Page 116 of Heart of Mischief

Wet coughing rattled behind her.

Charlie and Mason spun around. Elias’s eyes were half-open, his neck dangling awkwardly to the side.

“Wh—” He coughed. “Where—”

“Elias?” Charlie hurried over to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder. His body was still suspended in the air, but he either didn’t care or wasn’t cognizant enough to realize. “Elias, can you hear me?”

“Hurts,” he mumbled, eyes closing again. His lips were horribly chapped; a small cut had opened at the corner of his mouth. “Like… like fire in my…”

“It’s okay,” she said, trying to speak in a soothing tone even as panic mounted inside her. “We’re almost there. We’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

His eyelids fluttered open, and he turned his neck until he was looking up at her. Recognition flashed through his gaze, and for a moment, Charlie felt a rush of relief.

“Ol—Olive?” he whispered.

And then it was gone as soon as it had appeared.

“Olive.” Elias coughed, trying to reach for Charlie but achieving little more than raising a few of his fingers. “You’re not… you’re not supposed to be here. You’ve got to get out… You’ve got to…”

Charlie’s heart sank. “He’s hallucinating,” she whispered. “He thinks I’m his little sister.”

“Olive,” Elias mumbled, closing his eyes. “I’m so sorry. I… I love…”

As she watched his lips move wordlessly, feverish drive roared tolife within her. Elias was fading. Every second that passed without getting Loki’s blood into his system was another tick of the clock’s hand toward death. She needed to get him to that palace, and she needed to get him therenow.

When she looked up at Mason, she made her eyes as hard as diamonds. “Time to go.”

The helhest tore across the desert landscape, Charlie and Mason clinging to their bony necks for dear life, Henry clinging to Charlie’s neck for dear life.

The road to Loki’s palace was no road at all. It was a flat, unremarkable stretch of land littered with boulders and cacti. In the distance was a low hill blocking their view of whatever lay beyond. The garmur were headed directly for it.

Elias was on Mason’s helhest. He’d passed out just before they’d taken off, limbs flopping heavily to either side of the beast’s neck. Mason sat behind Elias, essentially lying on top of him, using his body weight and sheer strength to keep them from flying off.

The garmur had obviously run this course many times. They had their route memorized, weaving in perfect sync around every obstacle, like trains on a set of ready-laid tracks. Charlie kept her body low, arms wrapped so tightly around her helhest’s neck she was surprised it didn’t try to throw her off. Several times, she feared the beast had veered too close to a cactus. She would squeeze her eyes shut and brace herself for the sharp pain of a needle driving into her calf. But always, right at the last moment, the helhest angled itself just so, ensuring she wouldn’t get scratched.

After a few minutes, Charlie steadied herself enough to glance over her shoulder. Already, the cacti maze they’d arrived in had become little more than a dark blur on the horizon.

After a few minutes of breakneck racing, they reached the short hill. The helhest didn’t slow, hooves pounding up the hill as if it were no more tiring than a stretch of flat, freshly cut grass. Whenthey reached the top, Charlie braced herself, expecting to find Loki and his entire army on the other side.

Instead, she found an ocean.

Her gasp was swallowed by the wind rushing past. As her helhest barreled down the opposite side of the hill, dust flying in their wake, Charlie could do nothing but stare at the scene before her.

At the bottom, the ground flattened to grainy orange sand and jagged black rock. The rocks spilled over each other, tumbling outward like bony fingers reaching for the horizon. And just beyond—land met sea in a spectacular clash of color. Midnight-blue water. Frothy white foam. Waves tossing and churning like someone had accidentally incurred the wrath of Aegir and Ran, the gods of the sea. Water smashed the rocky coast, sending ten-foot-high spray into the hazy orange sky.

Charlie was so stunned that it took her several moments to realize what was waiting for them in the distance, built right into the shoreline.

A castle.

A real, genuine, actual castle, just like the ones she and Sophie had scrawled in blurry lines of crayon as children.

Except this building was larger and far more terrifying than the two-story, two-tower structures they had dreamt up, sketching out in hues of purple and gray on tiny white sheets of paper. This building was mammoth. This building was a city. This building was a set of mountain peaks stacked above the ocean, stone foundation blending seamlessly into the rocky shoreline. Its towers and turrets reached so high that their tops disappeared into the hazy sky. Polished stone shone gray white, a stark contrast to the midnight-blue sea. Waves tickled the structure’s feet, like a dragon perched right on the edge of the world.

Castle on the sea,

towers in the mist…

Charlie inhaled sharply.