“The Frost Giants!” Sally’s scream caught in her throat. She couldn’t remember Heimdall saying anything about Frost Giants having claws or sounding like freakish ghouls with lungs full of helium, but she didn’t feel like sticking around to conduct an independent study on genus frostis giganticus. She scrambled across the bedroom floor to the closet and pulled the door shut.

  But isn’t this always where the girl always hides from the monster, just before she gets ripped to pieces in the horror movies?

  She reached into her pocket for her phone, then remembered she’d left it on the bedside table.

  On the other side of the closet door, she heard the bedroom window shatter.

  Sally felt for the leather thong around her neck and pulled the smoky quartz pendant into her hands. She squeezed tight on Raido, the symbol engraved in the stone.

  “I place my fate in the lap of the gods,” she whispered as tears streamed down her cheeks. She closed her eyes and envisioned herself surrounded by Thor, Odin, Freya, Heimdall, Saga, and every deity—Norse or otherwise—she could remember. At the periphery of her imagination she saw her cat, Baron, and Heimdall’s dog, Laika, doing a clumsily coordinated line dance. She started to giggle.

  The sound of the plaster ceiling collapsing onto her bed just yards away snapped her back into focus. The shrill cackling sounded again, much closer.

  Her breath was coming in quick, painful spasms. Sally felt Raido digging into her palm as she tightened her grip on the pendant. Think! Raido, rune of travel, of union, of secret missions . . .

  “Secret!” Sally practically shouted in excitement, then immediately clapped a hand over her own mouth. She heard many pairs of clawed-feet scrabbling around her room on the other side of the door. Had she given herself away?

  Closing her eyes, Sally took a deep breath to calm herself. She imagined the color blue, swirling in a mist around her body and then forming a shimmering perimeter across the closet walls, ceiling, and floor. She lifted a hand to draw a snaking pattern of Algiz, Isa, and Uruz on the air and sent the sigil into the blue shield.

  “The art of subtle protection,” Sally breathed. “Thank you, Frigga.”

  14

  Apples bulged out of their clothing and threatened to spill from their heavily laden serving bowls as Thor and Thiassen hustled down the shadowy passageway. The others were farther along the sloping, twisting corridor, with the apple-bearers bringing up the rear.

  A thunderous boom echoed from the great hall behind them as the ceiling collapsed.

  “Is there any way to close off the passageway?” Thor called to Thiassen a few paces ahead.

  “No!” Thiassen shouted back. “Down below, we can seal ourselves off.”

  The giant took a sharp corner and spilled a few apples. Thor stooped to retrieve them as fast as he could. He tossed the last stray rocks out of the bodice of his wedding gown and shoved the apples in.

  Another huge crash from the great hall echoed off the passageway’s polished walls, followed by loud, high-pitched voices and the unmistakable sound of sharp nails clawing across stone.

  Balancing the serving bowl beneath one arm, Thor pressed the other hand flat against Thiassen’s back and pushed him forward.

  “MOVE!” he bellowed. “They’re inside!”

  Thiassen sped up, and Thor hustled after him. Coming around a sharp bend, Thiassen nearly mowed over the others moving more slowly down the passageway. Maggie still shouldered most of Loki’s weight, while Freya and Saga supported Heimdall. Iduna was a white wisp at the head of the party, sandwiched between Geirrod and Valthrudnir.

  Thor tossed a few apples from his bowl to the failing gods.

  “Here!” he shouted. “Eat these and keep moving—the devils have breached the fortress!”

  “Heimdall!” Saga caught an apple and thrust it into Heimdall’s face as they half-jogged farther downward. “Come on!”

  He grunted something unintelligible and managed to sink his teeth part-way into the fruity flesh. Freyr kept one hand on the wall as he followed behind and chomped down on an apple.

  At the head of the pack, Geirrod took a sharp left turn, and the group found themselves practically sliding down a more steeply pitched, spiraling course.

  “Where the hell are we going?” Freyr shouted, spraying bits of apples onto the close walls.

  “We will be safe in the cellar!” Thrym called over his shoulder. “We can seal the doors and hold them back.”

