“Oh, I think I did,” Freyr replied. “Wait a second. Bonnie? Einherjar Bonnie? Saga’s manager at Powells?”

  Thor grabbed the nature god by the jacket collar. “If you say anything, I swear . . .”

  Freyr laughed. “Yeah. Saga’s going to kill you.”

  Heimdall waited for the room to stop spinning, and for a sense of reality to return. But none of this could really be happening, could it? How had a simple sightseeing trip to his own homeland turned into such a turkey circus in such a short space of time?

  Freya sat next to him on the bench as Thor and Freyr conferred in one corner of the museum, while Saga gave Sally a Viking history lesson in front of another village diorama.

  “When do the Frost Giants expect us to meet them in Trondheim?” Freya asked.

  Heimdall pulled the ransom note out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her. “Two days. Assuming we’re still standing by then.”

  It was more than just the blow to his head that kept knocking him off his feet. His strength was waning now with each passing day and hour, but no one wanted to talk about it. If the Frost Giants had abducted Maggie when Heimdall was at his full strength, there would have been no question about charging in to rescue her and putting those loathsome creatures back into the ice. But in their current circumstances, Heimdall would have to be very careful. He hated feeling simultaneously restless and weak.

  Freya read over the handwritten note, then turned to Heimdall with a flicker of a smile. “What do you say we pay them a visit ahead of schedule?”

  “That works for me.” Heimdall motioned Thor and Freyr over. “We’ll send you and Freyr up the mountain to confirm the stronghold is there.”

  Heimdall felt Freya’s protest before she opened her mouth. He turned to her. “You’re not going anywhere near that place. Not Saga, either, and especially not Sally. If they’re after brides, do you really think we should be sending our women to their front door?”

  “Men’s work.” Thor smirked down at Freya. She rolled her eyes.

  “Call Frigga. Let her know what we’ve found out.” Heimdall touched his brow and winced. His head felt more tender, not less. “At least, tell her what we think we know.”

  Heimdall glanced up at Freyr. “We’ll need a base of operations, someplace close to the mountain.”

  “But not too close,” Thor added.

  “I’m on it.” Freyr walked back toward the museum entrance and headed for the reception desk.

  Saga’s phone rang, and she checked the display. “It’s Frigga.” She turned her back on the group and held the phone to her ear.

  Heimdall tried to hold his head steady and keep his thoughts clear. “Right. Freyr and Thor head up the mountain tonight—”

  “Why wait ’til tonight?” Thor rested his hands on his hips.

  Heimdall frowned up at him. “So it will be dark?”

  Thor shook his head. “I think they hit you harder than you thought. It’s summer. We’re in white nights.”

  “Okay.” Heimdall shrugged off his embarrassment. “So you go whenever you want.” He sighed and tried to ignore the pounding in his skull. “Then we’ll have a better idea of what we’re dealing with. In the meantime, we’ll have Frigga mobilize reinforcements—”

  “I don’t think so,” Saga cut in. “Frigga’s not coming. She can’t.”

  She stared at the phone in her hand, her face pale. “It’s Odin . . . He collapsed.”

  9

  Sally compared the view out the open window with the picture postcard she’d bought at the Lofotr Viking Museum in Borg. Across the Austnes Fjord, the mountain Higravstinden rose majestically out of the water, its frosty ridge glinting in the sunlight—just like the postcard photo.

  She wanted to send it home to her parents but had no idea what to tell them.

  Dear Mom and Dad, she imagined herself scrawling across the back, I thought I’d spend my trip with Heimdall and Maggie taking in the sights and learning about Norwegian history, but Heimdall got ambushed by a gang of Frost Giants and they kidnapped Maggie. Frost Giants are big and mean. We visited Iduna’s Grove, but the immortal apples had all been stolen, so we took a ferry to some islands in the Norwegian Sea. We’re going to storm a castle inside a mountain. We did go to a museum, but just to look at a map, and then we left. I made some new runes out of some stuff I found on the ground in the mists, but they’re not working right. So, pretty normal stuff for my life. Love, Sally.

  Yeah, that would go over just swell.

