by Mackenzi Lee
“We’re a secret society,” Mrs. S. replied. “Not much point if you don’t actually try to keep your secrets. Go with him, Theo. And we’ll see you soon, Your Majesty.” She gave him a small bow.
Loki offered a curled lip in return. “I certainly hope not.”
As reluctant as Loki was to admit Theo was right, the tunnels beneath the British Museum were difficult to navigate. Each one looked the same—dark, narrow stone, poorly lit, and lined with more crates, some larger than the one Loki had been trapped in, some pocket-size. A few were cracked open to reveal their contents—statue heads carved from gray stone, a golden brooch, a breastplate inlaid with intricate filigree. By the time he and Theo emerged into the sallow sunlight of the London streets, he had lost all sense of where he was or in what direction they had gone.
Theo tapped his cane against the bottom of his boot, scraping off something sticky that had adhered itself there. “You need to get back to the fairy ring.”
“What’s that?”
“Where you arrived—the spot of connection between Asgard and Earth,” Theo replied. “There are hundreds of them on Earth, but that one’s the closest.”
“Why do you call it a fairy ring?”
“Oh, humans have all sorts of names for them. Stonehenges, fairy rings, portals. Places where the worlds overlap.”
“You could have met me there then instead of at that museum.”
Theo shrugged. “Well, we drew straws and no one wanted to stand in the rain and wait for you. And Mrs. S. works for the museum, so it’s convenient, and they have enough odd items lying around that no one asks questions about ours. And it’s easier to meet an enemy on familiar turf.”
“Am I your enemy?” Loki asked. “I thought I was your much-needed aid from Asgard.”
Theo either didn’t hear him or ignored the question. He looped his scarf around his neck, blew a short breath onto his bare hands. “Come on, then, if you’re so keen to be home.”
But Loki didn’t move. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Theo smiled. “I sort of believe you.”
Neither of them spoke as they walked. Theo paid a lamplighter for a candle and shade as the night began to fall. It cast a dull shine along the road ahead of them as the city gave way to countryside, the tenuous pavement of London’s roads turning to muddy paths rutted with wheel tracks and the deep impressions of livestock hooves.
Theo was the first to break their silence. He tipped his head back, ruddy curls cascading from his face. In the twilight, his skin looked slick, like he had just surfaced from underwater. A small smile settled over his lips, and he lifted a hand, pointing upward. “Look.”
Loki raised his head to follow Theo’s finger, not sure what he was meant to be seeing.
“The sky is so clear tonight,” Theo said. “You can never see the stars in the city.”
And Loki realized Theo was only looking to the stars. He looked up too, the thick sugar of a galaxy trailing through the darkness, flecked on all sides by sprinkles of planets and constellations. At their backs, the city glowed golden with lantern light, its own small galaxy beneath the sky. London was brass and silver, draped in steamy clouds with empty hollows and pockets that swallowed the light.
“Can we see Asgard from here?” Theo asked, his head still thrown back, like he was drinking in the view.
Loki knew the answer—the stars were closer to him than home—but he still found himself searching the sky. “No.”
“Do you have stars in Asgard?” Theo asked.
“Do we have them?”
“Can you see them?” Theo clarified. “Or is your sky empty at night?”
“We can see the stars in Asgard,” Loki said. “More than you can see from Earth. A dozen times this amount.”
“What about beer?” Theo asked.
“Can we see beer from Asgard?”
Theo tore his eyes from the sky long enough to give Loki a disparaging look. “Do you have beer in Asgard?”
“All kinds,” Loki replied, not certain where these questions were leading, but amused in spite of himself that Theo’s thoughts had slid so deftly from the sky to the drink. “And honey-sweet wines and fizzing cordials and apple mead that will keep you young and vinegar spirits that will knock a grown man out cold.”
“Music?”
“At every feast.”
“And dancing?”
“What else does one do when music plays?”
“And dogs?”
Loki frowned, stumped for the first time. “I don’t know what that is, so I don’t think so.”
“Well, that’s going to count against Asgard.”
