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They looked at each other. Theo’s eyes were shining.

“I wish I could make your world want you, ” Theo said.

“Yours too, ” Loki replied.

Theo pushed himself forward, onto his hands and knees, then leaned across the space between them and pressed his lips against Loki’s. It was a soft kiss, chaste and closed-mouthed. When Loki didn’t pull away, Theo’s hand rose to cup his cheek.

“I hope you don’t mind, ” he said softly, close enough that Loki could still feel his breath upon his lips.

Loki reached into Theo’s pocket and pulled out the small pouch of Norn Stones. Theo stared at them. “Is that—? ”

“Thank you for running into me on the platform, ” Loki said. “It was easier than finding you on the train. ”

The light off the Norn Stones reflected up onto Theo’s face. His mouth was hanging open. “Why did you leave them with me? ”

“Because I trust you. ”

Theo reached down and ran his finger along one of the edges of the Stones, the movement stuttered as he looked to Loki, like he might stop him. His hand closed around the pouch, the tips of his fingers brushing Loki’s palm. “I don’t know what you think you know about yourself, ” he said, “but none of it’s true. You are the only one who gets to decide what you become. Not your father or Thor or the ancient Viking poets or the stars or any of them. They don’t know a thing about you. ” His grip tightened, holding Loki’s hand with the Norn Stones pressed between them. “No one gets to decide who you are. ”

Loki stared down at their hands. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure if he believed it. Wasn’t sure he dared. “It’s so much harder that way, ” he said at last.

“I know, ” Theo replied. “No one to blame but yourself when you betray me. ”

Loki looked up at him, just as the train car jerked sharply, throwing Theo backward and Loki on top of him. “What was that? ” Theo asked.

“Amora. ” Loki pulled himself to his feet, then reached out and offered Theo a hand up. Theo retrieved his cane from where he had stashed it, then took Loki’s hand.

“Do you have a plan? ” he asked as Loki pulled him to his feet.

“Fragments of one, ” Loki replied. “There’s a bit more improvisation than I’d hoped. I mean, there’s always some improvisation. But this is getting concerning. ”

“What will you do now? ” Theo asked.

“Stop Amora, ” Loki replied.

“How? ”

“Like I said. Improvisation. ” Loki stashed the Norn Stones in the pocket of his jacket, then asked Theo, “If I get you to the front of the train, can you uncouple the cars? Separate the living from the dead? ”

“If you take me back to Asgard with you, ” Theo replied.

Loki released a breath, long and feathery. Theo held his gaze, his face etched with stubborn determination. That brilliant stubbornness that had kept him alive in a world that had cast him out. “I can’t, ” Loki said quietly.

“Yes, you can! ” Theo grabbed his hand, clinging to him with such desperate ferocity that his nails dug into Loki’s knuckles. “Please, there’s nothing left for me here. Mrs. Sharp is dead, and I’m alone, and I’ve got nothing. This world doesn’t want me, so give me one that does. Please, Loki. ”

Loki was never letting himself grow fond of anyone again, he decided. It was too much strain on the heart. “All right, ” he said.

Theo perked up like a cut flower in fresh water, but then he stepped backward, peering hard at Loki’s face like he was searching for the lie. “Really? You mean it? ”

“I promise. ”

“I’m not sure I trust your promises anymore, ” Theo said with a crumpled laugh.

“Trust this one. Let’s go. I’ll worry about Amora—all you need to do is get to the front of the train and make sure the humans are safe. ”

Loki grabbed a pair of railway spikes from a discarded tool kit and tucked them into the waistband of his trousers, then blasted a hole in the roof and leaped up through it, pulling Theo up behind him. He didn’t dare go through the train cars—if Amora was going to each, raising as many dead as she could muster, her soldiers would slow them down. He leaped to the next carriage, then held out a hand for Theo to join him. Theo looked shaky balanced on the end of the car, clutching his cane, and he closed his eyes for a moment before he braced himself and jumped. Loki felt their fingers connect, and then suddenly Theo was dragged sharply downward, nearly pulling Loki off the roof. He landed hard, his chin smacking the edge of the car, but his hands were still wrapped around Theo’s.

