shiver down my spine. She hadn’t raised her voice or changed much about her tone at all, but somehow she suddenly didn’t sound like a child anymore. The words reached my ears as a cold and authoritative command. It gave me the feeling that something very bad would happen if her demands weren’t met. 

I frowned and looked around the shelves to see Alex’s reaction. 

Even though I was watching from the other side of the room, it was apparent that something odd was happening: For a moment, Alex stared past Izzy with glassy eyes. Not like she had done before, when she wouldn’t meet my eyes, but with a dreamy expression on her face, as if she was remembering a beautiful memory.  

After a second or two, she snapped out of it and grinned brightly at Izzy. “Yeah, okay, let’s do it!” she said, like she had never wanted to do anything more than climb onto an icy roof. 

Before I could even process what was going on, the two of them started tearing off the caution tape around the stairs. 

"Hey, you can't do that!" 

By the time I had reacted, Alex was already halfway up the winding stairs, with Izzy following close behind. They both looked down to me with equally annoyed expressions as I hurried across the room. 

"Don't be such a buzzkill, Magnus," Alex said with a roll of her eyes and continued upwards. She sounded so genuinely annoyed by my presence that a punch in the gut would have hurt less. 

I tried to swallow the tightness her tone left in my chest and frowned back at her. Something wasn’t right. Alex wasn’t necessarily a cautious person when it came to herself, but compromising a child’s safety didn’t seem like something she would do. 

Izzy turned to me with those big brown children’s eyes that knew exactly no one could refuse them, and in the same steely voice she had used on Alex, she stated a matter of fact: “You don’t want to spoil the fun, Magnus.” 

The words washed over me as the most beautiful sounds I had ever heard - a line from a poem that would now be seared into my mind forever. A white mist settled over my eyes and for a second I couldn’t see anything. Instead, Alex’s annoyed tone kept replaying in my head; the pained look with which she had regarded me earlier, was burned onto my inner eye. I wasn’t so sure anymore if it had really been an expression of fear. Maybe what I had interpreted as panic had been an indication of Alex’s deep annoyance with me all along. Maybe I was spoiling everything we had by trying to make it serious. Maybe I was always spoiling everything. I didn’t want to be the one to ruin the fun anymore and I would prove it.  

My vision cleared and I found myself at the bottom of the stairs. Of course, I would let them go up to the roof, why wouldn't I? I wasn’t boring or annoying, and I didn’t want anyone to think I was. I was just as cool and fun as Alex! 

A few seconds later, the cold winter air hit my face as the three of us climbed onto the roof. I wasn't quite sure when I had made the decision to go up there, but I was glad that I had. 

It was extremely slippery up there - the whole deck was covered in ice; that hadn’t been an exaggeration - but Alex and I each held one of Izzy’s hands and we glided across the ice like terrible ice skaters without skates. It was fun. 

Izzy giggled and so Alex and I did the same. 

Somewhere in the very back of my mind, a small voice told me to get off the damn roof, but I barely noticed it, I was too busy enjoying the moment.

When I looked over at Alex, she smiled at me as genuinely as she hadn't in days, and for a moment, I almost expected my burning heart to melt the ice on the roof. 

A second later, I was made painfully aware of the fact that it was still there: I slipped and fell onto my butt. 

Fortunately, Alex and her sturdy boots managed to stay upright and keep Izzy from falling with me, so the two of them looked down at me and laughed heartily. 

The voice in the back of my mind told me that normally I would feel shame at their laughter, but my mind was still kind of cloudy, so all I could feel was joy at the fact that I had managed to make the girls laugh. I joined in their laughter. 

The next few minutes - or seconds? Maybe hours? I couldn’t be sure - flew by like a video montage in a rom-com movie. The longer we skated around on the roof, the louder Izzy giggled and the stronger the sinking feeling in my stomach. But hey, no one else slipped and no one fell off the roof - which was pretty unlikely anyway - so everything was fine. Izzy was having fun and Alex was smiling at me. That was all that mattered. 

I was forcibly yanked out of this dream-like state when the sound of a hand thumping on glass reached my ears like gunshots.

The three of us jumped at the sudden noise and Izzy almost slipped, but Alex and I managed to keep her on her feet.

"Whoa," Alex said, dazed as if she had just woken up from a deep sleep. 

I turned to the stairs and saw Hearth standing just far enough up on the stairs to knock on the plexiglass dome. He was staring at us so angrily, that I debated whether throwing myself off the roof wouldn’t be a better option than facing him - I’m serious, have you ever seen an angry elf? 

“What are you doing? Get down. Now,” he signed in choppy gestures. 

I wasn’t quite sure why he was so angry, but somehow I felt he had a right to be. 

Alex, who kept blinking in confusion, was the first one to react. She gently tugged at Izzy’s hand: “He’s right, we should go back inside now.” She still sounded a little woozy, but definitely more lucid than I felt. 

Izzy tore her hand from Alex’s grip. “No, I don’t want to.” 

“Hearth says we have to,” Alex replied, her voice now stronger. “And he’s right, we shouldn’t-” 

But Izzy didn’t let her finish. She had put on a sweet smile and turned to Hearth. “We want to stay up here,” she said in the same uncanny voice as before. 

It echoed through the cold air and it took all my strength not to give in to the urge to throw myself to the ground and beg Hearth to let us stay. 

Hearth just frowned at Izzy, unimpressed. He eyed her for a few seconds, his face slowly changing from angry to surprised back to slightly less angry. Then he signed: “That’s not working on me .”

I didn’t know what he meant and thought maybe I had misunderstood, but Alex looked just as confused. 

“Tell her,” Hearth added, looking at me expectantly.  

“Tell her what?"  I signed back.

“I can’t hear her. It doesn’t work on me.”  

I still didn’t know what he meant, but Hearth was pretty convincing when he was angry, so I turned to Izzy and said: “He’s deaf, so he can’t hear you. He says… it’s not working on him?” 

Izzy seemed to be able to make much more sense of that than me. Her confident expression melted away. Her eyes darted from me to Hearth and back to me. Suddenly, she looked like she was about to cry. 

"Let's go back inside," Alex tried again, nodding toward the stairs. This time, Izzy went without protest, her head hanging low. Alex and I followed, her eyes silently asking me a question I had no answer to either: “What just happened? ”

Chapter Text

Magnus

As soon as I set my foot back on the floor of the library, I felt like I was being hit by a truck as reality came crashing back in. 

My head was throbbing and my ears ached as if someone had been shouting into them for half an hour. I exchanged a look with Alex, who was holding her head. I knew that she was thinking the same thing: why, for Hel's sake, had we agreed to let Izzy go onto the roof? 

"What-" I began haltingly, looking from Hearth to Izzy to Alex, hoping to find an answer. My brain felt like it had been forced through a meat grinder. "What was that ?" 

Hearth eyed me for a few moments, his expression clearly telling me that he had expected me to have figured it out by now. He replied with a single sign, circling his hands in the air before spreading them out toward the ground. “Magic .”

“Magic?” I signed back, baffled. I wasn’t sure if I had understood correctly. “Izzy used magic on us?”

Hearth nodded and my jaw dropped.

Sure, you might ask: ‘Magnus, why are you so surprised about magic? You are literally dead and have a talking sword ’ - and yes, that was correct, but still… When I thought of magic, I thought of giants, gods, wisdom and sacrifice. I thought of people like Hearth, who had dedicated their entire lives to it, willing to give up everything else. I did not associate magic with a child. 

Alex was already one step ahead of me. “What kind?” she asked, frowning so deeply that her eyebrows almost touched. 

Hearth shook his head. “I have never seen anything like it .” His movements became slower and more hesitant, as if he couldn’t believe what he was telling us either. “She can make people do things against their will - just by using her words. I already suspected something during dinner yesterday, when she made Corin give her his dessert. Now, I am sure. I just don’t know what it means.” 

He studied Izzy, as if the answers were hidden in her anxious face. 

“W-what is he saying?” she asked, her voice shaking as she turned to Alex. “Am I in trouble?”

Alex looked as rattled as I was by Hearth’s explanation and didn’t even attempt to smile as she turned to Izzy. She ignored her questions and instead asked in a serious tone: “Izzy, have you ever noticed… that you can force people to do things for you? Even if they don’t want to?”

Izzy averted her eyes and focused on Alex’s boots. “Yeah,” she replied, her voice small. “If I really want someone to do something, I just tell them and they listen.” 

She looked up at Alex again, as if hoping to find approval in her face, but Alex continued to frown tensely. 

“No one ever noticed, but it was always like this. It's the only reason I was able to get here. It kept the monsters away,” Izzy added, defensiveness slipping into her voice. 

Alex exchanged an uncertain look with Hearth, while I was trying hard to put the pieces together in my head. I felt like I had once heard of a power like the one Izzy clearly possessed. I just couldn’t remember where or from whom. 

“I’m sure, that was a helpful skill on the streets,” Alex said, after a few moments of silence. She tried to sound friendly again, but I noticed the stiffness in her shoulder as she turned back to Izzy. Alex valued her autonomy too much to remain indifferent to the display of a power that could control others like that. 

Izzy nodded slowly at her statement and Alex continued: “I’m glad that it helped you get here safely. But now you don’t have to use it anymore to stay safe, okay? You can’t just force us to do things we don’t want to do.” Her voice became more insistent. “There’s a reason I told you not to go on the roof, and it was dangerous that you made me go. You understand that’s not very nice, don’t you?” 

Izzy’s lip began to wobble at Alex’s harsh tone. “Yeah,” she brought out, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, “I’m sorry.” She looked to the ground again. “Are you- are you going to send me away now?” 

“No!” Alex replied quickly and her expression immediately softened.  There was still the slightest hint of doubt in her voice, as if a small part of her wasn’t fully on board with that response, but I didn’t think Izzy noticed. “No, we’re never going to send you away. I swear. But you have to promise that you won’t use this trick on anyone else here, okay?” 

Izzy furrowed her brow and took a second to think, as if debating whether or not such a promise was worth staying here. Then, she nodded solemnly and said: “I promise.” She held out her pinky finger and looked at Alex, her head slightly tilted. “Pinky promise,” she added solemnly. 

Alex sighed deeply, before hooking her finger  into Izzy’s a little reluctantly. “Okay.” She forced a smile on her face. “Why don’t you go downstairs. I saw Chloe and Wyatt playing Mario Kart in the living room, maybe you can join them.” 

Izzy seemed to get the underlying message of “The adults need to talk now ” and nodded sadly, before leaving the library. 

Alex kept the forced smile on her face for as long as it took Izzy to close the door behind her, then her expression dropped and she turned to me and Hearth. 

“What the actual fuck?! And no-” she added, holding up her hand in Hearth’s direction in a don’t-even-try gesture. “- I’m not putting anything in the swear jar for that. Swearing is very appropriate right now.” 

Alex always found some reason to avoid the swear jar, which solely existed for Blitz, Hearth, her and me, so that we would remember to act as good role models for the kids. This time, Hearth, who had indeed already raised his hands to chide her, seemed to agree for once. He shrugged as if to say: “Okay, fair point .” 

I still felt like everything around me was moving too fast. I shook my head and signed so Hearth didn’t have to read my lips: “ I don’t get this. How can she do that ?” I turned to Alex. “ A child of Frey shouldn’t be able to do that, right?”

Hearth frowned, and before Alex had a chance to answer, he asked: “Frey? Why?” 

Alex explained our theory that Izzy might be a child of Frey in quick gestures. 

“If this is a power Frey’s kids can have-” she said, seemingly unable to put her words into signs, “-I'll make sure to steer clear of them for all eternity” 

I hoped that wouldn’t include me.

“I mean, Mags’ healing thing is creepy enough but this?” She shuddered. “Next level creepy.” 

Hearth studied me for a few seconds, as if he expected me to suddenly develop those same powers. I tensed under his sharp gaze. 

“This doesn’t seem like Frey,” he finally signed with a frown, and I couldn’t help but feel relieved. “It has something to do with the way she speaks. Maybe Loki?”

“Right!” I said, wondering why that hadn’t been our first idea. “The silver-tongued god and all that.” 

Alex didn’t look convinced. “No,” she simply said and signed along. “I would know if she was a child of Loki.” 

Hearth’s and my expressions seemed to show that we weren’t convinced, so Alex rolled her eyes and added: “Loki is a persuader. He manipulates by saying the right things. Izzy didn’t put much effort into what she was saying. It was more about… the feelings she conveyed through her words?” 

I wasn’t sure if I really understood the difference, but what Alex said made sense somehow. 

“She just repeated that she wanted to go to the roof - there was nothing special about that,” Alex continued. “But she said it in such a way that it reminded me of why I really wanted to go there, too.” 

That was true. Izzy’s words had made me feel like Alex thought I was a bore (and maybe I still hadn’t completely shaken off that feeling), which had made me want to do exactly what Izzy told me to do. But she hadn’t verbalized that idea, it had just been what I had picked up from her words - like a line from a song, that different people could associate with different feelings. I couldn’t help but wonder what Izzy had made Alex think of to convince her, but I pushed that thought aside as we had more important things to focus on. 

“Her being a child of Loki is no more likely than her being a child of Frey,” Alex concluded, crossing her arms. I didn’t know at what point this had turned into an argument about which of us got to claim the kid with the scary powers as a sibling. 

I opened my mouth, but before I could protest, Hearth signed: “Enough .” He pointed at me. “Ask Jack. ” 

“Oh, right!” I had completely forgotten about my personal Frey detector (don’t tell Jack I called him that). I pulled the rune stone from its necklace and a moment later, Jack hovered in front of me in full sword form. 

As so often, he didn’t check the situation before speaking. “Hey, Señor!! Man, Alex is really weird. That was definitely the saddest kiss-” 

“Jack!” I interrupted him quickly. Stupid talkative swords! I subtly nodded to the two people behind him to make him aware that Alex was still very much in the room. 

Alex crossed her arms, but otherwise didn’t seem to mind being called “weird”. Hearth, who obviously hadn’t heard Jack, only raised his eyebrows at my burning face. 

Jack turned to face them with what I assumed was his front. (No, I couldn’t tell the difference between his front and his back). “Oh. Hi, Alex. Hi, Hearth." He didn’t even have the courtesy to sound embarrassed. 

“Jack,” I tried again, when neither Hearth nor Alex responded. “Did you pay attention to Izzy? Did you see what she did?” 

“Ohhh, yes!” he said and started to hover up and down like he did when he got excited. “That kid is definitely not fully human, but Frey? Nope, no way. Frey was never good with words.”

“Loki maybe?” I still thought we had dismissed that possibility too quickly. 

“Huh, interesting idea…,” Jack said and tilted his blade to one side, thinking for a moment. “But I don’t think so. Loki gives off more chaotic energy.”

“Like I already said,” Alex interjected. 

“Whatever this kid is-” Jack continued, “-she just feels… different from what we usually deal with.”

I quickly interpreted our exchange for Hearth who in turn asked an excellent question: “Good different or bad different?”

“I don’t know, man, just different,” Jack replied. If he had shoulders, I was sure he would have shrugged them. “There’s something familiar, but I can’t place it.” 

“So, if she’s not human and not a child of Frey-” Alex said, sounding as if the fact that her theory had been proven wrong bothered her a lot, “-then, what is she? A demigod? A monster?” 

“Monsters don't usually look like little girls,” Hearth opposed, frowning deeply. “Or get hunted by other monsters. Neither do demigods.”

“Norse demigods aren’t hunted by monsters,” Jack corrected and didn’t elaborate, but we all understood what he meant. 

Alex interpreted for Hearth, slowly, as if she had to process the words herself as she signed. When she had finished, she said what we were all thinking: “You think she could be from another pantheon.” 

Hearth shook his head. “No other pantheons, please. That thought gives me a headache.”

“Oh, that’s it!!” I exclaimed, as the memory I had tried to find when Izzy had talked about her powers came rushing back to the front of my mind. 

“What’s what?” Alex asked, looking at me irritated. 

“My cousin. She once told me about a friend of hers - a Greek demigod - who can do stuff like that. Enchant people with her words.” 

“You think Izzy is a Greek demigod?” Hearth asked and frowned again, seemingly unconvinced. 

“That would explain why those monsters are after her…,” Alex said, pensively twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “Annabeth and Percy told us that Greek demigods usually don’t make it to adulthood because monsters are drawn to their scent or something?” 

“That would mean she’s in danger. And that could be a danger to all of you,” Jack said, in an uncharacteristically serious tone for him. “Maybe we should send her to your cousin’s camp… or she could become a part of that Roman child army.” 

Since I had visited Annabeth in New Rome without taking Jack along - bringing a powerful Norse weapon into a Roman city just hadn't felt right - he acted like the demigod city was the worst place on earth. And yes, the child army was definitely creepy, but to be fair, Alex and I were also technically children and technically part of an army, so I didn’t feel like I could complain about that. (When I had brought up this argument with Jack, he had responded with something insensitive like: “You , señor, are dead” - as if that made it all right.)

“She’s not going anywhere!” Alex snapped at Jack. I guess she didn’t find Izzy’s powers scary enough to think she deserved to have to join the Roman military.

“I can talk to Annabeth and ask her if there’s a way to find out if she’s that kind of demigod. Or a demigod at all,” I offered before my sword and my friend could start a fight. I still had to call Annabeth anyway. I hadn’t been able to reach her since those missed calls yesterday. 

Alex threw a doubtful glance at me, as if she wasn’t convinced of my ability to make a phone call. “Do that,” she said sceptically before turning to Hearth. “You and I are going to test the rune barriers. No Greek monster will get in here.”

“Hello?” 

When I finally heard my cousin’s voice through my phone’s speaker, I almost dropped the phone in relief. I had tried to call her three more times right after I had gotten home, but she hadn’t picked up. Now - it was almost midnight - she finally showed a sign of life. 

“Annabeth!” I said, letting out the breath I had held while waiting for her to pick up. “It’s me, Magnus.” 

“Oh, thank the gods! I thought I would never catch you!” her voice rang through my quiet room. “I’m already on my way.”

“Yeah, well, I was dead yesterday when you called” I said, before her words fully sank in. “Wait. You’re on your way where?” 

“To Long Island,” Annabeth said and I could practically hear her smile. “I’m still on winter break and I wanted to visit camp for a few days. And then-” she paused, seeming to realize that this didn’t explain anything. “Well, that’s why I was trying to call you. Are you busy next week?”

“Hold on.” I wasn’t sure if I understood correctly, but I definitely had forgotten why I had wanted to talk to her in the first place. “Are you… are you coming to Boston??” 

“That’s the plan.” 

“Why?” I sounded rude, I knew that, but I didn’t mean it that way. I was genuinely surprised. She hadn’t visited Boston since moving to the West Coast, and I hadn’t expected that to change anytime soon, 

“There was a… sudden change of plans, so I have some free time,” Annabeth replied, sounding dejected. I wasn’t sure if that was due to this 'change of plans' or my reaction to her news. “But we don’t have to hang out, if you don’t-”

I pulled myself together. “No! No, that’s awesome, Annabeth!” I quickly corrected myself. “I don’t know what to say! Actually-” I remembered what I had wanted to talk to her about “-it’s perfect because we might need your expertise over here.” 

“My expertise?” 

I told her about Izzy, her dramatic arrival yesterday and our adventure on the roof. “We think that she might be a Greek demigod…”, I concluded. 

“...or Roman,” Annabeth added thoughtfully. Even through the phone, I felt like I could hear the gears in her head turning at high speed. “If she’s being followed by monsters, it’s a possibility. Did she tell you what these monsters looked like?” 

“No, she refuses to talk about them…” I answered. I couldn’t deny that the fact that we still didn’t know what we were dealing with bothered me, but I wasn’t any keener than Izzy to think about monsters. “That power that she used on me and Alex… don’t you have a friend, who can do similar things?” 

“I do…” Annabeth replied slowly. Judging by the sounds, she was now pacing around the room.  “Piper. She’s a daughter of Aphrodite.” 

My confidence in our theory wavered. “I’m pretty sure Izzy’s mother was mortal.” After all, I had seen her die in Izzy’s memory.

Annabeth hesitated. “That doesn’t necessarily have to mean anything… The gods can work in mysterious ways.” 

I had no idea what she meant by that and I didn’t want to ask. 

Annabeth continued anyway: “And we can’t rule out that a similar power could stem from another Greek god. Either way, I’ll have a look at her when I arrive. I think I’ll can tell if she’s one of us.”   

“Perfect, thank you!” I said. Now that that was out of the way, joy began to bubble in my stomach at the thought of seeing Annabeth again. “How long are you staying” 

“Not sure yet. Maybe long enough to celebrate your birthday together?” 

“That sounds great.” 

In Valhalla, birthdays weren’t really celebrated because they kind of lost their meaning once you were dead. Death days, however, were celebrated. To my sheer luck, they were the same for me. We could have an epic life/death party. 

“Ohhh, I can’t wait to see you! There’s so much I want to tell you,” Annabeth said and despite the bizarre day I’d had, a bright smile formed on my face. Gods, I hadn’t heard her this happy since… well, never, actually. The last few years, there had always been something to worry about, either on her side or on mine. Maybe now, for once, we would actually get to hang out like perfectly normal cousins. 

“I want to meet all your friends!,” Annabeth continued excitedly. “Your viking friends and Blitzen and Hearthstone. Oh and Alex’s sister… Sam? And Alex, of course.” 

I chuckled. It was a shame that I had never managed to introduce her properly to all these people, except for Alex. Hopefully the universe wouldn’t implode if a daughter of a Greek goddess met a whole bunch of Norse demigods. “You’ll meet them all.” 

“Speaking of which… did you finally ask Alex out?” Annabeth asked cheerfully, like it was no big deal at all. 

My smile faded as the thoughts of my personal problems, which I had managed to bury under everything else, came rushing back to the forefront of my mind. 

The last time Annabeth and I had talked, I had told her about my plans to finally talk to Alex on New Year’s Eve - I guess I must have sounded a lot more confident about that plan than I had ever felt. 

“Alex is great!” I replied, trying a little too hard to sound carefree. In my own ears, I ended up sounding like a drunk parrot. I awkwardly cleared my throat. “And, uh, yeah, I did ask her.” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to mention what an ordeal it had been to even get that far. “But… uh, it didn’t really work out.” 

“Oh.” Annabeth’s tone told me that she had not expected that answer. 

Suddenly, I felt like banging my head against the wall again. Annabeth was in the most perfect relationship I could imagine. And she had been for years. Nothing ever seemed complicated between her and Percy. How could she possibly understand the ball of shame and self-loathing that churned in my stomach when I thought about Alex?

“What happened?” she asked when I didn’t reply. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

“No,” I said, but a second later the words spilled from my mouth. I told Annabeth everything, even though I doubted she would understand. It was a relief to get it all out. 

I told her about the various attempts to talk about our relationship and how Alex had thwarted them every time; about how Blitz and Hearth had encouraged me to stay stubborn and about the battle where I had finally managed to ask Alex. I told her about Alex’s reaction (shooting me), about the strange kiss and the even stranger conversation in the library today. 

“I like Alex. And I just don’t understand what I’m doing wrong.” My cheeks glowed, when I finally stopped speaking. I realized that I had never before told anyone about kissing and liking Alex. It was embarrassing, especially since Annabeth didn’t have any of these problems - maybe that was the eternal teenager in me coming through. 

My phone stayed silent for a few seconds, and I nervously began to walk around the tree in my atrium. 

“Can you please say something?” I asked when the silence became unbearable. 

“Sorry, I don’t know what to say….” she finally admitted, her voice now dead-serious. “I always thought you two…-” She didn’t finish the sentence, for which I was thankful. “What are you going to do about it now?”

Of course Annabeth was looking for a plan right away. I just didn’t think that any plan could help me out of this emotional dilemma. “Nothing. I’ll just pretend none of this ever happened and go on as usual,” I answered truthfully, even though it made me feel like a giant loser. “Alex doesn’t want to change anything or tell me what the problem is and I can’t force her to.” 

“No…” Annabeth said. She seemed to hesitate for a few seconds before adding: “Listen, Magnus, you know, I like Alex but…- your feelings matter too. It’s not fair of her to not even talk to you about what is going on. So it doesn't seem right to carry on as if nothing has happened. Especially since you clearly don't want that.”

“Okay, so what are you suggesting? That I break up with her?” I let out a joyless laugh. “Oh, no, wait, I can’t even do that because she’s made it very clear that we’re not together.” 

I wasn’t sure where the sudden bitterness was coming from but I was starting to regret telling Annabeth about anything at all. It meant I had to think and talk about it. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to go to bed and hide under my blanket for an indefinite amount of time.

“I’m just saying…” Annabeth continued patiently. “...maybe you should get some distance from each other while you both figure out what you really want.” 

I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be more to Alex than a friend she kissed from time to time. I didn’t know what Alex wanted, but apparently it wasn’t that. 

I didn’t say any of that out loud because it would have sounded pathetic. 

“Anyway, I’ll figure it out somehow…” I said instead, because I didn’t even want to think about how to get some distance from Alex when she lived across the hall. “When are you getting here?”  

My cousin sighed. She clearly had more to say about my relationship problems. Luckily, she accepted that I was done talking about it and told me that she would text me the exact date of her arrival once she made it to Camp Half-Blood. We ended our call shortly afterwards.

I let out a breath and sank onto the grass in my atrium. Lying on my back, I tried to release the tension in my body by focusing solely on the good news. 

Annabeth - one of my favorite people in the nine worlds - was coming to visit me. I was supposed to be happy. And I was! 

There was absolutely no reason to be sad… Not. At. All.

Chapter Text

Alex

“What exactly do we think Annabeth can do for Izzy?” 

It had been a chaotic day so far and we had just finished lunch when Blitzen dared to ask the question that had been burning on my tongue ever since Magnus had announced that his cousin was coming to visit a few days ago. 

“She’s going to tell us if Izzy is a Greek demigod,” I replied vaguely, because I didn’t have a more concrete answer either. 

I continued to collect the dirty dishes from the dining table and stacked them on the old-fashioned serving cart that Randolph had left in the house. 

Magnus had spent the last few days praising Annabeth at every turn. He spoke of her as if he were convinced that her arrival would instantly solve every single problem anyone in this house had ever had, and I assumed we all wanted to believe him so much that no one had had the heart to ask him what exactly he was hoping for her to do. 

Now that Magnus was on his way to pick up Annabeth at the train station and could return with her at any moment, I was glad that Blitz had opened this conversation, because the more I thought about it, the less confident I was that Annabeth would actually be able to solve anything.

Blitz, who was wiping the table where I had already cleared it, seemed to feel similarly and gave me a sceptical look. 

I added quietly: “And hopefully she’ll have a solution for Izzy’s monster problem.”

We both glanced over to the other side of the room, where Izzy was sitting alone on the bay window’s sill, absorbed in the graphic novel she had picked from the library. Most of the other kids had left the house after lunch to enjoy the fresh snow in the park and had asked her to join them, but since Izzy was still terrified to even get too close to the front door, she had been left behind. She didn’t seem to mind too much, but I knew that in the long run she was going to feel trapped in this house. 

She couldn’t spend her whole life hiding from monsters. That wasn’t fair.

 “If she turns out to be that kind of demigod…” Blitz began hesitantly. He didn’t take his eyes off of Izzy, as if he expected her to burst into flames or display some other scary ability at any moment. “...what then? Do we send her to Annabeth’s camp or to that city where the kids have to join the army?” 

I’d asked myself the same question. When Izzy had tried her power on me and Magnus, I had been alarmed, to say the least. The thought of the complete surrender of my own free will that her innocent voice had caused still made me shudder. 

But, despite it, I had promised not to send her away, and I wasn’t one to break my promises. 

Besides, Izzy had gone to great lengths to prove that she regretted using her powers on us and, as far as I could tell, hadn't used them since. She had even apologized to Chloe for persuading her to give up her bed, and they had swapped again, though I doubted Chloe understood exactly what Izzy had done. 

I knew I wouldn’t have the heart to send her to either of the places Annabeth’s people called safe havens - because, as Blitz had said, one required joining an army and the other one was a camp that, from what I had heard, also didn’t seem to guarantee survival either. I would rather deal with these monsters, whatever they were, myself. 

“No”,  I finally replied, “not if she doesn’t want to.” 

Maybe Izzy had the power to override someone’s free will, but that didn’t mean she deserved to have the same thing done to her. 

Blitz sighed unhappily, as if he would have given the same answer, but wasn’t sure it was the right one. He wiped his hands on his flower patterned apron. “Well, maybe we don’t have to make that decision after all. There might be something else going on with her.” 

We exchanged a look across the table, both knowing that this option would bring a whole lot of other problems. 

I wanted to find answers for Izzy. Not just because of the monsters, but also because she had told me that she continued to have these eerie dreams of someone - her father? - calling for help that kept her awake at night. I couldn't shake the feeling that the longer this mystery remained unsolved, the more complicated and dangerous it would become. 

Loud voices echoed from the kitchen to the dining room, and I knew that Nina and Corin, who were on dishwashing duty this week, were arguing again about who got to wash and who got to dry the dishes, as they had every day this week. 

Blitz rubbed his forehead. He looked like he would rather be doing anything else than dealing with two bickering teenagers right now. 

“We should get this cleaned up before Magnus and Annabeth get here,” he decided after a few seconds and pushed the cart with the dishes into the kitchen.  

I sighed. He was right. We had promised Magnus to make sure the house would present itself in its best light for Annabeth’s visit, and I didn’t want to be responsible for stressing him out any more than I already had this week. 

Since Magnus’ attempt to ask me out, my awful reaction and that kiss in the library, all our conversations had been stiff - friendly, but always with an electric crackle in the air between us that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. 

I wasn't quite sure what had moved me to do what I had done. I had tried so hard to keep him from asking the question - for his sake as well as mine - that I had not prepared myself for him to actually do it. I couldn’t tell if I had shot at him by accident or not, and I couldn’t tell what in the nine worlds had made me kiss him in the library. Maybe I had wanted to find out if he would still let me; maybe I had wanted to prove that nothing had to change, that I wouldn’t have to sacrifice any more than I already did. But of course, everything had changed and there was no way to make it right - because I could never give Magnus the answer that he was hoping to hear. 

A loud clang  tore me from my glum thoughts

“Corin, what the hell???” I heard Nina shriek. The kitchen door was thrown open and she stormed out, drenched from head to toe. Behind her, a puddle of water emerged from the kitchen and soaked into the nice carpet in the living room. 

“What’s going on??”

“Corin exploded the sink!” she replied, pointing back at the door accusingly. With every move she made, water dripped from her long braids onto the carpet.   

I gave her a confused look and stormed past her into the kitchen. 

I was immediately sprayed with water from the sink, which acted like a very deranged fountain. It kept spewing water without any consideration for the interior of the kitchen. A shallow puddle spread across the linoleum floor; the cabinets from around the sink were soaked, as were Blitz, Hearth and Corin, who were staring at the sink in shock.

When I entered, all three seemed to be shaken from their paralyzed state. 

Hearth signed: “I’ll get the toolbox, ” and hurried out of the kitchen. Blitz rolled up the sleeves of his soaked shirt and knelt at the kitchen counter to stick his head under the sink. “Probably a burst pipe-” he muttered to no one in particular.  

I tried to stay out of the sink’s splash zone as best as I could, but my clothes were already sticking to my skin. 

Corin turned to me, looking like he had been caught in a tidal wave. “I swear, Alex, I didn’t do anything!” 

Nina reentered the kitchen behind me and spoke before I had the chance to: “Sure, you were mad about having to do the dishes and the next thing we know the kitchen’s flooded.” 

“I swear, I just opened the tap!!” His eyes welled with tears that he desperately tried to hold back in front of Nina.

I was about to tell him that I believed he was innocent of this kitchen crime, when I heard the jiggling of keys and laughing voices, as someone entered the house.

That had to be Magnus and Annabeth.  

“Oh, shit.” I looked around the flooded kitchen, saw the huge pile of dirty dishes, everyone’s dripping clothes and Blitz still stuck under the kitchen sink - not exactly the perfect picture of the house we had promised Magnus we would present to Annabeth. 

I almost slipped in my wet socks as I hurried across the room to catch them in the hallway - I wanted to at least prepare Magnus before he stepped into the kitchen and had a heart attack. 

When I reached them, Magnus was hanging Annabeth’s gray quilted jacket on the coat rack, so she was the first to catch sight of me.  

“Oh, hi, Alex,” she greeted me, a look of slight confusion passing through her eyes - maybe she wondered why my clothes were so wet? 

She hadn’t changed much in the last two years, but her hay-colored hair was a bit shorter than I remembered, barely reaching her shoulders. She was wearing jeans and an oversized blue hoodie with the words NRU SWIM TEAM across the front which she probably had stolen from her boyfriend's closet. A few thin scars ran across her cheeks and hands, reminders of the many battles she had fought. Her gaze had stayed the same: calculated and vigilant; those gray eyes she regarded me with now, so much colder than Magnus’. I wouldn’t say she was intimidating per se, but I considered transforming into a bird to escape that intense gaze that greeted me - as if I were a puzzle and she was trying to solve it.

“I didn’t think you’d-” Her eyes flickered over to Magnus for a split second, just long enough for me to notice. “-I mean, it’s good to see you!” She gave me a strained smile.

I frowned at her strange greeting, but tried to smile back politely. “Good to see you, too. It’s been a while.” 

Annabeth didn't answer, just continued to smile awkwardly, which didn't help to ease the tension between us. I had no idea where this tension was coming from, so I wasn't sure what to do about it. Had I said something wrong already?

“Where is everyone?” Magnus chimed into the awkwardness. He looked happier next to Annabeth than I had seen him in days - which made me feel even worse about having to ruin it for him. 

He looked me up and down and frowned. “And why are you, uh, so wet?”

“The kids went to the park-” I answered his first, simpler question. I tried to ignore the fact that this was the first time in days that he was actually looking at me for more than a few fleeting seconds. “And… something weird happened in the kitchen-” 

Before I could explain, Hearth came rumbling down the stairs, carrying Blitz’s intricately decorated bronze toolbox. He rushed past us, only sparing a brief nod to Annabeth, his hands too occupied with holding the heavy box to sign anything. 

Magnus frowned and decided to follow Hearth, and so did Annabeth and I. 

At least Blitz had managed to turn off the water, but the kitchen floor still looked like it was trying to cosplay as an ocean. 

“What-” Magnus began, his eyes sweeping over the scene. “What happened here??” 

“Corin made the sink explode,” Nina supplied unhelpfully. 

“I did not!!” Corin snapped back. Neither of them noticed or cared about our visitor. 

“It’s all right, Corin,” I quickly intervened. “Why don’t you two go upstairs and get some dry clothes on. We’ll take care of this.” 

To everyone’s surprise, they didn’t even try to protest and left the kitchen, categorically avoiding looking at each other. 

Blitz emerged from under the cabinet. “I found the problem!” he said breathlessly, water dripping from his hair onto his face. “The pipe is frozen. It must have burst from the cold. But I can fix it.” 

He caught sight of Annabeth “Oh. Hello,” he said with little enthusiasm as he grabbed a few tools from the toolbox. His eyes briefly darted over to Magnus, who was still too stunned to speak, then he crawled right back under the sink, as if to hide from whatever Magnus might say once he regained his voice. 

“A burst pipe?” Annabeth asked with a deep frown. “It’s not that cold outside - at least not cold enough for pipes to freeze. You should have a plumber take a look at that.” 

“Oh please,” Blitz’s voice came from under the sink, accompanied by the sound of tools clanging against metal. “I’m an expert, I don’t need a plumber for a burst pipe.” 

Annabeth remained unconvinced and crossed her arms, as she continued to eye the sink sceptically. I silently agreed with her - Blitz was competent, of course, but maybe a plumber would be a better choice here.

“What did he say? ” Hearth asked, unable to read Blitz’s lips, since those were hidden under the sink, so I interpreted for him. 

“I apologize for my partner,” Hearth signed to Annabeth. “He can be rude when he’s working .” 

I told Annabeth what he was signing and to my surprise, she signed back in slow, uncertain gestures: “It’s alright .” 

Hearth raised an eyebrow. “You sign?”

“Very little,” Annabeth replied with a concentrated face. She slowly fingerspelled: “ C-o-l-l-e-g-e ”, which I assumed meant she had taken ASL classes in New Rome. 

Magnus, who didn’t seem to notice the exchange at all, still stared at the water on the kitchen floor with those ever-sad eyes of his. With a jerk he turned to Annabeth and said: “I’m so sorry about this. I swear, it’s usually not as chaotic here.” He looked around the kitchen with an expression on his face, as if every item in this room had personally offended him and everything he cared about. “Listen, I’ll take you to your hotel and you can explore the city while we clean up. You can come back when it’s all done and we’ll pretend this never happened.” 

Annabeth gave him a look that I knew all too well from my sister Samirah - it seemed to convey something like, “You can’t be serious right now ”. 

“Are you kidding?” she said. “I’ll help clean up.” 

Of course, Magnus protested, but everyone else was glad that his cousin was so persistent. We needed all the help we could get. Drying the kitchen was a painstakingly slow process even with the five of us plus Corin and Nina - who offered to help reluctantly and only held out for about fifteen minutes before starting their argument about whether or not all of this was Corin’s fault again. They left soon after, which was fine with me - I was really getting tired of their bickering - and the conversation turned into an intergalactic demigod convention. 

“So, you are a dwarf, but also a demigod…” Annabeth said to Blitz, who was wringing out the water from his floorcloth into one of the many buckets we had placed around the kitchen. 

I listened to their conversation from the other side of the room, where I was mopping up the water that had collected by the door to the hallway. I still had the feeling that Annabeth didn’t want to talk to me, and I couldn’t think of any reason why not, so listening-in from a safe distance seemed like the best solution right now. 

 Annabeth turned to Hearth. “And you are an elf, but also a wizard or a warlock or something. Magnus and Alex are dead, but also demigods.” 

Hearth nodded slowly.  

“That's so much more interesting. The people I usually get to know are either demigods or they’re not. Your pantheon’s got a lot more variety.” 

“Maybe we’re just the better pantheon,” Blitz remarked, which drew a laugh from Annabeth. 

“Maybe you are.” 

My attention drifted away from their conversation, over to Magnus, who was standing a little to the side, wiping the kitchen counter with far more force than necessary. He hadn’t exactly been the epitome of relaxation this past week - which was probably mostly my fault - but now he looked like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. 

For a moment I wondered if I should ask him if he was okay, or if that would make it worse, when Annabeth asked: “So, you’ve got a kid with Charmspeak powers here?” and my attention was drawn back to her. Of course, she was getting straight to the point, I wouldn’t have expected anything else from a daughter of Athena. 

“With what powers?” Blitz asked on behalf of us all. 

“Charmspeak,” Annabeth replied, like she was surprised that we didn’t know that word. “That’s what we call what Magnus described to me. Persuasion and enticement powers.” 

No one seemed interested in continuing drying the kitchen anymore. Even Magnus had given up his aggressive scrubbing of the kitchen counter and turned to Annabeth but stayed quiet. 

“In my world, it’s mostly the children of Aphrodite - the goddess of love - who get this power,” Annabeth continued. “My friend Piper is an expert at it, and I think I have spent enough time around her to be able to tell if your kid is using a power related to Aphrodite.” 

“Sounds great," Blitz replied, but made a face as if he’d rather think about anything else than love goddesses from another pantheon. “As long as you don’t tell me that would mean that Izzy’s related to me in some weird way because we’re both children of the goddess of love…” 

Annabeth frowned. “I don’t think that’s how it works-” 

“But wait,” I chimed in, when my brain tried to put the pieces together and realized that something didn’t add up. “Izzy knew her mother. She can’t be a child of Aphrodite.” 

Annabeth gave me a challenging glance that instinctively made me stand up straighter. I thought I had made a pretty good point, though she clearly didn’t agree. 

“Magnus already said that, but that’s not necessarily a disqualifier. Gods don't have to adhere to the mortal ways of reproduction, gender and all that. Many of my siblings have mortal mothers, for example.” 

Great. Now a cis girl had to explain divine gender diversity to me and left me feeling stupid. I was really not enjoying Annabeth’s presence so far. 

I tried to keep a straight face and meet her penetrating gaze. “Sure, but she came here looking for her father. Who apparently guides her in her dreams - so I assumed that was the godly parent we’re looking for.”

A hint of irritation flickered through her eyes. This seemed to be new information to her, but to my annoyance, she didn't let herself be thrown off guard. 

“Okay, well, there’s also the possibility that these powers are related to another Greek god.” 

To my ears, she sounded like she hoped Izzy was a Greek demigod - as if that was the best possible outcome for a child with weird powers. I absolutely wasn’t so sure about that and when I exchanged glances with Blitz and Hearth, I knew that they weren’t either. 

Magnus didn't look like he cared about Izzy at all right now, and focused solely on Annabeth, as if she were our saving grace. “We can talk to her as soon as we’re done here,” he said, speaking for the first time since we had started cleaning.  

After that, we continued for about fifteen minutes, before Blitz finally announced: “I don’t think there’s much more we can do about it now,” and we all let out a collective sigh of exhaustion. Blitz, Hearth and I excused ourselves to change into some dry clothes. 

I was planning on borrowing some of the donated clothes from the second floor closet, so I hurried upstairs. On the stairs, I was surpassed by Izzy, who proudly announced as she ran by that she had already finished the first graphic novel from the library and was on her way to get the next one. She didn’t even seem to have noticed the kitchen disaster or our new guest. 

Maybe I should have told her to go back downstairs to meet Annabeth, but I couldn't shake the feeling that if she turned out to be that kind of demigod, she wouldn't get to indulge in her newfound hobby much longer - she would be too busy trying to survive if she went to one of Annabeth's camps. Allowing her a few more minutes of childlike bliss wouldn't hurt. 

I grabbed some clothes from the closet, went to the bathroom and changed. The sweatpants had oil stains on them and the knit sweater was a little itchy and too small for me, but better than the wet clothes from before.  I took a towel with me from the bathroom and tried to scrunch the remaining water out of my hair as I hurried back downstairs - I didn’t want to miss any more of whatever was going on than necessary. 

I was so occupied with that that I didn’t notice Magnus until I bumped into him at the top of the stairs. 

“Woah-” he said, grabbing the railing so we wouldn’t both tumble down the stairs. 

“Where are you going?” I asked, when we steadied ourselves. I hadn't expected him to leave Annabeth's side for at least the rest of the day. 

“I came to get Izzy,” he replied. He avoided looking at me - something I had gotten used to over the past few days. “Have you seen her?”

 “She’s in the library.” I didn’t even hesitate to tell him that on Izzy’s behalf. Maybe I knew subconsciously that there was no use avoiding the elephant in the room any longer, or maybe I trusted Magnus enough to expect him to want only the best for Izzy.  

He nodded curtly and tried to walk past me. Without consciously deciding to, I grabbed his arm to stop him. "Wait a sec..." 

He turned back to me, but shook my hand off his arm.

Now that I had his attention and gaze on me, I suddenly wasn’t sure anymore what I had wanted to say in the first place. “Are you, ehm, okay?” I tried. Gods, I really wasn’t good at talking about feelings. “You look… stressed.” 

Something in his rigid expression softened for a moment. He sighed and pushed his hair back from his face in an exhausted gesture. I would have expected him to hesitate or ignore my question altogether - that’s what I would have done - but, of course, Magnus was not one to lie about his feelings. He wasn’t me. 

“I just… I wanted this to be good,” he answered immediately, like he had been waiting to get to talk about it. “I wanted to show Annabeth what we’ve done with this place and how well it’s going, and instead she had to clean our kitchen…”  

“I don’t think she minded helping.” Sure, Annabeth had acted strangely cold towards me, but somehow I doubted it had anything to do with the broken sink. “And I’m sorry about the kitchen.” 

“It’s okay, it wasn’t your fault,” he mumbled, “and I know that Annabeth didn’t mind helping. It’s just- none of this has worked out the way I imagined it would... that's all.” 

He met my gaze with weary eyes. Annabeth's arrival wasn't the only thing that hadn't gone as he'd imagined, I knew. 

I gulped, hoping to swallow that notorious, searing fire that had burned me from within for the past week whenever I thought about or interacted with Magnus.  It was rekindling somewhere in my chest now, slowly creeping up my throat. It was a feeling I couldn’t quite place, but it certainly wasn’t a pleasant one.  

Even though I had spent the last few days longing for every moment that Magnus would spare me a glance, I tore my eyes away from his. I couldn't let him see the signs of a feeling that even I didn't understand. “I’ll get Izzy… you can go back to your cousin.”

I turned to head further upstairs. 

“Wait,” Magnus said. I had almost expected it and to my own surprise I stopped. I may have been the one who had started the conversation, but it was not in my power to end it. “There’s something else. I feel like… we need to talk.” 

He didn’t sound as nervous or insecure as he used to whenever he wanted to talk to me about us before - and that scared me. 

“Yeah, about what?” I turned around, trying to face him with a challenging attitude. Maybe he would back down.  

The expression I found on his face told me he wouldn’t. Not this time. “You know about what.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” I sounded petulant even to my own ears, but it was true. There was nothing that I could talk to him about. 

“I think there is. I haven’t understood a single thing you’ve said to me in the past week and that’s… frustrating.” He spoke calmly, but with a deep frown on his forehead. I always felt the need to run my fingers over his eyebrows until they relaxed when he looked at me like that - which wasn’t exactly a helpful urge right now. 

I averted my eyes and tried to make my way to the stairs but Magnus quickly stepped around me and blocked my path. In his eyes gleamed determination, but also something that I could only interpret as painful desperation. 

He continued: “I asked Annabeth about it, she also thinks we need to-” 

“You talk to her about us??” My patience was wearing thin and my voice grew louder. I didn’t like the idea of Annabeth knowing about my messy behavior regarding Magnus any more than I liked being pushed to discuss topics I avoided at all costs. 

“Well, yes, because I needed to talk to someone about it,” Magnus snapped back, matching my tone. “And you. won’t. talk. to me.” 

“We are talking right now .” 

I was able to identify the burning sensation now. It was anger.

I wasn’t angry with Magnus. After all, I was well aware of the fact that everything I did and said had to sound unreasonable to him. 

No, I was angry with myself. Angry at this well-hidden but deep-seated fear that history would repeat itself. It had spent years, anchoring itself deep inside me, like an ancient tree whose roots spread so much farther than you could possibly suspect. I couldn’t uproot it, no matter how much force I put into trying. 

And I was angry that despite all of that, I couldn’t bring myself to let Magnus go; couldn’t lie and tell him that I had no feelings for him whatsoever; tell him to leave me alone. Because if I did, he would do it without further questions, I knew that. But that was too great a sacrifice to force myself to make. 

Quick footsteps and hushed voices echoed up from the first floor, and I had the feeling that our loud conversation had found an audience in the form of two nosy teenagers.

Magnus seemed to notice as well, took a deep breath and continued more quietly: “You know what I mean.” 

Although he spoke calmly again, there was an edge to his voice that made my heart feel heavy in my chest. 

“We need to sit down and have a real talk about this. About what we both want. Because it can’t go on like this.” 

The way he looked at me, desperation now overtaking his eyes, hit me like a fist in the stomach. I tried to push past him again, but he wasn’t done yet. 

“You’re my friend and I don’t want to lose that, but we will, if we don’t both know where we stand. Just one serious conversation about what this is. About why you still want to kiss me, but don’t want to date or…- or anything like that. No jokes, no sarcasm, for once. Can you do that?”

I was too stunned to speak or do anything but keep my eyes on the carpet at my feet. It was worn thin at the edge of the first step of the stairs from hundreds of feet scraping across it every day. In my mind I started to count the woven threads that still covered the wood underneath - anything to distract me from the burning sensation inside. 

How could he not see how much this pained me? If I was forced to explain to him why I behaved the way I did, I would lose him. He didn’t know it yet, but if I talked to him about it all, he wouldn't want to be my friend anymore. The only allowance I had made for myself to make my afterlife a little more like the paradise it was supposed to be - my connection to him- would be taken away from me. 

I made one last attempt to avert what he wouldn’t let me avert. "Magnus, now is not really the best time to-" I began trying to sound easygoing, but it sounded weak and fragile even to my own ears. 

"It doesn't have to be now.” The last trace of frustration melted from his voice. Maybe he did notice the strain this was taking on me after all. Now he just sounded sad, which was possibly worse. “But promise me that we'll talk when..." His eyes flickered over to the railing of the stairs from where the muffled voices had echoed up, "...when we’re alone." 

I tore my gaze away from the carpet and forced myself to look him in the eyes again. They were so full of sadness. That look seemed to have a stronger effect on me than even Izzy's powers, because I nodded and mumbled: "Okay. I promise." 

He hadn’t expected me to cave. It hurt to hear how stunned he sounded when he said: "Oh-okay. Thanks." 

"Let's go get Izzy," I said, quickly pushing past him, now that he was out of my way. My voice was barely more than a broken whisper. 

He didn’t know it, of course, but I had just promised to break his heart - and mine. Once and for all.

I would never ever ask anyone about their feelings again if it always took such a disastrous turn. 

Chapter Text

Alex

"And you really want me to do that thing?" Izzy asked for a second time, sounding rather concerned. She shot a glance from Magnus to me and back. 

We had taken over the living room for our game of guess-the-kind-of-demigod , since most of the kids were still out and Corin and Nina hadn’t shown their faces again after overhearing our conversation in the hallway. I would have to have a serious talk with them about privacy later and for now hope they wouldn’t eavesdrop on any conversation about gods and monsters. 

Magnus and I had taken a seat on one couch, with Annabeth between us - which was the best possible arrangement for me to ignore Magnus and my heavy heart. Across from us, Blitz, Izzy and Hearth occupied the other couch. 

Izzy looked nervous with all the attention on her and no real explanation for what was going on. She rubbed her hands on her brand new pink jeans. "I won't get in trouble?" 

My lecture the other day about not using magical powers on other people must have left quite an impression - maybe more so than I had intended. 

“You won’t get into trouble,” I answered, “I promise.” That was a promise I was more sure I could keep than the one about not sending her away. “We need you to ‘do that thing’ so we can find out why you can do it.” 

Izzy shifted uncomfortably on the couch. “What does it matter?” she asked, squinting around her. 

It had to be a strange situation for her, with all five of us watching her with interest. 

Well, maybe not all of us. I hadn’t dared to look at Magnus since we had come back downstairs, but judging by the way he had kept out of the conversation so far, he seemed to be somewhere else with his thoughts - maybe where I was desperately trying not to let mine wander. 

Magnus’ lack of interest didn’t make Izzy’s situation any more comfortable, however. Annabeth alone was intimidating enough, as she looked like she was ready to pull out a clipboard and pencil to take notes on any atypical behavior Izzy might exhibit. 

“I’m sorry,” I said and meant it. Being stared at and feeling like the odd one out was an all too familiar experience.  “I know, this is weird. But we think that your powers might be the reason why those monsters are after you. And if we can figure out what it is…” 

I didn’t finish the sentence because I didn’t want to make any more empty promises. If she really was Greek, it wasn’t like the monster situation was going to get any better. 

Annabeth finished for me: “... then we can help you,” she said with so much confidence that I wondered for a second if she was the one with charmspeak powers. I was almost convinced. “I was in your situation when I was younger. Running away from monsters sucks, doesn’t it?” 

Izzy eyed Annabeth for a second, as if to make sure she was telling the truth. Then she nodded slowly. “It does.” She turned back to me. “What do you want me to say?” 

“Just tell Annabeth to do something you think she wouldn’t normally do.” 

Izzy looked around the room, searching for inspiration. Annabeth shifted forward in her seat and sat up straighter to brace herself as Izzy focused on her again. 

“You should slap Alex.” 

Wow, 10-year-olds can be violent, I thought before I could even process that I was the subject of her request. 

I shuffled away from Annabeth, but it wasn’t necessary. There hadn’t been anything special about Izzy’s words. No magic at all.

Annabeth crossed her arms and frowned unimpressed. “No, I won’t do that.” 

I exchanged glances with Blitz and Hearth. They seemed to be thinking the same thing: It would be really embarrassing if it turned out that we had somehow only imagined Izzy’s powers. 

Then a small smile appeared on the girl’s face. It sent a shiver down my spine and I knew instinctively that we wouldn’t get into that embarrassing situation. 

“You really should slap her.” 

This time, Izzy’s voice echoed through the room, even though she didn’t raise it. The words, simple as they were, sounded like a melody, beautiful and eerie at the same time. Since they weren’t directed at me, they washed over me like the ripples of a fading wave, but I was certain they hit Annabeth like a riptide. 

Her frown disappeared instantly. Her expression smoothed into a blank stare. Her eyes became unfocused. It appeared as if a layer of smoke had settled over her irises. 

Seeing the effect of the words in contrast to the little girl who had spoken them made the hairs on my arm stand up. 

Izzy wasn’t even bothered by any of it. She happily swung her legs back and forth and watched her magic unfold. 

I was so taken by this display of sheer power from such a small person that I forgot about the content of her words. I noticed too late that Annabeth jumped up in one swift motion and raised her hand, about to strike me across the face. 

I heard Magnus and Blitz shout “Don’t!” before my incredible einherji reflexes kicked in. Instead of defending myself, I let my body become fluid and melted into the small form of a mouse. I scurried under the couch and only turned back, when I came out on the other side, behind Magnus and Annabeth.    

For a second, Annabeth looked around frantically, to see where her target had gone. When she found me standing behind the couch, a tension left her body and she began to blink as her eyes regained focus. 

"By the gods," she mumbled breathlessly, staring at her hand, which was still hovering in mid-air. 

From the other couch, Izzy gaped at me, her eyes so wide they looked like they were going to pop out of her head. 

Right. I had just changed shape in front of a child who wasn’t even supposed to know I could do that… 

Blitz and Hearth stared at me scoldingly, as if to say ‘Was that really necessary? ’ 

I tried to at least look apologetic and shrugged. “Whoops.” 

In my defense, I was convinced that we would have to explain a whole lot of things to Izzy anyway, once this conversation was over. She would have to face much weirder realities than a shapeshifting teenager - and I could really do without getting slapped by Annabeth.

“Did you- did you just become… a mouse??” 

“You’re not the only one with cool abilities,” I said and winked at her, as I walked around the couch to sit back down next to Annabeth as if nothing had happened. I felt semi-confident that she wouldn’t feel the urge to slap me again if there was no magic involved. 

“I’ll explain later,” I promised Izzy, knowing that we had more important things to discuss right now.  

That at least made Izzy close her mouth.

"So what…" Magnus began carefully, bringing the conversation back on track. "...what do you say?" 

"Well…” Annabeth began, rubbing her neck as if the force of Izzy’s words had hit her there. “That certainly wasn't like the charmspeak I’m used to." She stared at Izzy like she had never seen a ten-year-old girl before.

Izzy glared back at her with a defiant look in her eyes, like she wanted to say: ‘Why are you staring at me, Alex is the one who just turned into a mouse !’ 

“It wasn’t?” Blitz asked. He sounded as relieved as I felt.

Annabeth didn’t seem to notice his tone. “The effect was pretty much the same, but the way it worked…” She hesitated. “I don’t know, it was her words more than anything else. They made me think of a reason why I really want to hit Alex.” 

“And why is that?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her. I suspected it had something to do with what Magnus had told her about me, and Izzy’s words had amplified whatever resentment she harbored towards me for playing with her cousin's feelings - I wasn’t even sure if I could blame her for that. But I still wanted to hear it from her mouth. 

But Annabeth didn’t even grant me that. She ignored my question resolutely, even though her cheeks took on the color of a red light. 

Instead, she continued, now talking to Magnus, so that she could turn her back on me: “The charmspeak I know makes you want to please the person using it on you. This wasn’t like that at all… I don’t think Aphrodite is her mother.” 

“No, my mom’s name is Lucia,” Izzy said, the confusion written all over her face. “Why- why do you want to know that?” 

Blitz opened his mouth but closed it again. No one else replied either. I hoped Izzy didn't take it personally that we all ignored her question. I wished I could explain everything to her, but I didn't want to risk introducing her to the wrong crazy world.

“She could still be one of us, though,” Annabeth said with a gleam in her eyes. I didn’t like how much she sounded like she hoped that would be the case. 

She jumped up and disappeared into the hallway, leaving the rest of us confused in the living room. 

Izzy frowned after her, then turned back to Magnus. “Your cousin is weird,” she told him quietly. 

Magnus gave her a look as if he was trying to find a reason to disagree but couldn’t. 

Annabeth returned quickly enough to save him from having to answer. She was holding what looked like an iPad, which I assumed she had retrieved from her luggage in the hallway.

“You have an app for detecting demigods ?” Hearth signed when she sat back down on the couch.

Annabeth didn’t even seem to notice his question, so I couldn’t really blame her for not answering. She started swiping through her files with steadfast determination. She acted as though she had to prove that Izzy was one of her demigods - as if that was the best possible outcome for a child with magical abilities. I highly doubted that it was. Being any kind of demigod wasn’t safe, but the Greek and Roman ones had the hardest time, in my opinion. In our pantheon, we at least had the chance to live a relatively normal life - not that Magnus and I were great examples, but Blitz was a demigod, too, and he managed to get by just fine. 

I wanted Izzy to be able to live a normal life - so much so that it almost made me snatch the tablet out of Annabeth’s hands. Instead, I clenched my hands in my lap into fists and watched as she scrolled through a list, painstakingly slow.

“Uh, what exactly are you looking for?” Magnus finally asked when the silence in the room became too tense. I would have asked myself, but that would have sounded less polite. 

“Aristotle’s Poetics,” she said, explaining absolutely nothing. 

It took her a few more seconds to find what she was looking for. When she did, she walked over to Izzy and crouched down beside her. 

“Here,” she said gently, holding the tablet so Izzy could see what was on it. “Can you read this?” 

I peeked over to see what she was showing Izzy, and I noticed Magnus doing the same. I could make out writing, but it certainly wasn’t anything I could read. 

Izzy looked at the screen and then at Annabeth as if to see if she was serious. She chuckled cautiously. “Those aren’t even real letters,” she said, and it clicked in my brain that the writing was probably ancient Greek. 

Annabeth’s face fell a little, but she swiped across the screen unswervingly. “You’re right,” she said with a forced smile. “What about this?” She held the tablet out to Izzy again. 

Izzy squinted at it. “Uh… a-ama, vir-virk-virke c-cano?” She tried to stammer out a few more letters, but it was apparent that she didn’t know this language any better than the one before. 

Annabeth let out a sigh and turned off tablet’s screen. “She doesn’t speak Latin either,” she said, sounding slightly disappointed. That seemed to settle it. 

For a second, my spirits lifted and I had to stifle a relieved exhale. Izzy was not that kind of demigod. 

But that meant we had another problem, as I was painfully reminded when I saw the worried expressions on Blitz and Hearth's faces: We still had no idea what Izzy was, why she was being chased by monsters, or what her dreams meant. 

“Is that… bad?” Izzy asked, seemingly noticing the shifting mood in the room. She knitted her eyebrows together into a worried frown. She sounded so seriously troubled, that I did not trust Annabeth to answer that question. 

“No, of course not,” I quickly assured, getting Izzy to turn her attention away from Annabeth and her analytical gaze, “I don’t speak Latin either,” I added and tried to smile at her, but secretly regretted all of this. All we had accomplished was to confuse the kid. We weren’t one step closer to helping her.

I heard the front door open and from the hallway came the sound of a dozen chattering voices as the other kids came home. 

Izzy looked in the direction of the sound. “Can I go now?” she asked. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to get out of the room as soon as possible. “I wanted to show Chloe the book I’m reading.”

“Yes, of course,” I said before anyone else could say otherwise 

She got up, but turned back to me once more. “But you’ll have to explain why you can turn into a mouse later, okay?” 

I nodded. Satisfied with that answer, she ran out of the room.

I half expected one of the others (Annabeth) to protest and demand that Izzy undergo some more pointless demigod tests, but everyone stayed quiet, even after Izzy had left. 

“Alright…” I said, breaking the silence. I glanced at Magnus, who looked even more unhappy than he had during our talk in the hallway. “She failed her Greek exam, what now?”

“So, the girl is most definitely not Greek or Roman?” Samirah asked, tapping her pencil thoughtfully against our table in the back of the Thinking Cup. 

We were still waiting for Mallory and TJ, who had promised to meet us here half an hour ago, and Sam had already asked me some variant of this question three times. 

If I was being honest, I was getting tired of talking about Izzy. When Sam had asked me to hang out for coffee for the first time in three weeks, I had hoped she would tell me about her life at college, gossip about her snobby roommate Liz, or complain about the food on campus - things that normal siblings would talk about.  But, well, Izzy was a puzzle, and Sam liked solving puzzles. In that aspect, she wasn’t much unlike Annabeth, I suppose. 

Besides, I suspected that since she had given up her job as a Valkyrie a year ago, she missed our old adventures a little, despite her eventful mortal life. I wanted to give her the feeling that she was at least involved in some way. So, our conversation had been circling around the same questions for forty minutes now without getting any closer to an answer - not very adventurous, if you ask me. But Sam seemed to enjoy it. She had even pulled out a notepad and was jotting down bullet points that I couldn’t decipher from the other side of the table. 

I listlessly swirled my spoon through the iced coffee that I had just filled with two packets of sugar. Between my problems with Magnus, Izzy’s mysterious powers and Annabeth’s arrival, my mood was bitter enough, I didn’t need my coffee to be as well. “Annabeth seems convinced that she isn’t.”

“But you’re not convinced?”

I glanced across the table. I hadn't seen my sister in three weeks, which didn't sound like a long time on paper, but somehow I felt she had grown older. Her face, framed by the satin green fabric of her hijab, looked a little sharper; her eyes a bit more serious; her posture more upright. The changes were in the smallest details but the feeling persisted. It wasn't unfamiliar. I felt that way every time I saw her. She always seemed more mature, more like a real adult, than the last time I had seen her - while I remained the same. I tried not to let the feeling get to me - I had accepted the fact that I was dead and immortal - but every now and then the thought of what it would be like in ten, twenty, fifty years couldn't be avoided. 

I looked back down at my coffee. The sugar didn’t dissolve well in the cold liquid. “No, I mean… she’s right. Probably.” I tried not to sound too reluctant to admit it. Sam didn’t need to know that Annabeth was kind of getting on my nerves. “I just don’t know what else she could be. Only their kind of demigods get hunted by monsters.”

“As far as we know," Sam said and took a sip of her black coffee. “There are probably a whole lot of other pantheons with demigods, who we know nothing about.” 

I sighed. Of course, she was right. It wasn’t that far-fetched to assume that there were demigods from several other mythologies running around Midgard - but that wasn’t something I wanted to think about. I knew next to nothing about, say, Egyptian mythology, but with how crazy this world was, I just had to assume that Egyptian gods were out there ruining some random person’s life. How could we possibly help Izzy if her powers and her monsters came from a world we knew nothing about? 

“Can we talk about something else?” I asked. “I’ve really thought enough about other kinds of demigods for one day.” 

Sam put down her pencil and pushed her notepad aside. “Sure. You could tell me what’s going on with you and Magnus, for example.” 

I had stepped right into that, hadn’t I? I wanted to talk about her private life - her perfectly regular, happy, uncomplicated life. 

Not mine. Never mine. Because mine was none of those things.  

“I don’t know what you mean,” I lied, and sipped on my coffee. Still too bitter. 

I hadn’t seen Magnus today, since he had left the hotel early to meet Annabeth for breakfast and give her a tour of Boston. But I dreaded seeing him again. Because sooner or later I would have to fulfill the rash promise I had made yesterday. I would have to explain to him why I acted the way I did. 

I could either lie and say that it was because I had no real feelings for him and just liked kissing him for fun - or I could tell him the truth and have him turn his back on me. Either option would be so painful that I doubted I could go through with it. 

But that was not something I could tell Sam. She wouldn’t understand anyway. 

“Huh, interesting,” she said casually, but the glint in her eyes told me that she was much more invested in getting to the bottom of this than she was letting on. I was another puzzle to solve. “It’s just that Mallory texted me the other day and told me that you shot Magnus because he tried to ask you out, or something like that?” 

How Mallory had heard about the “asking-out” part, or how she had managed to text Sam all that when she was typing about a slowly as you would expect from someone born in the fifties, I didn’t know, but I would have to have a serious conversation with her about sharing confidential Valhalla gossip with my sister. 

“Something like that,” I said, because it was hard to lie when Sam was staring at me with those piercing eyes. “But it was an accident,” I added, not wanting to sound like the most horrible person on earth. 

“So, what was your answer?”  

I lowered my eyes. “Sam, I don’t date,” I said, giving her the kind of vacuous answer I felt safe to give. 

“Why not?” Sam didn’t sound surprised by my answer, but slightly concerned, which wasn’t any better. “I thought after the Ship of the Dead, you two would-” 

“I just don’t, okay?” I interrupted roughly, because I didn’t want to hear her finish that sentence. “Not anymore.” I immediately regretted adding that. 

“But you once did?” 

I stayed silent for a few seconds, concentrating on my coffee, to keep the dark memories at bay. “Yes, and it did not end well,” I finally mumbled because Sam had the magical power to coax things out of me that I wouldn’t tell anyone else. Maybe that was some kind of secret older sister superpower.

When I looked up, her eyes shone with something that I hated to see in other people’s faces: pity. She seemed to understand even more than I had put into words. 

“So, you don’t want to try again? Ever?”

She might have understood more than I told her, but she could never fully understand. No one could. 

I gave my answer quietly: “When you get burned, you don't try to stick your hand into another fire and hope that this one doesn’t burn. You stay away from fire.”

Sam gave me a look that told me she thought I was being overdramatic. And yes, maybe I was, but it was the best allegory to explain my thought process without baring my entire heart. I had already said too much. 

“This is about Adrian, isn’t it?” Sam asked and sent a jolt through my entire body.

I didn’t think I had ever told her much about Adrian, my childhood best friend and, yes, probably my first love. I did not like to talk about the past, and especially not about a past that was so painful. But I had let his name slip from time to time - in weak moments when I had been so caught up in the newfound friendships my afterlife had brought, that I had forgotten that none of the people I knew now had ever met Adrian, someone who had been such an integral part of my mortal life. 

It must have happened often enough for Sam to remember and to put some pieces together. Just not in the right way, apparently. 

She thought Adrian and our relationship was the reason for my decision to keep Magnus at a distance. But she was wrong. Adrian wasn’t the reason for anything. He was a casualty of a mistake I would not repeat.  

My lack of response seemed to be enough for Sam to guess an answer. She pushed her empty coffee cup out of the way and leaned forward on the table, as if she wanted to force me to look her in the eyes. 

I didn’t.

“Look,” she said, her voice stern but full of concern. She didn’t know that her concern shouldn’t be for me. “I don’t know what happened back then, but whatever it is, you-” 

“Sam,” I interrupted. I couldn’t stand this conversation any longer. I thought I would break, if I had to and I couldn’t let that happen. “It’s none of your business, okay?”

I didn’t like acting so snappish around her, but I didn’t know what else I could tell her, or why she would even want to hear any of it. It wouldn’t change a thing. 

I could tell her that I couldn’t bear to go through the same pain again. I could tell her that the last time I had heard Adrian’s voice, it had called to me from the depths of Helheim. It had felt like a warning back then. I could tell her that I heeded warnings from hell.  

No matter what, in the end there was no way she would understand. Not Sam, who shared a parent with me, but was so very different in every other aspect. 

But of course, she couldn’t let it go, without having gotten some answers.  “But you like Magnus a lot, don’t you?” 

What were we? Middle schoolers? This wasn’t as simple as a playground crush. Everything I had built up in this shitty afterlife of mine was on the line. 

If I succumbed to my true feelings and ended up hurting Magnus even half as much as I had hurt Adrian, Samirah wouldn’t want to meet me for coffee anymore. She would turn and run. Everyone would. Blitz, Hearth, our hallmates - they had all been Magnus’ friends before they had met me. Even Sam. Every time we all spent time together, it was apparent that she was Magnus’ friend first and my sister second. If I let him get too close and it destroyed him - I would be alone again. I couldn’t risk that. Not now that I finally had something like a real family. 

And yet. I couldn’t bring myself to negate her question, and I thought Sam noticed that fact. 

To my relief, she didn’t get to follow up, as someone said: “There you are.” 

