Alex POV

"Did you see him at breakfast?" Halfborn asks, grunting with the effort of chopping off the head of a einherji from floor 22. Halfborn swings his double-sided black steel axes, and seconds later we're down one more obstacle between floor 19 and the red flag.

"I didn't", Mallory answers, slicing with twin gleaming solid silver knives inlaid with rubies that had been a gift from her mother, Frigg, the Queen of the Gods.

"No one asked you, woman", Halfborn spits, "Why would YOU have seen him?"

"Shut up! Or I'm trying out my new toys on you!", Mallory returns, and Halfborn has the decency to shiver as the sun glints off the perfectly balanced twin blades. They're small, but the finest blades in our arsenal. Of course, no one would expect less than the perfection from the Queen of Asgard, the goddess Mallory was only beginning to accept as her biological mother.

"Alex?", Halfborn asks.

I shiver in my pink and green plaid sweater vest and pink button down. The weather is turning here just as it is on Midgard. They tend to be replicas of each other in some ways.

These daily battle games were getting to be a rare indulgence for Magnus and myself. We both found more fulfillment spending most of our time on Midgard, running Chase Place. We'd rather help homeless kids than bathe ourselves in blood. Call us crazy. More fulfillment. Not to mention more privacy.

The fact that I was shivering meant one thing. The man in question, whom I had also not seen this morning, was nowhere nearby. The temperature always rose 10 degrees when he was within a quarter mile.

"Missing your god of summer?", Halfborn snickers. None of our cohort had a huge problem with it they learned about my burgeoning romance with the knucklehead, but if anyone did, it was Halfborn, who I think had looked at Magnus a certain way, and now he had to change his visual.

We protected each other on Floor 19, but right now I really want to wrap my garrote around his neck and squeeze. No more jokes for Halfborn Gunderson. Not for a few hours at least.

Instead, I whip out my delicate, but deadly weapon, and snap off the head of an einherji walking by. The head rolls across the ground, and stops at Halfborn's feet. He has the decency to swallow hard.

"Sorry", he mumbles. Yeah, he should be, but honestly I kinda am. Missing my god of summer that is. I'm cold! And I feel alone-the natural state not only of Alex Fierro, but of all relatives of Loki. We have dark hair and darker souls, you see, at least that's the way I look at it. Being in Magnus's presence is intoxicating for anyone, but especially for us. He looks like sunshine. He feels like sunshine. He even smells like sunshine. For a child of Loki, looking at Magnus is a lot like turning my face toward the sun on the first warm spring day. I felt...warm. Safe. Home.

Which is odd because those are feelings I thought I'd matured past needing to feel. When someone has an early life like mine, they learn that trust is for fools. The list of people who have not let me down is far shorter than the list of those who have. Which is why I tried to hide my feelings so for long. Don't get me wrong, there are other reasons, like I'm way too cool for Magnus Chase. And way too cool to show how I feel. A girl doesn't do that for just anyone.

But nevertheless...I've been kind of crushing on him for a long time now. But Magnus never showed any interest in males. Not that I am most of the time, but, well...you know how hard I am to understand for most people. But he seemed...straight as an arrow and as cis as my sister. It's hard to imagine what it took for a guy like Magnus to fall in love with someone as inappropriate as me. Well I like to think he fell in love. We don't talk about that though, at least we haven't...dammit, where is he? I'm starting to worry now.

"Is he with Sam?", Halfborn asks. "They seem joined at the hip lately."

My boyfriend and my sister, joined at the hip? Oh really? Hpmf.

We walk around the corner and...there he is. On the ground in a ball, holding his head, looking more like Kurt Cobain on a bender than ever. He's moaning. Funny I couldn't feel him, couldn't sense him. There seems to be no Magnus...in Magnus right now. He thrashes on the ground.

"What's the matter dufus, fall over?", Mallory asks.

"What an idi..." The word isn't out of my mouth. He's actually in pain. Magnus is in pain and coming apart at the seams. My insult dies on my lips, and I basically flatten Halfborn and Mallory to get past them.

"Hey!", Mallory complains. But I'm on my knees by his side, cradling his head in the crook of my elbow in under a second.

"What's wrong, baby? Talk to me. What's wrong?", I ask, looking him over for a wound. "I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong..."

