The world is made from bone and blood and stars…
These are the words that bring Darcy Lewis out of a dark and dreamless sleep. She's not certain if she has heard them whispered, or if they have risen out of the depths of her own soul. They circle around her, press sharp edges against her skin, slide like razors between her fingers. Her hands curl reflexively, as though she could physically catch the words, tease out their tangled meaning with nails and teeth and sheer will.
Darcy turns over in her narrow bed, lets her body relax, her eyes drift closed. Here, in the space between waking and sleeping, she can almost feel the weight of Loki beside her in the bed. She can almost pretend that everything is the way that she had hoped it would be.
The illusion lasts only until she opens her eyes. Her hands are half curled into fists, empty. Her left wrist still bears the thick scars from Hel's claws, and when she turns her hand the right way, she can see the faint white marks left behind by Hel's other marks, the black lace-like swirls that had climbed her arm, marking her as Hel's supplicant.
The words were part of a dream, she supposes, though she remembers none. For the last two months, there has been nothing but darkness every time she closes her eyes.
The small joints in her fingers pop and crack as she stretches her hands, then lifts her arms over her head. The knotted scar over her heart pulls against her skin, a numb mass that always feels wrong, as though someone has inserted something non-living beneath her skin.
The tiny bedroom has never grown familiar, for all of the mornings she has woken up here, and the narrow bed never feels like hers. Even the clothing in the crooked wardrobe feel like they are borrowed from a stranger when she pulls them on, no matter how many times she wears them.
The room is small, the walls roughly plastered and the single window only as wide as her shoulders. The heavy curtains are drawn aside, though Edith, the woman who comes from the closest village to service the house, warned Darcy to keep them closed against the cold. The first night, Darcy had taken Edith's advice, and all night she had felt overheated, the air in the room smothering. In the nights since, she has left the curtains open, and she has slept, albeit restlessly. Something about being able to see the sky when she wakes is soothing, even if most of the time all she can see is a thick layer of cloud.
Darcy swings her feet out of bed, pads to the window. Her bare feet make a hollow sound on the floorboards, reminding her of the vast basement that stretches beneath the house. She's dressed only in a loose t-shirt and underwear, both items thin enough to see through. In New York, she never would have stood at a window dressed like this. Here, she has no fear of anyone seeing her. The village is more than an hour away by car, and there are no other houses here in the valley. Edith has the knack for coming by the house only when Darcy is occupied or sleeping. Mostly, Darcy doesn't mind the loneliness. Mostly.
The window is patterned with a lacework of frost, the thin light dappling shadows over her arms. Darcy presses her fingertips against the glass, remembering a room filled with snow and ice, a maelstrom barely contained by concrete and magic. Her own magic stirs sluggishly within her in response to the memory. Since she stepped from the Bifrost, the magic has solidified within her, become a distant thing. She's never been certain if it gives her relief or worries her. She's not certain of much, out here.
She watches her skin grow blue, then white, as the cold creeps over her skin. Only when the chill reaches her scars does she let her hands fall from the window. The marks of Hel's claws look gnarled, but the skin there is thin, fragile enough that she's opened the scars more than once. Each time the scars had bled, she had held her breath until she had seen that the blood was red, not black.
If it wasn't for the scars on her wrist and chest, she would find it easy most days to believe that none of it had ever happened. That gods had never come to Earth. That New York hadn't almost been destroyed twice over. That she hadn't walked into a labyrinth, willingly sacrificed painful memories to summon Hel, the goddess of death.
That she hadn't fallen in love with Loki. Walked into Helheim itself to bring him back from the dead.
Two months since she and Loki had stepped from the Bifrost, two weeks since she stepped off the plane and onto Scottish soil.
Two months without Loki, and with every day that passes, everything feels less and less real.
Darcy twists the ring she still wears on her left hand. The broken threads of metal press into the skin of the neighbouring fingers; there are callouses there where she has pressed the strands into her skin over and over. At first, the skin had grown raw and bled, but over the last few months it had toughened, grown numb.
If she focuses hard, she can almost summon up the feeling of Loki's hand in hers as they had stepped into the Bifrost. In that moment, she had thought that everything was going to be okay. She loved Loki, and Loki loved her. Hel had been returned to Helheim, Loki had a seat waiting for him on the Asgardian Council, if he wished to take it. Thor had been certain that everything in Midgard was going to be okay, and Darcy had even entertained the idea of becoming an Avenger, or at least a SHIELD agent.
Then they had stepped out of the other side of the rainbow bridge.
