Odin's Murder

The tiny girl opens her eyes and hisses, but she’s still. The professor stands straight, examines his thumb, coated with blood. He sniffs it, and then licks it, like he’s tasting a recipe. My feet tangle in something on the floor. I pick up a brown wool sweater with black buttons, one of Faye’s.

A woman steps forward, dark skin, wide brows, good-looking. She takes the sweater from me, hand flashing with a yellow gem that catches the light and glows, beckoning like no other treasure I’ve had to have. I tear my eyes from it, back to her face.

“You’re helping him.” My voice is flat.

Mary gives me the briefest nod, moves to the girl I’ve not met. She wraps the sweater around her shoulders and rubs warmth into her arms. They have the same nose,

the same high cheekbones, same as the picture on Constance’s bulletin board. Sonja and Miriam.

“Ethan!” Memory’s cry is a whip through my stupor, and my fingers tighten around the handle of the lantern. I set it on the ground.

“Now that everyone is here, I think we should begin.” Anders gestures to Mary—Miriam. “Mimir, if you please.”

She moves away from her daughter, and out into the larger cavern. She murmurs a word, waves her hand, and a thin line of blue flame runs around the cave in two perfect semicircles, ringing an eight foot hole in the floor. An endless stream of water cascades through it from above, stray droplets popping into steam when they hit the blaze.

My mouth moves, but no sound comes out. I stare at the woman who drives a beat up Nissan, keeps animal crackers in a jar on her desk and has rescued me from my own screw-ups countless times. She just ignited a fire with her voice.

Faye begins to chant, a high pitched whisper of odd syllables.

“None of that,” Anders snaps. She says something more that has him raising his fist. “As disrespectful out of class as in it, Miss Jarvi?”

“Faye, stop,” Julian begs, the look on his face pure anguish. Memory stares at me, tears sliding down her face. I look away.

“She is no use to you damaged, Yvengvr,” Mary says, in the pleasant tone she uses in the courtroom. Has she been manipulating me this whole time? Am I her pawn in all this psychotic mess? “Sonja,” she says, pushing the girl’s hair back from her eyes, “I need the runes. The bracelet? Where is it?”

“I don’t have it, Mama.”

Behind Anders’ back, Memory goes still. She has the bracelet, I can see each rune flick through her mind, as if I were holding my camera and seeing through her eyes. She has them all but one. The one in my pocket.

“Which runes?” Anders asks Mary.

“Their naming stones. I sent them to her for safekeeping. I need them.”

“You need their pet tags?” His bark of laughter echoes up into the dark. “If found, please return to Asgard?”

“Their blood has been diluted for centuries, Yvengvr. Those runes were made by their creator himself. If you want the fullest restoration of their power, I suggest using every tool available.” She turns to Sonja. “Where is the bracelet, honey?”

“I never made it to campus, Mama. I’ve been in a—” Her voice drops off to a whisper. “He turned me into a, he put me in a—”

Mary pins Anders with a cold stare. “You caged my daughter?”

He shrugs. “You betrayed me once, Mimir. I wasn’t going to give you a second chance. She’s been with me the entire time. Safe.”

“Memory has them,” I tell Mary. Memory glares at me. “Give them to her,” I say.

“Ethan, I don’t…”

“Give them to her.” My voice resonates with the command. My stomach wrenches with the accusation in her eyes, but I stand my ground and reluctantly, Memory pulls the charm bracelet from her pocket. She places it in Mary’s palm, a coil of silver glinting in the firelight.

“Bring them,” Mary says over her shoulder as she walks to the well. “Bind their hands together.” She skirts the edge, walking between the lip and the line of flame to the gap at the other side, where a dais rises from the stone.

“Why are you doing this?” Memory hisses at me.

I don’t answer, but Anders does, as he unlocks the shackles at Sonja’s feet. “Why, Muninn? Because I want my birthright back. I have walked this prison long enough, serving a sentence I did not deserve. I want my freedom, that is why. I doubt your life of privilege would let you understand this, but Mr. Tyrell does.” He holds out a handcuff key, and gestures me toward Faye. “Watch her teeth.”

Faye doesn’t fight me when I release her, she just grabs at Julian’s hand. I lock them together with the single cuff that had bound him to the stones. Her tiny wrist takes hardly any extra room at all. Julian curses me with words that would impress a gang yard. I unlock Faye’s boots, support her as she stands, and lock her other wrist with Sonja’s. “I’m Ethan,” I tell Mary’s—or Miriam’s—daughter, then cringe at how stupid I must sound.

“We’ve met.” She’s a foot shorter, but still manages to look down her nose at me. She reaches in the pocket of her shorts, tugging Faye’s hand with her, and drops a silvery marble in my hand. It has a blue stripe winding through the glass. I look at her again, but she’s staring at a broken cage cast off to the side. I don’t even try to understand what is real.