“Well, yes.” Freya nodded. “But she was also the Goddess of the Grove, and she deliberately passed that station to you.”

  Maggie looked out at the bare trees that circled the clearing. “So I’m in charge of growing apples and stuff? Big deal.”

  “Maggie,” Freya began, searching for the right words. “You know how important these apples are.” She paused. “The Goddess of the Grove literally holds the power of life and death over the rest of us. It is a big deal.”

  Maggie felt the breath rush out of her lungs. She searched for Heimdall and spotted him sitting a fair distance away under one of the barren trees.

  “Goddess of the Grove,” Maggie whispered. She turned away and headed into the trees.

  Sally watched Maggie disappear into the trees.

  Looking around at the sacred grove, Sally expected some mystic thrill but didn’t feel anything special. Every tree had been stripped bare of fruit and leaves and was coated in a hard, black residue.

  Freyr touched his brow in friendly salute as he walked past her into the trees beyond, but he didn’t say a word. Sally felt a small pang as he passed, but it faded quickly.

  She spotted Loki standing beneath one of the trees. He was running his fingers lightly along a blackened branch.

  “It almost looks like there was a fire,” Sally said as she approached.

  Loki nodded toward a trio of slash marks in the trunk just above the ground.

  Sally bent down to investigate. “Køjer Devils? How would they have gotten in here? Why would they even be interested?” She thought back to her first visit and the strange hissing sounds she’d heard in the mist as she waited by the grove’s threshold.

  “They followed us,” she said. “Or, they followed you all, at least.”

  “So it would seem.” Loki settled down on the moss-covered ground and rested his back against the brittle trunk. “Normally, the grove wouldn’t have allowed entry to creatures like the Køjer Devils, but the mists must have been weakened by Iduna’s absence. The goddess is the heart of the grove.”

  “That’s why Iduna had to stay here when the rest of you came to North America.” Sally looked to Loki, and he nodded. “So if Iduna and Bragi were married, why didn’t he stay with her?”

  Loki interlaced his fingers and rested his hands atop one of his knees. “Bragi was the Norse Bard. Who else would have woven the new adventures of Odin’s Lodge into poetry and song?”

  “But no one stepped into Bragi’s shoes when he died.” Sally sat facing him. “Not like Iduna passing her power or whatever to Maggie.”

  Loki closed his eyes. “No.”

  Sally ran her palm over the moss. It was springier than she expected, given the crackly state of the trees. She how long it would take for the grove to come back to life. Would Maggie have to remain here to heal the trees?

  Sally glanced over at Heimdall, sitting by himself under a tree.

  “There’s still something I can’t figure out,” Sally said.

  Loki cracked open one eye. “Just one thing?”

  She smiled. “How come I never heard anything about Køjer Devils until now? You said you'd tell me.”

  "Not precisely what I said, but you've certainly earned some answers." Loki looked up at the sky. “Remember your preparations for, what did you call it? Odin’s Return? And how easily things went astray?”

  “Yeah.” Sally's shoulders sank. She didn’t like being reminded that one mistake in all of her diligent prep work the previous autumn might have been responsible for nearly bringing about Ragnarok.

  “You worked hard to understand what you were dealing with, and to put it into context,” Loki said. “You pored over every historical and magickal source you could find, yes?”

  Sally nodded.

  “Now imagine some other good-intentioned soul, but minus the same work ethic. Someone who wouldn’t bother with as much research or who wouldn’t think that context, whether in history or legend, really mattered.”

  I know some people like that, Sally thought as she absently traced Berkana, the symbol of fertility and healing, on the moss with her finger. Loki was describing the same witchier than thou haughtiness that had gotten her into trouble before.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Loki nodded. “Consider what would happen if such a person also had some measure of real magick in them, and they uncovered something that sounded uniquely intriguing—perhaps an ancient history that led them to believe they’d found a way to end dependence on oil or to reverse global warming.”

  He offered her a knowing smile. She tried not to look away.