Several dozen heavily armed SHIELD agents had been waiting, all of them clad in black Kevlar. For a heartbeat, Darcy had held hard to Loki, and then they had been drawn apart. He had no fought the agents, simply let them lead him away. At the last, before they ushered him into a black van, he had looked back at Darcy and smiled. Even then, she had thought that everything was going to be okay.
After that, a SHIELD facility, a series of rooms with no windows. Medical tests, psychological tests, tests she had no idea what their purpose were. The doctors had eyed her scars with interest and not a little revulsion, taken dozens of vials of blood. Darcy had submitted meekly, because everything was going to be okay.
Eventually, the doctors had declared that they had been unable to find anything physically wrong with her. The scars were just ordinary scars, her blood just ordinary blood. Psychologically, she was showing the effects of trauma, but was also demonstrating remarkable resilience. Darcy had smile, and told that they had just described most New Yorkers. The doctors had not smiled back.
Jane had visited once, after the medical tests had finished. She smiled too much, and she did not meet Darcy's eyes. Told her that all of this was necessary, that things would be okay.
A thread of fear had started to tighten in Darcy, then, but she had nodded and smiled, watched Jane walk out, heard the door lock behind her.
The night after Jane's visit, Darcy had gone to sleep, woken slumped beside Natasha Romanov in a car headed towards a small private plane. Her head had felt as though it was stuffed with cotton wool, her eyes not focusing when she tried to read the signs that told her what airport she was at. The plane had been empty apart from the two of them, the pilot silent as the plane took off.
An hour into the flight, Natasha had told Darcy that they were headed to Scotland. Darcy would be required to remain in a house owned by SHIELD in the Scottish Highlands, would be expected to comply with any further testing required of her.
"You raised a goddess," Natasha had said, her eyes on the back of the empty chair in front of her. She had taken a seat across the aisle from Darcy: close, but not too close. "Hel almost destroyed the world. You walked into the Underworld, and you rescued another god who almost destroyed the world. They don't trust you, and they don't understand you."
"But Asgard-"
"Has no say in any of this," Natasha had said flatly. "You're only getting this chance because Thor and Stark demanded it."
"Chance for what?" Darcy had asked.
Natasha had closed her eyes then, apparently asleep. Darcy had known that if she'd done anything that Natasha had deemed a threat, the Black Widow would be awake in a heartbeat.
None of it makes sense, even now. Had she been sent here to prove that she was no threat? Or was it simple exile? Was she supposed to be thankful that they hadn't just let Natasha put a bullet in her head?
And where was Loki? If they sent Darcy all the way to the other side of the world, what were they doing to him?
Pain stabs into Darcy's wrist. She's been rubbing at the scars hard enough to break the thin skin. Bright red droplets of blood well, slide along the traces of Hel's other curlicued marks.
Darcy blots the blood with the hem of her shirt. The scars bleed easily, but they heal quickly, too. Small mercies, and all of that.
#
The house itself is a small cottage tucked away in a shallow valley amidst rolling hills. Most of the surrounding land has been cleared, and shows signs of having been farmed at some earlier time, though the fields are home now only to weeds and scattered wildflowers. In the near distance, tucked into the fork between two valleys, a small stand of woodland, the trees ancient and gnarled.
When Natasha had led Darcy from the car to the house - no weapons visible, but she was the Black Widow, and Darcy had no doubt that she carried more than one hidden gun - Darcy had glimpsed only green and grey and shadow. Inside, Natasha had knelt and fastened a slim metal cuff around one of Darcy's ankles. There was no physical catch on the cuff, the black metal simply sealing to form a solid circle. Natasha had told her that the cuff would report Darcy's location to SHIELD at all times. She could consider herself free to walk the surrounding land, but any lengthy absences from the house would be treated as potentially suspicious. She was to go nowhere near the village.
The metal of the cuff cold against her skin, Darcy had thought of Loki and the Asgardian vault: a relic locked away until you are in need of me.
She had asked Natasha about Loki's whereabouts, but Natasha had simply kept on talking as though Darcy had said nothing at all. Clothing had been supplied for her, along with a library of books and media. The house had no telephone or access to television channels, but there was a satellite internet connection. A woman, Edith, would come by from the village at regular intervals to supply Darcy with food, and she could request books and other sundry items from her.
Though Natasha had said nothing about surveillance, Darcy had taken it for granted that SHIELD had more means that just the cuff to keep track of her. She also knows that what she requests from Edith will all go through SHIELD, and they will only supply her with what they deem necessary. She can't see them supplying her with books such as How to free your Asgardain god boyfriend from the clutches of SHIELD.
She makes herself go through the routines of bathing, washing her hair, dressing. One of the shrinks who had visited her in the SHIELD facility - a blonde with a penchant for too bright pink lipstick - had been big on the importance of routine. Remind yourself that life goes on, the woman had said. After the chaos of your recent life, it's important to remind yourself that you are alive, that your life is normal.