Mallory and TJ joined us at our table, both holding a cup of hot chocolate and a paper bag containing a croissant-shaped pastry. TJ seemed to have copied Mallory’s order. He had only recently started to leave Valhalla more often to join us doing normal mortal teenager things, and wasn’t entirely comfortable yet with how the 21st century worked. It was easier for Mallory but sometimes it was obvious that she too was from another time - like when she texted like a grandmother or dressed like a member of ABBA. 

Today she wore flared jeans and a turtleneck that was almost the same color as her red hair. 

TJ had swapped his woolen Civil War coat for a black Nirvana hoodie, which I was pretty sure he had borrowed from Magnus. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. 

“Sorry, are we interrupting?” TJ asked as he sat down beside me. He was observant enough to notice Sam’s dissatisfied expression and the dark glare I gave her, warning her not to continue our conversation with our friends around… or at all. 

Fortunately, Sam had the sense to say: “Not at all, we were waiting for you.” She even forced a smile that only looked a little unconvincing. 

“We were trying to get Halfborn to come with us,” TJ explained. 

“But of course that big oaf refuses to leave the hotel unless it’s for a world-saving quest…” Mallory said, rolling her eyes, but I thought she sounded a little sad about that fact. I understood Halfborn’s decision, though - if even Mallory couldn’t fit seamlessly into the modern world, how would an actual Viking manage to adapt? 

With TJ’s and Mallory’s arrival, the conversation became a lot more comfortable for me. We talked about the innocuous things that I had wanted to talk about from the beginning. Sam told us about her classes and the fights she regularly had with her roommate, and TJ and Mallory gave a recap of the battle that Magnus and I had missed yesterday between drying the kitchen and interrogating Izzy. 

In the end, we circled back to that topic as well. We hadn’t had a chance to tell our roommates about Izzy in detail, so I tried to quickly explain everything, from how Izzy had used her powers on me and Magnus and how Annabeth had ruled out that she was one of her demigods. “Anyway, we still don’t know what to do about those monsters,” I finished with a shrug. 

To my surprise, Mallory and TJ seemed to find the whole story much more intriguing than I would have expected. They stared at me, then exchanged a glance with a certain gleam in both their eyes that I couldn’t put my finger on.

I frowned and turned to Sam, to see if she showed the same reaction to my story - hey, maybe I was just an exceptionally great storyteller - but she just shrugged at my questioning look. 

“What?” I finally asked, turning back to Mallory and TJ. I felt like I missed a major part of what was going on inside their heads. 

“It’s… nothing,” TJ said after a few seconds of silence, but he continued to frown contemplatively, so I had to assume that it was something . 

“You haven’t ruled out the possibility that the girl is a Norse demigod, have you?” Mallory asked, frowning at the hasty notes on Sam’s notepad as she tried to decipher them. 

“No, not exactly,” I said. “We just thought Greek or Roman would make sense because of the monsters that are after her.” 

“But they could be after her for another reason?” 

“I mean… I guess?” I started to grow frustrated with how I couldn’t seem to follow my friends' train of thoughts.

“The thing is…” TJ began hesitantly “...the way you described her powers sounds really familiar. Doesn’t it?” He looked at Mallory, who nodded seriously. 

“Yup,” she agreed. “But he’s been missing for… what? A few decades?” 

“No, not that long. Ten years or so.” 

“Okay, hold on,” Sam managed to chime in. She didn’t seem to understand any more than I did - which was a relief.“ Who are we talking about??” 

“Well…”, TJ finally began and I tried to give him my most threatening look, so he wouldn’t dare to back out. It seemed to work. He sighed and said: “Bragi.” 

“Wait, what?!” Sam and I said in unison, loud enough for the other people in the cafe to turn and look at us. 

“Bragi. You know, god of epic poetry, words, music… former court poet of Valhalla-”

“Yes, we know who Bragi is,'' Sam interrupted. “But-... what??” 

“I agree,” I said. “What??” 

“What you described sounds a lot like something that Bragi used to do when he was still around,” TJ explained. Judging by his disgruntled expression, that wasn’t a time he remembered fondly. “He used words to convince people to do things.” 

Mallory chuckled. “Ohh, remember when he made you into battle, wearing only-” 

TJ silenced her by reaching across the table and putting his hand over Mallory’s mouth. “Not. a. word.” 

Under different circumstances, I definitely would have demanded to hear the story, but right now I barely registered their banter. My mind was racing at the speed of light. 

“Wait, what does this have to do with poetry or music or whatever?” Sam said with a deep frown, asking one of the million questions that were piling up in my head. “It sounds more like some kind of enticement power?”

“Poetry can be enticing,” Mallory said after pushing TJ’s hand away from her face. “Alex, you said the kid’s power made you feel exactly what she needed you to feel?” 

I nodded. 

“Well, that’s exactly how Bragi worked. ‘Cause that’s what poetry does, isn’t it? It gives power to the simplest words and tricks you into feeling what the poet wants you to feel.” 

I wasn’t sure if I understood what she meant - I had never been a big fan of poetry. Back in school, trying to analyze a poem had always made me feel incredibly stupid - but I knew immediately that what she was saying applied to Izzy’s powers. 

“Okay, wait,” Sam said again, shaking her head to collect her thoughts. She turned to TJ. “You said Bragi is the former bard of Valhalla. Where did he go?” 

TJ shrugged in response. “Nobody knows.” 

“He disappeared,” I mumbled, finally finding my voice again. I remembered the few weeks after our quest to prevent Ragnarok that Magnus had spent scanning dusty books, files and issues of The Asgard Times in Valhalla’s library, trying to find any trace of Bragi. He had given up after a while - although he probably had never told Jack. “That was all Magnus could find about him. He promised Jack that he would get Bragi to write an epic about him, remember?” I added at Mallory’s questioning look. “To make up for forgetting to mention him during his big victory speech on the Ship of the Dead.”

TJ coughed and mumbled: “Because he was too busy gushing about you…” 

“Not the point,” Sam said in a strict tone, for which I was grateful. “Magnus couldn’t find anything else about Bragi, right? There’s just nothing. So, if Izzy is his child…” 

“...that would be the first trace anyone has found of Bragi in years. Yes,” I finished for her. There were still a lot of open questions - like what kind of monsters were after the child of the god of poetry - but I was, like, ninety percent certain that we had just come a big step closer to solving the mystery of Izzy. 

It wasn’t just that Izzy’s powers aligned with what Mallory and TJ remembered - I also had to think about the dreams that Izzy had described, and the music that had led her to our house. I had wanted to say that it felt like a very lucky stroke of fate that the universe would place a daughter of Bragi right under Magnus’ nose, but now I thought that maybe it wasn’t the universe’s doing. Maybe it was a sign from a god who was ready to be found. 

I jumped up, so suddenly that my friends flinched. 

“Where are you going?” Sam asked with a frown. 

“We have to tell Magnus.” 

Chapter Text

Magnus

In retrospect, I probably should have predicted this. There was just no way that I would get to spend more than a few hours like a normal person. 

My regular day had lasted long enough. Annabeth and I had been able to enjoy the unhealthy, greasy kind of breakfast that Valhalla would never serve, spend hours at the Museum of Fine Arts, laughing at awkward paintings and trying to find a depiction of a mythological figure in the Greeks & Romans section that Annabeth had not yet encountered, and take a long walk through the Public Garden. 

We talked about everything but my problems at hand: About how unfair the admissions process had been at the New Rome university; about the time Annabeth had met magicians from the Egyptian pantheon (what?); about her friend Will, who appeared to have copied all my superpowers… 

For a few blissful hours, I barely wasted a single thought on Izzy or Alex or any of the things that had recently made my head feel like an overinflated balloon that was about to burst at any moment.

The sun was beginning to set when that illusion of normalcy was finally shattered. We had just left the Garden for Newbury Street, when a hawk swooped down toward us and morphed into Alex, looking more psyched than I had seen him in a long time. 

I couldn’t deny that his discovery that Bragi might be Izzy’s dad was huge, but I just couldn’t bring myself to match his excitement. To me, it felt like the universe was giving me a giant middle finger for my constant postponement of my task to find the god of poetry - maybe rightfully so, but still. Bad timing, universe. 

In any case, the time for relaxation was definitely over. Instead, it was time for an impromptu Norse demigod crisis meeting in the kitchen of the Chase Space. Maybe calling it that had been the reason for Annabeth to excuse herself and continue on to the next sightseeing spot on her list, the Boston Library, on her own. Maybe she, too, was not in the mood for another lengthy debate about some kid’s possible parent and thought something along the lines of “Not my pantheon, not my problem.”

I wished I could do the same, but I doubted Alex would let me visit a library after he had made what he seemed to think was a monumental discovery. I wasn’t so convinced of that yet. 

Still, I joined Sam, Alex, Blitz and Hearth in the kitchen half an hour later. It was getting kind of crowded, especially with an over-enthusiastic sword floating around the room, so I retreated to sit on the kitchen counter and watch my friends argue, hoping no one would ask me for my opinion anytime soon.

“So, Bragi is Izzy’s father?” Blitz asked skeptically. 

“It makes perfect sense!!!” Jack shouted over the noise of the dehumidifier by the door which was supposed to be getting rid of the lingering moisture from yesterday's water damage, but mostly just seemed to annoy everyone. He was hovering up and down so wildly in his excitement that I wondered how long it would take him to pierce the ceiling and cause new damage to the kitchen.

Alex, who was leaning against the kitchen counter next to me, nodded in agreement. “What TJ told me about Bragi’s powers fits Izzy exactly! And he disappeared about ten years ago - which matches her age. He could have met Izzy’s mom right after he left Valhalla.”

“Sure, I’m not denying that’s a possibility," Blitz replied in a serious tone. “It’s just… how would that help? It’s not like we can call Bragi up and ask him to pick up his kid. He’s disappeared, remember?” 

“Yes, but knowing her godly parent could help us figure out why these monsters are after her,'' Sam reminded him before turning to me.

“Please leave me out of this,” I wanted to beg, but I remained stoic under her serious gaze.

“It can’t be a coincidence that Izzy was led to Magnus, who is trying to find Bragi.”

I kept quiet, because I couldn’t disagree with Sam, but also didn’t want to accept that what she said was true. 

“Right,” Alex continued anyway, so that I was spared from having to comment. “When Izzy came here, she said it was her father who guided her. I bet Bragi wants to be found by Magnus.” 

I did not like the sound of that at all. 

Jack, on the other hand, glowed like a tiny sun and hummed with excitement. “Ohh, Bragi just can’t wait to write my epic!” he cheered. 

I didn’t want to ruin his mood, but I had the feeling that if Alex was right, Bragi did not want to be found because he wanted to write Jack’s biography - there was something else, possibly more dangerous, going on. There always was. 

Hearth, who had kept out of the conversation until now, snapped his fingers to get our attention, and confirmed my thought. 

When I turned to look at him, there was a seriousness in his expression that I immediately disliked. “If Bragi is Izzy’s father, that gives us another important piece of information about him.”

“Does it? ” I replied hesitantly, exchanging glances with Alex, who just shrugged his shoulders, seemingly equally clueless as to what Hearth meant. 

Hearth rolled his eyes in annoyance. “What else did Izzy tell us when she came here?”  No one gave an answer, so Hearth continued: “She’s been trying to find her father because she’s convinced he is in danger.” 

“Bragi is in danger?” Sam asked and signed for clarification.

“Oh,” was all I managed to say. My motivation to keep my promise to Jack had just plummeted - not that it had been very high anyway. 

“He could be. If he is her father,” Hearth signed in Sam’s direction

“How can a god be in danger?” Alex asked, not quite managing to keep the note of concern out of his voice. 

No one seemed to have an answer and the room filled with a somber silence, broken only by the constant hum of the dehumidifier - that thing was seriously starting to give me a headache.

Then Jack suddenly started to glow orange and announced: “That’s awesome!!”

I looked at him, confused. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to be sarcastic - that kind of thing was hard to tell without facial expressions.

“I mean…” Jack continued after noticing several skeptical looks in his direction. “Not for Bragi, of course… But that means you guys get to save him!! And if you save him, I’ll get my epic for sure.” 

“So it would only be awesome for you?” Blitz said, raising an eyebrow. 

Jack gasped, pretending to be appalled. “No! It would be awesome for you because… because you’d get to go on a hero’s quest and earn never-ending glory and all that!” 

“Right…” Sam said, sounding anything but enthusiastic about the prospect of never-ending glory. “And what if we don’t want to save him? If a god is in danger, shouldn’t the other gods help, or-” 

“Of course not, the gods have other stuff to do,” Jack said in a tone that sounded like he would have rolled his eyes if he had any. “But I suppose you don’t have to do anything. These two, however - … have to.”  He tilted his hilt at Alex and me. 

“Why??” I sounded pretty whiny, even to my own ears. 

“You’re einherji!” Jack said, zooming up to me. “Saving gods is kind of what you are supposed to do.” 

“It’s really not,” Alex said, crossing his arms.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this -” Hearth, who had only been able to follow the conversation because Blitz kept interpreting for him, signed without looking very sorry, “- but Jack is right. You guys are like a task force for the Norse world. When you find out a god is in danger, you have to do something.” 

Ugh. Betrayal by a friend. 

“Aannnd… you promised,” Jack added smugly. 

“And Bragi might know a solution to Izzy’s monster problem,” Alex said, but he didn’t sound as excited about that as he had when he had dropped the news. Maybe he knew, like me, that with our luck all our speculations would prove correct and we would have to embark on a life-threatening quest to save a god so I could fulfill a stupid promise I had made in the heat of a battle. 

Sam let out a deep sigh even though she wasn’t the one who would be forced to find a god in danger. “We can start researching tomorrow. Maybe there’s something you missed while looking for him.”

“Okay, so let me get this right…” Sam said, a frown on her face, as she casually leaned against the reception desk in the lobby of Hotel Valhalla. She had volunteered to help me find out more about Bragi from the other residents of Valhalla, while Alex, Hearth and Blitz spent the morning running errands for the Chase Space. It was nice of her to help in the search for information about the god, even though she had left her demigod life behind her, sure, but I did not like the judgemental tinge in her eyes that studied me intensely, “...you have been searching for clues to Bragi’s whereabouts for, what? Three years now? And it never occurred to you to ask around the hotel?” 

I really started to think that I had vastly exaggerated the amount of time and effort I had put into finding Bragi when talking to my friends about it. 

Sam’s piercing stare made me wish that Hunding or Helgi or whoever was supposed to be at the reception desk would finally show up. No one did, so I buried my hands in the pockets of my jeans and mumbled: “It might have occurred to me once or twice but….” 

A slight smile played around Sam’s lips, “... your eternal life was too busy to get around to it?” 

“Hey, we’ve been really busy at the Chase Space these past few years!” I tried to defend myself, but quickly gave in. Sam was one of my best friends, there was no point in lying - she knew me too well. “Fine… maybe I wasn’t as invested as I pretended to be.” Sam didn’t seem surprised by this confession, but I still felt the need to explain myself: “I didn’t want to dive into another quest right after saving the world. I think I deserved some downtime…” -... because I had hoped that would give me and Alex time to figure things out, I added in my head, but of course, I didn’t tell Sam that. It would only make me sound like even more of an idiot. 

“Sure, but you did promise Jack to find Bragi,” Sam reminded me.

That was easy for her to say. She had been able to quit all of this after our world-saving quest and settle down for a normal mortal life - that would never be an option for me. “I know,” I said reluctantly and leaned against the front desk next to her . “I would have gotten around to it eventually.” 

“Right…” 

“Besides, that promise was an accident,” I continued at Sam’s raised eyebrows. “Don’t tell Jack I said that, though.”

“Oh, I think he knows,” she replied letting her eyes wander around the crowded hotel lobby. “That doesn’t make it any less of a promise.” 

She was right, of course, but I didn’t tell her that. My conscience was already nagging me enough about this, I didn’t need Sam to do the same. I knew that Jack had been disappointed before - by my father of all people. I had to prove that I was a better friend. Still, he couldn’t blame me for taking a few months - and then a few more months that had suddenly turned into years - off, could he? 

We stopped talking for a while, and I joined Sam in watching my fellow einherjar, hoping she would forget the subject of my unfulfilled promises.

A few feet away from us, two girls I knew from the pottery-to-the-death class that Alex had dragged me to, were using each other as axe targets. The one closer to me had just managed to cut one of the other girl’s braids right off. 

“Oh, no, you didn't!” she cried in outrage. Her next axe went straight into her friend’s forehead, who had time to give her a thumbs up and mumble something that sounded like “Good one” before falling backwards and hitting the wooden floor with a dull thud. 

Sam seemed incredibly unfazed by axes flying by just a few feet from her face, considering the fact that a stray weapon could very much kill her permanently. Most of the people here still knew Sam from her time with the Valkyries, and were aware that she was Odin’s guest of honor, so no one would try to kill her intentionally. Still, accidents could always happen, especially in Valhalla, which was why I had been hesitant to take Sam to the hotel with me. 

She scowled at the girl’s dead body - not in disgust, rather in disappointment at the einherji’s dodging skills - before turning to me. Bloody axe murders seemed to remind her of another topic I was trying to avoid. 

“So, how are things going with Alex?” she asked casually, as if she hadn’t just seen someone get brutally murdered. 

I had suspected this question would come up sooner or later - the second reason why I had been reluctant to team up with Sam today. I avoided looking at her. “I’m sure Alex has already told you all about it,” I murmured through gritted teeth.

Sam sighed. “Actually... no. Alex hardly tells me anything about himself.” That fact seemed to bother her a lot. “But I heard that things are… kind of awkward between you right now. So, what happened?” 

I didn’t answer right away. Mostly because I didn’t know how to explain the situation - not surprising, since I wasn’t even sure what the situation was, exactly. So I settled for something vague: “I thought there was something more between us… and Alex doesn’t think so.” I didn't want it to sound as bitter as it did, so I added: “Simple as that.” Although there was absolutely nothing simple about it. 

Sam nodded seriously. “Yeah, I suspected something like that. I mean, ever since your love declaration on the ship-”

“It wasn’t a-” I began, but felt like a broken record - and really, what had it been if not a declaration of love? Instead, I sighed:  “Whatever. Alex doesn’t have feelings for me, so…” 

“I don’t think that’s the problem here,” Sam said. She stared at her shoes, with deep furrows forming in between her thin eyebrows. She suddenly looked more concerned than interested in my relationship drama. “Haven't you ever seen the way he looks at you?” 

“Uh… no,” I replied because she probably didn’t mean Alex’s look of mild annoyance that I regularly noticed directed at me. 

I hoped Sam would elaborate on how exactly she thought Alex was looking at me, but instead she continued: “I think… Alex is too guarded when it comes to his feelings. He’s been through… a lot.”  She paused and stared off across the hall at something I couldn't see. “Pretending not to have any serious feelings for you probably seems like the safest solution, you know?” 

I did not know. At all. “That doesn’t make sense…” I mumbled. I had to force my mind to stay on topic - whatever Sam was trying to say, it seemed serious - but a very distracting warm, fuzzy feeling was starting to spread in my stomach. I wasn’t quite sure, but Sam seemed to think there was a serious possibility that Alex might like me back. Lately, I had not even dared to consider that as a possibility. 

Sam continued, without consideration for my sudden feeling of elation. “Maybe not to you, but I think Alex-” She hesitated and gave me a sideways glance, her dark eyes piercing me as if she wanted to look into my brain to see if she could trust me with what she was about to say. “Has Alex ever talked to you about Adrian?” 

The fuzzy feeling was quickly replaced by a biting knot. “No, not really,” I answered truthfully. Alex never actively talked about his late friend. What I knew about him, I had gathered from the few instances when Alex had let his name slip in a conversation, as if he had momentarily forgotten that none of us had known Adrian. The sad look in Alex’s eyes whenever he realized this, always made my heart clench. 

I knew that Adrian had been homeless, just like me and Alex. I knew he had committed suicide. And I assumed that he and Alex had been more than just friends - but that was just an assumption. 

I wasn’t entirely sure what any of that had to do with me and Alex, though, so I asked: “Why?”

“I don’t know much either…” Sam said, her pained expression clearly telling me that she regretted bringing up the subject. “Ask Alex - it’s his story to tell. You two should really have a proper chat about your feelings anyway.” 

“I know that! But Alex-” 

“Hunding!!” Sam suddenly exclaimed and waved across the hall at the large Viking bellhop who had just stepped out of the elevator. He was covered in green slime from head to toe and looked miserable. The sight of us also didn’t seem to improve his mood either, as far as I could tell - his face was barely visible under his usual thick beard and the newly added slime. I quickly searched my pockets for the chocolate bar I had brought to offer him as a tip. 

“I’m so sorry you had to wait,” he said as soon as he was close enough for us to hear. He let out a deep sigh, as he stepped behind the reception desk. “The dragons all have a cold.” 

That explained the slime. Dragon snot. Yuck. That dude really deserved something to cheer him up. I reached for the chocolate, but apparently Samirah was able to read my thoughts and didn’t think Hunding had earned a tip. She slapped my hand under the reception desk, out of Hunding's sight, and shot me a meaningful glance - at least I assumed it was supposed to be meaningful. I just wasn’t sure what it meant. Still, I decided to obey for now and see what she had planned. 

“It’s all right, we didn’t have to wait long,” she said, smiling warmly as if she hadn’t just deprived a hardworking Viking of his well-earned chocolate.

“Well then, how can I help you?” Hunding asked, not bothered by the fact that green slime was slowly dripping from his beard onto the reception desk. 

Without hesitation, Sam began: “We have a question.” 

“About the dragons?” 

“No… we were wondering what you know about the god Bragi… He used to work here too, didn’t he?” 

“Oh.” Hunding’s smile faded. “Well, uh,.... yes, he did. But he’s not here anymore.” 

“Yeah, we noticed,” I couldn’t help but say. I was getting impatient. “Do you know where he is now?” 

The Viking rubbed the back of his bushy head awkwardly. “No…” He cast a nervous glance around before continuing, “look, Magnus, I knew you’d ask about Bragi sooner or later, but I’m not really allowed to talk about him.” 

“Why not?” 

He hesitated for a second. “It was a real scandal for the hotel when he disappeared and we couldn’t find him. He wasn’t supposed to leave, so…” He stopped and shook his head violently, as if chastising himself for saying more than he had planned. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sam let out a small sigh before reaching into the pocket of my jacket. 

“Hey,” I wanted to protest, but luckily, I understood her plan just in time as she pulled out the chocolate and held it up for Hunding to see. I had been an accomplice in a blackmail attempt all along…. 

“Look, we really need to know more about how and why he disappeared,” Sam explained calmly. “We won’t tell anyone that you helped us and-” She waved the chocolate bar “-we brought you compensation.” 

Hunding hesitated and looked around again. Intrigued, he leaned forward. “The whole bar?” 

“Yes.” 

“All right,” he finally sighed, and I knew Sam’s plan had worked. “I can’t give you many answers but… what do you want to know?”

I assumed that Sam probably had a prepared set of questions for us to ask, and I should have given her the floor, but before I could stop myself, I blurted out the first question that came to my mind. “You said earlier that Bragi wasn’t supposed to leave… What did you mean by that?” 

Hunding's eyes kept darting around the room, but the chocolate seemed to calm him enough to speak: "Bragi is Odin’s son, out of wedlock, mind you. But he wasn't always a real god, just an immortal with extraordinary abilities in art and music. Only when the people of his time started to treat him like one - praying to him when they needed inspiration and what not - was Odin forced to do something." 

"So he forced him to stay at the hotel?" Sam asked with a frown. 

Hunding shrugged. "Frigg wasn’t happy about one of her husband's illegitimate sons getting so much attention, so she agreed to let him join the ranks of the gods, but keep him out of the public eye. Odin installed him as the designated bard of Valhalla for all eternity. He was allowed to spend his time here and with his wife at their home in Asgard, but nowhere else. He was never to abandon his post." 

"Then why did he leave?" Playing music for a bunch of dead warriors didn’t sound too bad. There were most certainly worse jobs out there. Like taking care of dragons with a cold. 

 The Viking gave me a pitying look. "You may not understand it yet, Magnus, but eternity here can become… difficult," he said, but his expression told me he had wanted to end the sentence differently. More like '... worse than Helheim'. 

I tried to avoid his gaze. 

“Bragi was an artist, a poet,” Hunding went on, “he was always looking for new words, new ways to play his instruments, new inspiration… and after a few hundred years, Valhalla had nothing left to offer.”

That made sense I suppose. I had never been the creative type, but even I realized more and more every day that in a few decades all of this would seem dull and unexciting - one of the reasons I strictly avoided thinking about the future. Now that he had brought it up, I couldn’t help but think of Alex, who was constantly striving for change, for inspiration - how long would he be able to endure eternity? 

A shiver ran down my spine and I tried to banish the dark thoughts. Luckily, Sam was already moving on. 

“So, what happened after he disappeared?” she asked, unbothered by the bleak future that had just been revealed to me. “Surely someone went looking for him?”

“Oh yes, of course,” Hunding said, nodding solemnly. “Odin sent some of his favorite wolves to find him. He was furious about Bragi's disappearance… we all had to listen to a three-day powerpoint presentation on working morale afterwards…”

“He sent wolves?” I asked. Of course, with my luck, it was wolves again. “How can wolves find a lost god?”

“Odin is the god of knowledge. His wolves are special, of course. Once they are assigned to find something or someone, they will sense every trace, every piece of information their target leaves behind.”   

 “And still, they never found him?” Sam asked with a frown. 

Hunding shook his head, spreading more slime on his reception desk. “No, I would assume not. When Valhalla sends out its wolves on a search they cannot return until their work is done… and since they haven’t returned yet-” 

“So, there’s absolutely no chance that we will find him, is there?” I asked. I hadn’t expected this to be easy, but with every piece of information that this conversation revealed, my hope was dwindling. Next time, I really had to think before I promised my sword something…

Hunding studied my probably desperate face for a few seconds before looking around the lobby again. When he didn’t find anyone watching, he leaned closer to me and Sam. “Not necessarily,” he whispered. “The wolves may be dangerous and strong, but they can be too focused on their goal. They lack critical thinking. If you go about it differently… there might be a chance.” 

“How would you go about it?” Sam asked. Asking for Hunding’s advice was a wise move, I thought. The bellhop didn’t have much of a say in the hotel, even though he must have been a fierce warrior and strategist in his first life.

“Well,” he began, a proud undertone swinging in his voice. He stood up straighter. “I would ask Bragi's wife, Idun. She’s a powerful goddess, but often underestimated. Maybe you could find her. Maybe she possesses information that she’s somehow managed to keep from the wolves, and if you’re nice to her… maybe she’ll tell you.”

“That’s a lot of maybes,” I said, pessimistic as I was, while Sam focused on the important questions: “Where can we look for her?” 

“She has kept quiet since Bragi’s disappearance, but she seems to be close to Freya, who regularly collects the apples of immortality from her, so the gods don’t age… I assume she could tell you where to find Idun.” 

Sam and I exchanged a quick glance. I knew we were both thinking the same thing: Blitz won’t like this. He preferred not to talk about or to his mother, but if she was our chance to find Idun…- 

I let out a deep sigh, not caring how un-hero-like I sounded in front of Hunding. “I guess, that means it’s quest time?” 

Sam nodded and shrugged apologetically as if to say: ‘For you, not for me’ . 

“One more thing…” Hunding stopped us before we could turn to leave. I already knew that I wouldn’t like what he had to say. “Be careful. Should you actually find out something about Bragi’s whereabouts, there is a chance that the wolves will sense it. And I assume they have been stuck with this task long enough for them to have grown frantic. An encounter with them won’t be pleasant.” 

Wonderful. I was getting more and more excited about this quest by the second.

Just as Samirah and I had predicted, Blitz in particular was not thrilled with the news we brought back to the Chase Space. None of the others were excited about the prospect of having to find another goddess before possibly getting a lead on Bragi’s whereabouts either - with the exception of Jack, of course, who was so overjoyed that we finally had a trail to the potential author of his potential epic, that he hadn’t stopped singing We are the Champions since I had told him about it. I thought it was rather optimistic to call us "champions" when we hadn't accomplished anything yet, but I didn't want to ruin his mood.

After our conversation at the hotel, we had spent the evening thoroughly discussing who would have the honor of going on the quest to find Idun. Of course I had to go, that was out of the question, unfortunately. Blitz reluctantly agreed that he was our best chance to convince his mother to tell us where to find Idun, so he would accompany me. I half expected that we would have to go on a duo mission. Sam was trying her best to stay out of any world other than Midgard - and I would be the last person to force her to break that resolution. Hearth was still worried about the rune barrier around the Chase Space and wanted to spend the day renewing it. And when I mentioned the wolves that were also looking for Bragi and could potentially become a problem, Alex’s face had turned white as snow. 

However, to my surprise, he had quickly announced: "All right, I'll join you," which I found quite brave of him.

I had suspected for a while now that Alex wasn’t a big fan of wolves either - we had that in common. After all, he had been brutally murdered by wolves once before. If I weren’t already downright terrified of those animals, an experience like that would definitely do the trick. 

“You don’t have to-” I tried, but was secretly relieved when Alex shook his head vehemently. 

“No, it’s like Jack said: I’m an einherji too. It’s our duty. I’m coming with you.” 

I wouldn’t have taken Alex for someone who cared much about duty, but I didn’t question his motive. I was just glad that he was willing to tag along. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that, but if we were forced to fight - something or someone - I couldn’t imagine doing so without Alex by my side, no matter what had happened between us in the last few days.

The next day our small gang was ready for departure. Alex and I met Blitz early in the morning at the Starbucks across from the Public Garden, not far from the Make Way for Ducklings sculpture - our portal to Folgvanger. 

“You look terrible…” I said, as I walked towards Blitz. Admittedly, not the nicest thing to say this early in the morning - but hey, I hadn’t had my coffee yet. 

Blitz was wearing his latest sun protection outfit: A midnight blue three-piece suit, dark leather gloves, and a wide-brimmed hat with retractable mesh curtains. Since the sun wasn’t fully out yet, the curtain wasn’t drawn, and I could see the dark circles under his eyes. He didn’t seem to have gotten much sleep.    

He scowled at my greeting. “Good morning to you too.”

“Sorry, I mean… you look tired.” A sad attempt to save the conversation, but an attempt nonetheless. “I know you don’t like to ask your mom for favors… so thanks for joining us.” 

Blitz exhaled. “One annoying task to help you fulfill a promise? I think I can handle that, kid.” 

Before I got a chance to express my gratitude, Alex appeared next to us with our Starbucks order.

“Here you go,” she said, handing Blitz his cup first. “Your obligatory quest-caramel-latte.” Alex was dressed today in what I liked to think of as her interdimensional travel outfit: mint green high tops, pink skinny jeans, and her green and pink checkered sweater vest over a long-sleeved white dress shirt. The long dark green coat she was wearing over it seemed familiar - I was pretty sure, she had borrowed it from Samirah’s closet. 

“And one boring, plain black coffee for Magnus.” She handed me the second cup with a disapproving glare. “The cute barista looked at me like I was committing a serious crime when I had to order something so boring…” 

“Thanks…” I took the cup and tried not to let it show how much it bothered me that Alex seemed to care what the 'cute' barista thought of her. 

We hadn’t talked much on our way here. We were both stressed about the task at hand and the uncomfortable tension that hovered over every one of our conversations hadn’t vanished, either. The fact that I had to concentrate intensely on not thinking about what Sam had said the day before - that Alex probably did like me, but something was holding her back, something to do with Adrian - made it even harder to act normal. 

I hated this. This wasn't how my relationship with Alex was supposed to be - it didn't feel right. I would be okay with never becoming anything more in a romantic sense, eventually, but I didn’t think I could handle losing our friendship over this - and that’s what I feared was happening. But now was probably not the best time to have a mental breakdown about that, so I tried to push the thought aside and instead focused on downing my cup of coffee as quickly as possible without burning my mouth. We had a goddess to find.

“My pronouns today are she/her,” Alex informed Blitz, as she had informed me earlier this morning, and took a sip from her own cup, which I knew contained iced chai latte- why iced was a mystery to me, since Alex hadn't stopped complaining about the cold since November. “Are we ready to go?” 

I didn’t feel ready. Neither Blitz nor Alex looked particularly ready either. Still, Blitz and I both shrugged and simultaneously said: “Sure.” 

We made our way over to the Ducklings and I summoned Jack. As far as I was aware, he was the only one of us who hadn’t had any caffeine this morning, but he was definitely the most hyperactive. As he morphed into sword form, he spun high into the air before coming back down with a yell that sounded like “Wahhooo!!!”  

“At least someone’s in a good mood,” Blitz said, taking a step back as if afraid Jack would start doing somersaults and accidentally impale him.

“We are going to find Bragi today!!!” Jack said, glowing bright orange. “I’m going to get my epic!! How could I not be in a good mood?”

Alex frowned. “I highly doubt we will find Bragi today… We have to get to Idun first.” 

“And before that, Freya has to tell us where she is,” I added cautiously, but Jack didn’t lose his glow. 

“Still, it’s a good start!” 

Seeing him so happy made me feel bad again for having ignored my promise for so long, but I tried not to dwell on that. “Can you help us find the quickest way to Folkvanger?” I gestured towards the ducks. 

“Anything for you, señor!” Jack said in a singsong voice. 

I really was a terrible friend. 

Jack got to work. He slowly circled the ducks, trying to sense the one we would need.  

“Do you think your mom will tell us where we can find Idun?” Alex asked Blitz, while watching Jack and playing absentmindedly with the handle of her garrotte, which she had slung through a belt loop. 

Blitz rubbed his forehead in exhaustion. He had probably spent the whole night thinking about that question. “Not without getting something back. But we’ll find a way.”

“Got it!” Jack called. “If Freya lets us in, this is the shortest way.” He hovered in front of the duckling right behind the mother duck. 

I sighed. I had not considered the possibility that Freya simply wouldn't want to talk to us. “Alright… then let’s-” 

“Wait!!”

The four of us turned to see Annabeth sprinting towards us. She stopped next to me and held onto my shoulder, breathing heavily.

Before I could get over my initial surprise and say something, Alex took the words right out of my mouth. 

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her tone and narrowed eyes making it very clear that she wasn’t asking out of curiosity. 

“I was looking for you at the Chase Space, and Hearth told me you were here, so I ran all the way to catch you,” Annabeth explained, still a little breathless. She eyed the bronze ducks. “I wasn’t sure if I understood what he meant, but apparently… you are actually at the Make Way for Ducklings sculpture. Why?” 

“This is where the layers between the nine worlds are the thinnest. We can travel from here,” I answered her question. 

“Why did you follow us?” Blitz asked skeptically. “Did something happen?” 

“No.” Annabeth shrugged. “But I want to come with you.” 

“No way!” Alex and I said at the same time. 

“Why??” asked Blitz. 

Annabeth decided to ignore me and Alex and concentrated on Blitz’s question. “After Magnus texted me yesterday about what he found out, I went to the library and did some research on Idun.” She spoke calmly and rationally, as if she had prepared to defend her decision. “I think I found some things that might be helpful.” 

Now that I got a proper look at my cousin, it seemed obvious that she had prepared for a quest. There were several knives strapped to her thigh, her black puffer jacket didn’t hide the large dagger hanging from her side, and her backpack seemed to be filled to the brim with who knew what. She looked much better prepared than any of us. She turned to me. “Let me come with you. I swear, I won’t get in the way.” 

I was speechless. “Why- Why would you want that?” I finally managed to say. I would have given anything not to be here - why would anyone want to tag along voluntarily?

“I’m just curious to see what your world is like,” Annabeth replied, which didn’t really explain anything to me. I wanted to point out that Folgvanger was as far from ‘my’ world as it could be - wrong afterlife and all that -, but she continued: “And I want to help. I have a lot of experience with this sort of thing - talking to gods, solving riddles.” 

Sure, it would be comforting to have someone with me who had been on more quests than the rest of us combined. But this was Annabeth. She did not belong in that pantheon. Who knew what would happen if she stepped into the world of a Norse goddess. 

Blitz seemed to have a similar thought. “Would this even work?” he asked no one in particular. “A Greek demigod in one of the nine worlds?” 

“Why wouldn’t it?” Annabeth countered. The gleam in her eyes scared me a little. It reminded me of the junkies on the street, who were always on the hunt for their personal drug. “I can see through your version of the mist, so why shouldn’t I be able to travel to one of the other worlds? Besides, this world is part of the nine worlds, too, isn’t it? And I’m perfectly fine here.” 

No one knew how to argue with that logic. 

Annabeth had me almost convinced, but Alex still seemed to hate the idea. “Aren’t you supposed to be the daughter of the goddess of wisdom?” she asked with crossed arms, looking Annabeth up and down critically. I was beginning to suspect that she and my cousin didn’t exactly like each other.

“Yes?” Annabeth replied, obviously not seeing where Alex was going with this. 

“Then why do you get such stupid ideas?”

Annabeth glared at Alex, but managed to keep her voice calm: “Athena is also the goddess of curiosity and inquisitiveness. And I’m curious to see how the nine worlds work. And besides…” She shrugged, “I’m bored.” 

Going on a quest to find a lost god seemed like an odd cure for boredom, but what did I know? 

“You can’t-” Alex tried again, but was interrupted by Blitz, who looked about as conflicted about this as I felt: “Alex, it’s not our quest. Magnus has to decide.” 

All eyes turned to me. Great. I hated having to make decisions. 

“Let me come,” Annabeth said again - man, she could sound intense if she wanted to. “It feels… right, somehow.”

I was still hesitant. “I don’t know… what if we create some kind of divine paradox by letting you enter one of the other worlds and you explode or something?” 

Annabeth gave me her ‘you are so dumb’ glance. “I take full responsibility in the unlikely event of sudden combustion.” 

I looked to my friends for assistance. Alex stared at me and shook her head, Blitz shrugged his shoulders indecisively. 

“Jack, what do you think? Could Annabeth enter one of the nine worlds? I mean… one of the other eight worlds?”

My sword, which had been uncharacteristically silent until now, floated closer to Annabeth. 

“Huh…” he said, circling her like he had done with the ducks before. “I guess the worst thing that could happen is that Freya doesn’t let her into Folgvanger… but other than that it should work.” 

Alex glowered at him. “Jack, do you want her to ruin this quest?” 

“But she won’t!” Jack said. “No offense, guys, but she’s got a lot more experience than you do. And I really, really want this epic,” he added as an apology for betraying Alex.

“Thanks, Jack.” Annabeth grinned, knowing that she won this round. She turned to me. “So?” 

“Yeah, okay, I guess, you can come.” I could only hope that I hadn’t just made a terrible decision. 

“Perfect”, Annabeth said, grinning triumphantly, vaguely in Alex’s direction. “Then let’s go.”

Chapter Text

Magnus

Fortunately, no one combusted when we entered Yggdrasil, so Annabeth had a perfectly normal first experience with interdimensional travel - as normal as that experience could get. 

What bothered me, though, was that she seemed a lot more relaxed about the World Tree than I had been the first time I had climbed it. Not even my warnings about the enormous squirrel, whose favourite hobbies included spewing the most devastating insults and eating the tree's visitors, seemed to faze her in the slightest.

“Yes, yes, Ratatosk. I read about it,” she simply said, waving away my concerns and continuing unswervingly on her way across a branch about the width of an average highway. I wondered how horrible the monsters of Greek mythology had to be for our dreaded squirrel to elicit that reaction, but on second thought, I probably didn’t even want to know. 

Jack had assured us that the path over the tree to the nearest entrance to Folgvanger wasn't far, and I hoped he was right. The sooner we set foot on solid ground again, the better. Our group was anything but a unit right now and I really didn't want to lose anyone in the World Tree. Alex marched far ahead, probably to drive home a point. Since she didn't know the way and had to stop and wait for Jack to tell her which way to go, the grumpy wandering ahead didn't quite have the effect Alex was probably hoping for.  

I wasn’t entirely sure why she was so dismissive of the idea of taking Annabeth along - or dismissive of Annabeth in general. The first time they had met, they had seemed to like each other. Maybe Alex had picked up on what I had noticed about Annabeth, as well: she was trying a little too hard to play my protective older sister and protect me from… heartbreak or something. That this protection was mainly directed against Alex probably didn’t go over her head. 

“There it is!” Blitz pointed out after about fifteen minutes on the tree. The branch ahead curved to the right and ended in a wall of interwoven smaller branches and leaves. Behind it, I could faintly make out a light so golden it could only come from Freya’s dimension.

Alex was already standing at the dead end, arms crossed, as if she had been waiting for the rest of us for hours. “So?” she asked. “How do we get through?” 

“We have to ask Freya to let us in. Obviously,” Jack said and turned to me - who would have guessed? “That would be your job, señor. It’s-” 

“-my quest, yes, yes, I know.” I forced myself not to sigh - I had been doing that far too often lately. “How do I ask her?” 

Blitz shrugged. “Just start talking to her. Don’t worry, she’s listening.” 

The thought of an ever-listening goddess wasn’t exactly what I needed right now, and the instructions to ‘just talk’ weren’t helping either, but it didn’t seem like I had a choice. 

I positioned myself in front of the gate and tried my best to appear confident. Even after all these years and after a sip of magical poet’s juice, I still wasn’t well versed in talking to mythical beings who could very much smite me at any time if they wished. Annabeth’s presence only made matters worse. She seemed to know far more about dealing with gods, and also more about mythology, than I ever would. 

I tried to ignore the tingle of her expectant gaze on my back. 

“Hi, Freya,” I began, my voice shaking with uncertainty. Nope, too casual. “Oh, great goddess.” Too formal. “Dear Aunt?” Yeah, I’m gonna throw up any second now . “My friends and I… seek admission to your realm. And, uh-” The light from behind the leaves started to glow a little brighter, if I wasn’t mistaken. I risked a glance at Blitz, who only made a hand gesture, signaling me to keep going, “-we would like to talk to you about something. I mean, request an audience? Please?” I swallowed down the ‘Amen’ that for some reason always came to my mind when talking to gods. 

For a second nothing happened and I strictly avoided my friends' eyes. The fact that I heard Alex stifle a chuckle next to me was enough. I didn’t want to see Annabeth’s reaction. 

Then, thank the gods - or one goddess in particular, I suppose - the branches began to move, saving me from further embarrassment. They seemed to grow back in time-lapse. The light brightened by the second until we had to close our eyes to prevent us from being blinded. 

I felt the ground change beneath my feet and the light fade behind my closed eyelids. When I opened my eyes, we were standing in the softest grass the nine worlds had to offer, right in front of the gigantic upturned Viking ship that served as Freya's palace.

I looked around, quickly checking to see if anyone had been left behind on the tree. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. 

Annabeth and even Alex, who both had never seen Sessrumnir before, were staring up at the building in barely concealed awe. Blitz’s expression showed a slight annoyance mixed with resignation; Jack hovered excitedly up and down. 

“Well done, señor!!” he said. “I’ll let you take it from here. Wake me when you find Bragi!” Before I could inform him that we wouldn’t be finding Bragi anytime soon, he turned into a runestone and attached himself to my necklace. I knew he didn't like Freya, but I still found it unfair that he would leave us alone to face the goddess. 

“That’s Sessrumnir!” Annabeth said, still gaping at the building. It wasn’t a question. “I read about this technique the Vikings used to turn ships into houses, but I never imagined one this big.” 

“Yeah, well, it’s made by a goddess,” Alex said, suddenly back to her disapproving frown that seemed to have become her default look when regarding my cousin. She turned to me. “Are we going in, or what?” 

Before I could reply, the gates swung open, inviting us to enter. 

Blitz sighed. “Come on.” 

The inside looked exactly as I remembered: massive and cathedral-like, illuminated by the all-consuming light coming from the other side of the hall, where I could make out the vague outline of a woman on a throne - Freya. 

Blitzen led the way, as if eager to get things done. The rest of us followed. 

Sessrumnir was so large that it took us several minutes to make our way to the other side of the hall. We passed hundreds of Freya's hippie warriors lounging on couches or sleeping in hammocks scattered throughout the huge room. Somewhere, someone was playing the ukulele.

For the first time, a wave of assertion that Valhalla was definitely the better afterlife washed over me. Yes, dying every day kind of sucked, but this was worse. I would lose my mind if I had to spend eternity listening to someone play a terrible rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow . 

Alex seemed to share this sentiment. She cast a mildly disgusted glance at a group of warriors braiding flowers into each other’s long blonde hair. “These are Freya’s mighty warriors who are supposed to support us at Ragnarok??” 

“Not so loud!” Blitz said, as if he feared his mother might be listening from across the hall - not an unfounded concern. 

“But- they don’t even have any weapons,” Alex whispered now. 

“Not every warrior needs a weapon…” Annabeth said quietly, without even looking at Alex or her ice-cold stare. She studied the hall with an interested but distant look in her eyes. She had probably seen much more impressive buildings in her life. 

She strode ahead, so I decided to step next to Alex. “I think we’re better off in Valhalla.” 

Alex gave me a side-eye. A slight grin formed around her lips, as if she was trying to imagine what Folgvanger-Magnus might look like. “Isn't this supposed to be your kind of territory? Being a Vanir demigod and all.”  

“Are you kidding me?” I replied as we passed a snoring warrior sleeping in a hammock. “There’s nothing to do here and absolutely no privacy.” 

“Right? Like, where do they use the bathroom?” 

I laughed because I remembered having had the same thought the first time I had entered Folgvanger. Before I got to tell Alex about that, we were close enough for Freya to greet us. 

“Welcome, my dear heroes.” 

My aunt looked as beautiful as ever. Her golden hair, falling over her shoulder in a thick braid, her white dress, even her eyes shone so brilliantly that I had to blink several times to be able to look at her directly. Her voice was the sound I imagined solid gold would make if it could speak. 

I knelt down without even having to think about it. The others quickly followed suit. 

“Freya,” I said, trying to sound confident - which wasn’t easy in front of the goddess. “Thank you for welcoming us to your kingdom.” 

Blitz gave an unceremonious wave. “Hi, Mom….” 

Freya motioned for us to stand with her hand, glittering with diamond rings on each finger. “Of course, my dear Magnus,” she said and gave me one of her beaming smiles that filled me with warmth. Her eyes swept over our group. “Blitzen, my darling, I was hoping you would bring your partner. I haven’t had a chance to get to know him properly.” 

“Uh, Hearth is busy…” Blitzen mumbled, his cheeks turning red. It wasn’t a lie, but I assumed that he was secretly glad Hearth hadn’t accompanied us to meet his mother. Meet-the-parents had to be all the more nerve-wracking when said parent was the goddess of love. 

Freya tilted her head slightly to one side. “Huh, pity.” 

One of her white cats, shining almost as brightly as the goddess herself, jumped onto her lap. She absentmindedly ran her long slender fingers across the cat’s fur while her eyes continued to wander along the row we had formed before her throne. Then, a hint of surprise flashed through her eyes and suddenly, her expression darkened - which somehow looked even more intimidating than her immaculate beauty. “You,” she said in a low voice. 

For a second, I panicked, assuming she was looking at Annabeth and was about to turn her into golden dust or something as punishment for trespassing on the domain of a Norse goddess as a Greek demigod, but when I followed her gaze, I saw that it was fixed on Alex. 

“Uh… me?” she asked, confused, looking behind her as if hoping to find someone else Freya’s cold gaze could be directed at. 

“Child of Loki. You’re not allowed to be here.” 

“You let us all in!” I said, suddenly not so awestruck by my aunt anymore. Goddess or not, I would not allow anyone to bully Alex because of her parentage. “And Alex has no loyalty to Loki, she helped capture him. She-” 

Freya held up her hand and the rest of my defense got stuck in my throat. “I know all that. Her connection to Loki is not the issue here.”

Alex rolled her eyes. She wasn’t one to cave easily, but even she didn’t want to get on a goddess’s bad side. “Look, Freya, I’m sorry for what I said about your warriors. I’m sure they will be…” The frantic search for a kind word was evident in her eyes. “...very helpful during Ragnarok.” 

Freya still didn’t look any less cold, so Alex continued: “And this place is… really great. Very bright and all.” 

For a few seconds, Freya continued petting her cat and regarding Alex in silence. Her gaze stayed cool but there was something else in it. Pity? 

“Your opinion of my warriors is of no concern to me, child,” Freya finally said, her voice eerily calm. “But you have disrespected me. Someone who so bluntly rejects my greatest gift to immortals and mortals has no right to visit my realm.” 

I had no idea what Freya was talking about and assumed Alex’s face would mirror my confusion, but when I looked at her, she was staring at Freya with wide eyes. Her face had turned grey as ashes. She seemed to know exactly what Freya was talking about, and whatever it was, it shook her to the core. 

“I- I-,” Alex stammered. Her whole body seemed to freeze. I had never seen her look so intimidated before. For a split second, I thought her gaze flitted over to me, maybe silently asking for help, but before I could do anything, Alex found her own voice again: “I will leave if that’s what you want,” she mumbled, bowing her head and staring at the white tip of her converse, to avoid meeting Freya's cold gaze. 

I opened my mouth to protest, but Blitz jammed his elbow into my side and I got the message. This wasn’t my place to interfere. 

Freya examined Alex intensely, like a scientist studying a newly discovered bug, unsure whether what she saw fascinated or appalled her. After a few seconds she sighed and firmly answered: “No. Since you are already here, you may stay. But I urge you strongly to reconsider your reasons for being so afraid of something that you so desperately crave, Alex Fierro” 

Alex gave no indication that she had heard what Freya had said. She continued to train her eyes on her shoes. Her lips were pressed together into a thin line. “I’ll wait outside,” she murmured after a second of dead silence, turned and made her way back through the assortment of undead hippies towards the gates of Sessrumnir before I could even react. 

The urge to run after her seized me, but Freya was already continuing our conversation as if nothing had happened. I didn’t like what she was saying, so I managed to keep my feet where they were.

“Speaking of unauthorized visitors…” She sounded much more light-hearted again, but her words still made me nervous. As expected, her eyes wandered over to Annabeth, who met the goddess’ gaze with a stern expression. 

“My name is Annabeth Chase,” she said before Freya had a chance to ask. “I am the daughter of the Greek goddess Athena, goddess of wisdom.”

Freya laughed and clapped her hands as if she had been waiting for a dramatic introduction like that. Her cat leapt from her lap with a snarl. 

“Wonderful, wonderful.” She did not seem at all surprised by the fact that Annabeth was a Greek demigod. “I was hoping Magnus would bring you.” 

“Why’s that?” Blitz asked skeptically, but I was still too busy wondering what Alex had done to offend the goddess with her presence, and why that, whatever it was, was apparently worse than bringing a demigod from another pantheon into Freya’s sacred realm. Surely, that had to be some sort of sacrilege. 

Freya pretended not to hear her son’s question and turned her head to me. “Let’s get down to business. I’m sure you didn’t come all the way from Midgard just to chitchat with your favourite aunt, did you, Magnus? 

“Erm, no,” I replied, when I had managed to shift my focus back to her. I didn't tell her that she wasn’t my favourite aunt - simply, my only aunt - but only because I didn’t want to get on her bad side before I had made my request. “We’re here, to ask you for information, Freya. About the goddess Idun.” 

Freya’s beautiful lips curved into a slight smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Again, she appeared unsurprised by what she heard. “I know about your search for Bragi, Magnus. Sumarbrander can count himself lucky to have found a companion as loyal as you.” 

Maybe it was my own guilt playing tricks on my ears, but I felt like there was a taunting edge to Freya’s words. I knew I should have started this search sooner… no need for a goddess to rub it in. 

“However, I don’t know-” Freya continued. “-if Idun can help you complete this task.” 

“Then who can?” 

She regarded me silently with calculating, piercing blue eyes, long enough to make me uncomfortable. No wonder she had managed to intimidate Alex so much - I felt like she could see straight into my head. 

It wasn't until I couldn't hold the gaze any longer, and had to avert my eyes, that she continued to speak: “I don’t have any more information about Bragi’s current whereabouts than you do, dear nephew. I don’t know who can give you the answers you are looking for.” 

“Idun is the only lead we have,” Annabeth said, sounding much more confident under Freya’s sharp gaze than I felt. “You collect the Apples of Immortality from her, you must know where she is.” 

“I do know, daughter of Athena,” Freya said, and for a split second my spirits lifted. “But why should I tell you?” 

I blinked in confusion, not sure if I had heard that correctly. Gods could be so annoying. “Why not?” 

Next to me Blitz exhaled sharply, as if he had expected this. 

“Idun is a good friend of mine,” Freya replied calmly. “We are - what do you humans call it these days… besties , one might say. We are so close that in Midgard they often thought we are one and the same goddess. She sought refuge in my realm to avoid questions about her runaway husband. I won’t betray her.” 

Well, that was just wonderful. Of course, I had to deal with the very best godly gal pals in the universe to get the information I needed. Why couldn’t my life be easy for once?

While I was almost ready to give up immediately, Blitz thankfully didn’t lose hope that quickly. He crossed his arms and gave his mother a challenging glance. “What do you want, mom? In exchange for information about Idun?” 

Overdramatically, Freya took a sharp breath and clutched her hand to her chest. “I am appalled that you would assume that my loyalty to my friend is tradable, dear son!” 

Blitz didn’t let himself be led astray. “You said earlier that you had hoped Annabeth would join us. You want something from her.” He smiled coldly, bearing the family resemblance to his mother. “Perhaps we can work out a deal.”

Freya’s eyes narrowed and I was glad that Blitz had come along to conduct this negotiation, because I was pretty sure that anyone else would have been transformed into a cat right then and there. 

For a few seconds, mother and son engaged in an intense staring contest. Then Freya finally said: “I appreciate your cunning, son. You stand correctly, I do need your Greek friend to help me.” She looked at Annabeth, annoyance flickering across her beautiful face. “And now I assume she won’t do that until you have the information you need.” 

Annabeth smiled a calculating smile. “Exactly. What do you want me to do?” 

“It’s simple, really,” Freya said, but I assumed that what a goddess deemed simple probably wasn’t at all. I just hoped that Annabeth wouldn’t agree to anything dangerous. “The universe is becoming increasingly complicated. I fear that the pantheons will collide more often in the future with how destabilized Midgard has become. I want to make sure that I have a strong connection to my counterparts from other pantheons. I can’t just visit Olympus, just as your gods won’t be able to enter our worlds. But you can.” She looked at Annabeth, who didn’t seem all that pleased with what she heard. “I want you to deliver a gift to your goddess Aphrodite.” 

Annabeth muttered something like “Why Aphrodite? ” under her breath. “What kind of gift?” she asked aloud. 

“Earrings. The finest dwarven earrings, of course-” Freya replied and turned to Blitz, “-which my son will have to obtain from Nidavellir.” 

Blitz just looked at his mother with tired eyes that screamed ‘Seriously??' . 

I thought it was time to intervene: “You do know that the last time he was supposed to get earrings from Nidavellir for you, he almost got decapitated?” 

I knew that Blitz had worked out his problems in the realm of the dwarves, but he still didn't like going home too often. And frankly, I didn't understand why Freya couldn't just go and get the earrings herself. 

Freya waved away my concern. "Eitrir Junior has long since died. No one is after his head anymore." 

What a reassuring thought.

“Blitzen doesn’t mind doing me this favor, right, dear?” She didn’t give Blitz a chance to answer. “And in exchange, if he promises to obtain the earrings and the daughter of Athena promises to deliver them, I will tell you where to find Idun.” 

Apparently, Freya’s loyalty was very much tradable. A pair of earrings was enough. Not that I was complaining - I needed this information - but I couldn’t claim to approve of the gods’ approach to things like friendship. I wondered if that just was a side effect of immortality - I hoped it wasn’t. 

“Yes, okay…” Blitz said grudgingly. I tried to send him a glance to silently tell him that he didn’t have to agree to this, but he ignored me. “I’ll get the earrings. I swear on my troth and all that.” 

Freya nodded, satisfied, and turned to Annabeth. “What about you?” 

Annabeth shrugged indifferently. “Yeah, I guess I could arrange a quick visit to Olympus. I swear on… my troth as well?” 

She tried to mimic Blitz’s oath, but it wasn’t enough for Freya: “No, you will have to swear on your gods.”

Annabeth did not look overjoyed by this request, but said: “Okay, I swear on the river Styx.” 

I didn’t like the fact that my friends had just tied this quest of mine to actual unbreakable promises to two different sets of deities. Freya certainly hadn’t done much so far to earn the title of ‘favorite aunt’ any time soon. 

“Now, tell us where we can find Idun,” Annabeth demanded before I even had the chance. 

Freya smiled. “Of course. But, first, Blitzen can start with his part of the deal. Idun doesn’t like dwarves all that much.” 

Before any of us could react, Freya snapped her finger, and Blitz disappeared from my side with a small plop. 

“Hey!” I protested. Plopping someone from one world to another without warning was just plain rude. I really, really hoped that my friend had landed in a safe part of Nidavellir and not, say, the living room of Eitri Junior’s geriatric nurse. 

Freya ignored me. “You will find Idun in a valley not far from here. Pass the Field of the People and walk until it gets cold, that means you have reached the outskirts of my realm. You will see a grove of apple trees. If Idun wants to speak to you - which I highly doubt - this is where you will find her.”

It was not the most accurate description, but it was better than nothing. “Thank you,” I said, trying to sound grateful, although I couldn’t deny that Freya was beginning to annoy me. 

The feeling seemed to be mutual. Freya ignored me and turned to Annabeth. “Let me know when my gift is delivered.” 

“And how-” 

“You may go now.” Impatiently, she waved us away and looked around her throne room. “Where has my court musician gone?” 

The guy with the ukulele came hurrying over. 

“Let’s go before he starts playing…” Annabeth mumbled and pulled on the back of my jacket, making me follow her out of the hall. 

 Our audience with the goddess was over. 

As we stepped out into the meadow surrounding Freya’s residence, I half expected Alex to be gone. To my relief, she was waiting for us, casually leaning  against Sessrumnir’s wall, one foot propped against the white wood, as if determined to leave a muddy footprint on Freya’s brilliant wall. 

“So? What did you find out?” She greeted us. She made an effort to sound bored, but  there was still a hint of the haunted expression from earlier behind her eyes, as if Freya’s words were still replaying in her head. Alex frowned. “Where’s Blitz?” 

I quickly explained what had happened and repeated the instructions the goddess had given us. 

“Alright,” she said and pushed herself off the wall. “Then let’s go talk to Idun.” I noticed that she was avoiding my eyes.

“Sure,” I said and hesitated. I wasn’t sure how to ask about what had happened between her and Freya, but it also felt wrong not to say anything. Before Alex could walk ahead again, I asked: “Are you- okay? What did Freya mean when she said-” 

“Does it matter?” Alex snapped before I could finish my question and I knew it hadn’t been a good idea to ask. “She’s a bitch.” 

I really hoped the ukulele guy was playing loud enough for the goddess to not have heard that. Fortunately, no one got pulverized. 

Alex started heading in the direction I had pointed to earlier without another word. 

Annabeth looked at me with raised eyebrows and I wasn’t quite sure what that look was supposed to mean, so I just shrugged helplessly and followed Alex across the field. 

Surprise! When a goddess says something is ’not far’ from somewhere, it actually is very far. We walked for about three hours across the seemingly endless green field that was Freya’s realm without experiencing a noticeable drop in temperature. 

I realized that I had vastly underestimated the size of Folkvanger, now that we had to get to the outskirts of Freya’s realm. What could one goddess want with so much green grass? 

It was beautiful grass, of course: soft and emerald green, without any weeds or moss to disrupt the perfect surface. Only occasionally did flowers of all colours and varieties sprout from the sea of green that gently rose into flat hills and fell into shallow vales. When I stared too far into the distance, it almost appeared as if the endless green was forming waves. 

Under different circumstances, I might have enjoyed this - it was kind of like the hiking trip Alex and I had been talking about doing together for years - but the fact that Alex wasn't exactly in the best of moods right now, and that my cousin was with us, didn't really let me. Not that I didn’t want Annabeth to be here, no. After the first hour, I was grateful for the fact that she had brought a backpack with water and granola bars. I just hadn’t imagined her in this Alex-and-me-hiking scenario. 

The fact that the two of them just didn’t manage to warm up to each other didn’t help either. 

After walking for what felt like a hundred miles, something finally changed. Within a few feet, the scenery abruptly changed from a green meadow to a rocky, tundra-like landscape with few brown and red plants scattered across the uneven ground. It got darker, like the sun had just vanished behind the horizon - though of course, for all I knew, there was no sun or horizon in Folkvanger. 

As Freya had promised the temperature changed accordingly: it felt like stepping into a freezer - not as cold as Niflheim, but definitely cold enough to compete with Boston’s harshest winter. 

Being a child of Frey suddenly became useful for once. While I noticed the drop in temperature, it didn’t bother me as much as it seemed to bother my companions. 

We stopped shortly after leaving the lush grass behind. Annabeth and Alex were both shivering.

“I read that it is Freya herself who gives light and warmth to her realm…” Annabeth said and reached for her backpack. “I guess this is where her warmth doesn’t reach anymore.” 

She pulled a second fleece jacket out of her backpack and pulled it on. All Alex could do against the cold was turn up the collar of her (Sam’s) coat. 

“I know you’re the e-expert on vegetation and stuff, Mags…” she began, her voice shaking from the cold as she looked across the hostile landscape in front of us, “...but this does not look like the ideal p-place for apple trees to grow.”

I had the same thought, looking at the seemingly endless steppe, where there wasn’t a plant taller than a fern in sight. “No…” I admitted.  “Let’s just hope Freya was telling the truth.” 

“I’ll strangle her if not,” Alex murmured and I knew that these weren't empty words. She would fight any god who made her walk into this weather for nothing. I didn't know why, but I grinned at that. "Sure, you will." 

Alex grinned back for a second, but then shivered and exclaimed: “Fuck, it's cold!” as if she thought someone had to state the obvious. 

"Here, take my jacket," I said without a second thought and shrugged the parka off - I hadn't even closed it anyways. Alex definitely needed it more than I did. 

Alex hesitated. "You sure?" 

"Yes." I held out the jacket and Alex finally took it, wrapping it around her shoulders like a superhero cape. 

"Thanks." She smiled at me, a genuine smile that warmed my insides enough to get me through a much colder place than Folkvanger. 

"Magnus, it's really cold!” Annabeth interrupted the moment. "You need your jacket!" 

Okay, now she really sounded like she was trying to mime the older sister for me. I had to admit, for a small moment during my and Alex's exchange, I had forgotten about my cousin's presence and the way she had just broken that small moment of serenity that Alex and I so rarely got, and the way she accusingly looked at Alex and my jacket annoyed me. Still, I tried to sound casual and shrugged: "The cold doesn't really bother me anyway." 

Alex grinned teasingly, but her eyes showed gratitude. "Okay, Elsa." She continued walking into the tundra, expecting us to follow.

I chuckled at the reference, but I wasn’t sure if Annabeth got it. She just stared after Alex, half confused, half offended (on my behalf, i guess?). Maybe Greek demigods just didn’t know Frozen?

The three of us continued hiking across the uneven plain for roughly another hour. I think it got even colder because I started to shiver after a while, but I didn’t want to admit that to Annabeth or Alex. Maybe that was that famous toxic masculinity coming through… or maybe I just didn’t want to give my cousin a reason to get even madder at Alex for accepting my jacket.

“Look!” Alex, who was walking a few feet ahead, exclaimed, just as I was about to lose hope that we would ever find the grove of apple trees Freya had promised.

In front of us, the terrain sloped down, creating what could only be described as a valley. Although, when I imagined a valley, I usually expected the landscape to rise again somewhere in the distance. That wasn’t the case here: The slope ended a few hundred feet away from us, then came an even area, and beyond that there was just… nothing. 

Nothingness is difficult to describe, but I thought it looked pretty much like the edge of a video game world - like someone had just stopped programming here. 

In front of the nothingness, though, I could make out what Alex was pointing at: A green oasis in the middle of the freezing tundra. It was a circular area, no bigger than a baseball field, overgrown with lush grass, colourful bushes, and most importantly, about fifty of the healthiest looking apple trees I had ever seen, with fruits that seemed to be made of pure gold. 

“That's where Idun must be hiding!” my cousin said, and staggered ahead, downhill. 

I exchanged glances with Alex and said, optimistic as I was: “Can’t be too hard to find her in there…” 

As the three of us arrived at the edge of the apple tree grove, I realized how wrong that statement had been, as soon as I took my first step onto the soft grass. 

The terrible cold immediately disappeared and the air suddenly assumed the temperature of a nice spring day, but other than that, there was nothing nice about this place. The nature here looked beautiful, but an aura of aversion washed over me like a current, almost knocking me back. Everything - the trees, the grass, the air - was telling me that I was not welcomed in this oasis. I turned to look at my companions and read in their faces that they felt it too. 

Still, we moved around the trees until we found what I assumed to be the midpoint of the grove: A round clearing framed by the nine tallest of the apple trees. It seemed to be soaked in sunlight, although I couldn’t tell where the light was coming from. 

Most importantly, though, there was no one in sight - no sign of the goddess who apparently reigned over these trees.

“Uh…” I said stupidly, turning to Alex and Annabeth for help. They both just shrugged, looking about as clueless as I felt. I had to improvise. “Hey, uh, anybody home?” I said loudly into the silence. 

No response, of course. 

“Idun?” I tried again. “I’m Magnus Chase. My friends and I… we wanted to talk to you.”

For a second nothing happened. Then a young woman’s voice sounded from somewhere in the canopy of trees: “Do you want to buy my apples?” She sounded wary. 

“Uh, no,” I said. I thought the answer was obvious. We weren’t gods or giants, so the apples weren't much use to us. And even if I needed one, I knew I didn't have to come here to get one of Idun's apples. I had found one once in Boston Harbor with the goddess Ran... but I wouldn't tell Idun that. “We wanted to ask about Bragi, your husband. If you-” I didn’t get any further and quickly realized that I must have said something wrong. 

How did I know, you ask? Well, when nine magic apple trees start throwing their golden fruit at you, you can be certain that you have pissed off a divine being.

Chapter Text

Alex

It would have been a blatant lie to say that my day had gone great up to that point. In fact, it had started to go downhill as soon as Annabeth had shown up and spent this entire quest taking every opportunity to show me how much she disapproved of everything I did. Then I had to endure being humiliated by the Goddess of Love in front of her and, even worse, Magnus. 

But what really drove home the point that the universe seemed to hate me were the trees that tried to kill us by bombarding us with golden fruit.

Magnus and Annabeth had wrapped their arms around their heads and crouched down, trying to protect their faces from the apples. That seemed like a good idea, so I copied them. I didn’t want to get my nose broken by a hostile apple. 

If I hadn’t been so concerned about my face, I might have laughed at how ridiculous our situation probably looked from the outside. The trees around us bent their branches completely on their own before hurling them at us, firing a volley of apples with each branch. It was as if the trees had spontaneously decided to become professional baseball pitchers and were using us as target practice.

“What did you do??” I heard Annabeth yell at Magnus over the sounds of metal apples hitting each other, the ground, and us.

“I don’t know!!” Magnus shouted back, sounding about as miserable as you would expect from someone whose arms, head and legs were getting repeatedly hit by metal fruits. This would definitely leave some nasty bruises. 

“What did I do???” Magnus desperately returned the questions to the trees and dared to stand up straighter for a second. 

That saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” seriously took on a whole new meaning when one of the golden projectiles hit Magnus, our designated healer, in the chest. A voice echoed through the clearing: “Get out of my garden!”

I would have expected a more harrowing voice from the goddess attacking us via her trees. It sounded soft, as if it belonged to a very young woman, only audible because it was amplified, like she was speaking into a megaphone. 

“Ouch…” Magnus muttered and crouched back down, rubbing his chest where the apple had hit. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him angrily rip off the rune stone from his necklace. “Jack, help us out!!” 

The stone grew and our favorite flying sword appeared. “Have we found Bragi yet?” 

“NO!” the three of us shouted in unison. 

Jack assessed the situation. “Flying golden apples?” he said, suddenly sounding a lot less interested. “Ahh, man, that’s gonna leave scratches on my blade…” 

Still, perhaps because he was facing the angry stares of three demigods, he got to work, and I had to admit that I was a little impressed. He managed to fly around us, fast enough to knock back about half of the apples aimed at our heads. The sound his blade made when it struck the solid gold hurt almost as badly as the apples themselves, but at least his efforts gave us some time to breathe. 

“What do we do now??” I shouted over the horrible noise. 

Magnus did not respond and instead looked to Annabeth for help.

