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Mist was too numb to move. “All-father?” she whispered.

“Did I give you permission to abandon our search?” he asked.

Hild and Rota gaped at Odin and fell to their knees. He ignored them. Murmurs and oaths rose from the Alfar behind them.

“What did you do to Hel’s dead?” Mist said, staring at the place where Geir had been standing a minute before.

“The slayers of my servants? I gave them true death. Loki has made his move too soon.” His eye narrowed. “How did he set her free?”

Mist knew she couldn’t answer his question, or Danny would be in even greater danger. She looked from Hild to Rota with a plea in her eyes, hoping they understood. Rota still didn’t know anything about Danny, and Mist had asked Hild not to speak of him to Freya. But if they told Odin what Hel had said …

“Hel said that Loki knew you’d raided his mansion,” Mist said, “and he brought her through from Ginnungagap.”

“Then he has advanced further than I thought possible,” Odin rumbled. “Who was this phantom with whom you spoke?”

At least now she could tell the truth. “There’s some kind of rebellion among the dead,” she said, “a group that doesn’t want to follow Hel or Loki against you.”

“Indeed?” Odin’s ferocious expression began to clear. “What more did it say?”

“He … it and its companions didn’t have anything to do with killing—” She clenched her teeth and turned back for the camp. “I have to get back to my people.”

“
Yours?
” Odin said.

“Some victims may still be alive,” she said, hardening her heart. “With your permission, All-father.… Rota, Hild, please see to the mortals at the light rail stop. If they’re dead, we have to dispose of the bodies.”

“And witnesses?”

“Will anyone else believe what they might have seen?”

“We’ll take care of it,” Rota said, giving Mist a long, probing look as she and Hild got to their feet.

“Valkyrie,” Odin said, “Alfar. Say nothing of my presence here. The time has not yet come to reveal myself.”

Hild and Rota exchanged glances, but they bowed acknowledgment, and the Alfar murmured agreement. They scattered, leaving Mist alone with Odin again.

“This attack was no coincidence,” Odin said, glaring at Mist as if she were responsible. “Assign others to see to the fallen. You and I will resume our search at once.”

No one saw him return to the warehouse. Mist hung back. Alfar and mortals were already walking among the dead, checking pulses and counting the losses.

Captain Taylor found her and spoke softly in her ear. Forty-six. Forty-three mortals and three Alfar driven from their bedrolls, their bodies gaunt and leached of color, their eyes unrelieved black.

Shaking with impotent rage, Mist returned to the warehouse, and she and Odin began again. He passed by the circles of Mist’s magic without pause, and this time there was no incident to interrupt his work.

When he returned to his physical body, he was smiling in a way that chilled Mist to the core.

“It is done,” he said. “I have found him.”

Arrangements were made quickly. It was obvious that Odin could no longer maintain his invisibility among the troops he chose to accompany him, so he summoned eight of his hidden fighters … the Einherjar he had been so reluctant to waste on “minor skirmishes.” Mist was grateful that she didn’t recognize any of them from her years in Asgard, especially the warriors she’d whisked away from mortal battlefields centuries ago.

Unable to think of any way to delay Odin further, Mist braced herself for the worst. But as soon as she, Odin, and his guard reached the deserted crack house in the mission, Mist realized that the All-father had made a rather crucial mistake.

Danny and Sleipnir were there, together. But they weren’t alone.

For a handful of seconds, Mist shared the advantage of Odin’s concealing spell and caught a glimpse of a strange tableau, frozen as if in the flash of a camera. Sleipnir was tied up at one side of the filthy room; Ryan was trussed like an underfed turkey on the other side; and Dainn, his hand resting lightly on Ryan’s shoulder, watched Loki speak urgently to Danny beside a sagging couch in the center of the stained and littered floor.

A dozen thoughts flashed through Mist’s mind in those few seconds: who had found Danny and Sleipnir first, Dainn or Loki? What had happened to Fenrir? How had Ryan gotten himself mixed up in this Nornsforsaken mess? And why in Hel wasn’t Danny doing anything to get himself, his father, and the horse out of this place?

All eyes, even Sleipnir’s, snapped to Mist as she moved forward, breaking the spell. Dainn met her gaze, his eyes filled with misery, anger, and shame. She understood what he was trying to tell her; he wasn’t with Loki willingly, but Ryan’s situation had tied his hands.