  “But in reality,” Loki continued, “suppose the source from which they’d lifted this magickal bit of text was the original Køjer Devil formula for igniting the world’s petroleum reserves? Something that would send enough poison into the atmosphere to block out the sun and kill every living thing on the planet?”

  Sally gasped. “That’s what the devils were up to?”

  Loki shrugged.

  “Yeah, that would be bad.” Sally clasped her hands in her lap. “So you’re saying there was deliberately no history of them to prevent someone else from getting the same idea, either accidentally or on purpose.”

  Loki shifted against the tree. The crisp bark crackled under his weight. “Odin’s ancestors were wise to erase any trace of them.”

  Sally wondered what else had been erased from the Norse sagas. “But that’s a stupid plan. Wouldn’t the Køjer Devils just end up killing themselves, too?”

  “Eventually.” Loki pulled a pack of gum from his pocket and offered Sally a piece, but she declined. He unwrapped a stick of peppermint and folded it into his mouth.

  “The devils are heat-seeking creatures, but not too fond of UV rays. I suppose they’d bore underground into the hot springs and languish there awhile. But yes, sooner or later, they’d effectively be eliminated themselves.” He chewed for a moment. “From what I know of them, they weren’t exactly celebrated for rational thought.”

  Sally stretched her arms over her head and yawned. She really hoped Frigga wouldn’t make her write up some kind of report of her trip to Norway as punishment for defying orders. But she was still curious. “So that’s why everyone was so afraid of them? Because they're unpredictable and just randomly destructive?”

  “And powerful.” Loki rested his head back and closed his eyes. “And the fact that they’re essentially cousins to the dinosaurs.”

  “Really?” Sally perked up. Nothing she’d read, from the Prose Edda to the Sörla Tháttr, mentioned anything about dinosaurs. She’d been wondering how the Norse creation myths figured into the Big Bang, plate tectonics, and Darwinism, but she hadn’t worked up the courage to ask.

  But she had seen the resemblance with her own eyes. “Tyrannosaurus men.”

  Loki cocked his head to one side. “Not a bad description. And I’m hoping Midgard has seen the last of them.”

  Sally’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re talking about the extinction of what could be a completely unknown species. There isn’t anything in the fossil record about them—”

  “Sally.” Loki looked at her and waited.

  “Yeah, okay,” she conceded. “It’s good that they’re gone.”

  Sally sat quietly and tried to remember how many unmarked Køjer Devil scales still lay scattered on the ground outside the grove's gate. Would it be enough for a new set of runes? How would the scales respond to magick now that the devils had been eliminated? She glanced sideways at Loki, who rested against the blackened tree with his eyes closed. She really hoped he couldn’t read her mind.

  Thor walked over to stand next to his brother. Heimdall was sitting under a bleak tree, looking mopey. Thor nudged him with his boot.

  “Are you going to be like this all the way home? I thought you said we’d see about some ships when this was over.”

  That got a chuckle out of Heimdall, and he let Thor help him to his feet.

  “Just tired.” Heimdall looked around at row after row of barren apple trees. “I’m not looking forward to trying to explain all of this to Frigga and Odin.”

  “Speaking of . . .” Saga headed toward them, waving her phone in the air. “I just got off a call to the Lodge. It’s amazing the cell reception you can get in here without Iduna’s mists swirling around and messing with the signal.”

  She slipped the phone into her pocket. “Do you think Sally could figure a way to work an enchantment on the satellite dish at the Lodge? You know, for a better signal, and maybe some extra TV channels? I’d really like to catch up on History Channel."

  “News from the Lodge?” Heimdall cut in.

  “Yeah, so Odin’s pretty steamed,” Saga said. “Because the Frost Giants escaped, beat up Heimdall—”

  “They did not beat me up,” Heimdall interjected.

  “That’s right. They took you out with a single punch,” Thor said.

  Squaring his shoulders, Heimdall pivoted to stand in front of his brother. “When’s the last time you took on a Frost Giant?”

  “Took him on? Is that what you did?” Thor smirked at him. “From what Maggie said, you went down like a sack of wet noodles.”