Darcy had wanted to argue with the woman, but she had seen how she had carefully placed herself close to the room's exit, how her gaze had skittered over Darcy's scars. Had seen the fear hiding beneath her poised facade.
The magic inside her moves, sluggish as a half-frozen ocean trying to move with the tides. Before all of this, the existence of that magic would have been a comfort, knowing that it originated from Loki. But Loki wasn't here. Might never be here. And the magic was utterly inaccessible to her, no matter what she tried. This might be the rest of her life, locked away like a stolen relic, walking circles around this house until she grows old and dies, her body become dust.
Even at that thought, she feels nothing. Just numbness sunk deep in her bones.
She feels like an echo of who she used to be, fading away into silence.
#
Darcy pulls a sweater over her head, shoves her feet into sturdy boots. She will grow too warm soon, and the sweater will be shucked, but for now, the thickness of the garment is comforting. She makes the bed, hopes that the next time Edith comes by, she'll be able to catch her, ask her how to turn down the heating in the house.
Edith has spoken to Darcy only once, on the first time she came by the house to fill the fridge and freezer. The room Darcy has chosen to sleep in, according to Edith, the servant's bedroom. It has its own bathroom, poky and dim. Down the hallway is what Edith had called the master's suite, all dark wood and heavy furniture. The bed looked vaguely medieval, hung with acres of crimson velvet. Matching curtains swathed the room's windows. A door half hidden in one corner led to a dressing room and bathroom. Darcy had glimpsed the marble tub in the bathroom, then closed the door, looked away.
It has become a ritual of hers, circling the house and checking the rooms once she is awake and dressed. She opens the door to the master's suite, scans the room, moves through to the dressing room and bathroom. She has no idea what she's checking for, but she knows that she cannot settle to anything until she'd looked through the whole house. Back into the servant's room and bathroom, then across the hallway to the library.
Once, she would have taken joy in this room, the walls lined with bookshelves groaning beneath the weight of books. All fluff and brainless reading, the same she had been allowed in her imprisonment in Stark Tower. On a desk in the centre of the room is a battered laptop emblazoned with the Stark Industries logo. She opens it, waits to see if the internet will connect. The satellite connection has proven to be flaky, and some days she hasn't been able to connect to the internet at all. Today it connects; she leaves the laptop open, moves on.
The main living space has been created by knocking down several walls, rough places on the ceiling remaining to show where they had been. There's a television here, wiring hooking it to the device that holds the library of movies and television shows. The long couch is new, upholstered in black leather. It looks out of place here.
She catches sight of her reflection in the dead eye of the television screen. She looks like Darcy Lewis, even if she feels like nothing at all.
I am nothing. I am no one.
She reaches behind her. In one of the first dreams she had shared with Loki, she had stood on the edge of the Stark Tower roof looking out over the ruins of New York. Loki had been there, supporting her before he even knew who she was.
Her hands close now only on air.
The first night here, she had gone to sleep early, hopeful that the shared dreams would begin now that she was out of the SHIELD impound. Out here, there were windows, there was sky, and it seemed that she should be able to dream again.
When she had closed her eyes, there had only been nothingness. Just empty black, from the time she went to sleep to the time she woke. And the same every night since.
Just emptiness, every night. As though Loki didn't exist, as though their connection had never existed.
Even when Loki had been dead, scattered over Helheim, Darcy hadn't felt this utter lack.
Darcy worries at the broken ring. Stark and Thor had asked for her to have this chance - whatever it was a chance for. Thor would find a way to tell her if anything happened to Loki. He would find a way.
A burning like acid behind her eyes, in her throat. She swallows hard, fearing that she's going to be ill. But all that rises in her throat is words: "The world is made of bone and blood and stars."
The cuff around her ankle grows cold. She moves into the kitchen, assuming that a breeze is making its way up through the floorboards from the basement. The basement is the one place she doesn't check each morning. Edith took her, the first visit, and showed her that there was nothing down there at all.
The words she spoke echo around her. She shudders, her insides twisting with revulsion. She has no idea if they mean anything, but they feel wrong. Like the fabric of the world being torn apart.
She takes a breath, counts slowly to ten. Another one of the shrink's tricks, but it helps. Her heart slows, and her stomach unknots.
"It's just being here on your own," she says, emulating the shrink's calm tones. She walks through into the kitchen, a small room that feels half tacked onto the cottage. "It's just the stress of everything that's happened. It's the stress of my recent life."