  Sally glanced at her watch. 10:17. She didn’t know if that was a.m. or p.m., plus she couldn’t remember if she’d changed over to local time after the plane landed in Oslo. She unbuckled the watch and stuffed it into her backpack.

  Freyr had found this place, a quiet guesthouse halfway between Vestpollen and Laupstad on an inlet of the Norwegian Sea. Elevated on stilts, the single-story structure jutted out over the water, with the back deck’s stairs leading down to a small dock. Almost every room in the house had an unobstructed view of Higravstinden, where the Frost Giants were supposed to be keeping Maggie, and probably Loki and Iduna as well.

  There were no other houses in sight, though it was only a couple of kilometers to the next town. The water was clear and still, a perfect mirror of the mountains and sky. The occasional breeze drifting in through the window was crisp and clean. Sally couldn’t believe she’d really made it to Norway. Being so close to this ancient mountain was everything Sally imagined her summer vacation could be.

  Aside from Frost Giants across the water, the possibility that she might be captured as a war bride, and the frequent outbursts of argument and lament from the immortals in the living room, it was practically ideal.

  Sally turned her attention to the runes on the bed. She’d laid a thick towel beneath them after a third of the symbols started sparking on her first spell attempt and nearly set the bedspread on fire.

  Sally arranged the runes in order from Fehu to Dagaz. The flakes of russet shell were surprisingly uniform in shape and size, but as near as she could tell they were naturally formed and not manufactured. None of the others—not even the shaman Freya nor her nature-god brother—had been able to identify the material, but Sally figured anything that came from the mists so near Iduna’s Grove had to be imbued with a magick of its own.

  And that’s what seemed to be the trouble. Despite her initial success using the runes to lead them to the Lofoten Islands, whatever was in these russet shell flakes was a force Sally didn’t understand and had no idea how to control.

  After the fire scare, Sally went down to the dock and collected a cup of water from the fjord. Managarm had consecrated his bastardized Yggdrasil runes with blood, but there was no way the Rune Witch was going to do anything the way that traitor had. Instead, she dipped each of her new runes into the cup with a simple directive: “May the waters of your homeland bind you to my will.”

  Still, she had a fire extinguisher by her feet and a pair of oven mitts on the bedside table. Just in case.

  “I want you to behave now, all right?” Sally held her hands out over the runes. “I’m looking for information about any weaknesses that our enemies might have.”

  Pertho shifted slightly on an angle, of its own accord.

  Sally frowned and ran through the symbol’s possible meanings. Mystery, unpredictability. Karma, Saturn, the color black. The Norns.

  “So are you telling me I should call up the Norse Fates and ask them?”

  Jera spun in a circle and Mannaz skittered halfway across the towel.

  “Okay,” Sally rubbed her chin with consternation. “So now that’s also reward—or rosemary—combined with spiritual consciousness . . .”

  Before she could complete her thought, three more runes—Isa, Ingwaz, and Ansuz—leapt straight up in the air, while Algiz and Laguz flipped themselves over.

  Sally leaned away, not wanting to be struck in the face by flying symbols. “What is this? Popcorn runes?”

  The next thing she knew, the entire collection was jitter-bugging across the bed. Berkana jumped about like a flea. Teiwaz played bumper-cars with the other symbols, knocking Othila and Hagalaz to the carpeted floor where they continued to dance around. Sally barely caught Wunjo before it flew out the open window.

  She shut the window and clutched Wunjo tight in her fingers, though she could feel the rough edges digging into her skin. She dropped the rune into the hollow of her knitted cap and held it closed in her fist. She scooped up each rune in turn and thrust them all into the hat though she had to reach under the bed several times to capture Raido, which kept jolting across the floor. She finally shoved the last rune into her makeshift bag and secured them with a hair ribbon wound tightly around the cap’s scrunched cuff.

  Sally sat on the floor and took a moment to slow her breathing. What in the world?!

  She looked through the window again at Higravstinden, wondering if the proximity to the Frost Giants might be interfering with her work. But that didn’t make any sense. From collecting the flakes and inscribing them with the runic symbols to consecrating them with water from the fjord, Sally couldn’t think what she had done wrong.

