Twenty-seven nights.

Nearly a month of dreamlessness.

I have set a pie to baking in my new iron oven, guessing at how high to hold the flames. My first two pies burned at the edges.

The cottage door slams back; a blaze of orange sunset spills in. Loki streaks inside with it, fury in his eyes. He silently, coldly holds out his hand. I stare at him, at the melting skin on his face as he shifts shape from skinny young man to wrinkled old creature, back to a tall, shining god with red hair and eyes glittering in the way of glaciers. He says, “Give me another apple, Idun.”

There is a need, a fury, in those cold eyes that freezes my tongue. I work my throat, swallow, and glare back. I must establish a firm rule between us. “No.”

He looms taller, features darkening and pointed and monstrous. “Give me another apple in return for what I have lost because of you, because of Baldur and the Bearstar.”

“We have all lost,” I whisper. I fold my hands together against shaking and ignore the sticky dough and flour. He will not scare me into submission.

“Some more than others.”

“Vider,” I say. She was the fourteen-year-old Lokiskin orphan who fell in with us and helped us deliver Baldur here to the orchard. Who for her reward forsook Loki’s patronage and asked the Alfather to be made the first woman berserker in two generations.

Loki’s face crumples, not from magic, but grief. He twists it the way a little boy does, screwing his mouth and nose, rubbing his red-rimmed eyes. His tall frame shrinks, too, until he’s a young boy with a shock of red hair. Freckles blossom on his forearms and cheeks. He stares at me a moment, then stomps to my cupboards and flings things about until he finds the bottle of mead Freyr the Satisfied left. He pops the cork with his fingers and gulps down a third of the alcohol as I watch, the hot oven behind me warming my back.

“This is useless!” he cries and flings the bottle against the stone hearth. It breaks, and the mead catches the tongues of my fire in a brief flash.

Loki Changer explodes into a bird and flies out my window.

I carefully pick up the shattered glass on the hearth. My fingers still shake, but I will them to stop. He is not angry at me, not truly. But all the stories of Loki’s mischief and revenge pummel each other in my head. I must grow used to him, to saying no. He will not hurt me, I remind myself, only trick me or tease me to get what he wants.

And just as I decide it, he returns, laughing as I crouch with a handful of glass. “Here, cousin,” he coos, brandishing a bottle of pink sparkling wine. “From other cousins of ours and better.”

I get to my feet, and as I go to him, his features shift prettier, his hips round out, he flutters his eyelashes and rolls back his shoulders to show me the breasts grown under the collar of his shirt. Her shirt. She bumps the base of the wine against my shoulder, and I take it, lift it, and drink.

The bubbles pop and tease, brighter than anything I’ve tasted. It’s not honey or grapes, but something lighter, something lacking any tart, sugar quality. As if this wine was pressed from orchids or lilies or sunset clouds.

“Elfish wine,” Loki murmurs, her voice near my ear. She sips from the bottle, too, and slides her arm around my waist, dragging me to the bed. “To the things we have lost!” she crows, tossing back more liquor before thrusting it at me.

I drink, and she drinks, and my apple pie burns a third time.