Page 107 of Heart of Mischief

But now that she was about to get it, she didn’t feel at all satisfied. In fact, she felt like she was going to die, too.

“—not possible,” Mason was saying, his voice drifting to her through the fog of her panic. “He’s a mare. Isn’t he supposed to be practically invincible?”

“His healing powers won’t work,” she whispered. “Not with Rattatosk’s venom.”

HAS PULSE

The words from Henry flashed through her mind, and she looked down to see one of his tiny arms pressed to Elias’s neck.

NOT DEAD

“No, he’s not dead,” she whispered, swallowing thickly. “Not yet.”

“Shit.” Mason ran a hand through his hair. “What do we do? There must be an antidote, right? Everything has an antidote.”

An antidote.

The words were like a siren blaring through the fog of her mind, jolting her awake. Making her remember.

You could always drink the blood of a god. That cures just about anything.

Charlie gasped, looked down at her hand.

What was the first thing she’d thought the day she realized she had magic? That she really was Loki’s child?

The blood of a god runs in my veins.

“What?” Mason asked, crouching beside her. “What is it?”

She turned suddenly to her brother. “Give me your Valkyrie blade.”

“Why—”

“Just do it.”

He eyed her skeptically but reached into his pants and pulled out the knife that looked just like hers—but with one crucial difference: it could cut her skin.

She took the knife from him and drew it across her palm, slicing open a thin line of blood.

“SweetFreyja, what the Hel are youdoing?” Mason yelled.

“The blood of a god heals any disease,” Charlie said, looking at her brother, “and you and I both have it running through our veins.”

“That’s…” Mason shook his head. “Char, even if that’s true, we’re only half-god at best. I don’t know if that’ll work.”

“I have to try,” she said.

She pressed her bloodied palm to Elias’s mouth.

Elias’s eyes were half-shut, his lips hanging slightly open. Her blood had definitely made it into his mouth, but he wasn’t reacting at all. He lay beneath the moonlight, face growing paler with every passing second.

It didn’t work.

It didn’t work.

“No,” Charlie whispered. “No, no, no, no…”

Henry crawled up her arm, nuzzling into her neck.