Happy (early) birthday to my dearest Hawtsee.
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Reykjavík
All around Gale, the Skype session went on: Annie and Johanna making up for lost time, Finn and Darius united by the unbearable lightness of being ginger.
But as for Gale, he was no longer listening.
In his mind, his friends' voices were fading, the signal-to-noise ratio falling, until there was nothing but electric static in his ears. A low hum of alternating current, amplifying until it reached its crescendo as a distorted shriek of feedback, like Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townshend and Jerry Garcia, the caterwauling guitars Gale and his friends worshipped in their teens.
Cato.
Even though Gale couldn't put a face to the name, just the thought of Cato—whoever he was—taunted him, gnawed at him from the inside out. Even though Madge swore nothing had happened between them, and that her crush on Cato was ancient history, it didn't do anything to keep the bile from rising in Gale's throat. Madge had every right to be attracted to anyone in the world, of course she did, but there was an irrational part of Gale that had already claimed her as his, and the reminder that she wasn't made him want to scream.
It was all Finn's fault. All that talk about fate, and soulmates, when in fact there were seven billion people on the planet at that very moment. Any of them could be a better match for Madge than Gale was, and vice versa. Okay, so maybe once in a while people would inexplicably find themselves thrown together again and again, but not everyone was Finn Odair and Annie Cresta.
But, Gale thought doggedly, I've already got her name on my ring. Madge didn't belong to him, but all this time Gale had been unwittingly wearing her name, branding himself with her name. As if he belonged to her. As if he had always been hers.
Surely that counted for something.
Gale found his gaze drifting to Madge's hands, to the long, slender fingers he knew were made for playing piano before she even told him. Madge didn't wear any jewelry except for the Mjolnir pendant around her neck. Was there another ring out there, one that had his name carved into it in Viking runes? And if there was, would it fit her?
This is stupid, he told himself. If you want her, then go and get her. When did Gale Hawthorne ever wait for a sign from the universe to do anything? His destiny was what he made of it. Why not lock Madge down now, before she met some other guy on this trip?
He regretted the thought almost as soon as it came to him. The fuck, Hawthorne. Why don't you pee on her while you're at it? God fucking damn it. She's not anyone's property, least of all yours. If his mother knew he was thinking about Madge or anyone else this way… the combined wrath of Annie, Jo, and Madge's uncle Haymitch would be the least of his worries.
Besides, the most important thing to Gale on this trip was Madge's safety. He wanted her to be safe, and feel safe, no matter what. How could she feel safe traveling with someone who was constantly coming on to her?
"Gale?" Madge's voice was soft and soothing and barely above a whisper, but it was the inverse of the pandemonium inside his head, canceling it out completely and replacing it with quiet serenity. "Those tickets won't be available forever. We should get them now, before we miss our chance."
Gale nodded mutely, the turmoil in his mind silenced for now.
That night, Gale couldn't sleep.
Instead he lay awake, thinking of the sound of Madge's voice and how it never failed to reach him. He lay there, brooding over phases and wavelengths and frequencies. It defied all logic, but somehow he knew that wherever Madge Undersee was—whether she was calling to him across a distance of miles, or dimensions of consciousness, or over the centuries—he would always be there to hear.
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The morning of their flight to Oslo was a blur.
Annie had been determined to chaperone Madge until the very end, which meant Finn and Gale ended up sleeping in the living room by themselves. When they woke up a few hours later, the boys stayed long enough to have a bowl of cereal before returning to the hotel to pack up Gale's things. But soon enough, they were back at Annie's with another rented car, and then Madge and Gale were waving goodbye to Annie and Finn at Keflavík International Airport.
Before Madge knew it, she and Gale were alone together, back where it all began.
"This is where we first met," Gale said, as if he could read her mind.
All of a sudden, Madge felt tongue-tied. She had been alone with Gale before, but Annie and Finn had always been somewhere close by, and for some reason that made things easier. If anything, it had made Madge bolder, knowing Annie was keeping an eye on them. If things got awkward, she could always run away and hide behind her best friend.
But now Madge and Gale were on their own, traveling to places neither of them had been. They would be meeting old friends and making new ones soon, but from now on the only constant would be each other. Anything could happen. The possibilities were endless, and just thinking about it paralyzed her.
"It feels like so long ago," was all she could say in return. Had it really just been five days?
Gale gave her a crooked smile. "And all because I tried to steal your suitcase."
"That is the Viking way," she acknowledged. "Besides, that was an honest mistake."
His gray eyes clouded over with something like shame. "I shouldn't go around assuming something is mine."
