Wait.
What if it had been her all along? Heather felt a cold chill crawl across her scalp. Her father was notoriously under Daria Aristarchos’s thumb on the Gosforth school board. What if . . . what if it had all been a setup? What if Cal really wasn’t in love with Mason? Not really—not under his own power . . .
There was a knock on the door and Heather realized that she was going to have to come back to that one. Cal walked over and opened it. Mason was standing in the hall.
“Everyone is gathering in the dining hall to figure out what to do next,” Mason said to Cal by way of greeting. “I’m, um, gathering strays.” She fidgeted for a minute and then, glancing over Cal’s shoulder and seeing that Heather was awake, said, “Can I talk to Heather for a minute? Alone?”
“You go on ahead, Cal,” Heather said, standing up and smoothing the bedspread. “We’ll be there in a second.”
Before Cal slipped past Mason and out of the door, one hand lifted involuntarily to touch her cheek. She turned away from it before his fingers had a chance to make contact. His shoulders stiffened, but he just kept going, his footsteps quick and angry, down the hall.
Mason turned back to Heather. “Am I ever glad you’re awake.”
“Yeah. I would be too,” Heather said. “If ‘awake’ wasn’t currently synonymous with ‘migraine.’”
“You gonna be okay?” Mason asked quietly, nodding her head backward in the direction of Cal’s retreating form.
Heather knew she wasn’t referring to the lingering effects of the Miasma curse and said, “Sure.” Then she sighed and leaned against the wall. “I mean, I guess I can actually say that I was the girl who dated the Greek god at her high school, right? That’s gotta count for something later in life . . . assuming there is a later in life for us. Gotta say, I was a little surprised when I found out.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“Really? Because I’m kind of under the impression that you’re, like, a charter member of the same club, Starling.” Heather stared at her with keen eyes. “I mean, I get—as much as it’s possible to get something like this—that the whole Gos student body are all weirdly dedicated in service to some pantheon or other. Whether they know it or not.”
“Mostly not, I think.”
“Right.” Heather nodded. “But it seems you got the full-on mythological embodiment deal. And no, I am not jealous. I’m just not sure how it happened.”
“It was only recently.” Mason sighed. “Not my idea, and I’m not even sure exactly where ‘Valkyrie’ fits in on the whole semi-demi-full-blown-god pie chart.”
“How? Was it all that stuff that went down with Rory on the train?”
“Yeah. And even then, nobody—not even Rory—expected that it would happen like that.” Mason shook her head. “It was an accident. Well, actually, it wasn’t. It was . . . more like a setup.”
Mason gave her the point-form rundown of what had happened to her in Asgard. When she got to the part about casually running into Taggert Overlea on the field of battle in front of Odin’s legendary feast hall and how Tag had actually led some of the Einherjar against the draugr, Heather boggled at her, mouth agape.
“Oh my god!” she exclaimed. “Local ape makes good! Okay, that actually makes me feel a little better.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, the mess of her hair curtaining her face for a moment. “I mean, I almost lost it when your dad—” She broke off abruptly and bit her lip.
“When my dad what?” Mason asked.
Heather shoved her hair off her face with her forearm and her eyes opened, her weary gaze locking with Mason’s own. She was silent for a moment before she said, “When he killed Tag.”
“What?”
Heather told her then what had happened on the train—how Gunnar Starling had torn the life force out of Tag’s body right in front of her—and Mason couldn’t even muster up real surprise. Her father was a madman. And he was a murderer. Her brother was sick and twisted and full of an unfathomable darkness. And her other brother had killed Mason when he was a child. Was it any wonder then that she herself was destined to end the world?
“You’re not.”
She glanced back at Heather, having drifted away for a moment inside her own grim thoughts. “Sorry?”
“I said ‘You’re not,’” Heather repeated.
“Not what?”
“Whatever it is you think you’re going to do. Or be. You’re not defined by your family. Or your destiny. Or any damned thing else. Anything else except you.” Heather huffed in frustration. “It’s all just so much bullshit, Starling. It’s . . . it’s marketing. It’s what they want you to buy.”
