RENDEZVOUS SPOT: the George Washington statue in the Public Garden. Hearthstone, Blitzen, and Samirah were already there, along with another old friend who happened to be an eight-legged horse.
“Stanley!” I said.
The stallion whinnied and nuzzled me. He nodded toward the statue of George Washington on his charger as if to say, Can you believe this dude? He ain’t so great. His horse only has four legs.
The first time I’d met Stanley, we’d hurtled off a Jotunheim cliff together, heading for a giant’s fortress. I was glad to see the horse again, but I had a bad feeling we were about to take part in the sequel—Cliff Hurtling II: The Rise of Big Boy.
I stroked Stanley’s muzzle, wishing I had a carrot for him. All I had was chocolate and kibbeh, and I didn’t think either would be good for an eight-legged horse.
“Did you summon him?” I asked Hearthstone. “How are you still conscious?”
The first time Hearth used ehwaz, the transportation runestone, he’d collapsed and giggled about washing machines for half an hour.
Hearth shrugged, though I detected a little pride in his expression. He looked better today, after spending a night in the tanning bed. His black jeans and jacket were freshly cleaned, and he had his familiar candy-striped scarf around his neck.
Easier now, he signed. I can do two, maybe three runes in a row before I collapse.
“Wow.”
“What did he say?” Alex asked.
I translated.
“Just two or three?” Alex asked. “I mean, no offense, but that doesn’t sound like a lot.”
“It is,” I said. “Using one rune is like the hardest workout you’ve ever done. Imagine an hour of nonstop sprinting.”
“Yeah, I don’t really work out, so—”
Blitzen cleared his throat. “Ah, Magnus? Who’s your friend?”
“Sorry. This is Alex Fierro. Blitzen, Hearthstone, Alex is our newest einherji.”
Blitzen was wearing his pith helmet, so it was difficult to see his expression through the gauze netting. However, I was pretty sure he wasn’t grinning in delight.
“You’re the other child of Loki,” he said.
“Yep,” Alex said. “I promise I won’t kill you.”
For Alex, that was a pretty big concession, but Hearth and Blitz didn’t seem to know what to make of her.
Samirah gave me a dry smile.
“What?” I demanded.
“Nothing.” She was wearing her school uniform, which I thought was pretty optimistic, like, I’ll just zip over to Jotunheim and be back in time for third-period Government. “Where have you two been? You didn’t come from the direction of Valhalla.”
I explained about our excursion to Randolph’s, and the photo and wedding invitation that were now in my backpack.
Sam frowned. “You think this waterfall is the way into Thrym’s fortress?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or at least it might be two days from now. If we know that in advance, we might be able to use the info.”
How? Hearth signed.
“Um, I’m not sure yet.”
Blitzen grunted. “I suppose it’s possible. Earth giants can manipulate solid rock even better than dwarves can. They can definitely shift their front doors around. Also”—he shook his head in disgust—“their fortresses are almost impossible to break into. Tunneling, explosives, blasts of godly power—none of that will work. Believe me, D.I.C.E. has tried.”
“Dice?” I asked.
He looked at me like I was a moron. “The Dwarven Infantry Corps of Engineers. What else would it stand for? Anyway, with earth giants you have to use the main entrance. But even if your uncle knew where it would be on the wedding day, why would he share that information? This is the man who stabbed me in the gut.”
I didn’t need the reminder. I saw that scene every time I closed my eyes. I also didn’t have a good answer for him, but Alex intervened. “Shouldn’t we get going?”
Sam nodded. “You’re right. Stanley will only stay summoned for a few minutes. He prefers no more than three passengers, so I figured I would fly and carry Hearthstone. Magnus, how about you, Alex, and Blitz take our horse friend?”
Blitzen shifted uneasily in his navy three-piece suit. Maybe he was thinking how badly he and Alex would clash sitting next to each other on the horse.
It’s okay, Hearthstone signed to him. Be safe.
“Hmph. All right.” Blitz glanced at me. “But I’ve got dibs on the front. Is that called shotgun on a horse?”
Stanley whinnied and stomped. I don’t think he liked shotgun and horse being used in the same sentence.
I handed Sam the Skofnung Sword. Blitzen gave her the Skofnung Stone. We figured, since they were her supposed bride-price, she should have the right to carry them. She wouldn’t be able to draw the sword because of its enchantments, but at least she could brain people with the stone if the need arose.
Stanley allowed us to climb aboard—Blitzen first, Alex in the middle, and me in the back, or as I liked to think of it: the seat from which you will fall off and die in case of rapid ascent.
