by Mackenzi Lee
“Sit down,” she said, gesturing him to one of the low stools by the fire. “Do you want some tea? I only have a quarter of an hour before the next show, but the fire’s likely still warm enough.”
“How did you ever end up here?” he asked as he took a seat. “Telling fortunes and summoning the dead?”
She unhooked the kettle from over the fire and began to refill it with a jug of water from one of the dressing tables. “Believe me, it wasn’t my first choice. I’ve been all over this pathetic little realm, trying to find someone who could help me off or restore my powers. London is as good a place as any to exploit humans who think this spiritualism is real magic. If you speak gravely and seriously while wearing black, they’ll believe anything you say.” She grinned. “And I’ve always enjoyed the theatre.”
“Is that what you call it?” he asked. “‘Spiritualism’?”
“That’s one name for it. Humans believe that certain people among them can communicate with the spirit world—that’s what some of them call it, where the dead dwell.”
“Can they?” he asked.
“Oh God, no.” She laughed. “There’s hardly a drop of magic on this planet—let alone enough to call up ghosts. But everyone’s dying of cholera and typhoid fever and dysentery or being brutalized by men in Whitechapel—and that’s not even including this recent scourge. So many bodies they can’t bury them fast enough, and they often grow sick and die without any warning, so there’s no time to say good-bye. That’s all people want—to say good-bye or send their love or their apologies or impart final messages they never got to say to people. It’s all tragically pathetic.”
Amora replaced the lid of the kettle, then hung it over the fire. Loki leaned forward, ready to relight the flames with a spell to save time, but Amora extended a hand to the grate before he could. Beneath her fingers, the flames leaped to life.
Loki gasped. She turned to him, her delight equal to his surprise, and gave a small bow. “Surprise.”
“You can still do magic,” he said, unable to keep the shock from his voice. “How?”
“It hasn’t come easy.” She pulled a chair up beside him, their arms brushing. “Midgard almost drained me. Every bit of magic I used was gone forever. Can you imagine? Living without your magic? It’s like losing a limb. No—more than that. It’s like having your heart cut from your chest and being expected to simply learn to live without it. And when it leaves you slowly...” She shuddered, rubbing her hands up and down her arms like a chill had passed over her. “I was dying. Though decaying is perhaps the better word. It was that slow and horrific.”
“But you found a way to restore it?”
She leaned backward beside the fireplace, stroking her fingers through the air as the flames curled in response. “Through this spiritualism nonsense, actually. I had all but resigned myself to a fate worse than death when I began working here and discovered that the humans who come to these shows are so raw and willing and open to my influence. And so willing to offer pieces of themselves up. Human energy doesn’t provide much sustenance, but I can siphon off enough to get by. Enough to perform small spells. And there is no shortage of humans willing to give themselves to me. Though they don’t always know that’s what they’re doing.”
Something about her words, the roundabout, implicit nature of them, rattled inside Loki. He watched her as she took the kettle off the fire, poured the tea into two cups, and handed him one by the saucer. The way she raised her own teacup to her lips, her nails long and sculpted as they tapped against the porcelain with a soft chink. Her skin still taut and pale. She hardly looked as though she’d aged since they parted, and wore none of the grime of this city like everyone else did. He could feel her circling something, some truth she did not want to tell him but still wanted him to know. Something he had to guess.
She smiled at him, the corners of her lips turning up around the rim of her teacup.
“You’re the murderer,” he said suddenly.
She froze, cup still pressed against her mouth. “Excuse me?”
“You’re the one leaving the living-dead corpses all over London,” he said, certainty blooming inside him. “You’re the one the SHARP Society is looking for.”
“Dear gods.” She placed her cup back in its saucer with a rattle that mimicked her laugh. “Has Odin got you playing detective with that band of misfits?”
“Do you know them?”
“Only by reputation. They take it upon themselves to tag every nonhuman being in range of their gadgetry. It’s adorable how they seem to think they could do something to stop any of us if they tried.”
“They work for my father.”
Amora pressed her hand to her heart and gave him a sickly look, the sort one might give a child who, with no understanding of how gravity works, has offered up an explanation involving invisible glue for why their feet stick to the ground. “Sweetheart, they work for your father in the same way the men who clean the sewage from your palace stables do. That idiot Sharp caught on to the existence of Asgardians through a slipup on your father’s part, and so your father gives him little jobs to keep him occupied so he doesn’t go blabbing about the existence of the Nine Realms. No one wants humans involved in interdimensional affairs. They’d slow everything down.”
“He’s dead,” Loki said. “Mr. Sharp. It’s his wife that runs the organization now.”
“Does she? Poor hen,” Amora replied, lips pursed. “Earth is so determined to make everything that’s hard for a man doubly hard for a woman.”
“But you steal energy from humans?” he asked.
She shrugged, pulling her feet up onto the chair beneath her. “It was just small amounts at first—enough to keep me alive, but so little that they wouldn’t notice. And then it wasn’t enough.” She took a sip of her tea, then glanced at his cup, still untouched in his hand. “I have sugar, if you want it. Though if I remember correctly, you prefer your brews...bitter.”