One of the corpses had grabbed Theo’s leg mid-jump and was now using him to climb to the top. Loki summoned his strength and yanked Theo up after him. The corpse followed, clawing its way onto the roof, but Loki was ready. He didn’t have his knife, but he yanked a railroad spike from his waistband and buried it in the corpse’s wrist. Hot, foul-smelling liquid gushed from the opened veins and coursed between them. Loki twisted, and the dead man’s hand popped off like a cork, the bone splintering. The corpse, seemingly unaware that its hand had been severed, continued to paw at the air with the gushing stump. Loki spun and jammed one of the railroad spikes into the dead man’s throat. More of that black, tarry blood coursed over his hands, splashing onto the roof. The corpse staggered backward, and Loki snatched one of the Norn Stones from his pocket, gathering a spell to blast the corpse apart. But before he could, Theo raised his cane and bashed the man in the side, sending him flying off the train.

“Thank you, ” Loki said. “But I had that covered. ”

“Sure you did. ” Theo pushed himself to his feet, legs shaking. “Let’s go. ”

They were halfway along the next car when a hand burst up through the wooden roof between them. Loki and Theo both stumbled, and Loki felt a hand snatch at his ankle. Nails dug into his skin when he tried to pull free. He yanked his leg up, hard enough to drag the woman latched on through the roof and onto the beam next to him. He was shocked to recognize her—Rachel Bowman, her eyes milky and empty as she swung at him. He ducked, then dealt her a hard elbow to the face that knocked her off the top of the train, and the wind snatched her. Another set of hands grabbed at him, and he could see more pawing up from the car ahead. Amora was raising the dead, car by car.

Behind him, Theo was using his cane to whack at the corpses clawing their way up onto the roof. One yanked at his bad leg, pulling him off his feet, but Loki sent an energy blast at the corpse. Thick black blood sprayed over them both.

With the Norn Stone still in his fist, Loki focused his spell and sent a blast of energy through the whole car. He expected the strength to knock the living dead off their feet, but channeled through the Norn Stones, the spell obliterated them, each one vaporized. Loki stared down at his hand, the small translucent stone clutched in his fist. He felt powerful, the same way he had years ago when he’d broken the Godseye Mirror. Illicit, delicious power that only seemed to come from destroying things.

Loki turned to the front of the train, his eyes watering as the smoke struck them, searching for more hands, more signs of Amora. Where was she? She would have felt the use of the Stones, her spell breaking apart. He’d called her to him.

The roof was collapsing under them. Loki grabbed Theo and jumped to the roof of the next car, landing with Theo on top of him and all the breath knocked out of him.

“Keep going, ” Loki said, and they started off again.

They were one car from the place where the living and the dead separated when Amora appeared.

She was between them. Theo had fallen behind, and she had come up through the center of the roof. She grabbed Theo, yanking her to him and pressing a knife to his throat. She could have stopped his heart with a spell, but this wasn’t meant to be a quick death. This was meant to be a trade.

Loki stopped. Turned back to her. They stared at each other, both breathing heavily. She looked exhausted. Her skin was gray and withered, her posture sagging. Without the strength of the Stones, she had raised her army but killed herself in the process.

Theo let out a small whimper of fear. “Give me the Stones, Loki, ” Amora called.

“Or what? ”

“Or I’ll kill him. ” She pressed the knife harder. “I’m sorry, was that not clear? ”

“You think I’d barter for the safety of my realm in exchange for one man? ” he shouted in return. “One human man? ”

“I think you’re far more sentimental than you admit, ” she replied. “I think you’re weak. ”

“I am not weak, ” Loki said. “I am not your villain, and I am not your fool. I am a protector of my homeland. ” He thrust his hand in the air. “For Asgard! ”

Amora stared at him, her forehead puckered in confusion.

“Sorry, ” Theo murmured, his voice hoarse from where her hand was pressing into his windpipe.

“What are you sorry for? ” Amora snapped at him.

“He’s just gotten very into his character, ” Theo replied.

And Loki released the illusion. It usually wouldn’t have been possible to use so much strength on Earth, but with the Stones, he felt like a concentrated beam of light. The air shimmered, and suddenly the Loki standing across the train roof from Amora was Theo, as he had always been. And the Theo in Amora’s chokehold was suddenly Loki. He struck backward, knocking the blade from her grasp and flipping it into his own palm, then driving it hard into her shoulder. In his other hand, the Norn Stone glowed, the same spell that had vaporized the corpses now channeling through his blade and into her.

