Page 21 of Heart of Mischief

Sophie’s lips twitched. “If you tell anyone, I’ll shred every pair of underwear in your dresser.”

Then, without so much as a wink, she spread her wings and took off, Linnea close behind. They soared out of the skylight, vanishing as suddenly as they’d appeared.

7

Charlie didn’t attend any ofherafternoon classes. The minute she stepped out of that bathroom, she sprinted to her car, Henry clinging to her backpack strap for dear life. She ripped open the door to the Bronco, started it up, and threw it into gear, taking off for the forest like she was in a high-speed chase.

She wasn’t looking for the demon squirrel’s master. Not yet.

First, she needed to make sure the Vikings were safe.

It was just her and Henry. Mason hadn’t seemed capable of speech after their run-in with Sophie and Linnea. When she’d tried to talk to him, he’d blinked at her, then turned around and walked out of the girls’ bathroom like a zombie. Abigail refused to skip class, naturally. Lou offered to join as backup, but Charlie had waved her off.

“I’ll be safe with Henry,” she’d said. “He has a deadly alter ego, remember? You don’t need any more demerits for missing class.”

At last, Lou had relented, and Charlie bolted off campus.

As she drove, Sophie’s words felt like they were searing themselves onto the inside of her skull.

A beast of great horror.

A monster like none the realms have ever seen.

And, of course, those other words. The ones that directly counteracted what she’d heard from Elias:

I brought your message to the Allfather, and he dismissed it right away.

He can’t be our father.

So, who was telling the truth—Elias or Sophie? Was Loki their father or not? She knew whom sheshouldbelieve. Mason was right: Elias was a compulsive liar. Not to mention that Odin was the literalAllfather. According to the myths, he’d done something no other being could achieve by carving out his own eyeball for the chance to drink from Mimir’s well, a spring of infinite wisdom. As a result, Odin could see the past, present, and future. He would know exactly who their father was. He kneweverything. It was why he was the god of all gods. The king.

Still, Charlie couldn’t stop returning to that moment in the cave. The moment she saw her own eyes staring back at her. The moment his lips whispered,My children.

She shook her head, focusing on the road. She couldn’t think about that right now. Not until she knew if the Vikings were safe.

One might assume that two warriors who died once couldn’t die a second time around. One would be wrong. As they had explained to Charlie early on, Bjorn and Vidar were more than capable of dying again—and this time, they would be sent to Helheim, not Valhalla. It was one of the reasons they were so desperate to gain reentry to their former paradise of an afterlife.

Charlie flew down the back streets of Silver Shores, skirting corners or swerving down alleyways whenever another car blocked her path. When she reached the turnoff for the forest, she took it at fifty, leaving tire marks behind on the pavement. Henry squawked as his tiny body soared over the center console and landed in her lap.

“That’s what you get for never wearing a seat belt!” Charlie shouted.

At their usual parking spot, she swerved off the road into the bushes and slammed on the brakes. She scooped Henry up with one hand, grabbed the Valkyrie knife from the center console with the other, and pulled up the door handle with her elbow. As soonas her feet hit the forest floor, she slammed the door shut and took off into the trees.

She sprinted down the path to the house. It wasn’t a real path, of course—no winding trail marked with little yellow ribbons tied around tree branches. To those who didn’t know what to look for, it was just an empty forest. To Charlie, though, the landmarks that led to the old house couldn’t be clearer: first, the birches that bent away from each other like angry lovers. Second, the unsuspecting oak trunk Mason had hacked at with a wooden sword while shouting about slaying an invisible frost giant. Third, the stumps that Lou always leapt up onto, jumping from one to the other with knees held high in a poorly done reenactment of her favorite scene inMulan. And so on and so on.

Within minutes, she burst out of the trees and into the clearing where the old house stood. She tore across the grass and up the wooden steps, knife waving dangerously beside her as her arms sliced through the air. She burst through the door and down the dark, musty hallway. As she ran toward the living room, her mind wouldn’t stop replaying that first image: Bjorn and Vidar lying on the floor, knives of shadow jutting from their backs; Bjorn and Vidar lying on the floor, knives of shadow jutting from their backs; Bjorn and Vidar lying on the floor, knives of shadow jutting from their…

Charlie plowed into the living room, Valkyrie knife at the ready.

“Itoldyou Martina was having an affair,” Bjorn hollered, slapping his knee and pointing at the TV playing in the corner. He and Vidar were seated on the worn, cushy sofa, one bowl of popcorn and two mugs of ale frothing on the coffee table before them. “She and Humphrey are always off talking in some corner, and—”

“Oh, thank thegods.” Charlie slumped over, heaving in deep breaths of air. The knife went limp at her side.

Safe, she thought.They’re safe. They’re alive.

For now.

Bjorn and Vidar jolted, as if they somehow hadn’t heard her footsteps pounding down the hallway—or perhaps had been too engrossed in the reality show they were watching to pay any attention.