Loki’s face betrayed genuine shock, and she realized that he hadn’t expected to be found here. She gripped Kettlingr’s sheath, a profound hatred seething in her gut.

“Welcome, Freya’s daughter,” Loki said, rising quickly as Danny broke away to huddle beneath Sleipnir’s massive forelegs. “What an unexpected pleasure. May I offer my congra—”

He broke off as Odin made his grand entrance, clad in a literally gleaming shirt of mail, Gungnir in hand and his Einherjar behind him. He paused to stare at Loki in surprise, which quickly turned to calculation.

“Slanderer,” he said. “Did you really think to stop me with a few hundred of Hel’s minions?”

This time, Loki did a better job of hiding his consternation. “All-father,” he said with a very slight bow. “How I have missed our little chats.”

“You will miss them even more when you are dead,” Odin said.

“I shall regret not sharing the paradise you will create out of this world,” Loki said. “How many of Midgard’s people must die to make it suitable for the All-father?”

Mist wondered if Odin would throw caution to the winds and attack Loki here and now, when the enemy was alone and vulnerable. Loki was clearly preparing to repel a magical assault. But Odin seemed to dismiss his enemy as he would a yapping mongrel. His gaze swept over Dainn and Ryan and came to rest on Sleipnir, who tossed his head and snorted.

“Come, my pretty one,” he said, holding out his free hand.

The horse danced away on his eight legs, and Danny, who had been staring at Odin with wide, fearful eyes, clutched at the trailing ends of the horse’s mane and retreated with him.

“Ah,” Odin said. “And here is the child. Do you remember me, boy?”

Mist started. Odin
had
seen Danny before. Loki’s eyes narrowed.

“I don’t think my sons wish to see
you
at the moment,” he said with a little too much nonchalance, his eyes darting back and forth between Odin and Mist. “They are engaged in a private conference.”

“It is not honorable to teach your children to ignore your guests,” Odin said, hooking his thumbs in his wide leather belt. “But Mist assures me that you turned this boy against her and my other servants, and that he is innocent of your evil.” He smiled through his beard. “She also suggests that you may have some affection for the child. Now you have the chance to spare him the fate that will befall the children of Angrboda.”

“Your arrogance outpaces your wisdom, Lord of Gallows,” Loki hissed.

Odin’s lid dropped over his eye in an expression of boredom, and he looked at Dainn. “How did this treacherous mongrel come to be here?”

Dainn stepped away from Ryan, head lowered and eyes dark with hatred. Loki spoke before Dainn could open his mouth.

“I took him from
her,
” he said with a poisonous glance at Mist. “Or didn’t you know he was Mist’s prisoner?”

“Oh, I knew,” Odin said, neatly disabusing Mist of her hope that he had been unaware of Dainn’s presence in camp.
“
Do you expect me to believe that
you
set him free?”

“No,” Dainn said quickly. “I escaped myse—”

“You do not guard your resources adequately,” Loki said, interrupting Dainn and letting Mist off the hook for reasons she couldn’t fathom. “Or perhaps you are simply too arrogant to value them. I knew the elf could find my son, since he and Danny became fast friends while he lodged with me.”

“Fast friends,” Odin said, as if he found the notion amusing. “Perhaps the boy’s
friend
can save his own life by convincing your son to return my mount. I would be reluctant to harm the child.”

“You will never touch—” Dainn began.

“Dainn cannot help you,” Loki said, talking over him again. “The Steed is no longer yours, Murderer of Children.”

Mist knew that Loki was referring to the Aesir’s killing of his own Jotunn son, Narfi, in Asgard. The taunt was effective. Odin advanced on Loki, Gungnir raised.

Sleipnir reared, thrashing the air with his forehooves. Dainn started toward Danny, paused, and looked back at Ryan with eloquent distress.

“All-father,” Mist said, stepping in front of Odin, “there will be time enough to kill the Slanderer, and make him suffer before he dies.”

A heavy hand struck out at her shoulder. The blow was painful, but Mist had achieved her purpose. Odin stopped.

“Watch Laufeyson,” he said coldly. He stared at Dainn. “You. Bring the horse to me, or I shall kill you and take the boy.”

“No,” Dainn said.

“
No,
” Mist said at the same moment.

Odin looked down at her, brow furrowed. “No?”

