Loki leaped, but Amora vanished. He spun around, and she had appeared behind him. He ducked as she swung, the sword crashing into the beam of the roof and cracking it. He could feel the supports groaning beneath them. She swung for him again, and he was able to dodge the blow, this time swiping forward with his knife. But it shattered in his hand, breaking into dozens of sharp fragments that buried themselves in the beam.

Amora hurled another blast of heat energy at him, and before he even hit the ground she was behind him again, her boot connecting with the side of his face. Loki felt a shudder down his spine. He landed flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him and his bones feeling cracked and sharp. A few of the dagger shards in the roof broke his skin, and he could feel blood starting to pool underneath him.

Amora grasped her sword and re-formed it in her hands, changing it into long ribbons that clamped down upon Loki’s limbs, pinning him to the top of the car. She held out a hand and his own dagger re-formed, the slivers pulling through his skin to get to her hand. The pain was sharp and hot, and tore a scream from him, his neck arching.

Amora advanced on him, spinning his dagger against her palm and catching it. He’d die at the end of his own blade. “How did you think...” she said, pressing a foot into his chest and grinding her heel in, driving all the breath from him. The bindings seemed to tighten with each press and he gasped. “...that you could ever be a king? How did you think that you”—she pressed harder, and he felt his bones protest—“pathetic, weak, cowardly you”—he felt her heel break his skin—“were ever a contender for the throne? How could you not see it every time you looked at your father? Every time you looked at your brother? I didn’t need to look into the future to know it. Asgard needs a sorcerer at its helm, but that sorcerer would never have been you. Not in any universe, in any realm.”

“Don’t tire yourself,” he said, his voice coming out in more of a breathless rasp than he’d expected. “You haven’t much strength to spare.”

Her eyes flashed. “Give me the Stones, Loki.”

“I haven’t got them.”

“Liar.” He felt her free hand combing his coat, searching his pockets and the inside of his waistcoat and tearing at the buttons of his shirt. He let her paw, using the moment to lie still and catch his breath. She screamed in frustration, pushing hard enough against his throat that he felt the roof beneath him moan. “Where are they?!”

“How should I know?” he replied. “You’re the one who stole them.”

She staggered to her feet, his knife still in her hand and pointed at him. “I don’t need the Stones,” she said. “I can do it myself.” She kicked in the door on the roof of the train and jumped through. Her spell broke, releasing him from his bonds, and he staggered to his feet. His skin felt bright and hot, and he could feel the blood soaking through his shirt, but he followed Amora, dropping into the car after her.

She was on her knees between the rows of coffins in their slings, driving the tip of the dagger into the wooden floor and carving the same symbol they had used to mark the bodies, then pressed her fist to the middle. Something thick and black began to fill the crude lines, half smoke, half tar, lethargically inching forward and beginning to glow. The rune pulsed, the boards sucking it up and leaving a charred image behind.

Nothing happened.

Loki snorted, brushing off his sleeves for the theatre of it. “Well, that was a waste of—”

The end of the coffin beside him burst. He felt a hand—an unnaturally warm dead hand—claw at his face, covering his mouth and nose as the corpse tried to pull him backward into the casket with it. Its nails dug into his face, ripping at his skin. He shot a blast of magic over his shoulder and the corpse recoiled. Loki scrambled away, but more of the coffins were bursting open, the living dead climbing out and standing at attention before Amora. “Hold him,” she snapped, and two of the corpses seized Loki, twisting his arms behind him and forcing him to the ground.

“You’re not strong enough,” Loki said, laughing in spite of the fact that his head was being forced toward the ground by a literal death grip. She had more strength than he expected, but he didn’t show his surprise. “Not without the Stones. You could barely wake this car, let alone this whole train. And you can’t take on the Asgardian army with a handful of soldiers. Some sorceress you are.”

He felt her step closer to him, saw the shadow of her hand still holding the knife. She wouldn’t kill him. Not so long as she didn’t know where the Stones were. She stood still for a moment, and he could feel her weighing her options. Then she kicked him hard in the face, knocking him backward into the two corpses holding him. He felt warm blood spray over his face. “Lock him in the last car,” she said to her soldiers. “Don’t let him escape.”

Loki was dragged to his feet, and pulled toward the back of the train car as Amora went the other way. His heart stammered—she couldn’t know. She couldn’t be going to look for them.

