“Of course I’d seen him. Half of the city had probably sold something to Loki while he was exiled, whether they knew it or not. I just wasn’t stupid enough to look him in the eye and say no.”
—Anonymous Merchant - God of Lies Revealed
It was clear that Loki still knew his way around the city. He led me away from Asgard and toward the market without a single wrong turn, and when we arrived, he shot a straight path for Áshildr’s stall, one of the best bakers in Asgard. He ordered two warm apple pastries and had me pay for them. As we left, he passed me one. I took it, still sizing him up.
“You’re staring.” He bit into the snack and brushed the crumbs from his aged blue tunic.
“I have a lot I need to learn,” I said impatiently, barrelling past the niceties. I reached into my cloak with my spare hand and shook a slip of parchment open. “I have a list.”
“I see that.” Loki took it from me, a crooked grin on the corner of his lips. His eyes scanned the page, and after a moment he folded it up and pressed it back into my palm. “You won’t be needing it.”
“Excuse me?” I sidestepped in front of him, attempting to cut him off. “What does that mean? I spent a long time on that.”
Loki skirted past me, slipping into the open stall of a man selling furs. He ran his hands across the line of soft pelts laid out on the table, sparing a quick glance at me. “I’m going to need you to breathe. Can’t have you passing out in distress.” He picked up a beautiful silver wolf pelt, examined its edges, then slung it over his shoulder. He made a sweeping gesture with his hand, from me to the shopkeep, and I pried a few coins out of my purse with a sigh. The merchant took the coin, but his terrified eyes were on Loki the entire time.
Loki turned back out to the market with his new prize, and I stayed directly on his heels.
“Please take this seriously. I brought you here to help me, not to take advantage of me.”
He gave me a look of mock surprise. “I’m insulted. For someone to assume that I, Loki, would take advantage of someone when they don’t know a thing about me…why that’s never happened to me before.”
Guilt curdled in my stomach. Had I been letting the doubts of others affect my opinion of him? None of the beastly stories sounded anything like this oddly charming and vaguely infuriating Jotun in front of me. Then he swivelled into another shop and had me pay for a new belt, a leather travel sack, and a coin purse.
While I was busy thinking, still following Loki around the bustling market, he reached out and plucked a pear from a fruit merchant as we passed. The motion was subtle, meant to go unseen. Hel, I nearly missed it myself, but he simply slipped it into his new bag and kept moving.
My mouth dropped. “Honestly? You can’t just steal from people!” I turned back and hastily dropped a bronze coin into the confused merchant’s hand, then rushed back to Loki. He’d already moved on without me, and as I caught up, his hand reached out and slipped a bottle of wine from a table and into the bag while the shopkeep was arguing with a customer. My eyes shot wide. How was I supposed to keep him from stealing everything that wasn’t tied down?
I rushed to pay the wine seller, then wound my way through the other market-goers. Loki was reaching out for something else. I grabbed his hand, pulling him toward me. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you your next lesson.” He wiggled his hand from my grasp.
My frustration released as a hiss, tempered down from a scream. “How is your thieving supposed to teach me anything?”
“Because, goddess, you insist on looking at the distraction instead of the main event.” His gaze travelled over my head, back in the direction we’d come from. The scent of smoke hit my nose at the same time I saw the teal flame creeping up the side of one of the merchant’s stalls.
No one had noticed yet. I summoned up all my focus, drew up the energy for runes, and let a string of them slip from my tongue. The air pushed away from the space around the stall, snuffing out the flame in a blink and leaving the people nearby gasping for breath. A moment later, the air rushed back in, and the crisis was averted.
I whipped around, ready to snarl at the man causing me so much grief, but he wasn’t there. I scanned the market, searching for that flaming head of hair until I found him leaning against a wall at the edge of an alley. Blood boiling, I stormed toward him, dodging everything that got in my way. He looked up as I approached, not a care in the world, with that godsforsaken smile across his face.
“Why would you do that? Someone could’ve been hurt or had their livelihood ruined!” It was all I could do to resist the urge to slap him and cause a scene.
“Nothing was going to happen,” he said, pushing himself away from the wall with his foot, nonchalant.
I gaped at him. “You can’t know that!”
“Of course I can. You were there.” He gave his head a nod to the other end of the alley, walking away from me.
The words tumbled in my head like I’d been shaken. What in the nine realms did that mean? Was it a good thing? Was I dependable, reliable? Or predictable? I didn’t have time to decide; he was already far enough away that I had to run to catch up.
Before I knew it, we were at the outskirts of the city, away from the homes and shops built nearly on top of one another. There were fields as far as the eye could see, some with grain and vegetables, others full of cattle and goats. Loki pulled us off the path and into the grass, heading for a lonely tree next to a boulder.
He laid the wolf pelt across the grass and gestured for me to have a seat. I sat. He threw himself down across from me and tipped the bag over, emptying its contents like an avalanche. I’d only seen him steal the pear and the wine, but there were cloth sacks of cheese, a loaf of bread, a gold inlaid knife, a handful of hazelnuts still in their shell, a hand-carved wooden statue of a goat, and half a dozen other oddities.
My face must have been the picture of dismay because Loki started to laugh. Not the cackle of someone evil, but the innocent laughter of a boy who thinks he’s told a good joke. When I didn’t laugh with him, he wiped a tear from his eye and started making himself something to eat.
“And what precisely was I supposed to glean from this?” I fingered through the pilfered goods, guilt festering in my stomach that I’d essentially let him get away with it. I’d never stolen anything in my life, and here I was, accomplice to grand theft picnic.
“Plenty.” He settled onto his side, propped up on his elbow, relaxed as could be. “Misdirection is everywhere, especially in Asgard. Never let anyone tell you where to look, because while you’re staring off into the distance, they’ll be pressing a knife to your back.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you think that’s a little paranoid?”
“Better to be a little paranoid than a lot dead.” He winked and popped a piece of cheese in his mouth.
Odin’s hanged body. Though I didn’t want to admit it, there was a possibility I’d bitten off more than I could chew.