Page 46 of Heart of Mischief

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Elias remained quiet for therestof the short walk up the beach. Charlie walked just behind him. Henry, having recovered from his tumble down the dune, skittered up and down the sand, pausing to dip his little feet into the lake every time he reached the water’s edge.

Charlie was grateful for Elias’s silence. She couldn’t risk another one-on-one conversation with him right now. Not after what had just happened.

Less than an hour alone with Elias Everhart and she’d already fallen into the easy back-and-forth that came alive whenever they were together. Their banter was a creature with its own mind. A stubborn thing, determined to claw its way back to life no matter how many times she tried to kill it off.

Gods, I missed this.

The memory of his words made her shiver. She couldn’t let this thing between them grow any stronger; she needed to find a way to kill it off for good.

Unless…

As she trudged along the beach, wind gusting through her hair, foamy gray-blue waves crashing against the wet sand, she couldn’t help but wonder: Was that really the best course of action? Destroying their connection? Or would it be smarter to leanintothe trust he was so clearly trying to rebuild between them? To pretend to fall for his charm and words of placation, to let him believethey were on a path to reconciliation? After all, only an hour earlier, she’d vowed to start digging for information on how to turn a mare back into a human, and she didn’t think one could find that on Reddit.

Her best source of information was Elias himself.

He would never volunteer that information freely. Not when he knew how much she hated him. But if he came to view her as afriend…

But she couldn’t switch her entire demeanor at once. Charlie was far too stubborn to change her opinion of someone overnight, and he knew it. She would have to play this carefully.

Her mind was still lost in planning how to subtly pivot from hatred to friendship when Elias came to a halt.

She bumped into his back. “Oof,” she said, grabbing on to him to steady herself before quickly shoving him away, face heating. Her palms tingled where they’d touched his body. She cleared her throat. “What happened?”

“We’re here.”

Charlie looked up, taking in their surroundings. This part of the beach appeared no different from the others: a flat, skinny strip of sand on which they were standing, Lake Michigan to the left, a steep dune peppered with tall grass on the right. At the top of the dune was a cluster of trees that marked the beginning of the forest through which they’d just come.

Turning to face the dune, Elias cupped his hands over his mouth. “Thrym!” he yelled at the hill. “Awaken! It is I, Elias Everhart, returning with your long-awaited payment!”

Thrym.That name sounded familiar, but Charlie couldn’t quite place it. She stared at the spot where Elias was directing his voice, but nothing happened. “The joturri lives in the dune?”

Elias bit his lower lip. “Not quite.”

The hill started to rumble.

Startled, Charlie stumbled away. The entire dune was quaking.Beach grass tossed in the air. Sand tumbled down its slope in a small avalanche. The trees on its peak groaned and swayed, as if they were about to dislodge themselves from the earth.

Then, the dune began to rise.

Charlie screamed and tripped backward, arms circling wildly as she fell to the ground. Henry howled and did the same. The dune was waking up. There was no other way to put it. Its slope rose into the air, sand falling in every direction as new shapes emerged from underneath: a head the color of dark earth, a back covered in trees, two enormous, dirt-smeared legs that had previously been stacked one atop the other but were now folding themselves up into a gigantic version of a pretzel. The head blinked open two huge, mossy-green eyes. A giant mouth yawned open, revealing a tongue the size of a school bus and teeth like rotting lemons.

Oh, Charlie thought, staring up at the giant from her place sprawled out on the ground.Elias was right. Thrym doesn’t live in the dune. Thrymisthe dune.

“Elias Everhart,” thundered a voice as deep as an earthquake. “Mare of night. At long last.”

Elias bowed, holding one hand to his side like a stage performer. “At your service.”

“You better be,” said Thrym, blinking his mossy eyes down at them. “Seven years I’ve awaited payment for the favor I did you. Seven years of nothing, hiding in this dead-end corner of Yggdrasil. It’s about time you showed up.”

“Oh, come on, Thrymie.” Elias cracked a grin. “You’re older than everyone on this continent combined. Seven years is nothing for you.”

“Every second is an eternity when waiting for the thing one desires most.” Thrym’s head turned suddenly to the left. “No, notthoseraspberries, you idiot. The other ones!”

Charlie looked at Elias in confusion. “What is he—”

“Sometimes the joturri get lost between their two selves,” Eliasexplained. “Their double consciousness blends into one. Whatever his second self is doing right now must involve raspberries.”