Page 68 of Heart of Mischief

“What?” Charlie glanced over her shoulder but saw nothing. “What happened?”

He blinked twice more and looked away, clearing his throat. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing. We need to… to get back to training.”

“Uh.” She glanced over at Henry, who only shrugged and sent her the murky gray of confusion. “Okay…”

What the Hel was that about?she wondered as she climbed back up onto her rock platform.Is he afraid of Henry and I being able to communicate?

Elias clapped once. “All right,” he said, voice a little too loud, too sure of itself. “Eyes shut. Focus. Find that current.”

Sighing, Charlie did as she was told. She let her eyes drift shut and took in a deep breath.

Where had she left off?

Ah, yes. The Manistee.

The Manistee’s current wasn’t strong, more of a gentle tug that led us lazily around bends and under footbridges. I remember tilting my head back and closing my eyes, feeling the sun. My arms and legs dangled off the tube, sunk to my wrists and ankles in the cold water. The current was so gentle that I almost couldn’t feel it, but it was always just there, like delicate ghost hands brushing against my skin, pushing me along, pushing, pushing…

A push.

Charlie knew about pushing. She knew about living with a push within oneself. Something that always urged her to do more, to do better, to try new things and never say no to a new opportunity. To never settle for being an “okay” circus performer. To want desperately to be the best, and to do so alongside her twin sister.

When she lost Sophie, she wouldn’t let herself sit around in her misery. She pushed herself to find a new distraction. And it wasn’t enough just to get into card magic and sleight of hand; she had to know every trick, every trap, every way to fool an audience into awe.

And when she shifted her focus to revenge, it hadn’t been enough to hurt Elias; she had thought she wanted tokillhim.

She couldn’t do anything halfway. As Lou said, she had anobsessive personality. She was either all the way out, or all the way in. She pushed herself. She always had. She lived witha pushinside that she had always viewed as a given, as the only possible way to live.

But it wasn’t the only way, was it? So many people allowed themselves to just go with the flow. To feel their emotions as they came, rather than shoving them aside for the sake of completing the next task.

A push.

It wasn’t the same as a current, but it was the closest Charlie could find within herself. Maybe if she focused in on that push… if she tried to visualize it, to give it shape and color and texture, as if it were its own creature, one without a face or limbs but a living being all the same…

“Holy Helheim,” said Elias, interrupting her flow.

Charlie groaned. “Comeon, Elias. I was really getting somewhere there.” She opened her eyes to glare at him. “I think I almost—”

Her voice shut off like a hose with a knot at its center.

She wasn’t looking at Elias; she was looking at the second floor of the old house,directly in front of her.

“Great Mimir,” came Vidar’s voice from down on the porch. “Itworked.”

Charlie sucked in a breath of air. She was fifteen feet off the ground.

It was true.

It was all true.

She hadn’t really believed it until that moment. Hadn’twantedto believe it. But here it was, undeniable proof: she was the daughter of Loki. The blood of a god ran in her veins.

The blood of a god runs in my veins.

The realization was like the sudden drop of a roller coaster. It was thrilling. It was horrific. It was terrifying, it was incredible, it was…

She was floating in the air.

Odin’s skidmarks, she wasfloating in the air.