  She shivered. This wasn’t exactly unfamiliar territory. Last October, after poring over mythological lore and astronomical calculations for months, she’d been sure she had her spells worked out with absolute precision, and she’d still managed to nearly destroy the world.

  The runes continued to dance and buck in the makeshift bag on her lap.

  Thor crept up the rocky path, hugging the side of the mountain. He slipped on gravel underfoot, sending showers of pebbles and larger chunks of rock over the side of the path and down into one of the false valleys nestled between the mountain ridges.

  “Troll tonsils!” Thor growled, sending down another shower of loose rock.

  Lying flat on his stomach on a grassy ledge several yards ahead, Freyr scowled over his shoulder at his unwieldy cousin. “Think you could be any more obvious?”

  Thor pushed himself away from the rocky slope and marched directly toward Freyr. He towered over him.

  “I am the god of thunder and lightning!” he bellowed with satisfaction, then grimaced when his booming voice echoed across the mountain range.

  Freyr rolled over on his back. “Yeah, but you’re crap at reconnaissance.”

  The nature god stretched out on the grass and stared up at the bright, late afternoon sky. “Do you ever miss these summer nights of endless sunlight? The deep dark of winter?”

  Thor snorted. “You’re waxing poetic now? I thought you were supposed to be surveilling the terrain below.”

  Freyr lifted his eyebrows and hooked a thumb toward his chest. “Nature god, remember?” He propped himself up on his elbows in the grass. “Anyway, as much as it may pain you, I think we’re going to have to do this my way.”

  Thor kicked at the rocks in the path. “You are no warrior.” He started to cross his arms over his chest, but then let them drop to his sides. “Although you were rather impressive against those bulldozers last fall.”

  Freyr turned back over onto his stomach and gazed down at the valley pockets and across at the surrounding peaks.

  “And you single-handedly took on a newly awakened Berserker—and lost, as I recall,” Thor added with a hint of mischief. “Took your phone, stole your keys . . .”

  Ignoring the taunts, Freyr waved Thor over. “Freya seemed convinced there would be some kind of castle or other fortified building up here—excuse me, in here. But I’m not seeing any evidence of it.”

  Thor sank to his knees, crawled forward, and lay on his side next to Freyr on the grass. “It wouldn’t be difficult to defend a stronghold from such a position. Elevation is nearly always an advantage.”

  “So you’d better climb up someplace really high before Saga finds out you’re dating her boss.” Freyr chuckled.

  Thor kept quiet.

  “What? No witty comeback?” Freyr grinned.

  Thor sighed. “There’s no point going round-and-round about it. I’ve been seeing Bonnie. Lately of the Einherjar, I’ll remind you. You saw how she handled herself against those Berserkers in the field.”

  “Yeah. I suppose that explains the attraction.”

  Thor felt a glimmer of a smile on his lips as he looked down at the valley. “She’s kind to me. I feel at ease with her. She makes me laugh.”

  “So,” Freyr replied. “Do I hear the pitter-patter of little Viking boots?”

  “You’re one to talk,” Thor shot back. “With the human witch mooning over you all the time.”

  “Yeah. I need to do something about that. Put a stop to it.”

  “Do it soon. No good can come of it.”

  Freyr closed his eyes and rested his head on his forearms. He moaned slightly as he exhaled. Thor poked him in the ribs. Freyr flinched, but his reaction was delayed.

  “No sleeping on the mission, soldier,” Thor said, trying to cajole his cousin. But Freyr wasn’t biting.

  “I’m beginning to feel it,” Freyr replied.

  Thor frowned. This wasn’t good. Odin had collapsed, and Frigga was feeling weak. Heimdall’s condition couldn’t be explained by a simple concussion, even if he had gotten hit in the head by a Frost Giant, and Freya was becoming more emotional by the minute. Despite the occasional bluster, Thor himself was feeling almost even-keeled, calm, reasonable. And he knew that wasn’t right.

  It was the last of their immortality draining away.