Now it was Loki’s turn for the disparaging glance. “As if Midgard could hope to compete with Asgard.”
Theo threw back his head and laughed. “Midgard? Is that what you call us?”
“Is it funny?”
“No, no, I like it. Midgard. Does that make me a Midgardian?” He puffed out his chest when he said it. “It sounds powerful.”
“Perhaps it’s not translating quite right, then.”
“Give me a moment, will you?” Theo stopped and leaned up against a tree, stretching out his bad leg with a wince. “Sorry I don’t move so fast.”
“Here.” Loki held out a hand, and Theo surrendered the lantern to him. “Is it broken?”
“My leg?” Theo chuckled through his heavy breath. “A long time ago. It never healed right.”
“We could have taken the train,” Loki said. “There’s a track that goes straight through the...whatever you called it. Fairy ring.”
Theo snorted. “You don’t want to be on that train. It’s the Necropolis Rail. The train that carries the dead from London to the cemeteries to be buried.”
“Do you not bury your dead in your own city?”
Theo shook his head. “No room left. They started stacking bodies in the streets after the cholera outbreak.” He let out another heavy breath, and Loki suddenly felt strange, watching him wince and catch his breath in silence. He glanced around the countryside, the treetops making dark clouds against the sky. A pack of bats flew overhead, blotting out the moon.
When he turned back, Theo was looking at him with a strange smile on his face.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Loki demanded.
Theo’s face didn’t change. “Like what?”
“Like you find me amusing.”
“I wouldn’t say amusing.” He took up his cane from where he’d leaned it against the tree and pushed himself back to his feet with another wince. “I’ve worked with Mrs. S. for a while now, but I’ve never actually met someone from another realm. And it’s you.” Theo held out a hand for the lantern, but Loki didn’t surrender it.
“What do you mean it’s me?”
“You’re...” Theo gestured vaguely through the air. “You’re Loki.”
“I’m aware.” They stared at each other through the darkness, the air between them golden and dancing as the lantern flickered. Theo knew something about him—Loki was sure of it. Sure the whole Society knew it. But he couldn’t fathom what it was that made them treat him so strangely. What had his father told them? I’ll be sending my son who I have foreseen bringing about the end of the world by leading an army against me. Have a wonderful time, feel free to take his magic and make assumptions!
He wouldn’t put it past his father.
Theo straightened his cap, then started down the path again. “We’re nearly there.”
When they reached the ring—a bare circle in the grass, bisected by the railroad tracks—Theo tossed aside his cane and sank down on a nearby stone, pulling off his cap and wiping his arm over his forehead. Loki waited for him to say something—some sort of farewell or thanks for coming or, based on the way Theo had looked at him earlier, perhaps a request to sign something in memory of their time together. But Theo just gave him that stupid grin.
Loki held out his wrists. “Remove these.”
“Not even a p
lease?” Theo asked.
“You’ve taken away my magic, so forgive me if I’m not in a mood for politeness.”
Theo took Loki’s hand in his and turned it, palm to the sky, as he began to fiddle with the mechanism at the hinge. Loki almost asked him how he’d come to possess a modified set of Asgardian restraints, but it wouldn’t matter soon. He’d be home.
If his father would let him come home.
The cuffs came free and Theo patted Loki on the pulse point before tucking them into his jacket pocket. “There you are, Your Highness. You’re free.”
Loki flexed his fingers, feeling magic begin to swell below his skin again. Slower than it did in Asgard, but still a relief. He shook out his sleeves, then faced Theo. “Well. I’d say it was good to meet you, but I do hate lying.”
“All right, then.”
Loki didn’t move, not sure why he was so annoyed by Theo’s refusal to even give him a wave. Theo stretched out his legs, hands behind his head, a theatrical gesture of unconcern. “Pay attention—you’re about to see interdimensional travel. If you enjoyed my general presence, you may faint from the excitement of this.”
“We’ll see,” Theo replied.
“What do you mean we’ll see?”
“I mean we’ll see if Asgard wants you back.”