“Idun!!” Annabeth yelled at the trees, but stayed close to the ground, wise enough not to repeat her cousin's mistake of standing up. “We just want to talk to you! Show yourself.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” the woman’s voice said. She sounded like a huffy teenager.

“But you’re already talking to us, right now!!!” I yelled.

“Hmpf.” The goddess seemed to think, I had a point. “Tell your sword to stop hitting the apples at my trees.” 

“Tell your trees to stop throwing apples at us!!!” Exasperated, Magnus turned to Annabeth and me. “This isn’t working! She won’t come out of hiding like this!” 

“Great observation!” I snapped back, while dodging one of the apples that had escaped Jack’s reach. By all means of logic, these stupid trees surely should have run out of apples by now, but no, they seemed to have an infinite supply of fruit projectiles at their disposal. “How do we get to her?? There must be something in the myths about her. Any weaknesses?” 

I hated how my eyes automatically wandered over to Annabeth for answers. I should know these myths, gods-damn it, I was part of this world. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember much about Idun, except for the fact that she was Bragi's wife. And Annabeth had been acting like a walking library all day long. Now was the perfect time for her to show off.

“I don’t know!” Under different circumstances, it would have been a pleasure to hear those words from Annabeth’s mouth, but not at that moment. “There’s not much in the myths about her, let alone anything negative,” she continued more quietly, so that Idun - wherever she was hiding - couldn’t hear us talking about her. “She’s the goddess of youth, fertility, children - much like our goddess Hebe. She provides the gods with the apples that give them immortality.”   

“Believe it or not, the apples were one thing I already knew about her!” Magnus said with a frown and rubbed his arm where he had just been hit by one of said apples. I couldn't help but grin a little at this level of sass towards Annabeth.  “Anything else?” 

She gave her cousin an annoyed stare but continued: “There’s only one major story involving her. Loki got into a fight with some giant and so he wouldn’t be killed, he promised the giant Idun and her apples. Loki tricked Idun and carried her off to Jotunheim. The gods all grew old without her apples and very nearly died before they forced Loki to get her back from the giants.” 

My brain went into overdrive. I vaguely remembered hearing this story before, and while I wasn't the biggest fan of repeating Loki's mythological actions, I couldn't deny that it had helped in the past… maybe it would do the trick this time as well. “How did Loki trick her? What did he do?” I asked, speaking so rapidly that I wasn't sure if Annabeth could understand what I was saying. 

Annabeth knitted her eyebrows in deep thought - the still attacking apples probably didn't help her think.

“The apples,” she said finally. “Loki turned into an old woman and told Idun that he owned an apple grove outside of Asgard that bore much prettier fruit than hers. She got so jealous that she needed to see for herself if those apples were really better, so she followed him. Something like that.” 

That wasn’t much, but it confirmed what I remembered. "Jealousy,'' I said. “Idun is jealous.” 

“And??” Magnus asked, not following me. 

“We can work with that,” I mumbled. Slowly but surely a plan began to form in my head. If I could convince her that there was something I had that was better than what she had…

“Idun!” I called out in the direction of the disembodied voice of the goddess. “We won’t bother you for long, we’re just looking for your husband. Is he here with you, by any chance?”

The voice returned, sounding angrier than before. “Of course, he’s not! You’re well aware of that, demigod.” 

Of course I was aware, but I needed her to talk about her husband. I pulled a face, as if to say ‘Aw, what a shame’, assuming that the goddess was watching us from wherever she was hiding. “Well, then, surely you can tell us where we can find him.” 

“No!” the goddess shouted, and an arctic gust of wind swept across the clearing. 

“Great job,” Magnus whispered behind me. “You made her even angrier!” 

“Shh, trust me!” I whispered back, hoping that he would trust me. The, frankly, wonky plan that had formed in my head depended on it. I turned back to the trees. 

“Oh…” I said loudly, “so you don’t know where to find him?” 

“Of course, I know!” 

“Then tell us!” Annabeth demanded and Magnus added a desperate “Please?” 

“It’s none of your business!” the goddess’ voice snapped back. Maybe I imagined it, but the apple attacks seemed to subside - perhaps Idun was finally running out of apples. 

I turned to Magnus and Annabeth  “Hey guys, let’s go,” I said and took a few steps in the direction we had come from, as if I was ready to give up. 

The cousins met me with perplexed expressions. Please play along, I tried to tell them with a blink of my eyes, but it probably just looked like something was wrong with my eyelids. Either way, I had to proceed.

With a sigh I cast a sympathetic glance back in the direction of Idun’s voice. “I don’t think she knows where her husband is… poor woman” 

“What??” The voice echoed through the clearing. With a nasty clang, all the apples that had been in the air fell to the ground. 

“Ha!” Jack bellowed at the apples. “Giving up already, you bums? I was just getting started!” 

I was afraid that the apples would spring back up from the ground if Jack continued to boast, so I quickly resumed my ploy. I turned around, keeping the pitying look on my face. “Yeah, well, it’s obvious. If you knew, why wouldn’t you tell us?” 

The goddess’ voice grew increasingly indignant: “I do know, you are just-!” 

I didn’t let her finish her explanation: “That doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship.” I frowned at the tree I had decided was the source of Idun’s voice and tilted my head slightly, as if deeply concerned about the goddess. “A husband who just disappears without telling his wife where he goes-” 

“He didn’t do that!” 

From behind me, Annabeth whispered anxiously: “Alex, what-” 

I just waved my hand urgently, hoping that would shut her up. 

 “That’s definitely a red flag,” I said knowingly, as if I were a professional counselor for divine marriages. Now that I had Idun’s attention, it was time for the risky part. I tried not to bat an eye as I continued: “My husband would never do such a thing.” 

“Your husband?” Idun asked. Surprise crept into her voice. 

I had the feeling that Magnus and Annabeth were mouthing the same question behind my back, and even Jack turned his attention from the cowardly apples to me. 

“Yeah,” I said, hoping Idun wouldn't notice me fumbling one of my rings off my finger behind my back. “Not to brag, but he never leaves my side. And he certainly wouldn’t disappear without a word. He’s right here.” 

I turned to Magnus and prayed to every god in every pantheon that he would play along. I patted his arm like ‘Here he is! ’ before slipping my hand into his and surreptitiously handing him the ring. I tried to look at him with what I hoped was a loving stare - and not one as awkward as this situation felt, after everything that had happened between us lately. For a second or two, Magnus stared back, absolutely dumbstruck, his mouth hanging open and his eyes as wide as plates. My hope sank rapidly. 

I almost tried to come up with a new plan on the spot, but then he squeezed my hand. If there was a way to wink without moving an eyelid, he did that - a quick gleam in his eyes that told me he understood. 

“Uhh, yeah! I’m totally her husband,” he decided to say, and yeah, maybe that wasn’t the most believable statement, but it would do - hopefully.  

For a moment the clearing fell silent; not a single leaf in the trees dared to rustle. Then another gust of wind, warmer this time, swept through Idun’s oasis and a blink of an eye later a young woman materialized so close to us that I almost jumped into a tree. I felt Magnus, whose hand I was still holding, flinch as well, and I was pretty sure that Annabeth’s hand wandered to the hilt of her dagger.

Aside from her sudden dramatic materialization, there was nothing threatening about Idun’s appearance. She was a short, slender woman - barely as tall as me - wrapped in a simple, flowy white dress. She looked as young as her voice sounded, maybe 20 years old. Her silky, straight hair fell open down her back, so long it almost reached her upper thighs. It had the exact same color as the trunks of her apple trees. Her face was soft, plump, and ethereally beautiful, despite the frown with which she regarded me and Magnus. Behind her brown eyes, there was an almost childlike curiosity, I thought, but her cheeks were flushed with agitation. 

“You two are married?” she asked - if skeptical or interested, I couldn’t tell. “You look quite young.” 

“Oh, we’re einherjar,” I revealed, hoping she didn’t hold some grudge against Odin’s warriors, “we’re older than we look.” She didn’t need to know that we were just barely older than we looked.

When Idun still appeared doubtful, I tugged on Magnus’ hand to tell him to help me out. Thankfully, he understood. 

“Yeah, here’s proof,” he said, let go of my hand and showed off the ring that he had somehow - I didn’t know how and was seriously impressed - managed to slide onto his ring finger.

Idun frowned at it. “Why is there a unicorn on your wedding band?” 

Shit, I really had to start wearing more classy rings…

“Erm…” Magnus mumbled and his eyes flickered back to me. 

“That was our first date!” I jumped in. “A unicorn race. It’s a human tradition.” 

There was no way the goddess would believe that - I didn’t even know if there were unicorns in any of the nine worlds, and certainly not in Midgard. 

But Idun didn’t seem to know about that or care. A sad shadow settled over her beautiful eyes. “Oh, that sounds… lovely.” Her broken tone almost made me feel sorry for the goddess. 

“The point is-,” Magnus continued without ado, “- I would never leave without telling my spouse where I was going.” 

 I didn’t want to admit it, but my heart skipped a beat when he referred to me as his ‘spouse’ - which was absolutely ridiculous, of course. Stupid heart! I didn’t even believe in marriage as a concept and certainly not for me. Still… 

I cleared my throat. “Exactly! If your husband really left without telling you -” 

“He didn’t!” Idun said, but her voice sounded so uncertain that I began to wonder if she actually didn’t know where Bragi was. Maybe this whole trip had been a waste of time.

“-he’s not a very good husband,” Magnus finished my last sentence. 

Idun inhaled sharply and stared at him with reddened cheeks. For a moment I feared she was going to launch into another round of apple-tree baseball training, but then her lower lip began to quiver and tears welled up in her eyes.

Well, shit, Alex , I thought. You try to make a goddess jealous and instead you make her cry. Typical.

To my surprise, it still kind of produced the desired result.

Her voice thin, Idun began: “He did tell me! I mean-” She swallowed a sob, “It’s something like…. a business trip, he said. In Midgard. He located something he had been looking for for a long time, he-” She broke off with a sob, and Magnus and I exchanged an urgent look. We were so close! 

“What was he looking for? Where is it?” 

Idun seemed too distraught at seeing us, the seemingly perfect showcase couple, to remember that she hadn’t wanted to tell us anything. “The Fossegrim.” 

I had no idea what the hell that was, but a hint of anger crept into Idun’s voice at the mention of it. 

“The what?” Magnus asked, and glanced at his cousin for an answer, but apparently the library books Annabeth had been reading had not mentioned that word either - she looked about as clueless as I felt. 

Idun rolled her watery eyes and wiped a tear from her burning cheek. “The Fossegrim - a water spirit who can teach you to play any instrument so beautifully that the trees dance,” she recited monotonically, as if she had heard this description a million times. “My husband was obsessed with the idea of finding them. He would talk about nothing else. I kept telling him, 'Honey, you're already the god of music, you don't need music lessons,' but he never listened! He always wanted more, was never content with what he had.” Pain ebbed through her voice and her cheeks grew even redder, making me wonder if that last statement applied to more than just music. If Bragi really was Izzy’s dad… it probably did. 

My conscience began to nag me for having played with the goddess’ feelings like that. I tried to shuffle discreetly away from Magnus. 

“And he found this water spirit? Did he tell you where?” Annabeth pushed, seemingly not very concerned for Idun’s feelings. 

Idun looked at Annabeth as if she hadn’t even noticed her before - maybe she hadn’t, Magnus and I had put on quite a show after all - and then frowned as if she was about to throw a golden apple at her. Luckily, she didn’t and instead replied in a cold but still quavering voice: “Of course he did not tell me.” Seeing our confused expressions, she added: “Only if one visits the Fossegrim in secret will they grant their lesson. Bragi simply told me one day he would be gone for a while to execute an order from Odin but then, a few days later, Odin’s wolves came to our palace in Asgard, looking for him. So I can only assume that in reality Bragi headed to where he suspected the Fossegrim to reside - and that can’t be far from Midgard’s entrance to Valhalla, if he managed to narrow down the location without anyone noticing his absence. But I have no proof of any of this.” 

“Did the wolves find out about your suspicion?” I asked impatiently. I wasn’t sure how far we would get with this limited information, but it was definitely something - and if it was information the wolves didn’t have, it was a step forward. 

“No,”  Idun said, her eyes shining with tears again. “I fled and Freya offered me shelter. I wanted to protect him! I assumed… I assumed he would come back once his desire for knowledge was quenched. He didn’t. I always knew he hated his job in Valhalla, but- ” Tears began to roll down her cheeks, and a small part of me wasn’t so eager to find Bragi anymore. From his wife’s perspective he sounded like a total idiot. Maybe Jack should find someone else to write his epic. 

“And you never went looking for him??” our favorite sword asked - tactful as always. 

Idun turned her eyes away to stare at the tree crowns. A few more tears ran down her eerily expressionless face before she answered: “I’m not running after him. If someone is not ready to give love or to be loved… there is no point in forcing it on them.”

I might have imagined it, but I felt Magnus next to me shift uncomfortably and my heart sank a little. I didn’t dare look at him. 

Jack continued to argue for the sake of his future biographer: “He could be in danger!”

“He’s a grown god, he can take care of himself! And he never went looking for me when Loki kidnapped me, either.” She turned her attention back to us. At the mention of my mother’s name, a dark glint passed through her eyes, as if she had forgotten Loki’s existence until that moment. 

“Okay,” I said carefully, hoping not to draw enough attention to myself for Idun to make the connection. “I think it’s time for us to go, it was nice chatting with you, Idun, we-” 

“Wait,” the goddess said inertly, like someone who had just watched a movie at double speed and hadn’t caught most of the story. “Why did I tell you all that… I didn’t want to tell anyone-” Her eyes locked on me, narrowing dangerously. “You!” 

The golden apples on the ground sprang up again, hovering menacingly in the air.

“Uh, Alex, I think we should go.” Magnus tugged at the back of my jacket, trying to get me to follow Annabeth and Jack, who had already backed away. But I couldn’t move. Idun’s betrayed gaze fixed me to where I stood. 

“Child of Loki!” she exclaimed, apparently not previously aware of my parentage. “You and your silver tongue! You tricked me.” 

I wasn’t sure why, but the heartbroken sound of the goddess’ anger almost got to me as much as being singled out by Freya. “I-I didn’t! I mean… only a little.” 

“You used my broken heart to get what you needed,” Idun hissed so ominously that you could have thought she was competing with the World Serpent for the best hiss in the nine worlds. “You’re just as bad as Loki! For that you shall-” 

I wouldn't hear what my punishment was supposed to be for being like my mother, and I didn't care, because at that moment the air was torn apart by a spine-chilling howl - no, several howls that harmonized into a single eardrum-piercing sound. Wolves. 

Magnus behind me gasped loudly, but I barely registered it. My lungs felt like they were coated in frost. I had heard a howl like that before - it was one of the last things I had ever heard as a mortal.

“Looks like it doesn’t matter anymore…” Idun said with a cold smile and let her apples drop back to the ground. Her voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. “Odin's wolves have already sensed the knowledge I have given you. You won't have much time to put it to use.” 

Chapter Text

Alex

The ground of Idun's oasis seemed to tremble beneath my feet with the beat of giant creatures approaching - or perhaps it was I who was trembling.  A thick, impenetrable cloud of fear spread through my mind, preventing me from grasping a single clear thought. “H-how-?” was all I could stammer out. 

“They sense knowledge,” Magnus said. His voice sounded like he was forcing it out through a compactor. “Hunding said so.” 

“And you mention that now??” I wanted to shake him.

“But that doesn’t make sense!” Annabeth said, not affected in the slightest by the harrowing sound. “We don’t know anything that Idun didn’t know all along.” 

Idun smiled coldly. “As I said, Freya is protecting me. She is shielding my knowledge from being sensed. But now that it has been passed on to you…” 

Another howl, this time much louder, underscored her explanation.

 “They will be here any moment. And I doubt they will find a gentle way to get the information they want from you. They will rip your heads off if necessary.” The smirk with which she said that made my body feel like it was back in the freezing tundra.  

“Okay, we’re leaving! Now!!” Annabeth decided and pulled both me and Magnus away from where we stood frozen to the ground. 

“Be quick,” Idun said, but I had the feeling she wasn’t saying that out of concern for us. “I would prefer if you got out of my garden before the wolves got to you… Blood is not good for my trees.”

Any sympathy I might have had for Idun and her broken heart vanished at that moment. 

“Come on!” Annabeth said urgently, ignoring Idun’s grim comment. She seemed to notice that neither Magnus nor I were of a particularly sound mind at the moment, so she turned to Jack. “We need to get back to Midgard. Now!” 

“I can’t just make a cut in reality anywhere,” Jack replied calmly. Sure, as a sword he had nothing to worry about. “We have to get to the edge of this world.” 

“Then we need to run.” 

And run we did. 

I had no idea how I managed to move my legs, which suddenly felt like they had been dumped in concrete, but somehow all three of us followed Jack across the clearing, past Idun. 

If she had another message for us - maybe a sinister farewell - I didn’t hear her. My ears were ringing. 

We reached the other side of Idun’s apple orchard, and the temperature dropped drastically as we ran back into the tundra-like landscape. But what really froze my bones was the beastly growl that seemed to come from right behind me. 

I didn’t dare turn around to look. I kept running, the flash of Magnus’ blond hair in front of me being my only guide. 

Any second now , I thought. Any second now, there would be razor-sharp teeth being buried in the back of my neck. 

Anger built amidst the fear. I could not be killed by wolves a second time. What kind of sick joke would that be? 

I looked ahead. The place where this world ended in blank nothingness was still several hundred feet away and I could already hear the wolves' paws hitting the ground behind us. We would never make it. 

It took me embarrassingly long to remember that I was a shapeshifter. I was the one with the best chance of stopping them.

With all the concentration I could muster - which wasn’t much - I willed the particles of my body to reform. For a second, I became a saber-toothed tiger - bigger, stronger than any wolf could be. But before I even had a chance to do anything useful with this new body, I plunged right back into my human form, like a clay cylinder collapsing in on itself on the potter’s wheel. 

I stumbled over my suddenly human legs and my knees hit the frozen ground. I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt like a wolf’s claw was already tearing into it.  

“Alex!” Hands reached out for me, grabbed me under the arms and pulled me up. I looked up at Magnus’ face, flushed from the run and his own fear.

He must have been downright terrified, I knew that. This was his worst nightmare. Yet he had stopped for me. With one look at my face, an eerily calm expression settled in his gray eyes. I wasn’t sure what he saw - most likely sheer panic. And somehow my panic canceled out his panic. 

“Come on,” he said, his voice quivering only a little. “It’s just a bit further. We can make it.”

I almost believed him. 

But before we could move, a snarl right behind us froze us in place, and I couldn’t help but turn. 

There it was: A wolf, bigger than any normal Midgard wolf, just a few feet from us, ready to pounce. Its hungry eyes had an uncannily intelligent glint in them, and saliva dropped from its jaw onto the ground, as if it couldn’t imagine a tastier meal than two einherjar about to pee their pants. 

It growled again, and Magnus, who of course understood animals, let out a small whimper. “The wolf says we won’t make it,” he informed me, his voice barely above a whisper. 

I had never wasted much thought on my first death - it had happened, it had been painful and tragic. No point in dwelling on it. But now I was catapulted back to the moment when I had realized that I would not make it out of that alley alive. 

The wolf jumped and I didn’t even try to move my hand to my garrotte - my body seemed to have given up already. Jack was still far ahead, trying to find a place to cut through to Midgard, and Magnus didn’t have any other weapons. 

We were both saved by Annabeth. As the wolf jumped, something buried itself in its flank and its rear end dropped to the ground before the front claws could reach me or Magnus. Annabeth had thrown one of her many knives with such force that it had sunk up to the hilt into the wolf’s hip. At that moment I couldn't remember why I had been so upset about her tagging along.

“RUN!!!” she yelled. 

Magnus, who had been holding his breath since the wolf had jumped, gasped as if shaken awake from a bad dream, and we started to run again - or rather, to stumble and pull each other along. 

We reached the edge of the world just as Jack began to make a cut into the thick nothingness. 

I dared to look over my shoulder. Bad idea. 

The wounded wolf lagged behind, but two other wolves - of the same terrifying appearance - had caught up and were now barreling toward us. 

A bright light seeped from the cut Jack’s blade was drawing painstakingly slowly - sunlight, normal Midgard sunlight. The second the cut was big enough for a human to fit through, he yelled: “Go!” 

We didn’t need to be told twice. I jumped, pulling Magnus through with me.  

I plummeted face down into a patch of muddy grass. Magnus and Annabeth landed on either side of me. 

For a moment I allowed myself to stay on the ground. I was tempted to bury my face in the mixture of soil, grass, and half-melted, dirty snow beneath me. Instead, I forced myself to sit up. We had landed right at the foot of the Leif Erickson statue on Commonwealth Avenue - just across the street from the Chase Space. 

“Oh, thank the gods,” I exclaimed and fell back into the damp grass as complete exhaustion threatened to overtake me.  

Next to me, Magnus sat up and looked like he was about to throw up. 

“That was close,” he muttered, staring up at Leif Erickson as if the statue was personally responsible for the existence of every single wolf in all the worlds. 

“At least we got some information,” Annabeth said, stood up and wiped some of the mud off her jeans. She barely seemed out of breath. That wasn’t fair - Magnus and I were the dead people with enhanced bodies, not her! “Have you ever heard of that water spirit before? The Fossegrim?” 

“No…” Magnus said, shaking his head. I doubted he thought the information had been worth the wolf hunt. “But if we-” he stopped and looked around. “Hey, where’s Jack?” 

As if he had been waiting for his cue, Jack shot out of the rift between the realities, that still glowed a few feet above our heads. There was blood on his blade. 

He hovered in the air for a few seconds before he noticed us. When he did, he sounded like he was about to turn into a grenade and explode. 

“Are you kidding me????” he yelled, the runes on his blade gleaming red. “What are you doing on the ground? Run!!” 

“What?” I asked and stayed on the ground. I did not want to run again. 

“I tried to give you a head start. I managed to wound one wolf, but these beasts are resilient. They’ll be here any second!!” 

“WHAT?” 

Jack’s blade began to pulse with a red light, like an alarm system. This seemed to be his panic mode. “The wolves track knowledge!! If all three of you haven't just experienced spontaneous amnesia, they will catch up with you sooner rather than later.” 

Magnus’ face drained of all its color, as if he were about to faint. I certainly felt like I was. Somehow I managed to jump up and help him to his feet as well. 

“Where can we go?” Annabeth asked, remembering the important questions of course. 

“The Chase Space!” Magnus said, his words tumbling over each other. “It’s protected!” 

“Then let’s-” 

I wasn’t sure who the god of luck was, but they obviously weren't on our side. Before we could even move an inch, an ominous growl told us that our head start was already wasted. 

On the other side of the statue, blocking our way to the Chase Space, the three wolves had appeared out of thin air. They bared their teeth at us, each about as long as one of Annabeth’s smaller knives. The wolf in the middle had a deep cut across his muzzle - Jack’s attempt to buy us time, I assumed.

Their six yellow eyes bore through me like lasers. Their growls came from deep in their throats and sounded ravenous and unhinged. I didn’t need to understand Wolfish for the sound to make my legs shake violently. 

At least this time I managed to pull my garrotte from my belt loop. If I was going down, I was going down fighting. 

They looked ready to mangle all three of us, and maybe Jack too. But then, before either side could attack, the wolves did something unexpected. 

Their ears pricked up and they exchanged glances that conveyed something like ‘Do you hear that’, ‘Yeah, dude, I hear that’ - Magnus could probably interpret the wolves’ dialogue better, but that’s what I got from their exchange. 

The wolf on the right, who still had Annabeth’s knife lodged in its hip, sniffed the air for a second and then turned away from us. The other two looked at their wounded companion, then back to us, before turning away as well.  

“What are they doing??” Annabeth whispered, but I had no answer for her. 

“Erm, guys?” Magnus said meekly as the wolves started running  in the opposite direction. Right towards…- “Didn’t Hearth say he was going to renew the rune barriers today?” 

“No,” I choked out and started running, before I knew what my legs were doing. 

Within a split second, I realized several things at once: 

First: Izzy herself and the dreams her father was sending her were information about Bragi, possibly more valuable information than what we had been able to find out. 

Second: although it seemed bluntly obvious now, I had finally realized what monsters had been chasing Izzy and why. 

And third: those monsters were on their way to a house full of children who were under my protection, and if the timing was extremely bad and the protective barriers were down, nothing would stop them. 

“Wait!!” Magnus shouted after me, but I didn’t stop to see if he was following me. I would stop the wolves by myself, if necessary. 

“It’s Izzy!!” I yelled back, a completely different kind of panic seizing my voice. It wasn’t much of an explanation, but I hoped he understood what I was trying to say. 

“Jack!” I heard him call. “Try to stop them somehow!” 

Jack shot past me, towards the beasts, who were still too far ahead for me to catch up - at least in this form. 

I tried to change once again and for some reason I succeeded this time. Fear no longer held me back, but rather spurred me on. If Magnus’ antidote to panic was other people panicking, this was mine, apparently.

I leapt, and the next time my feet hit the ground, they were paws with sharp claws. My speed doubled as the muscles in my jaguar legs pushed their limits. 

I caught up with the wolves, about twenty feet from the fence that surrounded the house. 

Jack was already attacking the wolf with the gash across the face, but it dodged each of his strikes with frightening agility. He managed to inflict a few more cuts and scratches, but nothing fatal. 

I decided, perhaps arrogantly, to go for the still-unwounded wolf, instead of the one with Annabeth’s knife in its hip, since it was the one that had come closest to the gates. With one leap, I sunk my claws into the beast’s side. 

For a second, I had the high ground, as the wolf obviously hadn’t anticipated an attack from a jungle animal in the middle of Boston. I managed to snap at its neck, but my fangs couldn’t go deep enough into the stringy flesh to do any real damage. 

A second later, the wolf caught on to what was happening, accepted the situation, and swiped its claw at me, as if I were nothing more than a pesky horsefly. 

A normal wolf would have had no chance against a full-grown jaguar, I was sure. Jaguars were faster, had sharper claws, a stronger jaw. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a normal wolf, and my jaguar form didn’t stand much of a chance. 

The claws left a deep gash in my shoulder, sending a sharp sting down my spine. I hissed in pain and snapped again, but I saw it was no use.

I climbed onto the wolf’s back and turned into a human again. Before the wolf could notice my change, I had wrapped my garrotte around its bleeding neck. If I couldn’t pierce the flesh, at least I could try the good old strangling technique. 

The wolf growled in confusion and for a second I was able to take in the situation of my companions: Jack was still trying to stop his wolf, Annabeth had taken on the one she had wounded earlier. Despite its injury, it was still fast enough to dodge Annabeth’s dagger. All she managed to do was to stop it from overrunning the house - which was at least something. 

Magnus ran past me, looking a little lost without a weapon except for Jack, who was doing well on his own. He caught Hearth  sprinting towards us for help in the front yard. They had a quick exchange of signs that I couldn’t follow, but I hoped Magnus was telling him to get the barrier back up as soon as possible instead of wasting his magic on helping us. 

That was all I could take in before my wolf let out an angry choke and decided to launch into the wildest rodeo ride in history. The beast thrashed and jumped and reared, trying to get me off its back. 

My shoulder burned like the fires of Muspellheim, but I managed to hold on and pull my garrotte tighter. 

Surely that must have blocked the wolf’s airways, but if it did, the lack of air didn’t slow the wolf down. On the contrary, it was getting wilder by the second. 

I had one last idea. Though it felt very wrong to do so, I let go of my trusty weapon and transformed into a snake, a black mamba, the most venomous snake I could think of on the fly. The wolf stopped its thrashing at the sudden shift of weight on its back and I wrapped my long body around its hind legs, essentially shackling them so it couldn’t move them much. Then I bit. Into the wolf's spine, its side, its tail. I didn’t know where the venom would be most effective, but I wasn’t going to leave it to chance. 

The wolf roared in pain and heaved its rear end. It kicked its hind legs so forcefully that my lightweight snake body flew right off. 

As I hurtled through the air, I changed back into a human, hoping to absorb some of the momentum by accumulating more body mass. A terrible idea, as I quickly realized. 

I landed right in front of the garden gate. My back slammed into the asphalt, my head smashed through one of the plant pots I had placed there early last summer and had forgotten to bring inside for the winter. The crunch of the ceramic crumbling under my head was something I had felt before, but at that moment I couldn’t remember when.  

Something wet spread through my hair. My vision blurred. Only the sharp flashes of pain throbbing through my entire head became visible as red lightning bolts zapping across my cornea. My ears rang with a high-pitched whistle tone, but the disgusting scraping sound of my head grinding the ceramic to rubble was clearly audible. I wanted to throw up, but couldn’t move.  

My consciousness threatened to slip away. No, no, no, I thought - or maybe I muttered it out loud - as I fought against the darkness that was creeping up on me. 

I still couldn’t see, but a face emerged from the darkness. Oddly enough, it was my father’s face - a face I didn’t try to think of much, but the usual expression of mild disgust made him unmistakable. I was pretty sure he hadn’t been here before my head had smashed through the flower pot. Or had he? 

“This is your fault… ” his voice sounded, but the words were out of sync with the movement of his mouth. “ Your fault, your fault, your fault… ” the words kept ringing in my ears as if they were being whispered by a choir of ghosts.

“Go away,” I wanted to say, but all that came out of my mouth was a pained groan. 

“ALEX!!!” Another voice drowned out the ghostly echo. A voice I liked hearing much more: Magnus. There was such terror in the way he called my name, that it made me fight through the drowsiness to open my eyes and see what was happening. 

The bright daylight hurt so much that I wanted to scream - or maybe that urge came from the fact that there was a wolf towering over my limp body, saliva dripping onto the ground at my feet. 

The snake venom was visibly tormenting the wolf, and that was the only reason I was still alive. Its legs kept buckling under its weight and the piercing yellow eyes looked about as unfocused as mine must have looked - yet I knew I had only seconds to get out of this predicament before I became the beast’s dinner. 

I forced my arms to move, even though my brain didn’t seem to be fully connected to the rest of my body anymore. I grabbed the cold metal of the fence behind me to pull myself out from under the wolf's drooling grimace.

I had managed to drag my slack body a few inches forward when the wolf too regained control of its poisoned system and attacked. Had I not moved at all, I was sure the wolf's teeth would have sunk deep into my gut - as it was, it was aiming for my leg. 

My body reared up before I even sensed any pain at all. But it didn’t take long for the unmistakable sensation of teeth scraping at my left femoral bone to reach my brain. I vividly felt the wolf’s jaw pull back with force, ripping a chunk of flesh from my thigh. There was no strength left in me to let out any sound of pain. 

Searing fire spread through my entire body from where the teeth had sunk in, and my arms went numb. I couldn't move another inch. Several voices called my name from somewhere very far away, but I knew that none of my friends would have the time to come to my aid.

The wolf, now that it had tasted blood, suddenly didn’t move so sluggishly anymore. In a fraction of a second, it lurched toward my chest. Its claws dug into my shoulders, pinning me to the ground. Its hungry eyes were inches from my face. 

Idun’s words reverberated in my ears: They will rip your heads off if necessary - I wasn't sure how that would help them get the information they were hunting, but I didn’t want to find out.

In a fleeting moment of hopeful optimism, I was tempted to just shout the intel Idun had given us about Bragi at the wolf. Maybe it would be satisfied if it got what it wanted without going for my head - but just when I thought I had my vocal chords following that command, I heard a small, terrified voice from somewhere behind me: “A-Alex??” This time it wasn’t Magnus

“Izzy, no!!” someone else shouted - Annabeth?

Izzy?? No, she had to stay inside! I wanted to tell her so, but before I could, the wolf snapped at my neck. At first its teeth only scraped my skin, then they sank in and I knew I was going to die like this a second time.

The razor-sharp fangs sliced through the muscles and tendons as smoothly as butter. It felt like someone was pouring hot oil down my throat, but still my stupid einherji brain didn’t let me lose consciousness. I was hyper-aware of every inch the teeth sank deeper into me, every drop of blood that oozed into the wolf’s mouth with each heartbeat. Despite everything, my heart kept pumping, trying to keep me alive.  

I waited, wished for the beast to pull back, to rip out the arteries, the trachea that it had surely damaged beyond repair anyway and put me out of my misery. I wasn’t granted that relief.  

Instead, the clench of the jaws around my neck loosened, and the wolf’s head slackened down before its body followed, collapsing on top of me. A rattling groan came from my damaged throat as the weight of the body squeezed out what little air was left in my lungs. 

Hands tore open the wolf’s muzzle, freeing it from my neck. The teeth left a pain so sharp that the rest of my body seemed to cease to exist. I was nothing but pain. 

Still, there seemed to be enough blood still flowing to my brain to keep me alert to what was happening around me.

The carcass was pulled off of me. Through my half-closed eyes, I thought I saw a dagger sprouting from the back of its head. I tried to breathe, now that the heavy weight had been removed from my chest, but barely any oxygen entered my system. 

Warm, dry hands touched my face. Mist settled over my eyes as more and more blood poured from my body, but I noticed the orange glow. 

“Magnus,” I rattled, but through my damaged windpipe it was nothing more than an unintelligible croak. I didn’t know whether I wanted to tell him to just let me die or beg him to make the pain stop. 

“Keep the wolves away!!” he shouted. His voice sounded like pottery shattering - rattling and brittle. “I have to heal her!” 

Don’t heal me , I wanted to scream at him. Protect the house! Protect Izzy!   It was useless anyway. Magnus had become a much stronger healer since I had met him, but he wasn’t that strong. 

I didn’t manage to produce anything more coherent than a wordless rasp. 

Jack’s voice sounded from somewhere behind him. “I’m trying but-” 

“Izzy, stay here!!” Annabeth shouted and for a second panic trumped the pain. If Izzy got hurt, as well- 

It sounded so otherworldly that I wasn’t sure if it was another thing that was happening inside my head or not, but suddenly a booming voice filled my ears. 

“Go away! Leave us alone!!” - a commanding voice, but one of a child. Izzy. The command had not been directed at me, but the powerful effects of her words washed over me nonetheless. I was sure that had my condition been different, I would have jumped up and run to follow her orders. No wonder Izzy had managed to evade the wolf’s attacks for so long with a power like that. 

The remaining two wolves howled and then I was scooped up, pressed so tightly against Magnus’ chest that I could feel his heart racing against my face. It seemed to want to jump out of his ribcage. 

He ran into the house, the vibration of each of his steps adding to the fiery ache that throbbed from my head to my throat and down to my leg. As a warrior in Valhalla, I had experienced plenty of pain in the past, but that didn’t help ease the pain in the present. I wanted to scream, but couldn’t. The best I could do was clench my teeth together so tightly I thought they would splinter. Blood continued to seep from my wounds, but my undead einherji body fought to minimize the flow. I knew that if I had still been fully human, I would be dead by now - I knew this because when this had happened to me as a human, I had died.  

Magnus frantically mumbled something as he pushed me through a door on the ground floor. 

I knew he would try to heal me - and despite the agony the injuries caused, I didn’t want him to. It would be too much for him. He would overexert himself and only cause harm to his own body. 

And even if he didn’t, I also didn’t want him to heal me because I couldn’t be sure what he would find in my head while doing so. After Freya, Idun, the wolves, and the irksome face that the injury had stirred up, I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be a pleasant memory. 

He lowered me onto something soft - a bed, perhaps. 

Behind my closed eyelids, I noticed sunlight growing brighter and brighter. It split my head in two; cold sweat covered my forehead.  

The wolf’s looming grimace was still burned into my cornea, beginning to melt with that other face that just didn’t seem to leave my mind. I tried desperately to erase it, to turn my consciousness into a blank page, but it slipped further away with each passing second. When Magnus’ hands rested gently on the upper part of my chest, just below where my throat began, the hot fire that started to run through my body made me lose my grip on reality completely. 

For a second - or maybe for much longer than that - I felt like I was falling through the endless nothingness of Ginnungagap. 

Maybe I was already dead. Maybe that would have been better than what followed.

Chapter Text

Alex

When I managed to open my eyes again, Magnus wasn’t there - at least not in a way that I could see him.

I looked around, and the room I found myself in churned up a bizarre mixture of bittersweet nostalgia and the urge to take a baseball bat and trash everything in sight: my old childhood bedroom. 

It was larger than some apartments in Boston and furnished as if someone had challenged themselves to spend as much money as possible on one room: a queen-size designer bed, high-tech flat-screen TV, several gaming consoles, a Macbook on the desk - all relics of a time when my father had still believed that buying me the most expensive things would somehow turn me into the perfect son he use to wish for. 

What had been less important in furnishing this room had been to give it any trace of the personality of its occupant. Nothing here looked like I had chosen it - because I hadn’t. There was no color at all; everything was white, black, and grey, from the walls to the bedsheets. If it weren’t for the colorful ceramic pots I had tried to fill as much space as possible with, you could have thought I had landed in a scene from a black and white film. I could not imagine ever living in a room like this again without absorbing its sadness. 

“Alex…” 

A familiar voice behind me made me spin around. As I processed who I was facing, my heart clenched so painfully I would have assumed I was having a heart attack if I weren’t already dead. 

Adrian. My beautiful Adrian. 

He looked younger than I remembered him, just old enough to call himself a teenager. His earth-colored eyes were so much brighter, not as numb and dark as life on the streets would later make them. With one glance at the short buzz cut his black hair had been shaved to, I knew where I had landed, when I had landed. 

I also realized that he wasn’t talking to me, but to, well, me. 

I turned around, and sure enough, in the opposite corner of the room there I was, there she was: fourteen-year-old Alex Fierro, sitting on the gray carpet, the tip of her nose almost touching the glass of a full-length mirror, as she carefully applied eyeliner. 

It was hard to think of her as me. There was so much she didn’t know, so much she hadn’t lived through yet, so many things that had shaped the person I was today - good and bad alike. 

The lighter weight of fewer memories was noticeable in the way she held herself, I thought. 

“... I’m not so sure about this,” Adrian continued as he hesitantly fumbled with the green bow tie around his neck. 

He was wearing a white button-down shirt and dark green slacks, both of which we had taken from my closet and I had tailored to fit him. Dressed for the occasion. 

My younger self turned away from the mirror, having only finished applying eyeliner to one eye. She had dressed up, too, in a green tank top decorated with lace ruffles and that mauve tulle skirt I had been obsessed with at the time. I certainly wouldn’t wear that anymore - it looked a little ridiculous, if I was being honest - but at the time of this memory, it had been the height of fashion, according to the younger Alex. Her hair was longer than I usually wore it now, the green color bright and fresh as grass - it had been the first time I had dyed it, secretly using my father’s credit card to pay for a fancy hairdresser. 

She gave Adrian a teasing grin: “Oh, come on. We already did our hair! We can’t back out now.” I was about to try and strangle my younger self, but she already backed down with one look at Adrian’s worried expression: “Look, you can stay here if you don’t want to come to the party, but… I have to go. My dad can’t pretend I don’t exist in front of his work friends when I’m right there. Besides, this  stupid golf course was the worst idea he ever had!” 

She jumped up from the floor and walked over to the window to stare out angrily. I followed her eyes and took in the view I had once seen every day: Acres of pristine green lawns with artificial hills and dips, and beyond them, the remnants of the once beautiful, wild forest that had to yield to my father’s boundless greed. The trees were fenced off from the rest of the area, caged like wild animals, as if someone feared they would otherwise take back what had once been theirs. 

My younger self crossed her arms at the view. “Who needs a golf course right behind their house? I'm not going to let this opening party go by without causing some chaos. And if me being me is enough to do that-” She shrugged casually, but I knew that deep down she was doing her best to ignore the thought of the consequences this plan might have. 

Right. It had all started with that stupid golf course. My father had always seen the woods behind our house as a terrible waste of land, and one day he had come up with the brilliant idea of buying it and tearing it all down to build his own private golf course - because apparently, driving to the other side of Salem to play golf was beneath a multimillionaire like him. 

As for me, the forest had always been close to my heart. It was there that I had discovered my love of nature. It was wild, untamed, and so different from the house I had grown up in - it had felt so much more like me. It had always seemed so mysterious, with its hundreds of years old trees and creeks - definitely something that couldn’t just be destroyed for a useless golf course. So, of course, I had had a thousand arguments with my father about it, but he had never listened to me or cared about anything that mattered to me - especially since I had become more and more public about my gender identity. If anything, my opposition to his idea had given him even more reason to go through with it. 

With all the frustration of not having been able to prevent him from destroying the woods - on top of the frustration of not being recognized for who I was - I had come up with the plan to crash his opening party, looking the way I wanted to look, which I knew would be enough to embarrass my father in front of his conservative colleagues. 

It had been a stupid, reckless plan, I knew that now. And I thought I had known it then, too, but my younger self hadn’t been one to listen to reason when she had set her mind to something. 

A small grin had spread on Adrian’s face at my dramatic speech. “How are you so brave?” he asked. 

I saw my younger self blush. She quickly turned back to the mirror to apply the second eyeliner. 

“I guess that must be my Viking blood,” she said nonchalantly. 

“Pfft, shut up, you don’t have any Viking blood,” Adrian laughed. “Your family is Mexican!” 

My younger self smirked at her reflection. “Right.” 

I had never told Adrian about the more complicated side of my family - the supernatural side - or shown him my shapeshifting abilities. Somehow, I had always sensed that he wouldn’t understand. Still, at the time, I had liked to drop hints about it every now and then. It had made me feel mysterious and interesting. At the time, I hadn’t harbored as much hatred for Loki as I did now. I hadn’t had a reason yet.

“I don’t really think of it as bravery,” the younger Alex continued to answer Adrian’s question. “More of a necessity. I can’t go on living like this, and I can’t stand the fact that my father refuses to acknowledge that people like us have always existed.” 

The determination in her voice hurt. She was so convinced that if she just tried hard enough, endured enough arguments and insults, her father would one day come to his senses and realize that he had been wrong. But it had always been a futile effort. 

Young Alex finished the eyeliner and strode over to her closet. “Let me show you something.” 

Dramatically, she swung the doors open, letting in a burst of color into the drab room. She bent down to pick something up from behind a pile of clothes at the bottom of the closet: A ceramic head, with two different faces. It looked almost exactly like the one I had created not so long ago during our travels to York.  

She carefully carried her creation across the room and placed it on the desk, on top of a pile of what looked like unfinished homework.

Adrian leaned closer and frowned. “What is that?” 

“A duality mask,” Alex said, her hands on her hips, proudly admiring the sculpture. “Or at least an attempt to recreate one.” She shrugged. “The ancient people of Tlatilco created tons of these, and no one really knows why. My abuelo believed they represented two souls in one body - sort of an ancient version of… well, being genderfluid. Who knows if that’s true, but either way, my ancestors knew and celebrated people who were different with these kinds of masks as early as 3000 years ago .” 

“Let me guess,” Adrian said, still frowning at the sculpture, but now with more interest. “Your father doesn’t like that idea at all, and that’s why this thing has to hide in your closet?”

Young Alex grinned. “Exactly. My abuelo…” Her expression quickly turned somber, “he tried to make my father understand who I am by showing him these ancient sculptures. Not only for my sake, but also so that my father would understand this part of his ancestry, I think. But as you know… that didn’t really work.” She stopped talking when her voice sounded like it was about to break. My grandfather's death had still been a fresh wound at the time. 

Adrian nodded sympathetically. “That’s why you weren’t allowed to see him anymore, right? Or go to his funeral.” 

A pained expression flashed across my younger self’s face. “Yes,” she said, “my father thought my abuelo was ‘corrupting’ me or something… So he did everything he could to discredit him, to make everyone think he had gone senile, so he could inherit the full rights to the company early.” Her hand clenched into a fist, but she managed to keep her voice steady. “So by doing this today, I’m not only being brave for myself, but also for my abuelo. To show my father and all his stupid Republican work friends that he was right. That there have always been people like me. “

For a few seconds, Adrian stared at the duality mask as if it was putting him in a trance. Then he turned to the younger Alex and smiled with determination. 

That smile cut deeper than any wolf’s claw ever could.

 “Then I won’t let you do it alone.” 

“You really don’t have to-” Alex tried half-heartedly. 

“No, my parents will be there, too, and I have something to prove to them as well. They still refuse to use my real name, Alex. I’ve been trying to come out to them for two years now, and they just ignore it every time I try to talk to them. I have to make sure they can't ignore me anymore and I’d rather do it together with you than alone.” 

Knowing that this would be the last conversation the two of us would have without being homeless, I wished she wouldn’t be, but of course my younger self was thrilled to hear that. She grinned brightly. “Okay!” she said, her face flushing with excitement. 

She leaned in and kissed Adrian on the lips. It was a quick kiss, but one that was full of love - or whatever love was when you were fourteen. 

As I watched the two teenagers from my memories grinning at each other without a care in the world, I couldn’t help but think of the kisses I shared with Magnus these days. They were so much less innocent, less carefree, loaded with so much more guilt. 

If only I could love again like I did when I was fourteen. 

I was done with this memory, I decided. I had seen enough. I wanted it to end. Couldn’t I just die already? Why did my dying brain have to conjure up this fever dream? 

I don’t know if I had managed to end the scene by sheer force of will, but as soon as I thought that, the room around me began to blur, a red hue settling over the scene. 

“Let’s make them see us,” I heard before Adrian and my younger self - their faces still just inches apart - vanished into thin air. I couldn’t tell who said it. 

For a few moments, everything around me seemed to speed up, as if someone had pressed the fast-forward button. 

I caught glimpses of the scenes that followed: Adrian and I stepping onto the golf course, an open field still framed by the remains of my beloved woods; hundreds of middle-aged business people in suits and fancy dresses turning to stare at us in barely masked disgust; Adrian’s mother gasping in terror and dropping her glass of champagne; my stepmother shaking her head and downing her glass in one gulp; the dangerous glint in my father’s eyes as he desperately tried to divert the attention away from us; the curious face of a woman who looked strangely familiar, but I couldn’t place. 

For a few blissful moments there was only darkness behind my eyes. I hoped I would finally wake up now, but I couldn’t. It felt like I was fighting against quicksand: the harder I tried to wake up, the deeper I was pulled back into the brightness of another memory. 

Before I knew it, I was back in the same room I had just left in the previous memory. If I had had a corporeal form in this fever dream I would have definitely punched something. The room was empty, but I had a dark premonition of what was about to happen. On the desk, the duality mask still stood proudly on top of my homework. My makeup supplies were still scattered around the mirror. I was stuck on the same day. 

I considered darting out of the window to escape the room, but since I didn’t have legs - or a body - I couldn’t move. 

Trapped in this old memory, I had no choice but to watch motionlessly, as the door burst open and my younger self stumbled back in. She was wearing the same outfit as before, although at some point between the previous scene and now, she must have pulled her hair back into a ponytail, which was now slowly coming loose, sending green strands of hair falling  into her face. 

I caught a brief glimpse of her expression before she spun around to slam the door behind her: all confidence was gone, every muscle in her face betraying the utter fear of what was on the other side of that door. She tried to lock it, but before she managed to turn the key, it was pushed back open. A black dress shoe wedged itself in between the frame and the door. She still pushed back against the door, drawing a few painful curses from the owner of the foot outside the room.

A second later, the door was flung back open with such force, that the other Alex stumbled backwards and almost fell. She caught her stumble, and as she looked up, I was almost impressed at how well she managed to conceal the fear on her face in front of the person who was now looming over her. As she looked up to meet her father’s furious eyes, there was nothing but defiance in her expression. 

“Are you insane?!?” my father roared, his sharp face so red with rage that it clashed terribly with his otherwise black and white outfit - black slacks, shiny white dress shirt, even his hair was black with streaks of grey. Hearing that terrible voice and seeing that distorted mask of a face right in front of me felt like the claws of a wolf slowly slicing down my back. The overwhelming urge to curl up on the floor overcame me. 

My younger self, however, barely even flinched. She was used to this. “No, dad,” she spat, with enough venom in her voice to wither an entire golf course. “I’m not insane!” 

“How dare you?!?” my father screamed back, probably not even registering the response to his question. He took a dangerous step toward Alex. “How dare you show yourself like that- ” He cast a disgusted glance at her green hair, her carefully put together outfit. “-in front of my colleagues, my business partners?! Do you even know how many important people were here today?? Are you even listening, ... - ” 

At the end of his tirade, he called me by a name I won’t repeat here. It was a name I had hoped never to hear again. 

I winced and so did my younger self. There were few words in this world that I hated more. 

‘Alex’ had been my nickname since childhood. My father had used it for the longest time without having a problem with it. But from the moment I had demanded to be called ‘Alex’, he had started to refuse to use it. Out of pure spite, I guess; because he knew that the other name hurt me every time. He enjoyed it. 

My father did not give the younger Alex a chance to protest against the use of that name. He continued on with his hateful rant: “This party was important to me! Important to the company! And you… you disgrace show up, dressed like a girl!!” 

“I am a girl, right now!!!” the other Alex threw back, her face slowly turning as red as her father’s. Rage flickered behind her eyes at the humiliation she was facing. 

Even though we were so fundamentally different, when I saw my father's angry face right next to mine, the similarities between the two faces sent an ice cube down my throat. My face got angry in exactly the same way his did. There were the same tense muscles, the same knitted eyebrows. 

I wanted to erase that realization from my mind immediately. 

“You are not a girl!!!”

“I am!!!”

I remembered something my grandfather had once said about my relationship with my father: We were the same kind of stubborn, which was why none of our fights could ever end with one of us just storming off. We couldn’t help but keep rocking each other’s rage higher and higher, just to see who would be pushed over the edge first. In this case, the award went to my father. 

Before my younger self could even react, he grabbed the handmade green and pink flower vase from the nightstand and, with an outraged scream, smashed it right over my head.

Time seemed to slow down, and suddenly I wasn’t just a bystander to the scene. I could feel the delicate ceramic shattering on my skull, could feel the shards tearing my skin, could feel the sharp pain pulsing across my forehead. 

Then time picked up again and I was catapulted out of my younger body, as the force of the blow knocked her to the ground.

 For a second, no one moved and I stared at the crumpled form of the other Alex. 

After a moment of dead silence, she lifted her head with a groan, cautiously, as if she was expecting another ceramic attack. Her wide eyes glistened with tears of pain and shock. She sat up and touched her temple, flinching when she felt something wet and sticky there. 

With disbelief in her eyes, she stared at the red liquid on her fingers and then up at her father, who stared back as if he hadn’t even noticed her presence before smashing a vase over her head.

He seemed taken aback. Some of the anger washed away - almost as if he regretted what he had done. But judging by the terrified look behind his eyes, it wasn’t out of concern for his child’s safety, but rather fear that Alex would turn into a cheetah and rip out his throat. 

I wished she would have, but she was paralyzed by her own fear. 

Seeing my younger self sitting on the carpet in that hated room, bleeding and trying her best to keep the tears at bay, it hit me with full force how much younger she looked than I remembered being that day. I had only been a child.

My father took a step toward her and I wanted nothing more than to tackle him, to wrap my garrotte around his neck, and protect the child at his feet from him - but I couldn’t move a muscle. 

“This is your fault!” he said, as if he needed to convince himself.  “Get up! It’s not that bad.” 

My younger self didn’t move or say a word, she just continued to stare at her father. 

The moment he had shown that tiny hint of remorse passed quickly, and he immediately reverted to the spiteful frown from before. Now that his child wasn’t talking back anymore, he seemed to have no problem sticking to verbal assaults. 

“What have I done to deserve you?” he pondered, his tone now so low and snake-like that I understood why he had attracted Loki. “You are a menace. You have been since the day you were born. A punishment from that devil mother of yours. You ruin everything you come in contact with.” 

Still on the floor, the younger Alex let these vile words wash over her, her lips pressed tightly together. “That’s not true,” she interjected. I admired the certainty in her voice. I wasn’t so sure about that statement anymore. But then again, she hadn’t known then what I knew now. 

My father let out a joyless laugh. “It’s not? From the moment you arrived in this house, you ruined me, you ruined my marriage-” 

My younger self didn’t even attempt to inform him that it wasn’t her fault, that he had cheated on his wife with a norse deity. 

“Your grandfather died alone because of you.” 

Again, it would have been a valid argument to remind him that he had been the one to cut off all contact with his father, but Alex remained silent. 

“And today you managed to let your friend’s life go down the drain, too, because you needed to be the center of attention. You are a danger to others.” He spat out those last words in a way that left no doubt that he actually meant what he said. 

Finally, the other Alex got up from the floor, some of the determined fire back in her eyes. Her hands clenched into fists. “I didn’t ruin Adrian’s life!!” 

My father raised a single eyebrow at the use of Adrian’s correct name, but he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he said: “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Mr and Mrs Zhou won’t be as lenient as I’ve been with you all this time.”

“Then it’s their fault, not mine!” Alex snapped back, but I noticed the hint of insecurity in her voice. She knew that her friend probably wasn’t any better off than she was right now . “It’s people like them and you who ruin our lives! People who refuse to see us. Who refuse to understand that trans people have always existed.” 

My father’s face immediately darkened again and a vein on his temple began to pulse dangerously. 

Even though I was an immortal warrior nowadays, I don’t think I would have been able to talk back under those sharp, menacing eyes. 

But my younger self didn’t even stop for a second. She kept trying. Assertively, she pointed across the room at the duality mask. “This is proof of it!! Just like Abuelo always tried to tell you! Your ancestors knew it was normal-” 

“SHUT UP!” my father yelled. 

Alex immediately stopped talking and backed up against the wall, expecting another physical attack. 

For a few seconds, her father’s wild eyes darted back and forth between her and the duality mask, as if trying to decide which one to hit first. 

Then he said, his voice restrained, as if he had to use all his strength not to scream: “I told you before: Do not spread such disgusting lies. Your whole-” he looked his child up and down, as if he was searching for the most offensive word he could find to describe her, “-disorder has nothing to do with me. It’s inherited from your wretched mother.” 

“But it’s not!” Alex said, unable to hold back. “Abuelo knew it! Why can’t you-” 

“That’s it.” 

My father didn’t yell, but the coldness in his voice instantly silenced my younger self. I could pinpoint the exact second she realized that this fight was not going to end like it usually did - with her grounded or her pottery supplies taken away. This one was going to take a much more final turn. 

With a jerk, the man moved over to her and grabbed a fist full of her hair. Alex hissed at the pain of having her hair pulled on top of her existing head wound, but she didn’t protest as her father dragged her to the door. With his free hand, he grabbed the duality mask from the desk. 

“The time I put up with you is over,” he growled as he maneuvered Alex out of the room. “You will leave. Once and for all.”

The door slammed shut behind the two of them. I stayed in the room, still unable to move. Then, finally, my vision became blurry. Everything in the colorless room took on an orange tint, then smudged, as if the room was slowly dissolving in water. With relief, I let myself fall backwards.

Chapter Text

Alex

With a jolt, I came back to life. Electricity throbbed from my toes to my fingertips as I slowly noticed that I still had a body. There was a sickeningly sweet, metallic taste in my mouth - stale blood - but when I gagged because of it, the excruciating pain in my throat was gone. 

I tried to draw a breath and there was no disgusting rattle of air escaping through my wounds like before, but my chest felt strangely heavy as it rose. It was weighed down by something warm. Whatever it was, it began to stir. 

My first thought was ‘wolf!’ and I forced my eyes open, but I quickly realized that I was in no danger of being crushed by an oversized mammal - only by a barely conscious Magnus. His arm was sprawled across my torso, his head dropped into the curve between my shoulder and neck, so that his hair tickled my recently healed throat. 

He must have collapsed, while healing me. His skin still gave off a faint glow and he was warm like an overheated lamp. The warmth he radiated made my cheeks flush - or maybe that was due to the unusual amount of body-to-body contact. 

For a brief moment, my stomach twisted. He had indeed managed to save me, but what if my injuries had been too much to handle, as I had feared? What if he had hurt himself? 

Thankfully, his eyes fluttered open and he lifted his head, before I had a chance to panic. 

As soon as I was assured he was fine, I pushed him away roughly. I had suddenly become hyper-aware of every inch of my body that touched his. 

“Get off me,” I muttered, shoving him from me as I sat up. My vocal chords felt like they had been treated with sandpaper. 

He did as I said and quickly sat up straight on the bed I was resting on. He looked at me with wide eyes - whether it was confusion at the position he had found himself in or the fact that I was still alive, I couldn't tell. 

“S-sorry!” he stammered. His eyes flitted across my body, from my torn jeans to my blood-crusted hair to my throat from which a blotch of red had spread across my sweater, as if he was searching for remaining wounds. “I don’t know how- I mean, I was healing you and then-” He paused, as if he had just remembered a terrible nightmare, and frowned at me. He didn’t have to say anything. 

I had hoped that the memory I had just been forced to relive had been some kind of fever dream, not a healing induced vision. But with one look into those sad, gray eyes, that hope vanished.  I knew instinctively that he had seen the same scenes I had. The images flooded back into my mind and the realization that Magnus now shared those memories made me want to scream. 

I sensed that any second now he would open his mouth and try to talk about it. I did not want to talk about it - and ignoring the elephant in the room was one of my specialties. 

I shrugged casually. “You probably overexerted yourself, while healing me.” I avoided his gaze. “That was stupid, by the way. You should have tried to get me back to the hotel.” I didn’t mean to sound so accusatory, but I was too exhausted to control my voice. 

“You would have died, before we got there,” he said - a statement, not an excuse. His face was ashen, like he was going to be sick. For a moment I thought he would try to talk about what had happened inside my head, but instead he asked: “How- how do you feel now?” 

I concentrated on my body and was surprised to find that there wasn’t much to complain about. Aside from a barely noticeable soreness, my throat was working just fine; my right leg felt a little numb; the back of my head was tingling slightly - but all in all, it wasn’t a lie when I replied: “I’m fine” - at least physically. 

Magnus nodded seriously and continued to regard me with those glistening eyes that made me want to squirm. 

I looked everywhere but in the direction of his face. As my gaze drifted around the room, I realized that Magnus had brought me into what had become Blitz and Hearth’s small bedroom after they had realized that it was much easier to just live here full time than to travel back and forth between Blitz’s store and the Chase Space. It was decorated sparsely but stylishly, with a mauve carpet, the tanning bed-like construction that provided Hearth with enough light to survive in Midgard, a dress form and an old-fashioned sewing machine in the corner, and two framed city views that could have been taken in either Boston or an upper-class neighborhood in Nidavellir. The queen-size bed in the middle of the room, which Magnus and I occupied, was covered with a lovely floral bedspread, the same mauve color as the carpet - unfortunately, it now looked like a murder scene. 

“Oh, fuck,” I said, rubbing my finger over the big bloodstain next to my leg. “Blitz is going to kill me for ruining his sheets.”

“Oh,” Magnus said after following my gaze. Momentarily, he forgot about the subject he seemed to want to talk about and I was desperately trying to avoid. “Yeah, probably.” He didn’t sound particularly upset about the prospect of a murderous dwarf. A near-death wolf experience just had that effect, I supposed. 

The wolves! With a jolt, I sat up straighter as I remembered why we even were in this situation in the first place. 

The wolves had attempted to attack Izzy. The kids. 

“Where are the wolves??” I asked, moving to jump off the bed. “Is everyone okay?” 

“Everyone’s fine,” Magnus quickly reassured me, holding up his hands as if to keep me on the bed, “Izzy saved us. She forced them to go away… It was kind of scary, to be honest. Then Hearth put the barriers back up, so they wouldn’t come back. We’re safe. No one got hurt.” He paused. “Except for you.” A strange glint passed through his eyes. “Since we’re talking about doing stupid things: Did you seriously think you could take on the wolves on your own?” 

I didn’t reply. The involuntary trip into my past had left my chest feeling like a giant ice cube was slowly melting inside of my lungs, and my grip on the present, on what had happened during the fight, was still fuzzy. I did not want to argue about right or wrong decisions. 

After a few seconds, Magnus took my silence as a sign to keep talking: “The wound on your leg was nasty. You had a severe concussion and a laceration on the back of your head-” 

My eyes caught his still bloody hands, which he was nervously rubbing on his jeans as he spoke. His fingers were trembling. I couldn’t be sure if it was the present or the past he had witnessed that had shaken him so much - maybe both - but I was pretty sure he kept talking more to calm himself than to explain my injuries to me. 

“-some bad bruises on your spine, cuts on your shoulder… I've healed all of that, I think. The bite on your neck was deep, but the arteries were still intact, so you didn’t die right away. Annabeth killed the wolf, before it could do more damage.” His eyes flickered over my throat and then he quickly looked away. “There’s still a scar. I don’t know if it’ll go away.”

My hand automatically wandered to my neck. My fingertips could feel the bumps where the wolf’s teeth had pierced my skin. I gulped and the scars moved beneath my fingers.

Bearing a scar wasn’t what daunted me - I had lived among vikings long enough now to consider scars as trophies from glorious battles - but carrying a reminder of those wolves on my body wasn’t exactly a pleasant thought. 

Magnus must have noticed my darkened expression. He moved his hands more frantically up and down his thighs and mumbled a quiet: “Sorry.” 

“No, don’t be! I don’t really care,” I quickly assured him. It was most certainly not his fault. He had done more than I would have thought possible. If I hadn’t still been so numb with shock, I would have been seriously impressed. “Thanks for… you know-” I gestured vaguely at my entire body. 

He replied with a short nod. 

Silence fell between us. I wished I could think of something to say, or maybe I wished Magnus would leave, so I could gather my thoughts in peace. Of course, I knew he wouldn’t leave - not while the cloud of what we had both seen still hung between us, creating a tension so intense I thought I could taste it. I knew that the only way to resolve it was to talk through it. 

I waited, quietly concentrating on Blitz’s sewing machine. I would not bring it up. I felt Magnus waiting for me to do so, but I wouldn’t. Maybe because I was too proud; maybe because I wanted to see if he would be honest about what he had seen. 

There was no reason for me to be mad at him for looking into my head. That wasn’t something he would do on purpose, I knew that. Still, there was a burning ball of anger forming in my stomach. Not necessarily directed at him, more at my own mind. To be forced to live through that memory a second time without being able to defend myself…  and to share all the weakness I had shown in front of my father with Magnus -  that was just a very cruel thing my brain had conjured up. 

When Magnus finally spoke again, I almost flinched. 

His voice sounded as if there were dumbbells attached to his vocal cords. “While I was healing you, I saw-”

“I know,” I interrupted him. I didn’t want to hear him try to describe the memory. “I saw it too.” 

“Alex, listen, I didn’t want to see anything, I really tried-” 

“I know,” I said again. When I had first met Magnus, I had been suspicious of him and his intentions when he healed me. Now I never doubted that he respected my privacy more than most people. By the gods, this guy respected my privacy so much that it had taken him almost three years to finally dare to ask about our relationship status. Still, I wished his healing powers didn’t have this unpleasant side effect. “It’s not your fault… But that doesn’t change the fact that you saw it.”

 Magnus exhaled heavily and nodded. 

The silence returned and it wasn’t any less tense than before. 

My mind kept spinning. I hated it, but I felt the need to explain what he had seen, why I had acted the way I had, why I had convinced Adrian to out himself, why I had not stood up to my father. There were so many things Magnus now knew that lacked context, or that I simply wanted to rip out of his brain again. 

One thing in particular made my skin crawl. So, when I finally found my voice again, I said: “That name you heard..?” 

Of course, Magnus knew what I meant. He looked up, no color left in his face, as if he had been caught eavesdropping on a private conversation - which, frankly, he kind of had. “Yeah?” 

“That’s not my name. Never was. Try to forget it… please.” 

He nodded, a seriousness in his eyes I wasn’t used to. “Already forgotten.” 

I tried to give him a slight smile in thanks, but my facial muscles wouldn’t follow that command and I ended up pulling a weird grimace at him. 

For a few seconds he studied me in silence. Either he was trying to figure out if I was having a stroke, or he wanted to say something and was trying to find indicators in my expression that it was okay for him to speak. Finally, he decided to say: “I know, you probably don’t want to talk about it, but-” 

“You’re right, I don’t,” I said dryly, but Magnus ignored me. 

“I just want to say… I’m sorry. Your father is… the absolute worst! The things he said to you- no child deserves to hear something like that.”

Of course Magnus would say that. Of course, he would tell me that he felt sorry for me, when it definitely wasn’t me who deserved his pity.

“Not everything he said was wrong…” I mumbled before I could stop myself - an accidentally voiced thought rather than a deliberate statement. I immediately regretted it. 

A shadow flickered across Magnus’ face. The corner of his mouth twitched as if he was about to object, but he seemed to change his mind. 

I looked away and focused on the bloody bedsheet instead. Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut around him? He had seen enough, I did not need to share my own self-hatred with him as well. 

I was sure he would comment on this and looked up in surprise when instead he said: “That other kid was Adrian?”

I studied Magnus' face for a second, not sure what to make of this change of subject. There was an attentive glint behind his eyes that threw me off. 

“Yes…” I replied carefully. The last thing I wanted to talk about with Magnus was Adrian. 

“You both ended up on the street that day, didn’t you?” 

I nodded, still not sure where he was trying to go with this. 

Magnus frowned. “What did you two do at the party that was so bad?” 

“Oh, we didn’t do anything,” I said and shrugged. My eyes traced the edge of the bloodstain that had spread around where my neck had rested. “Showing up and being visibly queer was more than enough for our parents to lose their minds.” 

“That’s ridiculous,” Magnus said and frowned so angrily that it almost warmed my heart. 

I didn’t actively decide to do so, but I kept talking: “I knew it would be risky. My father had expected me to cause some chaos at the party. I had tried to stop his plans for that stupid golf course from the beginning. He bought more than half of the woodland behind our house to build it! The forest was so beautiful, I loved it. And he just destroyed everything there.” I talked myself into a rage, silently wondering why I was still getting angry about a construction project that had been completed years ago. 

But of course, Magnus - nature lover by parentage and anti-capitalist at heart - understood. His eyes narrowed like he too would like to crash a golf course opening party. 

“Anyway,” I continued, swallowing the anger in my throat, “my father warned me from the beginning that if I caused any commotion, he’d ruin my life. So that’s what he did. But it was I who decided to drag Adrian along with me.” I added that last sentence with a shrug, even though the thought stung like a gaping wound. 

Magnus remained silent, intensely studying his hands and my blood on them for a moment. I could almost hear his mind calculating and evaluating everything he had learned in the last few hours. For some reason, nervousness crept into my stomach. 

“When I talked to Sam yesterday…” he began, speaking each word with care as if he were afraid he might choose the wrong one. He didn’t take his eyes off his hands, “...we briefly talked about you. I mean- about us .” 

Despite my nervousness about what he was going to say, I tried to play it cool, raising an eyebrow and giving an unperturbed nod: "Okay?" 

Magnus didn't let that deter him. “She said that you- that you like to guard your emotions, that you’re very careful when it comes to… having feelings for someone because of something that happened with Adrian.” 

I didn't answer, but mentally wrote a note to myself: To-Do List: 1. Strangle sister if you see her.

Magnus looked up from his hands and for some reason I couldn’t help but meet his gaze. Looking into those piercing, weirdly knowing gray eyes, they suddenly didn’t look all that different from his cousin’s anymore. 

“You blame yourself for him becoming homeless, don’t you?” 

I forced myself to tear my eyes away from his. I couldn’t negate his question, but he didn’t see the bigger picture. How could he? I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to see it. 

He went on, trying to get me to look him in the eyes again. I refused. “You don’t believe the things your father said, do you? That you’re dangerous to other people or whatever.”

I couldn’t meet his gaze. He knew the answer without me having to confirm it. 

“You can’t seriously believe that!” 

He sounded so hurt on my behalf, so concerned, it almost made me gag. If he only knew everything, he certainly wouldn’t feel that way. 

“Adrian made his own decision, you didn’t drag him into it! And besides, it’s not your fault that your parents-” 

“Magnus,” I managed to cut him off, not wanting to hear what he was trying to say. I hated how small my voice sounded. “Please, stop. There’s so much you don’t know about me-” 

He shook his head vehemently enough to shut me up. “I know you well enough, Alex, to know that whatever it is that I don’t know, nothing could make what your father said true.” 

The seriousness in his tone made me look at him again. There was not a trace of doubt in his expression that he meant what he said. For a moment, it even made me try to believe him, made me want to believe him. I couldn’t. 

Without the hesitation he usually showed with physical contact, he took my hand in his, so carefully and with so much gentleness that it made my heart burst. “Please don’t think like that.” 

