17

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Six years past and worlds away

After sending Baldur to Midgard, waiting several more hours for him to call for a return, and finally fetching him back to Asgard again, I finally had no reason to remain in my clearing. With paint basket in one hand and trundling my painting carrier in the other, I walked with quick steps through the gathering dusk through the city and toward my house. Food smells wafted from Valhalla, filling the chill air with warmth and teasing my empty stomach. Falling leaves pattered like raindrops on the rooftops.

Baldur had reached town before me, of course. For all his shows of gentlemanly behavior, he hadn’t offered to help me carry anything back home. Not that I minded, really—I preferred no company at all to his company. Even in the falling twilight, his lazy stride identified him. That, and the silhouette of a massive hammer on his back. Crimson light from house lanterns reflected from his decorative armor.

I started to turn down the side path toward my house, when, several yards ahead of me, Baldur’s steps faltered. A moment later, they picked up again. He walked with a determined briskness I wasn’t sure I’d ever witnessed in him. I glanced in the direction Baldur was headed.

Loki was so dark-headed that I’d missed seeing him entirely until now. Just then, he passed along the planked path three houses from where I stood, walking in the same direction as Baldur and me. His back was to me—and to Baldur—and he strolled, a laid back stride with his head tipped back and his shoulders lifted.

Feeling better about himself, maybe. Maybe that meant he’d do better, too.

Except that Baldur was bearing down on him with those atypically-determined steps of his.

I stopped walking. I thought about calling out to Loki, but by then it was too late.

Baldur reached for Loki. This time it was no gentle hand Baldur placed on Loki’s shoulder. The two of them had reached the edge of a lantern’s circle of cast light, so I saw Baldur’s hand close around Loki’s upper arm. I saw his fingers, vise-like, pinch cruelly. My mouth fell open.

Loki started, stumbling as he was abruptly dragged to a halt, and jerked around, pulling against Baldur’s grasp.

Baldur didn’t let go. He planted his other hand on the back of Loki’s neck.

My throat closed.

Loki tried again to pull away from Baldur. Baldur’s grip at the base of Loki’s neck tightened until Baldur’s knuckles showed white. Loki winced.

Baldur leaned in closer yet and put his mouth right beside Loki’s ear. I couldn’t tell what he whispered, of course. But Loki’s wince shifted into abject misery.

After one more hearty squeeze with both of the hands he had clamped onto Loki, Baldur let go. He didn’t shove Loki, merely walked around him and continued on his way, as if nothing at all had just happened.

In the dim light, Loki had gone gray. His brow furrowed and his mouth turned down. With blank eyes and a complete lack of expression, he glanced after Baldur.

I started walking again, more quickly this time. My slippers made a soft patter on the path’s planks.

Loki’s head swiveled toward me. His eyes met mine, but only for a second. Then he turned back the direction he’d been going and began walking again, every bit as quickly as I was.

I broke into a near trot—as close to running as I could get carrying a canvas and a basket of paints. “Loki!”

He kept going.

“Please wait.” I summoned a firm voice. “Stop. You owe it to me.”

With shoulders now slumped and no sign of his earlier cheerfulness, Loki slowed his steps and finally stopped. He did not turn to face me as I caught up to him.

“What was all that?” I asked when I was close enough to speak without shouting. “What did Baldur say to you?”

I set my basket of painting supplies on the path and leaned my canvas against my leg. With one hand, I reached for Loki’s shoulder—carefully. Tugged on it to make him turn and face me. Slowly. Gently.

Loki didn’t pull away from me. But he only turned his head, not his fully body. And he didn’t look at me.

“Nothing that it would do me any good to repeat.” Loki’s voice was utterly flat. Neither extreme of his usual emotional range touched it, not even the bitterness or hatred usually reserved for Thor and Baldur.

I kept my hand on Loki’s shoulder. “He hurt you. I saw him.”

Beneath my fingers, Loki’s muscles tightened. But he didn’t reply.

“You’ve always said Thor was the one who hurt you.” I tipped my head, trying to get into Loki’s line of sight and convince him to look at me.

Loki’s mouth twitched into a sardonic smile. “That pinch was nothing. It didn’t hurt.”

I leaned back at that, not sure what to make of it. I wasn’t even sure what question to ask next. Or what reassurance to offer, since it seemed none of those ever seemed to come true. Loki never wanted to talk about Baldur, and while I increasingly sensed that meant there was much more he could have said, I could also feel Loki leaning away from me. Preparing to run off. So it was perhaps time for a change in tack.

“I wish there was some way to return you to your own people.” I paused, considering my own words and lighting on a possibility. “Maybe if we spoke to—”

Loki barked a short laugh. “My people don’t want me either. There’s no one to talk to, Iris.”