There's an automated percolator in the kitchen, the jug already filled with coffee. Back in New York, when everyone was starving, that jug of coffee was something she would have cut off her own arm for, on the worst days. Now it's just coffee, always there, and she pours a cup, drinks it down black and scalding. She pours a second mug and takes it out to the porch.
The world outside is green and grey. The stand of woodland on the other side of the fields is dark, the trees still. She doesn't look too closely at them. Doesn't want to know if any are ash or yew.
Soon after arriving, she had tried to search the internet for photographs of the branch of Yggdrasil and the memorial in Central Park. Beyond the stories that had been published soon after Hel vanished, there is nothing. It's just another thing that people walk past every and don't see, she supposes.
She curls up in the chair on the porch, sips her coffee. Her heart lurches as the caffeine bleeds into her system. She doesn't enjoy the feeling, but she keeps drinking, hopes that she will move past it to the happy buzz she used to get from coffee. It only gets worse, the acceleration of her heart feeling like time moving too fast, her life draining away, rushing away.
Darcy closes her eyes, presses her fingers hard against the sides of the mug. Small sparks of pain flare in her fingertips; in the darkness behind her eyes she can see them, small stars flaring and dying.
"Hello!"
Darcy's eyes fly open. There's a woman standing on the pathway leading up to the house, a stranger to Darcy. Her eyes are as bright as sapphires, her hair the pale cotton-spun colour that blonde fades to with age. Her features are webbed by wrinkles, the lines deeply carved into her skin. She wears a dress of bright blue, a white knitted shawl snugged around her shoulders. A worn, earth-coloured felt bag is looped over one shoulder. In the fields beyond her, Darcy can see two ravens digging at something in the earth.
The woman smiles as Darcy stares at her. Her front teeth have been cracked and repaired with gold. "Ah, lass, no need to be afraid of me."
Darcy sets her mug down, stands. "You startled me. I didn't think anyone lived out here."
"There are those of us, if you look." The woman moves to the edge of the porch, though she doesn't mount the steps. She holds out a calloused hand. "I'm your neighbour. Fionnula. It's a mouthful, I know."
"Fionnula." The woman's soft burred accent had transformed the name into something beautiful. In Darcy's mouth it is all awkward angles. "Darcy. Darcy Lewis." She takes Fionnula's hand. The woman's fingers are surprisingly warm.
"Oh, lass, you're as cold as ice!" Fionnula rubs Darcy's hands briskly between her hands. "You should dress more warmly. I hope whoever's left you here had given you some good thermals and woollens?"
Darcy looks down at her clothing. True, the sweater she chose was knitted loosely enough that she can feel the air moving through the weaving, but she already feels overheated. "I'm okay. There's lots of warm stuff."
"Good, good." Fionnula releases Darcy's hand, reaches into her bag. When she withdraws her hand, she holds a small brass key. "I came by to give you this. It was given into my keeping some years ago, and when I saw that Blackwood House was occupied, I thought I had best pass it on."
Darcy's heart skips. "Blackwood Cottage?"
Behind Fionnula, the ravens take to the sky, cawing loudly as they fight over whatever they found hidden beneath the ground. "Named for the woods that remain down the valley." She presses the key into Darcy's palm. The metal is hot as fresh blood. "There's a hidden panel in the master's bedroom, leads to the corridors behind the walls."
"Behind the walls?" Darcy wants to hand the key back. It is too heavy in her hand. "They renovated, tore down walls. I think they would have found anything hidden."
"They won't have found any of this," Fionnula says. "You might want to go for a ramble through the Blackwood. Caledonian forest, that is, part of the original forests that covered this land entire. If you follow the path through the valley itself, you'll come to the loch. They say the Each Uisge himself lives in those waters, so I wouldn't walk too close to the edge. Though creatures like that, they tend to leave witches alone."
"Witches? I'm not-"
Fionnula is already moving back down the path, her pace remarkably spry for someone her age. Darcy wants to follow her, to ask her more about this place, but she finds herself unable to move. She watches until the woman is out of sight.
Blackwood Cottage. Why did they bring her to a place called Blackwood Cottage?
She shudders, thinking of Daniel Blackwood. He was the one who manipulated her into guarding Loki in his cell, and he was the one who knew to use heat to torture a frost giant. Daniel Blackwood is vanished, his whereabouts unknown.
"Maybe it's just a coincidence," Darcy says. "That's all."
Her mother's voice whispers in her mind: There is no such thing as coincidence, daughter. Everything is part of a plan.
"And was part of the plan murdering your own children?" Darcy asks. Thinking that the arrival of the Asgardians signalled the beginning of the end times, Darcy's mother had held a shotgun to both of her son's heads, then turned it upon herself. "Some plan."
She laughs, but the sound is hollow in her ears.