Amora screamed in pain, her grip on him wavering. Her body was shrinking and curling in on itself, like watching a life lived on the fastest speed. Her flesh began to suction to her bones, her face suddenly more of a skull, her hair turning white and kinked and then falling from her head. She shrank and twisted, and, in spite of himself, in spite of everything, in spite of the fact that she would have let him wither into nothing if she was on the other end of this blade, Loki reached out, the Norn Stone still in his hand, and grabbed hers. Her aging reversed suddenly, and for a moment, she was herself again. Vibrant and young and the girl who had taught him to belong to himself.

“I can’t! ” she screamed. “I will not return to Asgard this way. I can’t go back. ”

“Amora, ” he said, and felt the surge of strength between them. “Please. ”

But she let go of his hand.

The wind took her, whipping her off the top of the train and snatching her from his view. Loki shouted, but it was too late. The train barreled forward.

The ceiling beneath his feet buckled, and suddenly the dead army was pawing its way upward. Amora’s spell was still in place, even if she had gone.

He turned forward, and used the power of the Stones to part the smoke so he could see ahead of them. In the distance, his vision sharpened with this new channeling of his power—he could see the fairy ring. They were close.

Theo had climbed down between the cars, throwing his weight into the heavy switch that would uncouple them. Loki raced to the edge and dropped down onto the platform beside him. “Do it now! ”

He put his hands over Theo’s and together they shoved until there was a creak and the hinge split apart. The train with the living began to separate from the cars carrying the dead, the gap growing.

Theo turned to Loki, the wind ripping its fingers through his reddish curls. “To Asgard? ” he said.

“To Asgard, ” Loki replied, then grabbed Theo by the shoulders and tossed him off the car. Theo landed on the platform of the opposite car, which held the living, the gap between them now too wide to jump. He staggered to his feet, pressing himself into the rail and staring at Loki, watching them separate. “You promised! ” he shouted.

Loki turned away.

The engine and passenger cars passed over the fairy ring, and Loki channeled the strength of the Stones as his end of the train approached. Above them, thunder rumbled and Loki thrust his head back, staring up as the sky knit and unknit itself in stunning strands of purple and silver, not quite clouds. The Bifrost was opening. He could feel the initial pull in the air.

He knew he would regret it, but still he turned to look at Theo one last time. The cars were far apart now, the dead cars were slowing with nothing to propel them forward. Theo was still pressed against the rail, but the hurt on his face had turned to something else. Disappointment. There was no surprise. He hadn’t expected Loki to keep his word.

Then the air around Loki shimmered, the Bifrost tugging the train into another realm. He didn’t get another look at Theo before his half of the train was lifted through the portal and away from Midgard.

Loki knew what it looked like, showing up with an army and one of the galaxy’s most powerful relics.

He knew Thor knew it too. When he had warned his brother they would be coming, he had said it would only be him and Amora with the recovered Norn Stones, and asked him to meet them at the observatory with a battalion of soldiers. Instead it was three train cars of the risen dead plowing into Asgard, skidding down the rainbow bridge, tearing up shards as it went. The dead soldiers were climbing from the cars, still in the grip of Amora’s magic.

It was his father’s vision. It was the scene from the Godseye Mirror, Loki realized as he clambered down from the train, and his knees buckled beneath him. He was at the head of an army of risen dead, facing Asgard. He could see it all, reflected back at him from the obsidian surface of the Mirror.

He was exactly what his father had always known he would become.

But then a shadow fell over him, and he looked up. Thor was standing before him, Mjolnir in one hand, his hair twirling in elegant ribbons when the wind caught it. He looked like a warrior. He looked like a king.

For a moment, Loki considered it. He had the Stones. He had an army. What would happen if he took over the spell, turned the dead to his side, and marched on the capital right now? Demanded his father surrender the throne? Pushed his brother from the bridge? Took his rightful place?

Thor held out his hand.

Loki took it, and let his brother pull him to his feet.

“I suppose I should have expected a grand entrance from you, brother, ” Thor said, swinging Mjolnir against his palm.

“You know me, ” Loki replied. “I love a little panache. ”

“Are you armed? ” Thor asked.

“Always. ”

“Are you hurt? ”

Yes, he wanted to say. “I’m fine. ”

Thor nodded, then raised his hammer. He stood just a little in front of Loki, the first step any of these undead warriors would have to get through to reach him. His brother was protecting him from his own army. It crystalized in that moment the difference between them. He would never be his brother, and his brother was the hero. So where did that leave him? What did that leave him?