For a few seconds, all I could do was stare at our intertwined hands. I realized that for him, it was no longer a question of whether I liked him or not, or what my reasons might be. He simply couldn’t stand the thought that I didn’t see myself the way he saw me. 

I also realized that if I wanted to ease the pain he was feeling on my behalf, I would have to tell him everything. And for some reason, that thought wasn’t as daunting as it once was. 

He deserved to know. I had promised him days ago that I would be honest about my feelings for him. And for us to get there, he would have to understand that love was no easy emotion for me. 

I slowly pulled my hand out of his grasp. “Magnus, there’s more to it. You need to know how-” 

I didn’t get any further before we were interrupted, and maybe that was for the best, because I wasn't sure where to start, or how to put into words what had happened to Adrian. Still, anger clawed its way up my throat when I laid eyes on the interruption: Annabeth. 

“Oh, sorry,” she said, but she didn’t sound very sorry. “I promised Izzy I would check on you. Am I interrupting?” 

Yes, I thought, that’s why I just referred to you as ‘the interruption’ in my head. 

I had the sense to say nothing and let Magnus do the talking instead. He sounded surprisingly stiff when he answered: “No…” 

Somehow I suspected that he wanted to shout: “Yes! Absolutely!” but couldn’t because he looked up to his cousin far too much to be that rude. 

Annabeth seemed to notice the tension and a frown crossed her face, but she didn’t leave. Instead, she closed the door behind her and crossed her arms. It looked like she was here to stay.

“Alex, are you…” she began. I could see her eyes darting over my body and her expression grew more surprised the more she realized that I was in almost perfect health again, “...are you okay? Those injuries looked horrific.” 

She addressed me in such a friendly tone that I was taken aback for a moment. She seemed genuinely concerned about me, which was… unusual, to say the least. But it was a nice change. 

I shrugged and tried to smile to show that I appreciated her concern, even though I still hadn't forgiven her for interrupting. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to gather the strength to tell Magnus about Adrian again. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Nothing an einherji can’t handle. And-” I couldn’t take all the credit, “-Magnus is a decent healer.” 

“Okay, good. I’m glad.” She glanced back at the door behind her, as if she was thinking of something on the other side of it. “You should talk to Izzy once you’ve had enough rest. I think seeing the wolves and what they did… it really shook her up.” 

I nodded. I couldn’t even imagine how Izzy had to feel after witnessing the monsters that had killed her mother strike again. “I will.” 

Silence fell, but Annabeth lingered in the doorway. I could feel Magnus growing more tense by the second. His cousin's presence seemed to bother him immensely. 

When he spoke after a few awkward seconds, his voice sounded forcefully casual. “Was there something else you wanted, or…-” 

“Yes,” Annabeth replied, seemingly unaware of or unfazed by the tension in the room. “I think we should debrief about the quest. And talk about what happens next.”

“We need to find out more about this Fosse-thing Idun mentioned…” Magnus said, but he sounded as if he’d rather think about anything else right now than Bragi or any other mythological creatures. I felt the same way, to be honest. “And then find it… somehow.” 

As he spoke, Annabeth pulled a crumpled piece of paper with notes on it out of her jeans pocket. “While you two were in here, I started doing some research.”

I thought I hadn’t heard right. Was this how children of Athena operated? Going straight from a gory battle into librarian mode? 

She seemed to notice both of our bewildered expressions. A hint of embarrassment twitched across her face. “Not that I wasn’t worried about you,” she explained, looking at me, “but I needed something to do after the fight to calm me down.” 

When neither of us responded to that explanation, she looked back down at her notes, her cheeks flushed. 

“Anyway… Like Idun said, the Fossegrim is a powerful water spirit who can appear as male, female, or neither, depending on what the viewer is more likely to be attracted to. They teach those who come to them in secret and offer them a goat as a sacrifice to play any instrument so perfectly that rivers stop flowing and trees dance. They stay in the same place for decades, sometimes centuries - always around freshwater springs and waterfalls - teaching those who find them there. They’re said to make you play until your hands bleed, but other than that, I couldn’t find anything about them that seems particularly malicious.” She looked up again when she had finished reading her notes. “But it’s strange that Bragi should still be with them after all these years, isn’t it?” 

“Maybe it just takes that long to learn to play well enough to make the trees move, or whatever?” Magnus offered half-heartedly. His mind still seemed to be somewhere else entirely.

Fortunately, his cousin frowned with enough concentration for both of them. “Even for the god of music? I don’t know, something about all of this feels off.”  

“But that’s nothing you have to worry about,” I added before I could stop myself. I knew I sounded curt, but that was justified after what I had experienced today, and since Annabeth didn’t seem to read the room to realize that neither Magnus nor I wanted to talk to her right now, I thought someone had to stop her. Especially since it wasn't as if she was a permanent part of this team, and she shouldn’t think she was. Sure, the information she had found was helpful, and it wasn’t like she had been a burden on this quest either, but I wasn’t keen on spending another day running around with her, trying to locate mythological beings. “We can handle it.” 

Annabeth let out a laugh as she stuffed her notes on the Fossegrim back into her pocket. “Yeah, I saw how you handled it…” 

The way she said it didn’t necessarily come off as arrogant, more like an observation, but it made my blood boil anyway. I narrowed my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, just-” She hesitated, and for a second I thought she was going to back down under my glare, but she decided to keep talking: “Well, no offense, but you didn’t have any real plan when you talked to Idun...” she said, as if that was the biggest quest-faux pass she could imagine, “Is that how you always do things? Just keep talking and hope that it works out somehow, no matter how?” 

I sensed that Magnus wanted to say something, but I didn’t let him. “I happen to be pretty good at talking,” I said, swinging my legs around, so that I was sitting on the edge of the bed instead of half lying on it. That felt more dignified. “And it worked, didn’t it? Idun told us what we needed to know.” 

“Besides-” Magnus finally managed to say. His voice was calm, but I noticed the cool edge in it, “- Alex did have a plan: make Idun jealous.” 

Annabeth looked as surprised as I was that Magnus had taken my side in this argument. “That was hardly a plan. That was just plain mean,” she said, as if this was what she had wanted to say all along and couldn't stop herself now. 

Magnus frowned  and asked obliviously: “What do you care about Idun’s feelings?” but I knew what his cousin was really trying to allude to - the same thing I had been worried about when I had come up with the whole fake marriage idea. 

“I don’t care about Idun’s feelings, I care about yours!” she said slowly and articulately as if she feared Magnus wouldn’t understand otherwise. 

He didn’t seem to get it either way and opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He closed it again and just frowned. 

I decided to intervene before Magnus found  his voice again to tell me that, yes, Annabeth was right and I was mean. 

I jumped up from the bed and took a step towards Annabeth. My leg still felt wobbly, but I hoped she wouldn’t notice. “If you hate my way of doing things so much, just don’t interfere with any quests that I go on, okay? No one asked you to come along!” 

“It’s not about the quest!” Annabeth countered. She was slowly talking herself into a rage, just like me. “But I don’t like the way you’re treating my cousin. You've been playing with his feelings for years. He never knows whether you like him or hate him. You kill him when he asks you out. And then, the first plan that you come up with is to pretend that you’re a happily married couple? What’s up with that?”

“That’s none of your business!!” I hissed back, disappointed that I couldn’t think of a better comeback. But it was true. It was none of her business, and the way she tried to make it her business - make everything her business - was the final clue I needed to officially decide that I did not like Annabeth Chase. “You don’t have to coddle Magnus. If he has something to say to me, he can speak for himself.” 

“He is right here, by the way. Can I just say-” Magnus tried to interrupt,  but neither Annabeth nor I would let him speak for himself. 

“No,” we both told him in unison. 

“You didn’t have a better idea for dealing with Idun, did you?” I continued. My throat prickled as I raised my voice. “If Magnus and I hadn’t acted like-”

Annabeth spoke over me: “You won’t even talk to him about anything personal, but then you do something like that ? Are you trying to break his heart?”

That shut me up. I stared at Annabeth, as the anger was replaced by something else when the words got through to me.

“Because it very much seems like that’s what you're doing.” 

She didn’t understand a thing. I was doing all of this to protect him from having his heart broken – to protect him from me and what I did to people who got too close. But then again, I had always tried to protect Adrian from getting hurt too, and I knew how that had ended - 

The dangerous mix of anger, pain, and the resurfaced trauma of the memory slid down my throat like a giant ball of tar. I had to get out of here. 

“Annabeth!” I heard Magnus say sharply, but I was too busy keeping my composure to really notice. 

“I don’t have to listen to this shit!” I managed to hiss and pushed past Annabeth to run out of the room. 

Magnus grabbed my arm as I turned the doorknob. “Alex, wait, I-” 

I shook off his hand. “Leave me alone.” 

I slammed the door behind me to leave no doubt that I did not want to be followed. 

The clock above the kitchen door told me that Magnus’ healing efforts had taken much longer than I had realized while being trapped in my own memories. It was well past nine. An eerie quietness hung over the usually noisy house, as if none of the inhabitants dared to raise their voices. I didn’t think many of the children - apart from Izzy, of course, who seemed to have saved us all - had noticed the battle in their front yard, but perhaps they all sensed that we had narrowly averted a disaster. I didn’t even want to imagine what would have happened, if the wolves had made their way into the house. 

The oppressive silence was broken by a small voice coming from the staircase. “Alex? Is that you?” 

Izzy sat on the second-to-last step with her arms wrapped around her knees. A blanket was draped over her shoulders. 

Hearth was keeping her company, sitting next to her in a similar position. His limbs appeared comically long that way. When he looked up and saw me, relief flickered in his eyes. 

I wasn’t in the mood to talk to either of them - or anyone, really - but Annabeth was right about one thing: Izzy needed some comfort after what had happened. 

As I approached, she jumped up with a squeal, leaving the blanket on the steps. She ran to me and hugged me so tightly that the air was squeezed out of my lungs. “You’re okay!!” 

“Yeah, I am…” I said and exchanged a look with Hearth over Izzy’s head. 

“You really scared us there,” he signed. The tension all over his face told me that his concern wasn’t gone. He was wearing a black t-shirt and sweatpants, like he was ready for bed, and was just waiting to get his bedroom back - or for Blitz to return. I hoped Annabeth had told him that his boyfriend was on his own quest and had not been eaten by wolves.

When Izzy let me go, I signed back: “I know, sorry. I’m fine now .” 

His eyes scanned my face and I could tell that he suspected that wasn’t the whole truth. My body might have been fine, but I certainly wasn’t. I was still shaking slightly, as I was sure Hearth noticed. 

I was glad that I got to focus back on Izzy before he had a chance to comment on that. 

“The monsters they- they hurt you so bad…” she said, choking up as she spoke. I saw her eyes searching for the wounds on my neck, and when they couldn’t find any, they fixed on the blood that had soaked my sweater. “I thought you would die,” she added in a whisper. 

I tried to give her a smile, which took an unusual amount of effort. “I didn’t. Magnus healed me, just as he healed you when you came here. He’s really good at that.” That was the truth after all. The fact that I despised what his healing methods had stirred up in my mind, was nothing that Izzy needed to know. “And I heard, you helped a lot. You made them go away.” 

Izzy nodded and tore her eyes away from my bloody clothes. “Yeah… when I saw them, I - I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t save my mom; I had to at least save you.”   

“Thank you,” I said, but my voice was brittle. I tried not to think about how Izzy would feel now, had all of this taken a different turn. 

“Will the monsters come back?” she asked after a moment of silence.  

“No, Hearth has found a way to keep them out.” 

Hearth nodded encouragingly in support of that statement, but I noticed how his eyes wandered outside, as if he didn’t trust his rune barrier all that much and wanted to make sure there weren’t any wolves lurking about. 

It was obvious that the barriers were working, though. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to have this conversation. The house was in good hands. 

“Okay,” Izzy said, and some of the worry melted from her face. She let out a long yawn. 

“It’s getting late. Do you think you can get some sleep now that you know everyone’s safe?” I asked her, feeling a tiny pang of guilt, because if I was honest, I didn’t care all that much about Izzy’s sleep pattern as I did about getting out of this conversation.  

For a second she hesitated, following Hearth’s gaze outside. When she found nothing there to worry about, she nodded and said: “Yeah… I think so.” She started to walk upstairs, stopped after a few steps and turned back to me. “You’ll stay here, so the monsters dont get to you, won't you?” 

“Sure.” The fake smile I gave her came easier the longer I tried. “Good night, Izzy.” 

“Good night.” 

As soon as she had reached the top of the staircase, I turned back to Hearth. “Do you think there’s any way I could leave without attracting the wolves again ?” 

I needed to be alone. So much so that I didn't even feel bad about lying to Izzy. And the best place to be alone was in my own room in Valhalla. It was only a matter of time before I would have to face Magnus and Annabeth again if I was stuck here much longer. 

“You can stay here. ” Hearth replied with a frown. 

“No,” I said out loud, out of reflex, and shook my head. “I can’t stay here.” I switched back to signs. The thought of staying trapped in this house with both Chase cousins made me slightly nauseous. “There has to be a way to leave. Please.”

My eyes must have automatically wandered down the hallway to the door I had slammed earlier, because Hearth turned to look at it. “What happened?” he asked, his gaze much softer when he looked back at me. 

I wasn’t sure what he thought had happened, but I doubted he guessed correctly. I didn’t feel like enlightening him either. So, I just signed: “Annabeth.” That wasn’t much of an answer, and Hearth’s expression told me as much. 

He watched me for a few seconds with his piercing pale eyes, as if he was trying to see straight into my brain. Elves couldn’t do that, could they?

Before I could ask him, he signed: “I might have something that could work.” There was a softness in his face now, that told me he understood. If not what had happened, at least my urge to leave. 

He turned to the drawer by the entrance where we kept all sorts of scarves, hats, and other outdoor gear. He pulled out a red bobble hat that I was pretty sure Blitz had knitted himself.  He put it on the drawer, then pulled out a rune stone, the name of which I didn’t know, and placed it on the hat. It began to glow blue as he held his long, slender fingers over it.  The glow spread over the entire hat and then faded as quickly as it had come. 

Hearth took the hat and offered it to me. 

“What did you do with it?” I asked, taking it from him. 

“An extended protection spell. Like the one around the house, only for your head,” Hearth replied, looking a little proud of that idea. “It should keep the wolves from sensing you. Hopefully.”  

“Hopefully?”                      

“I’ll walk with you for a bit, and we’ll see if anything happens.”  

He didn’t look like he felt completely sure about this plan but it sounded good enough for me. It was quite handy to have an elfish warlock friend. 

I put on the hat. It clashed terribly with my hair and my clothes but not getting hunted by wolves was probably worth it. 

Hearth grabbed his own black bomber jacket from the rack, but offered it to me as well instead of wearing it himself. 

“What's that for ?” I asked, wondering if his jacket was enchanted too. 

He glanced skeptically at my blood-soaked sweater. “So the whole city doesn't think you murdered someone with an axe .” 

“Fair enough,” I said, putting it on and pulling the upper up to my chin to hide the worst of the bloodstains. I realized that I had left the coat I had worn this morning at Idun’s orchard - Sam would kill me. 

We quickly left the Chase Space and headed for the subway. It would have been faster if I had just turned into a cheetah again, but Hearth wasn’t sure if the hat would still work if I didn’t have a human head.

He wasn’t wearing a ridiculous hat, which made sense since no one had shared the information we had gathered with him yet - although Annabeth seemed to have informed him about the wolves’ tracking system. I hoped that she and Magnus would remember not to drag anyone else into this wolf curse by telling them about Bragi. 

Hearth and I didn’t talk, but his presence still gave me comfort. It was reassuring to have a friend walking beside me, trying to look out for me when I hardly deserved it. 

The hat seemed to be working perfectly. It had started to snow heavily again, so we saw nothing and no one on the streets, until we passed Leif Ericksson’s statue. 

In the darkness a figure moved towards us. 

Hearth and I stopped, but after the first second of fear gripping my heart, it quickly became apparent that this wasn’t a wolf. It was Blitz. 

He squinted at us, trying to make out our faces in the dark. “Hearth, is that you?” he asked, which I guessed was more of a rhetorical question, because Hearth couldn’t read his lips in the dark. “And Alex?” 

“Yes,” I said and waved. We met under the closest streetlight and Hearth immediately wrapped his arms around Blitz. 

He looked unharmed, just very tired. His trip home must have been about as enjoyable as expected. 

When Hearth let go of him, he signed: “You have a lot to explain. Where have you been? “

So, no one had told Hearth where Blitz was, I realized sheepishly. How had he managed to stay that calm? 

“Later,” Blitz signed back and turned to me, looking at the bloodstains that were still visible on my torn jeans, despite Hearth’s jacket. “What happened to you?” 

I wanted to say something like “Long story”, but he was already focused on the really important things. His eyes wandered up. “Alex, darling, that hat looks awful with your hair.” 

“I know,” I whined and pulled the hat down more to cover my hair. 

He let it go. “Did you find out anything about B-” 

“Hush!” I cut him off. I wasn’t sure if the mere mention of Bragi could alert the wolves and I didn’t want to risk it. “We found something, but if I tell you, you’ll have to wear a hat like this, too.” 

“I’ll explain later,” Hearth signed at Blitz’s confused expression. Then he turned to me. “I think you’re safe. Can I leave you?”

I nodded and signed “Thank you ” - not only for making sure I was safe, also for briefly distracting me from my own thoughts and feelings. They would come rushing back as soon as I was alone, I knew. And yet, I wanted nothing more than to finally be alone. 

“Come on,” Hearth signed to Blitz as if he had read my thoughts. “See you tomorrow?”

“Sure,” I replied, although I doubted I would be in any condition to leave my room tomorrow. 

They turned back towards the Chase Space, leaving me in the dark. Which was what I wanted. I wanted to be alone. So, why did I suddenly feel so hollow as I watched the two of them walk away arm in arm?

Chapter Text

Magnus

I wouldn’t say I was someone who got angry a lot. And I had certainly never been angry at my cousin before - but, here I was, standing in Blitz and Hearth’s bedroom, barely holding myself back from shouting at her. 

“What was that about??” I said through clenched teeth. Half of me wanted to run after Alex, but the other half had to tell Annabeth to back off. And since Alex had made it pretty clear that she wanted to be left alone, the second half won.  

Annabeth folded her arms in defiance, but the doubt behind her eyes told me that she had not expected such a negative reaction from me. “I was only trying to help you!”

I almost laughed. "Help me? How did that help me?” 

Alex had been more honest than ever. She had been so close to opening up to me, before Annabeth had interrupted. Now I doubted that we would ever get that far again. 

“I just said what you would never say because you’re just too nice!” 

“But what you said wasn’t true!” I fought to keep my voice down. How could she still pretend that her treatment of Alex had been justified? Could children of Athena never admit mistakes? “The fake marriage plan didn’t bother me at all and it worked. That’s all that matters. And even if it had bothered me -” It was hard to stand my ground under Annabeth’s intense, gray-eyed stare, but I powered through “- I would have talked to Alex about it, but not minutes after she almost died!” 

I had felt Alex’s life drain out of her under my hands. Mending the wounds had demanded everything of me. I still felt like my knees would give out at any moment, just thinking about what could have happened if something had gone even slightly wrong during the healing process. And the thought of what I had experienced in Alex’s head only made it all worse. 

Of course, Annabeth didn’t know about the awful memory I had been forced to watch, but even without that, she had to be able to guess that the aftermath of a near-death experience was not the best time to throw around accusations.

“The timing was not ideal, I admit,” Annabeth said. Even while admitting mistakes, she sounded as self-assured as before. She looked me up and down like she was trying to figure out why I was acting the way I was. “But I stand by what I said, the way she’s treating you is not okay! I’m trying to protect you.”

“I never asked you to. I don’t need any protection,” I replied sharply. My fingers trembled -  whether from anger or still from the effort of healing deadly wounds, I couldn't tell, “Especially not from Alex.” 

Given everything that I had learned about Alex in the last hour, I did not want anyone to make her feel like she was someone I needed to be protected from. Cousin or not, I would not forgive Annabeth if she reinforced those terrible beliefs that Alex seemed to hold about herself. “She was right, none of this is any of your business. I never should have told you about Alex’s and my issues. Because they're our issues, okay? Not yours.” 

Annabeth looked speechless for a split second. When she began “Magnus, I don’t-” I was already pushing past her, my heart pounding in my ears.  

Her gaze followed me, rather perplexed by the conversation we had just had, as I left her standing in the bedroom. 

Because I was an idiot, my exit ended up being slightly less dramatic than I had planned. 

As I stepped into the hallway, I heard Alex's voice coming from the entryway, probably talking to Izzy. I figured she needed space from me for a while - which was more than fair after I had involuntarily explored a bit of her mind - so I decided not to follow her. Instead I slipped into the living room, where I spotted Jack leaning against the wall by the bay window through the open door. 

He had enough sense to act like an entirely inanimate Viking weapon, but since that was only slightly less suspicious than him flying around and talking, I knew I had to take him with me - I did not want to be responsible for any possible sword accidents that might occur if the kids found him here. My brain still clouded with residual anger at Annabeth, I didn’t think twice as I willed Jack to assume his runestone form and attached him to the chain around my neck. Bad idea. 

The exhaustion from all he had done that day - cutting through to other worlds, protecting us from Idun’s apples, fighting wolves - transferred to my body and hit me with full force. I passed out right there in the middle of the hallway. 

When I woke up, I found myself on the couch in the living room, where Hearth and Blitz, who were sitting across from me, must have dragged me. They told me that I had been out for two hours (I thought it was a near miracle that none of the kids had taken the opportunity to draw a mustache on my face with permanent marker) and that both Alex and Annabeth had long since left the house. 

When, through sheer willpower, I was finally awake enough to move more than a few feet, Hearth pulled a worn-out Red Sox beanie over my head. 

“To protect your thoughts,” he signed. I didn’t protest the hat, but it took my sluggish mind half the way back to the hotel to understand that he meant protection from the knowledge-sensing wolves. I was pretty sure that I would have run right into another wolf-disaster if Hearth had not thought ahead for me. That wouldn’t have ended well in my current state. 

By the time I was back in Valhalla, I felt like I was going to pass out again. My arms ached as if I had tried to bench press an elephant and my legs threatened to give out under my weight, as if they had run five marathons in a row. My eyes felt so heavy that I was sure I could sleep for at least a few days. 

And yet, when I closed the door to my room behind me, I couldn’t even bring myself to sit down. My body may have been running on emergency reserves, but it was doing so at a hundred miles an hour. 

I kept pacing across my atrium, around the tree, into the kitchen, into the bedroom and back. My mind was racing with everything I had seen that day. Strangely, the wolves were not even the tip of the iceberg that had formed in my stomach. Their grimaces were burned into my eyelids and the thought of what could have happened if they had gotten into the house sent an electric shock to every single bone in my body. But what really weighed on my chest was the thought of Alex. 

What I had witnessed inside her head kept replaying behind my eyes. I was certain that this had been the prequel to the dream I had had years ago, on our journey to York, of Alex getting kicked out by her father. I had never told Alex about that, because I had never understood why my dreams had shown me Alex's past and I wasn't sure if that was something I should mention now. 

Especially because there was even more about the memory I had seen today that I did not understand. It had been so much more intense than the usual glimpses I got when healing someone. I had felt everything that the younger Alex had felt. The confidence in her heart, the fear of her father, the love she held for Adrian. The thought alone sent a shiver down my spine. 

What had happened to Adrian? And why on earth did Alex blame herself for it? 

Yes, I had figured out that for some reason Alex believed to this day what her father had told her in that memory. But she hated her father. He was the worst person I had ever had to witness – except maybe Hearth’s father, but that was a different topic. Why should she believe him when everything that had left his mouth had been so blatantly vile and untrue? How could Alex – confident, proud Alex – secretly carry so much self-loathing? 

Dizziness seized me, and I wasn’t sure if that was because I had spent the last two minutes walking in circles around the tree in my atrium, or because of what was going on in my head while doing so. I felt like I had finally put two pieces of the giant jigsaw puzzle that was Alex Fierro together, only to realize that those two pieces didn’t fit anywhere else. 

Overwhelmed, I raised a hand to run my fingers through my hair, but quickly decided against it, when I realized how sticky my hands still were. I had not had a chance to wash properly after running from the wolves and healing Alex. It was definitely time for a shower. 

I hoped that doing something other than running around my room would calm my racing mind, but as I let the hot water from the shower run over my naked skin, I couldn’t help but stare at my hands. The lingering traces of blood on them – Alex’s blood – were now slowly dissolving, turning the water that dripped from my body the colour of rust before it disappeared down the drain. I suddenly felt very sick. 

That wolf could have killed Alex. It had come so close. If its bite had been any stronger, the damage would've been irreparable. 

And I had just stood there and watched. I had felt so useless without a proper weapon on me, when she, Annabeth and Jack had fought the monsters. All I had been able to do, all I was always able to do, was try to clean up the messes my friends had gotten themselves into while trying to help me. 

What if one day, I failed at that too? What if today I hadn’t been quick enough to heal Alex? I would be standing here now, mourning another person who sacrificed themselves to the wolves for me - just like my mother. And all for this stupid search for a lost god. 

I was glad that I had taken my necklace off before the shower, because otherwise, I probably would have ripped Jack's pendant off my neck and thrown it across the bathroom – it was his fault we were doing any of this, anyway! 

I turned off the water, dried off, and tried to get ready for bed, but as I brushed my teeth, still unable to shake the feeling that we had narrowly escaped disaster, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep for a long time, no matter how tired my body felt.

I didn’t want to lie awake all night and see the dark shadow of the wolf looming over Alex’s limp body every time I closed my eyes. 

No, there was only one thing I wanted to do.

Before I had really made up my mind, I threw on a shirt and some sweatpants, and stepped out into the hallway. It was dead quiet, which was unusual, even for a place full of dead people. I wasn’t sure if the others had heard about our escapades yet. Maybe they had already tried to talk to Alex and had been chased back to their rooms. Maybe the silence was an indication that I should not knock on the door across the hall. 

But I had to see Alex. If not to talk about anything that had happened today, then just to make sure that she was still there. Alive and well. 

I took a deep breath, stepped out of my room towards Alex’s, and ruffled my still half-wet hair, hoping that I did not look like an idiot. Then I lifted my hand to knock. 

Before I had a chance to do so, the door swung open and Alex’s startled eyes met mine. 

“Magnus,” was all she said, the surprise in her voice unmistakable. She seemed to have taken a shower as well, her wet hair curlier than usual. She had changed out of her tattered clothes, except, for some reason, for the sweater vest - its colours now barely discernible under all the blood and grime - which she now wore over an oversized white t-shirt and black leggings. Her clothes and her face were sprinkled with clay. 

“I was just about to-” She stopped herself and shook her head. The movement made the now faded traces of the scars where the wolf's teeth had sunk glisten in the dim light, making my stomach turn again. “Never mind. What do you want?” 

I recognized the attempt to put on a tough face, the mask behind which she liked to hide any and all feelings, but she failed. Every muscle betrayed the fact that she was miserable.

“Just wanted to see you,” I replied truthfully. I was met with a sceptical frown, so I added: “Today has been a lot,” - and I meant it from the heart. Exhaustion, both physical and emotional, tugged at every fiber of my body. 

“Yeah,” Alex murmured, and she seemed to sink in on herself. Her two-toned eyes, now tired and dull, locked with mine. “You could say that.” 

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just stood awkwardly in the hallway for a few moments, my eyes glued to Alex’s. 

Then she rolled them, breaking the building tension. “So, what? Are you going to stand there all night? Come in.” 

She took a step back and I hesitantly entered. I had been here countless times before, but now it somehow felt like I was crossing a boundary by stepping into Alex’s room. 

The atrium was an almost exact copy of mine – for reasons that I still didn’t quite understand – except for various ceramic pots and vases that were scattered around the ash tree. The grass was a few shades darker, I thought, almost as if it was slowly taking on the color of Alex's hair. The bathroom to the left and the kitchen to the right, were built similarly to mine, but painted in pastel greens and pinks. She led me past them, past the tree, and into the large room at the end of the suite that she used as a combination living-bed-pottery room. 

“Sorry about the mess,” Alex said absently, as she saw my eyes fall on the wet lump of clay on the potter’s wheel. It looked like someone had tried to shape it into something, only to smash it right back down with a fist, splattering clay all over the surrounding walls and furniture. Not even pottery seemed to have been able to distract Alex today from what had happened. 

She walked past me, almost trance-like, to the wheel, grabbed a handful of wet clay, and squeezed it until it oozed between her fingers. Knowing how Alex's hands usually handled clay - delicately, with precision and care - the pinching sensation in my gut intensified.

Hesitantly, I stepped closer, keeping a safe distance. “Are you… okay?” I knew the answer, but it seemed like a good idea to give her a chance to talk about it if she wanted to. 

Alex slapped the clay back down on the wheel and wiped her hand on her already grimy sweater. A slight tension, perhaps the hint of a cynical smile, formed around her lips. 

“Let’s see… First a goddess threw apples at me, then a wolf almost ripped my throat out and to top it all off, I had to share a memory with you that I’d rather forget…” She made an effort to sound unfazed, but her voice came out strained anyway. I had believed her when she had said that she didn’t blame me for catching a glimpse of her memory, but now I wasn’t so sure anymore. 

“...so, if you really want to know, I feel like shit.” It was an entirely honest statement, as if she couldn’t even gather enough strength for something as lighthearted as sarcasm. 

Our eyes met again, and the pain with which she regarded me, was enough to turn every bone in my body to ice.  

I knew there were some wounds I would never be able to heal. And Alex probably wouldn’t want me to heal any at all. 

But I wanted to do something - anything to take away some of the pain after everything that had happened today. 

So I did something very stupid. I moved closer and kissed her. 

Pro tip: do not do that. I wasn't sure what had gotten into me. There were more than enough reasons not to kiss Alex under normal circumstances. And the fact that we were both entirely emotionally drained at the moment didn’t make the situation any better. I knew that. 

The moment my lips touched Alex’s, I was absolutely certain she would slap me. I would have deserved it. 

For some miraculous reason, she did not. Instead, she kissed me back with such intensity that my knees began to buckle. 

The voice in the back of my head, telling me that this was absolutely foolish and possibly the worst thing I could have done, grew smaller with every movement of her lips against mine.

For a few blissful seconds, my mind went blank. There was no past or future, just Alex, here and now, so very much alive. Under my hands on her back, I could feel the soothing, steady beat of her heart.

I had closed my eyes without noticing, but the smell of clay – a smell I would never be able to not associate with Alex Fierro – told me that Alex was lifting her hand to my face. Slender fingers gently tugged a strand of hair behind my ear and stayed there, the palm resting softly on my burning cheek.

Something ignited in my chest. I was sure that at any moment I would lift off the ground and soar to the ceiling – like some kind of human hot air balloon. But of course that didn’t happen. 

Instead, Alex quickly brought me back down to earth. Without warning, she turned her face away, almost causing me to kiss her nose, confused by the sudden change of heart. 

“We shouldn’t be doing this, Mags,” she mumbled, her voice hoarse. Her hand moved from my face to my chest, gently pushing me away.

I immediately took a big step backwards and hit the side of the sofa. I stumbled and had to hold on to the armrest to keep from falling. Graceful as always. “S-sorry!” I stammered, wondering why the hell my voice sounded so croaky. 

“Don’t be sorry, I wanted to kiss you, too.” Alex’s voice was firm again, too serious considering the fact that I was making a fool of myself. “That doesn’t mean it's a good idea.” 

I stood straighter. “Why not?” I asked, sounding much more challenging than I had planned to, but my chest felt so constricted that I feared I wouldn’t be able to produce a single sound if I spoke any softer. My throat felt tight, like a snake had sunk its teeth into the inside of my airway. 

For a few seconds, Alex studied me with calculating, piercing eyes without giving an answer. 

That didn’t make the feeling go away. 

You know the answer, the imaginary snake in my throat seemed to hiss at me. It’s you. You’re just not good enough. Alex doesn’t want you.

That’s not true, shut up! I shouted back in my head. But the metaphorical snake in my throat didn’t have the decency to go away. 

Before I could continue my internal dialogue with it, Alex finally replied, no emotion on her face: “Weren’t you the one who didn’t want to kiss me again until we talked?” She didn’t sound angry, exactly, just mildly annoyed, but there was something else underneath that I couldn’t quite place.  

“Well, yes, but-” I began, but didn’t know how to continue. 

‘-...but you almost died today and I think I’m slowly going crazy without being close to you’ ? 

No, I most certainly couldn’t say that, even though it was the truth. So I remained silent, 

Alex crossed her arms and waited for a few more moments for my answer. Her face was again that blank mask I never managed to read. 

When she was certain that no other words would come out of my mouth, she walked past me and said: “Okay, let’s talk then.” 

Carefully, she sat down on the edge of the sofa, as if preparing for a swift escape should she change her mind. With a raised eyebrow, she gestured for me to join her on the sofa. 

Hesitantly, I complied, sitting in the outermost corner to keep as much space as possible between us. I had been hoping for weeks that Alex would finally be honest with me, but I wasn’t sure if right now was the best time for this conversation. We had both agreed that today had already been too much. Did we really need to add more to it? 

Before I could express my concerns, Alex seemed to have read my mind. She shrugged. “You’ve already seen enough today… I might as well tell you everything.”

“O-Okay,” I said. I had no idea what to expect and waited uneasily for Alex to start talking and tell me ‘everything’ - whatever that meant. But she remained quiet. 

“So…” I began awkwardly, when I couldn’t stand the silence any longer. We had to find a way into this conversation somehow, “...what I saw today, what your father said- that’s the reason you don’t want… a relationship?” There had to be more to it. I refused to accept that Alex would believe something so cruel coming from someone like her father without reason. 

Her tired eyes flickered across my face. “That’s not it,” she said, her voice soft and calm, but I could see her fingers digging desperately into the cushion of the sofa, as if holding on for dear life. “I mean, maybe that’s part of it, but there’s more.” 

I had heard that before, but I still couldn’t imagine what she could mean by that… except for this one reason, which still seemed so much more logical to me than anything Alex had told me today. 

“You can say if it’s me,” I blurted out, before I could stop myself. I didn’t want to accuse Alex of lying, but it was far more plausible that I simply wasn’t good enough for her than that she felt inadequate for me. I added quietly: “I would understand if you just… didn’t want me.”  

Alex stared at me and I wanted to sink into the floor. I knew I sounded pathetic. 

Her gaze softened into something like pity, and somehow that startled me so much that I instantly wished I could take back my words. I averted my eyes and stared across the room at the grass in the atrium. Was there some kind of Frey power that would allow me to merge with the grass?

“Is that what you were thinking all along?” Alex asked after a few seconds of stunned silence. 

The green of the grass seemed to darken before my eyes with every second that I stared at it, but that might have been a side effect of the intensity with which I tried not to look at Alex. 

Yes, of course, that was what I had been thinking all along, because it made sense. Why would someone like Alex want to actually be with someone like me – awkward, weak Magnus Chase, who couldn’t even defend his friends the moment his self-maneuvering sword flew off?  

“If that’s the case…” I began, forcing the words through my teeth. “I’d really prefer if you just said so.” 

Because maybe then I could start trying to get over my romantic feelings for Alex Fierro and preserve our friendship - if only I finally knew what was going on. 

“Magnus,” Alex said sternly. “Magnus, look at me.” 

She touched my shoulder lightly and I almost flinched. Even though just a few seconds ago I had wanted nothing more than to be close to her, now I couldn't stand the thought of anyone touching me. Alex seemed to notice and quickly withdrew her hand. 

Her tone had been urgent enough to make me tear my eyes from the grass (was I hallucinating or was it seriously wilting now?) and face her again. 

“This is not about you,” she said, slowly and clearly, as if she were speaking to someone who was just starting to learn English. Her tone was stern and so ambiguous that I couldn’t tell if it was meant to put me at ease, or to tell me that I had overstepped by making everything about myself. 

Either way, I couldn’t help but believe her. I gulped as the metaphorical snake in my throat finally made room for air to reach my lungs. 

“Believe me, if… if anyone-”, Alex continued haltingly, avoiding my eyes as her cheeks took on a light pink hue. “If I would-... it would be you, if-...” 

She didn’t finish a coherent sentence, but what I heard was enough to make my heart race painfully. Was she trying to say what I thought she was trying to say? 

Alex let out a deep sigh that didn’t sound like she intended to finish the sentence she had started. Instead, she concluded: “But I can’t.” 

The resigned, definitive tone in her voice sent ice running through my veins. 

“Why not?” I asked again, still feeling like I was missing a major point in this conversation. 

A sad smile formed around Alex’s lips. “Because if I let you get that close, I will ruin you.” 

I shook my head. “You can’t know that.” 

“No, I can. That’s how it always ends.” There was no room for uncertainty in her voice. This was a statement that Alex truly believed.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. What could I possibly say to something like that? 

“Anyone who- who cares too much about me… it’s not ending well for them,” Alex continued. She unclenched her hands from the cushion and pulled one leg up on the couch to face me. She seemed to be preparing for a long conversation. 

“In the memory you saw today, you heard about my grandfather," she began. “He was probably the only member of my family who actually loved me, and appreciated me for who I am.” A slight, sad smile appeared on Alex’ face at the memory of her grandfather. “He did everything he could to defend me against my father and support me in every way possible. And where did it lead him?” Her expression darkened. “He died all alone in a nursing home, everyone thinking he had gone demented because my father couldn't bear to see him supporting me.” 

I wasn’t sure if I should comment on what she said, but when she paused, I simply had to jump in. “None of this is your fault, it’s clearly your father’s. He’s just a terrible-” 

“Yeah, I tried to think that, too,” she continued, an emptiness settling in her eyes. “But without me, without him caring so much about me, none of that would have happened. My father started slandering him and took away his company specifically out of spite over how much he liked me. They had always gotten along well before me.” 

Alex stared past me as she spoke, as if she wasn’t really telling me anything, but rather reciting thoughts that had already gone through her head a million times.

There were so many things I wanted to say. This did not sound like Alex at all - nor did it make much sense, at least to my ears. But I suspected that this went much deeper than simple logic that anyone who wasn't inside Alex's mind could understand. 

I opened my mouth without really knowing what the right words would be, but Alex didn't let me speak. 

“I know you want to tell me it's all my father's fault, but believe me, it's not. There's more. Adrian-" Her voice trailed off and she looked down. I instinctively followed her gaze and saw her hands frantically fiddling with the hem of her sweater vest. 

“You both got kicked out after the party,” I tried to help, when Alex didn’t finish the sentence. “And you think that’s your fault?” 

“I know it is,” she said firmly, without looking back up. “And what happened after definitely is.” 

The way her words reeked of self-hatred stung my heart like tiny daggers, but I knew I would not be able to get Alex to let go of that belief just like that, or at all. So, instead of trying to argue, I said: “You both ended up on the street. How did you manage?” 

Alex and I had never talked much about our shared experience of homelessness, perhaps because it wasn’t a time either of us liked to remember. But I had always had Blitz and Hearth to take care of me as best as they could; Alex had not had any magical babysitters, as far as I was aware. So, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know her exact answer.

“The first few weeks were… surprisingly okay," she replied hesitantly, against my expectations. “Adrian and I were doing fine at first.” 

Alex wasn’t one to sugarcoat things like that, but I found it difficult to believe. 

My expression seemed to tell her as much, so she explained: “The rest of the summer, we stayed in and around Salem. We slept in parks or went out into the woods to camp. I stole food and money by shapeshifting – I don’t think Adrian ever understood how I was able to do that. We weren’t starving or anything. And for the first time ever, we were both able to be ourselves, all day, every day. We had each other; we were in love, I guess. It was… nice.”  

I remembered my first few months on the streets, which had been anything but nice. Still, I understood where the sentiment Alex was describing was coming from, especially after having caught a glimpse of what Alex’s life had been like at home. Before my mom had died, all I had ever known was unconditional parental love and support; for Alex and Adrian, the situation had been vastly different. 

But I still didn't understand what had been so terrible about their situation that Alex still blamed herself for it, or how Adrian had ended up dead.

“It didn’t last long, of course…,” Alex continued in a resigned tone, as if she had read my thoughts. She let out a joyless laugh. “After all, we were two rich kids who weren’t used to much discomfort. The colder it got, the harder it was to find places to sleep and keep a positive attitude. I guess I don’t have to tell you how lack of sleep messes with your head. After a while, I decided to move on to Boston and Adrian followed me. He always did.” Alex lips hardened into a sad smile that looked more like a painful grimace than the result of a fond memory of an old friend. “We spent the winter in shelters, which sucked, because most of the people there were only slightly more accepting than our parents. Then I found this old man’s pottery studio, where I helped out sometimes, and he allowed us to sleep there from time to time. That made it a little easier, but… that winter had changed us both so much. It wasn’t- it wasn’t like before. I just didn’t feel like-... And Adrian’s mental health was getting worse and worse and-” 

The rest of those incomplete sentences got stuck in Alex’s throat. Her lips were pressed together and her eyebrows furrowed, as if she were incredibly angry at herself for not being able to form a coherent sentence. She was staring so intensely at the hem of her sweater vest that I half expected her gaze to leave scorch marks there. “I think- I think from the beginning Adrian loved me more than I loved him... but I just didn’t think-” 

Words failed her again, and with a jolt I realized that what I saw before me, was Alex Fierro on the verge of tears. 

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” I intervened, stumbling over my own words. “We can talk about this some other time or… never.” 

I didn’t know how to deal with crying people in general and I certainly didn’t know how to deal with a crying Alex. Watching her push through this story that was clearly causing her so much pain was pure torture.

Alex inhaled sharply and shook her head. “No. I have to- you have to understand,” she said, her voice steadier. “It’s just… I’ve never talked to anyone about this before. I don’t know how to -” 

She stopped herself again, and instead of finishing the sentence, she rubbed her hands over her face, as if to forcibly wipe away all the sadness that was showing. 

She stood up jerkily. “I have an idea.” Her voice abruptly changed to a cold, determined tone that frightened me a little. “I might be able to show you. That’ll be easier.” 

Before I could even begin to fathom what she could mean by that, she had walked over to her fireplace and grabbed something from the mantelpiece. 

What did she mean by ‘show me’ ? Was there a picture of Adrian or-

“Shit, what are you doing!?!” 

Before I fully realized what was going on, I sprang to my feet and practically jumped over the coffee table, as I watched Alex draw the long, silver hunting knife that had appeared in her hand down the length of her right forearm. By the time I managed to wrench the knife from her hand, the cut was about seven inches long and so deep that Alex’s einherji healing powers couldn't do much to stop the blood. It gushed from the wound at a frightening rate and trickled to the ground. 

I flung the knife across the room to get it as far away from Alex as possible. 

“What the hell was that??” I tried hard to keep my voice composed, but the shock made it shriller than I had intended. 

Alex, on the other hand, looked back at me, much calmer than before. The physical pain didn’t seem to bother her at all. She held the bloody arm up to me. 

“Heal me,” she said, as if that were the most rational answer. “Maybe I can show you the right memories if I concentrate.” 

I stared at her. “Have you lost your mind??” 

She swayed a little, probably from blood loss, and I grabbed her uninjured arm to steady her.  A wave of utter determination and a pain that had nothing to do with the cut washed over me as my fingers closed around her elbow. 

“No, Magnus. Just do it.”

“You hate it when I heal you!” 

She gave me a weak roll of the eyes. “It’s easier than trying to explain. You will understand better. And besides, if you don’t, I’ll probably bleed out in a few minutes and then this conversation is over anyway.” Her heterochromatic eyes met mine. There was a look of desperation in them. “Please, just do it,” she added, much more serious now. “I don’t think I can talk about it otherwise.” 

For a second, the stomach-churning, steady drip of Alex’s blood on the wooden floor filled my ears. My intestines seemed to be shrinking in on themselves. This wasn’t what my healing powers were for; it didn’t feel right. Besides, I wasn’t sure if it would work. Sure, the visions while healing Alex had been more intense than usual lately, but often when I healed someone, I didn’t see anything at all. 

Still, I caved under Alex's intense stare. “Fine,” I mumbled, pulling her back onto the sofa. It would be better if we were both sitting, after what had happened the last time I had healed Alex. “But don’t be mad if I see anything else, if-” 

“Just do it! This shit kind of hurts…” 

I took a sharp breath and gently cupped Alex’s right hand in both of mine, channeling the power of everything warm, bright, and comforting through my fingertips up her arm. 

Her veins pulsed under my hands as if I were holding her heart itself. The steady beat mingled with the sound of my own heart, pounding in anticipation of what was to come.

Chapter Text

Magnus

For the first time ever, I not only tried to heal, but also actively tried to open my mind to Alex’s. A kind of electrical static seemed to jump from her hand to my fingertips and back; it felt right to focus on that. A golden mist settled over my vision. Alex’s face – scrunched up in either concentration or pain – blurred before my eyes until I could only make out the green halo that was her hair. I closed my eyes. 

For a second, I was convinced it wouldn’t work. Behind my closed eyelids, there was nothing for me to see but darkness.  Then something tugged at my stomach as if I were on a roller coaster that had just dropped, and scenes started to form around me.

At first, I couldn’t take in much, but it was obvious that this was unlike anything I had ever experienced while healing someone. Various, seemingly unrelated scenes followed one another quickly and in a disjointed manner. Some scenes flashed by too quickly for me to process the situation, other memories materialized long enough to allow me to see what was going on . Alex seemed to be fast-forwarding through her memories of Adrian  – and I was now a part of them.

I found myself standing across from a shop entrance, where young Alex was huddled together with Adrian under a blanket that was far too thin to protect them from the icy wind that swept through the alley. They both looked skinnier than they had in the last memory I had witnessed. 

The surroundings changed abruptly and I found myself in a room that reminded me awfully of the dorm room at the shelter on Kingston Street. The bunk beds were empty except for the one in the far corner, which was occupied by Adrian and Alex, who were kissing passionately. Adrian started to plant kisses down the neck of a smiling Alex and I averted my gaze. I was certain that this was not intended for my eyes. 

The scene changed again: A blizzard was raging in this memory and Adrian, not even wearing a coat, was running down the street, away from the entrance from which Alex had just emerged. He (I realized instinctively) called out Adrian’s name and ran after him. 

I had to strain to hear their conversation. A constant white noise seemed to lie over this memory. 

“You’ll freeze to death if you leave now!” I heard Alex yell after Adrian, who didn’t stop even when Alex reached him and tried to grab his arm. I had to squint to see his expression in the snow: It was perfectly blank, his gaze hollow as he looked down the road. “Do you think I care?”

Alex’s response was lost in that persistent noise and I realized that the problems with my sight had nothing to do with the blizzard: Everything in this memory, as in the ones before it, was slightly blurry, less saturated, choppy, like those early black-and-white movies. This was obviously not a part of her memory that Alex often accessed. It was the part she kept tucked away, gathering dust like an old photo album full of painful memories.

The scenery changed again, and the swirling succesion of memories began to make me dizzy, as if I were on a merry-go-round. Alex reappeared just a few feet from where I was watching, her hair now shorter and darker than I had ever seen it before – the green must have grown out in between this memory and the one before. I couldn’t make out where this scene was taking place; everything but Alex’s face was blurred beyond recognition. She whirled around as if someone had called her name. Her eyes flashed with exasperation. I couldn’t see Adrian, but I knew that she was talking to him. 

“Can’t you ever leave me alone for more than one minute??” she snapped and disappeared before my eyes. 

The next memory felt a little more solid: I found myself in a small room in what I assumed was the pottery studio Alex had mentioned - some sort of storeroom. The walls were lined with shelves full of unused packs of clay, finished pots and other supplies. In one corner stood a tattered couch, that didn’t quite seem to belong in the room, and on that couch sat Alex, his hair now a little longer but still dark brown, without any trace of green. In his arms he cradled Adrian, who was sobbing so hard, I could feel the sound vibrating through my bones. Alex rubbed his back in comfort, but stared off into the distance, looking utterly overwhelmed. A wave of the helplessness that was part of this memory washed over me, making me feel even sicker than the rapidly changing scenes. 

Alex and Adrian disappeared, only to reappear a second later in the same room. This time, Alex was lying on the sofa, buried under two blankets, coughing and looking absolutely miserable. Adrian seemed to have just entered, with snow still clinging to his oversized jacket. His dark hair was shorter, but choppier than before, as if he had cut it himself with dull scissors. He unslung his backpack and dropped it at Alex’s side. 

“Here,” he said, reaching into his backpack. “I brought you some cough syrup. That was the last of the money, though.” 

Alex tried to sit up straighter and took the small package from Adrian with a bleak expression on his face. “Thanks,” he mumbled hoarsely. “I’m sorry you had to waste the money on this.”

“Don’t be, we’ll get more, somehow,” Adrian said confidently and gave Alex a radiant smile, that made it hard to believe he was the same person as the crying boy in the previous memory. “Consider it an anniversary present.” 

Alex coughed again. “Anniversary?” 

Adrian's face fell a little at Alex's confused expression, but he continued to smile. "It's Valentine's Day! Last year was the first time we kissed." 

"Oh." Alex averted his gaze and pulled the blanket higher up his chin.

If Adrian found anything unusual in that reaction, he didn’t let it show. “I have something else for you.” He rummaged through the backpack again and pulled out a knitted item: A green and pink plaid sweater vest that looked all too familiar. 

“Your favorite colors!” he said excitedly. When Alex didn't immediately respond, he added, "I found it in a dumpster behind H&M. Brand new, even the tag's still on." 

“Wow. Thanks.” Maybe it was the illness, but Alex didn’t sound too happy about the anniversary present. Whether Adrian noticed or not, I wouldn’t find out because the room began to fade again. 

A second later, I was standing on a sidewalk, somewhere in Roxbury, I guessed. Alex and Adrian were lingering around the corner from a convenience store, talking in low voices. Judging by the way they looked, not much time had passed between this and the previous memory, but Alex seemed to be in good health again.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she murmured. “You don’t have to.” 

Adrian peered at the supermarket. “Yes,” he said, but sounded anything but confident. “You’re right, I have to learn. I can’t always let you do the dirty work.” 

Alex nodded. “All right, but be careful.” 

“Do I get a kiss for good luck?” Adrian asked with a cheeky grin. Alex didn’t answer but leaned in for what looked like it was supposed to be a quick peck on the lips. Adrian, however, deepened the kiss, holding on to Alex's waist. 

When they broke apart, Alex’s smile seemed forced. 

“Be right back!” Adrian called, more assured than before, and ran around the corner. 

As soon as he was out of sight, Alex’s smile faded and she let out a deep sigh, as she leaned against the nearest wall.

“You don’t love him anymore.” 

Memory-Alex and I both jumped at the sound of the voice right next to her ear. She looked to her right and I followed her gaze. 

A woman with sharp features and fiery red hair, glistening in the low afternoon sun, had appeared, leaning against the wall right next to Alex. The family resemblance was undeniable. 

“Mother," Alex said. Her voice sounded pleasantly surprised; not as angry as Alex sounded these days when talking to or about her mother. “What are you doing here?” 

Loki smiled coldly. "Intervene, my dear." She smoothed out the non-existent wrinkles on the dark green pantsuit she had appeared in. “It's getting really tiring to watch you two. I couldn't bear to see you lie to that poor boy any longer.” 

The color drained from Alex's cheeks. She averted her eyes. "I’m not lying to him." 

“Yes, you are.” Loki spoke as if she was genuinely trying to give Alex motherly advice, but there was an attentive edge to her tone that made me want to warn Alex. Naturally, I couldn’t say a word; I was here to watch. 

“You haven’t loved him in a long time now. And you pretend that you do. That’s lying, Alex, dear.  You may be my child, but you're not as good at it as you think you are. He'll find out soon enough.” 

Alex swallowed hard, still staring in the direction of the store, as if she wanted to make sure that Adrian wasn’t coming back just yet. “But I do love him. Just not… not like that. Not anymore.” She turned back to her mother, the look on her face desperate. The words kept pouring out of her mouth: “It’s just not the same anymore! I’m not the same. And he… he has these mood swings and he’s so terribly sad sometimes. I just don’t know how- how to deal with it. And he’s always there. I just want to be alone sometimes. And I-” 

“No need to explain yourself, dear. I’m not here to judge you!” Loki held a hand dramatically to her chest in feigned indignation at the thought that Alex could think that. “You are just like me. We’re not made for the kind of relationship your little friend is striving for. We change too much.” 

Alex crossed her arms and pressed her lips close together. For a few seconds, I thought she had realized that Loki was probably not here for her welfare and would now refuse to talk to her, but then she continued: “I’ve been thinking about breaking up with him.” 

Loki nodded encouragingly. 

“But I… I’m scared that it will hurt him too much.” 

“Well, don’t you think, it would hurt even more when he realizes that you’re lying to him; that you’re faking all the feelings he thought were real?” 

Alex didn't get a chance to reply as Adrian came scurrying around the corner with some bananas, a loaf of bread and a couple of boxes of hair dye in his arms. From a distance I heard the beeping of the supermarket's anti-theft system. 

“It would be better for both of you,” Loki murmured before Adrian ran past them, grabbed Alex’s hand and pulled her with him. 

The scene began to spin again and disappeared before my eyes. 

I wanted to get out, I decided. I had a dark premonition of where this was going and I didn't want to see it. But this was not a decision I had any say in, I realized. 

Somewhere in the back of my consciousness, I was still aware of holding on to Alex’s hand – in the present, in her room – but I didn’t manage to let go. It felt like we were glued together. 

Even though the sickening feeling in my stomach protested, the new scene materialized before my eyes. Or at least parts of it. This memory was even fuzzier than some of the others. All I could see was the back of a head with green curls – Alex, I assumed, with freshly dyed hair – and Adrian’s frighteningly still face across from her. Their surroundings were a single blur, as if Alex's eyes hadn’t really taken them in either. 

“... we can still be friends though!” I heard Alex say, forcing the words out but still trying to keep a lighthearted tone. “We’ll stick together; keep trying to find a way to put all of this behind us–” 

I wasn’t sure if Adrian heard what Alex said. His posture was rigid and stiff like a statue, his face expressionless, indifferent. His glassy eyes seemed to look right through Alex. 

“–nothing much will change, I swear… we just won’t be together- together anymore. We’ll both be more independent–”

The only betrayal of the feelings churning inside of Adrian was in his hands. He had clenched them into fists, so hard that it looked like his knuckles were about to pop out. 

“It’ll be better this way, for both of us.” 

Adrian’s face blurred, like someone was smudging fresh paint on a canvas. Then he disappeared. 

I hoped that this would be the end of our trip down memory lane, but apparently Alex wasn’t done yet. The scenery changed again, and although everything was still blurry, I recognized the new location as the sidewalk outside the shelter where I had once smashed the radio. Alex was standing by the front door talking to a tired looking social worker who had just stepped out for a smoke and seemed to regret his decision.

“No,” he said, rubbing his forehead with impatience. “Like I told you before, I have not seen your friend. I can’t help you.” 

“But he’s got to be somewhere!” Alex said, desperation creeping into her voice. A look at her face put a weight on my chest. There were dark circles under her eyes, which looked shiny and feverish as if she hadn’t slept in days. Her hair was tangled and greasy and she looked so thin, I wondered when she had last eaten. “I’ve looked everywhere! I asked everyone-” 

“Sorry, kid, but I don’t know what to do either.” The social worker frowned, took a drag of his cigarette, and blew the smoke in Alex’s direction. “You could file a missing person report with the police... but maybe your friend just went back home? Which you should do, too, by the way. How old are you? Sixteen? Younger?" 

Alex’s eyes sparkled darkly. “He did not go home. I know that. And my age is none of your business.” 

“Maybe your friend’s that kid from the Longfellow Bridge.” 

Alex spun around. A few feet down the sidewalk, an old lady I remembered from the streets - the one who collected everything she came across in her shopping cart - was leaning against the brick wall of the building. She was clinging on to her shopping cart as if she was ready to fight anyone who would dare pry it from her, which was probably the reason why she wasn’t allowed inside the shelter.

“What?” Alex asked, irritated, her eyes narrowing. 

The woman, whose name I had forgotten, began to rock the shopping cart back and forth, like a stroller with a sleeping baby in it, as she talked. “Old Frank told me about it. He always camps out down by the river, you know. He saw them pulling a body out the other day. A young kid. Must have jumped off Longfellow Bridge, they said.” 

Longfellow Bridge. My insides felt like they had been shock-frozen. The same place I had died. Did Alex even know that? 

Had I had a physical form in this memory, I was sure my face would have looked as ashen as Alex's as she stared at the old woman for a few seconds in stunned silence.

She gulped and furrowed her eyebrows. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not saying it is.” The old woman shrugged. She did not sound particularly bothered by what she had just told or the murderous glare Alex was now throwing her. Maybe she didn’t even notice, since she was so busy rocking her shopping cart. 

The social worker gave her an uneasy look. “Betty, that’s not a very nice thing to say. I’m sure this is not-” 

“I have to go,” Alex announced with a look on her face like she was about to throw up.

The social worker made half a step to follow Alex as she stormed down the street, but then changed his mind, shrugged and threw his cigarette on the sidewalk to stub it out. 

As the it hit the ground, the street disappeared beneath my feet and I fell. 

I immediately landed in a new scene, against my best hopes that I would finally be freed from these memories. 

Before I could even take in my surroundings, I heard something that shattered my heart. A sob, no, a scream, or a mix of both, so gut-wrenching that I was sure I started crying, too. Not here, but in another world, somewhere where I had a physical form. 

Here, I wasn’t really there. The only person in the room that had materialized around me was Alex, sitting all alone in a corner on the floor of what looked like the main room of the pottery studio where some of the other memories had taken place. 

This room was long and colorless, with concrete floors and dirty, gray tables each with a pottery wheel in the middle. 

But my eyes were drawn to Alex, curled up in a ball on the floor in the far corner of the room. She was wearing the sweater vest, her fists buried in its fabric. Sobs shook her body, which looked fragile and small, as if the next tremor might break it. A single newspaper page lay at her feet. I couldn't make out what it said, but I didn't need to. I knew what had happened. 

Pain radiated through every single particle of my consciousness and I wasn’t sure if that pain was simply seeping out of this memory or if it stemmed from seeing Alex like this. Maybe it was both. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could bear it. 

Alex's sobs grew increasingly frustrated, until she finally jumped up and grabbed a vase from the nearest shelf. With a loud scream, she threw it across the room, where it shattered against a wall. 

“Loki!!” Alex cried, her voice a harsh shriek. She grabbed the next vase. This time it landed on the floor in front of her. “Show yourself!” 

Nothing happened. Alex dragged her sleeve across her tear-stained face before the next ceramic went flying. Smash. “MOTHER!!!” Alex screamed again, her voice echoing through the empty room. “I know you’re listening!!” She hurled another vase across the room as she continued to scream: “Stop fucking hiding, you-” 

The vase never hid the floor. The lack of the expected smashing sound made Alex stop in her tracks, and I saw her eyes follow the trajectory of the object she had just thrown. 

Where it should have hit the concrete floor, Loki had appeared, this time looking the way I had come to know him, with tousled, dirty blond hair streaked with strands of fiery red and faint scars around his lips. He wore an all-black suit, as if to join Alex in her mourning.

He casually held the vase where he had caught it. “Tsk, Tsk, Tsk.” He shook his head at his child. “Someone made this, Alex. You can’t just throw other people’s things around.” 

Alex, seemingly still recovering from the fact that Loki had actually shown up, did not look like she cared whose things she was vandalizing. A hollow shadow settled over her eyes as the angry tension left her body and she shrank in on herself. “Adrian’s dead,” she said, the voice that had previously screamed so loudly now hoarse and broken. 

I had known the terrible truth since this memory had materialized around me, yet Alex’s words hit me like a punch to the gut. 

Loki carefully placed the vase in his hands on the table beside him. “I know. What a terrible tragedy,” he said, the fakeness of his sympathy evident in every word. The gaze with which he regarded Alex – whose whole body was now trembling with the emotions she was trying to hold in  – was anything but compassionate. Rather calculated; at best slightly amused, as if trying to anticipate what might happen next. 

I wanted to put myself between Alex and that callous stare, but I couldn’t move. 

“Tragedy??” Alex asked with a quiver, her hands clenched into fists. “It’s your fault! You told me to break up with him! You told me it would be better for both of us!!!” Her voice broke and the tears rushed back into her eyes.

Loki’s face stretched into a vicious grin, and for a second I thought I saw his real face, the one that was bound in the cave, with traces of snake venom splattered all across his cheeks, flickering through whatever magic he had used to materialize in front of Alex. 

“Oh, Alex…” he said and shook his head in disappointment as he took a few slow steps towards her. “This is so typical of you. Always trying to blame someone else.” 

Alex backed up against the shelf behind her, but didn’t seem to find the words to object.

“You know as well as I do that I had nothing to do with his death.” Loki was only a few feet away from Alex now, speaking softly but so pervasively that I felt the words vibrate in my bones. “You know it was your fault, my dear.” 

Alex’s reddened eyes went wide as she stared up at her parent. In her ashen face, her two-toned irises looked almost reflective, like those of a deer caught in the headlights. “W-what? No. No, that’s not true, you told me to-” 

Loki rolled his eyes. “You humans and your linear thinking. Be honest, Alex, you would have broken up with him anyway, sooner or later. And he would have done what he did, sooner or later. Some paths are predestined. The breakup was merely the final… push over the ledge.” Alex winced at the wording, and Loki grinned, his head tilted. “Too literal?” 

Alex gulped, as if to keep her tears at bay, and wiped her face again. “So, you’re saying it’s nobody’s fault? It’s the universe that sucks.” 

“Not exactly.” Loki took another step toward Alex, and it looked a lot more like he was trying to corner her than have a comforting conversation with his child. “The moment you think is crucial here, had nothing to do with Adrian’s death. But you are the one who led him down this path. Months ago, when he started falling in love with you, and you let him believe that you had fallen, too.” 

“B-but I loved him! I wasn’t lying, I-” Alex tried, but it didn’t sound like she believed her own words. Her knees buckled. 

I felt the urge to leap forward and steady her, but of course that wouldn't have helped. 

Instead, Loki stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Alex – how, when there was no way he was actually physically present at that moment, I didn’t know. I guessed that he was trying to hug, but it was clear that he had not had much practice hugging people. His arms simply enclosed Alex's upper body. It looked more like Loki was holding her in place than embracing her. It didn’t help either that Alex stiffened and assumed the posture of a plank. 

“I’m not here to assign blame, Alex,” Loki said bittersweetly. He did not let go. 

I wanted to grab him and force him away from Alex, only to realize once again that there was nothing I could do about something that had long since passed. 

“I’m here to help you,” he continued, the sinister edge in his voice making it hard to believe his words. “I’m here to help you understand that you are my child through and through. You are not made to love. You and I were made to bring chaos, to destroy. And that’s what you did, you brought chaos into this boy's life. You only fulfilled your nature. There’s no fault in that.” 

Alex did not sob, did not breathe, did not make a sound. Her face was hidden by Loki's body, but I could see her shoulders trembling. 

“So, I killed him?” I was surprised at how calm her voice sounded, almost resigned. 

Loki finally let go of her and I was certain she would collapse, but she did not move at all. Instead, she kept her eyes on the floor where the tattered newspaper page lay.

 “If that's how you want to see it. Sure.” Loki shrugged. “But it’s not something you could have averted. You, like me, will always drag down the people who grow to love you. Just look at my wife, Sigyn. Every day she throws her life away for me - and has done so for centuries. Out of love, I suppose. Love that I will never reciprocate. Loving me destroys her. And so it should be. For you and for me. It’s our destiny.” 

Alex looked up, and for the first time in these memories, I saw a hint of the expressionless, resigned mask that Alex tended to assume nowadays instead of showing her emotions. She looked like a prisoner who had finally accepted her inevitable death sentence. My heart clenched. 

She remained silent and Loki continued, even though I used all my willpower to telepathically force him to shut up and leave Alex alone. “The sooner you recognize the truth, the sooner you can use the chaos that emerges from moments like this for your own good. And that’s what I’m here for. To help you realize the power you posses. If you claim it.” 

Alex's eyes narrowed. “ Good ?” she asked, her hoarse voice deep and dangerous. “Do you think I would want any good to come of this???” 

She grew louder, and a wave of fury and despair flooded the memory, crashing over me as a burning sensation. 

She pointed accusingly at the newspaper on the floor. “Adrian is dead. I made him hate himself so much that he jumped off a bridge. And when his parents got the news, they pretended to care and published that stupid obituary, but they didn’t even use his name. They used the one he despised.”  Alex’s voice broke, but she kept pushing the words out. “I can’t fix any of this because I’m the one who broke it all!! How could I possibly use any of this for my own good ?!?”

Alex hollered those last words in Loki’s face, but the god didn’t even flinch. Instead, he sneered down at Alex. “You seem to have understood your part in all this… good, good. And now that you are so angry at who you are and what you have done, use that feeling. The chaos inside you, the emptiness; it can help you access magic you have not dared to dream of. Where there’s emptiness, there’s room for power. You are my child, Alex. Mine. You could become one of my most powerful children if you dare to fill that space inside of you. Together we will realize your full potential.” 

I saw what was happening here: This was Loki’s attempt to lure Alex over to his side. It wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that this had all been carefully orchestrated by him to push Alex to this emotional breaking point. 

Loki had made an empty cup out of her. One he could use for his evil master plan to bring about the end of the worlds. 

But he had not taken into account Alex's stubbornness and good heart. 

“I can shape-shift, I do not need any more magic,” Alex replied, no longer screaming, not because she didn't want to, but because she looked too tired to try. “And I am not yours! I belong to myself, and I won’t do anything you want me to do! Now get out!!!” 

Something in Loki’s eyes glinted dangerously, but he kept his grin. “You called me, remember? I will leave when I see fit.” 

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” Alex grabbed another vase from the shelf and tried to smash it over Loki’s head, but it went right through him, his appearance suddenly no more solid than smoke. 

Loki looked completely unfazed by the attack and continued calmly: “With what you're feeling now, you turn something as simple as a clay cutter into a deadly weapon, you could learn to burn your enemies with the touch of your hand. You could force the truth from the mouths of notorious liars with your words alone. I could show you how--” 

“I don’t want any of that!” Alex interrupted resolutely, and I had to admit that a spark of pride flickered in my chest as I watched her defy Loki’s silver tongue. “What I want is for Adrian to come back and live a happy life, but that’s not gonna happen. And that fact may destroy me, but I won’t let you gain anything from it!”  

With that, Alex turned into a cheetah and lunged at Loki. But when Alex’s claws were an inch away from his face, the god dissolved into thin air. 

Alex immediately turned back and landed on her butt on the cold floor. She looked around frantically for her parent, but the god had not reappeared. Yet somehow, words of scorn from Loki’s mouth seemed to echo through the air. “I would have thought you stronger, Alex.” 

The cold stone floor beneath me became as immaterial as Loki, and I fell once again.

This time, the fall did not end in another memory. It went on and on, and I knew I had to let go - in that other plane of reality, where I was clinging on to Alex’s arm. 

Easier said than done. 

I tried to draw my arm back, to loosen fingers that I could neither see nor feel, but I couldn't. Not while I was falling through whatever came beneath Alex’s memories.

Chapter Text

Magnus

For a dreadful second, I feared that I wouldn’t manage to get out - that I had wandered too far into Alex’s mind to ever find my way back. 

Then, with a jerk, I wrenched myself free, and my consciousness roughly dropped back into my body. 

Immediately, the urge to throw up built up in my reoccupied throat. Everything was spinning. I brought a hand to my mouth but managed to keep the contents of my stomach inside. I noticed that my face was wet. When I forced my eyes open, they felt heavy and stuck together. I must have been crying.

I quickly wiped my flushed face. I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly so embarrassed to cry in front of Alex – she knew I wasn’t the most stoic person; she had even seen me cry over a stupid Doctor Who episode once. What I had just witnessed definitely warranted a few tears, in my opinion. 

Perhaps I was caught off guard by the fact that Alex herself didn’t look any more disturbed than before our little trip down memory lane. She was sitting across from me on the sofa. The arm I had been holding until a few seconds ago had fallen limply into her lap; there was no trace of a wound left. Her face was empty. There were no tears, no emotion whatsoever. Her eyes looked dull and tired in the dim light of the room. She had put on her well-worn mask, which locked me out of whatever was going on inside of her. 

That was fair, I supposed. I had already seen more than anyone should ever see.