“You drain humans of their essence to preserve your own, then leave their bodies in the streets? How does that restore your magic? Humans don’t have any.”
“But for sorcerers like us, our life essence is so tightly entwined with our magic that they’re one and the same. To refresh one is to refresh the other.” Her eyes combed him, that same intense, searching gaze he remembered. It made his skin itch. It made him want to look away. It made him want to touch his hair to make sure it wasn’t out of place. At last, she leaned back in her chair and said with a small pout, “You don’t sound as impressed as I thought you would be.”
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Neither did I, and there’s a reason for that. It’s best not to let your students know what exactly they can do with their powers for fear they might overtake you.” The note of bitterness in her voice was unmistakable.
Amora took up her tea again, her lips skimming the rim of the cup in a way that sparked a queer strain of jealousy in Loki. He had missed her so much. With an intensity he hadn’t realized until she was here again and he remembered what it was like to have someone to talk to. Someone to rely on.
She was murdering humans. He had seen them in the morgue, the chimney sweep limp in the street. She had taken human souls to sustain herself.
And yet, somehow, he still couldn’t stop thinking about how much he’d missed her. How she was here. She was here, and he was here. He almost reached out to take her hand, just to prove to himself she was really beside him.
Amora set her teacup on the dresser and pressed her fingers together as she surveyed him. “Loki, look at you! You used to be so skinny and gawky, and now you’re less skinny and less gawky.”
He laughed. “You wouldn’t believe how much bigger I am than Thor.”
“How is your dear brother?” Amora asked. “Has he gotten himself killed in battle yet?”
Loki took a sip of his tea and nearly spat it out. Far too sweet, even without sugar. “No, he’s still blond and royal as ever.”
“Has Odin named his heir?”
“Not yet.” He took another sip of the vile tea, waiting for her to speak, but she didn’t. She stared at him, watching. Waiting. “I will not be king,” he blurted. The words landed like a blow—not to her, but to him. Had he ever said them aloud before? Ever truly looked them in the eye?
Her forehead crinkled. “Still he doubts you?”
“I’ll never be more to him than the son that led an army against him in his vision of the future.” He reached out and took her hand before he could stop himself. She let him hold it for a moment, then pressed both her hands around his. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I have to go,” she said, standing suddenly and twisting her hair back into a knot. She reached for her discarded veil. “But I must see you again. How long until you return home?”
“I don’t know. My father is off looking for the Norn Stones and has told everyone else not to welcome me back until he gives permission.”
“The Norn Stones?” Amora repeated.
“A pouch was stolen from Karnilla’s court.”
“And she hasn’t found them yet?”
“She can’t sense them unless their power is accessed,” Loki replied. “And it hasn’t been yet.”
“Well, that’s interesting.” She tapped a finger against her teeth. “Think what we could do with a bundle of stolen Norn Stones.”
“The SHARP Society is looking for you,” Loki said, standing up and following her as she checked her makeup in one of the mirrors, swiping her fingers through the spilled powder and dabbing it on her cheekbones. “They found your card on the last man you killed.”
“The handsome chimney sweep? He brought his wife here for a reading and then dragged her out in the middle of it when I suggested turbulent times ahead in their love life. It’s amazing how people draw their own conclusions when you’re vague.” She pinched her cheeks to color them. “I don’t fear the SHARP Society.”
“I know you don’t,” he said. “But if they drop even a hint of your name to my father, he may take a more personal interest.”
She stopped, staring first at her own reflection in the mirror, then him. “You think he’d come after me?”
“I don’t know. But if he did, it would be more than banishment this time.”
She laughed with her lips pursed. “Your father has already done his worst to me.”
“Don’t test him, Amora,” Loki replied.
She reached for a silver-handled brush on the counter, and without thinking, he grabbed her by the elbow, pulling her back to face him. Her face was suddenly much closer to his than he had anticipated. “Please. There must be another way for you to restore your powers.”
“Do you think I haven’t spent every moment of my banishment trying to find one?” she demanded, her tone biting.
“Let me help you. We’ll get you away from here. Somewhere my father won’t find you, somewhere you won’t have to steal souls to survive.”
“How?”
“I’ll find a way.”
She stared at him for a moment, then looked down at the spot where his hand was still on her elbow. He let go, quick as if he had been burned, but she didn’t move. She kept her arm raised between them, like an invitation to hold her again. He wanted to.
But then she turned, retrieving her veil from the counter and extending it to him. There was a tortoise comb attached to the top. “Tuck this into my chignon for me, won’t you?”
He lifted the veil, twining the teeth of the comb into the soft blond wisps of her carefully wound hair. His eyes grazed the bare back of her neck above her collar, the pale white curve of it. She must have sensed his gaze, or seen it in one of the mirrors, for she tipped her head luxuriously, running one finger along her throat as though in presentation.
Loki blinked, then dropped his hands. “There.”
“Thank you.” She turned and kissed him quickly on the cheek. “Come back and see me. There’s so much more I have to say to you.”
His heart hiccupped. “As soon as I’m able.”
“And you can keep the SHARP Society away from me?”
“I’ll try.”