I was afraid that if I held on to Alex she might cut off my head or turn into a giant lizard and bite me or something, but she grabbed my wrists and put them around her waist. “I’m not fragile. And I’m not contagious.”
“I didn’t say anything—”
“Shut up.”
“Shutting up.”
She smelled of clay, like the pottery studio in her suite. She also had a tiny tattoo I hadn’t noticed before on the nape of her neck—the curled double serpents of Loki. When I realized what I was looking at, my stomach took a preemptive drop off a cliff, but I didn’t have much time to process the tattoo’s significance.
Sam said, “See you in Jotunheim.” She grabbed Hearthstone’s arm and the two of them vanished in a flash of golden light.
Stanley wasn’t quite so understated. He galloped toward Arlington Street, jumped the park fence, and charged straight toward the Taj Hotel. A moment before we would’ve hit the wall, Stanley went airborne. The hotel’s marble facade dissolved into a bank of fog and Stanley did a three-sixty barrel roll right through it, somehow managing not to lose us. His hooves touched the ground again, and we were charging through a forested ravine, mountains looming on either side.
Snow-covered pines towered above us. Gunmetal gray clouds hung low and heavy. My breath turned to steam.
I had time to think, Hey,
we’re in Jotunheim, before Blitzen yelled, “Duck!”
The next millisecond demonstrated how much faster I could think than react. First I thought Blitz had spotted an actual duck. Blitzen likes ducks. Then I realized he was telling me to get down, which is hard to do when you’re the last in a line of three people on horseback.
Then I saw the large tree branch hanging directly in our path. I realized Stanley was going to run right under it at full speed. Even if the branch had been properly labeled low clearance, Stanley couldn’t read.
SMACK!
I found myself flat on my back in the snow. Above me, pine branches swayed in fuzzy Technicolor. My teeth ached.
I managed to sit up. My vision cleared, and I spotted Alex a few feet away, curled up and groaning in a pile of pine needles. Blitzen staggered around looking for his pith helmet. Fortunately, Jotunheim light wasn’t strong enough to petrify dwarves or he would’ve already turned to stone.
As for our intrepid ride, Stanley, he was gone. A trail of hoofprints continued under the tree branch and into the woods as far as I could see. Maybe he’d reached the end of his summoning time and vanished. Or maybe he’d gotten caught up in the joy of running and wouldn’t realize he’d left us behind for another twenty miles.
Blitzen snatched his pith helmet out of the snow. “Stupid horse. That was rude!”
I helped Alex to her feet. A nasty-looking cut zigzagged across her forehead like a squiggly red mouth.
“You’re bleeding,” I said. “I can fix that.”
She swatted away my hand. “I’m fine, Dr. House, but thanks for the diagnosis.” She turned unsteadily, scanning the forest. “Where are we?”
“More importantly,” Blitz said, “where are the others?”
Sam and Hearthstone were nowhere to be seen. I only hoped Sam was better at avoiding obstacles than Stanley was.
I scowled at the tree branch we’d run into. I wondered if I could get Jack to chop it down before the next group of poor schmucks rode through here. But there was something strange about its texture. Instead of the usual bark pattern, it consisted of crosshatched gray fiber. It didn’t taper to a point, but instead curved down to the ground, where it snaked across the snow. Not a branch, then…more like a huge cable. The top of the cable wound into the trees and disappeared into the clouds.
“What is this thing?” I asked. “It’s not a tree.”
To our left, a dark, looming shape I’d taken for a mountain shifted and rumbled. I realized with bladder-twisting certainty that it wasn’t a mountain. The largest giant I’d ever seen was sitting next to us.
“No, indeed!” his voice boomed. “That’s my shoestring!”
How could I not notice a giant that big? Well, if you didn’t know what you were looking at, he was simply too large to understand. His hiking boots were foothills. His bent knees were mountain peaks. His dark gray bowling shirt blended in with the sky, and his fluffy white beard looked like a bank of snow clouds. Even sitting down, the giant’s gleaming eyes were so far up they could have been blimps or moons.
“Hello, little ones!” The giant’s voice was deep enough to liquefy soft substances—like my eyeballs, for instance. “You should watch where you are going!”
He tucked in his right foot. The tree branch/shoelace we’d smacked into slithered through the pines, uprooting bushes, snapping branches, and scattering terrified woodland creatures. A twelve-point buck leaped out of nowhere and almost ran over Blitzen.
The giant leaned over, blocking out the gray light. He tied his shoe, humming as he worked, looping one massive cable over the other, the laces flailing and laying waste to whole swaths of forest.
Once the giant had done a proper double knot, the earth stopped shaking.
Alex yelled, “Who are you? And why haven’t you ever heard of Velcro straps?”