The only hint that she had relived the same agonizing memories I had been forced to watch was her trembling hands as she fumbled with the hem of her sweater vest again - the sweater vest I now knew the origin of. I highly doubted this was still the original one – Valhalla probably just spawned a new one each time Alex destroyed one in a fight – but she still used this gift from Adrian as her battle armor. 

Gods. Adrian. What had I just witnessed?

I was seized by the urge to hug Alex, to hold her tight and try to ease the terrible pain I felt inside her. But I knew she wouldn’t want me to. So instead, I drew a shaky breath and rubbed my eyes again. 

“D-don’t-” I started hoarsely. It was difficult to convince my vocal cords to jump back into action. “-don’t e-ever do that again.” 

I nodded my head vaguely towards Alex’s arm, hoping she understood I  meant not only the unpleasant journey through those traumatic events, but also the deliberate self-harm that had led to it. 

Alex nodded briefly. “Sorry,” she said, her voice as emotionless as her face. “It won’t happen again. But it was the only way for you to see it all for yourself. You had to understand. Now you do.” 

Although the last sentence was a statement, the expectant gleam in her eyes made it seem like a question.

“Alex, I-” I began to stammer, not sure what to say. 

Did I understand it now? Yes, I thought I did - just maybe not in the way Alex was expecting me to. 

I swallowed and tried to speak as calmly as possible. “I understand that you’ve been through some extremely traumatic times. And that both Loki and your father used that to manipulate you into thinking it was your fault.” 

Alex looked at me like she needed a moment to process my words. The left corner of her mouth started to twitch as if she were about to laugh at me, but she only looked away to stare back down at her hands. 

“You’re too good,” she finally said. If I wasn’t mistaken, I detected a hint of scorn in her voice. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, so I remained silent and let her continue.

She let out a joyless chuckle. “I showed you how I caused my best friend to kill himself, and yet you still try to take the blame off me.”

Maybe I should have been hurt by how unfavorably Alex spoke of my so-called ‘goodness’, but all it did was wrap an icy hand around my throat. Did Alex really think so poorly of herself that she thought she didn’t deserve any goodness? 

“Alex, Adrian was… ill,” I began, trying my best to speak clearly through my tightened throat. “He needed help that you couldn't provide because you were a child. All you did was try to be honest - to spare him more pain.”

“And yet all I did was cause pain,” Alex said, looking up to meet my gaze. “You heard it. That’s all I’m meant to do - my intentions are irrelevant. I’m a child of Loki, and even if I reject my mother, there’s nothing I can change about that.”

“That is not true. Loki was trying to use you,” I said, feeling increasingly helpless at the unshakable certainty in Alex’s voice. 

She ignored me. “We all have predestined fates. That’s kind of the whole point of Norse mythology. When a god tells you that your fate is to cause pain… you don’t have much choice but to believe it. And I-” She gulped. Her stare wandered past me, as if she physically couldn’t bear to look me in the eye any longer. “I don’t want to cause you pain. Don’t you understand?” 

That shut me up for a good minute. Didn’t Alex know that this - seeing her still believing every word Loki had said all those years ago - was already hurting me? 

I was tempted to tell her so, but I didn’t think it would make her feel any better. In fact, I was sure there was absolutely nothing I could say to make her feel better, and that pained me even more. This belief that Loki had planted in Alex would not disappear just like that. But how it had managed to take hold of her and clasp her so tightly, even after all these years, was unclear to me. It went against everything I knew about Alex. 

“Loki is a liar,” I said carefully, when I found my voice again. “You know that. Why do you believe what he told you about your fate?” 

Alex stayed quiet for a few seconds. She continued to stare past me so intensely that I almost turned to see what on earth she was looking at – but I had the feeling, she was staring at something no one but her could see. 

When she finally spoke, her voice had returned to that neutral, yet strangely heart-breaking tone. She sounded defeated. “Maybe because there isn't much to argue against it. I've ruined too many lives.”

I shook my head intently. “Alex, you’ve made so many lives so much better!” I tried to keep my voice calm, but that was easier said than done with the ball of emotions churning in my stomach. “Sam loves you so much. Blitz and Hearth, the kids at the Chase Space… You give them all so much, just by being you. They don’t care about Loki. I don’t care. And I lo-... I-... You make my life better.” 

Alex raised a single eyebrow, her eyes finally wandering back to my face. “Am I?” she asked sarcastically. “Then why are you crying?” 

I hastily wiped my face. “I’m not- That’s not-”

“You know, I really tried to own it,” Alex continued, completely ignoring what I had just said. “From that day on, I despised Loki and vowed to make the powers he gave me my own. I used the pain to create weapons like my garrote, like Loki suggested and I perfected my shapeshifting abilities - but for myself, not to help any god. I accepted my fate as Loki's child. I became good at caring for myself and no one else - I had no one else left to care about anyway. I tried to take what I wanted and leave others behind.” 

Alex paused for a second as her voice grew frustrated. Still, I didn’t dare to speak and interrupt her monologue. 

“But – and this is the worst part – I’m not even good at it. If I were just a little more selfish, a little less... human, I would just keep going and do whatever I wanted. I would use you until I didn't want you anymore, and then ignore what that did to you. But I can’t. I can’t help being terrified of what I’ve done to you just by letting you get as close as I already have.” 

The corner of her mouth began to twitch again as if she couldn’t control all of her facial muscles anymore. If I wasn’t mistaken, Alex's mask was beginning to crumble. 

She lowered her eyes and continued in a low voice: “You know, I never wanted any of this - this afterlife, all these friends, a sister, you…- when I first realized that I was… catching feelings for you, I- I swore to myself that I would keep you at a distance. I made fun of you and teased you all day long, but you just didn’t- you didn’t care. Then, in Niflheim, I was convinced we were going to die. I was so angry that it would end this way, that we would fail. So I thought I deserved one last good thing, and I kissed you. And a few hours later, you went and declared that it was the best moment of your life. After that… everything had changed. It was like a dam had broken, and I just couldn’t hide my feelings anymore. And that’s bad enough. I cannot let this go any further. I can’t let you get any closer. Even if I wanted to.” 

“Well, would you want to?” The question spilled from my mouth before I even knew it had formed in my mind. 

I wasn’t sure, if I wanted to know the answer - or which option would make all of this worse to bear. 

Alex gave me a pained look that seemed to ask why I was torturing her with such questions. Her voice was emotionless when she replied: “What I want is irrelevant.” 

Why did that sound like a "yes", and why did that hurt so much more than a simple "no"? 

Suddenly, I desperately wished that my previous suspicion about why Alex didn’t want to be with me had proven true. If she simply didn't like me, if it was something I could blame myself for, it would be easier to deal with. Blaming myself was a familiar feeling - not as new and overwhelming as the pressure that was now threatening to crush my chest. 

“That’s what Freya was talking about, right?” I asked, because it was the only thing I felt I could say without starting to cry again; and because it was another puzzle piece I had collected today that suddenly fit into the bigger picture. “She said you are rejecting her greatest gift.” 

Love . The word hung in the air between us; neither of us spoke it out loud. 

I tried to catch Alex's gaze again, but she kept staring at her hands with determination. 

“So? It doesn't matter if some tacky goddess takes offense at how I live my life," she said, her teeth clenched. “She has no idea what I'm risking... I couldn't bear to let what happened to Adrian happen to anyone else.” 

I knew there was little use in repeating it, but I needed Alex to hear it again: “That was not your fault.” 

“You don’t know that!” she snapped, louder than before. Irritation flickered in her eyes, as if she still couldn't comprehend how I could not despise her after what I had seen. 

“You just showed me,” I countered, carefully trying to keep Alex's gaze focused on me. “You told me I had to see for myself, and I did. All I saw was that you went through absolutely horrible things-” 

“I killed him, Magnus!”  

The sharp certainty of those words felt like they cut right through my skin to my heart. It took me a moment for me to find my voice again. “Loki wanted you to believe that - to use you,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper. I knew my words wouldn't do much good, but I continued anyway, “but he's wrong. You're not like him. You don't bring pain.” 

Alex’s eyes softened for a second, and I thought maybe I had gotten through to her. But the small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth made her expression look pitiful, like a teacher looking at a very adorable yet very stupid child who just didn’t manage to understand the simplest fact.  “Look, even if- even if you're right... if this is all in my head, and my life has just been a series of unfortunate coincidences-” 

She did not sound like she deemed that option probable, and my heart sank again, 

“-and believe me, I wish it were. I really do,” she added, her voice so quiet, I had trouble hearing her. “I couldn’t risk it. I would never stop being terrified of what it would do to you if I allowed you to fall in love with me.” 

“But I am already in love with you!!”  I wanted to shout, because it was true. And maybe that was why all of this was so painful – not because I was being rejected by the person I liked, but because the person I loved was sitting across from me, thoroughly explaining why she didn’t think she deserved love. 

No one deserved love more than Alex Fierro, I was sure of that.

I wanted to tell her all that. I wanted to tell her that even if she was right - which she wasn’t - I wouldn’t care what loving her would do to me. “Let it destroy me, I don’t care,” I wanted to say. I wanted to tell her that it was too late anyway. 

But I didn’t. Something about the way Alex’s eyebrows furrowed with anxiety told me that this was exactly what she feared to hear. I didn’t want her to be so afraid because of me.  

So, I swallowed the feelings that were building up in my throat. “Okay,” I said, straining to keep my voice from breaking.

“Okay?” Alex asked. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. 

Every cell in my body rebelled against giving up so easily, but there was nothing left to say. I knew I would keep trying to convince Alex that she was worthy of love, even if it took centuries. But I also knew I had to do so from a distance that felt safer to her. 

My heart felt like it had gained a thousand pounds, when I said: “I can’t claim that I fully understand, nor do I think you’re right, but… of course, I’ll respect your feelings about… us. We’re friends, okay? Nothing else.”

Alex’s eyes bored into mine as if she were looking for a catch in my words. Surprised by my sudden surrender, she had even stopped fiddling with her sweater and her hands had fallen limply into her lap. 

“Fine,” she said, skepticism evident in her tone. She seemed to suspect that I wasn’t done saying what I needed to say.

She suspected correctly. “I do have one request, though,” I forced out after a few seconds of trying to get my vocal cords to cooperate.

Alex narrowed her eyes slightly to show that she was listening, albeit sceptically. 

“No more kissing, okay? I don’t think I could handle that.” 

I knew this was the only viable option. If we just went back to how it was a few weeks ago - back to Alex kissing me out of the blue every now and then, and me never knowing if those kisses meant as much to her as they did to me - then sooner or later, things were bound to turn sour. We were going to spend the next few hundred, maybe thousand years, living on the same floor. This was the only way to keep our friendship from falling apart, the only way to prevent us from hating each other's guts in a hundred years. 

Still, the thought of never kissing Alex again made me want to burst into tears once more.

Her expression didn't help matters. She looked like she was about to throw something. 

“You’re right,” she finally replied, but she did not sound any happier about this conversation than I felt. “It’s probably for the best.” 

I nodded. “Okay. Great,” I said, even though nothing about this evening had been either okay or great.  I tried to act casual, but had no idea what we were supposed to do now. I shifted in my seat. “So, uh-” 

“Get out,” Alex said, resolving my indecision. Her voice was sharp, but not with anger, sharp with pain, as if something were cutting her up from the inside. “Please,” she added, softer. 

I forced myself to stand up, even though my legs were shaking almost too much to support my weight. 

I wanted to hug her, hug the person I was closest to in my life, because I needed it as much as I knew she did. But I couldn’t. Alex felt farther away from me than she ever had before. 

“Alex, I-” I started again, not knowing what I wanted to say. 

When I looked back at the sofa, Alex had already turned into a black cat, as if she no longer had the energy left to keep up her human form, and was curled up in between the soft cushions, her back turned to me. 

I got the message.

Without another word, I left the room, wondering what in the worlds had just happened and why it felt like such a big mistake.

By the time I closed my bedroom door behind me, climbing into bed and staying there for at least a few days was the only thing I could imagine doing. The exhaustion that I had managed to delay finally caught up with me and seeped into each of my nerves. 

My journey through Alex’s memories had left me with a dull headache that only seemed to worsen by the second. The fact that my mind kept going back to the conversation I had just left didn’t help at all. Alex may have stayed in the other room, but she occupied each of my thoughts. 

In addition to the exhaustion and deep-seated sadness that seemed to be consuming me from the inside out, I now also felt hatred boiling in my stomach. 

I hated Loki. I hated Alex’s father. I hated them both so much for what they had done to Alex, for being responsible for the dejected look in her eyes when she had told me that she didn’t want to cause me pain. 

And I hated myself for not being able to make her see herself the way I saw her, for not being able to help her. 

The urge to punch my fist right through the wall of my living room with the little energy I had left crept up on me. I think I would have given in to it if it weren’t for Jack. I had left him in runestone form on the coffee table earlier and he chose that moment to jump into sword form and yell: “Señor!!” 

Startled, I leaped onto the table with a shriek. Sure, maybe I should be used to Jack turning into a sword whenever he wanted to by now, but having a sword sneak up on you during emotionally vulnerable moments is just something you couldn’t get used to. 

“Can you please not do that!?” I said, momentarily shaken out of my depressing thoughts. 

Jack ignored me. “Where have you been? It’s way past midnight! I sang through three Taylor Swift albums waiting for you.” 

Great, I thought, now my sword is giving me a curfew?  

Besides, as bad as my experience in Alex’s room had been, it had probably still been better than having to listen to Jack sing that much Taylor Swift. We really had to work on his taste in music.

Jack didn’t seem to notice my annoyed expression and kept going. “We have to talk about Bragi!! We need to make plans. Let’s look for the Fossegrim. That can’t be too hard! I’ll help-” 

“Jack,” I managed to interrupt. I rubbed my forehead in exhaustion. The very last thing I wanted to think about right now was Bragi. “I really don’t have the energy to talk about that right now.” 

“But we’re soooo close! It’s just-” Jack paused for a second and hovered closer. “Hey, wait. Were you crying?” 

This was just perfect. Now I would have to open up emotionally to my sword. Sometimes I really fucking hated my life. 

“Yes, so what?” I replied, harsher than I intended. I walked over to the kitchen sink to grab a glass of water, hoping it would help with my headache. Of course, Jack followed. 

“What happened?” he asked politely, but there was an undercurrent in his voice, as if he were buzzing with anticipation to get back to the really important subject. 

I debated for a moment whether to say anything at all. Jack wasn’t exactly the most empathetic sword and I was sure Alex wouldn’t appreciate me sharing her memories with him. 

Still, talking about what I could share was probably better than keeping it all bottled up. I sighed, gripping the glass I was filling harder than necessary.

“Alex and I somehow managed to break up without ever having been together. We’re done, once and for all.” 

“Oh,” Jack just said and for a second, he went uncharacteristically quiet. 

I used that second to force down a few gulps of water, which wasn’t easy with the giant lump in my throat. 

Then, Jack lit up - literally, his blade began to glow golden - and he said: “Okay, well, that’s good news!!” 

As I said: not the most empathetic sword. 

“How so?” I asked, my voice strained, as anger started to creep up my throat. 

Jack didn’t seem to notice or care. He continued in a cheerful, aggravating tone: “Now, you can focus on getting me my epic!!” 

“Are you serious right now??” 

“I told you, you don’t need a lover. They’re just distractions. That’s what I told Frey, too, but of course he never listened… I knew you were smarter. Now, we can find Bragi on our own and-” 

“Jack!!” I snapped when I finally got the chance to interrupt. I had enough. How could a sword be so damn selfish? Did he never even stop for a second to think about others? 

For a mean, terrible second, I thought I finally understood why my father had traded in Sumarbrander so carelessly. 

“I don’t care about Bragi!! I don’t care about your stupid epic!!! I’m only doing this quest because of a stupid thing I accidentally said in a life-or-death situation!! And because of that, Alex almost died today, the Chase Space was almost attacked by wolves. All because of you and this stupid epic!” 

Somewhere deep down, I knew I was being too harsh. Technically, it was all my fault, not Jack’s.

However, in that moment, my exhausted and overwhelmed brain did not think that far ahead, and the anger that had been building for days pushed the words out: “I just got back from possibly the worst night of my life, and you can't even let it be for a single day??  Are you seriously that blind to other people’s feelings, or are you just selfish??”

Jack’s blade quickly lost its golden glow as I spoke. The sharpest, most brilliant blade in the nine worlds suddenly looked dull and colorless. 

That realization left me with a dull ache in my chest, but it wasn’t enough to extinguish my burning anger. 

“I- I thought we were friends,” Jack finally said, and somehow that only made things worse.

“Friends don’t force friends to go on a pointless, dangerous search for a possible biographer!” I replied, almost yelling now. “So, no, I don’t think we’re friends, right now!”

For a second, the sword was too stunned to speak. 

In the brief moment of silence after the words left my mouth, the rage that had pushed them out plummeted quickly, dropping into my stomach like a ten-pound dumbbell.

“Jack, I’m sorry, I-” I began, as the stupidity of what I had said hit me with full force. 

Jack floated away from me. “No. It’s okay.” His voice sounded hollow. 

“I just meant, I need some time to myself. I didn’t-” 

“No, I understand. It was dumb of me to think you’d be different,” he said in an eerily calm voice and I became aware of how badly I had messed up. 

There was no coming back from this. 

Jack floated into the atrium to the tree and then, without another word, shot up through the hole in the ceiling that led directly into the vast realm of Yggdrasil - the best place to never be found if he didn’t want to be. 

I rushed to follow him, but, of course, I couldn’t just float up the world tree. I was left staring at the ceiling of branches above me — no trace of Jack remained.

My emotions came crashing down, and I sank to the ground right then and there. I curled up between the roots reaching the floor of my room. I couldn’t keep the tears at bay any longer. 

I cried because I had hurt Jack. Because I had been foolish enough to piss off the one magical weapon I was able to wield. Because I had just lost one of my best friends. 

I cried because of Adrian, his unfair life and his tragic death. 

Most of all, I cried because of Alex. I cried because I wasn't good enough to take her pain away. Because of what she had endured at the hands of both her parents and what that had done to her. 

And I cried because I knew I had an impossible task ahead of me: I had to somehow fall out of love with Alex Fierro.

Chapter Text

Magnus

The next morning, I woke up early - as soon as the first rays of otherworldly morning light seeped through the branches of my tree into my room. I felt worse than I had since I had died. My bones ached from sleeping on the ground, grass and dirt were stuck in my hair and my face was puffy, as if I were coming down with a cold—which I couldn't do, since I was dead. An uncomfortable knot of emptiness had formed in my stomach. I didn't remember dreaming, but I had a feeling that I hadn't enjoyed a peaceful sleep either.

I quickly abandoned the plan I had made before falling asleep (staying in my room indefinitely) when the memories of the previous day flooded back into my mind and threatened to burst my head if I didn't find something to distract myself. 

Instead, I forced my body to move and tried to make myself look a little more presentable. I picked grass from my hair and changed into jeans and a hoodie. As I did so, I inconspicuously wandered around my room looking at all of Jack's favorite places to hang out: The mantelpiece, the coffee and bedside tables, the lower branches of the atrium tree... but I soon realised that there was no glowing sword or rune pendant anywhere in my room. 

Jack had not returned after what had happened yesterday. This left me with a different, very heavy feeling in my stomach and took away any desire I might have had for breakfast.

I had to get out and do something or I would explode from all the unpleasant emotions that were boiling inside me. There were still a few hours until the daily battle, and I didn't feel like participating in any of the to-the-death activities today. So, I texted Hearth to see if they needed any help at the Chase Space. 

I did not wait for an answer before I left my room.

As I stepped into the hallway, I hesitated at the sight of Alex’s door across from mine. It looked exactly the same as it had yesterday when I had closed it behind me. Yet, it seemed to radiate a new kind of anguish—or perhaps that feeling was simply a result of what I had seen and heard in that room the day before.

I wondered if I should ask Alex to join me. Under normal circumstances, that's what I would do.… and wouldn’t it be best to carry on as normal? 

I knocked before my mind had a chance to decide. For a few seconds I didn’t hear a sound and wondered if Alex was even there. Then, as if someone had thrown a flowerpot against it, something shattered on the other side of the door.

I jumped back and bit my lip. What else could I have expected?

“That was the reaction to everyone knocking on that door today,” someone said behind me and I turned to face Mallory. She had crossed her arms over her chest and regarded me with curious but calculating eyes. “Is Alex okay? Has something happened?” 

Somehow I felt like there was an underlying accusation of ‘What have you done?’ somewhere in her voice, but I didn’t have the energy to get upset about that. I simply shook my head. 

“No,” I said flatly, answering both her questions. To one, it was the truth; to the other, it was a lie.

Mallory tilted her head slightly to the side. Her eyes seemed to drill right through me. She looked like she was about to say something, but I had no desire to talk to her - or to anyone - about what had happened yesterday. The only person I wanted to talk to about it all was still Alex. And that made it all the more painful. But that was something I wouldn't tell Mallory under any circumstances. 

Without even attempting to find an excuse to end the conversation, I turned on my heel. "If you see Alex, tell her I'm at the Chase Space," I said, already halfway down the corridor.

At the house, the morning dragged on in its boring daily routine. There were piles of laundry to wash, floors to sweep, fights to settle, and legal forms to fill out.  

The most exciting occurrence was that one of the elderly neighbors was moving and kindly left us his old piano. Blitzen and I had to heave it up the stairs into the library — with only a little unassuming magical help from Hearth. 

Other than that, it was calm — too calm for my chaotic thoughts to find the hoped-for distraction. 

I kept waiting for either Alex or Jack to show up at the shelter, but neither of them granted me that relief. The piano mission had momentarily taken my mind off of them, but now that I was back to a less intense task — putting all the library books I had found around the house back on their designated shelves — my thoughts kept drifting back to what I had seen and done yesterday. 

Reconciliation with Jack would be nearly impossible, I was sure of that — if he would even give me the chance to try. Who was to say he wasn’t already on a cruise ship to the Bahamas? Somewhere deep down I still thought that my anger at him had been mostly justified, but Jack had been hurt by my father before. He had rejected him because of love — I had repeated that now… kind of. How could I possibly make it up to him? 

I knew there was only one thing I could do to possibly get him to maybe forgive me for what I had said… But I had no clue where to even start looking for the Fossegrim or Bragi. There was no chance of getting Jack’s epic anytime soon. 

As for Alex, I wondered if my hope that we could remain friends was futile after all. Even if I ever managed to have nothing but platonic feelings for her, there would always be the many what-if s at the back of my mind. 

“If anyone, it would be you,” she had said. That was quite possibly what hurt the most. As unlikely as it sounded, she wanted to be with me. But both her parents had made her believe that she wasn’t worthy of my love or anyone else's.

A new wave of anger overcame me, and I gripped the spine of the book I was holding so tightly that my knuckles turned white.

Sure, nothing but absolute evil could be expected from Loki. He was, after all, the god of chaos, so I couldn't claim that what I witnessed him doing to Alex made me hate him any more than I already hated the whole concept of him — it wouldn’t have been possible anyway. What really made my blood boil was the thought of Alex’s father. He was human; a father who had the resources to give his child the entire world. Instead he had chosen to hate Alex solely for being her authentic self; he had chosen to take away her childhood and force her to grow up too quickly; he had chosen not to show her the love she would have needed. How could anyone be so heartless? 

I was usually not a violent person, but at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to hurt this man. Why was he still alive when his child couldn’t find peace from him even in the afterlife? He didn’t deserve to be alive and happy.

This thought took me aback for a second, and I took a deep breath. Why is anger the most searing when it stems from love ? I wondered.

I tried to focus on the book I was holding so that I could put it back on the correct shelf before I accidentally tore it apart. It was The Odyssey. I didn’t remember us owning that book and wondered if Annabeth had left it here for some reason.

Annabeth — just another person I had pissed off yesterday. I had almost forgotten about our fight, and was certainly not going to unpack those feelings. Not now, while my mind was still filled with the images I had seen in Alex’s head. 

I weighed the book in my hands, unsure where to put it. Nonfiction, I decided, as a little inside joke. The worlds were that crazy. 

I walked down the row of shelves to the correct section at the back of the room. Izzy and Chloe had occupied the new piano next to the stairs to the roof almost immediately after we had placed it there. They were taking turns playing random sequences of notes and seemed to be having the time of their lives. They giggled uncontrollably. From the sound of it, neither of them knew how to play the piano nor was it properly tuned. The dissonant sounds were beginning to annoy me, but I didn't say anything. I did not want to spoil their fun because I was in a bad mood. 

I saw them switch places — it was Izzy’s turn again — before I disappeared behind the nonfiction shelf. 

To my surprise, a coherent, if slightly odd, melody reached my ears as I sorted Homer between the few other authors whose names began with H.

Maybe Izzy knew how to play the piano after all. 

I rearranged some of the other books on the shelf that were out of alphabetical order, but neither that nor the dissonant melody Izzy was playing was enough to distract me from the images of Alex’s memories. On the contrary, it seemed to be getting worse. I could hardly think of anything else. 

For some reason, one image in particular stood out to me now: The vast, too-perfect green lawn of a golf course and the dreary remains of a once-magnificent forest in the distance. It was the view I had seen from Alex’s bedroom. 

Why did my mind decide to focus on that ? 

A wave of dread, the source of which I couldn't identify, washed over me. The books in front of me blurred into stripes of different colors. The only clear image was the one in my head. Now I saw the forest up close. A metal fence separated the wild grove from the polished grass of the golf course. A small, algae-filled creek that ran like a vein across the forest floor, inches from the fence, as if it had barely managed to avoid the barrier. It seemed to lure any observer to follow its stream into the dark undergrowth. Up close, the branches of the trees and bushes appeared unhealthy and dry.  

I wasn’t sure why it had taken me so long to notice, but then it hit me: I had never seen this view in Alex’s memory.

Something strange was happening, that much was certain. 

I barely managed to stay conscious of my surroundings. All I saw was the forest, all I heard was the eerie melody still coming from the rusty piano, which should not be able to produce such a clear sound. 

Then, without warning, a voice cut through it all, shattering the image in my head and throwing me back into reality.

“Why does this song sound like a forest?” Chloe sounded about as dazed as I felt. 

I stumbled out from behind the bookshelf, ignoring the dizziness trying to overwhelm me, and looked at the girls. “What did you just say?” 

Izzy, still sitting on the piano stool, frowned at her friend standing next to her. Chloe’s face was greenish, as if she were trying not to be sick. 

When they both turned their heads towards me, they looked like they had forgotten I was in the room. 

Chloe rubbed her eyes in confusion before answering my question. “The song. It sounded like… like a forest. I don’t know, it was strange.” 

“What do you mean?” Izzy asked, her frown deepening. She looked like she too was confused about the tune her hands had produced. She sounded uncertain as she said: “It’s just a song.” 

My head was spinning. Chloe must have seen what I had seen - and it had something to do with that melody. But what kind of melody could project images into one’s head? And more importantly, why on earth would Izzy’s music project the image of the Fierros’ backyard into our heads?

“Where did you learn to play that song, Izzy?” I asked, trying hard to sound less freaked out than I was. 

She shifted uneasily on the stool. “Nowhere, I guess. I never took piano lessons or anything.” 

Any hope I had that there was a normal explanation for this vanished into thin air. “You never learned to play the piano? Then how-” 

“I was dreaming about the song,” Izzy interrupted, as if that fact had just occurred to her. She furrowed her eyebrows, seemingly trying to remember the dream. “I think… I think my father was there. He showed it to me.” 

My heart plummeted. Of course . What else could I have expected? It only felt right that the universe would punish me for how I had treated Jack by making me run headlong into a Bragi-shaped clue that I couldn't ignore, even if I wanted to. 

“Okay, that’s really weird,” Chloe mumbled after a few seconds of tense silence. I had to agree, but unfortunately, I knew that it was much, much weirder than Chloe could possibly imagine. 

I tried to sort through the endless questions that kept popping into my head despite my dark hunch that I wouldn’t like the answers to any of them. “Did your father tell you anything else in your dream? Why did he show you this melody?” 

Izzy bit her lip in concentration, her small hands gripping the sides of the piano stool. She didn’t seem to like what she was remembering from her dream. “He was in a forest playing a violin, I think. He told me to… to deliver the message. He sounded like it was urgent.” 

My throat tightened. “The melody is… a message?” 

“Maybe? I don’t know.” Izzy looked at me with big brown eyes. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember anything else.” 

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it.” I felt I had seen and heard enough anyway. The melody was still stuck in my head, urging me not to get held up by interrogating Izzy about her dreams any longer. I swallowed the rest of my questions and made an ungraceful attempt to leave the conversation.  “I’ve… got to go now.” 

Before I had the chance to move, Chloe asked: “It was just a silly dream, though, wasn’t it? That song isn’t actually a message.” She sounded as certain about that as I felt — which was not at all. 

“I’m not sure,” I said vaguely. Who knew if the kids understood or had even noticed the strange, magical events that had been accumulating here over the past few weeks. I certainly wasn’t patient enough to explain anything right now. 

Still, Izzy and Chloe both looked as if my evasive answer worried them. 

“I’ll find out,” I promised — possibly just another promise I would struggle to fulfill, but I didn’t have time to fret about that. I had to get to the forest and find Bragi. This was my chance to solve several problems at once and take my mind off the ones I couldn’t solve. I would not let it pass. 

But first, I had to talk to someone who knew about the world of the gods and the strange magical creatures that were probably holding one of said gods captive.

I almost stumbled down the stairs, and by the time I reached the ground floor, I was so absorbed in the decision I had just made, that I barely noticed Blitzen, standing in the doorway and the visitor he was welcoming. 

Only the familiar voice calling my name made me stop in my tracks. I turned to see my cousin pushing past Blitz into the house to follow me down the hall. 

“What are you doing here?” I asked, sounding ruder than I had intended. I didn’t like being distracted from the things I had set my mind on. Especially not when a melody in my head seemed to steer my focus away from everything else. 

Annabeth looked taken aback for a second, but she didn’t let it deter her. She stood up straight, as if bracing herself. “I wanted to apologize for yesterday.”

“Oh….” I hesitated. Under different circumstances, I would have appreciated the apology, knowing that Annabeth wasn’t the type to easily admit she was wrong. However, she truly had picked a terrible moment.  

“I was worried about you and completely crossed the line. I took out my own worries on Alex. I shouldn’t have said those things to her and I shouldn't have-” 

“Annabeth, look,” I managed to interrupt - although I made a mental note to talk to her thoroughly about those ‘worries’ of hers once I had done what I needed to do. “It’s nice of you to say that, but right now is a really bad time.” 

My interruption of her preplanned speech threw her off long enough for me to turn to Blitz, who was still standing awkwardly by the door since we were blocking his way into the house. “Where’s Hearth?” 

Unprepared for this conversation to involve him, it took him a few seconds to realize that I was talking to him. “Oh, he’s asleep,” he finally replied. “Why?” 

“I need him to summon Stanley for me.” 

“Who’s Stanley?” Annabeth asked, rightfully puzzled.  

“An eight-legged flying horse,” I replied hastily, out of politeness, but didn’t turn away from Blitz. “I need him as soon as possible.” 

Blitz let out a joyless laugh. “Yeah, forget it. Hearth is out cold. His powers were still drained from renewing the barrier and casting all those spells to protect your precious heads yesterday. Helping us with the piano is what gave him the rest.” 

Okay, remember when I said that we had managed to get the piano up with only a little magical help? Yeah, that was a lie. It was a lot of magical help.  

“He won’t be able to even summon an eight-legged hamster for at least a few hours,” Blitz continued, crossing his arms resolutely. 

“And what do you need an eight-legged horse for anyway?” Annabeth asked, concentrating on the important questions as always. 

“I need to get to Salem.”

I was met with confused blinks from both Blitz and Annabeth. “What do you want in Salem?” 

The words poured out of my mouth as I recounted what I had just witnessed in the library. I felt that, in my agitated state, I was skipping over some key details; was proven correct, when my friends looked a million times more confused by the end of my story. 

“Whoa,” Blitz said, signing “slow down ” in ASL, out of habit. “You think Bragi sent the melody to Izzy as a call for help? And it made you see a random golf course and a forest? How do you know it’s in Salem?” 

“He told her to pass on the message,” I replied, answering his first, easier question. “And it somehow feels like it’s urgent. You should have heard the music. It sounded… desperate. I bet this water spirit, the Fossegrim, has him trapped somehow. There was a stream running through the forest. If I follow it-...” 

“You didn’t answer the other question,” Blitz pointed out.

I hesitated and started pacing around the hallway. How much could I tell them about how I knew the place without giving away any information about Alex’s memories that I had witnessed? 

Blitz raised an eyebrow at me, urging me to continue. 

“I know it’s in Salem, because I recognized the place. It’s near Alex’s father’s house.” 

Annabeth frowned, her gray eyes boring right through me. “And you’re sure about that?” 

“Absolutely.” 

“That’s quite the coincidence.” She said it in a tone that made it clear that she didn’t believe it was a coincidence at all. The thought had crept up on me, too. The problem was: it only made it more obvious that I had to sort this out quickly.

Annabeth didn’t ask how I knew what Alex’s family home looked like, which was a relief. Instead, she asked: “When are you leaving?” 

“Right now,” I replied without hesitation, surprising even myself. I hadn’t thought it through at all, had no plan. But something told me that if I wanted to find Bragi, I had to hurry. And I had to find him. It could be my only chance to make it up to Jack. 

Of course, neither Blitz nor Annabeth knew about that. I hadn't been able to bring myself to tell anyone about the fight Jack and I had had the night before.

Blitz frowned. “Don’t you think you should take some time to-” 

“No, it has to be now.”  I wasn’t entirely sure where this inner urgency was coming from, but I already regretted even taking the time to talk to Blitzen and Annabeth. I had to go. Right now. 

“Then I’ll come with you,” Annabeth said immediately. 

 “No, I  need to do this alone,” I said firmly. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate her unwavering support of my rash decision - especially after our fight yesterday - but everything in me opposed the idea of taking her along. A strange sense of… duty, I suppose, had overtaken me as soon as I had put the pieces together, compelling me to do this alone.

Annabeth looked as if she had expected this answer. She opened her mouth to protest, but Blitz spoke before her.

“It could get dangerous,” he said in that worried tone that always slightly annoyed me - like I was an unreasonable child and he was my parent. “You don’t know what to expect.” 

Somewhere deep down I knew that he had a point. Especially since I didn’t even have a self-maneuvering sword to rely on anymore. But the melody, still stuck in my head, drowned out that thought. 

“It’ll be fine. That water spirit doesn't sound very dangerous,” I said, sounding much more confident than I actually felt. “And besides, I’ll have Jack with me,” I lied, feeling only slightly guilty. 

The lie seemed to work. Annabeth’s skeptical look softened, and Blitz uncrossed his arms. 

He asked: “And you’re taking Alex with you, of course, right?” 

Panic shot through my nerves. 

“No,” I said, louder than would have been necessary. “No, Alex can’t know about this!” 

Annabeth and Blitz exchanged a confused look, not understanding why I suddenly acted so upset. I wasn’t quite sure myself. All I knew was that Alex could not know about this — not where I was headed, not what was going on there. Maybe, I thought, this was at least part of the reason why I felt such an extreme urgency to get it all over with as soon as possible: so Alex wouldn’t have to find out. Because I knew Alex. And I knew that once she knew where Bragi was, she would set out to find him, regardless of where that might be — for Izzy, for Jack, for me. 

And I also knew that, after what I had witnessed yesterday, I wouldn’t dare to give Alex any reason to return to the place that had caused her so much pain. She would not go through that for me. 

“Please, you have to promise-” I begged, unsure of how to convince them of the importance. “Promise me you won’t tell Alex where I’m going.”

“Don’t you think she would want to know that-” Blitz tried to argue, but I cut him off. 

“No, please. I can’t explain but…” My voice started to shake. I wasn’t sure what I would do if they refused my request - probably just hope, that Alex wouldn’t notice my absence, or that she wouldn’t care enough to ask about my whereabouts if she did.

Annabeth and Blitz exchanged another look, this time with a great concern in both their eyes as if they were silently asking each other if I had lost my mind. 

The tense silence that hung between us felt like it lasted an eternity, and I grew increasingly uneasy about the time I was wasting.  

“Okay…” Blitz finally said, his unease evident in his tone. “We won’t tell Alex…” 

“... for now!” Annabeth added, sounding more serious than I had ever heard her. “If you’re not back in… four hours, we’ll send a search party.” 

I probably should have argued. Four hours wasn’t much time to find a lost god and rescue him from the clutches of who-knows-what. Still, the urge to leave was stronger than my concerns. 

“Agreed,” I said. I was already halfway out the front door when something else occurred to me and I took the time to turn back to my cousin. “And Annabeth… if you do want to apologize, you should apologize to Alex, not me.” 

Annabeth nodded earnestly, and I turned to go. 

“Wait!” Blitz called after me, but I only barely slowed down.  “How are you going to get to Salem?” 

I used this further delay to pull the enchanted beanie out of my coat pocket and yank it over my head. I couldn’t use any wolves hunting me during this quest. 

“There are some flying horses in Valhalla that I can borrow,” I replied, while walking out backwards through the front gate. “It’ll be easy.” 

Chapter Text

Magnus

Maybe I had stretched the truth a bit when I had told Blitzen and Annabeth that we had horses that I could borrow. Maybe it was more like Valhalla had a relatively unsupervised stable where the Valkyries’ flying horses lived. Maybe I had to sneak in and kidnap one of said horses, which had no choice but to come with me because horses were my father’s sacred animal. 

But if that were the case, I wouldn’t tell Blitz or Annabeth. 

What mattered was that, less than half an hour after our conversation, I was soaring through the Massachusetts skies. I had to admit, though, that I had lied about something else: riding a flying horse was anything but easy. Perhaps it was because the last time I had ridden one of the Valkyries’ horses, Sam had done the flying. Or perhaps it was because the horse I had chosen — her name was Thurid, she informed me —didn't appreciate being stolen from her cozy stable. She continuously informed me of this in a tone that reminded me of a grouchy old lady. “You’re not even a Valkyrie. Do the children of Frey have no respect for horses and their well-deserved rest these days?” She also didn't appreciate it when I told her that I had wanted to ask Stanley and that she was my second choice for transportation. Sometimes I really hated my ability to talk to animals.

In any case, as I watched the suburbs of Boston pass by a few hundred feet below me, I silently regretted every decision in my life that had led me here. My initial motivation to reach Salem as soon as possible quickly disappeared amid the icy wind that whipped in my face and whistled through my ears, drowning out even Izzy’s tune that stubbornly clung to my mind.  

I had no idea if Thurid understood where I was trying to go, or if we were even flying in the right direction. I didn’t dare ask, because I feared she would throw me off if I annoyed her too much. From up here, it was impossible to recognize anything that would tell me where we were. I was sure that we were flying north of the Charles River, but that did little to reassure me. 

After about half an hour, even I was finding the winter air increasingly uncomfortable. I was certain that ice was forming on my hands as I clung to the horse’s mane for dear life. I began to think that maybe my friends had been right and this had been a terrible idea—maybe I should just turn around and sleep a night on it—when Thurid began a slow but steady descent.

Below me, stretched the rooftops of an upper-class suburban neighborhood, with large cars parked in the driveways and blue spots that could only be swimming pools in the backyards. In the far distance I could see the taller buildings of the city, but the area we were headed to was barely on the outskirts of Salem. Green spaces and small woods were interspersed between the streets and homes. From up here, it was impossible to tell which area I was looking for.

Thurid ended up saving the day; otherwise, I would have spent the next four hours wandering aimlessly through the streets. As we approached the ground, she determinedly steered toward a house that was slightly elevated above the neighboring houses, with a long enough driveway to avoid neighbors' curious eyes. I knew immediately that we were in the right location. 

From the front, the house looked fancy and larger than the average single-family home, yet still relatively normal. It was a three-story mansion with a front porch lined with honeysuckle bushes and an American flag fluttering in the cold air. This was definitely the same house I had seen years ago when my dreams had shown me the sequel to the memory I had experienced more recently, the only difference being the remains of snow that covered the dark roof. The real exorbitant display of Mr. Fierro's wealth was found behind the house, as I could see from my vantage point. Just beyond a small garden area with a patio and pool, acres and acres of smooth grass - too smooth to be natural - stretched into the distance. It was a dull green and muddy brown, as grass tends to be in the winter season, and was covered in slowly melting patches of snow, but the small hills and ditches still made the area clearly identifiable as a golf course. 

My eyes drifted farther ahead. In the distance, at the very edge of the area, I spotted a line of trees. They were bare and skeletal with only a few evergreens scattered among them, but it was unmistakably the place I was looking for.

I dared to lean forward in order to get closer to Thurid’s ear. “Hey, can we land over there by those trees? Please?” 

I didn’t want to encounter anyone who lived in the house, if I could help it. 

Thurid neighed disapprovingly. “I’m not an Uber driver, young man!” Still, she obeyed.

We sailed over the golf course and finally landed where the terrain sloped downward slightly, out of sight of the mansion. I jumped off Thurid's back. 

Now, from up close, I could see that the forest was separated from the golf course by a tall metal fence, just as the music-induced vision had shown. Behind it, between the sad-looking, leafless trees, the small stream I had seen trickled slowly but steadily along the fence line, half-covered by dead foliage. 

Excitement tingled in my fingers. I had found the right spot! If my suspicion that the stream could guide me was correct, it couldn’t be all that difficult to find Bragi and the Fossegrim now. 

In my excitement, I almost ran right into the metal fence, which I had immediately forgotten about. 

“Hey, could you maybe fly me over-?” I turned to look for Thurid, but it was too late. She was already nothing more than a white dot against the gray sky, growing smaller by the second. Just when I had thought we were warming up to each other, she had taken the first opportunity to return to her stable. I couldn't even blame her for it. Still, I suddenly felt a little more alone.  

“There goes my ride home…” I muttered, but decided that that was a problem for later and turned back to the fence. 

After a few tries, I managed to cut through the thin wire with the sword I had borrowed from the armory — inanimate and heavy in my hands. I probably could have climbed over the fence, but I couldn’t deny that I enjoyed destroying Mr. Fierro’s property. 

On the other side of the fence, I followed the creek into the tangled underbrush. Though it had been decimated to make way for the golf course, I quickly realized that this was still a forest in which it was easy to get lost in. Finding the water’s spring would probably be my best chance of getting where I needed to go.

The deeper I ventured into the woods, the clearer it became that something about this forest was off. It was so quiet that I felt like I was the only living being here, even though I was already dead. A moldy, bitter stench hung in the air; several trees looked like they would never be able to grow leaves again, with peeling bark and fungus around their bases; some trees had already fallen over, forcing me to climb over them to keep following the water. 

I knew this eerie feeling had nothing to do with magical creatures. The forest, or what was left of it, was dying.

I tried to imagine what it had looked like before, tried to see what Alex had loved so much about these woods before her father had cut them down. But the beauty that she had described to me was now entirely lost. Instead, everything around me felt cold and sad. 

As I wandered on through the crowd of dying trees, an oppressive feeling took hold of me. I silently wished that I had swallowed my pride and accepted Annabeth's offer to accompany me. Being a child of summer alone in a dying forest felt almost cruel, as if all the trees were begging me for help that I wasn’t sure how to provide.

I tried to shake off the dreariness and pushed on further into the woods. I would find Bragi; I would make him write Jack’s epic, and Jack would forgive me. Alex would never have to come here and see what had become of her forest. Everything would be fine. 

These thoughts were enough to spur me on. 

I wasn’t sure how long I had been walking. I began to wonder how big the forest exactly was and how much bigger it must have been before it had been cut down, when the eerie silence was finally broken by the faintest sound of music. 

It was barely audible, and I was convinced that I only heard it because I had been waiting for it, but as I walked towards it, the sound became clearer with each step. 

Electricity pulsed through my body, and my heart pounded as if trying to form the bass line to the melody. I was so close to finding what I was looking for, but that wasn’t the only reason for my excitement. The music was so bright and clear that I couldn’t even tell what instrument it was; its beauty was too overwhelming. It was clearly the same melody that Izzy had played on the piano, but it was so much more than before. The way it sounded through the silent forest made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time. It made me want to dance and weep simultaneously and seemed to pull me forward by my heart. 

I swallowed, trying to keep at bay the emotions evoked by the melody, and followed its call — there was no chance for resistance either way. I made my way to where the stream disappeared between a dense wall of bushes. When I reached it, the sickly plants suddenly regained some liveliness and parted, beckoning me toward the melody.

Finally, I broke through to a clearing.

The scene that presented itself could have been the subject of an idyllic romantic painting, were it not for a few strange details.

The clearing was about the size of a basketball court and formed an almost perfect circle around a small pond in the center. Its banks looked wet and marshy, covered in neon green algae, as if the pond had recently shrunk. I was certain that I would sink in if I set foot there. On the side farthest from where I had entered the clearing, a light but steady stream of fresh water trickled down from between moss-covered boulders piled up where the terrain rose into a steep hill — the source of the water I had followed through the woods. The entire scene was illuminated by weak sunlight breaking through the cloudy sky and the thinned tree crowns. 

So far, so normal. What I was pretty sure wasn’t normal for an average forest pond was that it was filled with dark gray rocks roughly the size of human heads, jutting out of the water’s surface. At least twenty of them crowded around a small island in the middle of the pond. There were two figures perched upon it.

One towered over the scene, tall and slender, with scaly, bluish-gray skin. They were naked except for a green silk cloth around their waist and a violin-like instrument under their chin. They were sitting elevated on a chopped-down, decaying tree trunk.  

The other figure, stouter with a wavy, strawberry-blond mane, also held a violin between chin and shoulder, but sat lower on a small boulder.

The duet they were engaged in was both bone-chilling and beautiful. Hearing it up close brought tears to my eyes immediately, but I hastily tried to wipe them away. I had to focus on the important things. If this wasn't just a random music lesson in the middle of the forest, then the only conclusion I could draw was that I had finally found Bragi.

My heart leapt into my throat. Relief and excitement, in addition to the myriad emotions the music stirred up in me, washed over me like a tidal wave. Without even taking a second to think about what the smartest thing to say would be, it made me blurt out: “Hi!!”  

The tall figure, whom I could only assume was the Fossegrim, flinched at this unexpected greeting. They scratched a single shrill note with their bow before continuing the melody flawlessly, all the while staring in my direction as if I were the most offensive thing in sight. Bragi, on the other hand, only spared me a brief glance. He seemed neither surprised nor glad to see me. 

“Well, that took long enough,” he muttered without stopping to play—maybe he couldn't. His voice sounded harsh and hoarse. I guessed he hadn’t used it in a while. 

The comment threw me off so much that I could only manage a confused “Uhh…”

“What is this? Who are you??” the Fossegrim demanded in a posh voice that reminded me of an old British person.

They were, admittedly, very handsome — for a water spirit, I mean. The ones I had encountered in Alfheim had been made entirely of water, but the Fossegrim was clearly flesh and bones.  They appeared to be both male and female, and neither, at least to my eyes.I remembered what Annabeth had said about the Fossegrim presenting in a way that would appeal to whoever was looking at them. In my case, their appearance certainly aligned with what I had discovered about my sexuality in recent years. 

They had a lean frame but weren’t skinny. The muscles on their bare arms flexed with each stroke of the bow. Their long, silky, jet-black hair shimmered with a hint of sea green as it glided down their back, mesmerizing me and making me wonder what it would feel like to touch. They looked mostly humanoid; however, they couldn’t be mistaken for human. Their bluish-gray skin glistened in the dim light as if wet, and their shoulders, arms, and legs were covered with what looked like scales. Their long, slender fingers — which slid continuously over the violin’s fret — had thin membranes between them, and their ears were pointed like Hearth’s but more prominent; their shape more closely resembled fins than ears.

“I can sense that you didn’t come here in secret!” they said in an irritated tone. “And you didn’t even bother to bring an offering, did you?” 

I remained silent. Their appearance was so captivating that I didn’t manage to avert my gaze or utter a word.

At the lack of an answer, the Fossegrim turned up their nose. “Well, don’t expect me to even teach you how to tune a fiddle like that.” 

I looked over at Bragi, who rolled his eyes and raised his bushy eyebrows at me. Since he continued to play his instrument, it was hard to tell, but I assumed he was trying to tell me to get on with it. Because he was the reason I was here in the first place, I tried to shake off the haziness that had settled over my vision and focus.

“I, uh-” I began shakily. What was wrong with my voice? I tried to speak louder to drown out the incessant, hauntingly beautiful melody.  “I’m not here to learn how to play from you.” 

The water spirit raised an eyebrow. “You’re not? What are you doing here, then? Teaching people is all I do.” 

I took a deep breath and straightened my shoulders. I couldn’t blow it now. “My name is Magnus Chase. I’m an einherji, and I’m here to bring the god Bragi back to Valhalla.”  

Bragi’s expression didn’t change to show me he appreciated my ambition. Maybe playing the violin - or the fiddle, as the Fossegrim had called it - nonstop for almost ten years could make even god a little unresponsive.  

The Fossegrim looked at Bragi with an expression as if they were noticing the god for the first time. “You mean this disgrace to music here?” they sneered and looked away in disdain. “He can’t leave just yet. So far, he hasn’t managed to make a single tree dance with his music.” 

I sensed that this was going to be a little more difficult than I had anticipated, but I didn’t let myself be deterred.  

“That’s actually supposed to happen?” I asked skeptically as I gingerly picked my way closer to the pond, careful not to step on any marshy ground. “I thought that was more of a metaphor or something. Trees can’t actually dance.” 

The Fossegrim scoffed. “Then you have never heard real music, Magnus Chase. And neither has he.” They looked at Bragi. “Your hand positioning is askew. We will never achieve perfection like this.” 

To me, Bragi’s violin playing looked and sounded immaculate, but his teacher clearly wasn’t impressed. Neither were the trees around the clearing - they looked as dead and brittle as anywhere else in the forest. I couldn't even begin to imagine what it would take to make them dance - or what that would look like. 

Bragi straightened his posture and glared at the Fossegrim as if they were his worst enemy. “We’ve been over this before,” he began in a deep but melodic voice. “Without help, we won’t-” 

The water spirit interrupted him roughly. “Hush! Here comes the difficult part. Focus!”  

Bragi complied and they both let their fingers race up and down the fiddles’ frets. They produced two slightly offset yet complementary scales, as if Bragi’s melody were chasing his teacher’s. The sound may not have moved the trees, but I could feel the melody tugging at every muscle in my body. I had never actually danced before, but I wanted to try now. This realization made me plant my feet more firmly on the ground. I was afraid that I would end up embarrassing myself if I did not.

Despite all that, when I actually concentrated on the melody, I felt like something was still missing from it - as if the most exciting combination of notes were skipped. So maybe the duet really hadn’t reached its full potential yet. I had no idea how that could be, given that the god of music and the eternal music teacher were playing it. But it suddenly didn’t seem all that unlikely that the forest would start to dance if the melody got even better.

“Erm, Fossegrim!” I attempted to make myself heard over the music once I realized neither of my conversation partners had any intention of resuming the discussion. I also realized that I didn’t know if the water spirit had another, less clunky name I could call them, but niceties like exchanging names would have to wait. “Not to sound rude, but… you’re playing as well, and it doesn’t make the trees dance… so maybe it’s not Bragi’s fault, maybe-” 

“Of course it doesn’t!” they snapped, their floppy ears pricking up in anger. “This is a duet. It only works when it’s completed by a skilled musician.” 

“Okay, but it’s obviously not working,” I said, making an effort not to sound impolite - I feared it wasn’t working. “So, could you please just… let Bragi go?” 

“Don’t you think I would, if I could??” The Fossegrim sounded like they had had this conversation countless times before. They furrowed their hairless brows at me. “Look around you. This parasite here-” they nodded toward Bragi, “-is sapping the energy from all around our spring. It was less of a problem when our habitat was larger, but now it’s no longer suitable for harboring a being as powerful as a god.” 

I tried to ignore the queasy feeling that the way they said 'our habitat' sent down my throat and stay on topic: “Then why don’t you let him go?” 

“Anyone who comes to me with the proper offerings, enters into an unbreakable contract that binds us both to the melody and to this island. It’s not fulfilled until the lessons are completed. If the trees don’t dance, he won’t be able to leave this island, even if I kicked him off.” 

“That’s true. We already tried that,” Bragi grumbled under his breath. 

The Fossegrim ignored him. “So, spare yourself the effort, little einherji, and go back to Valhalla. Unless ten years of fiddle lessons magically begin to take effect, there is no chance he’ll come with you today. We cannot stop playing.” 

My heart sank. The amount of discontent in their voice was enough to tell me that they spoke the truth. 

I dared to step even closer to the swampy shore. I wouldn’t let myself be deterred so easily. “There has to be a way to break the contract.” 

“Didn’t you hear me? Un-breakable.”

“But maybe there is a way to fulfill it,” Bragi said, finally rejoining the conversation.  

He sounded so optimistic, that not even the Fossegrim dared to object. Instead, we both focused on the god in anticipation. 

“You're right, Fossy, I'm draining this land of what little energy it has left with my presence...” he began, his voice low enough it was difficult to hear over the music. But it hardly mattered because I stopped listening halfway through anyway. Fossy ?? 

“If I stay, this forest and all of you, will perish sooner or later.” 

“I know that!” Fossy (maybe it did have a nice ring to it) snapped back. “But I’ve told you a hundred times, it’s not within my power to release you.” 

“Don’t you understand?” Bragi asked quietly yet assertively.  For the god of poetry, he sounded a little shy, I thought, but there was something in his voice that made me want to believe every word he said. “These trees will never dance again in their current state. When the forest was cut down, and all of you had to resort to this pond, the ecosystem was thrown off balance. My presence here only makes it worse. It’s a vicious cycle.” 

I continued to wonder who the hell he was referring to when he said ‘all of you’, and was debating whether I should ask or if it would be better to leave it unknown when I was suddenly brought back into the conversation. Bragi continued: “It may not be in your power to do something about that, but it may be in his.” 

It took me a second to realize that he was looking at me. “I...uh… What??” 

“His power??” the Fossegrim spat, now incredibly offended. Have you ever had a water spirit who was continuously playing a fiddle stare at you furiously? No? Well, I can attest that it’s a terrifying sight. “Are you trying to imply that this… this child is more powerful than I am?? I am the Fossegrim! Revered for generations and generations. I have taught some of the greatest musicians the worlds have ever known! Ole Bornemann Bull, Johann Sebastian Bach, Florence Welch —  what you’re saying is an affront, my friend.” 

“I- I think I have to agree,” I told Bragi, unsure what to make of the hopeful look with which he continued to regard me. “I have no idea how to help. I don’t know anything about music.” 

Bragi gave me a strained smile that clearly conveyed the notion that I should shut up because I didn’t understand anything. He turned back to the Fossegrim. “He’s a son of Frey.” 

The Fossegrim frowned for a second, then their face lit up as the words sank in. “Oh.” 

Bragi nodded — as much as possible with a violin under his chin. His eyes sparkled in an almost manic way that made me uneasy. “You know, we might be trapped here, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know what’s going on out there. When the birds told me that a son of Frey had appeared for the first time in ages — one strong enough to defeat Loki himself — and that he was looking for me, I knew I had to bring him to us. I reached out to my connections in Midgard and was able to guide one of my children to him, so that she could deliver the song that would lead him to me. It took longer than I expected…” 

“So, you used Izzy as a messenger??” I exclaimed. I did not like the sentiment that resonated here at all, nor the dismissive tone about how long it had taken. A few of the loose puzzle pieces that had been floating around in my head for the past weeks clicked into place. “Do you have any idea how much danger you put her in? Odin’s wolves sensed that you reached out to her and her mother, and they hunted them down. Izzy’s mother died!”  

Bragi did not seem to notice my aversion to his methods nor did he act like any of that was news to him. “Yes, a shame. You know, it was Isabella’s mother who led me to this place. She worked as a gardener for the man who bought the forest. She knew that there was something hidden within it. She was one of the few people who vaguely knew my location, so I assumed that the wolves would sense her sooner or later…  but I’m glad that Isabella finally found you.” 

My opinion of Bragi plummeted all the way to Helheim. This was the guy I had spent so long trying to find? Suddenly, I no longer wanted to be the one to free him. He sounded so unbothered by it all that it made me want to swim over to him and strangle him.

The rage that rose in my throat left me speechless for a second too long. The Fossegrim, who didn't appear to have been listening to — or caring about — our conversation, took advantage of the silence to voice what they had apparently been thinking about for the past few seconds. “A child of Frey could work! Long ago, I knew a daughter of Frey who could make entire groves grow from her fingertips. He can restore the forest.” 

I really wanted to stay on the infuriating subject of Bragi being responsible for a little girl losing the only parent she had ever known, but I also had to clarify the limits of my power because there was clearly a misunderstanding. “I can’t do anything like that! I can’t even make a single blade of grass grow. And to be clear, I only stood a chance against Loki, because I drank Kvasir’s mead. I’m… just a healer.” 

“But healing is just what these trees need,” Bragi said with that mild smile that I had interpreted as coy, but now found only irritating. “Once they’re healthy, they will be able to dance.”

“I heal people, not plants,” I replied, uneasiness spreading through my stomach. I thought of the grass in Alex’s atrium yesterday and how I had thought it had changed color under my intense stare. But that had just been my imagination, hadn’t it? 

“You do have abilities, you don’t know about, Magnus Chase. I can sense that,” the Fossegrim said, their unnaturally green eyes boring into me like icicles. “Perhaps not the ones I would normally like to sense in someone who comes to my pond, but possibly just the right ones for our situation.” 

I hesitated and looked around the clearing. I had to admit that the dying trees broke my heart. And it wasn’t entirely unreasonable  that there were powers I hadn’t discovered yet. To be honest, I hadn’t done much to explore what else I could do with the magic I had inherited from Frey. But when I tried to imagine how I could help the plants, I drew a blank.

“Look, I’d really like to help,” I said truthfully – maybe not help Bragi, but definitely help the forest that Alex had once loved so much, “I just don’t know how.” 

The Fossegrim and Bragi exchanged glances over their fiddles, and a disturbingly satisfied smile appeared on both their faces. 

The water spirit turned back to me. “I am sure that together, we will be able to figure something out. I've been told that I'm an excellent teacher.” 

“Just come over here, Magnus Chase,” Bragi said in that calm, melodic voice eerily reminiscent of Izzy’s. I wanted to press my hands over my ears, but I couldn’t. Something pulled me toward the water, and I took an involuntary step forward onto the muddy shore, even though every cell in my body screamed at me not to get any closer to the water. I wasn’t sure what it was, but the feeling of imminent danger was unshakeable as I staggered toward the pond, my boots sinking deeper and deeper into the soft ground.

Perhaps it was my awareness of what was happening that helped me fight back against Bragi’s magic. With great effort, I managed to stop and plant both my feet in the mud. “I’d really rather stay here,” I pressed through my teeth. 

Bragi frowned as if he was mildly surprised by my resistance, but his mind wasn't set on giving up. “You want something from me, as well, don’t you? We could make a deal if you help us first.” 

He was right. I could make a deal. Jack would get his epic and maybe he would forgive me. 

“Don’t worry,” the Fossegrim added, though it wasn’t necessary. I was already only an inch away from where the water licked the shore. It took all my willpower not to plunge in headfirst. “My friends and I will help you find what you need.” 

My right foot splashed into the frigid water. The biting cold momentarily cleared the fog that had settled over my brain, allowing the words to get through to me. My mouth felt heavy, and my tongue sluggish as I tried to speak. “Y-your friends?” 

My hazy eyes tried to focus on the pond in front of me. It took me a few more seconds for me to realize what I had been looking at all along – and when I finally did, Bragi’s words lost their grip on me. 

I stumbled and fell backward. My backside landed hard in the mud. I scrambled away from the water. 

What I had identified as rocks poking out of the water were actually the tops of about twenty humanoid heads made of muddy, gray water, all crowded into the small pond.

“Nøkks!” I exclaimed, horrified to realize that my foot had sunk into the soft pond bed. My hands kept slipping on the marshy banks as I tried to pull myself out.

The Fossegrim only frowned at me, looking mildly offended. “What do you have against Nøkks?” 

I didn’t even try to formulate a response, especially since I was more concerned with getting my foot out of the water. I hoped it was my imagination, but the watery shapes seemed to be moving toward me. 

Panic coursed through my veins. Once in Alfheim, I had witnessed Mr. Alderman’s security Nøkks kill several elves by breaking their hearts with their ear-splitting music or slashing their throats with their sharp bows – and that had happened on dry land. I didn’t want to find out what they could do in their own territory. 

“This is getting annoying,” Bragi said to the Fossegrim, not sounding annoyed at all, just mildly amused. Somewhere beneath my panic, I wondered if the god was even capable of having any other tone of voice other than mildness. “You want this to end as well, Fossy, so let them bring him here.” 

Still on the ground, I drew my sword, but I knew it was useless. Back in Alfheim, not even Jack had stood a chance against the Nøkk's watery bodies. Any sword would just cut through them without causing damage. 

I wasn’t sure if Bragi’s words would have the same magical effect on Fossy as they did on me. They hesitated. “Hmm, it’s much easier to teach a student who’s willing to learn…” 

“Magnus Chase is willing to learn. He just needs a little help.” Bragi’s voice washed over me like a wave – if I weren’t already sprawled on the ground, it would have knocked me over.  “Isn’t that right, Magnus?” 

"Yes!" I yelled, immediately and entirely against my will. My voice was no longer under my control. 

The realization hit me that very few of the reckless decisions I had made since first hearing that cursed melody — coming here unprepared and alone, ensuring the one person who knew where excactly I was headed wouldn't find out about my trip — had been under my control. My breath grew shallow.

The Fossegrim sighed. “Alright… dear friends, bring him to us.” 

The Nøkks had no trouble pulling my foot out of the marsh. Within seconds, I was dragged beneath the water’s surface. The cold – too much, even for me – stunned me; the blood shock froze in my veins. My lungs involuntarily tried to fill with air, but only icy water entered them. There wasn’t even room for fear while it felt like a thousand invisible hands were grabbing and pulling at me. The only thought my sluggish brain could conjure up was a simple matter of fact: They’re going to drown me. 

All of a sudden, cold air hit my face, and I was slapped onto a smooth stone surface. I coughed and retched, trying to get the water out of my lungs. On its way out, it left a disgusting taste of algae and mud in my mouth that made me gag again.   

When I looked up, I found my face mere inches away from Bragi’s intricately decorated boots, which I now saw were shackled to the island with strings of braided seaweed around the ankles. 

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” he said with a smile, as if he had just treated me to a limousine ride instead of an involuntary ice bath. 

I wanted to jump up and strangle him – or at least cuss him out – but my throat only produced a raspy cough, and the cold air on my wet skin paralyzed my muscles. 

Once the water had left my ears, the music from the fiddles, much louder and clearer now that I was right next to its source, flooded my senses. Despite wanting nothing more than to sleep forever, the melody made my muscles move enough to push me off the ground into a kneeling position.

I fumbled for my sword, unsure what to do with it – only to realize that I had dropped it on the shore. My heart sank. 

“Now, shall we begin?” the Fossegrim asked impatiently, apparently unable to comprehend how a little water could render someone as unresponsive as I was.

Bragi answered for me. “Yes.” 

“Yes,” I coughed out as well, again with no intention of doing so. 

I wasn’t sure where they came from, but suddenly, two strands of braided, neon green seaweed shot toward where I had pressed my hands against the rock for support. One wrapped around each of my wrists. “What-!”

I pulled against the restraints, but they only seemed to tighten their grip. Their other ends were fastened somewhere below the pond's surface, and I was pulled toward where the island met the water. Kneeling at the edge with my hands digging into the hard stone beneath me, I stared directly into the shapeless, scary faces of the Nøkks, whose heads bobbed around the water's surface again.

“Now,” said the Fossegrim from behind me, drowning out the music for a moment. “Start healing.” 

I wanted to snap that I had no freaking clue how to heal the damn rock under my hands, but decided to save what little strength was left in my voice for something more important. 

“Bragi!” I croaked with as much determination as I could muster. “You said we’d make a deal. If I do this, you have to swear to write an epic about my sword.” 

Bragi laughed in disbelief from behind me. “What, that sword??”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a glimpse of silver on the shore where I had been dragged into the water. I assumed that must be where Bragi was looking. “No, not that sword. My real sword, Sumarbrander. The Sword of Summer.” 

Bragi didn’t respond right away, and all I could do was shake in anticipation as an icy wind swept across the clearing. 

“I think…” Bragi finally said, his voice low, calm, and ice-cold, “...we both know that I don’t have to promise you anything to make you do as you’re told, Magnus Chase.” 

I gulped, trying to dislodge the lump in my throat. He was right, of course. If he really wanted me to do something, he would just have to say the word, and I wouldn’t be able to resist. All of this would have been for nothing.

“You did say you’d make a deal with him,” the Fossegrim argued to my surprise. “And if he really manages to get us out of this dilemma, he deserves a reward.” 

I couldn’t guess what kind of look the two of them exchanged behind my back, nor could I fathom the strange love-hate relationship the god and the water spirit seemed to have. But this time, it seemed to work in my favor. After a few seconds of tense silence, Bragi sighed and reluctantly said: “All right. I promise to write an epic about Sumarbrander.” He did not sound like he was looking forward to the task. “If you get me out of here.”  

“Swear it!” I coughed. 

I could practically hear Bragi roll his eyes. “I swear on my troth. Now, heal!” 

Coming from his mouth, the command became irresistible. Light erupted from my hands that channeled it directly into the solid ground. Some of the Nøkks recoiled slightly, but they quickly realized that, except for my little light show, nothing much was happening. 

My hands were touching rock. What could I possibly heal there?

“You are not trying hard enough,” the Fossegrim scolded in the same tone they had used on Bragi earlier. “You must create life, not just look for life to mend.” 

I gave my best to concentrate, but it was nearly impossible with the overwhelming music in my ears and the ice in my bones. 

“I told you before,” I forced out through my chattering teeth. “I can’t do anything like that!”

“Well, if that’s what you believe, you might need a little… motivation.” 

I did not like the sound of that at all. Despite the cold, my hands began to feel clammy. 

I tried harder to focus. Yesterday, I had managed to use my powers in a way that I hadn’t previously realized I was capable of as well. I had deliberately looked into Alex’s mind. Maybe I could do other things, too. But the cold, hard stone under my hands was so jarringly different from the soft skin of Alex’s hand I had held yesterday that I couldn’t draw a useful comparison.

Seeing that I wasn't making a difference, the Fossegrim ordered, "Nøkks. Inspire our friend here to find what we need, please.”

Through the golden hue around my eyes, I saw the water spirits form fiddles from their watery arms.

Dread gripped my heart. I pulled against the restraints once more, but to no avail. I was doomed.

I tried to brace myself as they began to play, but what followed was worse than I could have imagined. I gasped in pain.

The sound of their instruments struck me like twenty blades piercing my chest simultaneously. The melody seemed to reach directly into my soul and pull out the most hurtful thoughts I kept hidden deep in my mind. It screamed these thoughts back at me, right into my ears.

“What made you think you could do this on your own? Who do you think you are?”

“Without your sword, you are weak.” 

“You are just as bad a friend as your father. You betrayed Jack.” 

“Your mother died because of you.” 

“You will never be good enough for Alex. You will never be good enough to help her.” 

“You only defeated Loki by cheating.” 

“Your friends are tired of how pathetic you are.” 

“No one wants you.” 

When I said it felt like being stabbed repeatedly, I meant that literally. Each note from the fiddles manifested as a searing physical pain that only grew more intense with each stroke of the watery bows. 

I thought I had encountered Nøkks before, but these water demons were vastly different from the security spirits at Mr. Alderman’s house — a realization that came too late. Those had been meant to kill. These ones? They were meant to torture, to hollow out, to make room for unknown abilities. I thought back to what Loki had said in Alex’s memory: “Where there’s emptiness, there’s room for power.” 

That’s what the Nøkks were here for. 

An undignified noise, a mixture of a scream and a whimper, escaped my lips as the next note seemed to directly pierce my heart. What had I gotten myself into? 

“I’m sorry, Magnus Chase,” I heard from somewhere very far away. Bragi. “This is the only way to end this.”

Somewhere beneath the dissonant sounds of the Nøkks’ instruments, I could still faintly hear Bragi’s beautiful duet with the Fossegrim, but it didn’t manage to drown out the torturous melody or ease the pain. The burning darkness continued to spread relentlessly through my entire body. 