  Thor nudged Freyr with his elbow. “Pace yourself. That’s the best any of us can do right now.”

  Freyr blinked hard as his face turned sallow. Thor could tell he was fighting a wave of dizziness.

  “Do you remember ever getting this close?” Freyr asked. “To the edge, I mean.”

  To the end, Thor grimaced at his meaning. Before the Yggdrasil jumped continents between incarnations and Odin and his kind packed up for the New World, it had been a simple matter of a visit to Iduna every four centuries or so, accepting his share of the apple harvest, and then going on his way. After they settled in the Pacific Northwest, Iduna packed fruit crates for them, and Frigga prepared a week-long feast for them all to enjoy.

  Thanksgiving in the New World, she’d called it.

  But now they were running on empty—literally. And somehow, Thor had become the voice of reason.

  Thor clapped Freyr on the back. “You’re thinking too much about this. I’ve been in bad scrapes, sure, but one thing I learned long ago . . .”

  Freyr leaned forward, not wanting to miss this pearl of wisdom from the god of thunder.

  Thor broke into a wide smile. “It’s never, ever as bad as you think.” He laughed hard and slapped his stomach. Feeling the give of his soft gut—and even a bit of jiggle—he wondered if Saga might have a point about his weight.

  A rumbling sound came from above, growing louder by the second. Thor turned onto his back and looked up at the rock wall behind them.

  “What in the blazes?”

  A boulder the size of a small Volkswagen came hurtling down the rock face toward them.

  Thor pushed Freyr to one side and then rolled himself in the other direction, narrowly avoiding getting flattened by the boulder as it crashed down onto the grassy ledge and then careened off the mountain’s edge toward the uninhabited valley.

  Freyr glanced over at Thor. “You okay?”

  Thor scampered to the edge of the grass and frowned down at where the boulder had come to a rest below. “I didn’t think I was quite that loud.”

  “If you’d set off a rock slide with that bellowing voice, it would have loosened a great deal more than a single boulder.” Freyr sat up and scanned the rock face above. “There aren’t any other rocks of that size above us. Did you notice that before?”

  He pointed at the side of the mountain. In the space of a few meters, the mountainside transitioned from jagged rock to smooth as glass. Freyr held up a hand to shield his eyes against the reflected sun. “Almost like it’s been polished.”

  Thor climbed to his feet and stalked toward the rock wall. He ran a hand over the fluid surface and grunted. Then he gazed up toward the mountain peak. “I don’t think that was an accident.”

  “You think we stumbled across the Frost Giants’ lair, without even knowing it?”

  Thor rested his hands on his hips. “I’m not so sure about that, but we’ve gotten close to something.” He stepped backward, trying to see further up the mountain face. Freyr reached over and smacked Thor on the heel as he shuffled too close to the drop-off.

  Thor looked down at Freyr holding his ankle and grunted his thanks. He nodded at the mountain peak. “Somebody doesn’t want us here.”

  A flicker of movement a hundred meters above caught Thor’s eye, and he pointed. “There. Did you see that?”

  Freyr climbed slowly to his feet. “I don’t see anything.” His face was less green than it was before.

  “Better?” Thor asked.

  Freyr nodded and followed Thor’s finger, squinting at the rocks above.

  “There’s someone up there.” Thor kicked at the grass beneath his boots. “I should have known we were being watched.”

  He spat on the ground in disgust. Midnight sun or not, there was no excuse for allowing themselves to be observed. If the Frost Giants knew they were here—on the verge of discovering their lair—there was no telling what they might do to Maggie. Or to Iduna, or even Loki.

  Thor grabbed Freyr by the front of his shirt and started dragging him up the trail.

  “I can walk, you know.” Freyr protested.

  “Then do it.” Thor let him go and took the lead, powering up the rocky path. He turned sharply on a switchback, always keeping his eyes up, looking for more movement in the rocks. At the second switchback, he stopped to gauge their progress. They weren’t gaining elevation fast enough if they had any hope of catching up to the giant who had thrown that boulder.

  Thor pressed his hands against the slick rock. “Got any rope on you?”