  “Just how I always wanted to spend my vacation,” Thor grumbled at Thiassen’s back. “Locking myself in a giant’s dungeon.”

  “This is NOT a dungeon!” Thiassen stumbled on the stone floor as the rocks underfoot became more uneven.

  Thor grabbed the back of the giant’s shirt and helped him regain his feet, then pressed him forward. Thor glanced over his shoulder for any sign of imminent attack. It looked like the Køjer Devils hadn’t yet started exploring the passageway, but they weren’t called devils for no reason. Thor had no illusions about safety, and the silence was as much a warning as would be one of the devils reaching out and clawing the tapestried gown right off his back.

  “Dungeon or not,” Thor huffed. “Let’s just hurry up and get there.”

  They spiraled their way down what Thor guessed was at least another three levels deeper into the mountain before the craggy floor leveled out. The dark passage ended at a heavy wooden door, standing slightly ajar.

  Thrym threw his weight against it, and the door creaked farther open. He stood aside and motioned the others inside. “This way. There is room for everyone.”

  Thor was the last to enter. While Thiassen set about lighting a series of lanterns mounted on the dingy walls, the other three giants worked together to push the door closed again.

  “Three giants to close a single door,” Thor muttered as he set the apples down on a heavy wooden table. “That must be some door.”

  Thiassen pulled a massive iron key from his belt and turned it in the door’s lock. “There,” he pronounced, with a hint of uncertainty.

  Thor offered him a quick nod. “For what it’s worth, thanks.”

  In the flickering lantern light, Maggie guided Loki to the wall and let him lean against a large barrel while she stretched her arms over her head and tried to massage the feeling back in her left shoulder. Freyr and Heimdall slumped to the floor and rested back against the stone wall. Thor sat next to them and felt his own eyes beginning to flutter.

  “That took a lot out of all of us, I think.” Thor reached into his half-torn dress and fumbled for a few apples. He dropped one in Freyr’s lap and passed another to Maggie, who knelt beside Heimdall and was resting her hand against his brow.

  Thor held up a third apple to Iduna. “Kind of strange offering you your own fruit.” He attempted a smile.

  “I’ve had plenty,” Iduna replied and turned her back on him.

  Saga stood above Maggie and shook her head. Heimdall was fading fast.

  “I tried giving him one on the way down,” Saga said. “I couldn’t get him to eat.”

  Freya tossed Saga an apple from the serving bowls on the table, and the goddesses munched slowly, watching Thor, Freyr, and Loki wolf down one apple after another.

  “But he seemed okay,” Maggie protested. “He was on his feet, taking charge. And now . . .”

  She lifted an apple to Heimdall’s lips, but he was unable to take a bite. “Come on, honey. You need this.”

  Heimdall slumped sideways onto the cold floor.

  “Heimdall!” Maggie grabbed at his shoulders and tried to pull him back up to sitting, but an unconscious god was entirely too heavy for her to lift.

  Saga helped her move Heimdall onto his back and pulled a sack of flour off a nearby shelf to serve as a pillow. Noticing the shelves and cabinets loaded with food staples, she glanced up at Geirrod.

  “What is this room?” she asked.

  “It is our cellar pantry.” Geirrod shot Thor an exasperated look. “Not a dungeon.”

  Thor inhaled another apple and shrugged in hollow apology. “How many of these apples have you fellows eaten already?”

  Geirrod glanced at Thrym, but his king looked away. Geirrod turned back to Thor. “Enough to have regained our strength.”

  Thor nodded glumly at Heimdall on the floor with the women huddled around him. “See what your theft has done? Odin himself lies in a similar state, back in Oregon.”

  “What is this place, Oregon?” Geirrod replied. “It sounds enchanted.”

  “It was not our intention to do harm,” Thrym said. “We will do what we can to right this wrong.”

  “Heimdall!” Freya shouted at her comatose cousin. “Open your mouth!”

  Loki leaned over from his barrel perch. “Maggie, is this what I was like?”

  Maggie looked up with frantic tears in her eyes. “Yes. Worse. I guess you’d been like this for days, when I was first brought here.”