Speaking of their suitcases, neither Gale's nor Madge's were coming along with them on this trip. Since their tickets didn't include the cost of checked baggage, Finn and Annie had loaned them their hiking packs and given them a crash course in flying with just a carry-on. It involved a significant amount of creative folding and rolling when it came to clothes, and a very insignificant amount of anything at all when it came to liquids. When Annie wasn't looking, Madge had decanted some of her Bvlgari perfume into a small plastic bottle to bring along with her. She wasn't with Seneca anymore, but he was still dear to her heart, and it comforted her to wear the fragrance that she associated with his friendship.
As Madge and Gale made their way across the terminal, every now and then she would pause to hitch her pack higher up on her shoulder, falling behind him and allowing other people to cut through the space she had created between them.
Eventually, he stopped to help her. Without a word, he adjusted her hip belt and the strap across her upper chest to properly distribute the load she was carrying. "Better?"
He was careful not to graze her skin or even her clothes, but her imagination was more than happy to fill in the blanks.
Gale looked at her expectantly, and Madge realized she was just standing there gawking at him. "Much better," she answered hastily. "Thank you."
He hesitated for a split second before holding out his hand. "I don't want to get separated again," he said, by way of explanation.
There was a thrill in her veins as she placed her hand in his. "Lead the way."
The feel of his skin, the warmth and roughness of it, was better than anything she could have conjured in a daydream. Holding Gale's hand like this, Madge couldn't remember ever feeling so safe. But at the same time, Madge couldn't shake the feeling that Gale Hawthorne was the biggest risk she was ever going to take.
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Even though they were almost three hours early for their flight, there were six other people already at their boarding gate when they arrived.
There was a rack of newspapers in the waiting area. Since it was going to be a long wait before they could board, Madge grabbed the first one in English that she could find. She skimmed over the banner story—a follow-up on the Icelandic financial crisis of 2008—and a review of a documentary about the phallological museum in Reykjavík before a smaller headline caught her eye. Viking treasure proves legendary kingdom was real.
They found two seats as close to the exit as possible, and it was only when they sat down and shrugged off their packs that Gale let go of her hand.
"My arm's still sore from carrying that shield yesterday," Gale admitted, grimacing as he rotated his shoulder forward and backward experimentally. "I didn't expect a prop to be so heavy."
Madge had tried carrying one of the shields herself, and was relieved when Cinna gave her a sword and an axe instead. "Neither did I. Just imagine what the real thing would've been like."
"Yeah. And to think that was the Vikings' way of life—fighting, sailing, backbreaking labor. I'm never going to complain about doing the dishes again." He flexed his elbow, shaking his wrist and stretching his fingers. "By the way, did you get around to emailing the scans to Darius?"
"I sent them to Johanna this morning, right before you came back from the hotel." Now that they were having a more casual conversation, Madge's nervousness over being alone with Gale was starting to go away. "Good thing, too, because Annie would only let me bring one book. Did you bring yours?"
Gale shook his head. "Finn said he wanted to read it."
"I'm so glad Jo met Darius," Madge mused. "And not just because he can read Old Norse. They seem like a good match. He can keep up with her, at least. Annie approves, and Finn likes him, too." By the end of the night, Finn was alternating between calling Darius "Daz" and "Dazzo", which—as Madge had learned from Annie years ago—was a very Australian way of forming nicknames for friends.
"Yeah. He seems cool." For a second, Gale looked as if he was about to say something else, then decided against it. "Hey, do you mind if I take a nap for a bit?" He sounded tired. "I didn't get much sleep last night, and I'm still a little jet-lagged."
"Oh, go ahead," Madge said immediately. "You should've said so sooner. I'll just sit here and read."
Gale nodded his thanks. He spent a few minutes trying to arrange himself into a comfortable position, but soon his exhaustion won over and he was slumped awkwardly over the chair, unconscious.
Madge could pinpoint the exact moment Gale fell asleep from the way his handsome features relaxed. The lines on his forehead and between his eyebrows disappeared, and the tension in his jaw vanished. It reminded her of how he had reacted to her touch yesterday at the photo shoot, and how they had almost kissed.
Remember what Annie said, she commanded herself, before her imagination veered into dangerous territory. Don't get too attached. At the end of this trip, Madge was going home to Seattle, thousands of miles away from either St. Paul or Stockholm. Thousands of miles away from Gale.
She sighed, a little more loudly than she intended, and resolved to give her full attention to the newspaper. On one hand, she wanted to get to know Gale better—much better. On the other hand, there was no point in getting her hopes up for nothing.
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OSLO (Reuters)—Archaeologists from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim have recovered an underwater cache of Viking Age artifacts, including what may be the first ever evidence of the existence of a lost Anglo-Saxon kingdom called Panym.
Speaking at the International Conference on History and Cultural Heritage in Oslo yesterday, lead investigator Twill Tveit revealed that her team found silver and gold coins bearing the name of Panym and the likeness of a mockingjay—a species of songbird found in Europe and North America, and a symbol associated with the elusive kingdom's last known dynasty.