He’d come here as a child. Little more than a babe. The people who were supposed to foster him had instead tormented him. And those who were his blood had abandoned him. My heart wept for Loki.

“No one wants me.” And now Loki did lift his gaze and finally met my eyes. He didn’t appear bitter or cruel, just resigned. Sad—always so sad. “Not even you, little rainbow, not really. I’m just your good deed project.”

His words sucked the breath from my lungs. My eyes widened. I shook my head. “Loki. No. It’s nothing like that, not at all. You’ve been my friend. You are my friend.”

A smile sketched across Loki’s lips, there and then gone. “It’s all right. I know you’ve tried.” He hesitated before adding, “You’ve helped me a great deal, really.”

With one hand, he reached up and covered the hand I’d placed on his shoulder. He took that hand into his, removed it from his shoulder, and squeezed it once very gently.

“I just need to walk.” He lowered our clasped hands and released mine. “Alone. Clear my head.”

“But—”

But Loki had turned already. His steps carried him away from me.

I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I watched him go—so sad, so alone, so beyond my ability to help. Tears welled into my eyes.

Abruptly, the heart-breaking sensation of helplessness that washed through me gave way to a rising tide of renewed determination. There had to be something I could do to help Loki.

Maybe he’d given up. But I wouldn’t.

On the outside, Heimdal’s house looked like every other in Asgard. Massive wooden support beams matched the heavy oaken door in its rich, sienna color. The cornices were of the same wood, but carved with runes.

Inside, Heimdal’s house held the same single room layout of the others, too. In the small hearth a fire glowed, neatly banked. The bed in the corner was made, the chairs aligned tidily with the table. Not a hint of frivolous ornamentation in sight.

Heimdal stood in the doorway, hand still on the latch and eyebrows raised. I had never knocked on his door before. I’d never set foot inside his home.

And now that I was in front of him, my determination started to flag. I made myself think of Baldur’s fingers, viciously pinching, and of Loki’s weary, resigned face, and summoned my courage to speak.

“There’s something we need to discuss.”

Heimdal blinked. His brows lowered in confusion. Possibly wariness. “Such as?”

“Loki.” No. Not just Loki. I kept talking, the words gathering weight. “And Baldur. And Thor, while we’re at it.”

Heimdal’s expression flattened. His voice lowered to a warning. “Iris.”

“Don’t ‘Iris’ me.” Either Heimdal had never had visitors or had forgotten his manners. I stopped waiting for him to invite me in and brushed past him. “This is serious.”

It had been serious for years. Why was I the only one who thought so?

I stopped a few steps past Heimdal, just inside the glow of the banked hearth, and turned.

Heimdal’s shoulders rose and fell. Slowly, he pushed the door shut and latched it.

“We’ve been through this,” he said as he turned to face me. Firelight glowed in his sapphire eyes, but they looked icy cold.

“You’ve been through it.” Frustration leaked into my voice. “Now you need to listen to me.”

Heimdal’s brows lifted again. He crossed his arms but said nothing. I supposed that was as close to an invitation to continue as I was going to get.

“I saw Baldur speaking with Loki. Baldur didn’t know I was there.”

Heimdal nodded. “Speaking with him.”

“Not just speaking. Threatening.”

“What did he say?”

“I… couldn’t hear. But he put his hands on Loki. He pinched him.”

“Pinched.” Heimdal apparently gave up on trying to take me seriously. His tone suggested he was speaking with a hysterical child.

This was not going the way it had inside my head. Flustered now, I blurted, “Haven’t you ever seen the way Loki behaves around Baldur? How he clams up and will barely speak Baldur’s name? How he won’t look at him?”

“I don’t think Loki’s behavior—”

“Loki is afraid of Baldur. Even more than of Thor.”

“—is any way to judge the truth of any situation.”

I stopped for breath, feeling very much like I’d been throwing myself against a stone wall.

Heimdal’s doubtful expression shifted to one of sympathy. “Loki is quite an actor. Whatever you saw—”

“What about the bruise?” I leaped again into the fray, renewed determination flaring in my chest. “Thor struck him. He left a bruise.”

And that’s only what we see.

Heimdal frowned. For a second I thought I had him. But what he said was, “Not that I would entirely blame Thor in this particular instance… But this would not be the first time Loki’s tried to blame Thor for an injury brought on by his own clumsiness. Or—”

My mouth fell open. “You are not seriously trying to tell me that Loki accidentally ran face-first into a wall.”

“Or.” Heimdal’s voice rose. “It could be self-inflicted.”

My head spun. “You think he somehow managed to bruise his own cheek. And that he did it on purpose?”

Heimdal lowered his crossed arms and took a step closer to me. “Tell me—when Loki came to you, after he’d driven you off with his behavior after he cut off all Sif’s hair… He was contrite, of course. Begging your forgiveness. And did he sport that bruise, then?”