Thor raised Mjolnir as Loki took a stance beside him. Around them, the Einherjar raised their shields, spears at the ready. Thor charged forward, and smashed Mjolnir into the skull of the first corpse that charged them, the Einherjar surging around them. But the corpses weren’t just coming toward them—they were crossing the Rainbow Bridge toward Asgard. They were going to flood the city, an unsuspecting population weakened simply by not knowing they should be expecting an army of the undead. The Einherjar would overpower them, but not without casualties. Not without loss.

Loki looked down at the Norn Stones in his hand. He had failed to deliver Amora. He was returning with these stolen relics and no explanation of how they’d come into his hands. No Amora to blame their theft upon. He’d be explaining himself with no proof of his noble intentions that had caused him to seek her out. Maybe they never had been noble.

He had told himself that if, as he suspected would come to pass, Amora betrayed him and made her own power grab, luring him to her only to make sure he was out of the way, he’d execute the double cross of his own that was waiting in his back pocket. Capture her, reclaim the Stones. For Asgard.

For himself. How could he claim noble intentions when their backbone all along had been to eclipse his brother, win back his father’s favor after the disaster on Alfheim, and put himself back in a position to claim the throne?

He could keep the Stones hidden. Wait until he had another chance to stage finding them. He could still look like a hero. Or he could unveil his power now, pin the blame on himself.

Loki looked at his brother, splattered with the black blood of the dead, the ground beneath his feet turning slick. Thor wouldn’t hesitate.

Loki gathered the magic around him, a spell forming on the tips of his fingers. After Midgard, Asgard felt like an oasis, the air thick and humid with power. It buzzed inside him, vibrating to the tips of his fingers where the Norn Stones were clutched.

How much he could do with these Stones.

He closed his fist around the five Stones, channeling all the strength he had through their angled surfaces. The Stones glowed, releasing a wave of energy that nearly knocked him off his feet. Beside him, Thor staggered. The ground beneath them cracked and splintered. There was an electric-blue flash, and one by one, the corpses fell, their knees buckling and snapping beneath them, as they collapsed across the bridge. Each of them still.

At the end of the bridge, Loki could make out more soldiers running toward them, though they all had stopped to throw up their hands against the force of his spell.

When he looked up, Thor nodded once, then tossed Mjolnir in the air and caught it. “It’s good to have you back, ” he said, but Loki wasn’t sure if he meant it.

Odin was alone in the throne room when Loki approached him. No soldiers. No Frigga. No Thor.

His father’s face was set as he looked down at Loki from his throne. Loki stopped at the base of the stairs. There was no point in delaying the inevitable. He opened his palm, letting the five Stones fall onto the steps between them with a clatter like soft spring rain. If Odin was surprised to see the Norn Stones, it did not register upon his face. He sat, looking down, letting them stew in a silence so long it became unbearable.

So it was Loki who spoke first. “In my defense, I was left unsupervised. ”

Odin’s face did not change. His features were like steel, as sharp as the edges of the Norn Stones at his feet. “I will not ask what you were thinking, ” he said. “Because it is clear that you were not. ”

Loki kept his head high, but shame rippled through him. How he must look, standing at his father’s feet, covered in soot and blood and the black tar that had filled the veins of the reanimated corpses, a smoking path of destruction leading from his feet all the way back to Midgard. “I had a plan, ” he said. “It isn’t my fault it didn’t all work out. If I had been successful, I would have brought you Amora and the lost Norn Stones. ”

“And instead you bring me nothing but excuses, ” Odin replied. He wasn’t shouting. Loki wanted him to shout. “Do you know what this looks like, my son? It looks like treason. ”

Treason was a generous word for it. To show up with an army and stolen amplifiers. Though destroying said army should have at least won him a few points back.

Odin still didn’t stand. “I wish you could at least tell me that you were hypnotized or bespelled or that some of her magic had a hold on you. Tell me that my son, whom I raised from birth, did not choose to bring this destruction upon his home and his friends. ”

It was an out. An opportunity to lie. To save face. But more than that, it felt like a trap. Like both he and his father knew the answer to this question, and if he said anything other than that, they’d both know it was a lie. Odin wanted to know he was a liar. He wanted to know his son was what he suspected—a trickster, a liar, the God of Chaos.