“Why don’t you think Asgard wants me back?” Loki said, the belligerence rising in his tone to cover the panic. His father had said he’d be forced to stay here until his work had been deemed satisfactory, but surely Odin would let him limp back to Asgard and beg forgiveness.
“Because you were sent here to help us, and you haven’t done that,” Theo replied. “Mrs. S. says your father won’t let you return home until this is finished.”
“Fine. Well, watch this.” He stalked to the center of the fairy ring and then, just to make a properly dramatic show of it so that Theo would feel the true fool, threw his head back to the sky and opened his arms. “Heimdall!” he called. “Bring me back!”
He waited for the sky to open. The air to shimmer and crack. The clouds to part and the Bifrost to open to him.
Nothing.
The night was silent.
“Heimdall!” Loki shouted again. “Heimdall, bring me back!”
Still nothing.
Loki went on staring at the sky, sure that the ferocity of his stare could penetrate the Bifrost. “Heimdall, this isn’t funny. Bring me back. Tell Father to bring me back. Heimdall, you son of a—” Behind him, he heard a soft crunch, and he whirled on Theo. “Are you eating?!”
Theo froze, one hand dipped into a greasy paper bag. “I missed dinner because I was tending you.”
“I’m trying to access an interdimensional portal and you’re snacking?”
He held the bag out to Loki. “Would you like some? They’re peanuts. Do you have peanuts on Asgard?”
Loki threw his head to the sky again. “Heimdall, get me out of this realm. Heimdall, come on!” He turned back to Theo. “I suspect he’s occupied elsewhere.”
“Of course.”
“Or he wasn’t expecting me.”
Theo tossed a nut in the air, missed it with his mouth, and it bounced off his forehead. “All right.”
“So Heimdall is probably...napping. Or something.”
“Of course,” Theo said with a solemn nod, though Loki could see that cheeky smile just beyond his lips. “Napping. Would you like to wait around and try him in a bit? When he isn’t...napping?”
Loki wanted to stamp his feet in frustration. Waking Heimdall from his probably improbable nap wasn’t an option. His mother had mentioned that while someday he might learn to project himself between realms, that someday was still in the future. Even on Asgard, his projections still struggled to move between rooms in the palace. “Do you have a way to contact Asgard?” he demanded of Theo. “I need to speak to my father.”
Theo wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Back at our headquarters.”
Loki almost rolled his eyes. Of course this amateur squad had a headquarters. “Fine. Take me to your headquarters.”
“First you have to come with me to Southwark.”
“Where?”
“A neighborhood in the southern city. That’s where the bodies are being kept.” Theo shoved the bag of peanuts back into his pocket and smiled. “As long as you’re waiting for Heimdall to wake up, you might as well have a look at what we brought you here for.”
Loki sighed through his nose, an action he knew made his nostrils flare out in an unattractive away—at least that’s what Amora had told him—but he indulged the drama. What he truly would have liked to do was collapse onto the ground, cross his arms, and refuse to be budged until Heimdall sucked him up out of this godforsaken realm through the Bifrost. He would rather have lain down in this soggy grass and let it swallow him whole than go back to London. He should be on Alfheim. He should be with his father and his brother. He should be doing work fit for a king, which was certainly not done in so much mud. Or if it was, there should have been a sword involved.
“I will not abide restraints again,” Loki said.
Theo shrugged. “Fine, but I won’t abide any magical mischief you might make.”
As if you could do anything about it. He was tempted to turn Theo into a frog, just to remind him who was truly in charge here. But a spell that large would be too hard to justify on this magicless planet. No matter how satisfying it would be.
Loki let out a feathery sigh. “Fine. Take me to the Southern Erk.”
“Actually it’s Erk of the South,” Theo corrected.
“What did I say?” A small smile tugged at Theo’s lips. Loki glared at him. “You’re mocking me.”
“They did warn me you were quick.”
“Who’s they?”
“All the books.”
“Books?” Loki repeated, but Theo had already taken up his cane and started down the pathway again, back the way they had come.