“Alex hates you. You will never be Adrian.”  

Hot tears streamed down my frozen cheeks. I wanted it to stop. I would do anything to make it stop. 

With that thought, something inside me broke, and a force unlike anything I had ever experienced spilled from my hands.

Everything in the clearing was now bathed in a bright orange light that I knew radiated from me. Through my fingertips digging into the rock, I sensed things that had not been there before. I felt the way the rock connected to the bottom of the pond, felt millions of bacteria and plankton crawling through the wet slush. I felt the algae and the grass around the shore. Finally I felt the trees, all barely alive, stretching their roots deep into the ground in a last desperate attempt to get vital nutrients into their dying systems. And the light within me touched it all. 

The Nøkks didn’t stop, nor did the pain subside, but my mind became more clouded. I didn’t register it as much anymore, as if my pain receptors had spontaneously lost their connection to my brain. 

“Yes!” I heard someone shout triumphantly from a very different plane of existence than the one my mind was currently occupying. I couldn’t tell if it was the Fossegrim or Bragi. 

I desperately wished that maybe this meant they would call off the Nøkks, that they would let me go. But none of that happened. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew damn well that they would continue to use me as a power plant until the forest was fully restored — or until my battery ran out. Whichever happened first.

The anger I felt at that thought — anger at my own stupidity; at being used like this — only sent further waves of sunlight through the surrounding ground.

Maybe I was starting to lose it, but it felt as if my consciousness were woven directly into the mycorrhizal network — a close knit system of roots and fungi through which something that almost resembled words zapped like electrical impulses. 

The growing trees were communicating, and I was eavesdropping. A million messages flooded my brain, and it was almost impossible to discern their meanings. There was joy, relief, and definitely resentment. Where it was coming from, I couldn’t tell.

My vision was practically nonexistent at this point, but I sensed that the first trees were beginning to grow leaves, fresh and full of life. 

“Summer has arrived,” the trees seemed to shout as life and energy — my energy — flooded them.

Indeed, summer had arrived. And I kept drenching the entire clearing in its warmth. The only problem was that I couldn’t tell how much summer I had left in me.

Chapter Text

Alex

I was lying in the shards of my pottery — created and now destroyed by my own hands. Not a single undamaged piece of ceramic remained in my room. The remnants of my creations pressed accusingly into my back as if to painfully remind me of what I had done to them.

“You and I are made to bring chaos, to destroy.” 

Loki’s voice echoed through my mind so overwhelmingly loud that I considered cutting off my own head. 

I wasn’t sure what time it was. I had spent the night wide awake and the morning drifting in and out of disturbing, feverish dreams that had left me sweaty and hollow. I hadn’t bothered going to the daily battle, nor had I eaten anything. Someone had knocked on my door a few times — I didn't know if it had been Magnus or someone else — but I assumed I had made it clear enough to everyone that I was in no mood to chat.

Every second of the previous day weighed on me so heavily it felt like a small planet was pressing me flat to the ground. Especially the thought of my evening with Magnus made me want to wreck another room full of pottery.

Showing him my memories had been the only way for me to fill him in on my past, but that method had left me broken. Reliving practically all of my various traumas in a few short minutes had simply not been a good idea.

Still, I had no regrets about doing it that way, I realized, as I mindlessly picked up the largest shard I could find. Magnus had a right to understand why I acted the way I did; a right to understand that it wasn't his fault things had to be like this.

The shard’s dark glaze shimmered in the light breaking through the branches of the tree in my atrium as I moved it in my hands. Its color reminded me of Magnus’s eyes, glistening with tears — tears for me; tears that had been undeserved.

His reaction to it all made me unreasonably furious. How dare he see all of that—all of my deepest regrets and gravest mistakes—and still look me in the face with such tenderness? How dare he tell me that I made his life better? After what I had shown him, he was supposed to hate me. Or, at the very least, he should have resented me enough to lose any and all feelings he had for me. That had been my plan. It would have made everything so much easier.

But, of course, he hadn’t. I should have seen it coming. After all, he was Magnus Chase — always seeing nothing but the good in everyone around him. By the gods, he had defeated Loki and saved the worlds simply by loving his friends. No wonder he thought he could save me with love, too.

My grip on the shard tightened, and it cracked in two.

Despite my best efforts to keep Magnus at a distance, the few moments in which I had caved to the force pulling me toward him had been enough to set in motion what I had tried to avoid. Magnus Chase had fallen in love with me. And that terrified me so much that it felt like my bones were made of searing hot coals.

Another undeniable truth made it even worse: I had fallen too.

That thought jolted through me like a bolt, making me sit up straight. I looked down at the broken shard in my hands. My heart raced violently.

Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe this wouldn't destroy him. Maybe the outcome of the previous evening had narrowly prevented worse. From now on, we would be nothing but friends, Magnus had said. He would eventually fall out of love with me, and nothing terrible would happen to him.

I, on the other hand, would have to be continuously tormented by that tiny, hopeful voice — which, despite my best efforts, still hadn't been completely stifled — reminding me of all that could've been if Magnus had been right and Loki had lied, if I could've taken the risk of falling for someone again. And no matter how agonizing that voice became, I would always have to remember that I couldn't dare take that leap because I would drag Magnus down with me.

I threw the shards across the room then gathered all my strength to get up. I was afraid that if I lay there for another second, I would melt into the ground. 

Dust and fragments from the shattered pots trickled from my clothes as I moved. Dizzy, I stumbled into the kitchen, the shards crunching under my bare heels. I knew I needed to eat something sooner or later if I didn’t want to experience death by starvation for the first time, so even though my stomach protested, I forced myself to eat a mango from the fruit basket on my kitchen counter that was magically always filled to the brim, although I had never bought any fruit.

The dizziness subsided, but the emptiness inside of me remained. Adrian, Loki, my father, Magnus — their faces and voices kept spinning through my head, hollowing it out more with each turn.

I considered throwing some of the fruit against the wall, now that all my pottery was destroyed, and maybe I would have if the buzzing of my phone hadn't pulled me out of my depressing thoughts momentarily.

I glanced at the kitchen counter where I had left it yesterday. A message from Sam. “Hello??” it just said. Upon closer inspection, I came to realize that it was just the latest of several messages from her.

“Are you ok?” 

“Mallory said you and Mags had a fight and you’re not coming out of your room.” 

“Do you wanna talk?” 

“Alex?” 

“Pls reply.” 

I let out an angry sigh. I was going to kill Mallory. What the hell had she heard, and why did she feel the need to share it with my sister? Resolutely, I turned the phone around so that I wouldn’t have to see any more messages. The very last thing I wanted to do right now was try to explain to Sam what had happened yesterday. 

I went back into the atrium and let my eyes wander through the wrecked room. I didn’t crave company, but I felt like staying here with the shambles of my creations and the guilt they tried to heap on me would crush me if I didn’t get out. 

A glance at the clock — it was half past four — gave me hope that most of Valhalla's inhabitants were still dead after the daily battle. This meant that my chances of finding an empty sparring room where I could let out my emotions by separating a few training dummies from their heads were higher than ever. 

It took some internal struggle, but I eventually made it out of my room after hastily throwing on baggy black cargo pants and an oversized, rose-colored shirt. Hopefully, no one would catch me in this uninspired outfit. As I stepped into the hallway, I did my best to avoid looking at Magnus's door. I certainly did not want to wonder what he was up to or if his night had been as horrible as mine.

I dragged myself down to the armory, where I had left my garrote to be cleaned. Sometimes it really sucked to know what was good for you when all you really wanted to do was curl up in a ball and disappear.

Much to my relief, my prediction that the hotel would be mostly vacant at this time of day turned out to be correct. I made it to the armory without seeing or hearing a single soul.

I almost couldn’t believe my luck—because, let's face it, that was something I had been lacking lately—but that feeling only lasted until I opened the door and heard a familiar voice from across the room.

“And then he called me selfish!!! Can you imagine? ME! Just because I finally asked him to keep his promise! It’s been years and I’ve been patient all this time…” 

My first instinct would have been to turn around, tell myself that I had at least tried, and head back to my room –  perhaps to return to the very throwable fruit basket. That was almost exactly what I did, but when I realized who I was hearing and how angry he sounded, I hesitated. 

“Still, he acted like I was being unreasonable!” Jack continued, his enraged voice echoing off the marble floor. I considered ignoring what I was hearing, but my curiosity got the better of me. What could have made Jack, who was usually so bubbly and oblivious to others’ annoyance, so angry? And why was he recounting that story in the armory? 

I concentrated and transformed into a bumblebee. I buzzed forward, past rows of shelves filled with a wide assortment of armor and weapons from every century to the table at the end of the room where the cleaned weapons waited to be picked up by their owners. I landed on the nearest shelf and peered down at what looked like a weapons group therapy session. Jack, his blade glowing with an angry red light, hovered in front of the table; TJ’s bayonet leaned against it; and my garrote lay on top of it, along with a freshly polished sword and a morning star, whose owners I didn’t know. It was an odd sight, but I had long since stopped wondering about the sentience of our weapons – at least it was safe to say that my garrote had never once spoken to me. 

Jack grew quieter as he continued his story. A deep sense of hurt resonated in his voice as he said: “And then he said we weren’t friends anymore.” His light dimmed. “I never ever thought he would say something like that. I thought he was different…” 

By now, I had a strong suspicion of who he was talking about, but it remained hard to believe that Magnus would say such things to his favorite sword. 

“I travelled around the worlds for a bit after that, but I came back here because…” Jack continued “...well, you know, just in case he wants to apologize. But I haven’t seen him all day. I don’t think he wants to apologize.” 

He stayed silent for a few seconds, as did I. I hoped to catch the other weapons speaking for once, but, of course, they remained entirely inanimate.

Still, Jack let out a deep, dramatic sigh and said, as if in response to someone: “Yes, yes, I know. I shouldn’t run after him like that, but… I just can’t believe he meant it.” His light turned red again. “It’s all Alex’s fault anyway! Whatever is going on between them is a bad idea. I said so from the beginning—”

Taking the mention of my name as my cue, I turned back into a human and dropped to the ground right behind Jack. “Okay, Disco Sword, if you have to talk shit about me in front of my weapon, at least tell me what the hell is going on here!” I said, ignoring the high-pitched yelp Jack let out at my sudden appearance. 

“H-hey, Alex!” Jack stammered, trying to keep his voice jovial as if he hadn’t just been caught gossiping – he wasn’t a great actor. “Good to see you, amig….o?” 

I gave a small nod. 

“What are you doing here?” Jack continued with a nervous chuckle.

I crossed my arms. I wasn't going to fall for his terribly acted cheerfulness. “I wanted to pick up my weapon. But now, I want to hear what’s going on with you and Magnus… and why the hell you blame me for it.” 

Jack quickly gave up the pretense. “Because he spent the evening with you, and when he came back, he suddenly said we’re not friends anymore!!” 

“That does not sound like Magnus at all. Are you sure that’s what he said?” 

He turned away from me and remained quiet for a moment, probably contemplating whether or not I was worth explaining anything to – but of course, Jack was not exactly known for keeping his mouth shut. “I just asked him about Bragi because, hey, I was excited that he finally followed through on his promise. But he rambled on about how you guys broke up or something, and then he said that I only think about myself, and that I’m not his friend. I think he hates me,” Jack ended dramatically.  

I let out a deep sigh and rubbed my forehead in exhaustion. I felt like I understood what was going on here. “Okay, look. Yesterday was… a weird day. You probably just picked a very bad moment to bring up Bragi. Magnus doesn’t actually hate you. He doesn't hate anyone, especially not you. You know that.” 

Jack had been too much, right after I had been too much, and Magnus had finally snapped.

Jack turned away huffily. “Well, I want to hear that from him!” 

“Have you tried going to his room and talking to him??” I asked, exhausted. It wasn't that I didn't care about Jack's friendship with Magnus; my plans for today had just looked different, and it was proving increasingly difficult to muster the energy to deal with their drama on less than two hours of sleep.

“He’s not here,” Jack finally replied. “I couldn’t find him anywhere in the hotel.” 

I frowned. “He’s probably at the Ch-” 

But before I could finish my sentence, we were interrupted by the persistent buzzing of the phone in my back pocket. 

At first, I didn’t want to answer it, since Jack – who might not have eyes but still somehow managed to send judgmental glances – seemed to silently tell me, “Seriously?? We’re talking!” But the phone didn't stop buzzing, so I decided to at least check who it was.

“It’s Sam…” I said, more to myself than to Jack. I had almost expected this, but I couldn’t help sounding annoyed. Wasn’t my refusal to answer her messages enough of a sign that I didn’t feel like talking about Magnus — or anything else, for that matter? There was absolutely no need to call me or worry about me. I could manage. Sam just always made me feel like I couldn't when she played the protective older sister. 

In the end, I answered, in spite of Jack’s disapproval, because somehow I knew that Sam wouldn’t call just to chat about my feelings. There had to be something else. 

This feeling was only reinforced, when I heard Sam’s voice, strained and nervous. “Alex?” she asked. “Sorry, I know you don’t want to talk, but…” 

“You’re right… I don’t,” I said, trying to make my annoyance obvious, but I couldn’t stop myself from adding: “Is something wrong?” 

Sam hesitated. “I’m not so sure…  Have you seen Magnus today?” 

I groaned. So she really just wanted to talk about him! I should have known. “Sam, I’m not talking to you about—” 

“No, no, I just mean…” Sam interrupted me impatiently, “...do you know if he’s at the hotel?”

I frowned as uneasiness began to build in my chest.

“What’s she saying??” Jack asked, curiously floating closer to my phone. 

Since I could gladly do without having my ear cut off today, I pushed him away by the handle, covered the phone’s microphone and told him, “Sam wants to know if Magnus is at the hotel. It seems urgent.” 

Jack huffed. “Not since I got back a few hours ago. Unless he’s actively hiding from me because he’s ashamed, which I wouldn’t rule out.” 

I ignored that last part and spoke back into my phone.  “Jack says he’s not here.” 

“Jack is with you?? But Annabeth said…” There was a slight tremor in her voice, and I could sense her growing panic through the phone, which did nothing to alleviate my unease. “Oh no, that’s not good.” 

“Sam!” I said firmly. “Can you please just tell me what’s going on?” 

The last time I had heard my sister sound this worried, we had been responsible for stopping the end of the world. Not knowing what she was talking about sent my thoughts spiraling. 

I heard her take a deep breath on the other end of the line. “Okay, so Annabeth told me not to tell you, but — she thinks Magnus might be… missing. I hoped maybe he went straight back to the hotel or-”

“Wait, Magnus is missing?? I don’t understand. How — how is he missing?”  

“I’m not sure I fully understand either. Annabeth was talking really fast when she called. Apparently, Izzy somehow told Magnus where Bragi and the Fossegrim are hiding, and he left immediately to find them. He told Annabeth he’d be back in four hours, but it’s been six now. I told her not to worry too much because these quests sometimes take longer than expected. But now that I know that Jack isn’t even with him…-” 

My heart tried to jump out of my rib cage. “She let him go all alone??” 

The fog that had enveloped my brain all day had instantly lifted; adrenaline started to course through my veins, expelling any remaining exhaustion from my body. I grabbed my garrote from the group therapy circle and turned on the spot. I ran out of the armory, only partially aware that Jack was following me, demanding that I fill him in on the details, but I ignored him. 

“And why did she tell you not to tell me something like this???” With my thoughts whirling like a miniature tornado inside my head, it was easiest to focus on the emotion that was not directly related to Magnus: anger at Annabeth.

“I have no idea. But, uh…” I heard Sam gulp. “I told her that we have to talk to you if we want to find him, because you might know where he went.” 

“But I don’t!” Frustration rose in my voice. “He hasn’t talked to me since-”

“I- I think you do,” Sam interrupted. She sounded like she would rather be anywhere else than on this phone call. “Before he left, Magnus told Annabeth that… Izzy showed him your father’s house. And apparently that’s where he went.” 

My heart dropped to the floor. I stopped dead in my tracks, and Jack bumped into me. I don’t think I would have noticed if he had stabbed me in the back while doing so. I couldn’t utter a word, even though I wanted to scream. 

“Look, I know, that sounds really strange, and I have no idea what it means either, but… Annabeth said that Magnus sounded absolutely certain that he would find Bragi there. And if he did find him, we really don’t know what he’s dealing with. If the Fossegrim has managed to keep Bragi trapped for over a decade-” 

Sam kept talking, but I couldn’t process the words anymore. 

The thought of Magnus, in danger, in this place that I hated so much, made my stomach turn. Was the universe really that cruel? I had just admitted to myself that I had made the terrible mistake of falling in love with Magnus Chase, and now the curse of that realization was already being inflicted on him and me in the most vicious way possible. 

“It’s your fault. It’s your fault.” The faces of my parents spun in and out of focus before my inner eye, their words clanging in my ears. 

“Alex?” Sam’s voice reached me from what felt very far away, but I clearly heard the worry and the regret that she had said anything at all in her voice. 

I swallowed, the dread creeping up my throat, and instead said calmly: “Meet me at the Chase Space in twenty minutes.”  

I hung up. “And you—” I pointed at Jack, trying to look stern, even though I felt like crying “—are coming with me.” 

“To find Magnus?” Jack asked, sounding uninterested — though I sensed a hint of worry in his voice. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking. “No way, not after yesterday. Your garrote said I shouldn’t run after him.” Jack tried to fly away, but I wouldn’t let him. I grabbed him by the handle and pulled him down the hall. 

“HEY! Let go! You're depriving me of my liberty as a free sword. I can sue you—” 

I had neither the time nor the mental capacity to worry about sword rights or which potential weapons law enforcement Jack could possibly report me to. 

I slung my garrote — the traitor — around my belt loop and grabbed the struggling sword with both hands. “Listen to me, Disco Sword. You should know Magnus well enough by now to know that if he stormed off all alone to find Bragi right after you guys had a fight, it's because he thinks it'll fix things between you two. And if he got himself into trouble while doing so, then it’s partially because of you. So you’re going to help me to find him and get over your sulkiness, whether you like it or not.” 

Jack didn’t say a word until I had dragged him along through the semi-secret trash chute that opened into Midgard. 

“That was quite a speech…” he finally mumbled as I blinked against the bright winter sky. “I’m still mad at him, but… yeah, okay, I’ll come with you. At least then I can talk to Bragi myself. You can let me go, by the way.”

Deep down, I knew he cared more about Magnus than Bragi and just didn’t want to admit it. However, I wasn’t confident enough in that belief to trust that he wouldn't fly back to his buddies in the armory if he got the chance.

“I’m serious!” he reassured. “Let me go. Then you can turn into something a little faster. I thought you wanted to hurry.” 

He had a point. I let go of his handle with the vague idea of turning into something with wings to avoid the Boston traffic—a bird or a bat, maybe. But as soon as this thought took shape, my bones seemed to turn to lead, and my entire body felt so heavy that I barely managed to keep moving. 

Damn it! I strained my muscles, trying to force my body into changing, but the only thing that happened was my face growing hot with effort and embarrassment.

Just a few minutes ago, I had transformed into an insect as if it were nothing; why didn’t it work now that I really needed my shapeshifting ability? Deep down, though, I knew what the problem was. Now, just like yesterday when the wolves had attacked, something was weighing me down, keeping me trapped in this form: Fear. Fear that I would have to return to that cursed place; fear that something terrible had happened to Magnus. 

“No,” I said after a few tense moments of silence, hoping Jack didn't notice the distress on my face at this realization.

“What?” he asked, confused. 

“We’re taking the subway,” I replied, pretending like that was a far better idea than his. 

“Huh?” 

“Turn into a stone.” I tried to sound determined, and not like my body suddenly felt entirely useless. 

Miraculously, it seemed to work. Jack hesitated, and I could almost feel him scanning me up and down as he tried to figure out what was wrong with me, but finally he said, “You’re being weird, but okay,” turned into a runestone and dropped into my open hand. 

Chapter Text

Alex

“Why did you let Magnus go all alone without his sword? What’s wrong with you??” 

I stormed into the Chase Space kitchen. Jack, who hadn’t made another attempt to return to the hotel and, much to my relief, hadn’t questioned my decision to take the subway either, barely made it into the room before I slammed the door behind me. 

Annabeth and Sam were sitting at the kitchen table, both clasping cups of peppermint tea in their hands. They interrupted their conversation when they saw me. Neither of them seemed particularly surprised by my entrance — in fact, Annabeth regarded me with a gaze so steady and calm that it infuriated me even more than I already was. How could she be calm? I was the exact opposite of calm — I felt as though an elephant were trying to tap dance on my chest.

“He said he’d be fine. And apparently I have more faith in his abilities than you do,” she said coldly because the sight of me seemed to trigger an urge in her to take a jab at me. After a second, though, she averted her eyes and added, rather meekly: “And he promised he’d take Jack.” 

Jack’s blade emitted a bright orange hue, as if he was trying to make his presence more obvious. Unnecessarily, he noted: “That was a lie.”

“Clearly,” Sam said, holding up a hand to shield her eyes from Jack’s light. “But it doesn’t make any sense. Why would he lie about that? And why would he go after Bragi without you?” 

If her goal had been to dim the orange light, it had worked. The otherwise sparsely lit kitchen suddenly seemed dark, as the glow of the blade faded to a faint glimmer. Jack lowered the tip of his blade – the sword equivalent of hanging one’s head. “We… had a fight yesterday—”

I cut in: “— and as I know Magnus, he probably thinks he can make it up to Jack by finding Bragi on his own.” 

Sam considered this for a moment, bit her lip, then nodded. 

“What I don’t understand—” I continued, turning back to Annabeth. “—is why the fuck you didn’t want to tell me that Magnus was missing.” 

As luck would have it, the door opened just then and Blitz walked into our emergency meeting. “Alex! Swear jar!” he scolded. 

I only felt bad because behind him entered Hearth and Izzy, who was clinging to his arm. She looked like she had been crying. 

Although I didn’t think she had heard me swear, as a responsible role model I still reached into my pocket, rolled my eyes and handed Blitz a crumpled dollar bill, without letting Annabeth out of my sight.

She shot an unhappy glance at Sam, as if feeling betrayed by the fact that Sam had told me about how she had wanted to keep me out of this. 

“Of course she told me, she’s my sister,” I wanted to shout, but I restrained myself when Annabeth's calculating gaze returned to me.

“I’m sorry, Alex,” she said — which was already an unexpected start to her answer. “But Magnus made me promise not to tell you anything about this.” 

This response felt like a slap. “Why- why would he do that??” 

The others exchanged uneasy glances. Perhaps they all secretly agreed that they knew the answer to that question but didn’t want to say it out loud. And maybe they didn’t have to. I knew it, too. 

After a few seconds of tense silence, Blitz cleared his throat and said: “So, uh, to get back to the point… I think Izzy wants to tell you about the song in her head.” 

“It’s getting so loud—” Izzy mumbled as she let go of Hearth’s arm to rub her teary eyes. “My head hurts. And I keep seeing these things—” 

“The song seems to be connecting her to Bragi somehow,” Hearth signed behind her back. “And something is happening wherever he is that makes the music louder. I don’t think that’s a good sign.” 

That didn’t lessen my worry in the slightest. “We have to hurry ,” I signed back. My hands felt shaky and uncoordinated — I hoped the others wouldn’t notice. I turned to Izzy and was glad that I got to use my voice, which felt slightly steadier than my hands, to speak to her: “You’re being really brave about it. I’ll try to make it stop as soon as possible. Can you describe to me what the music is showing you?”

Izzy hesitated for a second. “I can show you if I play the melody.” 

That sounded like a sensible plan to me, and I was about to follow Izzy out of the kitchen to the piano upstairs, but Hearth blocked our path. “Don’t. ” 

“Why not?” Sam asked, anticipating the question I was about to ask.

“I think hearing the melody forced Magnus to follow it. That’s why he left so recklessly. ” 

“Like Charmspeak…” Annabeth muttered after Sam had translated for her and nodded at Izzy, who just looked back in confusion. The poor kid still had no idea what was going on here —  but unfortunately, now was not the time for explanations. As soon as all this was over, we would have to sit her down and gently try to make sense of it all for her.

Hearth nodded seriously. “I think Bragi wanted Magnus to come to him. The music drew him in. We can’t fall under the same spell. ” 

So Izzy tried to describe what she was seeing and what she had shown Magnus. She seemed to struggle to put the images in her head into words, but her description still sent a chill down my spine. It only confirmed what Sam had already told me, but hearing her unmistakably talk about my father’s estate — there was no way, there was another villa with a golf course and a forest right behind it somewhere nearby — still felt like a cold hand closing around my throat. I couldn’t imagine a more difficult task than returning there, but it was out of the question that I would have to. I couldn’t leave Magnus behind — not in that place, not if he was in danger. 

It didn’t take long to work out how to approach this rescue mission. Nobody questioned that I would have to go. Of course, Annabeth wanted to come too, and my brain was too preoccupied to come up with a valid argument against it; Hearth offered to join us because he knew a little about water spirits and had just recently replenished his magic with a long nap. Jack said he wanted to finally meet Bragi, but I knew that he was secretly worried about Magnus as well. Sam was more than happy to avoid mythological rescue missions, so she and Blitz — who still didn’t know exactly what we had found out yesterday to avoid attracting the wolves’ attention — would stay behind to keep an eye on the Chase Space. 

Half an hour later, there we were: Hearth, Annabeth, and I — all equipped with fashionably questionable anti-wolf headwear — mounted on the back of our eight-legged horse friend Stanley, whom Hearth had summoned. Jack had transformed into a rune stone and had let himself be stowed away in my pocket on the condition that I would let him out as soon as we arrived; otherwise, he would slash my pants, which I could really do without. 

I wasn’t sure how I had ended up on the rearmost part of the horse’s back, but by the time I had climbed on, Hearth was already at the front with Annabeth behind him. She looked anything but happy as I settled behind her. She stiffened noticeably when I was forced to hold on to her waist as Stanley leapt forward, hopefully galloping towards the destination I had given him. I couldn’t summon the mental energy to be angry about it, though. My mind was too busy repeating the same thoughts over and over again.

What had happened to Magnus? We didn’t even know for sure that he was in trouble, but I barely dared to think that there was anything left to be done. It made too much sense. He had left head over heels, not just because of the music’s magic or to regain Jack’s trust, but because of me. Because he hadn’t wanted me to feel obligated to return to my family's home — that’s why he had told Annabeth not to tell me anything about it. I had read that answer in the eyes of all my friends in the kitchen earlier. 

If anything happened to him, it would be my fault. My fate had caught up with me. My attempt to protect Magnus from it by severing our ties yesterday had come too late. 

You and I are made to bring chaos, to destroy. 

My lungs didn't seem to be taking in any of the air that was rushing past at a frightening speed. 

It would not be long before we reached our destination, I knew, and that was another completely frightening thought. What would it feel like to return to this place? It was a tarnished place, yes — one I associated with pain and all the things my father had taken from me: my art, my forest, my childhood. But there were also happy memories: my grandfather secretly giving me my first dress for my eleventh birthday; my half-sisters and I pretending to be witches in the woods; my first kiss with Adrian, hiding behind the pool house. How could anyone possibly return to such a contradictory, haunted place without combusting? 

Everything around me seemed to be spinning, and that had nothing to do with how fast the horse was galloping. 

What if we ran into someone who knew me? What if I saw my father? 

Despite my warm winter jacket, I was shaking.

The realization that I was on the verge of a panic attack hit me at the same moment Annabeth decided to strike up a conversation. 

“Hey, Alex?” she asked, her voice tense as she stared at the back of Hearth's head. I briefly considered how unfair it would be for us to chat when Hearth had no way of following the conversation, but I was too relieved to have someone distract me from my spiraling thoughts — even if that someone was Annabeth.

I cleared my throat. “Yeah?” I tried to sound casual, like none of this was a big deal. But my voice came out hoarse. 

She took a deep breath, her shoulders stiff and square. I suddenly realized that her body language was not a result of her being uncomfortable with me touching her but of her being nervous. “I think I owe you an apology.” 

This stunned me enough to momentarily forget the panic that was building inside of me.  “Oh—” was all I could say in response. 

“You were absolutely right yesterday. Whatever relationship you and Magnus have — or don’t have — it’s none of my business. It’s just—” Her shoulders relaxed slightly, now that she had started to speak, “— he always sounded so happy when he talked about you, and I was afraid he'd get his heart broken because you don't care about him as much as he cares about you. But... that's not true, is it?”

I kept quiet because I didn't know how or if I wanted to answer that question, but Annabeth didn't push. She continued: “You know, Percy hasn’t been doing so well lately… in terms of his mental health, I mean. I think all of the things we went through are just now starting to catch up with us.” The words rolled off her tongue quickly, as if she couldn’t stop herself now that she had started talking — and I didn’t dare to interrupt. “A few weeks ago, he told me he wanted to spend some time alone with his family in New York instead of spending winter break together at camp like we had planned — to get some distance from all things 'demigod.' That’s why I wanted to come here in the first place.”

Today had already taken several unexpected turns, but I had not expected to end up having a relationship talk with Annabeth Chase while riding an eight-legged horse. 

 “Of course, it’s totally reasonable for him to want some time alone,” she continued. She spoke quickly and forcefully, like she had been waiting for days to get this off her chest. “But I worry about him and… it just makes me feel so useless. Because I can’t help him with what he’s going through. So I thought I could at least try to be helpful here. But after having been so unhelpful with Izzy and during the quest, I— I guess I just really wanted to help Magnus with… something. Anything. I let it get to my head and crossed a line—” She stopped herself and her shoulders stiffened again, as if she had only just realised how much she had said. Uncharacteristically tentatively she added: “None of that’s an excuse, but maybe an explanation.”

“I accept your apology,” I told her when I found my voice again. As surprising as this confession was, it sounded sincere. “And, in case it helps, I don’t think you were useless during the quest. You saved me from that wolf, remember? Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Oh, it was no big deal…” Annabeth said, sounding much more relaxed. Something had clearly been weighing on her before.

We stayed silent for a few moments. Stanley galloped back onto an asphalt street, and houses rushed past us. We were approaching Salem.

The surprise of Annabeth pouring her heart out to me quickly wore off, and the ice-cold dread from earlier overtook my heart again.

“I think this is very brave of you…” Annabeth proceeded with the conversation, and I had to force myself to listen to her instead of sinking back into my grim thoughts. 

“What?” 

“You didn't even hesitate to go look for Magnus... even if it means going back to your father's house. I'm sure that can't be easy.” 

I wasn’t sure how much she knew about my childhood, but she wasn’t stupid. She could probably imagine the vague circumstances. 

I didn’t know how to respond. The idea of not searching for Magnus hadn't even crossed my mind, so it was difficult to see my actions as brave. Plus, I was absolutely scared out of my mind — there was nothing brave about that. 

I was about to tell her as much — because, apparently, I suddenly felt okay discussing such personal matters with Annabeth Chase — but before I got the chance to speak, Stanley abruptly stopped. A lump formed in my throat. We had arrived.

Numbness spread through my body. At the periphery of my vision, I saw a rim of bright green, but I couldn’t convince my eyes to look around at first — instead, they stayed fixed on the back of Annabeth’s head, like they didn’t dare take in anything else. Then she slid off the horse after Hearth, and I was left staring across the vast lawn of my father’s golf course – green, but specked with patches of muddy snow. And there, in the distance — a very safe distance, I realized, and a wave of relief washed over me — stood the house, blending almost perfectly into the gray sky. From here, it looked grotesque and lifeless  — like the rotting corpse of a giant animal. I tried not to wonder if anyone was home. 

With force, I tore my eyes away and slid off Stanley’s back. The moment my feet hit the ground, Hearth grazed my arm lightly to get my attention. 

I looked up to find utter confusion written all over his face. “Are you sure this is the right place?”

My eyes swept past him to the house. Trying to swallow the lump in my throat, I nodded. Of course, this was the right place. No other place could have this effect on me. 

If anything, that only deepened the frown on Hearth’s face. 

“This doesn’t look much like a golf course…” Annabeth said from behind me, sounding as skeptical as Hearth looked. 

“Then you haven’t seen many golf courses.” My eyes kept wandering across the plane to the house, as if it were a dangerous predator and I needed to make sure it kept its distance. 

“Guess I haven’t…” she replied, a hint of sarcasm in her voice, that reminded me a lot of Magnus. “Are they usually overgrown with ivy?” 

“Are they— what—??” I spun around to face the forest, and my mouth fell open.

From where we stood in relation to the house, I was certain that the edge of the forest had to be at least half a mile away. Instead, the first trees — maples, firs, birches — sprouted from the too-smooth ground only a few feet from where Stanley was now happily grazing the perfect lawn. The trees stood tall and proud, their trunks gnarled and covered in moss and fungi. They looked decades old.

Among the trees grew thorny bushes, ferns, dogwoods and dozens of plants I had never seen before — plants I wasn’t even sure were native to Massachusetts or even Midgard in general. The ground was covered with ivy that climbed up the trees, curling around them, and reaching out of the woods across the lawn, almost touching our feet. 

It took all my willpower to close my mouth. All this was alive! In the dead of winter — vibrant, green and fresh, as if the summer sun had been nourishing this forest for months already.  

As if that wasn’t enough, Hearth pointed out the most disturbing fact. 

“It’s growing,” he signed, his wide, pale eyes fixed on the miracle before us. 

He was right. Once I had overcome the initial shock that this sight had caused me, I noticed that the plants were moving. Slowly, but steadily. Their branches were lengthening, new leaves were sprouting, and the ivy was crawling toward our feet.

"I take it this isn't what you expected this place to look like?" asked Annabeth, sounding as stunned as I felt.

“How can this be??” I uttered, knowing that her question was more rhetorical. “It’s the middle of January.” 

Hearth shook his head, seemingly more to clear his mind than to negate my statement.  “This is not normal. It feels like alf seidr. Like Frey’s power.”

“Magnus? ” I asked, not sure if his presence being responsible for this was a good sign. 

“Maybe.” 

I translated our exchange for Annabeth, which darkened her gray eyes to the color of stormy clouds. She pulled the dagger dangling from her belt from its sheath looking as if she expected an attack from the trees at any moment. “Why would Magnus make a forest grow? Can he even do something like that?” 

“No idea…”

“Ask Jack,” Hearth signed and pointed at my pocket. 

It was a miracle that Jack had refrained from slicing open my pants for so long. He told me as much, after I had taken out the rune stone and he had assumed his sword form. “I was this close! You said you'd get me out when we got there!!” 

“Yeah, well, we were a little surprised by… this,” I said dryly, gesturing toward the forest. 

He spun around. “Whoa. We’re never gonna find Bragi in there — and uh, Magnus, of course,” he added sheepishly at the look I gave him.

I didn’t have the patience to scold him for how he set his priorities. “Do you think that might have something to do with him coming here?”

Jack hesitated and approached one particularly ambitious vine that had almost reached my boots — carefully, as if expecting it to lash out like an angry snake. “Not sure. Back when I was with Frey, there was this one child of his who could manipulate plants pretty well, but.. Magnus has never been able to do anything like that, has he?” 

“Not that I know of…” 

Magnus could do many great things – heal people, bring peace and sunlight – but growing a forest was not usually on the list of his daily activities, as far as I was concerned. 

I interpreted Jack’s words for Hearth, but he couldn't give us a better answer. “Either way: We have to find him. Standing here won’t do any good.”

We could all agree on that, so Hearth released Stanley from the magic of the runes and he, Annabeth, Jack, and I ventured forward, leaving our horse friend behind.

Finding our way through the forest proved to be much more difficult than I had initially expected. I had been certain that I would recognize the forest I had spent so many days in as a child; that I would recognize the spongy feel of moss beneath my feet and the rich smell of soil, wood, and decaying leaves. I had expected it to feel like meeting an old friend again who would show me the way to where I needed to go.

But there was only emptiness in my chest. 

I followed Jack blindly, not knowing where we were going. I had tripped five times before we even reached the first trees, and for a second, I considered transforming into a bird to avoid the uneven ground. However, as soon as the idea crossed my mind, I was reminded that my problem still remained: the particles of my body stayed firmly where they were, fear freezing them in place. No matter how hard I tried, I was not going to shift into anything anytime soon.

I shoved that realization to the very back of my mind — if I dwelled on it, I would only get lost in further anxiety at the thought of having to face whatever was ahead  without my most useful skill — and told myself it would be unfair to leave the others down here anyway. 

So, all that was left for me to do was to stumble forward through the thick curtain of lush green foliage and do my best to avoid the growing, moving branches and thorny bushes that seemed to sprout in every direction. 

Despite Jack’s and Annabeth’s best efforts to cut a safe path through the undergrowth, it wasn’t long before we were all bruised and scratched up. 

“Shouldn’t the sun be setting by now?” Annabeth asked after a while of stumbling through the jungle. I had asked myself the same question and followed her gaze upward. The treetops were so dense, that it was impossible to make out even a hint of the sky above them – yet, it was no darker in the forest than outside. 

I opened my mouth to speak, even though I couldn’t offer an explanation, when Hearth pointed ahead. 

At first, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at when I followed his gaze to the near-solid wall of ivy rising from the ground ahead of us. Then, I noticed the faintest hint of metal poking through the thick green mass and realized that this was the fence that had once marked the outer edge of the golf course. 

“Look, someone cut a hole in it — I bet that was Magnus,” Jack pointed out, and promptly shot through the gap in the wire mesh, leaving us little choice but to follow.

“There’s a stream here—” Annabeth said as she climbed through the hole first. When Hearth and I joined her on the other side, she was already crouching by the small but steady trickle of fresh water that ran along the edge of the fence. “We could follow it — there’s got to be a spring somewhere, and I’d bet money that’s where the Fossegrim is.”

Hearth and I both agreed that this sounded like a good plan, so we followed the water deeper into the forest, which felt so familiar and yet so incredibly strange. Around every corner, I thought I saw something I recognized, only to feel utterly lost the next second. I wasn’t even sure anymore if I had ever stumbled across the stream we were following now as a child. 

Perhaps both the forest and I had undergone too many severe changes to recognize each other. 

The walking conditions didn’t improve — on the contrary, the branches and leaves seemed to be wrapping themselves around us, growing steadily. The ground was more uneven, now that the smooth surface of the golf course was no longer underneath it. For some reason it kept getting warmer and warmer until I was sweating profusely in my winter jacket.

Jack and Annabeth still ventured ahead, clearing the way with their blades as best as they could. Hearth and I followed, doing our best to keep up, even though I began to hate this hike.

The unpleasant conditions made it almost impossible to have a decent conversation in ASL, but after a few minutes of walking, Hearth tried anyway. 

He tugged gently on my sleeve to get my attention. Elves never sweat, of course, but his flushed, scratched cheeks told me that he felt just as miserable as I did.

“I noticed you and Annabeth were talking on the horse,” he signed, his face devoid of emotion.

“Yes, sorry, that was rude,” I replied sheepishly. “She wanted to apologize to me.”

Hearth raised an eyebrow. “Impressive . I thought you two would never warm up to each other.”

“Neither did I.” A light smile tugged at the corners of my mouth as I pushed a particularly stubborn branch aside to let Hearth walk by. Once my hands were free again, I signed: “She also said that she thinks I’m brave for coming here.”  I wasn’t sure why I felt compelled to tell Hearth this – maybe I just didn’t want to fall back into my spiraling thoughts. 

Hearth nodded. In profile, his face looked much more serious than it usually did nowadays, the playful quirk of his eyebrows and hint of a smile at the left corner of his mouth hidden. “You are,” he signed with gravitas.

“I’m not brave,” I signed back – more a reflex than a conscious decision. Something in Hearth’s gray eyes — always so sad yet so curious — pushed me to continue: “I’m afraid.” 

Though I wasn’t even sure what exactly I was so afraid of, it was the truth. 

I stumbled over a root sticking out of the ground and would have fallen if Hearth hadn't caught me with his steady hands on my arms. Once I was back on my feet, he signed: “It’s brave to face your fears. You are brave, just as I was brave when I returned to my father’s house. ”

I pulled a face. Hearth’s family trauma had always seemed so much more extreme than mine. What had happened in my past felt insignificant compared to his. It felt wrong that he equated our stories so easily. “That was a whole other level of bravery. ”  

He shook his head. “It’s the same. You shouldn’t have had to come here. I shouldn’t have had to return to my father’s house. But I did it anyway — for Blitz. You’re doing it for Magnus. ”

The automatic urge to dismiss that comparison crept up on me, but Hearth was already continuing, his expression so sincere that I didn’t dare interrupt.

“Some people are worth being brave for. Because sometimes you just know that if you remain a coward, the thought of what could have been will consume you. And it doesn't matter if you're screaming on the inside the whole time; it matters that you dare to take the leap anyway. ”

Somewhere inside of me, a tiny flame sparked, slowly warming what had been frozen since our arrival here. I looked at my friend and I knew that he was right – of course, he was. He probably knew what I was feeling better than anyone. 

I stopped beside a large beech tree. Hearth stopped as well, and for a few moments, we let Jack and Annabeth walk ahead without us. I took his hand in mine and squeezed it tightly before releasing it to sign: “Thank you for being here with me.”

This place might have been a painful one for me — a place where I had suffered so much hatred; where I had regularly felt like I would become the sole reason for a second Salem witch hunt — but right now, I was surrounded by love. For a brief moment I wasn't afraid of it.

“You are part of my family ,” Hearth replied, a warm smile curling his lips. I noticed something glittering on his hand as he moved it — a ring, perhaps — and a part in the back of my mind wondered since when Hearth was the type to wear jewelry. On the surface, though, I was too busy trying not to tear up because of our conversation. “I will always be there for you when you try to be brave. ”

I wasn’t sure how to express the wave of gratitude that washed over me, and I didn’t even get the chance to try because Jack’s voice broke the serene moment: “Uh, guys, are you seeing this too, or is the poison ivy making me hallucinate?” 

“Nope. I see it, too,” Annabeth replied, sounding stunned.

I signaled Hearth to follow me so we could catch up with our companions. They had made their way up a small incline around which the stream meandered. When we reached them, they were both staring (at least, I assumed Jack was staring; it was hard to tell) into the distance.

When my gaze followed theirs, I had to squint at the bright, gleaming light that broke through the dense sea of green. Its source must have been several hundred feet away and separated by hundreds of plants from where we had stopped. Yet it bathed everything in a warm, golden hue. 

Wordlessly, all four of us decided that the light source was what we were looking for, and we moved on towards it in silence.

Chapter Text

Alex

As we got closer, the light became more intense. From somewhere in the distance, the light breeze that rustled through the trees carried over a delicate melody. At first, it was barely there and I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it —  then, from one step to the next, it hit me with full force, like an arrow piercing my heart. 

I was forced to stop in my tracks. A few feet ahead of me, Annabeth did the same. Hearth, unaware and unaffected by the sound, bumped into me. 

"What??” he signed at the same time as Annabeth swayed and mumbled a stunned “Whoa—” 

“Music,” was all I could offer in a jerky gesture in reply  before my legs gave out and I sank to my knees. I pressed my hands to my ears, but that didn’t do much to block out the sound. It was impossible to say what instrument could possibly produce something like this. It was unlike anything I had ever heard before — a melody so heartbreaking and yet so elevating, it seemed to contain the entirety of creation. It evoked every emotion I had ever felt at once — I was convinced that only my hands over my ears kept me from collapsing from misery or joy or love or fear — or all of the above. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes; at the same time, I could barely hold back a hysterical giggle.

“What is that-?” I pressed through gritted teeth, asking no one in particular. 

Annabeth leaned her back against the trunk of a yew tree. She rummaged through the pockets of her jacket. Because she didn't cover her ears, she couldn't keep the tears from streaming down her cheeks. “That must be the Fossegrim,” she said, her voice shaking so badly that I could barely understand her through my hands.

“And Bragi!!!” Jack said, practically vibrating. Since he had shown the same level of excitement all day long when talking about Bragi, I didn’t think that was a side effect of the music. He seemed unaffected by it, which I found very unfair. “We’re almost there, amigos, come on!” 

Through her tears, Annabeth managed to aim a scowl at the sword so sinister that Jack immediately stopped and patiently waited for us. If I hadn’t been so busy trying to drown out the music, I would have been impressed. 

“I bet if we got any closer, the sound would drive us insane — here.” She held out a small package of earplugs. Internally, I smacked myself for not having thought of earplugs myself. The world of Norse mythology was full of sound based attacks, yet it took a Greek demigod to remember to bring earplugs? Embarrassing. 

Before I dared to remove my hands from my ears to take them, Hearth — who of course wasn’t bothered by any of this in the slightest — signed “Wait,” and snatched the earplugs from Annabeth’s hand. “I have an idea .” 

He pulled a rune stone from the pouch on his belt, then held it along with the earplugs in both hands. He shook everything a few times, as if he were about to throw the contents of his hands like dice, before handing the earplugs back to me and Annabeth. I didn’t even think about taking them, but the moment I stopped protecting my ears with my hands, the music, now louder, tore an unhinged combination of a giggle and a sob from my throat. 

I quickly pressed the soft rubber into my ears. I wasn’t sure what Hearth had done to them, but they managed to block out the music completely. Once the tune was banished from my head and my thoughts became clearer again, I wiped my eyes and scrambled to my feet. “Thanks,” I signed at Hearth. 

“What did you do with that rune?” Annabeth asked. To my surprise, I had no trouble hearing her voice at all. It was loud and clear, as if it was reaching my ears through high-tech headphones.  

Hearth slipped the rune stone — the symbol on it looked like someone had tried to write the letter ‘H’ and fainted while doing so — back into the pouch and finger-spelled: “ H-A-G-L-A-Z. The rune of destruction, but also of cleansing. It should make the earplugs filter out everything that could harm you — like the music. But you won’t miss the important stuff. ”

“I think it’s working,” I said and signed along. 

Annabeth looked at me for a moment, surprised by the clarity of my voice, and nodded. “Hearth, you're a genius!”

Hearth just shrugged, but a faint grin formed around his lips. “I know .” 

“That’s really great guys, but can we move on now?” Jack asked in a whiny voice, so we resumed walking towards the light. 

Despite the quick solution to our music problem, we didn’t get very far. The creek – now much wider and with a more rapid current – took a sharp turn and then disappeared behind a wall of thorny shrubs so dense that it was impossible to see behind it – all that came through was the golden light, making it look as if each leaf, each thorn, each of the unearthly-looking blossoms were glowing.

We did the sensible thing and tried to find a way around the obstacle, only to quickly realize that it was useless. The wall of bushes and trees curved around a large area, and the stream didn't appear again in any direction. We came to the conclusion that if something like that blocked our way, it was probably an indicator that this was exactly where we needed to go. The stream’s spring had to hide beyond the bushes. The best way was through — but that was easier said than done.

Annabeth and I immediately started pulling at the tightly woven web of branches and vines, but they felt like they were made of metal — hard and unyielding. Jack tried his best to cut a way through, but to no avail. Every time he managed to chop through something, the gash mended itself before he could even move on to the next vine. But we weren't going to let ourselves be deterred that easily. If Magnus was behind those bushes, we had to get through them.

By the time Hearth finally pulled me and Annabeth away from the thorns, both our hands were scratched and bloody. 

“It’s no use. We’re being kept out on purpose,” he signed and reached for his rune stones once again. He held up a rune that I recognized: Kenaz , the rune of fire that Hearth had used to keep us from freezing in Niflheim on our way to the Ship of the Dead. 

“Are you sure this will work?” I asked skeptically, my bloody fingers stinging from the movement. Starting a fire in a forest was never a good move. Also, this seemed like too easy of a solution.

“Maybe if Jack and I try together.” Hearth rubbed the rune stone between his hands and a ball of fire formed in his palms. The heat made his face flush, and his light hair looked ablaze in the glow of the flames. 

He hurled the blazing ball at the bushes, where it burned a few inches deep into the green wall before extinguishing itself without setting anything else in the forest on fire.

Jack followed Hearth’s instructions and sawed through the charred branches. This time, they didn’t grow back.  

“It’s working,” Annabeth remarked, and she was right. Slowly but surely Jack managed to form a circular opening through which the golden light seeped out into the dark green forest like blood from a gaping wound.  As soon as it was big enough for us to fit through, I grabbed Hearth’s and Annabeth’s hands and pulled them through, without further hesitation. 

We stumbled together and fell into soft grass. I half expected the bushes to close behind us, but the gap remained open, which was a relief — we would perhaps need an emergency exit. 

The first thing I noticed about our new environment was that it was as warm as a summer day. I stood up to throw off my jacket and was immediately blinded by the gleaming light, so much brighter, now that there was nothing but a short distance separating us from its source.

I blinked rapidly and shielded my eyes with one hand. I gave them time to adjust, first taking in the outskirts of the clearing we had entered before slowly moving closer to the light source in its center.

The scene before us was picturesque. The large clearing was wholly enclosed by the protective barrier we had just fought through. There were hundreds of green trees — willows with long vines grazing the fresh grass, oaks with gnarled, mossy limbs, and maples with golden leaves gleaming in the light — as well as thousands of bushes and smaller plants. Everything was woven together so tightly that it was impossible to say where one plant ended and the next began.

The space itself was almost entirely taken up by a pond of emerald-green water. The slick shores glistened with jade-colored algae, and in the water – I squinted – yes, there were humanoid shapes crowded around a boulder, almost a tiny island, in the center of the pond. They were moving their watery arms in sync over what looked like violins — but I was certain that this wasn't the source of the enchanting music that had echoed through the forest; whatever soundless music these shapes were playing seemed, judging by their movements, to be a slower, sad song.

It was only when I let my eyes wander a little higher, right next to where the light was coming from, that I could see the source of the music that, despite the magical earplugs, now faintly reached my ears:  Two figures sat on the small island, playing the terribly beautiful duet on their violins, their fingers skillfully rushing up and down the frets. 

The taller one of the two had a more eye-catching appearance, with fish-like scales climbing up their bare legs and arms, and skin the color of dried algae. This didn’t change the fact that they were undeniably handsome. Their slender but muscular frame and the shoulder-lenght, wet-looking hair gave them an androgynous look. There was something mesmerizing about their appearance, so much so that I had to tear my eyes away.

The other one looked less exciting with his viking-like clothes, the strawberry-blonde hair and the bushy, untrimmed beard – just the average Norse god. Nevertheless, his graceful long fingers moved across the fret of his violin just as skillfully as those of his duet partner. 

For a split second, my spirits lifted at their sight. We had found the Fossegrim and Bragi — there was no doubt about that. 

Then, I heard Jack say in an uncharacteristically concerned tone “Magnus??” and that feeling evaporated instantly. If Jack, now finally face-to-face with his prospective biographer, completely ignored him to call for Magnus – by name, not some ridiculous nickname – something had to be terribly wrong.

I forced myself to stare directly into the light source at the edge of the tiny island, right next to Bragi. It was like staring into the sun; my eyes watered and stung, but I strained to keep them open. Deep down, I had already anticipated it, but when I finally saw where the light was coming from, the air was sucked out of my lungs.

“W-what is he doing there?” Annabeth asked, her trembling voice sounding far away. 

Magnus was the light. 

He was kneeling at the edge of the island, his hands pressed firmly to the stony surface beneath him. 

Every single cell in his body seemed to have morphed into a tiny sun, drowning everything around him in a sea of gold. It was this light that made the plants grow relentlessly, I realized. He was healing the forest and everything in it. As I lowered my hand, to shield my eyes better from the light, I noticed the cuts and scratches that had been there a moment ago had disappeared. 

I remembered the day Izzy had shown up at the Chase Space. She had told me about her dream of the music, the growing trees, Magnus glowing brightly — had she somehow foreseen all this?

I had seen Magnus glow before, when he healed people – but never like this. Everything about it was beautiful, eerie, and utterly terrifying. For the first time, I considered the flip side of all the goodness Frey's power encapsulated: growth could become unpredictable; sunlight could burn and blind. 

It was difficult to make out the details, but the longer I stared at him, the more my eyes took in: His hands weren’t just pressed to the ground; they were bound there by grassy vines that came from the pond. His eyes — wide open, staring into nothingness — looked like they were filled with molten gold that threatened to spill out at any moment. Streaks of half-dried tears ran down his cheeks, and his face was contorted with pain. 

My chest ached. I felt the urge to rush across the clearing, jump into the water and free him from whatever was hurting him so much, and I probably would have done just that if we hadn't been discovered at that moment.

“Intruders!” the tall figure, whom I assumed to be the Fossegrim, shouted without taking the bow off their violin. Their voice sounded smooth and posh, reminding me of how some of my father’s business partners used to talk, but there was an edge to it that made me not want to mess with them. “What do you want? I do not have the capacity to take on another student. As you can see, we are already quite busy.” 

“I don’t think they’re here to learn, Fossy,” the other figure, Bragi, said amusedly. Something about his carefree tone bothered me, especially since I still couldn't take my eyes off the burning sun that was Magnus, afraid he might fade into the light if I looked away. “At least one is an einherji, and I assume the glowing sword is the one the boy told us about: Sumarbrander." 

“You know my name?” Jack squealed, forgetting about Magnus for a moment. To my genuine surprise, however, he quickly shook himself out of his starstruck state. "What's wrong with Magnus?" 

Neither Bragi nor the Fossegrim paused their entrancing melody for even a second —  perhaps they couldn’t.

“Nothing,” the water spirit said with as much of a shrug as one could muster while playing a violin. Their eyes wandered over to Magnus as if they had barely noticed the burning light before and added: “I’m just doing what I am known for: teaching a new skill.” 

“You need not worry about your friend,” Bragi said, again in that smooth, untroubled voice. “He wanted this.” 

Something about his tone made me want to believe him, but I tried to fight it. Without the earplug, I was sure I would not be able to resist his voice at all. 

I tried my best to interpret for Hearth so that he would understand what was happening, but I couldn’t claim that I was fully focused

“He doesn’t look like he wants this. He’s in pain!” Annabeth shouted across the clearing. 

I agreed with her. Magnus looked like he was burning up from the inside.

“Growing pains,” Bragi replied indifferently, not even sparing Magnus a single glance. “Learning something new can be painful, but also rewarding. I should know; I have been learning continuously for ten years.”

With that, he and the Fossegrim turned their full attention back to their music as if that were all the explanation we could possibly need.

Anger tightened my throat. The god in particular infuriated me. Neither he nor the Fossegrim cared about Magnus. Talking to them wouldn't help. 

Driven by pure impulse, I staggered towards the pond, ready to try to turn into some kind of sea creature to reach where Magnus was bound. Hearth was the only reason I stopped; he grabbed my arm just a few feet from the shore. My initial reaction was to pull myself free, but the urgent look on his face made me hesitate.

“Careful,” he signed and nodded towards the pond. “N-ø-k-k-s,” he spelled out. Though I didn’t know that word, I concluded that he meant the shapeless water forms with their liquid violins, crowding around Magnus. Frankly, they didn’t look all that menacing, but I believed Hearth when he explained: “Dangerous water spirits."  

“What is he saying?” Annabeth asked, catching up with us. 

I quickly told her about the Nøkks, and apparently I didn’t even butcher the pronunciation because Jack immediately commented: “I hate Nøkks. They’re all water; there’s not much I can do about that.” 

Annabeth sighed wistfully. “I bet Percy would have no problem dealing with them…” She glared over at the island, her face a rigid mask of concern. “What are they doing to Magnus?” 

Hearth hesitated for a second. “I think they’re making room for new power. The empty cup.”

My stomach felt like it was filled with hot metal. I did not like what Hearth was telling us at all. Especially not after recently having relived my encounter with Loki, when he had tried to do the exact same thing to me. If Magnus experienced the same kind of pain I had felt back then—

I tried to keep translating for Annabeth, but my voice sounded distant, even to my own ears. 

Hearth’s white face glowed in Magnus’ golden light. He added: “They’re torturing him. To use him as a source of life for the forest.” 

I stared at the radiant light until my eyes watered as disgust crept up my chest and into my throat. Nothing in this forest, in this entire city, in this damned world, in any of the worlds, was worth causing Magnus such anguish. 

Before I knew what I was doing, I moved toward the pond again and this time, I did not let Hearth stop me. I halted just inches away from the water’s edge, where the ground was so mushy and soft that my boots sank into it. 

“Listen here, you dickheads!” I yelled, unsure whether it would be more effective to direct my insults at the Nøkks, Bragi, or the Fossegrim. I decided to yell vaguely at everyone in the vicinity of the island. “Let our friend go right now, or I will come over there and make sure that none of you will ever so much as hold a violin again!!” 

The Fossegrim let out an exasperated sigh that harmonized perfectly with the sharp sound of their bow. “That. Is. Not. Possible,” they said slowly, enunciating each word. “I don’t know how many more people I have to explain this to. Even if I wanted to, I can’t let anyone go, unless the goals of my teachings are achieved. And that is obviously not the case with these two fools here.”  

It was hard to make out the Fossegrim with the Magnus-shaped shadow burnt into my retinas that appeared every time I blinked. But I thought they looked worried that the goal had not yet been accomplished.

I, on the other hand, couldn't care less about whatever they hoped to achieve. If necessary, I would swim over there and pull Magnus away with my bare hands. 

The Fossegrim seemed to have read my mind. They rolled their eyes and glared at me in annoyance. “No one with the intention of interrupting this lesson will be able to even get close to this island, so don’t even think about it, einherji. It won’t end well for you.” 

I was about to yell at the water spirit, telling them I didn’t give a damn and that I would try anyway, but Hearth’s hand grazed my arm. 

“Don’t,” he signed — I really seemed to be an open book written in glowing neon letters today — so I held myself back. “What did they say? ”

I told him, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the blinding light. My hands shook while signing.  

“So, what is the goal of your teachings, then?” Jack asked bluntly, voicing what we had all been wondering. 

Apparently, that had been an insensitive question because the water spirit scoffed at us and turned away, continuing to play their violin with their scaly back toward us. 

“The music is supposed to make the trees dance, isn’t it?” Annabeth asked, looking around the clearing at the motionless plants surrounding us. 

“But that’s just a metaphor.” After years as an einherji, I really should have known better. In my world, nothing that sounded impossible was ever a metaphor — it was just impossibly hard to accomplish.

The Fossegrim still refused to talk to us, so Bragi explained in his terribly entrancing voice: “The girl is smart. The trees have to dance.” 

“Then why don’t they??” My patience was wearing thin. Magnus was still burning up like a dying star, healing everyone and everything in the vicinity of his light. He was strong, he knew how to handle pain — but I thought about how he had collapsed yesterday while healing my wolf-inflicted injuries. This here had to cost him at least a hundred times as much strength. Sooner rather than later the light would drain every last bit of energy from his body. I would not let that happen. Not for an annoying god and a snobbish water spirit. Not for anyone. “Aren’t you supposed to be the god of music??”

Hearth and Annabeth shot me looks that clearly told me to be careful, and Jack said meekly “I’m sure Bragi is doing his best—” but the god didn’t seem to take offense at my rage. He just smiled mildly, and somehow that made me even angrier. 

“I am the god of music, little einherji, but that is part of the problem.” 

Of course, that was no explanation at all. The three of us (plus Jack) stared at him until he continued with a roll of his eyes. 

“When I found this place, the forest was thriving, but it wasn’t equipped to house a god practicing his elemental skills for an extended period of time. The plants around this clearing grew tired — my presence drained their energy.” Bragi did not sound sorry about that at all; if anything he sounded disappointed in the weak trees. “And then, some greedy mortal destroyed more than half of the forest—” 

I felt like he was looking directly at me, his amber eyes holding an accusatory touch, but maybe I was imagining it — he couldn’t possibly know about my father.

“All the Nøkks living along the creek fled here to the spring when the forest began to die,” the Fossegrim said bitterly, having already forgotten that they weren’t talking to us. “But I can’t help them here, while Bragi is draining everything in our territory—” 

“As you can see, it’s a vicious cycle. Magnus here has decided to help us with it. He is giving the forest back the energy it needs. It can’t be long now before the trees start dancing—” 

“They won’t. ” 

I knew instantly who had spoken. I would recognize this voice anywhere. By all means of logic, it should have been impossible for me to hear despite the enchanted earplugs. It was barely a whisper over the continuing music, yet somehow it radiated across the clearing in the same way the light did. Or perhaps it came from the light. 

“They don’t want to .” 

He spoke emotionlessly, almost trancelike. Yet there was a tremor in each of his words - evidence of the agony he was forcing them through. 

His voice shot through my chest like lightning, leaving behind a deep-seated physical pain. I wanted to shout at him to shut up, tell him to save his energy, but he was already continuing: “The trees resent you. You're killing them. They won’t— they won’t do anything for you. ” 

I could only assume that Magnus was talking to Bragi, whose face had lost all color. He didn’t seem to question the legitimacy of Magnus’ statement for even a second. Neither did I, even though I couldn’t even begin to imagine how he managed to communicate with the plants around him. Did he get a glimpse into their minds, like he did when he healed humans? What did tree minds even look like? Whatever the answer, the display of such an explosion of new powers coming from Magnus made me shudder. 

“That- that can’t be right.” For the first time, Bragi didn’t sound so calm. He turned to the Fossegrim in search of help. “The trees have to dance, once the music is perfected, don’t they?”

The water spirit did not look surprised - neither by the fact that Magnus was communicating with the trees or by what they were saying. Rather they looked as if they hated their entire existence. 

“I should have just become a simple spring guardian,” they muttered unhappily to themselves. “Mother always said this music career would only bring trouble—” 

They turned back to Bragi, so forcefully that they almost smashed their violin into the god’s face. “No, Bragi. The music may inspire them, but the trees don’t have to do anything — they are free individuals. What do they even teach you in Asgard?? We’re stuck here forever,” they added with a dramatic groan. 

“There must be a way!” Jack exclaimed as I tried to bring Hearth up to speed on everything that had been said. There was genuine concern in Jack’s voice and I wasn’t sure if it was for Magnus or for the chances of him getting his dream biographer. 

“It’s hopeless,” Bragi whined, but I couldn’t find it in me to feel sorry for him. “You might as well leave right now.” 

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” Annabeth said resolutely and turned to me, Hearth, and Jack. “We need a plan.” 

I bit my tongue, resisting the urge to make a sarcastic comment about how, as the daughter of Athena, she should be the one to come up with a plan — after all, we were on good terms now, I had to remind myself.  Instead, I racked my brain, trying to think of something we had missed. There had to be something. Anything.

“The wolves,” I said before I had even finished my thought. “Why can’t the wolves find Bragi here? We found him easily enough. I highly doubt they would let themselves be stopped by the rules that bind Bragi to this ridiculous music lesson. Maybe they could break them.”

“We didn’t find him easily ,” Hearth signed, frowning deeply. “Izzy led us here. We wouldn’t have found him without her. And we only made it through the bushes by using rune magic. I bet they’re what’s keeping the wolves from sensing Bragi.”

I saw Annabeth’s eyes wander over the tightly woven wall of plants surrounding us. I could almost hear the gears in her brain turning. “But we damaged the barrier — shouldn’t that be enough to get the wolves' attention? Surely they should have found Bragi by now. ” 

Hearth and I followed her gaze to where the bushes were still parted around the narrow, charred gap through which we had stumbled. With the help of Magnus’ light, it was slowly mending itself, but it wasn’t closed yet.

“That might not be enough.”    

Of course it wasn’t. Yesterday, the wolves had found us immediately after we had received Idun’s knowledge, but now that we needed them, the knowledge radiating through the slit was not enough — simply because my life was never that straightforward. 

Despite — or perhaps because of — my frustration, an idea began to form in the back of my mind. “What do you think would happen if the wolves got here?” 

“If we’re lucky, they will only care about Bragi once they see him— ” Hearth signed, his expression anything but optimistic, “—if not, they will still be angry about yesterday’s  fight and kill us first.”

“They’re not going to kill Bragi, though, are they?” Jack asked, once again realizing his insensitivity too late. “I- I mean, they shouldn’t kill you either, but—” 

“They just want to take him back to Valhalla. They won’t harm him, Jack,” Annabeth said, sounding much more certain about that than I was. The last few days had made it obvious that the wolves had long lost sight of their initial task. But I wasn’t sure if we had much of a choice. 

“Okay,” I said. Even though it hurt my eyes, I glimpsed back at the burning light that was Magnus. We have fought the wolves before, I reminded myself. Whatever would happen, it would be worth it to get him out of here safely. “I might have a plan.”  

Chapter Text

Alex

I tried to explain my crazy plan as clearly as possible in both English and ASL. I doubted that the others fully understood me, because, surprisingly, no one protested — not even Annabeth.

Hearth and Jack agreed to stay in the clearing and be ready to intervene in case things went south. That left Annabeth and me to alert the wolves to Bragi’s presence.

I cursed myself for the stupid and most certainly suicidal ideas I had to come up with as we made our way back to the spot where the plants parted just enough for a person to pass through.

We tried to be quiet, not wanting to draw the Fossegrim’s attention to our plan of snatching their students away before they made the trees dance. But it quickly became clear that we didn’t have to worry about that. The water spirit was completely absorbed in their music again. They hadn’t given up hope yet, evidently; their bow moved across the strings so vigorously that it appeared as if it might snap at any moment.

There was someone watching us, though. I could feel the tingle of eyes on my back as we turned away from the pond. Instinctively, I  knew it had to be Magnus. 

“Don’t leave. Alex, please, don’t leave.” 

I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it, but I could have sworn I heard his voice echoing through the light. When I glanced at Annabeth, who was already halfway through the bushes, nothing indicated that she had heard it, too. Still, it almost made me whirl around and jump into the water.

I knew what this had to look like to Magnus, watching us through hazy, gold-blind eyes as we walked away from him. He probably thought I would leave him here, alone and in agony. The thought pulled at my heart, threatening to tear it apart. Still, I forced myself to climb through the bushes without turning back — I was afraid that if I cast a single glance back at Magnus, I wouldn't be able to pass.

I’m doing this for him, I silently reminded myself. This was our best chance to end his ordeal quickly. 

For the first few seconds, I could barely see anything on the other side of the wall of greenery. Compared to the Fossegrim’s clearing, which was directly exposed to Magnus’ light, everything suddenly seemed dark and colorless out here, where the light was filtered through several layers of wood and leaves, dulling its brilliance.

Once my eyes had adjusted, I suddenly felt very vulnerable at the thought of what we were about to do. Fear rushed back into my stomach; my neck and the leg where I had been bitten the day before, seemed to throb, even though I knew my wounds were fully healed. 

“Alex,” Annabeth said carefully. There must have been something in my expression that betrayed my feelings to her. She put a supportive hand on my shoulder. To my own surprise I didn’t shake her off. “I’ve got your back, okay?” 

I nodded because I believed her — and that was truly shocking, given all the resentment that had built up between us in the last few days. 

“Ready?” 

“No, absolutely not” would have been a more sincere answer. But the image of Magnus alone and in pain was still burned onto the back of my eyelids, spurring me to say: “Yes.” My voice barely even quivered. 

Together, we stepped further away from the barrier, ensuring that our knowledge of Bragi would be on full display for any wolf to sense. 

I glanced back to double-check that the entrance to the clearing was still large enough for us to slip back in. Our lives depended on it. 

“Remember to picture everything we’ve seen and learned about Bragi as vividly as possible,” I said once I had confirmed that we wouldn’t be trapped out here. Annabeth gave me a serious nod. 

We exchanged one last glance, then took off our hats, which had been shielding our minds from being traced. I threw mine to the side. I wouldn’t need it, if the plan went right — and certainly not if it went wrong. 

I concentrated on what we had seen in the clearing, what Bragi had said, and what we had learned from Idun. I thought of Izzy and her powers, the Fossegrim, Magnus, and the music. My mind painted mental images of it all behind my closed eyes. All that was left to do was hope that it would be enough. 

For a tense second or two, I thought it wouldn’t work. Nothing moved in my field of vision except for a few branches swaying gently in the light breeze. No wolf in sight. 

When two sharp pops rang through the forest in rapid succession, loud enough to reach my ears through the enchanted earplugs, I felt as if I were being pulled in two directions: lifted by relief and weighed down by bone-chilling fear. 

The two remaining wolves had appeared next to a birch tree about ten feet away from us and did not look like they were happy to see Annabeth and me. They growled from deep within their throats and bared their razor-sharp teeth. Their fur was still clotted with their own dried blood from the injuries we had dealt them the previous day, and the scrapes and cuts across their snouts hadn’t fully healed either. That hardly calmed me, though. If anything, it made the beasts appear even more dangerous, causing my knees to shake slightly.