  She looked around the room for Geirrod. The giant stepped forward and inclined his head.

  “Do you require my service?”

  “A mortar and pestle!” she asked.

  He frowned and cocked his head.

  She raised her hands in exasperation. “Like before, remember? I need a mortar and pestle! Right now!”

  The giant lifted his hands in futility. “I do understand. But that was the only one we had. I believe it resides still in Loki’s chamber.”

  With a loud sigh, Saga climbed to her feet and crossed the room to the table in the corner. She dumped the contents of one of the serving bowls onto the table and hurried back to Maggie. Behind her, loose apples rolled across the table and dropped onto the floor.

  Saga rested the bowl on the floor next to Maggie. “What else?”

  “Something to grind the apples.”

  Saga was on her feet again and headed back to the table. She grabbed an armload of stray apples and a heavy candlestick.

  Maggie smiled at the candlestick’s broad base. “Good thinking.”

  Saga dropped the apples into the bowl and started pounding them with the makeshift pestle. She grunted with the effort of grinding. “What are we trying to do here, just make a mash?”

  Maggie touched Heimdall’s face and winced at the discolored bruise on his brow. “More of a juice.” She looked up again at Geirrod. “Is there any water down here?”

  Geirrod’s worried face broke into a broad smile. “Why, of course!” He gestured toward the wooden barrel on which Loki was sitting.

  Loki lifted his eyebrows. “I guess you need me to get down.”

  He slid off the barrel and lifted the lid. Light reflected off the water’s surface and undulated across his pale face. “It’s nearly full.”

  He reached for the metal dipper slung to the barrel’s side on a leather thong.

  “Mix it in, a little at a time,” Maggie directed. Heimdall’s breath was more shallow, and she tried not to panic. She reminded herself of how long Loki had lain unmoving, seemingly near death.

  Loki walked carefully across the floor, so as not to spill even a drop of water from the dipper. Saga lifted the bowl, and he poured in half the water. Saga started grinding again, breaking the apples down into a mushy pulp.

  Freya leaned over and looked into the bowl. “How did you know to do this?” She glanced to a shadowy corner where Iduna had settled herself. “Is this your magick?”

  Iduna shook her head. “Not me. That’s all Maggie.”

  Maggie stroked Heimdall’s hair. “It worked for Loki. He wouldn’t eat or drink. Bread, apple slices, water. Nothing worked.” She shook her head, her long hair spilling into her face and sticking to her damp cheeks. “I just tried everything I could think of.”

  Saga lifted the bowl to Loki. “A little more.”

  Loki emptied the dipper into the bowl then walked back to the barrel, poised to retrieve more water upon request. Saga kept grinding. She nudged Maggie when a layer of liquid began to appear on top of the apple mush.

  Geirrod pulled an empty cup from one of the high shelves on the wall. He handed it to Maggie.

  “I have to say they’re odd-tasting apples,” Maggie commented as Saga raised the bowl to pour the apple-slush into the cup. Maggie lifted Heimdall’s head to dribble some of the liquid into his mouth. “They’ve got some juice, but they leave my mouth feeling really dry, you know?”

  Heimdall’s throat muscles contracted and he swallowed.

  “There! See?” Maggie poured more into his mouth.

  Freya knelt beside Maggie. “You ate these apples?”

  Tears rolled down Maggie’s cheeks as Heimdall swallowed the last of the apple-water. He coughed, but his eyes remained closed. She set the empty cup on the floor and turned to Saga. “More.”

  Freyr gathered up the apples that had fallen from the table. He rolled several across the stone floor to Saga, then tossed a few more to Thor.

  “What about you?” Freyr held an apple up to Thrym, but the King of the Frost Giants waved him off.

  Still crouched down next to Maggie, Freya glanced at Iduna in the corner. “You let her eat the apples?”

  “I didn’t think it was any of my business,” Iduna replied. “As if my opinion counts for anything.”

  Frowning at Iduna, Freyr elbowed Thor. “What skunk climbed up her tree?”

  “Well, the Frost Giants, for starters,” Thor mumbled as he chewed and swallowed another bite of apple, then glanced up to find Thiassen staring down at him. “No offense.”

