“Thanks,” I say again, and this time, I mean it.
“Don’t thank me yet. Wait until you meet my ghost. She’s super territorial.”
And just like that, she’s gone.
Chapter Ten
Rey
I stare at the now-empty doorway, a little thrown.
Unsure what to do next, I pull the notebook from the blue bag my father gave me. When in doubt, choose war, I guess.
“It’s just a notebook. It doesn’t bite.” I don’t know why I’m talking to myself as I slowly open the first page.
It’s a drawing of Mjölnir, Thor’s hammer, the most powerful weapon in the world. I know almost nothing of the war between the Gods and the Giants, other than what Father has shared, and I have no illusions his version isn’t heavily one-sided.
Long before “Norse” was a word, before men carved Gods into stone, Odin was not just a name. He was a force. And Mjölnir wasn’t just a symbol stamped on rings and family crests; it was a sentence, a weapon of finality. It meant justice if you were on Odin’s side and extinction if you weren’t. The Giants—at least that’s what stories called them—stole it, though not out of greed or chaos, like the myths say. They used it to destroy the Bifrost, and it changed everything. The Bifrost was a bridge linking our world to theirs, a shimmering, living connection between realms. Between Midgard, or Earth, and Asgard, the Gods’ stronghold. The Bifrost was how Odin controlled the flow of power, people, memory, and magic.
But once it broke, everything fractured. Gods and Giants were trapped on each side, and Odin made sure that those trapped here no longer remembered the war that caused their separation. Using his power, he put everyone asleep to buy time. Their memories are locked away, and all because the great, benevolent Odinfather decided he wanted to erase history and rewrite it in blood and gold.
He’s never told me what it meant for those trapped in Asgard. He doesn’t like any question that may have an answer that exposes him as anything but a caring ruler.
Whenever I’ve asked my father about the Bifrost and why anyone would want it divided, he just says it was a mistake, a natural consequence of war, but it’s always felt like he was leaving something out. The Giants already used Mjölnir to take down the Bifrost. Hiding it is just a giant middle finger to my father. He can’t go home without it, and he can’t restore his own powers, since they come from Asgard. The only people who can wield it need to have the blood of Odin or be worthy, and since Odin himself is evil personified now—that leaves, well, me. Jury’s still out on whether or not I’m worthy, but at least I have the bloodline to steal it back—once I find it.
More importantly, why did the Giants hide an ancient weapon in this specific location, and why is Aric the only one who knows where? I think back on the runes I’ve been seeing scattered around campus. Are they working like wards? And if Mjölnir is protected here, meaning my father needed me to get in, are the runes making it impossible for it to call out to my blood? Something is suppressing it. Or someone.
I jump up from my bed and pace back and forth. Something important is right in front of me, I just know it. I have to walk through it. Step by step. This is what I’ve been trained to do.
The Giants don’t want ultimate power returning to my father. Hiding the hammer means they were part of the war and at least retained their memories long enough to make those plans. They had to have done it after the destruction of the Bifrost. Because they’re all still stuck here.
My heart skips in my chest, and my mind races, selecting and discarding reasons. The Eriksons’ family legacy is this school. If it’s protected by runes, that could mean it’s also protected by a more ancient power.
When I first arrived at Endir, I could smell something ancient smoldering beneath the university, if my imagination wasn’t running wild. Hell, even the mountains that surround the school feel mythical and unforgiving. Maybe they’ve hidden Mjölnir in a nearby cave or deep within the forest. Maybe getting close to Aric, gaining his trust, really is the key to discovering it.
I settle back on my bed and leaf through the journal again.
I turn to the page depicting Mjölnir and trace the drawing with my fingertip. Rowen told me stories of how the hammer had runes sketched all along the handle where Thor held it firm in his hand before thrusting it toward the sky.
Was Thurisaz one of them?
Lightning would illuminate the hammer as well as his eyes, turning them a terrifying silver before he’d let out the battle cry of the Berserkers. His warriors would rally around him as they emerged from the trees, wearing animals they’d sacrificed to the Gods. The Berserkers were so crazed, they would bite down on their own shields to prove they didn’t need them in the first place.
But that was before everything shattered. Before the Gods fell. Before lives were lost and history was rewritten. Before everything humanity had once known was either erased or twisted into something unrecognizable.
The Gods and Giants—both betrayed and betraying—had become legends warped by time, half-truths, and propaganda.
What if the runes on the hammer match the ones on the note from Laufey? Is the note a map of how to find Mjölnir? Of course, that would be too easy, and yet, it would make the most sense. She might not be my birth mother, but she raised me, and the one thing I know down to my bones is that Laufey would die to protect me.
I take her note and slide it into the dossier, then turn another page on the many lives of Mjölnir. Apparently, before its theft, itwas a simple-looking hammer, just metal and wood. But because Mjölnir is a living, breathing artifact, it continued to shift and change from battle to battle.
As Thor destroyed worlds and defeated his enemies, Mjölnir not only took on different shapes and sizes—it took on the knowledge and history of Asgard. Of every bloodline that had wielded it. Rowen told me once that the hammer was forged to answer to only one bloodline, Odin’s, but if that’s true, then how did a Giant use it to destroy the Bifrost? Half-truths and more half-truths.
I continue flipping through the notebook. The images quickly shift from ancient weapons and realms to my target.
Aric.
The pictures on this page make me pause. He’s young, grass stains on his jeans. In one, he’s playing football.