She stared at him for a moment, tongue darting out between her teeth to wet her lips. Her gaze felt hot and hungry. Then she leaned forward and kissed him again, this time just as he turned his head, so instead of landing upon his cheek, their lips brushed.
Amora pulled down her veil before he could see the look on her face.
Loki cut through the theatre and then across the club, the lightness of his heart reverberating into his step. He felt like he was dreaming. Like he was floating.
Then he spotted someone at the bar and came crashing back to Earth.
Theo was sitting on one of the tall stools, a pint glass in front of him with a book wedged open against it. And he was looking directly at Loki. He raised a hand and wiggled his fingers in a little wave, then patted the stool beside him.
Loki sighed, then crossed the room and slung himself onto the seat beside Theo. “I know I’m not from around here,” Loki said, staring forward at the chalked drinks menu like he might make a selection, “but I don’t think many people bring books to taverns.”
Theo let the pages fall closed with a dusty flump. “And no one has called it a tavern since the days of Shakespeare.”
“Who?” Loki asked.
“You don’t know who Shakespeare was?” When Loki stared blankly at him, Theo clapped his hands with a squeak of delight. “You don’t know who Shakespeare was. Oh my God, this is incredible. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t know who Shakespeare was. So he was a poet, sort of, but he also wrote the most frequently performed plays in the history of performed plays, and there have to be a certain number of syllables in every line, and at the ends of all of them—the plays, not the lines—the lovers either marry or they end up dead.”
“Isn’t that how all love stories end?” Loki asked.
“Well, I think history does have less extreme examples.” Loki glanced at the spine to see if it was one of these Shakespearean epics. Small embossed letters spelled out Tales from the North, but before he had a chance to read the subtitle, Theo slipped the book onto his lap, out of sight. “But Shakespeare only leans into one or the other. He’s probably the best-known writer on—what did you call us? Midgard? Everyone knows him.”
“Oh, so he’s sort of like your Rajmagarfen?” Loki asked.
Now it was Theo’s turn to stare blankly. “Who’s Rajmagarfen?”
“You don’t know who Rajmagarfen is?” Loki did the same hand clap of delight—though without the squeal, as it was less dignified than he liked to be. “Oh my God, this is amazing. He’s this brilliant writer from Asgard, and in all his stories, the dead end up lovers and the married end up dead.”
Theo’s eyes narrowed. “You’re having me on.”
“I would never jest about Rajmagarfen,” Loki replied with grave sincerity.
Theo rolled his eyes and reached for his glass, mumbling around the rim. “Your father didn’t mention what a pain in the ass you would be.”
“You followed me here,” Loki said.
“No, I just came here for a nice pint of...” Theo glanced into his glass. “For a pint.”
“Of course. What a coincidence you chose to have it at the club you knew I was visiting.”
“Such a coincidence.” Theo used his finger to fish some floating chunk out of his drink, then wiped his fingers on his trousers. “Do you know her?” he asked lightly.
Loki turned to the bar. Across the room, a quartet of musicians dressed as red imps were tuning their instruments. “Who?”
“The Enchantress.” Loki continued to stare at the musicians, but he felt Theo’s eyes on him. One of the men swore loudly when he poked himself in the chin with the pitchfork prongs at the end of his violin bow. “You were hardly subtle about it, you know,” Theo said after a moment. “You’ve been dragging your feet since you arrived about getting involv
ed in any of this, but then the moment you hear her name, suddenly you’re an enthusiastic supporter of the cause. We all caught on.”
Loki sighed through his nose, relishing the long, deep breath while he weighed what to say next. “We were friends once,” he said at last. “As children.”
“So then the answer is yes.”
“Yes, I know her,” he said. “But it was a long time ago.”
“Is she an actual enchantress?”
“She was.”
“Guess you can’t use the name, then. She’s already claimed it. Did you see her?” When Loki nodded, Theo prompted. “And what do two aliens talk about when they’re reunited?”
“Oh, the usual. Discussed Ragnarok and court politics and how much muscly-er I am than my brother. We aliens are just like you, you know.” Loki squinted up at the chalk menu above the bar. “If I’m going to get a drink, do you think I’m less likely to be actually poisoned by the consumption germ or typhoid fever? Follow up question: Do you think the typhoid is a hot drink?”
“If you don’t tell me,” Theo said, “I can just assume the worst.”
“What would the worst be?”
“That you two are plotting to conquer the Earth together.”
Loki let out a shocked bark of laughter. “That’s quite a jump from a chat with an old friend.”
Theo shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past you. Perhaps I’ll report that to Mrs. S.”
“She doesn’t scare me,” Loki replied.
“She should.”
“I’ve stared down dragons.”
“So have I,” Theo replied, then drained the rest of his pint.
Loki sighed again, this time letting his spine relax so that he slumped over the bar, an overwrought gesture of surrender to cover his lie. “I asked her if she could get me back to Asgard, but she’s in exile and has no magic after so long on Earth.” He said this last part carefully to make sure Theo understood what it meant.
But Theo didn’t comment. Instead he said, “You’re truly so desperate to be away from us?” Loki might have been imagining it, but he sounded a little wounded.