“Do you think I am incapable of defending my own?” Loki snarled. He raised his hands, and fire danced at the tips of his fingers. Odin bared his teeth, the muscles of his arms bunching to lift Gungnir again.

“Are you ready for war?” Mist said, looking from god to trickster and back again. “Here and now, in such a place, without your armies behind you, or any hope of glory?”

Loki scowled, but Odin’s laugh nearly knocked her out of her boots.

“My Mist,” he said. “I would not wish to disappoint you.” He smiled at Loki. “You are fortunate to have such a champion,” he said with heavy irony, “though I suspect it is not you she wishes to defend.” His gaze fell on Dainn. “Why, I wonder, when you would have betrayed her to Freya?”

Defiance flared in Dainn’s eyes. “I am not what I was, All-father.”

No, Mist thought, he was not. Odin had cursed him, Freya and Loki had used him, and the beast had stolen his will again and again. But his loyalties were as clear as his dislike of Odin, and Mist realized that he’d reached the limits of what he could or would endure without taking a very foolish risk.

She knew of only one way to reach him.

Convince Danny to let Sleipnir go to Odin,
she said, projecting her thoughts into his mind.

Dainn blinked and glanced from Loki to the All-father.
Can you protect Danny and Ryan from Odin?
he asked bluntly.

I will,
she promised.
There is no other way for this to end without violence.

She drew a mental image of Dainn giving way to the beast and attacking Odin. Dainn grimaced and released his breath in a sharp burst of air. He started toward Danny and Sleipnir.

Loki spun around, ran to Ryan, and dragged the young man to his feet. He held a dagger to Ryan’s throat. Mist lunged toward them, but she stopped when Loki nicked Ryan’s neck with the blade.

“Help Odin, and you know what happens to this mortal,” Loki said.

“Don’t … listen,” Ryan said, his Adam’s apple bobbing against the dagger’s edge. “You have to live … for all of us.”

“A prophecy?” Loki asked, grinning at Dainn. “How trustworthy is your seer?”

Mist moved as if she were going after Sleipnir, but at the last moment she pivoted and went straight at Loki. Laufeyson shoved Ryan away and moved to parry Kettlingr, a slender silver sword of ice in his hand. As their blades clashed, Odin advanced on Sleipnir.

Mist was too busy defending herself to see what happened immediately afterward. She heard Sleipnir’s defiant squeal and a wail of protest from Danny, then caught a glimpse of Dainn streaking toward his son.

A moment later Dainn was pulling Danny away from Sleipnir, who was unable to escape Odin’s iron grip on his jaw. Odin’s Einherjar formed a cordon around horse and god. Loki broke free and began to chant, fire encircling the green of his irises.

The air turned cold enough to deaden Mist’s fingers, and she almost lost her grip on Kettlingr. Loki cast a net of ice-rope at Dainn, who raised his hand and shattered it with a touch. Magical energy burst around him, gone as soon as it appeared. He ran to Ryan, shifted Danny onto his shoulder, and began to tear at the young man’s bonds.

Take Ryan and go!
Mist told him.

Dainn stopped with the rope still in his hands, his face a mask of concentration. Mist could feel some interior struggle going on between him and his son, and another within Dainn himself. Danny didn’t want to leave Sleipnir, and Dainn didn’t want to leave
her
.

Paralyzed by doubt, Mist sheathed Kettlingr and glanced at Odin. Sleipnir’s eyes were glassy, his skin twitching as if he were being bitten by clouds of flies. Odin’s expression was stuck somewhere between bewildered and dumbfounded.

“All-father?” Mist said.

He didn’t so much as glance in her direction. It came to her that he was locked in some kind of spell … and
not
one of Loki’s making.

But Loki had not been idle. Every one of the Einherjar was trapped in a shell of ice.

“Shall we cry truce,” Loki said, flexing his fingers, “or shall I kill Odin while he is unable to defend himself?”

Mist felt the Eitr gathering around her. “I don’t need Odin’s warriors to stop you, Scar-lip,” she said.

“Why should you try to stop me?” Loki asked. “He’ll kill Dainn, and undoubtedly our son as well.”

“He has what he wants. You let Danny, Dainn, and Ryan go, and I won’t stop you from running.”

“You’ve become much better at bluffing,” Loki said, “but whatever you may have gained from Freya’s death, you are still not my equal.”

“Don’t test her,” Dainn said. He pressed Danny’s face into his shoulder. “You have no idea what she may unleash.”