I barely had the time to take it all in before the animals sprang into action and barreled toward us — just as I had hoped. 

“Okay, time to run!” Annabeth’s voice jumped with the slightest hint of alarm as she grabbed my arm to pull me along. I understood why she pulled me; she feared that I would freeze at the sight of the wolves, just as I had yesterday. But my legs had already started moving on their own. Fear still sat deep in my gut, but today, there was something I feared more. 

I sprinted back to the barely open entrance of the clearing, Annabeth ahead of me. Neither of us looked back at the beasts following closely behind us. 

It’s working, I told myself, as we got closer to the gap. The wolves were clearly still following us, their breaths warming the air behind us. 

It had to work. And it did. Sort of. 

We barreled through the hedge, with Annabeth still pulling me along by the arm. The beacon of light coming from the island was already blinding me when my foot got caught on a moving, growing vine. I stumbled and hurtled toward the muddy grass. Unfortunately, I had gained enough momentum from running to pull Annabeth down with me.

We landed face-first in the mud. Within a split second, I felt the unpleasantly familiar breath of a wolf standing over me against my neck. A gigantic claw stepped on my hand, gouging its talons deep into the flesh in between my finger bones. There was too much adrenaline coursing through my brain for me to register the pain. I heard Jack yell something from across the clearing, but I doubted that he or Hearth would have enough time to make a difference. 

From the corner of my eye, I saw Annabeth make one desperate attempt to wiggle her arm free from where the wolf standing over her had sunk its talons in, probably to reach the knife at her belt. With a pained grunt, she quickly gave up. 

I didn’t even try. I buried my face in the mushy grass, knowing that anything I could do would be useless. We had even less of a chance than yesterday —  and that had already been a very close call. I was okay with dying. I only hoped the wolves would make it quick — and that someone else would manage to free Magnus from the Fossegrim’s bounds. 

I was just thinking that I should count myself lucky for having died once already and not being able to get another afterlife – any afterlife where I could potentially encounter Percy Jackson after I got his girlfriend killed by wolves would be a terrifying one – when my attacker tensed and let out a triumphant howl. The other wolf joined in, before jumping over Annabeth without even scratching her. Mine did the same, and I pressed my teeth together as its talons were ripped roughly out of my hand. 

As soon as the wolf had let go of me, my wounds began to close, immediately affected by Magnus’s healing glow, but I barely noticed. My head shot up and my eyes straining to follow the wolves’ shapes as they moved toward the blazing light. 

They rushed past Hearth and Jack, who were halfway to our aid, and headed toward the lake. They stopped for a split second at its shores, as if something were holding them back.

That was all the time the Fossegrim and Bragi needed to spot the newcomers.

The god let out a dramatic sigh. “Seriously? Does it have to be this way?? I don’t want to go back to Valhalla.” He sounded less like someone who was scared of monsters and more like a whiny teenager.

“What is this?” the Fossegrim demanded. “Who are these hideous creatures—” 

But they didn’t get any further because whatever had stopped the wolves, they didn’t seem to deem it worthy of their time. 

It happened too quickly for me to be able to tell how they did it. (Did they jump? Did they walk across the water like two bloodthirsty, hairy Jesuses?) But somehow, they stormed forward, heading for the island.

It was almost too easy. Annabeth seemed to have a similar thought as she mumbled to no one in particular: “Oh, please, let this work—” 

For a scary moment, the wolves got awfully close to Magnus’ kneeling figure, and my pounding heart skipped a beat, but they didn’t take notice of him — or the Nøkks and the Fossegrim, for that matter. They leaped toward Bragi, their claws pointed right at his face. 

The Fossegrim shouted indignantly, appalled that the monsters had made it onto their island. Bragi only frowned in irritation as the monstrous paws reached his face. Then — another pop echoing through the air — and the two wolves along with the god disappeared into thin air. 

The sound of a breaking string vibrated across the clearing, forcing the Fossegrim to finally stop playing their fiddle. For a moment, everything in the forest seemed frozen. Then, processing what had happened, the water spirit let out an unintelligible scream and threw their broken instrument to the ground. At the same time, the blinding light began to fade as if the sun were setting. The bonds around Magnus’ arms loosened and slithered back into the lake. The Nøkks’ watery instruments disappeared, simply flowing back into their arms. 

“No!” the Fossegrim shouted across the silent clearing. 

“Don’t worry,” Jack offered helpfully. He did not seem to care that his biographer had just disappeared into thin air within minutes of him finally having found him. “Bragi is fine! The wolves just brought him back to Valhalla.” 

“I don’t care about him!!” the Fossegrim yelled back, baring their inhumanly sharp teeth. “I care about music!! All the progress! Years and years of it. Lost!” 

“You wanted to get rid of Bragi! To save the clearing and the forest,” Annabeth reminded them with a frown as she got up from the ground. I did the same even though all my bones felt like they were made of jelly. 

“But not like this!!” they whined, stomping their foot onto the ground like a very big, fishy toddler. Then their gaze turned ice-cold. “I will not let you get away with it! I need new students and you will provide — and if the Nøkks have to torture you into being willing to learn, then so be it.” 

The next second, several things happened at once. With one flick of their wrist, the Fossegrim conducted the Nøkks to move away from the island and toward us at a frightening speed. The Fossegrim themself picked up their broken instrument and continued playing on the remaining strings; it was a tune that sounded so dissonant and haunted, it manifested as a physical pain in my ears, despite the earplugs. Annabeth drew a long knife that looked like it was made of bone. Hearth, thinking quicker than I did, pulled a runestone from the pouch on his belt and threw it into the air just in time for Magnus’ light to extinguish. The clearing became freezing cold and ominously dark for a moment without it before the rune Hearth had thrown took effect, emitting a weak orange light from a few feet above the scene. The light illuminated our surroundings just enough for me to see the color drain from Magnus’s face, from his entire body. His hair suddenly seemed the color of ash. The gold in his eyes disappeared, leaving his irises unfocused and pale for a moment before they rolled back into his head. His body dropped forward and plunged into the dark, cold water with a splash.

I heard myself yell his name, but it sounded distant. I lunged forward, but the Nøkks, spurred on by the Fossegrim’s eerie music, had already reached the shore and blocked my path. Their bows suddenly looked much more solid than water as they swung them at me like swords. I did not want to know what it would feel like to get hit by one of them. 

I summoned all my willpower in an attempt to change shape, turning into a bird so I could fly over the advancing front of sentient water. But it wasn’t enough. Something still froze the molecules that made up my body in place, and prevented me from even changing something as insignificant as my hair color, let alone growing feathers. I stumbled away from the Nøkks, while trying to focus on the spot where Magnus had sunk into the water. He hadn't come up again yet.

Hearth, mistaking my stumble for hesitation, grabbed my arm. “Go, get him,” he signed in quick, choppy gestures. His eyes were trained on the Nøkks. “We’ll deal with them.”

I gulped and nodded, not wanting to tell him about my shapeshifting issue. I would have to make do with this body.  

Without thinking twice, I charged at the water spirits, threw myself to the ground, and tumbled through the watery cylinders that were their legs to avoid their sharp bows. 

Emerging soaking wet but otherwise unharmed on the other side, I sprinted to the shore. There was still no sign of Magnus.

From the island, I felt the furious stare of the Fossegrimm directed at me. I wasn’t sure if they were angry that their music of misery didn't work on us as well as they had hoped, or if they were warning me not to get in the water. Either way, I ignored them and dived in.

I was not prepared for how cold the water was — and even if I had been, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Ice spread through every particle of my body. Without my einherji resilience, I certainly would have lost consciousness from the cold shock. For a few seconds that felt much longer, I couldn’t will my muscles to move. I sank, motionless, toward the muddy bottom of the pond. When I finally managed to flail  my arms and swim toward where I suspected Magnus to be, they felt as heavy as if they were made of metal.

The pond was dark and murky, the sandy ground churned up by the Nøkks’ quick movement. It was impossible to see anything, and my eyes stung after just a few seconds of trying. To make matters worse, I had to realize that it had been ages since I had swum as a human. I had learned to swim in school, of course, but that hadn’t been a fun experience, and ever since I had discovered my ability to shapeshift, I preferred to turn into whatever sea creature came to mind, whenever I was forced to get into a body of water. Now, I was stuck in this form, with its long legs and arms, that hindered more than helped. I wasn’t sure if I was moving at all from where I had dropped in.  

Clumsily and half-blind I paddled through the icy blackness, driven solely by the panic building in my throat at the amount of time that had passed since Magnus had fallen into the water. 

It was more luck than skill that my fumbling hands finally found something warm floating lifelessly near the lake bed. I buried my fists in the fabric of his hoodie. With what had to be my last bit of strength, I pushed upward and pulled him along.

We broke through the surface, and the muffled sound of the Fossegrim’s devastating solo hit me like thousands of tiny needles as soon as we were out of the water. The earplugs seemed to be losing their magic.

I pressed my clattering teeth together so tightly, that I was sure they would break. I tried to keep Magnus’ head above water even though the music made me want to sink back into the pond and drown. We reached the shore, and I dragged his still limp body through the mud before I collapsed next to him, shaking from the breeze that hit my wet skin. 

The music seemed to get louder, sucking all hope from me. I stared at Magnus’s unmoving body, convinced for a moment that I had been too late. Then, he started coughing and choking, and the relief drowned out any and all music. 

I gave him about ten seconds to roll onto all fours and retch up water and stomach acid before wrapping my arms around him so tightly that he let out a surprised gasp.

“Alex—” His voice was little more than a sore whisper, but hearing it set something inside of me ablaze. I held him closer, burying my face in his drenched hoodie and ignoring the stinging iciness of my own wet clothes. His body, feeling so much colder than usual, shivered against mine, not just from the cold, but also from sheer exhaustion. It felt like he would fall apart under my tight grip any second. So I forced myself to let go of him. 

He sank back onto the swampy ground, but barely managed to sit upright.  

I spared a quick glance at our friends, who were holding their ground against the water spirits. Some had resumed playing their tortuous songs, harmonizing with the Fossegrim. Others continued to use their bows as sharp weapons, slashing and stabbing at anything within reach. 

Hearth had somehow created a translucent dome around himself, Annabeth, and Jack that seemed to protect them from the worst of it, though the Nøkks’ weapons still managed to break through every now and then. Annabeth’s sword hand was already covered in some nasty cuts from trying to block the watery weapons, and her face contorted with pain every time a snippet of the music reached her. Her earplugs’ magic seemed to be wearing off as well. At least Hearth and Jack were unaffected by the music, but Hearth was clearly getting exhausted, and no matter how often Jack tried to cut through their liquid bodies, the Nøkks didn't relent. I knew that they were only buying us time. Our only chance was to run — and  Magnus was in no shape to do that right now.

“Alex—” he said again, his voice almost undetectably louder this time. All of the color seemed to have seeped out of him, into the forest around us. His face was almost as gray as his wide, unbelieving eyes, which stared at me as if he were trying to figure out if I was real or a hallucination.

“You are such an idiot!!” It spilled from my mouth, because I knew I would regret anything else I could possibly say. My teeth clattered, but I pushed through. “Why the hell did you come here all alone??” 

“I-I didn’t want you to-to-” He stammered like he still couldn’t quite believe that he was looking at my face. “You shouldn’t have had to come here. I didn’t- I didn't  want to put you through that.”

A wave of warmth so intense it hurt washed over me. Something prickled behind my eyes, and I fought the urge to pull him close again. Instead, I pressed out: “You should have left that decision to me. Never— never do something that stupid again.” 

He nodded resignedly and flopped down, not caring about the dirt seeping into his hair. With his eyes closed, he would have looked almost peaceful if it weren’t for the trembling and tension around his mouth — the aftermath of excruciating pain. I allowed myself to watch him for a few moments, indulging in the fact that his chest continued to rise and fall steadily, and that the slightest hint of color gradually returned to his face. The parts of the Fossegrim's song that made it through my earplugs made my heart ache as I watched him. 

I tore my eyes away from him. When I instead looked back at our friends, I discovered that, to my horror, the fight ahead of us had turned: The Nøkks were now pushing our friends toward us and the pond, blocking the exit. The only upside was that our way out had stopped closing, now that Magnus wasn’t mending everything in the forest. Other than that, it did not look good for us. 

The shield Hearth had created began to flicker. He grunted with exertion, trying to maintain it, but longer fragments of the Nøkks’ hurtful melody were starting to get through. Only a few notes reached my ears, but they pierced my chest like searing daggers. The Fossegrim’s mournful solo was nothing compared to this melody. I gasped. Before my inner eye, I saw Adrian’s frozen face and how he had looked at me the day I had broken up with him. I saw Magnus’ face from yesterday, streaked with tears. 

The music was quickly banished behind the stabilized shield again, leaving me to stare at Magnus's present face, scrunched up in pain once more. He pressed his hands against his ears. I knew the sensible thing would be to do the same, since the earplugs clearly weren’t working anymore. But I was too shocked to react. Had he endured this for hours on end?

“We have to get out of here!” I heard Annabeth say in a strained voice. I didn’t know what the music tortured her with, but there were tears running across her cheeks. 

“What do you think I’m trying to do here?” Jack yelled back, hacking and slashing continuously at the attacking water with little to no effect. 

When the shield flickered again — I managed to protect my ears just in time, so the notes washed over me like a wave of boiling water — one of the Nøkks slashed their razor-sharp bow into the protected space, striking Hearth and leaving a thin, deep wound across his cheek.

I scrambled up from the ground, unsure how to help, but wanting to do something. By the time I reached Hearth, the barrier was already intact again.

“I have another idea ,” he signed — or at least, that's what I thought he meant. It was hard to tell because he was using only one hand to sign while holding the other out to maintain the protective bubble. Blood oozed across the left side of his face, and a vein pulsed with strain at his temple — the protection spell was clearly draining his energy rapidly.

“But we will need to run for it to work. ” His eyes flickered back to Magnus, who still hadn’t moved from where he lay in the dirt, breathing heavily. 

I knew what he was trying to ask, and I knew what the answer was: No, Magnus was absolutely not fit to run anywhere. I also knew that, whatever Hearth was planning, it would be the last bit of rune magic he would be able to pull off today — there wouldn’t be another chance. 

Still, I nodded. What else was there to do? “We will manage," I signed. “Do it. ”

Hearth didn’t look assured, but he began digging through his rune pouch. I quickly alerted Annabeth and Jack that something was about to happen — though I wasn't sure exactly what — before running back to Magnus.

I knelt by his side and shook him. “We have to get moving. Can you get up? ” I signed when I got his attention because he still had his hands pressed against his ears. 

He pulled a face as if he would rather do anything else, but nodded curtly. He sat up clumsily — not daring to take his hands off to push himself up.

I grabbed him under the arms, trying to help him up. His body continued to shake violently in his wet clothes. If I had had another choice, I would have let him rest in the grass until he took root — maybe I would have joined him on the wet ground — but that was a luxury we couldn't afford right now.

Annabeth rushed over to us and helped me hoist Magnus to his feet. Jack hovered awkwardly between us and Hearth, unsure of how to help, and perhaps also unsure of how to interact with Magnus.

“Get ready, ” Hearth signed, holding a new runestone. Isa, I recognized — the rune of ice.

He cast the new rune to the ground, a few feet away, and it exploded into a miniature snowstorm. It quickly grew bigger, wilder, and colder. Soon a seven-foot-high  column of snow and ice stood between us and the Nøkks. The temperature dropped quickly until it felt like a particularly nasty day in Niflheim. My skin got so cold it stung; my wet clothes stiffened, freezing to my body. Beside me, Annabeth’s teeth chattered loudly, and Magnus’s face looked much paler again.

Back when we had been to Niflheim, Magnus’s body had emitted enough warmth to keep me from freezing. Now, however, it felt colder than my own. He was leaning heavily on the arm I had slung around him for support. I wasn’t even sure if he was still conscious.

I decided that I didn't like this plan, but Hearth didn’t stop to ask for my opinion. Not that what he was doing wasn’t impressive, given how many spells he had already cast today. But I didn’t see how the snowstorm could prevent the Nøkks from ripping out our hearts or slashing our throats with their bows.

Hearth stood a little ahead of us with his feet firmly planted on the ground. His palms faced the swirling ice, as if he were pushing against an invisible force. His shoulder shook almost unnoticeably, yet the storm continued to intensify. I could almost feel the physical exertion this trick was costing him in my own bones, so it was no wonder that the power of the previous rune quickly wore off. The shield began to flicker again, before disappearing entirely as if someone had pressed the off button. 

“Protect your ears!” Annabeth warned us, but I wasn't quick enough to react. I braced for the worst, but when the shield went down, no trace of that awful music reached my ears. I exchanged glances with my companions. Magnus’s gaze was heavy, as if he could barely manage to keep his eyes open. Still, he looked as surprised as I felt. Annabeth seemed to be one step ahead of us. She nodded toward Hearth and the Nøkks.

I followed her gaze, and tried to discern what was happening on the other side of the ice storm. 

“They’re— they’re freezing,” Magnus mumbled next to me, through chattering teeth. He was right. The Nøkks had stopped playing. Some of them stood rigid as statues; others only moved sluggishly — too slowly to produce a melody. 

“Oh, this is awesome!!” Jack exclaimed and started flying around the frozen Nøkks, hacking and slashing at their now solid bodies. The ice splintered against his sharp blade, spewing particles of frozen water spirits all across the clearing. 

“NO!” came a scream from the pond. The Fossegrim stopped their song and threw their instrument to the ground a second time, this time shattering the violin beyond repair. “Stop this!!” 

They bared their dangerously sharp teeth as their voice turned into a cat-like hiss. They sprang up from their seat on the tree trunk. They were even taller than I had realized before, their limbs almost comically long. Suddenly, they didn’t look all that attractive anymore — just scary. 

With a leap, they stormed off the island and onto the frozen surface of the pond. 

“Uh, guys—” I said in alarm as the Fossegrim raced toward the shore. But before the others could even react, the water spirit slipped on the ice, crashed through it, and fell into the pond. The surface immediately froze shut over their head

“Oh,” Annabeth said with a chuckle, having already drawn her knife to fight the Fossegrim singlehandedly. She put the knife back in its sheath and glanced cautiously at the shade moving relentlessly beneath the surface and hammering against the sheets of ice. “Water spirits probably can’t drown, right?” She didn’t sound all that worried about the Fossegrim. 

If I hadn’t been so relieved, I would have laughed out loud at our ridiculous luck. 

As was often the case, that luck didn’t last long, though. I saw Hearth stagger out of the corner of my eye. Finally, the exhaustion from maintaining the snowstorm overwhelmed him, and he fell to his knees.

I pushed Magnus onto Annabeth and rushed over to him, unsure how I could help, but before I even reached him, the column of snow and ice collapsed in on itself. The temperature rose immediately. The Nøkks — or what was left of them — began to melt.

"Hearth, come on," I said, though I doubted he could read my lips because his eyes were so unfocused. I tried to pull him up. He was much heavier than I would have expected from such a skinny man. Still, I managed to pull his arm across my shoulder and heave him into a standing position.

“Alex!” Annabeth exclaimed, pointing to the Nøkks. The splinters from their bodies had almost fully melted, and the water was flowing back together. First, puddles formed, and then the vague forms of bodies reappeared.

“Seriously?” Jack whined, as his enemies reassembled. 

“We’ve got to leave. Now!” Annabeth threw a distressed glance at me and Hearth as she pulled Magnus along toward the exit. I knew what she was thinking: fleeing with two exhausted, half-conscious people through a forest was less than ideal. But we had no other choice. I followed her, dragging a groaning Hearth along. 

Magnus and Annabeth had already made it through the opening and out of the clearing, when the Fossegrim broke through the thinning sheet of ice. Their growl, as they began to climb out of the pond, hurt my ears almost as much as their music did.

“Nøkks! Get them!” they hissed, and the newly formed watery shapes moved toward us, their sharp bows drawn. 

I pushed Hearth through the hedge. 

On the other side, Annabeth and Magnus helped him up, although Magnus himself still looked like he would pass out soon. 

Together, we managed to move away from the sealed-off area around the pond. 

“Do you think they can follow us out here?” I asked, immediately regretting voicing that question when the answer materialized in front of us. Three Nøkks formed from the stream that trickled from the clearing into the thicket of the forest. Moving quicker than before, they rushed toward us and struck.

I yelped as the fastest Nøkk's watery bow got dangerously close to Magnus and Annabeth. They would have been sliced in half if Jack hadn't followed us out of the clearing and bravely put himself between the water demons and his friends. His blade couldn't deflect the water, but he managed to disrupt it. What had been a sharp weapon a second before only sprayed Magnus and Annabeth in the form of big droplets. Soaking wet — or wetter, in Magnus's case — they stumbled back, hurrying to get away from the Nøkks, who quickly recovered from the confusion of having their attacks foiled.

“Go that way. Away from the stream!” Jack yelled, whizzing around the advancing water. “They can’t go far without their water. I’ll try to buy you some time!” 

He shot through the liquid legs of the demons with such speed that the water sloshed out of the humanoid shapes the Nøkks had taken. Before the water could flow back and reform proper legs, Jack broke through it again, preventing the Nøkks from taking quick steps forward.

“Okay, let’s move,” I said, trying to shake my friends out of their trance as they stared at Jack's interesting stalling technique. I wasn’t sure how long he could keep this up, but it seemed to be working for now. I didn’t want to be here when it didn't anymore.

Chapter Text

Alex

We moved away from the creek as far as possible before exhaustion finally overwhelmed Hearth and he collapsed next to a birch tree. Magnus followed suit, slipping out of Annabeth’s grip to join him on the ground. 

She sent me a worried glance. “We should keep going,” she told me in a low voice so as not to alert Magnus. “I don’t think Jack can keep the Nøkks busy forever.” 

I silently agreed, but it was apparent that neither of our friends would run again soon. I shrugged and tried to sound more certain than I felt, when I said: “I don’t think the Nøkks would follow us this far from their lifesource. We might as well give them some time to rest.” 

She remained on guard but didn’t argue. I supposed the crumbled figures of our friends looked pathetic enough to make her want to believe me. 

Hearth had curled up in the foliage as if it were the most comfortable bed imaginable. He was fast asleep and snoring loudly — which was only fair, given the amount of magic he had used in the past hour. 

Magnus was slightly more conscious and managed to sit up. He leaned heavily against the birch and buried his head in the ivy that had overtaken its trunk as if trying to reclaim some of the energy he had been forced to give to the forest.  His face had regained some of its color, yet he still resembled the ghost of a sickly Victorian child.

Although his eyes were closed, he didn’t seem to be asleep. Still, I didn’t dare speak to him. It had been effortless to talk to him earlier in the clearing while saving him; now that the immediate threat was gone, I was struck by the sad realization that I didn’t actually know how to talk to him anymore after our conversation yesterday. So, I was glad, when Annabeth broke the silence after a few minutes: “How do you feel?” 

Magnus groaned and rubbed his hands across his face. “Like I fucking hate Bragi…”  

Okay, he hadn't lost his snarkiness. That was a good sign, probably.

Annabeth crouched next to him and regarded him with analytical eyes. “What even happened before we arrived? Did you seriously agree to all of that?” 

Magnus opened his eyes and frowned at his cousin. “Yes, sure, I always dreamed of being tortured by water musicians — no, of course not. Bragi tricked me.” 

I had already suspected as much. If Bragi's powers were anything like what TJ had described, he could probably force anyone to do his bidding. 

“Charmspeak?” I asked, daring to join the conversation now that I wouldn't be Magnus's sole focus.

For a split second, he looked at me with a hint of confusion in his eyes, as if he had forgotten I was there, lurking a few steps away. Then he nodded. “He forced me to agree to everything.” His head fell back against the tree and he stared up at its fresh green canopy. “Now that I think about it, it already started with the melody. He wanted Izzy to show it to me so that it would lure me here.” 

“But why?” 

“Bragi thought that a child of Frey could heal the forest enough so that the trees would finally dance to their duet. The Fossegrim couldn’t let him go until that happened.”

“And he was right,” Annabeth said, glancing around as if she still couldn’t believe that we were surrounded by green. “You managed to heal the forest.” 

 “Yeah, but he underestimated how stubborn trees could be. They didn’t want to free him; they hate him. The presence of a god was too much for the forest to bear, especially after it was cut down so drastically…” 

By father, I added silently. In a way, it was all his fault.

“You—you can't imagine what it was like—” Magnus’s eyes, still fixed on the treetops, appeared almost green, the color of the leaves reflecting in the gray of his irises. “The trees— they're communicating. All the time. I heard all of it. It was—” He didn’t seem to find the appropriate word to describe his experience. He even looked unsure of whether he should be fascinated or disturbed by it. 

“But they’re right to hate Bragi,” he finally decided to say instead. “He’s a jackass. He knew the whole time that the wolves would hunt Izzy if he reached out to her to bring me here. He doesn’t even care about what happened to her mom.” He tore his eyes away from the leaves above and glanced from Hearth’s crumbled figure to Annabeth to me. Something tingled in my chest when our eyes met, but I quickly looked away, trying to ignore it. “He doesn’t deserve for you to have broken the spell for him.”

“We didn’t do it for him,” I replied immediately. “Obviously!” I would have liked to add. “You were in pain, we couldn’t leave you there!” 

But Magnus already looked so surprised by my response that I didn’t dare say more.  

“You shouldn't have even gotten into that situation in the first place,” Annabeth said after a few seconds, perhaps to break the charged silence that hung between us. She shook her head as if she were disappointed — but apparently not with Magnus. “I should never have let you go alone. That was so stupid of me.”

I kind of agreed with her, but I didn’t say so. After all, we were friends now, as I kept reminding myself.

 “No, it’s not your fault.” Magnus absentmindedly began crumbling leaves from the ground between his fingers. “If anything, it was stupid of me to leave just like that—” 

“That wasn’t stupid. Bragi’s song forced you!” A voice came from the bushes just beside us. Jack shot out from behind the leaves. Seeing that all three of us were staring at his unexpected arrival, the glow of his blade turned slightly pink, as if he were embarrassed. “Uh, I mean… the Nøkks stopped following you like half a mile ago. You should be safe for now.” 

Jack didn't have eyes, but the tension between him and Magnus was palpable even without any exchanged glances.

Magnus regarded Jack as if he were about to burst into tears at any moment. Thankfully, he didn't — I had seen him cry often enough in the last few days — instead, he gulped and said sincerely: “Thank you, Jack. For looking out for us.”

“Hmh, yeah, no worries,” Jack mumbled, looking as uncomfortable as a sword could. 

The silence that followed felt as heavy as the air right before a thunderstorm. Neither Annabeth nor I dared to speak. We were both aware that we were not meant to take part in this tense exchange.

Just when I couldn’t bear the strained silence anymore and was about to yell “Just talk it out already! ” Magnus finally spoke again: “Look, Jack, I am very sorry about yesterday. I didn’t mean what I said, and you were right—” 

“No, no. I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I should have given you some space—” 

“But I promised you I would find Bragi so long ago. It was only right of you to ask—” 

“It could have waited. I was so excited that I forgot myself — but that’s no excuse.” His light dimmed, and he lowered the tip of his blade as if he were trying to hang his non-existent head. “I would understand if you didn’t want me as your sword anymore.” 

For the first time in the forest, a hint of a smile tugged at the corner of Magnus’s mouth. “Jack, don’t be ridiculous. Of course, I want you to be my sword… and my friend.”

The light quickly returned to the blade. Jack was practically beaming now. “Okay!”

“I would hug you, but you’re a sword, so…” 

“It’s cool.” 

This reunion was more touching than I would like to admit. Magnus without Jack, Jack without Magnus — that would have been unimaginable. A grin spread across my face. 

“I’m still sorry you felt like you had to go through this for me,” Jack said and his blade turned an angry red. “Bragi is the absolute worst! I hate him. I don’t even want his stupid epic anymore.”

Apparently, that had been the wrong thing to say. 

Magnus’s face fell into a mask of utter disbelief. The leaves in his hands were crushed into fine particles that trickled to the forest ground. For a second, he looked like he was either about to have a complete breakdown and/or attempt to strangle Jack. That would have not been pleasant either way, so I was grateful for his self-control when he took a deep breath and replied with only a slight shake in his voice: “Okay, well, that’s a bummer because I already made him promise to do it.” 

“Oh,” Jack said. His tone indicated that he had not expected that at all. I had to admit that I hadn't either. How had he managed to do that in between getting tortured and restoring a dead forest? But his exasperated expression left no doubt that he was telling the truth.

“For real?” the sword asked tentatively. 

“Yeah.” 

I silently prayed that Jack wouldn’t say something stupid. 

He ended up not saying much at all. Instead, he let out an ear-shattering “Woohoooo!!” and performed a pirouette that would make any figure skater jealous, jumping so high that several newly grown twigs and leaves snowed down to the ground.

“So, you still want that epic?” Annabeth asked, looking as if she would fight Jack on behalf of her cousin if he gave the wrong answer. 

Jack settled back down to eye level. “Yes, of course! I just said that to make you feel better.” 

Magnus looked like he was about to give a sarcastic reply when Hearth gave a little cough. He was awake and had managed to sit up. He eyed the falling greenery skeptically. 

“Are we fighting the trees now? ” he signed. 

For some stupid reason that was enough to shake off the lingering tension. I exploded into roaring laughter. 

For a second, the others stared at me as if they feared for my sanity — then, Magnus joined me. Hearth began to giggle, and even Annabeth held her stomach with laughter. Soon, all four of us had tears in our eyes — only Jack seemed confused about what was going on. 

“Uh, why are we laughing?” 

“Just go along with it,” Magnus gasped in between laughs. 

We all indulged in this moment of pure relief for a minute or two. For the first time in a few days, my heart didn’t feel like it was weighing a million pounds — for the first time in days, I felt like something had gone right for me, for us. Many unsolvable issues remained, but we had found Bragi, Jack was going to get his epic, Annabeth didn’t hate me anymore, and Magnus was safe and smiling. That was all that mattered for now. 

When we had all finally calmed down, my gaze met his again. He sent me a smile so warm and bright, so full of sunlight, that the freezing winter air around me felt more like a light summer breeze. For a short moment — not long enough to change the resolutions I had cemented in my mind, but long enough to leave an impression — it was difficult to imagine anything bad happening if I allowed a smile like that into my life.

I smiled back, and it did not feel hard to do so. In fact, it was the easiest thing in the worlds. Several unfinished thoughts, all starting with ‘maybe’, swirled around my brain when Annabeth finally said: “We should get going. It’s getting late.” 

We all agreed. Annabeth helped Magnus up, and I lent a hand to Hearth.

Jack and Magnus walked ahead, engaged in an unusually quiet conversation. We knew better than to listen in, so we followed a few feet behind.

I felt so euphoric that I didn’t even think about the fact that leaving the forest meant walking toward a place I absolutely didn’t want to get closer to. By the time we reached the outskirts of the newly grown forest, where patches of the once perfectly trimmed golf course grass peeked out from under the unruly moss and ivy, I had almost forgotten that this was a mission and not a hiking trip with friends.

Then, when the orange lights of the nearby houses and streets slowly came into view, Annabeth broke the illusion by asking what we probably all should have thought about sooner: “How do we get back to Boston?” 

We stopped, and she looked around at our clueless faces. No one had an answer for her.

“I can’t summon the horse again,” Hearth signed after a few seconds — even though his sluggish movements and half-closed eyes were already making that clear enough. 

“My ride has also disappeared,” Magnus mumbled, looking around as if hoping for a winged horse to descend from the sky.

When no such miracle occurred, Jack suggested: “Maybe Alex could turn into Stanley or one of those flying horses.” 

Okay, now that was a bit impertinent, in my opinion. “I’m not a private jet,” I told Jack coldly. Besides, I still wasn’t sure if I could turn into anything at all, let alone something big enough to carry three people and a sword. I was feeling better, but my bones weren’t ready to change shape — not while we were still here, in this hated place, which I had suddenly become fully aware of again. The light from the eerily familiar house looming in the distance crawled across my skin like an army of fire ants. 

“We can hijack one of my father’s cars,” I said, not daring to look in the direction we would have to go. It was the most sensible solution I could think of, but I couldn’t pretend like I was thrilled that my mouth had decided to voice the idea.

Magnus looked like he wanted to protest. I didn’t let him. “We can leave it on the side of the road once we’re in Boston so the police can’t trace it back to the Chase Space. Annabeth can drive.” 

“Do you really think that’s a good—” Annabeth began, but I had already turned. 

“Come on.” I wanted to get going before I changed my mind. Focusing solely on the light ahead, I staggered forward, hoping the others would follow. The sound of their uneven footsteps trying to find footing among the unruly seedlings told me that they did — at least at first. We did not get far.

I was preoccupied with calculating the odds that my father hadn't changed the passcode to the garage's side door since I had left. If we weren't that lucky — as we never were — the question was how we would get in and out with a car without setting off any alarms. So, I didn't realize that the footsteps behind me had stopped.

I only paused when I heard Magnus call my name. “Alex!” His voice was both hushed and alarmed, but I barely noticed. I wanted to turn around and tell him to move along; I wanted to get out of here! But when I took my eyes off the light of the house, I saw why the others had stopped. There was a second, smaller light coming toward us from the side. Its carrier moved unsteadily across the overgrown field. Still, it only took a few seconds for the shape of a human figure holding a flashlight to come into view.

“Who’s there??” 

The voice sounded authoritative and demanding yet terrified — and bone-chillingly familiar. 

I stumbled back a few steps as if an invisible force were pulling me toward my friends. I knew exactly who was blocking our path.

The light beam grazed our figures. “Don’t come any closer!” he said in a trembling voice. It was a pointless demand, since we were the ones who had stopped while the cold light kept creeping closer. “I’m armed.” 

He was close enough now for us to see that he wasn’t lying. His right hand clung to a semi-automatic pistol, which rested across the hand holding the flashlight. I had seen police officers adopt that position before. I wondered where he had learned that.

“What have you done to my golf course?? How— how did you do this?” 

I was not particularly scared of the weapon in his hand, but that uncanny snarl, so familiar yet so far from anything I knew nowadays, activated my fight-or-flight response. I willed my body to freeze, barely daring to breathe — I didn’t know what else to do. It had been too long since I had to play this game; I didn't know the rules anymore.

“What are you, some sort of… eco-terrorists?? Just so you know, the police are already on the way!” 

A hand brushed my shoulder, and I felt the silent question in it. My voice was gone, so I signed only one word in response: “Father .”

“Oh,” Magnus breathed next to me.

“I said don’t move!!” 

The flashlight flickered over to my face, blinding me with its cold, silver glare. I knew immediately that I had messed up. I should have stayed still, like prey trying not to attract a predator's attention — now, I had been spotted. 

“No. Y-you—” The light in my face began to shake. My father’s voice was nothing more than a whisper, but it contained something so vile that the air around us seemed to freeze. “No, this can’t be— you can’t be— Alex ?” 

I swallowed a gasp. Why? Why did it take nothing more than him saying my name, my actual name, in that unbelieving, shaky voice to spark the tiniest hope in me that maybe he had changed? People like him don’t change. I knew that. Still, I couldn’t stop myself. “It’s me,” I replied, trying to keep my voice as steady and cold as possible. 

For a moment, it looked like — or at least I hoped it looked like — he would lower the gun. But at the last moment, he seemed to change his mind. Instead, he pointed it more vigorously at my face.

“N-NO! You can’t be real! You are dead!!” A panic that only a man who found himself face-to-face with his unwanted, dead child could experience overcame his voice. 

When I strained to look past the light he was shining on me, I could make out his face. He had clearly aged since I had last seen him. There were deep creases around his eyes and mouth. His once dark hair was now almost entirely gray. He seemed thinner and more fragile than I remembered. For a moment, I was taken aback. I had spent so much time around ageless dead people that I had forgotten what a few years could do to someone who continued to age normally. But then I noticed the more familiar details: his sharp, tightened jaw, which always looked like it was straining to keep a flurry of hateful comments in his mouth; the fact that none of his wrinkles were laughter lines — just traces of a near-constant scowl. Worst of all, I saw myself in him. His eyebrows had the same curved shape as mine, and our faces were both angular and sharp in the same way. I wondered if my friends saw it, too. That thought made me want to shed my skin and slither far, far away.

“You are dead!” he insisted, his voice wavering as if he were trying to convince himself more than anyone else. The light and gun pointed at me shook so violently that I doubted he would hit anything if he decided to shoot. “They— they said they found you in a ditch somewhere. They said they cremated the body!”

A coldness slipped down my throat. I had never known what had happened to my mortal body, nor had I ever had the desire to find out. Now, I knew that my father had never even cared enough to give me a funeral — he had let an unnamed ‘they’ (the police, maybe?) take care of it. Had I ever truly expected anything else? 

“I thought I was finally rid of you, and now you’re haunting me!” There was no disdain, no hate on his face, only pure, barely contained fear. 

A sudden, satisfying rush of bitter power surged through me. The times when I had been afraid of him were long gone. He was afraid of me . 

I was too stunned by this realization to speak, so Magnus got ahead of me. “What the hell is wrong with you??” His voice shook with more anger than I had ever heard before. “Your child is alive!! And you—” 

He made a move as if he wanted to dart forward and strangle my father, but I held out my arm to stop him.

“Mags, don’t,” I interrupted. No matter what he said or did, it wouldn't change my father’s mind about me — and I wouldn't want it to. I was no longer a helpless child, craving my father’s love. I was stronger than he was in every way. There was no harm he could do to me anymore. He had no idea what he was dealing with, no idea who he was facing — maybe he never had. 

“You are right. I am dead. But I am not haunting you, father,” I said coldly. That last word felt like poison on my lips. “I died a worthy death — something you could only dream of — and was rewarded for it. Odin himself chose me to fight for him.” 

It was strange to boast about that. I had never felt particularly proud of being an einherji, but now seemed like the right time to start. 

“My friends and I saved the world from forces that you could never comprehend. I have much better things to do than haunt you. And I can promise you that you'll never have to see me again if you just let us continue.” 

“None of that is real!! You aren’t real!! This is a trick from that devil who spawned you.” The thought of Loki caused his voice to quaver again. I couldn’t tell if it was from fear or hate. Maybe for him, the two weren't all that different.

He started murmuring something in Spanish under his breath. It took me a few moments to realize that he was frantically praying, as if he were facing Satan himself.

“Seriously??” Magnus mumbled next to me, but I didn’t care. My father was a terrified, pathetic man. Nothing more. 

I felt the presence of my friends — my chosen family — behind me. He stood there alone. For the first time, I felt like I had the upper hand in our relationship. The power with which that thought filled me almost made me grin. 

“You never understood what you were getting yourself involved in when you slept with Loki, did you? You never understood who I am,” I said loudly enough to be heard over his frenzied mumbling. How could this frightened man be the same man who had made my childhood a living hell? I thought of everything he had tried to crush: The forest, wild and full of powers beyond his control; my art, which never conformed to his idea of what was worthy and profitable; and me, his child, who existed outside of everything he deemed acceptable.

A realization dawned on me, and a combination of contempt and superiority gave my voice a taunting edge. “You’ve always just been a scared man, who tries to destroy everything he doesn’t understand.” I could have easily left it at that, but something — a sudden burst of what the Greeks would probably call hubris — spurred me on. I wanted him to know exactly who I was. “But know this: when you tried to destroy me , I grew back stronger, just like this forest that you tried to destroy.” 

“Alex—” I heard Annabeth whisper cautiously from behind — maybe because she realized at that moment that we were more similar than we thought — but I barely registered it. The words just kept spilling out of me.

“And whether you like it or not—” My heart pounded in my ears but not with fear; more like a triumphant  drumroll “— in a few thousand years, when you will be long rotting in the place that you would call hell — which, by the way, is ruled by my sister Hel — I will still be here at the end of existence, despite everything you did to me.” 

My father stopped his pathetic muttering and stared at me, his dark eyes wide and gleaming with feverish panic. The light pointing at my face lost some of its shakiness as if gripped by a sudden determination. “I— I won’t let that happen,” he gasped, and the world flipped upside down.

The next few seconds happened very quickly, yet everything felt as if it had suddenly decelerated into slow motion. I had two vital realizations that my pride had held off until now: First, we were not in Valhalla, where weapons were nothing more than part of the daily routine. And second, my father might have been a coward, but he was a coward with a gun. 

The crack of the weapon reached my ears with a split-second delay — then another, and another. I was too stunned to even lift a finger. A swift motion flashed in the corner of my eye, while I stood frozen in place.  Suddenly, Magnus's hands were on my shoulders, his face directly in front of mine, blocking my view of my father. I thought he would pull me to the ground, but he stood rigidly in place for what felt like an eternity.

I felt the shocks go through his body before my mind caught up. His hands cramped and dug into my shoulders. From behind him, I heard shouts, then a dull thump, like metal hitting bone, followed by a grunt. But that seemed to be something that was happening very far away. For the moment, my entire reality was Magnus, who kept staring at me with his mouth slightly agape in surprise. I stared back into those wide gray eyes, not knowing what was happening. 

Then, time sped up again as Magnus’s body slumped forward against mine. He let out a small, guttural sound — in pain, I realized. I wrapped my arms around him instinctively. Beneath my hands on his back, I felt something hot and wet. 

Incredibly slowly, as if a very sadistic someone somewhere was enjoying every moment of my pain, my heart was ripped in two. 

His knees gave out, and he sank to the ground. I sank with him, gently lowering him onto the overgrown lawn.

“It’s okay, I’m okay—” he kept mumbling like a mantra that he himself needed to believe in. When I pulled my hands away from his back, they glistened red in the light of the flashlight that still illuminated us, now from somewhere on the ground. 

My gaze wandered from my shaking fingers over to Magnus. He was lying on his back, with me kneeling next to him. From here, there was no visible evidence of an injury.

Two figures joined us on the ground and knelt on his other side.

“I knocked your father out,” Annabeth said, her voice sounding as if she were speaking from underwater. “I didn’t think you would mind.” 

Of course, I didn’t mind, but I couldn’t find my voice to tell her. 

Annabeth stared at my bloody hands. “He can heal himself, right?” she asked in a strained voice, the kind only someone trying hard not to panic could muster. She turned to Magnus. “You can heal yourself, right??” 

“Uh-huh.” Magnus managed a small nod, but his face scrunched up in pain. Still, his skin began to glow with a faint golden hue. 

The light was barely noticeable — nothing compared to what it had been in the Fossegrim’s clearing — but for a fracture of a moment my heart, which felt like it had turned to lead, lifted. 

Then, my eyes caught sight of Hearth, crouching next to Annabeth. He regarded me as if I were the most tragic thing he had ever seen. When he noticed I was looking back, he quickly averted his eyes.

I knew he had the same thought that forced its way into my mind: Magnus had always been better at healing others than healing himself. 

Panic slashed through my chest like a knife. “No ,” my the voice in my head seemed to scream, “this is not happening. ” 

But looking at Magnus, it was undeniable that something was wrong. The light was now flickering like an overworn light bulb that should have been replaced decades ago. The bleeding hadn’t stopped, and blood was starting to seep out from under him, soaking the side of his gray hoodie. His breath sounded too shallow and rattling. Every intake of air seemed to pain him. His lips looked like they were turning blue. 

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no!” Jack exclaimed, rushing around us in a frenzy. The fact that he seemed genuinely afraid for Magnus didn’t calm me in the slightest.  “Señor, why isn’t it working??” 

“It’s not enough, ” Hearth signed in response. He continued to avoid my gaze, staring at Magnus instead. His near-translucent brows were furrowed in a deep frown. “He’s too weak. ” 

“You try healing yourself after restoring an entire forest—” Magnus began raspily with attempted sarcasm, but ended with a shaky cough that hurt just to hear. When he calmed down, there was blood in the corner of his mouth. 

“I think a bullet hit his lung. It’s collapsed,” Annabeth said, her voice shaking. Tears began to form in the corners of her eyes. 

“He has to get back to the hotel!” Jack yelled, his blade pulsing with a dark red light. “Right now!”

Annabeth’s voice leaped with panic. “Hearth, you have to—” 

“There’s nothing I can do.”  Hearth’s signs were choppy and final. His eyes seemed far away, as if he were reliving an old nightmare. “My magic is spent.”

Something in Magnus’s eyes shifted as he, too, began to realize what was happening. 

I sat back on my heels. My entire body seemed to go numb. The internal agony became too much to register. It looked like Annabeth was yelling something at Hearth or Jack, but I couldn’t hear her. A shrill ringing in my ears drowned out everything but the voices in my head. 

You and I are made to destroy.  

“Alex— Alex!” My ears tuned back in as Magnus’ voice reached them. He grabbed for my hands as if wanting to make sure I was giving him my full attention. The coldness of his skin on mine sent a shiver down my spine. “Alex, listen to me.” 

I looked at him to show him that I was listening. There was a fear glistening in his melancholy eyes, but I wasn’t sure if it stemmed from the fact that he was dying. 

“Alex, this is not your fault, okay?” He clasped my hands so tightly in his own that it hurt. His voice, barely more than a whisper, was so full of earnestness that it hurt even more. “It’s not your fault. It’s not, okay? Promise me—” Another cough interrupted him. 

His clasp around my hands loosened and in return I grabbed them tighter than before — but it was like trying to hold water. He was going to slip away. 

This was not right. This was not how it was supposed to be. When I had bragged about persevering until the end of existence, I had only done so because I imagined he would be there with me. There was no point in anything if he wasn’t. Ragnarok would have to happen right now because, without him, why would the worlds keep spinning?

“It’s not your fault,” Magnus mumbled again, barely audible. 

And this was the worst part of it. He was so afraid of the guilt that I would carry that he couldn’t even be afraid for himself. He seemed so convinced that I shouldn’t have to succumb to what the Norns had planned for me that it hurt him more than any gunshot wound could. 

So far, I had accepted my fate. I had accepted that I was a child of Loki, had accepted the powers that came with it. I had accepted that I had always hurt people and would always do so. But, for the first time, someone actively didn't want me to accept that. Someone didn't think I had to.

So, what if I would not resign to fate so easily? What if I fought back with everything I had — not for myself, but for him? 

Magnus tried to give me an encouraging smile. With the blood in the corner of his mouth, it looked strained and unsettling, but it was enough to help me grab the decision and cling to it.

I pulled my hands away from his. “You’re gonna hold on, and you’re gonna be okay.“ 

Magnus stared at me with dim eyes, and I hoped he would listen. I would have to make this not be my fault… and he would have to help me. 

Pulling together every bit of strength I had left in my body, I stumbled to my feet. I felt Hearth’s and Annabeth’s surprised eyes on me, but all I could focus on was Magnus. He still looked confused about what my plan was, but I thought the glow emanating from his skin had grown brighter and steadier. I prayed to every god in every pantheon that this wasn't just wishful thinking. Maybe he could actually hold on for just a bit longer. He had to.

“I'm gonna bring you home” — a reassurance for myself as much as for him.

I hadn’t managed to change shape since leaving Vahalla earlier that day, so I wasn’t sure what made me so certain that I could do it now. 

With my eyes pressed shut, I concentrated on getting the cells in my body to move and expand. Everything felt stuck and frozen by the dread of what had happened and what would happen if I failed. I needed to unfreeze, and what better way to do that than to summon the sun?

Memories of Magnus were pulled to the forefront of my mind. There he was, an angry kid at a shelter smashing a radio after one too many Christmas songs. I hadn’t even known him back then, but I remembered that he had made me grin even then. I saw Magnus among a swirl of strange faces on a battlefield, regarding me with curiosity; Magnus holding my hand in his, as we faced an impossible bowling alley; Magnus staring at me in awe at Sif’s palace; Magnus healing my wounds after my clay-warrior battle; Magnus’ warm lips on mine in the cold winds of Niflheim; Magnus facing Loki fighting him with nothing but love. 

I felt my body slowly thaw. 

The more insignificant memories worked even better: Magnus’s teeth-baring smile; the smell of his hair when he hugged me; the sarcastic replies that made others roll their eyes at him — and the tentative thoughts of what might be, one day, if I could ever stop being afraid: stolen kisses; intertwining fingers, laughter, and whispered words.

My heart felt so full of warmth that I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had started to glow, too. 

All my life, I had been told that magic needed emptiness and pain to grow. But love seemed to work just fine for me. Maybe that was the one thing that made me different from Loki — maybe that was the only difference that mattered,

I felt a single tear escape the corner of my eye as my body was set into motion, twisting and changing into a new form. 

I had to decide on a form to take in a split second. I needed to be big and strong enough to carry Magnus, and also incredibly fast. I couldn't think of an animal that fit the bill quickly enough, so I went with the first thing that came to mind: a form I had taken several times before, but with a twist. Who said I had to play by the rules? I didn't have to take an existing form, did I?

I remembered once, when I was younger, my father had forced me to cut my hair short. I had managed to grow it back in just a few minutes. This wasn’t much different, was it? 

I willed my wings to expand and stretch further and further. I pushed the body to accumulate mass. It was not a pleasant feeling. More than usual, it felt like I was trying to pull my bones apart, like every cell in my body was splitting in two — but no amount of discomfort could stop me from trying.

When I deemed the form sufficient and stopped growing, I couldn’t believe it had worked. The expressions on Hearth's and Annabeth's faces told me they couldn’t believe it either as they stared at the unnaturally large golden eagle in front of them. My body was almost six feet long, and my wingspan was that of a small plane.

“Woah!” Jack exclaimed from somewhere outside my field of vision.

Annabeth closed her gaping mouth and asked, “Do you think you can fly him back to Valhalla in time??” She quickly wiped a tear from her cheek. 

I didn’t reply because I was a bird, and because we didn’t have the time to talk. I just nudged my head in Magnus’s direction. He was still trying his best to maintain the glow, but didn’t seem strong enough anymore to be surprised by the form I had taken. Time was running out. 

Luckily, Annabeth and Hearth followed my silent order and heaved Magnus up from the ground. He didn’t make a sound, but his face betrayed how much pain this caused him. 

Soon it will be alright, I told my aching heart. I would fix this. 

With their combined strength and Jack’s semi-helpful comments from the sidelines, Hearth and Annabeth managed to place Magnus on the back of my giant bird form. 

“Hold on tight!” Annabeth told Magnus, her voice filled with fear. He complied, and I felt his hands dig into the thick plumage on my neck. 

“Alex,” she continued, stepping around the massive body to look me in the eye. Her expression was more serious than I had ever seen, and I would be lying if I said that didn't scare me a little. “Look out for him. Please.” 

When our eyes met, I knew we were both aware that this was not a foolproof plan. What if Magnus fell? What if I was too slow? But there was no time for a better strategy—not even for the daughter of Athena.

Before Annabeth or I could change my mind, I pushed off the ground.

We quickly gained altitude — a hundred feet, then five hundred, then a thousand — and I strained my eagle eyes to find the right direction towards Boston. From so high up, it was tricky to distinguish the streets below from one another, so I concentrated on heading south, toward where the silver light of the moon hit the Atlantic Ocean. I vaguely tried to follow the shoreline, and soon enough, the orange lights of Boston appeared in the distance. We were close, yet still so very far away. 

Each flap of the wings seemed to cost me more energy than I even had. The weight of Magnus on my back felt like I was carrying the sun itself, so much heavier than I had expected, making me want to drop to the ground. But I didn’t dare imagine the darkness that would fall if the sun dropped from the sky. 

And so I strained on, the constant tug of his hands on my feathers the only reminder that he was still alive. 

As the cone of light that was the city approached painstakingly slowly but steadily, I tried to calculate how long it would take, how fast I was flying, how much distance we still had to overcome — but eagle brains aren’t known for their math skills in stressful situations, so I had to settle for the thought that it couldn’t be much longer. Just a few more minutes. Every bone in my body was screaming with exhaustion, but I could manage a few more minutes. 

As we soared over the airport, I spotted the top half of the triangle on the CITGO sign peeking out from behind some houses. For a second, my heart lifted — we were almost there — then the buzz of giant turbines came closer from behind.

I reacted quickly enough to drop and swerve to the side to avoid the landing plane, but I felt Magnus’ grip loosen during the maneuver. With panic shooting through my chest, I tried to level the body again. He didn’t fall, but his grip didn't tighten again either.

“Magnus, hold on, please!” I said. It was always an unpleasant feeling to speak in animal form because the sounds I pictured in my mind didn’t match the ones that reached my ears, but I knew that Magnus could understand my screeches — if he could still hear anything, that was.

He didn’t reply. His hand was still there, buried in the plumage, but it was clearly starting to slip. 

I wanted to scream. We were close. So close!

Boston Harbor passed below us — which was a relief because now I spotted the skyscraper that Valhalla disguised itself as, but concerning as well because if we went down now, we would plummet right toward solid concrete. 

With each desperate flap of the wings, Magnus’s body slipped further down my bird’s back.

“Magnus, please!” I tried keeping him in place using the wings, but there was no use.

We just had to make it to the courtyard. Just a few more seconds. 

An unconscious Magnus slid off my back. He plummeted toward the bustling street below. 

I lunged after him. The air rushed past my ears, drowning out the panic and exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm me.

With more luck than skill, I grabbed the back of his hoodie, burying my talons in his shoulders. I knew that probably only injured him further, but that was unimportant now.

We quickly lost altitude. He was too heavy to carry like that, and I was almost out of strength. I felt my consciousness slipping away.

There was the courtyard. My brain moved sluggishly, but I fought to stay awake and continue heading toward our last hope.

One more flap of the wings, two, three.

I let myself glide the last few feet, unable to move another muscle.

I lost my grip on Magnus, and he fell again. I fell with him as my body shrank back into my smaller human form. My eyes stayed open long enough to register two things. First, we were hurtling toward a lush, green lawn that could only exist in Valhalla at this time of year. Second, Magnus, hurtling toward it, had lost all traces of his glow.

I didn't feel any pain when my body hit the ground.

Chapter Text

Alex

A blinding white light hit my eyes and I lifted a hand to shield them. For a moment, I couldn’t see anything.

I was dead. That much was certain. The question was just, how dead. Could this be what came after Valhalla? 

Once my eyes adjusted to the light, I looked around. Emerald green leaves surrounded me, and my reflection — entirely human again — stared back at me from the surface of the water in front of me. 

My heart skipped a beat. I was still in the Fossegrim’s clearing. Had I ever left?  

Then, I noticed the differences: The trees looked healthy and normal, not at all overgrown with ivy. The pond’s water was crystal clear with no Nøkks in sight. The surrounding grass was too lush and green, not muddy and wild. It was too perfect. Much more perfect than it had looked before. 

My eyes wandered ahead, and I realized that I was dreaming — there was no other explanation for what I was seeing. 

Where the Fossegrim and Bragi had been before, a small figure was now sitting cross-legged on the edge of the island.

“Adrian.” My voice felt heavy and slow on my tongue. 

He looked exactly as I remembered him: round face, short-cropped black hair, not a day older than the last time I had seen him. He was dressed in a loose linen shirt and black dress pants. A light smile reached me from across the pond. 

I wasn’t surprised to encounter him here; still, my blood turned to ice. 

“Hi, Alex,” he said, his tone friendly but neutral. “It’s good to see you.” 

I gulped and stepped closer to the shore. “So, I’m dead, then?”

Adrian frowned as if intrigued by the question. “Well, yeah, but not as dead as me.” His face split into a grin. “Don’t worry. You’ll wake up.” 

I think we both knew it wasn’t me who I was worried about. 

I tried to step into the water. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping to accomplish — maybe swim over, get closer, look him in the eye and see if he was really here — but it didn’t matter either way because an invisible barrier prevented me from entering the water, no matter how hard I pushed. 

“You can’t come any closer,” Adrian said, calmly watching me struggle against the invisible force. 

I gave up and resigned myself to my spot on the shore.

“Why are you here?” I asked, my tone more demanding than I had anticipated. Something told me that this was no ordinary dream. This was real — or as real as dreams could get for a demigod. Someone or something had to be responsible for Adrian’s spirit slipping into my subconscious. “How can you be talking to me?” 

“Your sister sent me," he replied and then added: “Or rather, she allowed me to talk to you.” 

“My sister—” It took my brain a moment to put two and two together. Adrian’s spirit could only be under the control of one of my relatives. “Hel?”  

Adrian nodded. 

I hadn't previously formed a definitive opinion about Loki's more sinister children. Magnus had encountered both Fenris and Hel, and he didn't speak highly of either of them. But I had never met Hel before, so I neither harboured negative nor positive feelings toward her. So why would she send Adrian here? 

“She was impressed with you,” he said, as if he had heard my thoughts aloud. “She liked how you invoked her when you stood up to your father. She allowed my spirit to manifest in your dream — I guess she thought you would like that.” 

Family relations aside, the idea that the goddess of the dead was seemingly watching me was not a calming one and the notion that she rewarded me for simply talking about her was even stranger. But I didn’t tell Adrian that. Somehow, I knew that our time together was limited. I had to use it wisely. 

“Adrian—” My voice faltered. I reflexively tried to step closer once again, but the invisible barrier kept me back — a painful reminder that we were, and always would be, trapped in two very different afterlives. Not even Hel could change that. 

I sank to my knees, unable to trust my legs to support me any longer due to the sharp pain throbbing in my chest.

“Adrian, I am so sorry. Everything that happened to you— it’s all my fault. Please believe me; I never meant to hurt you.” 

Never had words felt so empty on my tongue. For years, I had wished for the chance to tell Adrian these things, to tell him about the incredible guilt I had carried with me every day since he had left. And now that the chance was here, it didn’t feel remotely enough. He was a ghost haunting my dreams. No words could change that. No apology would bring him back and give him the life he deserved. A life without me in it. 

He frowned at me as if he couldn’t comprehend what I was saying. “You can’t seriously think I’m blaming you for anything.” 

I trained my eyes on the water in front of me, unable to bear Adrian’s compassionate expression any longer — as if somehow I were the one who needed compassion. 

The pond’s surface was too smooth, not a single ripple disturbed its mirror. “If it weren’t for me, you never would have ended up on the streets. If I hadn’t hurt you—” 

“We were both just kids. You did everything you could to help me. None of what happened was your fault.”

“I hurt people. That’s what I always do. I’m not good for them,” I insisted, sounding like a broken record even to my own ears. It had been different trying to convince Magnus of the validity of that feeling. He hadn’t even known me back then, of course; he could never understand it. With Adrian, however — it was more difficult to cling to that belief when the one person who was the reason it had developed in the first place didn’t even believe it. 

“Alex, look at me.” 

I did as I was told, even though it pained me to meet those warm eyes, which I had almost forgotten. There was a strange hint of sagacity behind them that hadn’t been there when we had both been alive. It gave me the feeling that he knew things I couldn't even fathom.

“Do you remember why we ran away in the first place?” 

I wasn’t sure what to make of this question. “Our parents kicked us out,” I replied. 

Adrian shrugged. “Sure, but we could have crawled back to them, apologized, and promised to change. But we didn’t. Why?” 

I didn’t have an answer. 

“Because we didn’t want to give them the power to continue to hurt us,” he answered for me. And I knew deep down that he was right. “So why do you still believe what your parents told you about yourself? Why do you still let them hurt you like that?” 

I couldn’t come up with a reply. Because how could I possibly counter that?

When I remained silent, Adrian continued:  “There’s a very long life ahead of you. Please don’t spend it in misery.” A sad smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “And I think you already found the person who could help you make it less miserable… if you let him.” 

The question was stupid, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking it. I wanted to know. “Aren’t you… I don’t know, jealous of Magnus?” 

Adrian laughed out loud, and the sound made my heart ache in the most beautiful way. “No, Alex.” He paused. “Actually, I don’t think I feel anything. After all, I'm dead. I don't even really exist anymore.” 

I didn’t even try to wrap my head around that, and I let him continue in a more serious tone. 

“I don’t know what I would have said when I was alive, but right now, being whatever this is, I can only tell you this: You might have been the only person I ever loved, but the last thing I would want is for you to say the same about me. Stop punishing yourself for something that no one blames you for.” 

My chest tightened as I remembered why I was even here. “It doesn’t matter now anyway—” My voice was barely more than a whisper, “Magnus is dead.” 

A panicking voice in the back of my head scolded me for saying those words out loud, for speaking it into existence. But what good would dancing around the inevitable, painful truth do? My hands curled into fists in my lap. “And again, it’s my fault.” 

Adrian tilted his head to the side like he had always done when he was bothered by something. “I hope you will come to the realization that someone else is at fault here.” He got up from the ground, brushing off non-existent dust from his pants. “As for Magnus, I don’t think his fate is sealed just yet.” He looked at his hands, spread out in front of him. “But you will find out soon. I have to go now.” 

I knew he was right. His hands were starting to turn translucent, slowly but surely merging with the surrounding green.

My throat felt as if a hand was closing around it. “I miss you,” I choked out. Tears began to roll down my cheeks, but I didn’t care. 

“I miss you, too.” Adrian smiled, and his smile felt like a hug I had craved for years. “But we’ve had our time, right?” 

I gulped. “It was too short.” 

“Yeah.” He nodded. His entire body was now translucent, blending in with the trees behind him. His voice sounded farther and farther away. “But since changing that is not an option, just cherish it for what it was.” 

He gave me one last smile before becoming one with the forest. “It’s time to wake up, Alex.”  

With a gasp, I came back to life. The familiar feeling of a new body throbbed through my bones. I hated that sensation. For the first few seconds, it always made me feel as if my consciousness had dropped into someone else’s body — one it desperately wanted to escape. Only when the sensation died down and my brain connected with the body’s nervous system did I manage to move. 

My eyes flew open, and I found myself staring at the ceiling of my room in Valhalla. The sight was familiar enough, but there was something churning inside of me that told me something was different. Something was wrong. 

Memories of the last few hours came rushing back, hitting me in the chest with such force that I forgot how to breathe. 

My father, Adrian, Magnus. 

Magnus. 

I sat up straight and scrambled out of the bed. I bolted for the door, but stumbled and fell over something. I paused long enough to see what had stopped me: Sam had fallen asleep in an armchair that she had pulled next to my bed. Now, that I had fallen over her legs, she stirred and blinked through sleepy eyes. When she saw me, sprawled on the ground, she quickly sat up straight. 

“Alex, you’re back!” She wasn’t wearing her hijab; it hung neatly folded over the armrest of the chair, as if she had taken it off to sleep. Her black curls framed her face, making it look soft despite the worried expression I found there. “Annabeth, Jack and Hearth told us everything. They made it back safely. I think they stole a car or something. I can’t believe you actually found Bragi. He’s back here already—“ 

She was clearly talking to avoid something, so I interrupted her. “What about Magnus? Is he back?” 

Her expression dropped into a pained mask, and I decided that I didn’t want to hear the answer to my question. It was obvious why she was here, watching over me: in case I needed emotional support when I woke up. 

Dread crawled up my throat. 

Sam gave me my answer by hesitantly shaking her head. “TJ is watching his room… he told me he’d alert me if—” She sighed. “No, he hasn’t come back yet.” 

She stood up and held out her hand to help me up from the floor, but I was already stumbling to my feet on my own. I rushed toward the front door. 

“Alex!” Sam yelled after me, but I refused to let her stop me again. I had to see the truth for myself. Otherwise, I wouldn’t accept it. I couldn’t accept it.  

Adrian had said Magnus’s fate wasn’t sealed yet — that wasn’t a promise, but it was hope. I couldn’t lose hope just yet. 

The door to Magnus’s room stood ajar and I stormed in. I barely noticed TJ sitting and reading under the tree in the atrium that was so eerily similar to the one in my room. I only stopped when I stood next to Magnus’s bed. It was perfectly made; not a single wrinkle rippled over the beige comforter. It was clear that no one had lain in it in a while.

I heard Sam and TJ exchange a few hushed words behind me, but I didn’t listen. I stared at the spot where I knew Magnus would have to appear any second. I felt like if I just stared hard enough, he would be forced to appear. 

A hand touched my shoulder, and I flinched. Sam had followed me, her hair hastily covered by the hood of her sweatshirt.

“How long has it been?” I asked. My voice vibrated in my throat, but reached my ears with delay, as if it belonged to someone else. 

Sam held my gaze for a second longer, her expression agonized, silently begging me not to make her reply, because she didn’t want to know that answer either. But when I didn’t budge, she reluctantly looked at her watch. “It’s been about five hours since you two arrived here.” 

Dread threatened to overtake me, clawing at my throat with ice cold talons. Magnus was usually the first one on our floor to resurrect. Sometimes he bragged about how he could read half a book in the time it took us others to wake up. “Why is he taking so long?” 

“Alex—” Sam shook her head. There was a quiver in her voice that made it feel like a hand was reaching into my gut, twisting it mercilessly. I still couldn’t take my eyes off the empty space on his bed. It felt like staring at a gaping wound, throbbing with pain. “I don’t think—” 

I didn’t want to hear what Sam was about to say. “I brought him here!” I interrupted. I was surprised by the harshness of my own voice, and when I continued, it dropped to a hoarse whisper: “I brought him here, so he could die within Valhalla. I did everything I could—” My voice broke. I couldn’t breathe anymore, even though I was gasping for air.

“I know you did,” Sam said. She was starting to choke up as well — there was not a hint of the calm, confident reassurance my sister usually managed to provide. That wasn’t helping my breathing problem. “But Annabeth told me that he was already badly injured and weak. If he died even just a few seconds too early—” 

I thought of how Magnus’ lifeless body had slipped from my back, how he had hung limp and unmoving after I had caught him. 

“Alex,” Sam said, her voice barely audible. “He might not come back.”

No. The universe, the gods — they couldn’t do this to me. He couldn’t do this to me. 

“I promised I would bring him home.” My insides felt like they were being carved out with a very sharp knife, the pain so overwhelming that there was no way to put it into words. 

It’s not your fault. Magnus’ voice rang through my ears, clear as if he had appeared right beside me — but of course, he wasn’t there. Could those really be the last words he ever said to me? If so, how could I possibly believe them?

I tore my eyes away from the empty bed and whirled around to look at Sam. I had to make sure that she found herself confronted with the same horrible reality that I was facing. I had to make sure that this was real, not just one of my worst nightmares. 

My sister stared back at me. She didn’t make a sound, but I could see the muscles around her mouth trembling. Glittering tears ran down her cheeks. 

My own eyes started to burn, but no tears came; there was nothing but emptiness inside this new shell of a body. 

Behind Sam, the green of the tree in the atrium shone so vibrantly against the otherwise dreary room that it hurt my eyes even more. Despite everything, the tree towered proudly in the middle of the room. I felt like it was taunting me. I had never tried to understand what it meant that, out of all the possible rooms the hotel could have conjured up, Valhalla had provided Magnus and  me with almost identical ones; I had never dared to understand why there was the same tree in the middle of our rooms. Now, it was too late to find that answer. 

If Magnus was really gone, if he wasn’t coming back, this tree would be the last reminder of this special connection that I had been too afraid of to ever explore. And sooner rather than later, it would disappear, too. Someone else would die heroically; a new soul would move in. The room would change; the tree would fade into the endless nothingness of Ginnungagap. No trace of Magnus Chase would remain except for our memories of him. Eventually, those would fade, too.

This glimpse of a future without Magnus that my brain had unhelpfully provided made me gasp as the magnitude of what was happening here hit me like a cannonball to the stomach. 

An unending, agonizing darkness threatened to consume me. I knew that feeling. I had felt it once before, and I had dreaded it ever since. I was helpless, engulfed in pain, and all alone — so utterly alone with this yawning void of grief. 

Just when I thought, I would fall over the edge into the all-consuming darkness, warm arms wrapped around me. 

Something in me shattered, and finally, the tears I had thought nonexistent poured forth. I sobbed against Sam’s shoulder, clinging on to her with what little willpower I had left — because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to crawl back out once again if the darkness overtook me. 

She cried with me, gripping me just as tightly.

That was when I knew that this wasn’t like last time. As horrible as the pain was, as gaping the void that Magnus would leave behind, it would never be like that again. I wasn’t alone. 

The thought of having lost Magnus felt like a thousand knives were piercing my back, and I knew this pain would possibly never subside. I would carry it with me into the final battle one day. 

But this time, it would be shared pain. We would grieve together, hopefully making it a little more bearable. It was the tiniest, dullest hint of hope I allowed myself, but it was just enough for me to know that I would never return to the darkest moment of my life that I had feared for so long.

In hindsight, maybe that was all I had been afraid of this whole time. But that realization came too late. 

