“Trust is the foundation that all good love is built on. Remove it, and the rest crumbles.”
—Winter Wilds, Levaine Theavin
Loki had taken the useless book and come back from the market with a new one, a book about manipulating water. On his insistence, we were sitting in the sun outside my hall, me with my new book and him napping with his head in my lap. I’d just finished a chapter about controlling the tide when the sky clouded over, and a clap of thunder rolled above our heads.
Loki peeked an eye open. “Well, that’s not good.”
“What do you think he’s mad about now?” I stroked a hand across Loki’s temple and down his cheek, drawing out an easy smile.
“Maybe he’s just jealous that he doesn’t get to lie in your arms.” His face shifted, disgusted with his own comment. “No, pretend I didn’t say that. Pretend I said something better.”
I laughed. It was horrendous, but it was nice to see that he couldn’t smooth-talk his way through every moment.
Another roll of thunder crashed overhead, and Loki sat up, brushing himself off. I marked my page, not wanting to ruin my book when the sky broke open. We were almost through the door when the sound of scraping gravel drew our attention. Thor was stomping towards us, his face set in a snarl, his fists balled up at his sides.
“Oh, that is really not good.” Loki rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck before taking a step towards my brother. “You know, if you’re going to visit, you could at least bring a little sun with you.”
“Mjolnir is gone,” Thor snapped, stopping just out of arm’s reach of Loki. And a good thing too, since he looked eager to break something.
I stepped in beside Loki, freeing up my dominant casting hand, just in case. “Your hammer has nothing to do with us.”
“Doesn’t it? There’s half a chance he’s got it in your cellar.”
Loki shrugged. “I don’t have it.”
“You really don’t?” Thor turned, looking around like he was lost. The clouds above softened, and the rumble grew more distant. He kicked a rock and sent it soaring into the city. “Hel take me, if you haven’t got it, then where is it? You have to be lying.”
Loki stared him in the eyes, unflinching. “If I wanted to hurt you, I could think of better ways.”
Thor’s shoulders fell with a great heaving sigh, the tension between them fading as quickly as it had come. He slumped against the side of my hall, head in hands. “What am I going to do?”
“It’s just a hammer,” I said, still bristling from the accusation.
“It’s not just a hammer. It’s my hammer, and I’ve been telling everyone about it and killing everyone with it, and if the realms find out it’s gone, then not only will everyone want to pick a fight with me, I’ll look like an idiot.”
Loki cackled. “Don’t you always?”
Thor looked up at him, practically pleading. “You have to help me.” I couldn’t recall ever seeing tears in my brother’s eyes before.
“Why me?” Loki shifted his weight to one foot. “Last I checked, you loathe me.”
“It has to be you. You’re crafty and devious and smarter than I am, and—”
Loki waved a hand, smirking. “No, that’s all I needed to hear. Come inside. Let’s see what can be done.”
Thor was away from the wall and past me before I could think to move. Yggdrasil shade me, had they always been like that? Neither friend nor foe?
The men were already at the table, Thor having tracked dirt in behind him. I sat down next to Loki. “Where did you see it last?”
“I put it down at supper, and I thought I brought it to my room, but I’d had a lot to drink and…well, you know. Maybe I didn’t?”
Loki extended his arm across the table to Thor, palm down, like he was talking to a child. “Tell me you looked in Valhalla.”
“Of course I did. The Valkyries haven’t seen it. Couldn’t you do that thing you do? Where you turn into a bird and go scouting?”
I turned to Loki. “Scouting?”
He put his arm around my shoulder. “Once or twice, I may have shifted into a hawk to find things worth finding. Usually an enemy, occasionally a lost keg of ale.”
“That was good ale.” Thor sighed wistfully.
“Alright.” Loki smacked the table with his palm and stood up. “How far could it have gone anyway?” Without another word, he went outside and closed the door behind him, leaving Thor and me alone.
It was so silent that I may as well have been alone. Thor was staring off to the far end of the room, tapping his fingers on his own bicep. When it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything, I stood up. “Mead?”
“Yes, please.”
When I brought back two tall, flat bottom horns, he was at least looking at me again. He drank down half of his at once.
I sighed. “Say what you want to say and be done with it.”
Thor wiped the mead from his red-gold moustache with the back of his hand. We stared at each other for a long moment before he finally spoke. “I don’t like it.”
“Don’t like what?”
The horn clicked against the table as he put it down. “You shouldn’t be with him. You’re better than that.”
“But it’s okay for you to be his friend? Or whatever you want to call this strange relationship?” I took my own drink, realizing just how badly I was going to need it.
He huffed. “I don’t have to trust him to be his friend. Letting him live with you and sleep next to you, that’s something else.”
“Let me ask you this.” I leaned across the table. “Have you ever thought I was dumb?” He shook his head. “Irresponsible?” Another shake. “Easy to manipulate?”
“Sigyn, you just don’t understand—”
“People just keep saying that. I do understand. I understand that there is no absolute truth, and that everyone is guilty of something, especially in Asgard. And if you knew how unwaveringly good Loki is to me, how fantastic it is to have someone who believes in my skills—in me—then you wouldn’t be sitting here telling me not to be with him. You’d be happy for me.”
Thor sat back, his tree-trunk arms crossed over his chest. “And what about what he did to Sif?”
“You weren’t there. She said horrible things about his mother. He shouldn’t have done it, but you’d have torn the head off anyone who talked about your mother that way. Yggdrasil shade me, that kind of insult is a crime punishable by death in more than half the realms.”
His lips protruded from his face as he turned it over in his mind. “I knew Sif said something, but she won’t say what. But that would be just like Loki. I’ve seen him break bones defending his mother’s name.”
“So, can we just let this go? He’s out there being helpful, and I don’t want us to be enemies because you don’t like who I’m with.”
Thor nodded absentmindedly, then met my eyes, a playful smile on his face. “He’s that good in bed then?”
I gasped and threw my empty horn at him. He bellowed a laugh as it bounced off his chest.
Things were better by the time Loki returned. Not perfect, but good. Even Loki seemed surprised to find us both alive and well. But he was also empty-handed.
“I couldn’t find it. I checked everywhere worth checking, but I don’t think it’s in Asgard anymore.”
Thor threw his chair back. “Not in Asgard? How?”
“You gave them plenty of time to ride off with it. It could be anywhere by now.”
“You have to keep looking, you have to.” Thor put his meaty hand on Loki’s shoulder and shook him in desperation until Loki’s face started to turn green.
“Just let go—” He swallowed hard and pushed Thor’s hand from his shoulder. After a moment of composing his stomach, he sighed. “I’m tired, Thor. You want me to search half the realms on a whim. I can’t keep the form of a hawk all day and do all the work of flying on top of it. It’s too much.”
“There’s got to be another way.”
“The falcon cloak.” Their eyes turned to me, both seeming to have drawn a blank. “Freya’s seidr cloak. Though she’s not going to be happy to give it to you.”
“She’ll give it to me.” Thor pushed Loki out of the way and opened the door. “I’ll get the horses.” And he was gone.
“Well.” Loki smacked his lips. “Just like old times.”