Page 117 of Heart of Mischief

Burnt-orange sand,

burnt-orange sky…

All the pieces clicked into place at once.

The riddle. The second riddle that Abigail had found by deciphering the first.

Burnt-orange sand,

burnt-orange sky,

bodies transparent

with years gone by.

Castle on the sea,

towers in the mist.

Try as they might,

no creature can resist.

Bodies transparent. Ghosts

Try as they might, no creature can resist.Death.

The Seal was on Helheim.

The realization hit Charlie like a helhest running full speed. The Seal was here. It washere. It had to be. The words fit too perfectly. The riddle said that the Seal was on Helheim, and Elias and Loki lived on Helheim, which meant…

Which meant…

Which meant they might have known where the Seal was all along.

It was too much. Too much world-shifting information at a time when she could barely think straight. If she let herself dwell on it too much, she’d just give up and let panic overtake her. But she couldn’t do that. Not now. Not when she was Elias’s only hope of survival.

So she did the only thing she could. She pushed the realization as far back in her mind as she could and zeroed in on the mission at hand.

She chanced a look over at Mason’s horse. Blessedly, both he and Elias were still in place.

Only a little farther, she thought, hoping the words would somehow reach Elias’s unconscious mind.Don’t give up. We’re almost there.

The helhest carried them along the shoreline at a dead sprint. At some point, palace guards must have spotted their approach, because the gates began to chug open. Up close, Charlie could see they were three-story-high works of wrought-iron art yawning wide like the mouth of a sleeping beast. She probably would have found them beautiful if she weren’t so focused on getting to Loki.

The horses tore through the mouth of the beast, slowing only once they were inside the castle courtyard. The gates groaned shut behind them.

Courtyardwas perhaps too simple a word, Charlie thought, as her helhest trotted along the cobblestone street. To her,courtyardimplied a small, walled-in outdoor area—not a vast open-air market with stalls selling every color and variety of food and handmade goods she could possibly imagine, along with thousands that shecouldn’thave imagined. But that’s where they were.

The helhest veered left, taking them around the market to a set of long stone steps that rose to a sweeping doorway. At the base of the stairs were a battalion of mare. At least fifteen of them, all holding huge weapons of shadow. Palace guards, presumably.

“By Freyja’s brassiere,” Mason said, staring around in wonder. “This place is—”

“No time for sightseeing.” Charlie pushed herself off the helhest, landing awkwardly on the cobblestones. Henry let out a softoofas he jolted on her shoulder. “We need to get to Loki.” She looked coldly at the mare guards. “Where is he?”

One of the guards—from his hair and voice, the same one she’d spoken to inside the maze, Charlie realized—stepped forward. “No living being enters the Palace of Hel without being searched first. We need to ensure—”

“There’s notimefor that,” Charlie yelled, surprising even herself with the ferocity in her voice. “Take us to Loki. Elias needs his helpnow.”