I hesitated. My brows drew together so tightly that a headache spawned behind them.

Heimdal lowered his head and looked into my eyes. “And how did it make you feel, an apologetic Loki with a bruise on his face. More inclined to feel sorry for him, yes? More inclined to forgive him.”

I shook my head. “That is preposterous.”

“He is using you.” Heimdal reached forward and placed his hands gently on my elbows. “He is manipulating you into defending him.”

“That is not what’s happening.” I pulled away from Heimdal’s touch, frowning even more fiercely.

But I wondered. Heimdal had warned me before about Jotun magic. I’d discounted it then—surely I’d know if someone was using such magic on me. I’d know if I was doing something, feeling something utterly out of character.

But mentally, I revisited my time with Loki. I scanned through my memories and examined my behavior.

Just outside Idun’s orchard. When he’d asked me to take him to Midgard for apples.

“Take me there. I’ll get you some.”

A split second of dizziness caught me unaware. An odd scent I could classify only as dark tainted the crisp air. Distracted from Loki’s question for a moment, I glanced around.

I could see no source for the strange scent. Before I even finished thinking that, it faded. My dizziness cleared.

When I looked back at Loki, his eyes were wide and his eyebrows raised. His mouth had rounded.

I’d assumed Loki had merely been awaiting my response. In retrospect, I wondered if he’d been surprised.

Had Loki tried to influence me? And had it worked? Maybe not, if he’d been surprised. Maybe he’d been forced to resort to other methods.

The possibility that Loki had tried to magically influence me was unsettling. At the same time, though, I could understand that Loki might believe no one would ever help him voluntarily. At the time, he hadn’t known whether he could trust me.

Or whether he could manipulate me.

But that wasn’t the question. I knew what I’d seen pass between Baldur and Loki, only moments before coming to Heimdal.

“Common decency and compassion don’t require magic to be brought about.” I shot a look at Heimdal. “Or they shouldn’t.”

Heimdal lowered his arms to his sides. As I spoke, he glanced away.

I narrowed my eyes. “You keep warning me about Loki’s magical influence. But you’re the only person who’s ever mentioned it to me.”

Heimdal’s jaw worked. He still didn’t look at me. A new suspicion began to dawn.

“Why are you the only person who’s ever warned me?”

Heimdal’s gaze returned to my face. “Because I wanted you to understand what you’d have been up against. If I hadn’t warded you from it.”

My brows lifted. I leaned back as if from a physical blow. “If you hadn’t… You put a ward on me?” I glanced down at myself—the bodice of the dress I wore, my arms, my hands—as if I could see some sign of the blue-tinted icy energy that Heimdal used.

“A small one.” Heimdal spoke as if that made a difference somehow. “To make it permanent required—”

“I don’t care what it required. Why didn’t you just tell me? Or better, ask my permission first?”

“At the time, you had greater things to deal with.”

Like my world burning.

“And then because I knew how you’d react.” An air of authority leeched into Heimdal’s words that abruptly reminded me of Odin. “It was for the best.”

“You didn’t trust me to handle it on my own. To be able to tell that Loki was influencing me.”

As I spoke, another realization chased on the heels of the first. This one broke through the confusion that had swept over me and rekindled it into anger of a slow-burning variety.

“Worse than that.” I spoke slowly at first, but my words gathered both speed and volume as I went. “You think that Loki is merely manipulating me in the mundane fashion. You believe I’m so weak-minded that—”

“You’re Alfar. You can’t help it.”

Again, I leaned back from Heimdal. “Can’t help what? Being weak-minded and easily manipulated?”

“Being compassionate. Charging in to save the underdog. Loki knows all these things about you, and he plays you like a finely-tuned fiddle.”

I sucked in a breath, as hard as if I’d been punched. Fury poured through my veins.

The intensity in Heimdal’s expression fled. His features softened toward apologetic. He leaned forward, as if he intended to step toward me.

I shook my head and half-lifted one hand, warning him back. At the last second he restrained himself. A wise choice, under the circumstances.

“Iris.” Heimdal’s voice became like that used to gentle a simple, stupid animal. “I—”

“No.” I pulled myself up straighter and clenched my hands against my sides. “It’s good to know what you truly think of me.”

With as much dignity as I could muster, I edged around Heimdal, turning as I went so that I ended with my back against the door. With my gaze, I fixed him in place and commanded him not to make a move toward me.

He swiveled in place, watching me with that same sickeningly-apologetic expression.

“And it’s true enough.” I fumbled behind me for the latch. “I’m not really an Asgardian.”

“Iris—”

“Thank the gods.” I put all the weight of my anger behind the words.

Then I flung open the door and stormed into the gathering night without looking back.