But Skadi bit off that thought before it could take proper shape. This was no personal grudge, she told herself. This was a tactical choice, taken for the greater good. The fact that Freyja and Odin had always enjoyed more than a passing intimacy did not enter into her calculations at all. Freyja’s death might grieve him, of course. It might even wound him in a place even the Word could not reach. Should she let that affect her decision? She thought not. Loki might have caused her father’s death, but it had been Odin who ordered it, Odin who afterward had bought her silence with a few compliments and a strategic marriage. And over the years, she had begun to realize how he’d manipulated her, how he’d used her to make a much-needed peace with the Ice People, how long and how cleverly he had misdirected her anger, making her believe that Loki, and Loki alone, was to blame…

And now the brothers were together again.

Skadi clenched her fists against the white velvet of Ethelberta Parson’s second-best gown. No amount of ironing would remove those creases, but Skadi’s thoughts were far away. In her mind clouds gathered, blood spilled, and Revenge, long deferred but all the sweeter for that, opened its sleepy eyes and smiled.

Isa is the only rune of the Elder Script to have no reverse position. As a result, Skadi had lost none of her powers in the wake of Ragnarók. She considered herself a match for almost any of the Vanir, even Frey or Heimdall-but against the six of them together she knew she could not prevail. Unless, of course…

It had been a long time since she’d had the leisure or inclination to create a new weapon, and this one, she knew, must be foolproof. Not large, no, but every thread picked over with runes of concealment, a weapon of elegance-a weapon of stealth.

If she’d had time, she might have fashioned a shirt-even a cloak, barbed in every stitch with runes of ice and poison-but time was short, and instead she made a tiny handkerchief, edged with ribbon lace so fine that you could hardly even see it, so intricate that the glamours that warped and wefted it were hidden between the love knots and the embroidered flowers, so deadly that a single cantrip would be enough to unleash its working. And on it, in plain, bright script, she placed the rune Fé-

Freyja.

Skadi was pleased. Normally she disdained the homely art of needlework, but as a daughter of the Ice People she was skilled in it nevertheless. Carefully she folded the tiny handkerchief and put it into a drawer of the elegant escritoire. The Vanir would be here before nightfall. Smiling, the Huntress awaited their arrival.

Odin saw them coming from his vantage point beneath a stand of trees, half a mile from Malbry village. It was six o’clock in the evening, and against the last of the sunset he could just make out their signatures moving across the fields, arching into the smoky sky. Skadi’s colors were not among them-but it was possible that she was hiding in ambush nearby, using the others as bait to draw him in. Of Maddy and Loki there was no sign, and only now did he admit to himself how much he had been hoping to see them there.

He cast ýr and ducked behind a hedge. There they were: the Reaper, the Watchman, the Poet, the Healer, the Man of the Sea, and finally the goddess of desire, trailing far behind. Why had they chosen to come on foot? What was their business at the parsonage? And exactly how much did they know?

Through Bjarkán he tried to detect the Whisperer. There was no sign of it, nor could he hear its voice as yet. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. He moved in closer along the hedge, circling behind the little group so that he stood the least chance of being spotted. It felt so wrong, to be hiding thus from his friends, but the world had changed, and not even old friendships could be taken entirely on trust.

Njörd was speaking. “I know she’s reckless-maybe even a little wild-”

“A little wild!” That was Freyja, her long hair shining like frost, the links of her necklace catching the light. “She’s an animal, Njörd-all that prowling around as a wolf and an eagle…”

“She was always loyal. At Ragnarók-”

Frey said, “We were at war then.”

“If Skadi’s right, we’re at war now.”

“With the Folk. With the Order, perhaps,” said Heimdall. “But not with our people.”

“The Æsir are not our people,” said Njörd. “We might all do well to remember it.”

Behind the hedge Odin frowned. So that was where the land lay. Of course, Njörd was the oldest of the Vanir, father to the twins, and it was understandable that his allegiance should belong to the Vanir first and the Æsir second. Besides, he’d long suspected that Njörd still felt tender toward his estranged wife, and as Odin knew, there could be no reasoning with a lover. He himself was not immune: there had been times-quite a few of them-when even Odin the Far-Sighted had shown himself as blind as the next man…

He glanced at Freyja, still dragging behind, her blue dress black to the knees with mud. “How far now?” she wailed. “I’ve been walking for hours, I’ve got a blister, and just look at my gown-”

“If I hear any more about your gown, or your shoes, or your feather dress…,” muttered Heimdall.

“We’re nearly there,” said Idun gently. “But I can give you some apple if your foot hurts-”

“I don’t want an apple. I want some dry shoes, and a clean dress, and a bath-”

“Oh, shut up and use a cantrip,” said Heimdall.

Freyja looked at him and sniffed. “You don’t have a clue, do you, Goldie?”

From his hiding place, Odin smiled.

11

In World Below, Maddy and Loki had hit trouble. Trouble in the form of a vertical shaft slicing down through the levels-no path downward, no alternate route, and a hundred-foot leap to the far side.

It lay at the end of a long, low passage, through which they had half crawled, half clambered for close on three laborious hours. Now, looking down into the ax-shaped rift and listening to the tumbling water some four hundred feet below, Maddy was ready to wail with despair.

“I thought you said this was the best way down!” she cried, addressing the Whisperer.

“I said it was the quickest way down,” it replied waspishly, “and so it is. It’s hardly my fault if you can’t handle a little climb.”

“A little climb!”

The Whisperer glowed in a bored way. Once more Maddy looked down: below them the river churned like cream. It was the river Strond, Maddy knew, swollen with the autumn rains, probing and battering its way between the rocks toward the Cauldron of Rivers. It seemed to fill the chasm completely, and yet as her eyes became accustomed to the deeper gloom, she saw a break in the rock on the far side-just visible across the gap.

She gave a long, exhausted sigh. “We’ll have to double back,” she said. “Find some other route down.”

But Loki was looking at her with a strange expression. “There isn’t another route,” he said. “Not unless you want to share it with a couple of thousand goblins. Besides…”

“Besides,” said the Whisperer, “we’re being followed.”

“What?” said Maddy.

“He knows.”

“Knows what?”

Loki glared at the Oracle. “I spotted a signature an hour ago. Nothing to worry about. We’ll lose them further down.”

“Unless he’s leaving some kind of trail.”

“A trail?” said Maddy. “Why would he do that?”

“Who knows?” it said. “I told you he was trouble.”

Loki gave a hiss of exasperation. “Trouble?” he said. “Listen, I’m already risking my skin. It happens to be rather a nice skin, and I’m in no hurry to see it damaged. So why would I want to leave a trail? And why in Hel’s name would I want to slow us down?”