“Come on, Mrs. S. is waiting at the morgue.”
Southwark clung to the banks of a rancid river, the smell of which made Loki pull the collar of his shirt up over his nose, though Theo told him that was both rude and conspicuous. Even in the frail light of the gas lamps, the brick houses were dark with soot, and plaster crumbled off the siding, dropping into the streets like rockslides in miniature. Children with charcoal-smeared faces sat along the edges of the collapsing roofs, spitting seeds or possibly teeth at each other. The cobbles bulged at random, like great tree roots were pushing them up from beneath, and the gutters spilled onto the streets, their contents thick and sluggish.
“This is your home, is it?” Loki asked, his lip curling as he stepped deliberately over a spill of rotting produce that had been mashed into the stones. “You must be so proud.”
“Come, now, I’m sure there are more decrepit corners of Yggdrasil,” Theo replied cheerfully. “Not many, but at least one.”
“If there are, I have yet to see them.”
He followed Theo down a short lane, then around the back of a red-shuttered tavern with crooked windowpanes and an upper story that seemed to jut out at a dangerous angle over the first. To Loki’s surprise, the alley was flooded with people waiting to get into the building ahead of them, and the noise of excited chatter echoed off the narrow corridor. Sellers stalked through the crowd, hawking orange slices and biscuits for sale.
Perhaps something had been lost in the translation, but this was not what Loki had expected when Theo had said he was taking him to see bodies. He had thought of a graveyard, or at least a quiet basement. The underground corridor of the museum seemed a more appropriate place for a viewing than this, with the crowds and the noise and an atmosphere of merry excitement. This felt like a fairground.
Theo seemed unconcerned by any of it. He navigated them through the mob of people to where Mrs. S. was waiting for them, sitting on a coal bin and knitting. She hardly glanced up as they approached. “Good to see you weren’t robbed on your way here,” she
called as they approached.
“I’m sure His Majesty would have protected me from any roving thugs,” Theo replied. “Or at least protected himself and accidentally saved me as well.”
“Still have your wallet?” she asked.
“Yes,” Theo replied confidently, but Loki saw his hand dart to his trouser pocket. “What are you knitting?”
“A hat for the prince,” she replied, holding up the shapeless bundle of yarn. “Something with horns.”
“What is this place?” Loki interjected.
Mrs. S. flicked her eyes to him. “Didn’t Theo tell you?”
“He said it was a morgue,” Loki replied. “So what are all these people doing here?”
“They’re tourists,” Mrs. S. replied, tucking her knitting into her carpetbag and dusting off her trousers as she stood. “They started putting the dead on display in Paris, and now it’s all the rage in London too. Charge sixpence a head for a prime view of the many ways you may leave this world. The grizzlier the better. This spate of recent mysterious deaths has given them quite a boost.” She nodded at the onlookers. “Perhaps they should pay your people some sort of commission.”
“They all are here to see the dead?” Loki asked. “That’s morbid.”
Mrs. S. shrugged. “That’s human. Come along, boys.”
As they made their way to the entrance, shuffled forward by the flow of the tourists, Loki noticed another group gathered around the doors, this one holding signs in the air or wearing them on strapped boards looped over their shoulders. Some of them were chanting the same message as was painted on many of their signs: LET THEM LIVE. Mrs. S. brushed past them without sparing a glance.
As Loki went to follow her, a woman wearing one of the signs over her shoulders leaped in front of him and shoved a leaflet into his hand. “Those you see presented as dead in these halls are not yet gone to their great reward!” she shouted, sort of to him and sort of so the whole crowd could hear. He felt her spit speckle his face. She must have been near Mrs. S.’s age, with dark hair flecked gray and a small, neat hat secured to it with a pin. Her dark skirt was starting to ride up where her sign had caught the hem. “The police and the papers would have you believe them dead, but they merely sleep!” she shouted, thrusting a leaflet at Theo, who stuck his free hand into his pocket and looked purposefully in the other direction. “To bury these dead would be to bury the living!”