The corpse soldiers tossed him roughly onto the floor of the final train car. It was a caboose with no corpses, just stored equipment and a few benches and a stove for any railway workers that rode there. Loki heard the door to the car slam behind him. He let himself lie still for a moment, then wiped a stream of blood from his eyes. The bones of his face were aching and he sat up slowly. His vision spotted, but he stayed conscious.

There was a shuffle behind him and he turned, wondering if one of the corpse soldiers had stayed and he hadn’t noticed. But then, from behind a set of stacked crates, someone said, “Loki?”

His breath caught as Theo crawled out from his hiding place, dragging his bad leg. “What are you doing here?” Loki asked.

“They wouldn’t let me on the train.” Theo scrubbed his hands over his face. He was breathing hard. “One of the officers recognized me and...I can’t leave the city because of my history. Gem snuck me on. For the funeral.” He looked up and started when he saw Loki’s face straight on. “You’re bleeding.”

“I know. Is it a lot?”

“It’s”—Theo wrinkled his nose—“not a little.” The train jolted suddenly, taking a hard corner and sending them both almost toppling over. Theo clapped a hand to his head, holding his hat in place. “What the hell is going on?”

Loki had nothing to lose with honesty anymore, so he said, “Amora is raising the dead to make an army. She plans to take them to Asgard and use them to overthrow my father.”

“How’s she going to get back to Asgard?” Theo asked. “The fairy ring?”

Loki nodded. “With the Norn Stones, we can activate it from here without the help of Heimdall.”

“The Norn Stones?” Theo repeated. “The things your father was looking for? They’re here?”

“I stole them,” he said, looking down at his hands. Honesty was not his favorite. “Now Amora wants them so she can animate everyone she murdered.”

“So she did knowingly kill all those people? You lied to us?” He laughed humorlessly. Loki hated the way Theo looked afraid. Afraid and angry. He liked the anger. That spark of defiance. But he found no strength in this fear. “Are we just cannon fodder in your wars?”

“You know who I am,” Loki replied. “My story has existed for centuries. It’s written in every book you’ve ever read, every myth you adore. I am the villain of your stories. That’s all I ever will be.”

“So write new stories,” Theo said, the belligerence rising in his voice to match Loki’s. “No one’s destiny is written in the stars.”

“I don’t know if I have a choice,” Loki said.

“There’s always a choice,” Theo replied. Loki heard Mrs. S. say it too. There’s always a choice.

They looked at each other. Theo’s eyes were shining.

“I wish I could make your world want you,” Theo said.

“Yours too,” Loki replied.

Theo pushed himself forward, onto his hands and knees, then leaned across the space between them and pressed his lips against Loki’s. It was a soft kiss, chaste and closed-mouthed. When Loki didn’t pull away, Theo’s hand rose to cup his cheek.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said softly, close enough that Loki could still feel his breath upon his lips.

Loki reached into Theo’s pocket and pulled out the small pouch of Norn Stones. Theo stared at them. “Is that—?”

“Thank you for running into me on the platform,” Loki said. “It was easier than finding you on the train.”

The light off the Norn Stones reflected up onto Theo’s face. His mouth was hanging open. “Why did you leave them with me?”

“Because I trust you.”

Theo reached down and ran his finger along one of the edges of the Stones, the movement stuttered as he looked to Loki, like he might stop him. His hand closed around the pouch, the tips of his fingers brushing Loki’s palm. “I don’t know what you think you know about yourself,” he said, “but none of it’s true. You are the only one who gets to decide what you become. Not your father or Thor or the ancient Viking poets or the stars or any of them. They don’t know a thing about you.” His grip tightened, holding Loki’s hand with the Norn Stones pressed between them. “No one gets to decide who you are.”

Loki stared down at their hands. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure if he believed it. Wasn’t sure he dared. “It’s so much harder that way,” he said at last.

“I know,” Theo replied. “No one to blame but yourself when you betray me.”

Loki looked up at him, just as the train car jerked sharply, throwing Theo backward and Loki on top of him. “What was that?” Theo asked.

“Amora.” Loki pulled himself to his feet, then reached out and offered Theo a hand up. Theo retrieved his cane from where he had stashed it, then took Loki’s hand.

“Do you have a plan?” he asked as Loki pulled him to his feet.

“Fragments of one,” Loki replied. “There’s a bit more improvisation than I’d hoped. I mean, there’s always some improvisation. But this is getting concerning.”

“What will you do now?” Theo asked.

“Stop Amora,” Loki replied.

“How?”