“Yesterday I would have believed that with all my heart, Heather. But yesterday I wasn’t a walking prophecy.” She shook her head. “Right now, everyone is holding out hope that Fenn is just a guy who happens to have an unfortunately prophetic name and, coincidentally—or, y’know, thanks to yours stupidly—happens to also now be a wolf.”
Heather’s brow furrowed. “And that’s not the case?”
“He’s down in a tunnel underneath the school right now having a little father-son chat . . . with Loki.”
“Oh. Shit.”
“This whole thing is my fault,” Mason groaned. “Fennrys wasn’t Fenris until I made him that way.”
“So unmake him.”
“How?”
“Find a way.”
Mason shot her a look. “I know a way. Let Roth kill Fennrys before Fennrys kills my father in an epic battle at the end of the world.”
“Yeah . . . no.” Heather shook her head. “Find another way.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Away from Cal and the others.” Mason dug around in the pocket of her jeans. “Listen. What you did back at the Plaza? That was a really brave thing. I didn’t want you to have to run around without that kind of protection, so I rifled through Rory’s room and found this.” She pulled out a golden glowing acorn and held it up. “I figured he would have left one hidden in his room just in case. Roth will know what to carve on it to make it work. Toby probably does too, but Toby’s coming with me. I need him.”
“And where are you going?”
“I’m taking Fennrys and we’re leaving. I have to keep him safe, but we also have to find . . . something. I’m not sure what yet, but it might be the key to stopping this. To maybe—like you said—finding another way. One where Fennrys doesn’t wind up getting killed.”
“And you’re not telling the others?”
Mason shook her head. “Just you.”
“Okay, then. I guess I’ll just stick with the Man from Atlantis until this blows over.” Her gaze drifted back down the empty hallway.
“Oh, Heather . . .” Mason sighed. “Why are you doing this to yourself? You know you could just walk away from him.”
“You’ve forgotten what I told you about love already?”
Mason snorted, remembering. “You’re not a drooling brain-dead.”
“Close enough.” Heather shrugged. “Only it’s more than that. Look, Starling . . . I saw the way Queen D looked at her darling boy when Cal got all glowy eyed with the trident and the demigod thing and the stabbing of your boyfriend. I know that look. Cal’s mom might think her son is some kind of freaky unnatural hybrid, but she’s smart enough to know that he’s a powerful freaky unnatural hybrid. And Daria’s scruples—assuming she has any to begin with—don’t really stick when there’s power to be had.”
“Wow,” Mason murmured, thinking of her father.
“Yeah.” Heather sighed. “I don’t know if she hates Cal or loves him to death. But I do know she’ll use him if she can. I don’t know how, and I don’t know if I can do anything to stop that from happening, but I know I have to try. You get that, right?”
“More than anybody.” Mason raised her gaze to Heather’s face. “Did you ever think high school would turn out to be this complicated?”
“I did . . . just not complicated like thi
s.” Heather laughed. “I thought, you know, I’d have to deal with peer pressure and underage drinking and sex and flunking classes because I spent too much time shopping or because I wasn’t smart enough.”
“Yeah. A few days ago I thought blowing the Nationals trials was the end of the world.” Mason snorted. “Perspective, huh?”
“Yup. Sucks.”
“I also thought you hated me not so long ago,” Mason said, wanting to get that off her chest. In case there wasn’t another opportunity.
Heather looked at her and smiled. “I know. I tried.” The smile faded. “Be careful, Starling. Okay?”
“Yeah. You too, Palmerston.”
She forced the smile back onto her face. “Hey—I’ve got a golden acorn! Plus, you know, I’m packing heat . . .”
“What?”
Heather’s purse was sitting on the end of Cal’s bed. She grabbed it and opened it so Mason could peer inside. There was something shiny nestled in there, beside Heather’s phone and a makeup compact. Mason looked closer at the thing that resembled a pistol with . . . wings.
“Is that, like, a baby crossbow?”
“Yup.”