"In my head!" he cries out, "Lo...Lo...Lokiiiiii!"

"How is that possible?", Mallory asks. "Loki has been captured, he's...in a friggin walnut! How can he reach you telepathically anymore?"

Magnus screams like his insides are being chewed up. He holds his head as if he'd trying to hold it together.

"Only one way to stop it. Loki will never give up while Magnus is alive, or well...our version of alive...do your thing, Fierro", Halfborn advises. But it's not as easy as it once was.

"Dammit", I whisper, twisting my garrote in my hands.

Magnus screams again.

"His head is going to explode, Fierro!", Halfborn yells.

I lift up his head and wrap my deadly weapon around his neck. Why does he seem so much weaker, so much...more innocent than the last time I did this? I smooth a finger down his cheek. "I'm sorry. Has to be done. I'm going to want to know all about this in a few hours", I saw, close my eyes, and squeeze.

The next morning.

This is my third vase. And it too goes crashing against the wall. Magnus is a fast healer, he heals hours faster than anyone else, but it's been nearly 24 of them and his head is still floating in a strawberry-scented bubble bath while his decapitated body waits peacefully on his bed. Did I...did something go wrong?

What did my mother do to him? God or not, Loki is dead if anything...agghhhhh! Magnus, dammit, where are you?! Why the hell aren't you awake?

My door flies open, and I hurl vase number four at the head of whoever came in.

"Dammit, Fierro", Gunderson complains. "He's back."

I drop everything and rush to his room.

"Could you not knock me over?" Halfborn complains again, "You could have waited with him, you know, but you didn't."

"I didn't sit quietly by the bleeding decapitated corpse of my boyfriend? You don't say. I can't take that, Gunderson, I can't deal with watching him...he's awake that's all that matters." I rush toward Magnus's room.

"Thank the gods. Magnus, what took so long?! I was worried sick! Magnus, are you okay? What did Loki do to you? Magnus? Magnus?" But my boyfriend is just standing there, staring at me.

"Just let me rest a while", he says. And closes the door in my face.

Our plan to return to Chase Place immediately after the battle went all to Helheim of course. So now I'm at dinner at Hotel Valhalla, too upset to eat.

"Maybe he's genuinely just tired", Sam says. But something is wrong, I can feel it. Something has changed between us.

He walks in, and I inhale sharply. Dammit, I did not want to feel this way. Not about anyone, ever. I did not intend to let anyone get to me like this, destroy me with a word, or rather no words.

He sits as far from Sam and me as possible. "Still think he was just tired?", I ask rhetorically.

Mallory puts an arm around his shoulders. Something is wrong. Why won't he talk to me?

So, I wait until he's eaten and he gets up, and starts to walk back to his room. Sam tries to grab me. "Maybe you should let him be for the night", she advises, but I can't.

I call out to him, and hate myself for the unshed tears in my voice.

"You know if you're pissed at me, you can just say so! I'm sorry, okay?! I'm sorry I had to do that, do you think I enjoyed it? I don't want to hurt you, but he would have killed you if I hadn't. I lo...I'm sorry."

"Alex", he says, turning around, tears on his cheeks, "We can't see each other anymore, okay? We can be friends, but I need some space for a while. I'm sorry." He keeps walking.

My heart explodes and shatters into a million pieces, my stomach falls to the floor. This is what it feels like have the world explode in your hands, to have a life for a little while, only to feel it be snatched away. He should have just killed me. It would hurt less.

The rejection settles in my bloodstream. I'm used to it by now, aren't I? But...some unknown force seems to want to come back for more pain, because I follow him.

"Why?" And the tears fall. "Why, Magnus? Did I do something? Did I not do something?"

And then he's rushing toward me and I'm in his arms. I inhale sunshine. Probably for the last time, I think.

"We can't be together", he says, "Loki told me, and if you'd been there, you'd know he was telling the truth. If we keep doing this, something terrible will happen to you that could cost you your life. I'm not willing to risk that."

"Loki told you...what...you can't trust him!"

"He convinced me. I'm not going to lose you", he insists.

"You're losing me now!" I cry.

"But you're alive. I'm going back to Chase Place. I think you should stay here. It's just going to be too hard for a while to see you all the time. I...what you were going to say before...me too." He kisses the top of my head and walks away.