“Like I said. Improvisation.” Loki stashed the Norn Stones in the pocket of his jacket, then asked Theo, “If I get you to the front of the train, can you uncouple the cars? Separate the living from the dead?”

“If you take me back to Asgard with you,” Theo replied.

Loki released a breath, long and feathery. Theo held his gaze, his face etched with stubborn determination. That brilliant stubbornness that had kept him alive in a world that had cast him out. “I can’t,” Loki said quietly.

“Yes, you can!” Theo grabbed his hand, clinging to him with such desperate ferocity that his nails dug into Loki’s knuckles. “Please, there’s nothing left for me here. Mrs. Sharp is dead, and I’m alone, and I’ve got nothing. This world doesn’t want me, so give me one that does. Please, Loki.”

Loki was never letting himself grow fond of anyone again, he decided. It was too much strain on the heart. “All right,” he said.

Theo perked up like a cut flower in fresh water, but then he stepped backward, peering hard at Loki’s face like he was searching for the lie. “Really? You mean it?”

“I promise.”

“I’m not sure I trust your promises anymore,” Theo said with a crumpled laugh.

“Trust this one. Let’s go. I’ll worry about Amora—all you need to do is get to the front of the train and make sure the humans are safe.”

Loki grabbed a pair of railway spikes from a discarded tool kit and tucked them into the waistband of his trousers, then blasted a hole in the roof and leaped up through it, pulling Theo up behind him. He didn’t dare go through the train cars—if Amora was going to each, raising as many dead as she could muster, her soldiers would slow them down. He leaped to the next carriage, then held out a hand for Theo to join him. Theo looked shaky balanced on the end of the car, clutching his cane, and he closed his eyes for a moment before he braced himself and jumped. Loki felt their fingers connect, and then suddenly Theo was dragged sharply downward, nearly pulling Loki off the roof. He landed hard, his chin smacking the edge of the car, but his hands were still wrapped around Theo’s.

One of the corpses had grabbed Theo’s leg mid-jump and was now using him to climb to the top. Loki summoned his strength and yanked Theo up after him. The corpse followed, clawing its way onto the roof, but Loki was ready. He didn’t have his knife, but he yanked a railroad spike from his waistband and buried it in the corpse’s wrist. Hot, foul-smelling liquid gushed from the opened veins and coursed between them. Loki twisted, and the dead man’s hand popped off like a cork, the bone splintering. The corpse, seemingly unaware that its hand had been severed, continued to paw at the air with the gushing stump. Loki spun and jammed one of the railroad spikes into the dead man’s throat. More of that black, tarry blood coursed over his hands, splashing onto the roof. The corpse staggered backward, and Loki snatched one of the Norn Stones from his pocket, gathering a spell to blast the corpse apart. But before he could, Theo raised his cane and bashed the man in the side, sending him flying off the train.

“Thank you,” Loki said. “But I had that covered.”

“Sure you did.” Theo pushed himself to his feet, legs shaking. “Let’s go.”

They were halfway along the next car when a hand burst up through the wooden roof between them. Loki and Theo both stumbled, and Loki felt a hand snatch at his ankle. Nails dug into his skin when he tried to pull free. He yanked his leg up, hard enough to drag the woman latched on through the roof and onto the beam next to him. He was shocked to recognize her—Rachel Bowman, her eyes milky and empty as she swung at him. He ducked, then dealt her a hard elbow to the face that knocked her off the top of the train, and the wind snatched her. Another set of hands grabbed at him, and he could see more pawing up from the car ahead. Amora was raising the dead, car by car.

Behind him, Theo was using his cane to whack at the corpses clawing their way up onto the roof. One yanked at his bad leg, pulling him off his feet, but Loki sent an energy blast at the corpse. Thick black blood sprayed over them both.

With the Norn Stone still in his fist, Loki focused his spell and sent a blast of energy through the whole car. He expected the strength to knock the living dead off their feet, but channeled through the Norn Stones, the spell obliterated them, each one vaporized. Loki stared down at his hand, the small translucent stone clutched in his fist. He felt powerful, the same way he had years ago when he’d broken the Godseye Mirror. Illicit, delicious power that only seemed to come from destroying things.

Loki turned to the front of the train, his eyes watering as the smoke struck them, searching for more hands, more signs of Amora. Where was she? She would have felt the use of the Stones, her spell breaking apart. He’d called her to him.

The roof was collapsing under them. Loki grabbed Theo and jumped to the roof of the next car, landing with Theo on top of him and all the breath knocked out of him.