Mason raised an eyebrow. “Where did you get a crossbow?”
“Uh . . . I think a god gave it to me.”
Mason stared at Heather and waited. These kinds of conversations were becoming disconcertingly commonplace between the two girls. Heather told her briefly of her encounter with the young man who’d called himself Valen on the train back into Manhattan on the night Mason had gone somewhere over the rainbow, as it were.
“Wow. I mean, I guess it makes sense in a weird way.” Mason shrugged when she was done with her tale. “I know most of them faded away, but some gods—like Rafe—never left this world.”
“Yeah?” Heather looked at her sideways. “Maybe I’m just getting cynical, but it seems funny to think that Cupid was one of those.”
“Ha!” Mason laughed. “Yeah. How does that old song go? ‘What the world needs now is love, sweet love . . .’”
“And there he was, all the time. Wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket, riding the subway late at night.” She shook her head, remembering. “He was so hot.”
“Would’ve been a little disappointing if he wasn’t,” Mason said. “What do you think he meant when he said he’d been trying to find you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to know.” Heather put up a hand, forestalling further discussion of the matter. “And anyway, it’ll have to wait until after the world ends now, I guess. Or, y’know, doesn’t.” She closed her purse back up and patted it, as if to make sure that the little weapon hadn’t vanished.
“Cupid’s arrows.” Mason shook her head in wonderment. “I think you’d better be really careful with that.”
“That’s what Gwen said.”
Mason shivered at the sound of her name. “I can’t believe she—”
“Yeah.” Heather held up her hand again. “Let’s not talk about that either just right now. Okay?”
“Okay.” Suddenly, Mason folded her into a fierce hug. “Thank you for being my friend, Heather.”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get all sentimental on me, Starling.” Heather rolled her eyes, but there was a distinct lack of snark to her tone. She paused awkwardly, as if searching for something un-mushy to say in return. But then her expression altered and she said, “Hey, do you have a phone?”
“Uh . . .” Mason fished the one she’d taken off Rory’s desk out of her back pocket and held it up. “Yeah. No idea where mine is, but I took Rory’s from his room. I don’t know why, though; it won’t do me much good.” She hit the home button and the four-digit password screen popped up. “It’s locked.”
“Huh,” Heather said, frowning, as she plucked the thing from Mason’s hand. “Let’s see . . . he’s not smart enough to be subtle . . .” She stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth and tried a couple of combinations that she figured someone like Mason’s brother, with his delusions of godhood, might use.
“F.A.T.E. . . .” Nothing. “O.D.I.N. . . . T.H.O.R. . . .” Still nothing. “L.O.K.I.?”
“Try ‘N.O.R.N.,’” Mason suggested.
“Nada.” Heather shook her head. “How about R.U.N.E. . . . dammit!”
The phone screen politely informed them that this next attempt would be their last and then the phone would lock permanently.
Mason put a hand out and said, “Wait. We’re going about this all wrong. It’s Rory, for crying out loud. What’s the most important thing in his world?”
Heather waited, peering over Mason’s shoulder as she carefully tapped in the letters R . . . O . . . R . . . Y . . . and the home screen sprang to life.
“Wow.” Heather blinked. “It really is all about him, isn’t it?”
“As far as he’s concerned, yeah.” Mason snorted. “I should have known. That self-absorbed little weasel.”
“Here.” Heather took the phone back and programmed her number into it. “Now we can stay in touch. Just do me a favor: If it looks like we might lose and there’s a chance he gets this back? Delete my digits. Late-night postapocalyptic drunk dialing from your creep-o brother, I do not need.”
Mason laughed.
“Go. I’ll go down and stall Cal and the others for as long as I can so you guys can make a clean getaway. Keep me in the loop, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And try not to do anything insanely stupid.”
“I’ll try,” Mason said. But she didn’t bother promising, knowing that was one promise she was unlikely to keep.
XVIII
Loki was gone when Mason finally got back down to the caverns. But Fennrys was sitting on the stone bench that Gwen had made into a bed, his eyes closed, and a smile curving the corners of his mouth. Mason silently crossed the floor and bent down to kiss him.