  Saga continued as though neither of her brothers had spoken up. “. . . stole all the apples, kidnapped Maggie . . . That whole thing with the wedding, though, I think he liked that part.”

  Thor puffed out his chest and smiled at Heimdall.

  “You saved the dress, then?” Freyr asked as he joined the group.

  Thor shot his cousin a sideways glare and growled.

  “And then the Køjer Devils,” Saga said. “He’s furious about them getting out. Not too crazy about this peace treaty we have with the Frost Giants, either.”

  “But what you’re really telling me,” Heimdall replied, “is that the shipment of apples reached the Lodge safely and that Odin is back to good health.”

  “Yes,” Saga said with an exasperated sigh. “That, too. Mostly, I think he’s just mad that he missed all the fun.”

  “Fun,” Heimdall shook his head and looked at the ground.

  “You know what I mean.” Saga rested a hand on Heimdall’s elbow. “They’re glad to know you’re all right, and that Maggie’s safe. They want us to come home.”

  Heimdall grew quiet and looked away toward the far side of the grove.

  Thor sighed. Keeping Heimdall from falling into melancholy was looking like a full-time job. He clapped a meaty hand on his brother's shoulder.

  “Before we go, you want to pay Valthrudnir back for that blow to your head?” Thor gestured toward Freyr. “We can sneak up behind him and hold his arms while you deck him. If you want.”

  Heimdall laughed.

  Maggie stopped inside the threshold of the stone cottage and let the cool air fill her lungs. She glanced around the single room that filled the entire floor plan. She surveyed the long, wooden table that had been Iduna’s main work surface, the stone hearth that was positioned dead center on the wall to her left, the window-side tables crammed with tiny glass bottles and small potted seedlings, and the tall shelves stacked with decaying grimoires, dusty notebooks, and every gardening tool imaginable.

  She looked around for a wardrobe or closet overflowing with silks and tiaras. Instead, Maggie glanced to the far corner and spotted the narrow, neatly made cot covered by a handmade quilt.

  “For all of your bluster, Iduna, you were earnest and humble at your core.”

  Maggie walked to the center of the room. She felt simultaneously like an interloper in someone else’s sacred space, and like the mistress of this living workshop.

  Memories that were not her own told her the history of each of the stones in the walls. She knew every step involved in cultivating the ancient herbs that sat in the decorative planters that crowded every windowsill.

  There were cures here for infection, analgesics for fevers and menstrual cramps, relief for allergic congestion, and support for the body’s immune system. There were herbs for shamanic visions and trance states, poisons that were deadly to humans and immortals alike, antidotes to some of those toxins, and some herbs that simply made a good tea.

  “It’s yours now.”

  Maggie turned to find Freya standing in the open doorway.

  “I can stay, to help you get the grove started again,” Freya said. “You’ve probably figured out this isn’t what the grove normally looks like. The trees here are eternally green, save for one day—”

  “One day every four hundred years, just after the harvest.” Maggie crossed the floor to one of the bookcases and ran her fingers over a row of neatly shelved journals bound in leather. “On that single day of winter, the leaves fall in silence to the ground, where they dissolve as fertilizer into the soil to nourish and sustain the trees’ roots. The next sunrise finds new leaf buds on the branches. I know.”

  Freya hovered the doorway, watching Maggie. “It’s in everyone’s best interests to restore the grove, so whatever I can do . . .”

  “The gods and giants were mere mortals when they first came to this grove,” Maggie replied absently. “And so should you—we—be again, without the apples.”

  Maggie’s fingers settled on a thick volume of yellowed pages, and she pulled it from the shelf. She opened the book and smiled as she flipped through Iduna’s handwritten notes.

  “I appreciate the offer, but I think I’ve got it under control,” Maggie said.

  Freya stepped into the room. “Are you sure? There’s an awful lot to be done.”

  Maggie looked up and was startled when Freya stopped in her tracks. Maggie used to marvel at Freya’s self-possessed grace and quiet strength. Now Freya hesitated before her—Maggie, former paralegal, now Goddess of the Grove.