So that’s what Loki gave him. “I was not bespelled, ” he replied. “I was not enchanted, or bewitched. All the choices I made were my own, and not Amora’s. Not anyone else’s. ”

“Why? ”

That was a trickier question, for he hardly knew himself. Because he wanted to be king? How could he say that when his father had not named an heir? It would sound foolish, another voiced truth that both of them knew in their hearts but neither expected the other to say aloud.

So instead, he said, “Because I wanted to. ”

“That is not an answer. ”

“I wanted to play with fire. I wanted to make bad choices. I wanted to defy you. ” It didn’t matter what he said, no matter how noble his heart had been—or at least, somewhat noble. At certain times. His father had seen him in the Mirror and assigned him his role long ago. Loki could have brought him all of Asgard’s enemies knocked out cold in a giant cage, and Odin still wouldn’t have believed his heart. “What do you want me to say?! ”

“The only truth with which you need concern yourself, ” Odin said, “is that any man who sticks his hand into a fire will be burned. You have disappointed me greatly today, my son. ”

“As opposed to what, exactly? ” The vehemence of his own voice surprised him. Before he knew what he was doing, before he had truly considered it, he mounted the stairs and walked up to the throne, uninvited, and faced his father. “You have never given me a reason to believe you were anything but disappointed with me since the day I was born. ”

Odin shook his head. “You do not give me reason to show you anything but that. ”

“I have done terrible things, but you let me be nothing but those things. Tell me, Father, do you think me evil? Do you think me monstrous? ” He spread his arms. “Did you need a villain and I was available? Someone to make Thor look prettier than he is so that when you give him the throne, everyone will be willing to overlook the thousands he’s slaughtered in the name of peace and Asgard? ”

“Enough! ” Odin roared, flying to his feet, and Loki fought the urge to step back, that primal fear that Odin inspired in so many gripping him. But he didn’t. He faced his father with nothing but stubborn defiance.

This, he thought, and he almost glanced at the Norn Stones discarded on the steps. This is power.

Odin’s knuckles were white on his spear. “I could banish you, ” he said, as quiet as Loki had been loud. “I could send you to the darkest corner of the Nine Realms and strip you of your powers, or back to Midgard and let whatever is left of your Enchantress decide the best punishment for your treachery. ” He paused. Loki held his breath. “But I am a merciful king. Which you will never be. ”

Merciful? he thought, but Odin continued. “You are not fit to be a king, my son. You never have been, and no tutelage I offer can choke the darkness from your soul. ” He turned from Loki and began to descend the stairs to retrieve the discarded Stones. As he bent slowly, he said, “At the Solstice, I will name Thor the heir to the throne of Asgard. ”

Loki closed his eyes. Amora had been right. The deep, shadowed fear that lived inside him had always been right. He would not be king. Not only that, but Odin had never considered him a contender for the throne. Would never see him the way he saw Thor, a young, reckless creature whose rough edges could be sanded off with time and patience and lies. Loki was all rough edges to his father. All jagged and sharp and too difficult to touch without cutting yourself.

“Do you understand this? ” Odin asked.

“Yes, ” Loki said, the word a quiet knife between his ribs.

“Do you accept this? ”

“Do I have a choice? ” he asked, the bite unmistakable this time.

“There is always a choice. ”

Theo’s face flashed suddenly in his mind, the look in his eyes as he had split the train cars, split them apart, as his chance to go to Asgard with Loki was ripped away from him.

There’s always a choice.

He would never be king. He’d never be his brother. He’d never be a hero. He would never be Theo, cast aside and still strong without being brittle. He’d never be Amora either. He had proved that when he’d tried to stop their army.

What else was left?

He could be the witch. He could be the villain. He could be the trickster, the schemer, the self-serving God of Chaos, prove the mythology books right. Prove them all right in what they had all thought, that he was rotten from the start. He would serve no man but himself, no heart but his own. That would be his choice.

He could be the witch.

Be the witch, and know everything.

MACKENZI LEE holds a BA in history and an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Simmons College. She is the New York Times best-selling author of the historical fantasy novels This Monstrous Thing; The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, which won a 2018 Stonewall Honor Award and the New England Book Award; and its sequel, The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy. She is also the author of the nonfiction books Bygone Badass Broads, a collection of short biographies of forgotten women from history, and The History of the World in 50 Dogs, which is the same but dogs. When not writing, she works as an independent bookseller, drinks too much Diet Coke, and romps with her Saint Bernard, Queenie.

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