He kissed her back, slowly, deliciously, and said, “I can still smell sunshine and apple blossoms in your hair. Chalk up another win for the Safe Harbor technique.”
“Yup.” Mason grinned down at him. “Except the shirtless factor didn’t translate.”
“And I’m not soaking wet.”
He opened his eyes and his gaze was placid. Tranquil. Maybe just a little on the smoldering-with-desire side. And Mason felt her heartbeat quicken in response. Suddenly it felt very warm in the cavern.
“Did you find Toby?” she asked.
“I did.” Fenn nodded. “Went topside after the dream-vision faded and found him wrangling a stray student down to the dining hall. Said he’ll meet us here when he can get away unnoticed. So . . . what’s this idea of yours?” He pulled her forward so that she had to put one knee up beside him on the bench to brace herself or risk falling on top of him.
“We’re going for a little ride,” Mason said and then felt her cheeks grow even hotter at the expression that crossed Fennrys’s face. “On a train.”
His smile was languid. “Because that worked out so well last time,” he said.
“Inside the train, not on the roof, and heading in the other direction.” She tilted her head. “Although, weirdly, our destination is Valhalla.”
“Seriously?”
“The one in Westchester,” she explained. “Picturesque little hamlet of just over three thousand people, none of whom know that Ragnarok is about to barrel over the horizon, and who hopefully never will.”
“Ye olde family homestead, huh?”
“It has to be.”
It really does, she thought a bit desperately. It’s the only clue we have.
“Well . . . it’s a long shot and more likely than not, wishful thinking.” Fenn lifted a shoulder. “But it’s the only shot we’ve got. And before she pushed me down a hill, my mother said something about traveling in style; a private train fits that bill. Only thing is, didn’t your daddy leave that particular toy of his on the other side of a busted-up Hell Gate?”
“Yup. He did.” Mason nodded. “But . . . riddle me this: When is a train not a t
rain?”
Fennrys rolled an eye at her. “Is this one of those Victorian brain teaser puzzles? ’Cause I’ve always sucked at those. Even when I was a Victorian.”
Mason blinked at Fennrys for a moment. It was easy to forget sometimes that he was several centuries older than she was. Good thing he didn’t act his age, she thought. She grinned at him and ran a fingertip down the length of his nose.
“The answer,” she said, “is when I’m a freaking Valkyrie with awesome superpowers, and the engine of the train is an eight-legged horse. That’s when.”
“That makes even less sense than Lewis Carroll.” Fennrys grunted. Still, he didn’t seem to mind. He moved his head so that he could kiss her. Mason found herself having a hard time remembering what it was she was supposed to be doing down there in that cavern with him.
Right. Save the Wolf. Save the world. Let’s do that. First.
She pushed herself back off the bench and took a deep breath.
“Focus.”
“Right.” He nodded, his blue gaze glittering dangerously. “Horse. Train.”
“Yes,” she said sternly.
“How?” he asked.
“I just remembered something I saw when I was on the train the first time,” she explained, “when it was crossing over the Hell Gate. I thought I was having a delusional episode, but now I’m not so sure. Now I think that what I saw was part of the whole Valkyrie thing. Kind of like with the carriage in Central Park. I think I can do this.”
Mason walked slowly over to the mouth of the tunnel and ran her hands over the intricate, knotted carvings that ran in a broad band around the opening. The designs were similar to the patterns on Fennrys’s medallion and the carvings on the Odin spear, and she recognized them now, with a kind of bone-deep familiarity, for what they were. Ancient Norse knot work carved with charms and subtle symbols, imbued with a kind of magick all their own. There were curses and warnings and spells woven into the pictograms, and Mason, with her Valkyrie eyes, deciphered them at a glance. One of them—the image of a fabulous beast, its seeming overabundance of limbs tangled around one another—told her of the uses of this particular tunnel. She knew what it was, what it housed, and where it went.
Transcendent Page 17
