Page 127 of Heart of Mischief

Charlie swallowed. He hadn’t understood Loki’s words. He didn’t know what was going on.

No, buddy, she sent.I’ve got to do this on my own.

THEN COME BACK?

Her heart felt as if it were strangling itself.Right, she replied, not knowing if she was telling the truth.Then I’ll come back.

She looked up at Loki. “Give him to Mason, please.”

After a brief pause, Loki nodded.

Charlie gave Henry a last smile, which he returned by sending her warm, yellow-orange colors of encouragement. They made her chest ache. Finally, because she had no excuses left not to, she bent over and undid the laces of her shoes, pulling them off and removing her socks. She left them all in a little pile at the entrance to the wooden arena. Exhaling, she lowered one bare foot, then another, toes touching first. She eased her weight carefully down until she stood squarely atop Yggdrasil.

It was about a thirty-foot walk to Gungnir, and Charlie dragged it out for as long as she possibly could. These were her last moments as a human; she wanted to savor them. The air smelled of ash and dust. The crowd spoke in whispers. The wood of Yggdrasil was smooth beneath her feet, worn from the thousands of others who’d taken this journey before her. Some lived to become mares. Others… didn’t.

She swallowed thickly. If Charlie survived the Trial, who would she be afterward? Would she still feel like herself? Elias said that, in becoming a mare, you forfeit part of your humanity. Is that what was about to happen? Would she awake with no feelings, no emotions, no love, no compassion? Would she have to fight to return to herself? Would she evenwantto fight, if erasing all the good meant erasing all the bad, too?

Too soon, she arrived before Gungnir. Her bare feet planted themselves shoulder-width apart, toes pointed toward the spear. Up close, the shadows surrounding Gungnir’s wood were black and round as snakeskin, almost identical to the cords that she’d seen Elias conjure on several different occasions. She was about to reach her hands into those shadows. To feel them coil around her fists as she clung to Gungnir and prayed that she would live to feel her hands let go.

With trembling hands, she raised her palms up to either side of the spear. They hovered there, centimeters from the wood, for one long, breathless moment.

Another message from Henry appeared in her mind:

YOU CAN DO THIS

Tears pricked the corners of her eyes.

Then she grabbed Gungnir as tight as she could.

42

At first, all she knewwas pain.

It tore through her the minute her hands landed on the spear. Flew straight to every cell of her body, every neuron and ligament. Shredded her bones, ripped open every inch of skin, spilled her blood onto the ground. The last sound she heard before losing access to her senses was the keening of her own tortured scream.

It was like nothing she’d ever felt before. Like being simultaneously drowned and set on fire. Like being struck by lightning while falling into a vat of frying oil. It defied every parameter of pain that she knew existed. And it wasn’t limited to one part of her body. It was everywhere. It was everything. It was searing fire and smothering sadness and choking panic and a black dress at fourteen and a church filled with mourners and a dangerous world hiding in plain sight and a brother drifting away and monsters around every tree, every corner, and no place to hide because no place was truly safe, and pain, pain, inescapablepain…

It was excruciating.

It should have resulted in instant death.

Instant death. Yes. That was the answer. If she died, the pain would cease. It would be so easy. She could feel the darkness closing in on her, an approaching tunnel into which she could easily fall and let herself be carried away to the sweet, sweet afterlife. She’d seen what death looked like. Death was fountains of mead andtrapeze artists. Death was a bustling market and a sparkling castle and a never-ending circus party. Death sounded amazing.

Just give in, whispered a soothing voice in her ear.Let yourself fall.

No.

She wasn’t sure where that word came from. If she’d thought it, or if it had thought her. Everything was upside-down and backward. Time didn’t exist. Individual beings didn’t exist. Nothing existed but blistering pain.

Blistering pain, and that one word.

No.

No, Charlie.

Don’t give in.

The voice… it was so familiar. She’d heard it before; she just couldn’t say where. It was so hard to think inside this searing agony. She probably wouldn’t have recognized the voice of her own mother.