  “I didn’t know what Iduna was going to do.” Maggie closed the journal and held it against her chest. “I didn’t even know such a thing was possible. And before that, with the apples . . .” Maggie shrugged. “I just ate what they brought to me. I was hungry.”

  Freya’s face softened. “I know.”

  Maggie shifted her weight and rested the heavy volume on one hip. “It’s going to be an adjustment, trying to navigate through all of the immortality stuff.”

  Freya nodded. “Your role here is equally as important as guarding the Yggdrasil.”

  There is more work than you know. Maggie hoped it wouldn’t take too long for Freya and the others to learn to relax in her presence. In the meantime, Maggie had plenty to keep herself occupied. She walked over to a collection of small pots on a table below one window and gently stroked the pale green leaves of an apple tree seedling.

  Maggie gripped the wooden chest’s leather handle with both hands, with Freya lifting from the other side. They carried the heavy load through the trees back toward the clearing. They’d loaded the chest with a good portion of Iduna’s journals and most of the tender seedlings. There was still plenty more to pack up.

  Raised voices reached them from the clearing ahead, and Maggie nearly laughed when she saw all of the posturing and finger-pointing.

  “I’m telling you, they’d dominate the NBA.” Thor stood between his kin and the trio of Frost Giants, who looked confused and possibly insulted.

  “They’re taller than Yao Ming,” Thor continued, gesturing toward Valthrudnir with one hand and planting the other fist on his hip. “There’d be no stopping them. Any team would be happy to take them.”

  “Except they’ve never heard of basketball,” Freyr complained. “And I don’t think the league would take too well to having opposing players pounded and stomped whenever they went for a rebound.”

  “Basket, ball?” Thiassen asked with raised eyebrows. “This is a kind of athletic contest you are discussing?”

  “Yes,” Thor replied with mild exasperation. “You’d have a definite height advantage, and you could make some decent money. Come to Portland and try out for the Blazers. See how you like it.”

  Thrym held his hands open to Thor. “It pleases me that you would concern yourself with our prospects but we have more immediate matters to resolve, such as the survival of our kind.”

  Thrym smiled at Saga, and she ducked behind Freyr. “I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  “I’d think you’d want to stay,” Freyr replied. “You know, work some Frost Giant lore into Æsir history.”

  Saga shook her head. “And risk being taken as a wife? Not happening.”

  Thrym peeked around at Saga, with Valthrudnir and Thiassen behind him. “You would be in no such danger, I assure you,” he said with a gallant tip of the head. “That failed strategy does not warrant repetition.”

  “Good to know,” Freya announced as she and Maggie lowered the heavy chest to the ground.

  Heimdall sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. “With apologies to Sally—because I know you’re going to hate this idea . . .” He looked from Sally to Thrym. “You should stay here, in Norway. We need someone to keep an eye on this oil reserve, to make sure there aren’t any errant devils running about. You might even develop it. Tap the reserve and build some financial security for yourselves.”

  “Are you out of your mind?!” Sally launched herself forward to stand in front of Heimdall. “You, the forest ranger, the protector of the Yggdrasil, guardian of all of nature—"

  “Actually, that last part falls to me,” Freyr cut in.

  “Whatever.” Sally dismissed him with a curt wave of her hand and glared up at Heimdall. “You’re honestly suggesting that these guys start drilling for oil? What about Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico? What about the impact on local marine life, when they go out into the Norwegian Sea with their massive rigs and drilling equipment—”

  Heimdall pulled Sally aside and lowered his voice. “It would give them something to do, all right?”

  “I can think of better things you all could go do,” Sally muttered.

  “What was that?” Heimdall grasped Sally’s shoulders and made her look at him.

  “Nothing.” Sally shrugged out of his hold and moved back to the group gathered in the clearing.

  “Spending some time in the modern world might also give you a better appreciation for human beings,” Freya was telling the Frost Giants. “They’re not so unlike us. You might befriend a few of them. Maybe, eventually, find yourselves some willing brides.”