I buried my face in Sam’s hoodie. I don’t know how long we stayed like this, but I wished I would never have to look up and face the world — this new terrible world, without Magnus in it — again. When Sam’s tears subsided and she gently tugged at my arm, trying to get me to let go, I definitely wasn’t ready to open my eyes again.

“Alex…” she said softly, but I kept clinging to her. 

I might have imagined it, but I thought something rustled through the room like a warm summer breeze gently brushing through my hair. It tugged at me from the inside, urging me to lift my gaze.

“Alex!!” Sam said again. This time, her voice was stronger, and there was something else in it — surprise and… joy? 

I lifted my head. The daylight stung my irritated eyes. When I turned around, I was certain that they had to be playing tricks on me.

There he was. 

As if carried there by the wind, he lay on the bed where I had expected him to appear. His eyes remained closed, his body still and motionless — but he was clearly breathing.  

My knees would have given out if Sam hadn't still had her arms around me.

“He came back!!!” she yelled in my ear. She started jumping up and down with glee, still holding on to me. “Alex, you did it!! He came back! Alhamdulillah!” Tears sprang back into her reddened eyes, but these were no longer tears of grief. 

Her jumps shook me awake from the nightmare I had found myself trapped in since I woke up. Reality caught up to me: Magnus was alive. 

There would be no empty room, no new name on the door. The tree would continue to stand. 

The emptiness within me was filled so suddenly with such an abundance of feelings that I felt like I was going to be sick. The world around me was spinning; all I could focus on was him. 

“You brought him home,” I heard Sam say, but her voice sounded like it came from the other side of the room. She released me from her hug slowly, as if she feared I would fall if she let go. That fear wasn’t unfounded. My legs buckled, but I managed to stay upright. 

I felt Sam’s eyes scan my face. I wasn’t sure what she saw there, but it made her say: “I’ll leave you two alone. The others surely want to know. I’ll call the Chase Space.” Her voice was low and soft. She glanced back at Magnus and a gentle smile appeared on her lips, as she wiped her tear-stained face. “Let him sleep for a bit longer. He needs rest.” 

I nodded automatically, but couldn’t find my voice to speak to thank her for having been here for me — for always being there for me — before I heard the door open. When it closed behind her, the silence that encapsulated the room bore down heavily on my ears. 

Not knowing what to do except stare at Magnus’s sleeping body, I gave in to the first impulse that overcame me and crawled into his bed. It was big enough for me to rest comfortably next to him while keeping a safe distance between us. I didn’t want to startle him when he woke up. I also feared that I would implode should I accidentally touch him.

Unwilling to take my eyes off him, I rolled onto my side and pulled my knees close to my chest. Every bone in my body throbbed with the echo of an excruciating pain that had just been narrowly avoided.

Magnus’ chest continued to rise and fall steadily; his soft breath was proof of the fact that he was, in fact, alive. My brain still scarcely managed to believe it. 

I let my eyes wander across his relaxed face. I had always known, but in the last few weeks, I hadn't had a chance to look at him long enough to fully appreciate just how beautiful he was. With my gaze, I traced the outline of his profile, the shape of his slightly parted lips, the gentle curve of his eyebrows. I was certain the world would stop spinning without this face in it. 

Something cold yet burning hot pierced my heart, and a realization oozed from it through my body. Perhaps my encounter with Adrian had been necessary for me to reach this epiphany, and maybe that was callous, but one thing was clear:  never before in my life had I felt for anyone the way I felt for Magnus Chase. And I couldn’t imagine that I ever would. 

  Another certainty: if he would have gone from us tonight, there would have been something for me to regret until the end of time. 

“I urge you to reconsider your reasons for being so afraid of something that you so desperately crave, ” Freya had told me, what felt like ages ago. 

Maybe I was reconsidering. And maybe I didn’t want to risk having any regrets. 

“I dreamt of Adrian,” I said into the oppressive silence of the room, speaking quietly so as not to wake Magnus. There were things I needed to tell him, and I wasn’t sure if I would manage to do so once he was awake. “He told me he doesn’t blame me. And I know you tried to tell me the same thing, but it’s different to hear it from him.” I gulped. The thought of my dream pressed heavily on my throat. “He said I should stop punishing myself.” 

I didn’t even know if my encounter with Adrian had been real. Maybe it had been nothing but a dream, and my subconscious had just told me what I had wanted to hear. But even if that was the case, did it matter? 

The words continued to spill straight from my mind and out of my mouth — the unfiltered truth: “I wasn’t even aware I was doing that until he said so. But he was right. I didn't allow myself to get closer to you because I didn’t think I deserved to. You are so… bright — I mean, just today, you managed to become a literal miniature sun. I didn’t think I deserved to receive any of that light after what happened to Adrian. But if not even he believes that I deserve punishment or that I’m a horrible person… then maybe it doesn’t have to be this way. Because what’s even more important is that you don’t think I’m a bad person. And with that, you surprise me more than anything. I showed you my darkest moments, yet you showed me nothing but compassion — showed me that maybe I deserve compassion. You went into that forest alone to protect me. And when you were dying, all you cared about was telling me that it wasn't my fault. I don’t think anyone ever cared for me that much. I didn’t think that was possible.” 

My heart pounded beneath my rib cage. I wanted to reach out and touch his beautiful face, which still looked more peaceful than I had ever seen it, but I couldn’t risk waking him. 

My chest felt like it was going to break if I didn’t allow the words that had forced their way to the tip of my tongue to escape.

“I love you, Magnus.” My voice refused to be more than a whisper. A lump the size of my heart throbbed in my throat, barely letting any air through. A tiny voice in the back of my head panicked at the words that had left my mouth, but it grew quieter by the second. I wasn’t going to listen to it anymore — I couldn’t. “I love you so much that it hurts. But what hurts more is pretending that I don’t.”

For a split second, I thought I saw Magnus’ eyelids twitch, so I stopped and held my breath. When his eyes remained closed, his body unmoving, I continued, spurred on by my thumping heart — I had no reason not to.  

“And it’s like Freya said, I’m afraid of that feeling. I’m so, so afraid. Because, so far, it has always been followed by terrible pain. But today, you got hurt anyway, and for a second there, I thought— I thought I would lose you forever. And pretending wouldn’t have made the pain any less terrible. If anything, it would have made it worse because, by pretending, I deprived myself of all the moments we could have enjoyed together. So maybe I will stop pretending.”

This resolution hit me so abruptly that I was startled by it. The old fear that had held my heart in its clutches for so long was not gone. It screamed inside my head that I was making a terrible mistake. But now, something else was there to counter it.

I thought back to my conversation with Hearth. “Some people are worth being brave for.” 

Magnus was definitely worth it.

“I think I might be ready to be brave now,” I said, my voice now steadier and stronger, drowning out the panic raging in the back of my head,  “if it’s for you. For us.” 

Lost in my internal battle, I had allowed my eyes to go out of focus. When I forced them to concentrate on Magnus’ face again, I had to realize that something had changed. A light smile, which definitely hadn’t been there before, curled his lips. 

I sat up with a jolt. Blood rushed to my head. “Hold on, are you awake?” 

Carefully blinking against the dim light of the room, Magnus opened his eyes. 

“Hi,” he said gently, giving me a crooked grin that filled me with so much warmth that I almost forgot my embarrassment. Almost.

“How much of that did you hear?” I couldn’t stop staring at him, as if I had to fixate him with my eyes or he would disappear again. The fact that he was both alive and had overheard me rambling about my feelings for him was too much for my brain to process.

A light pink hue formed around his still pale nose. The sparkle in his eyes hinted at how much effort it took him to deliver his words as nonchalantly as he did: “Oh, not much, just that big declaration of love.” 

I groaned and put my head in my hands. “So pretty much all of it.” 

“I’m sorry. For listening,” he said. The sudden earnestness in his tone told me that perhaps this display of embarrassment was unnecessary.

I looked up. “Don’t be,” I said, and I meant it. When I met his eyes, I knew that there was nothing I had said I wouldn’t want him to hear. Maybe I had hoped all along that he would hear me. 

He let out a soft breath and held my gaze. For a moment, it got so quiet that I could hear the rapid beating of my heart. Or maybe it was his. 

Magnus broke the silence. “You saved me.” 

I shook my head, before resting it back down on the pillow, so that I could look him directly in the eyes. “No, you saved me. No one has ever dared to put themselves between my father and me.” 

“I’m glad I did it,” he replied without a second of hesitation. “If you had gotten hurt, there's no way I would have managed to bring you back here in time.” He frowned. “Did you actually turn into a giant bird, or was I hallucinating at that point?” 

“No, that actually happened,” I chuckled. 

“You’re awesome.” He smiled, and a warmth, like something I had missed during a long winter, filled my body. How would I have lived without it? How had I ever lived without it?

I tried not to think about how close he was, lying less than an arm’s length away from me. Through the mattress, I thought I could feel the quickening beat of his heart. 

When his brilliant smile faded and a serious expression took its place, I knew he was about to ask the question I was both waiting for and dreading.

“So, all those things you said—” he began, his gray eyes boring into mine as if to make sure I was giving him my full attention — as if I could possibly focus on anything else. “What does that mean? For us?” 

With a gulp, I forced myself to hold his intense stare. I knew that whatever I said now, there would be no coming back from it. The familiar fear raged in my chest, but I let it. There was nothing it could do. My heart had long since grabbed the decision and run with it. 

“It means that maybe you were right. Maybe none of it was my fault. Maybe I deserve love. Maybe my parents were the reason I experienced so much pain. Maybe there is nothing wrong with me. And, gods, the amount of ‘maybes’ that come with this drives me insane. But nothing is known for sure, and I think I’ll have to learn that that’s not always a bad thing.”

I paused for a second and closed my eyes to collect my thoughts. I had to get to the point. 

I looked at him again. He had not taken his eyes off me. 

With a deep breath, I continued: “Magnus. I know I hurt you more than once over the last few years. I know the way I treated you was confusing. And I am so sorry for everything. I fully understand if you don’t want to put up with that anymore. And if, for some miraculous reason, you do—” An old fear tucked at my heartstrings so forcefully that I couldn’t ignore it for a second, “I can’t promise you anything. You know me; I change, sometimes quickly. I can’t promise you forever. I can’t even promise you a lifetime. But I would like to see what it’s like to be with you, just living in the moment — together. I want to experience what it's like to not hide my feelings anymore.” 

When I finally stopped talking, Magnus didn't react immediately. He just stared at me with wide eyes, like a deer caught in headlights. Then, slowly, my words settled in, and a light smile — a little sad, a little hopeful — tucked at the corners of his mouth. 

He reached out across the bed and took my hand. Electricity jumped between us and pulsed through my entire body at his soft touch. My fingers curled around his. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to let go again. 

“You don’t have to promise me anything, Alex.” His smile widened and became more confident. A light danced through his eyes as they scanned my face, making something inside me flutter. “We might be immortal, but we’re still technically teenagers. Living in the moment together…  that’s more than enough.” 

I must have been imagining it, but his face seemed to glow as if he were bathing in sunlight. His grip on my hand grew stronger.

“And, for some miraculous reason, I do want to continue putting up with you,” he teased, repeating my choice of words. Then, his voice dropped into earnestness, so quickly that it made my heart skip a beat. “I— I never wanted anything more. If that’s what you want.” 

“I want to be with you.” I didn’t hesitate. I dared to jump. “Maybe I’ll be afraid the whole time. But maybe you’re worth the fear.” 

“Maybe we could learn how to be less afraid… together.” 

I nodded and tried to reciprocate his radiant smile. “That sounds nice.” 

There were so many other things we needed to talk about; so many things we needed to negotiate if we wanted this to work. But not right now. There would be enough time for that. We had all the time in the world. 

For now, I needed to enjoy the tranquility of the moment, the electricity buzzing around us, and the warmth of his presence.

 “Alex?” Magnus broke the silence after a few seconds. I had never liked my name as much as I did in that moment, hearing it come from his mouth.

“Yeah?” I wasn’t sure what to expect. 

“I love you, too.” 

A firework started in my chest. “I really want to kiss you right now.” 

Magnus smiled, and I was positive now that the glow surrounding him wasn’t just my imagination. He didn’t hesitate. Gently, he reached out with his free hand and guided my face toward his.

When our lips met, we were engulfed in light. 

With his hand in my hair, and a solar flare between our lips, I felt certain my decision was the right one.

I had taken the leap and I was free-falling. It was frightening, but he was there with me, and no matter when or how we landed, that wouldn't change.

The fear never had to disappear; I just had to face it and push through. Now that I had taken the first step, I could hardly wait to see what was to come. Maybe I would discover that there was something waiting for me — something I had never even dared to wish for — if only I made it to the other side of fear.

Chapter Text

Magnus

“Magnus!” 

Sam’s voice reached me faintly from the library, just as the sun began to set. I let out a deep sigh and turned away from my little experiment up on the rooftop. I wasn't sure whether to be pleased or disturbed by the results. Either way, I didn’t want Sam to see. 

I quickly checked my hands, making sure that they had stopped glowing now and hurried down the stairs back into the house, before she could come up. 

“I’m here.” 

She greeted me at the foot of the stairs with a smile. “Come on, everything’s ready. They’re all waiting for you.” 

I blinked in surprise when I saw the fancy outfit she had changed into. She wore dark green dress pants, an oversized matching blazer over a crisp white shirt, and a silky green hijab. 

Admittedly, she looked very fashionable, but seeing her left a dull ache in my stomach. For the first time, it hit me that she was actually starting to become an adult. Today was my birthday, yet she looked older than I ever would.

I tried not to dwell on that thought. It would surely haunt me more with each passing year.

Instead, I focused on the situation at hand, in which I definitely felt underdressed. I looked down at myself. “Should I have dressed up too?” 

I was wearing the baggy, dark brown corduroy pants that Blitz had given me for Secret Santa last year, along with a plain gray T-shirt. At least it didn't have any stains on it.

Sam followed my gaze, critically looking me up and down. “Yes,” she replied, tactful as always. “But it’s your birthday, so I think we can let it slide.” 

That didn’t make me feel much better, but I followed her downstairs anyway. 

In my defense, I hadn’t known that my friends and the kids had planned a full-blown birthday party for me. I had only found out about it when I had shown up at the Chase Space earlier that day, expecting — or rather, hoping for — a very normal, calm afternoon. The second I had walked through the front door, though, Hearth had immediately banished me to the library because the preparations for the surprise party hadn’t been finished yet. 

I wasn’t sure if I would say that I had spent the hour waiting on the roof deck wisely. I was glad that it was finally over now, but when we arrived downstairs, I understood why it had taken them so long. And I couldn’t deny that I was getting flustered by how much effort everyone seemed to have put in.

The house hadn’t been this tidy since we had moved in — there were no jackets or shoes scattered in the entryway, no forgotten books on the stairs, no trail of dirty, melted snow from boots that hadn’t been taken off leading into the kitchen. Instead, the hallway was lined with grass-green paper streamers and rose gold tinsel (who could have possibly picked that color scheme?). The unmistakable aroma of Fadlan’s falafel wafted from the kitchen, making my stomach rumble. I was about to follow my nose when Sam gestured for me to go to the living room first, which I accepted stoically.

When I entered the surprisingly crowded living room, a choir of about forty voices yelled, "Happy birthday!" at me. Party horns sounded, and the stereo at the back of the room blared Taylor Swift. I wasn’t sure if that was the fault of one of the kids or Blitz. Either way, I would have to change the playlist later.

Once I had gotten over feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of people, I looked around. Everyone I knew seemed to be packed into the living room and kitchen. I couldn’t deny the warm, fuzzy feeling that arose in my chest from seeing so many smiling faces.

All of the kids staying with us were there — most of them looked excited about yet another party so soon after New Year’s Eve. The rest were certainly excited about the abundance of greasy food, sugary drinks, and sweets adorning almost every surface in the room. 

Blitz and Hearth were bustling through the crowd, trying to maintain some semblance of order, but they would probably soon stop caring about the spilled sodas and crushed chips on the carpet. 

By the bay window, Annabeth was talking to none other than my Valhalla hallmates. They had never been to the Chase Space before, so seeing them here was surreal. They blended in unexpectedly well. Even Halfborn had come. With his gym shorts and Hotel Valhalla hoodie, he could almost pass as an unkempt college student, despite his Viking hairstyle. 

By the kitchen door, I spotted Chloe, Izzy, Corin, and Nina whispering to each other. I wondered if that was a good sign. My eyes caught a glimpse of green hair moving through the crowd toward them, and I wanted to follow. But before I could, someone patted me on the shoulder. 

“Happy birthday, Magnus,” Amir said as I turned to face him. Over his black dress shirt, he wore an apron, printed with the words ‘Fadlan’s Falafel’ and a brand new, corny logo of a falafel sandwich with eyes and a huge smile. He guided me to the kitchen. “And congrats on being the very first customer of Fadlan’s new catering service.” 

On the kitchen counters, a spread of all my favorite foods had been laid out: fresh pita bread, baba ghanoush, baklava, marinated olives, and, of course, more falafel than I had ever seen in my life.

“Okay, wow, this is amazing,” was all I could say — when really, I thought something like ‘So, this is the paradise afterlife that was promised to me’ . “Thank you, Amir! You’re the best.” 

Two kids rushed past us and started heaping food onto their plates. They seemed almost as excited about the falafel as I was. 

“Who’s paying you for all this, though?” I asked — perhaps a sign that, despite not aging, I was maturing. I didn’t think a full buffet was in the Chase Space’s budget right now.

Amir shrugged. “Like I said: This is kind of a trial run for our catering service. And you’re my friend, so…” 

“Think of it as our birthday gift,” said Sam, who had followed us into the kitchen, with a light grin. 

I wanted to protest — I had certainly taken advantage of Amir’s generosity often enough, when I had been homeless — but Sam’s stern look told me to shut up and enjoy it. Which wasn’t all that hard.  

We each filled a plate with deep-fried chickpea goodness and went back into the living room, where we joined my hallmates and cousin. It looked like Halfborn was lecturing Annabeth about Germanic literature. Everyone let out barely suppressed sighs of relief at our interruption.

“Hey, guys, thanks for coming,” I said. “I didn’t think I’d ever get you to visit this place.” 

TJ shrugged. “Alex convinced us.” 

“Convinced us? He threatened to lock us in the breakfast hall and set it on fire if we didn't come,” Mallory said, sounding only slightly offended by the fact that Alex had succeeded. She sighed defeatedly and added, “But actually, I don’t mind.” 

Halfborn seemed to agree. He nodded eagerly. “I really should leave the hotel more often. This is great. The food is amazing .” He patted Amir, who looked a little afraid of the Viking next to him, on the back. Amir wasn’t short, but he appeared tiny next to Halfborn, so I understood why he looked so uncomfortable. 

But my mind was still caught on another topic. “Where is Alex, anyway?” Except for that glimpse of green hair, I hadn’t seen him all day. 

Mallory grinned teasingly. “Of course, we’re not as interesting as Alex .”

I rolled my eyes, but felt my cheeks turn red. 

Three days had passed since the Bragi-fiasco; three days since Alex and I had declared our love for each other. Since then, we had decided to rewind and move this relationship-business along more slowly. We had barely had a chance to talk alone since then, let alone organize something like a date. We weren’t anything official and had decided not to label our relationship just yet — but we would get there, I knew now. Just at our own pace. The next grand declaration of love would have to wait and, hopefully, occur under less dramatic circumstances than in the aftermath of a near-death experience. And I was more than fine with that. 

We had, however, started to ‘soft-launch’, as Alex called it, this change in our relationship with our hallmates — slowly hinting at the fact that our era of not getting to the point was coming to an end. Of course, that had led to endless good-natured teasing because even though those idiots were immortal, they were also eternal teenagers. So I suppose that was inevitable.

“I’m sure Alex is here somewhere,”  said Annabeth, going on tiptoes to scan the crowd. When she didn't seem to find who she was looking for, she turned to me instead with a content smile. “He organized all of this, by the way. I was barely allowed to help.” 

“Yeah, well, since Magnus said he didn’t want any gifts, I had to come up with something…” a familiar voice said from behind me. My heart made a happy little jump as Alex appeared next to me so suddenly that he might as well have just turned back from being a mouse. “Heard you guys talking about me?”

I didn’t immediately reply because I was entranced by Alex’s outfit. He was wearing a waistcoat in the same color as Sam’s suit, but it was embroidered all over with an intricate design of rose-colored and purple flowers. Underneath, he wore a white blouse with puffy sleeves. His loose-fitting dress pants were accessorized with a brown belt that accentuated his waist. The black eyeliner around his eyes made them appear almost cat-like.

I was pretty sure I had never seen anyone more beautiful. (But please don’t tell any of the goddesses in my life I said that). 

“The birthday boy was missing you,” TJ replied with a sly grin when all I could do was stare at Alex. 

His eyes sparkled with something like amusement as he looked back at me. “I’m sure he did.” 

“So, I’m going to try some more of that interesting food,” Halfborn announced loudly. “Are you coming?” he asked our hallmates, not being very vague about his intentions. They both nodded quickly, grinned at Alex and me, and followed Halfborn into the kitchen.

Annabeth also suddenly found herself in a deep conversation with Sam and Amir about college classes. They conveniently moved a few steps away, leaving Alex and me alone in the bay window.

Alex scooted onto the cushioned windowsill, his gaze following our friends. “Wow, it’s like we have a whole collection of very discreet wingmen and wingwomen.” 

I chuckled and sat down next to him. “Yeah, they’re not very subtle.” 

Our eyes met, and Alex’s grin turned into a soft smile. “Do you like this?” he asked quietly, his voice carrying an uncharacteristic hint of insecurity. “I wasn’t sure if it would be too much or—” 

I took his hand; it was as effortless as smiling at him. “This is amazing, Alex,” I assured him. Sure, I wasn't usually much of a people person, but it was nice to see how many friends I had who appreciated me for who I was — especially after the week I had been through. “Seriously, thank you. Best birthday present ever.” 

The broad smile Alex gave me made my insides feel like they were lined with cozy blankets. 

We hadn’t been this close since those hours we had spent lying side by side in my bed, and I was pleasantly surprised by how comfortable it was. To be frank, I had spiraled several times over the past few days at the thought of my relationship with Alex. And, sure, that was nothing new, but now it was a different kind of spiraling. Every time I had been alone my mind had tried to convince me that I had tricked Alex into confessing his feelings for me somehow by nearly dying and that I was a terrible person because of that. Technically, I knew that was a stupid worry and right now with Alex’s hand in mine, it had little ground to take hold. And still… sometimes my mind could be so annoyingly convincing that the concern still burned on my tongue. 

“So… all of this —” I began, even though I didn’t know how to phrase what I was trying to ask. I vaguely gestured from him to me and back, hoping that he understood what I meant, “it’s still okay with you? You don’t… regret what happened when we came back from Salem?” 

Alex raised his eyebrows and studied my face, a curious glint in his eyes, as if he were trying to assess whether I was serious or not. “Do you think I would have done all of this if I regretted it?” 

“Probably not, but—” 

“No, I don’t regret it.” He locked our eyes again. “I really feared I would because it’s all so… new. But I think I’ve never regretted anything less.” 

I nodded, not doubting for a second that he was telling the truth. The unabashed earnestness in his voice made my heart pound so loudly that I thought I could hear it over the music. It took me a moment to find my voice and tell him what I had wanted to say before my brain had unhelpfully interrupted. “You look amazing, by the way.” 

A light blush spread across Alex’s nose. “Thank you.” He cast a glance at my plain shirt and pants and grinned. “You don’t look bad either.” 

“Hey, I would have changed, if someone had told me—” 

Alex laughed, and the sound vibrated in my ears like the magical music of the Fossegrim. “I’m just teasing you. You really do look nice. You always do.”

Now, that was just a blatant lie, but Alex played it straight.  

His heterochromatic eyes shone as they traced my face, as if he had never been happier to see anyone's face — as unlikely as that seemed. He leaned closer, waiting for me to meet him halfway. I would have kissed him — of course I would have — if we hadn’t been interrupted by Chloe. 

“Alex, we need your help again!” she said, seemingly unaware that she was interrupting anything at all. “With the—” she nodded secretively in my direction, “You know . It’s the last page, come on!” 

Alex and I exchanged a glance that clearly conveyed something like: “ No more alone time for now, but let’s definitely get back to this later.” 

“Oh, and there’s someone at the door. I wasn’t sure if we should open it,” Chloe added, when Alex got up from our spot on the windowsill with a barely suppressed sigh. 

He frowned. He clearly wasn’t expecting anyone else. I couldn’t think of anyone who was missing either. “Yeah, okay,” Alex said. “I’m coming.” 

I remained seated on the windowsill and picked up my forgotten plate of food. I enjoyed my falafel while letting my eyes wander through the room. It seemed to radiate joy. Wherever I looked, I saw smiling kids and laughing friends. I felt as genuinely loved as I last had when my mom had still been alive.

I could almost picture her here amongst my friends. Maybe, in a way, she was here. The thought tugged at my heartstrings, but it was more of a comforting feeling than a painful one. I wondered, not for the first time, what she would say about everything we had built in the Chase family's old mansion; what she would think about my own little family of empty cups, about Alex. 

She would love them all, I decided. How could anyone not? I certainly had more love for the people in this room than my heart could hold. 

Jack’s pendant pulsed against my chest, as if he wanted to remind me of his presence. 

“Yeah, I love you too, buddy,” I thought with a smile, even though I knew — or hoped — that Jack couldn’t read my thoughts. 

He was an integral part of my found family — I had learned that much in the last few days. Those few hours when I thought he had left for good had shaken me more than I originally thought they would. It had felt like a limb had been taken from me. Having him back by my side was such a relief that since we returned from Salem, I had barely taken off the runestone, subconsciously fearing he would disappear again, if I let go of him.

“Happy birthday, kid,” I heard, coming from my right.  Blitz jumped onto the windowsill next to me, patting my back as if to congratulate me on surviving another year of being dead. Fair enough — I had almost messed it up during the final stretch.  His suit looked like tinfoil, reflecting the dim light with each of his movements.

Where there was Blitz, Hearth wasn’t far. A second later he joined us, as well, sitting down to my left. He smiled brightly, which was an unusual look for him. At least he hadn’t dressed up as much as everyone else seemed to have. He wore his usual outfit of black jeans and a black cashmere sweater that Blitz had made for him.

"Hey," I said, signing along. "Thanks for putting up with all this." I gestured around the room, where it seemed like all the rules were being thrown out the window. There were shoes on the tables and spilled drinks everywhere. By the stereo, which now played a familiar Paramore song, Halfborn was letting some kids throw falafel at him. He tried to catch them with his mouth, but he wasn’t doing a good job. "I'll help you clean up tomorrow."

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Hearth signed. “Just enjoy it.”  

“By the way, are you still serious about not wanting any gifts?” Blitz asked with a slightly critical glance at my outfit. “I have a lovely velvet blazer that’s a bit too small for me somewhere in the back of my closet—” Hearth must have given him a stern look because he broke off his sentence with an apologetic grimace. “Sorry.” 

I just laughed. “I’m all good.” Sure, the offer was tempting, especially since half of my friends were dressed as if they were attending a red carpet event, but I doubted a velvet blazer would fit my style. “And no, no gifts,” I clarified. I had told my friends not to get me anything because I didn’t see the point. I had everything I needed in Valhalla, and no one should have to spend money on me since I was dead anyway. “It’s enough that you’re all here.” 

Okay, yes, that sounded sappy, but it was the truth. 

“Now you’re just sweet-talking us. ” 

I didn’t reply to that because something had caught my eye, while Hearth was signing: a golden glint between his fingers. A ring? I wouldn't have guessed that Hearth was the kind of person to wear jewelry. Maybe that was his way of dressing up?

Then, I noticed a similar ring standing out from Blitz’s hand against the backdrop of his silvery suit fabric. Blitz was much more likely to wear jewelry, but the similarity between the rings raised some questions.

“Hold on a second—” I finally said, as my brain put the pieces together. “Are you guys— did you—?” 

Hearth followed my gaze to his ring. He stared at it for a second as well, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing either. He exchanged an uncertain glance with Blitz.

“Oh, um…” Blitz began, his cheeks glowing. “We were gonna tell you, but—” 

“You got engaged??” 

Hearth shrugged before nodding with an uncharacteristically shy smile. He glanced over at Blitz; his eyes were so full of love that I felt bad for sitting between them.

I couldn’t close my mouth, and I kept glancing back and forth between my friends. It had taken me long enough to even figure out that they were dating, so you can imagine how startled I was by this development. But after the initial surprise, a wave of joy almost knocked me over.

“That’s amazing!!! Congratulations!” I exclaimed, loud enough for Annabeth, Sam, and Mallory to glance over curiously. I jumped up from the windowsill to look at both Hearth and Blitz at the same time — and to get out of the way of their heart-eyed glances. “When did this happen? Why didn’t you say something?” 

“A few days ago — after Blitz returned from Nidavellir,” Hearth replied, still staring at Blitz like he couldn't quite believe he got to call this person his fiancé.

Blitz smiled softly. “It was a very spontaneous decision.” He picked some lint from the collar of Hearth’s sweater. “I barely expected him to say yes.” 

Hearth grinned impishly. “Only because you’re such a charmer .” 

“With everything that was going on, we couldn’t find a good moment to tell you,” Blitz explained with an apologetic shrug. “And today, we didn't want to steal you the show.” 

I was about to tell them to please steal me the show, as their news was much more exciting than my birthday, which would come around every year until the end of time. But before I could, Alex appeared by my side again.

“Hey, did you know—” I started to say, unable to keep the news from Alex. But when I saw his distressed expression, I faltered. “Is everything okay?” 

“Uh…” Alex began, glancing at me as if I were a menacingly ticking time bomb, which confused me, to say the least. “We have a bit of a problem. I told him to leave. I really tried, but—” 

“Magnus Chase!” a voice boomed through the room — that was never a good sign. 

The music cut out, even though I was pretty sure that no one had turned it off. All eyes were on the entrance to the living room. 

When I saw the tall, bearded figure whose voice had echoed through the room, I thought for a moment that Halfborn had decided to abandon his normal-21st-century-human disguise and embrace his inner Viking. But when he stepped into the light, I recognized the strawberry-blonde mane and lanky build under the dramatic fur coat — and the memories it awakened weren’t pleasant. 

“I have finished the epic you commissioned, and I am here to present it,” Bragi announced in a tone suggesting he expected the entire room to burst into cheers.

Instead, he was met with dead silence. Or at least, I thought it was silent — I wasn’t sure if I could hear properly with my blood rushing to my ears, filling them with a blatant buzz. My fingers curled into fist. Hearth carefully put his hand on my shoulder, as if he expected me to charge at the god empty-handed and wanted to hold me back.

I hadn’t seen Bragi since we had returned from Salem, but word of his comeback to Valhalla had quickly spread. I was told that the wolves had indeed brought him to the hotel instead of tearing him to pieces (bummer) and that he was taking his job as the court musician seriously, even though he had returned unwillingly. According to Mallory, he was giving spontaneous musical performances wherever he went. Alex and I had made a point of always leaving an area as quickly as possible once we spotted the crazy mob of die-hard Bragi fans who followed his every move. I had tried to tell them that their idol was a treacherous bastard whose music wasn’t even that good. That had gotten me stabbed by ten angry Viking fangirls at once, so I didn’t plan on trying that again. 

Now, standing face-to-face with the god of music, my whole body trembled with anger at his audacity in showing up here unannounced.  The remnants of the pain I had endured at the Fossegrim’s glade because of Bragi still clung to each of my bones like velcro, even though my body had renewed itself several times since then. The whole almost-actually-dying situation afterwards hadn't been beneficial for my nerves, either. 

I hadn't told any of my friends, but over the last few nights my dreams had taken me back to the forest that had sapped my energy again and again. I had often woken up drenched in sweat, glowing like a very enthusiastic nightlight. I hadn't told anyone about the ivy that kept growing around my bed each night either.

Bragi was the very last person I wanted to see on my birthday. My chest buzzed with anger.  

“You’re not invited,” Alex hissed at him, stepping partly in front of me as if he wanted to protect me from having to look at the god in the doorway — which was kind of sweet, I had to admit. 

Bragi ignored him and looked around instead. “Where do I find the stage in this strange establishment? Ah, yes, this will do.” He walked across the room. No one blocked his path, which was probably for the best. I didn’t want any of the kids to get hurt by a god on a mission. With a wave of his hand, various snacks and drinks disappeared from the coffee table into thin air, clearing it for Bragi to step onto the surface like a rock star stepping onstage. Instead of screaming fans, however, he was surrounded by a dozen teenagers, gaping at the magically emptied table/stage. 

How were we going to explain any of that to a bunch of very ordinary, mortal kids? 

Blitz seemed to have had the same thought. “Sir, I have to ask you to leave!” he said, trying to sound stern, but his voice fluctuated between several octaves. 

Bragi threw a disgusted glance in our direction. Before he got the chance to reply or incinerate Blitz, a small voice from the crowd asked: “Dad?” 

Everyone stared at Izzy, who stood next to Hearth and looked as if she couldn't trust her eyes.

“That’s your dad??” I heard Nina ask from somewhere behind me.  

Bragi frowned for a moment, as if he wasn’t so sure himself. He sounded stiff and cold, when he replied: “Hello, Isabella. How nice of you to attend my performance.” 

That wasn’t even the bare minimum of acknowledgement considering he had plagued her with dreams and put her in incredible danger, just to bring me to his rescue. I wanted to point that out, but Izzy looked too starstruck to care, and I couldn’t bring myself to ruin the moment.

“There won’t be a performance!” Alex said, his voice growing frustrated. 

Annabeth stepped to his side and added: “You’re not welcome here, Bragi.” 

“Next time, I will expand the house’s protection spell to include gods,” Hearth signed. Some kids who knew basic ASL frowned, probably wondering how they could have misinterpreted a sentence so badly that it included gods and spells. 

Fortunately, we were well past the point of having to explain a few things anyway. 

The other kids’ heads swiveled between Bragi and us. They all seemed very interested in whatever quarrel all of us had with this strange Viking man. 

Bragi did not acknowledge the hostile energy directed at him, which only made him more infuriating. “That’s alright, I don’t need to be welcomed. I just have to present my work: An epic song about the highs and lows of the life of Sumarbrander, also known as Jack the Sword — as commissioned by Magnus Chase.” 

All eyes turned to me, but not just because my name was mentioned. 

I realized that my chest felt strange not only because of the anger Bragi evoked, but also because it was actually buzzing. Or rather, Jack, in pendant form, was buzzing with pure excitement. It seemed to cost him every last bit of restraint not to transform into his full form. Instead, he was glowing with all the colors of the rainbow and slowly floating away from my chest. The only thing holding him back was the chain connecting us. Unfortunately, that was only slightly less conspicuous than an animated, talking sword. But, like I said, we were long past that point.  

The burning outrage Bragi’s appearance had evoked in me subsided a little and was replaced by a lump forming in the back of my throat. Jack had waited years for this. I wasn’t going to let him wait any longer. 

Alex stepped toward Bragi, looking like he would have rolled up his sleeves, if only his shirt hadn’t been short-sleeved. “I’m serious. Leave or-”

I stepped in, gently pulling Alex back by the shoulder. “It’s okay.” 

Alex looked at me as if I had lost my mind. “Mags, you don’t have to listen to this. Not today.” 

I tried to smile. “Really, it’s fine.” I felt like I owed this to Jack. Besides, if Bragi really wanted us to listen, he could just order us to, and we wouldn't have a choice anyway. It was better to accept the inevitable with dignity.

I turned to Bragi. “I’m sure it won’t take that long, will it?”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew I shouldn't have asked.

The god smiled. An instrument that looked like a Viking guitar prototype appeared in his hand from the ether — he was fed up with fiddles, apparently. A few kids gasped, but most of them didn’t seem to find that any weirder than the magically cleaned table or my glowing, floating necklace. “It’s so entertaining that you won’t even notice any time passing.” 

Alex gave me a look that seemed to say “We’re so screwed and it’s your fault.”

“Let us sing of the great Sword of Summer, bringer of light. How were you forged? How did you fare— ” Bragi began singing a melancholic melody and strummed the first chords. The feeling that Alex was right snuck up on me. On the other hand… it was just one song. How long could it possibly be?

The answer: Very long. Three hours and thirty-nine minutes, to be precise. 

For a god, that was nothing, I suppose. Throughout the entire song, Bragi didn't lose his voice or any of the ardor with which he recounted Jack's life story.

I will spare you the details of Jack’s long and adventurous life, but Bragi sure didn’t. We heard all about how Sumarbrander was forged on the summer solstice many, many years ago by Vanaheim's finest smiths, how he and Frey brought light and peace wherever they went, how Jack saved my dad's butt several times in the war between Vanir and Aesir, how Frey broke Jack’s metaphorical heart by trading him away for love, and how the ship Jack ended up on sank with everyone and everything on it just as it had begun exploring an unknown, new world. I had to admit that I was glad Jack had spent several centuries at the bottom of the Charles River. Otherwise, the “song” — it was really more of a tedious one-man opera — probably would have never ended. But I wasn’t going to mention that to him. 

Many of the events that Bragi sang about, I had never heard of before, and I wasn’t sure if Jack even remembered all of them. He seemed happy enough with what he heard, though, and continued to hum comfortably against my chest.  

Everyone else struggled more. Several kids fell asleep. Blitz, who had tried to interpret what Bragi was singing about for Hearth, got a cramp in his hand after about an hour and a half, so Sam had to take over. 

During the final thirty minutes, even Jack lost some of his glow. 

Still, no one dared to leave the room — perhaps they couldn't. Something about Bragi’s music kept me glued to my seat on the windowsill. Or maybe it was the fact that, halfway through, Alex rested his head on my shoulder. I barely dared to breathe, afraid that he would scoot away again if I moved too much. 

When Bragi’s song reached the part of Jack's life that involved my friends and me, I had to admit that even though my resentment toward Bragi did its best to prevent it, I got a little emotional. Sure, Bragi exaggerated Jack’s involvement slightly. For instance, I was fairly certain that he hadn't engaged in a gory battle with the sea goddess Ran to escape her nets. But it was undeniable that my trusty sword really had helped me out of many sticky situations. What would I do without him? 

The runestone on my chest felt comfortably warm, and I blinked back a few tears that no one needed to see.

After the final chord was strummed, it took a few seconds for life to return to the room. Only after Bragi bowed dramatically several times did cautious applause ripple through the crowd of highly confused kids.

Alex’s head jolted up from my shoulder, and for a fleeting second, a tiny part of me wished that Bragi would have kept playing. 

“Is it over?” Alex asked drowsily. As if in reply, Sam finished her ASL translation with: “The End ”. 

“Thank you, thank you,” Bragi said, bowing in all directions while seemingly oblivious to the fact that most of the applause was out of politeness. Not that it had been a bad song. No, technically, I had enjoyed it. But why did it have to be so long?

“There will be CDs and limited-edition LPs available at the Hotel Valhalla store,” Bragi announced, letting his instrument disappear again. No one seemed surprised anymore, either because they had already seen and heard enough weird things, or because they were too sleepy to wonder about trivialities like object permanence. 

Slowly, the room filled with chatter again as the kids began to discuss what had just happened.  Some left the room, probably to go to bed, while others went right back to partying. Someone turned the music — the very normal, not-at-all-magical music — back on.

Bragi’s announcement: “I shall take my leave now,” was almost completely drowned out.

When he stepped down from his makeshift stage and moved through the crowd, Alex jumped up. “I’ll make sure he leaves,” he said with a grim face and followed the god into the hallway. 

I exchanged a glance with Annabeth, who silently agreed that leaving Alex alone with Bragi could be hazardous — whether for Alex or Bragi, I wasn’t sure — so we followed close behind.

When we stepped into the hallway, Bragi was standing there with his arms crossed, as if he had been waiting for us.

“So, Magnus Chase…” he said. He made my name sound like an insult. “I did as promised. My epic will ensure that Surmarbrander is known for all eternity. Are we even, now?” 

My hands curled into fists. I wanted to tell him that over the past week, we had dealt with his wife and her murderous apples and the wolves looking for him, all while protecting his daughter. I wanted to tell him that I had endured the Nøkks because of him and that my friends had freed him from the Fossegrim's bonds. All he had done was allow his fans in Valhalla to worship him and write a song that didn't consider its audience's patience. ‘Even’ looked different to me.

Luckily, I was sensible enough not to say that. Bragi wouldn’t disappear from Valhalla so quickly again, and he was not an enemy I wanted to have to put up with for eternity. So, I forced my hands to uncurl and tried to speak calmly: “I don’t know. I think that’s for my sword to decide.” 

I took the rune stone off my necklace, and of course, Jack didn’t keep us waiting. A second later, he was floating in his full sword form, dangerously close to Bragi’s face. 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!” he yelled at the god, who looked mildly taken aback by the glowing weapon hovering in front of his face. 

I hoped no one in the living room could see Jack out here in the hallway with the door half-closed. And even if they could, it probably wouldn’t be a big deal after everyone had spent the last three hours listening to the adventurous stories of the floating sword. 

“The epic was wonderful!” Jack continued, light pulsing through his blade, making the hallway feel like a lame nightclub. He leaned toward me. “I really am an awesome sword, am I not?” 

The genuine joy in his voice made my anger at Bragi subside for a moment. I tried to give him a grin. “Sure, you are.” 

“And not at all conceited,” Alex mumbled, which made Annabeth chuckle. But Jack didn’t seem to hear. He was too busy raving about the song. 

“I really liked the use of key changes! Very clever to let them tell a story. And how you described my fight with that one giant in Jotunheim… Wow, I had almost forgotten about that. Now everyone will know about it!! I just think the whole thing could have been a bit more extensive,” he added in a pensive tone. Judging by everyone’s expressions, no one in the room agreed. “But other than that, it was perfect.” 

“That means I am done here,” Bragi said, seemingly uninterested in any more feedback from Jack. “Magnus Chase, our deal is done. And, before you ask, no, neither you nor your sword are entitled to royalties from the song.” He turned to leave, and I was too relieved to see him leave to ask why I would want money from him — I was dead! — or why he even sold his music, when he was a god and didn’t need money either. 

“Wait,” Alex said before Bragi could reach for the door. I hoped he had a valid reason to make him stay longer. He met the god's annoyed glance with defiance. “What about Izzy?” 

Okay, yes, that was a valid reason. Now, I felt bad for not having thought of Izzy before. 

“What about her? The wolves won’t bother her anymore.” Bragi shrugged. He didn’t sound like it would matter to him any more if the wolves did continue to hunt his daughter. “Besides, should I ever need her, I won't need to communicate through dreams anymore. I now know where to find her.”

“Should you need her? She needs you ,” Annabeth argued, looking at Bragi as if he were the most despicable person she had ever seen. “Her mother died because of you. Don’t you want to make sure she’s safe?” 

Bragi rolled his eyes. “She can stay here. That’s what you do here, isn’t it? You keep children safe. I highly doubt she’ll find another shelter for Norse demigods.” 

I quickly glanced at Alex, who just frowned and shook his head slightly, as if to say “I have no clue what he’s talking about either ”. 

“This is not a shelter for Norse demigods,” I decided to inform Bragi.

For the first time, he looked genuinely surprised by something I said.  “It’s not? Hm.” 

“No, we take in anyone who— Wait, why did you think so??” 

The surprise quickly vanished from his face and was replaced by a more familiar scowl that seemed to ask why I was so dense. “Because of all the demigods in your living room.”

“All the— what?” Alex threw an uncertain glance back at the living room. 

“There’s a son of Tyr, a daughter of Frigg—” 

I exhaled with relief. “They don’t live here. They are our friends from—” 

But Bragi wasn’t done yet. He continued counting on his fingers: “A daughter of Sif,  a son of Ullr, a son of Skadi…” He frowned at our gaping mouths. “You didn’t know that?”

“No,” I forced myself to answer, when neither Alex nor Annabeth managed to articulate their thoughts. Had we accidentally become a shelter for demigods? Or was Bragi just pulling our legs?

“Be that as it may,” Bragi continued, waving his hand as if to wipe the surprised expressions from our faces. “Isabella will stay here, and I’m sure you’ll teach her everything she needs to know. I would suggest hiring a music teacher to teach these kids some useful skills. But don’t look to me for help; I have more important business to attend to.” 

“First and foremost, we will teach her to steer clear of arrogant gods,” Alex mumbled, having recovered from Bragi’s revelation. 

Bragi ignored him. “Now, as much as I enjoyed this—” he said in a tone that suggested he had never enjoyed anything less in his long life, “I have to get back to my fans — I mean to Valhalla.” He nodded at me, his eyes glinting in a way that made me feel uneasy. “I assume, I will see you around, Magnus Chase.  It was not pleasant doing business with you.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Ditto.”  

The god pulled the door open with more force than necessary, leaving it open as he stepped out into the snow.

Alex moved toward the door as if to close it, but then changed his mind. Instead, he followed the god onto the porch before I could stop him.

“Hey, Music Man! One more thing!” 

Bragi turned around once more as he reached the front gate.

I wasn’t sure why he stopped when Alex told him to. Maybe he couldn’t resist attention, whether good or bad.

“Stay away from this house,” Alex said coldly, a sharp gleam flitting through his eyes. If he had given me that look, I would have turned and run, but Bragi just looked uninterested. “If I catch you bothering anyone who lives here, I wouldn’t want to be in your skin. And if you ever even so much as give my boyfriend a weird look, I will—” 

“Who are you again?” Bragi asked with a frown, but I had stopped paying attention to the conversation. A balloon seemed to inflate inside of my chest. “Boyfriend ?” 

Alex smiled, but the smile didn't reach his eyes.  “Doesn’t matter. But I know where to find you, because I live there. So, stay away from my family. Oh, and while I'm at it, check up on your wife. I honestly don’t think you deserve her, but apparently, she misses you.” 

Bragi gave Alex one last irritated look, as if wondering why this random Einherji was talking to him. Then, he stepped out onto the street and disappeared with the next gust of wind, leaving behind a faint melody whistled by the air.

Annabeth stepped toward Alex, who stared angrily at the spot where Bragi had disappeared. She put a hand on his shoulder. “I'm sorry to tell you this, but I don't think that scared him.”

Chapter Text

Magnus 

For those of us who had managed to stay awake through Bragi’s song, the evening was far from over. Despite its strange and lengthy interruption, life quickly returned to the party. At one point, TJ decided that someone needed to open a dance floor in the middle of the living room, which led to some hilarious scenes as he tried to teach a few kids some outdated ballroom dance moves, using Halfborn as his demonstration dance partner.

I decided it was best to steer clear of the newly proclaimed dance floor for a while and instead stuck to the couch, where Sam, Annabeth, and Amir debated what they thought I should study if I ever decided to use my infinite time in Valhalla to pursue a degree. Sam placed her bet on English literature, Annabeth on environmental science, and Amir on a degree he had just invented called ‘falafelology’. I couldn’t give them an actual answer as to who won that debate but I thought all of those sounded pretty neat. 

It was getting late, but I wasn’t tired yet, and neither were my friends or most of the kids. Maybe it would have been the responsible thing to send them all to bed, but I was in too good of a mood to be the responsible one today. 

I even allowed Blitz to add a few Taylor Swift songs to the playlist and didn’t even regret it. Watching him and Hearth sway to Lover , with Blitz mouthing the words along for Hearth, whose face glowed with joy, was too adorable to protest.

Speaking of lovers… There was someone I definitely hadn’t seen enough of today. 

As I moved through the crowd looking for Alex, I overheard bits of the lively discussion about what everyone had witnessed.

“I’ve never been to a party before…” I heard Nina say to Corin and Wyatt, “...but they’re usually not like this, right?? Why was there a Viking singing about a sword?” 

“More importantly, why was the Viking Izzy’s dad?” Wyatt added with a frown, “And why was he singing about a talking sword?” 

“I think the sword was a metaphor.” Corin nodded knowingly. 

“A metaphor for what?” 

“No idea.”  

The runestone that was now resting against my chest again vibrated a little, almost as if Jack was chuckling. 

I thought back to what Bragi had told us about the demigods in our living room, and, with a queasy feeling, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the kids we would have to inform sooner rather than later that none of it had been a metaphor.

When I finally spotted Alex being dragged back into the room by Izzy and Chloe, I was forced to make an exception to my ‘no gifts’-rule. It was okay, though, because the gift in question came from the Chase Space residents, as Izzy proudly announced. 

It was a kind of scrapbook filled with pictures from the last years here at the Chase Space, as well as drawings, little notes, and happy birthday wishes in twenty different handwritings. 

“We all agree that you're like a big brother to us,” Chloe said, as I flipped through the book, which made me tear up more than I would like to admit. “So, we wanted to make you something for your birthday. Everyone here contributed something.” 

“But we didn’t finish in time, so Alex had to help,” Izzy added, her eyes glittering with excitement. Fortunately, she didn't seem too upset about meeting her father under such strange circumstances and him leaving without paying her much attention.

Good , I thought. Bragi wasn’t a dad worth feeling upset about. 

Alex, standing behind the two of them, shrugged apologetically. “I told them you didn’t want any gifts, but they insisted.” 

“No, this is—this is awesome.” I quickly wiped my eyes. “Thank you all so much. You are the best.” 

The giant group hug that followed with pretty much all of the kids almost broke my ribs, but that was fine with me. What I wasn’t completely fine with was the whole room singing Happy Birthday for me — for one thing, I never knew what to do when someone sang Happy Birthday for me. For another, there had certainly been more than enough singing in this house for one day. But I put up with it stoically.

After that, the room gradually became calmer. Annabeth was the first to excuse herself from the party. “I’m sorry, but I have to catch an early train back to New York tomorrow,” she told me and pulled me into a tight hug. I wrapped my arms around her just as tightly. Man, I would miss her. “I still have to make a trip to Olympus to deliver Freya’s earrings to Aphrodite.” She let go of me and rolled her eyes. I didn’t know all that much about the Greek gods, but Annabeth didn’t sound like that task would end up being a dangerous mission. But she clearly wasn't looking forward to it, either.

“I’m still sorry you had to agree to that.”

She shrugged. “It’s fine. It helped you fulfill your promise. Besides, I wouldn't have wanted to miss the Epic of Jack for anything.”  

There was only a tiny hint of sarcasm in her voice — not enough for Jack to notice. The rune stone hummed happily against my chest. 

Annabeth chuckled at him before looking back at me with a more solemn expression. “We should do this more often. Visiting each other, I mean.”

I nodded. “Yeah.” As happy as this birthday party made me, it was also a painful reminder that I was another year older yet hadn’t aged. I had infinite years ahead of me, but not with everyone in this room. It was about time I made the most of the years ahead. 

 “Maybe you two could come visit New Rome in the summer.” Her eyes drifted over to Alex, who had appeared by my side. 

The sight of him quickly lifted the weight that had momentarily pulled at my heart. 

“Oh, I would love to,” he answered Annabeth. He let his eyes wander through the room, a hint of worry behind them. “You could probably teach us a thing or two there about introducing young demigods to crazy, new worlds.”

So Alex, too, wasn't a big fan of us having apparently turned into Boston's only Norse demigod sanctuary. That was strangely calming. 

Annabeth followed Alex's gaze and sighed. “Yeah… I fear that’s something you’ll have to do quite often here in the future if what Bragi said is true.” Her expression softened. “But I’ll try to help as best I can.” 

Alex nodded, then quickly changed the subject. “Oh, and when we visit you,” he continued, “I want to meet that Roman shapeshifter friend of yours… Fred? I want to see if he’s any competition for me.” 

“Oh, you mean Frank.” Annabeth laughed. “No offense, but he can turn into a swarm of bees, so…” 

Alex shrugged. “Did you already forget that I turned into a giant eagle? A swarm of bees is nothing.” But he didn’t sound as certain as he pretended to, I thought. “Magnus can be the judge.” 

A broad grin spread across my face. The fact that Alex was making plans for our future — even just a few months down the line — made me feel a little lightheaded.

“But I wouldn’t be impartial,” I finally said, trying to sound smooth despite my pounding heart.  

Alex gave me a wry grin. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”  

Annabeth laughed out loud. “Okay, I’ll go now so you two can keep flirting in peace.” 

Another round of hugs followed, with Annabeth hugging Alex almost as tightly as she hugged me — a sight that would have been unthinkable just a few days ago. But there were many things that would have been unthinkable a few days ago. 

“Say hi to Percy from us,” Alex said surprisingly earnestly when they parted. He exchanged a serious glance with Annabeth that I didn't quite understand.

“I will.” She smiled. “See you in the summer.”

After Annabeth had left, a few others decided to head home or to bed as well. Mallory and Halfborn had to drag TJ away from his self-proclaimed dance floor to return to Valhalla. They asked us to come along, but I felt like it would be rude to leave my own party and was pleasantly surprised when Alex declined as well.

“All right, then. As long as you make it back home in time for the battle tomorrow,” Mallory said as goodbye — not without adding a suggestive wink, which made me blush and earned her a grin and the middle finger from Alex.  

“Why didn’t you want to go with them?” I asked Alex. The two of us lingered in the doorway to watch our friends leave. A cold breeze whizzed past us, blowing a strand of green hair into his face. I fought the urge to tuck it behind his ear. 

Alex smiled at me softly. “Because I haven’t gotten to spend enough time with you today.” 

My heart felt like it was being pulled upward by a string. 

“Which I’m sorry for, by the way,” Alex added, shivering in the cold night air coming in through the door. “I kind of underestimated how much work this party would be. And then I had to help Chloe and Izzy, and…” 

“Don’t worry about it,” I said quickly. From the living room behind us came loud voices. Some of the kids who were still awake had started playing charades against Sam, Amir, Blitz and Hearth a while ago and were now engaged in a lively discussion about whether or not it was allowed to use sign language or if that would be cheating. Fortunately, that was none of our concern right now. “But… do you think the party could handle ending without you?” Alex frowned at me curiously. “Probably. Why?”

I had been waiting for the opportunity to tell him about it all night long  —  because I wasn’t sure what to do with the knowledge of what I had taken back from the Fossegrim’s clearing. And since it would also be the perfect chance for us to spend some time alone together, away from all the trouble, I didn’t hesitate. “There’s… there’s something I wanted to show you.” If there was anyone I wanted to trust with this, it was Alex. 

His eyes scanned my face thoroughly, scanning for hints about my plans. Finally, he seemingly settled on trusting me. “Okay.”

I took his hand and led him up the stairs, past the first and second floors, and into the library.  

As I began heading up to the roof deck, my heart jumped with nervousness. I wasn’t sure what Alex’s reaction to my experiment up on the roof would be.  

 Behind me, he slowed down a little. “If you had told me we were going to the roof, I would have brought my coat—” 

But the rest of the sentence got stuck in his throat when he poked his head through the hatch and the outside air — the unnaturally warm outside air — hit his face. “Woah. Okay, nevermind, no need for a coat.” 

As he climbed through, I watched his expression carefully as his eyes scanned the roof. They widened by the second.

I followed his gaze, still unsure how to feel about what my hands had done. 

It was the middle of January, and patches of snow clung to the surrounding roofs. But here, on top of the Chase Space, we found ourselves in a sea of green. Emerald ivy spread across the ground and climbed the fairy lights strung across the deck like a pavilion. The vegetable beds, which had been barren and muddy brown just a few hours ago, were now overflowing with fresh, green lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes. All kinds of flowers — pink hibiscus, purple petunias, red carnations — bloomed in the various pots around us. Even the sunflowers we had never really managed to get to bloom suddenly stood tall with large green leaves, their yellow heads turned toward Alex and me. 

The air enclosing this little oasis still felt as pleasantly warm as when I had left it a few hours ago, like an early summer day that promised hotter days to come. 

“Y-you did this??”, Alex asked, spinning slowly around to take it all in. His expression kept shifting between wonder and confusion, and I had no clue how to read that.

“Yeah.” I buried my hands in my pockets and gingerly stepped around the vines of ivy creeping around my feet to follow Alex to the center of the deck.

He stared upward at the canopy of fairy lights and ivy, through which the stars of the cloudless night sky peeked. “Magnus, this is….” 

Crazy? Kind of terrifying? 

He looked back at me and a smile spread on his face, “...so beautiful.” 

The sparkle in his eyes — brighter than the fairy lights above — sent an electric impulse from my fingertips to my heart, pushing me to speak. 

“Since we got back from Salem, I've been dreaming about what happened in that forest almost every night…” I began to explain. 

Alex's smile faded and his eyebrows pulled together into that pitiful expression he always got when someone brought up our recent adventure. 

“...and for some reason, plants keep growing around me whenever that happens. So, I kind of wanted to find out if I could do it on purpose as well. And…” I shook off a vine that I was certain was starting to crawl up my shoe. “It seems like the Fossegrim’s teaching really had a permanent learning effect.” 

Alex stared at me so intensely that I could have sworn I felt his gaze prickling my skin — like he still couldn't believe that I was standing before him, alive and well.  “I don't like their teaching methods, though.” 

 “Yeah, me neither.” 

“I'm still sorry that you had to go through all that.” Alex's eyes let go of me and instead traced the course of the ivy, as if trying to find its roots. (There weren't any; I had already checked. It was just there). The deep frown on his face didn't match his forcefully lighthearted tone as he continued, “Even if you got a cool new power out of it.” 

I shook my head and stepped closer to him. The last thing I had wanted to accomplish by showing him this, was to make him feel guilty about something he had no reason to feel guilty about. “Still not your fault.” 

“If I had gotten my shit together sooner—” 

“Alex.” I was now close enough to reach out and take his hand. It was cool and dry, but it still made me feel warmer inside. His fingers wrapped around mine. 

To my surprise, I didn't have to say or do anything else, for Alex to let out a sigh and say, “Okay, I'll stop. I'm ruining the mood, aren't I?” 

Until this moment, I hadn't been aware that there was a mood. But now, with Alex's thumb stroking the back of my hand, I was certain that the last thing he was doing was ruining it. I wanted to tell him so, but he was already changing the topic. 

He looked at the ground. “What's with all the ivy?” 

I followed his gaze. The plants at our feet were very slowly but now definitely noticeably moving, growing. “I'm not sure… I only wanted to make the plants in the pots grow. The ivy kind of seems to be some kind of side effect. It just… appears.” 

Alex shook off an ambitious vine that had started to make its way up his leg and stepped even closer to me. “Ivy symbolizes fidelity, hope, endurance and immortality.” 

I tried to remain calm despite the fact that Alex's mouth was now so close that I could feel his breath on my skin. “O-okay. I didn't know you were a botany expert,” I mumbled, doing my best to ignore the buzzing in my stomach.

Much to my frustration, Alex didn't close the gap between our mouths. Instead, he backed away again. He lowered his gaze. “You’re not the only one who’s had dreams about the forest. I was curious why there was so much ivy, so I looked up its meaning and… I think it fits you well. Maybe it’s just some kind of… manifestation of who you are.”

I had no clue if the ivy was really a side effect of, well, me being me, but I liked the fact that Alex thought it was.  

He looked back up to me, his cheeks slightly pink. “Maybe that's just your thing now…” His face split into a teasing grin. “You're the legendary Ivy Boy.” 

I scoffed. “Okay, that has to be the lamest superhero in existence.”

Alex chuckled and looked at me through his long, dark lashes. “I like him.” 

My heart seemed to attempt a backflip. I cleared my throat. “Only until we get in trouble with the neighbors because they're wondering why all our plants are growing in the middle of January.” 

“Oh, don't worry about that. Mortals never see stuff like that.” He stepped away from me — which I tried to take in stride — and strolled around the roof, letting his hand glide over the hibiscus blossoms as if to check that they were actually real. 

Watching him move, I had to realize that something about him had changed — in a good way. Alex had always moved nimbly, like a cat agilely running across rooftops, but now he moved as if Midgard had suddenly decided to have a little bit less gravity than the other worlds. His shoulders weren’t tense, but moved like soft waves under the shiny fabric of his waistcoat. The flashes of panic that I had seen shoot through his eyes like meteors so often recently had been replaced with a shine that reminded me of the clear night sky. 

He looked happier. Lighter. It was almost impossible to believe that I could have something to do with that. 

He picked a raspberry from the now overgrown shrub next to the stairs to the library and popped it into his mouth. He eyed me with a curious look. 

“What?” I asked. 

“How long do you think this will last for?” 

“Honestly? I have no idea.” No one had bothered to go back to Salem to see what had become of the forest. But, as far as I knew, there hadn’t been any reports of a mysterious vegetation phenomenon, so I just assumed that the forest had returned to its normal, dead, wintry self not long after we had left it — but I couldn’t be sure. 

Alex nodded slowly, as if he had expected that answer. “Are you in the mood to stay up here a bit longer?” 

I shrugged and nodded, forcing myself not to say something corny like ‘As long as you stay, too.’ 

“Alright.” He grinned at me again. “Don’t move, I’ll be right back.” 

“Oh— uh, okay,” I said. I had no idea what he had planned, but Alex disappeared down the stairs before I could ask.

A few minutes later, he returned using one hand to drag a cushion from one of the library’s sofas onto the roof and the other to hold two fancy-looking wine glasses he had gotten from who knows where. Under his arm, he had wedged a pink plastic bottle, that I recognized as the guava juice we always stocked the fridge with. 

As he reached the top of the stairs and spotted me standing in the exact place he had left me, a hint of surprise flickered through his eyes, as if he hadn’t truly expected me to still be there when he returned. 

“So, um…” he began, suddenly sounding uncharacteristically shy. He glanced uncertainly at the glasses in his hand as if debating whether this had been a stupid idea. Then he looked back at me, his cheeks slightly reddened. “How about we… make this a date?” 

I stared at him for a second. When my brain caught up, a wave of euphoria washed over me so sweeping that I had to hold in a loud laugh — because that surely would have made Alex more insecure. Instead, I smiled so broadly that it felt almost stupid. “I would love to.”

The city below was as quiet as Boston could possibly get. It was well past midnight and the middle of winter. Yet here I was, on an impromptu date with Alex Fierro in a summery green oasis on a rooftop, sipping guava juice. Life — or well, death, in our case — was pretty good. Maybe not my second life in Valhalla itself, but experiencing this was my true reward for dying heroically. Oh, and Armir’s falafel, of course. 

We had pushed the cushion against the railing, in between the hibiscus and the begonias. Alex had his long legs stretched out, his head resting against the railing. I sat cross-legged and slightly turned, so that I could look at him. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen his face this relaxed, and it fascinated me — no mask of sarcasm, no sharp edges of defensiveness, no tension of fear. Just the soft curves of happiness. His head was framed by the pink hibiscus, as if the flowers were committed to helping him stick to his color scheme. 

“Corin is obviously one of them, right?” Alex said, thoughtfully swirling the last of his juice around in his glass.

Our conversation had circled back to what Bragi had said about the Chase Space housing a much higher number of demigods than we had initially expected. The thought still kind of unnerved me — how could we have not known? — but I had to admit that it wasn’t all that unreasonable to assume that a shelter run by a dwarf, an elf and two einherjar would attract others with a connection to the nine worlds. So, for now, we just had to assume that Bragi had told us the truth. That didn’t change the fact that we had no clue who they were, but Alex wasn't going to let that stop him from guessing. 

“When he came here, he told us he never knew his mom,” he explained. “And last week when the sink exploded in his face, the pipes were mysteriously frozen. I bet he’s that son of Skadi that Bragi mentioned.”

“That makes sense,” I replied. It was true; that would solve the mystery of the broken pipe. But at that moment, I would have agreed with whatever Alex said anyway. He could have tried to convince me that he was a child of Skadi, and I would have nodded and smiled. Yeah, I was a total mess. “Who are the others?” 

“Magnus, I know you think I’m all-knowing, but I am in fact not,” he said with a teasing grin and shrugged. “We will figure it out… sooner or later, I guess.” 

“And then what? We’re gonna be their demigod mentors? I don’t understand half of what’s happening in the nine worlds myself.”

Alex let out a deep sigh. “Let's not think about that right now.” He leaned back and crossed his arms, looking at me with a light smile around his lips. “I don’t want to be a responsible demigod mentor just yet. Let's just be stupid teenagers on their first date, okay?” 

“You’re right.” I tried to banish the thought of the Chase Space having accidentally become a safe haven for demigods, along with all the potential problems that could come with it, from my mind.  I remembered that there were more important questions I needed answers to. I pulled one knee to my chest and tried to muster my courage. “There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about… maybe more relevant for a first date.” 

Alex just raised his eyebrows at me, which made my hands feel clammy. 

I cleared my throat. “When, uh, when talking to Bragi you— you called me your ‘boyfriend’ ” 

For a split second, Alex looked at me in surprise like he either couldn’t remember saying that or hadn’t expected me to bring it up. “Oh,” he just said before averting his eyes, which didn’t help with my clammy hands. There was a light blush around his nose, but he kept a guarded expression when he calmly asked: “Who said I was talking about you?”
My heart dropped into my pants. “W-What, o-oh.”

Fortunately, Alex didn’t keep me on the hook for long — otherwise I might have tried to melt into the ivy surrounding us and I wasn’t confident that I would have failed at it. 

“I’m just kidding,” he quickly said when he saw my expression. The confidence trickled from his face. He wrapped his arms tighter around himself. “Yeah, I did call you my boyfriend, I guess.” 

“But didn’t you say we shouldn’t put a label on it yet?” 

“Well, I'm an ever-changing mystery,” he said with a shrug. The sarcasm didn't land once again, and he noticed, too. The final pieces of his nonchalant facade crumbled, and his voice grew tense. “Okay, no, it… it just slipped out. I’m sorry. I won’t call you that again if you don’t want me to.”

Whoops , this was going in the wrong direction. “No. No, that’s not —” I began to stammer. Yeah, we really had to work on having conversations like this. “Actually… I— I really liked it.” 

“Oh.” A hesitant but curious gleam returned to Alex’s eyes. He studied my face attentively like he was looking for hints that I actually meant what I said.

I gulped. “So, uh, if you want…” 

To my utter relief, his face split into a broad grin, and he finished the sentence for me: “...we can be boyfriend and sometimes boyfriend, sometimes girlfriend?” 

The army of butterflies that lived in my stomach acted like they had too much caffeine. “Yeah.” 

Alex tilted his head back and laughed — not at me, I quickly realized. It was a purely joyous, carefree laugh. “Alright, then.” He poked me playfully in the chest, as I let out a relieved puff of air. “But on the battlefield, I’m still your enemy.”

I chuckled. “I wouldn’t have expected anything else.”

Alex shifted closer, and our legs touched tentatively. A pleasant warmth, like the glow of a campfire, built up in my chest.

“So, now that you’re my boyfriend —” He enunciated the word. Perhaps to tease me, perhaps to let it melt on his tongue, “Maybe I should decide on a cheesy pet name for you.” He reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, and at his touch, the heat in me rose. “How do you feel about… darling? Honey?” His voice was low and sweet as sugar.

My chest now felt more like an active volcano than a campfire and the warmth crept into my face. “You’re teasing me.” 

Alex ignored me and continued listing pet names, leaning in closer and closer. “Handsome? Sweetheart? Baby?” 

“Stop it,” I said. Never stop , I thought. 

I was about to close the gap between our mouths, when Alex’s eyes widened and he began to laugh — this time, really at me. “Oh my gods, I knew it. You’re glowing! You’re actually glowing.” 

I looked down at my hands. He was right; they emitted a low, soft glow. And judging from the golden light reflecting in Alex’s two-colored irises, my face was doing the same. How embarrassing.

“Wait, did you try to make me flustered just to see if I would glow?” 

He rested a hand on my cheek. “Not just because of that.” His mouth was so close to mine that I thought I could feel his words on my own lips — that didn’t help with my glowing problem. “Also because you’re cute, when you’re flustered.” 

I had seriously underestimated Alex Fierro's flirting game. Around us, the ivy moved in the golden light, climbing up the cushions like curious snakes.

“Maybe sunshine would be most appropriate,” he mumbled and finally let our lips meet. 

It was a slow, timid kiss — no rush, no desperation, the certainty that there were many kisses to come in the future lingering between our breaths. 

I didn’t know why people called it falling in love. At that moment, with Alex’s hands in my hair and his lips burning against mine, I didn’t feel like I was falling. I felt like he was lifting me higher and higher. We were soaring into the starlit night sky, untethered by the laws of gravity.

Behind my closed eyelids, the golden light grew brighter and brighter. It engulfed us both like a supernova, but I didn't care anymore. I didn’t care about what had been or what was to come. With Alex right here, right now, we could glow bright enough to replace the sun and the moon and the stars, too, for all I cared. Whatever the future held, this was good.