“Keep going,” Loki said, and they started off again.

They were one car from the place where the living and the dead separated when Amora appeared.

She was between them. Theo had fallen behind, and she had come up through the center of the roof. She grabbed Theo, yanking her to him and pressing a knife to his throat. She could have stopped his heart with a spell, but this wasn’t meant to be a quick death. This was meant to be a trade.

Loki stopped. Turned back to her. They stared at each other, both breathing heavily. She looked exhausted. Her skin was gray and withered, her posture sagging. Without the strength of the Stones, she had raised her army but killed herself in the process.

Theo let out a small whimper of fear. “Give me the Stones, Loki,” Amora called.

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll kill him.” She pressed the knife harder. “I’m sorry, was that not clear?”

“You think I’d barter for the safety of my realm in exchange for one man?” he shouted in return. “One human man?”

“I think you’re far more sentimental than you admit,” she replied. “I think you’re weak.”

“I am not weak,” Loki said. “I am not your villain, and I am not your fool. I am a protector of my homeland.” He thrust his hand in the air. “For Asgard!”

Amora stared at him, her forehead puckered in confusion.

“Sorry,” Theo murmured, his voice hoarse from where her hand was pressing into his windpipe.

“What are you sorry for?” Amora snapped at him.

“He’s just gotten very into his character,” Theo replied.

And Loki released the illusion. It usually wouldn’t have been possible to use so much strength on Earth, but with the Stones, he felt like a concentrated beam of light. The air shimmered, and suddenly the Loki standing across the train roof from Amora was Theo, as he had always been. And the Theo in Amora’s chokehold was suddenly Loki. He struck backward, knocking the blade from her grasp and flipping it into his own palm, then driving it hard into her shoulder. In his other hand, the Norn Stone glowed, the same spell that had vaporized the corpses now channeling through his blade and into her.

Amora screamed in pain, her grip on him wavering. Her body was shrinking and curling in on itself, like watching a life lived on the fastest speed. Her flesh began to suction to her bones, her face suddenly more of a skull, her hair turning white and kinked and then falling from her head. She shrank and twisted, and, in spite of himself, in spite of everything, in spite of the fact that she would have let him wither into nothing if she was on the other end of this blade, Loki reached out, the Norn Stone still in his hand, and grabbed hers. Her aging reversed suddenly, and for a moment, she was herself again. Vibrant and young and the girl who had taught him to belong to himself.

“I can’t!” she screamed. “I will not return to Asgard this way. I can’t go back.”

“Amora,” he said, and felt the surge of strength between them. “Please.”

But she let go of his hand.

The wind took her, whipping her off the top of the train and snatching her from his view. Loki shouted, but it was too late. The train barreled forward.

The ceiling beneath his feet buckled, and suddenly the dead army was pawing its way upward. Amora’s spell was still in place, even if she had gone.

He turned forward, and used the power of the Stones to part the smoke so he could see ahead of them. In the distance, his vision sharpened with this new channeling of his power—he could see the fairy ring. They were close.

Theo had climbed down between the cars, throwing his weight into the heavy switch that would uncouple them. Loki raced to the edge and dropped down onto the platform beside him. “Do it now!”

He put his hands over Theo’s and together they shoved until there was a creak and the hinge split apart. The train with the living began to separate from the cars carrying the dead, the gap growing.

Theo turned to Loki, the wind ripping its fingers through his reddish curls. “To Asgard?” he said.

“To Asgard,” Loki replied, then grabbed Theo by the shoulders and tossed him off the car. Theo landed on the platform of the opposite car, which held the living, the gap between them now too wide to jump. He staggered to his feet, pressing himself into the rail and staring at Loki, watching them separate. “You promised!” he shouted.

Loki turned away.

The engine and passenger cars passed over the fairy ring, and Loki channeled the strength of the Stones as his end of the train approached. Above them, thunder rumbled and Loki thrust his head back, staring up as the sky knit and unknit itself in stunning strands of purple and silver, not quite clouds. The Bifrost was opening. He could feel the initial pull in the air.

He knew he would regret it, but still he turned to look at Theo one last time. The cars were far apart now, the dead cars were slowing with nothing to propel them forward. Theo was still pressed against the rail, but the hurt on his face had turned to something else. Disappointment. There was no surprise. He hadn’t expected Loki to keep his word.

Then the air around Loki shimmered, the Bifrost tugging the train into another realm. He didn’t get another look at Theo before his half of the train was lifted through the portal and away from Midgard.