Page 17 of Heart of Mischief

There, crouched atop a sea of glass shards, heads bent forward, hair spilling over their faces, were two winged warriors. One with dark hair, one with blond. Both had pale skin underlined with lean muscle, like angels who spent most of their free time in heaven’s gymnasium.

No, Charlie corrected herself.Not angels.

Valkyries.

Sophie lifted her head. When she did, her eyes landed right on Charlie, as if she’d already known where her twin would be standing. She didn’t smile. She simply rose to her feet and rolled her shoulders back. The blond Valkyrie behind her did the same.

Henry squeaked with excitement.

Charlie wanted to burst into laughter. Or tears. Or both. She wanted to rush at her twin, to throw her incredibly average arms around Sophie’s ridiculously muscled ones and give her the type of hug a person could drown in.

But Sophie’s expression welcomed no kind of hug.

Charlie glanced over at Mason. She knew what she would find on his face—the same shock and awe that had surely dominated her own expression the night she saw Sophie standing on the roof outside her window. Mason knew Sophie was alive butknowingthatthe little sister whose death you grieved is still alive is a completely different thing thanseeingher standing in front of you—wings, weapons, leather armor, and all.

Mason’s face had gone completely white. His arms hung limply at his sides, the straps of his backpack slipping from his shoulders.

Sophie didn’t even acknowledge her brother’s reaction. She merely looked between him and Charlie with a raised chin.

“Charlotte and Mason Hudson,” she said, sounding like a judge addressing a pair of defendants—cool, detached, as if she had never shared their last name. “We have a message for you.”

Mason didn’t appear to be able to respond. Charlie hardly felt capable of speech herself, but she knew she needed to get it together. Whatever brought the Valkyries here, to the girls’ bathroom at Silver Shores High School of all places, must be urgent. Even dire.

After a beat, Charlie swallowed. “A message from whom?”

Pride flashed in Sophie’s eyes. “From the Allfather himself.”

6

“Odin?”

Charlie’s surprised outburst broke the silence. The Allfather’s name burst from her mouth and echoed off the walls, as if they stood inside a dark, mildewy cave, not a school bathroom. After Sophie’s deafening arrival, Charlie was surprised that a teacher—or Dr. Matsson himself—hadn’t tried to come in and investigate yet.

“What on earth does the king of the gods want with Mason and me?”

“He needs your help,” said Sophie. “We’ve discovered that—”

Whatever she was about to say got cut off when Lou barreled across the bathroom and flung herself at Sophie, wrapping her in the exact type of bone-crushing hug Charlie had imagined giving her earlier.

Sophie froze. Her arms went stick-straight, eyes widening. She hadn’t been one for hugging, even as a human. Charlie could only imagine that, now that she was a literal warrior, hugs were even more taboo.

“I missed you so much,” Lou whispered into Sophie’s wild hair. “So, so much.”

Sophie glanced side to side, as if looking for an escape.

Lou muttered, “You have no idea how shitty it was when you died.”

This surprised a laugh out of Sophie. Her face lit up into the smile that Charlie hadn’t seen in two years. The smile she’d thought she might never see again.

The sound of her twin’s laughter did something funny to Charlie’s body. It was like a tonic. Like a warm, healing drink that drained down her throat and seeped into every limb, every toe, even the ends of her hair. It filled the deepest crevices of her soul. Filled parts of her that she hadn’t even known were empty.

Apparently, the sound was just as surprising for the blond Valkyrie, who looked at Sophie with eyes wide as dinner plates. “Was that… a laugh?” she asked. “FromSophie Hudson?”

“Please.” Lou released Charlie’s twin from the hug, rolling her eyes and throwing one freckled arm over Sophie’s leather-clad shoulders. “This bitchlovesmy jokes. You should have seen us back in grade school. One time, I decided to nickname one of our principal’s less savory aesthetic qualities, and it had Sophie in stitches for a week.”

Sophie snorted. “Gods. I’d forgotten about that. You kept referring to the massive mole on Principal Foster’s nose as Jabba the Hutt. Every time we saw him, you’d whisper that Jabba was about to come alive and chase us across the galaxy because you owed him fifty thousand space credits.”

The other Valkyrie was shaking her head in amazement, long golden locks brushing back and forth on her leather armor. “Unbelievable. Six months in and I’mjustlearning my captain has a sense of humor.”