  Freya rested a hand on Maggie’s shoulder. “How many apples did you eat, exactly?”

  Maggie watched Saga grind the fruit and supervised Loki as he added water to the mix. “I don’t know. It’s really the only food that was offered to me. That and some of the worst bread I’ve ever tasted.” She sighed. “When we get out of here, I could really use a burger or a salad or something.”

  Geirrod frowned. “Burger?”

  “Ground meat between slices of bread,” Valthrudnir offered. “Often served with fried potatoes, and prepared very quickly. It is what those human creatures appear to crave and enjoy.”

  Maggie groaned. “Those human creatures? I’m one of those human creatures you keep complaining about. Am I so horrible? Am I so grotesque and disgusting?”

  Geirrod’s eyes widened. “Certainly not, Lady Maggie! Surely, you jest. You could not possibly be of those lower life forms that infest the planet.”

  Turning her back on the giant, Maggie helped Saga pour a new batch of the apple liquid into the cup and then dribbled it carefully into Heimdall’s mouth.

  “It’s true, Geirrod. I’m just a dirty little mortal.” Maggie poured the last of the liquid past Heimdall’s lips and smiled as he swallowed. His eyes fluttered open.

  Maggie smiled down at Heimdall and then looked at Geirrod over her shoulder. “And you’ve been waiting on me hand and foot since I arrived.”

  Geirrod turned to Thor and Freyr. “You would consort with these mortals? You would pollute your own line by taking them as consorts?”

  Thor swallowed the last of another apple and climbed to his feet. He gestured toward the floor, where his brother was already sitting up and regaining his bearings. “Just Heimdall there.”

  Freyr cleared his throat loudly. “Just Heimdall, is it? What about Bon—”

  Thor kicked Freyr in the knee.

  Freya put an arm around Maggie’s shoulder. “Humans aren’t so bad, once you get to know them.”

  Thor stood over Heimdall. “Feeling better, brother?”

  Heimdall nodded slowly and glanced around the room in confusion. “Frost Giants, Æsir, and Vanir, crowded together in a small room. This can’t be good.“

  “The basement, it seems,” Thor answered. “Your woman there, she’s the one who saved you.”

  Turning to avoid what he assumed would be an uncomfortable public display of affection between Heimdall and Maggie, Thor looked to Thrym. “If not been for the discovery of the life-sustaining apples, we would have been little more than mortals ourselves. Giants and gods may share a close, common ancestry, but these humans also share our souls.”

  Thor was embarrassed to find Maggie beaming up at him, her eyes full of tears. She leapt up from the floor and wrapped her arms nearly two-thirds the way around his solid girth.

  “I never knew you felt that way,” she murmured into the heavy fabric of his tattered gown.

  Thor shrugged out of her embrace. In the dim light of the cellar, it was difficult not to notice that she had started glowing. “Maggie, are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m more concerned about Heimdall.” She leaned down to touch Heimdall’s face, then froze when she caught sight of her own, slightly luminescent fingers. She lifted her hand and studied the faint glow of her skin.

  Freya stepped up beside her. “I’ll ask again: How many apples did you have?”

  Maggie shook her head slowly. “I don’t know.”

  “They are coming!” Thrym hissed as he stood by the door. “Footsteps!”

  Thor turned toward him. “How many?”

  Thrym wore a dark expression. “Many.”

  Thor glanced down at Heimdall, now voraciously consuming apple after apple to regain his strength. Heimdall waved an obliging hand in his brother’s direction.

  “Right.” Newly in charge, Thor took a deep breath, puffed up his chest, and widened his stance. “So. Maggie, it’s possible that by consuming these apples during your stay, you may now be transitioning into one of us. Maybe not, it’s hard to say.” He looked sternly in Iduna’s direction. “We’ll sort it out later.”

  He faced Thrym. “Tell me there’s another way out of here.”

  Thrym pointed to a tall cupboard against the opposite wall. “It conceals another passage., leading to the surface.”

  Thor looked at the cupboard and sighed. “Why then have we been cooped up in here if there’s an escape route?”