According to Tveit, it's not surprising that relics from 8th to 11th century England have been found in Scandinavian waters.
"The hoard could have been booty from a raid or ransom for a kidnapping, but it could also have been a reward for services rendered as mercenaries, payment for a merchant's goods, or even a gift received from a friend or ally," Tveit said.
If the legends are to be believed, Panym had more reason than most to cultivate an alliance with the Vikings.
"There are claims that King Peeta, Panym's most beloved ruler, enlisted the aid of Northmen to overthrow his predecessor's regime of widespread corruption, systematic human sacrifice, and cannibalism," Tveit said. "In fact, the mockingjay is thought to be a direct reference to his Norse queen."
The discovery is being hailed as nothing short of a breakthrough.
"Finding Panym is the next best thing to finding Camelot or Atlantis," said Bonnie MacLeod of the University of Northumbria.
MacLeod believes it is only a matter of time before the ruins of the missing kingdom are found. Her own team is excavating a site in northern England where a chance discovery of medieval artifacts in 1940 went largely unnoticed because of the Second World War. Seventy-four years later, the area has become one of the leading candidates for the location of Panym.
MacLeod and Tveit are now working together to further explore Panym's links to the Vikings.
"If the coins had not been stamped with the name of Panym, it's almost certain that the mockingjay would have been identified as one of Odin's ravens," Tveit said. "This begs the question: how many of the ravens and other birds depicted in Viking artifacts unrelated to Odin are actually representations of the mockingjay of Panym?"
Another puzzle that they hope to solve is Panym's apparent failure to ascend to the world stage, unlike other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms such as Northumbria, Wessex, Mercia, and East Anglia.
"By all accounts, King Peeta was a gifted statesman; his alliance with the Vikings could have made Panym a force to be reckoned with," MacLeod said. "Yet, a thousand years later, his legacy has largely disappeared. Why?"
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Oslo
Madge couldn't believe it. The words loomed in front of her eyes, a sign as clear as day. If she ever had doubts about going to Oslo with Gale, they were swiftly and thoroughly dispelled after landing at Gardermoen Airport. She stood there, slack-jawed in the middle of the crowd, and in that moment she knew in her heart that Norway was where she was supposed to go—that Norway was where she was supposed to be.
"It's just a Starbucks, Madge," Gale complained, looking bored and not a little annoyed.
"Shh," she said, holding a finger to his lips. "It's a Seattle thing. I don't expect you to understand." When she realized what she had done, she quickly pulled away and added, "Don't worry, I just washed my hands."
Gale chuckled. "I wasn't worried."
Madge continued to stare longingly at the familiar green and white logo, all the while inhaling the bittersweet aroma of the coffee that reminded her of home. "I'm just going to see how much a latte costs," she told him. "I'll be right back."
She squared her shoulders and strode forward resolutely, only to make a 180-degree turn before she even reached the counter. "Oh my god," she hissed once she was back within earshot of Gale. "It's seventy-five kroner."
He gaped at her. "Ten dollars?"
Madge was close to tears. "I feel so betrayed."
Gale put an arm around her shoulder. "It's just as well. The coffee isn't that good anyway."
She pouted. "Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it's not working. I get that it's a chain, but it's my chain. You literally just insulted me and my home state."
Gale laughed. "I wasn't trying to insult anyone. I'm just saying, we didn't come all this way to go to Starbucks." He rubbed her upper arm briskly before steering her in the opposite direction. "Come on, let's get out of here."
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As glad as Gale was to finally have Madge all to himself, he couldn't help missing their friends. Finn and Annie had taken care of everything for them back in Reykjavík, from exchanging their US dollars to arranging transportation. In fact, with Annie, Finn, and Beetee all feeding them at one point or another, Gale and Madge had hardly needed to spend any money in Iceland.
Even now, in a way Annie was still feeding them. "Do you want the ham or the egg salad?" Madge asked, pulling out two sandwiches from her pack as they sat waiting for the train that would take them to the city center.
"Man, Annie thinks of everything," Gale said appreciatively. "I'll take the ham, if you don't mind."
"I don't mind at all," Madge said as she handed him a ziplock bag. "Annie's egg salad is amazing."
"We were really spoiled back in Reykjavík," Gale reflected. "Now we have to fend for ourselves."
"Tell me about it." Madge bit into her sandwich, and the expression on her face instantly dissolved into bliss. "So good. Now I feel bad about depriving you of this. Do you want some?"
"No, I'm fine—" Gale started to say, but Madge thrust her sandwich in his face and did a silly little dance until he relented and took a bite. "That is good." Not as good as his mother's, but good in a different way.
Madge beamed at him. "See, I told you so. Her secret ingredient is Kewpie mayo."
He made her take a bite out of his sandwich so they could call it even. "So, do you want to check out the Viking Ship Museum today?"
She chewed thoughtfully and shook her head. "That's not something I want to rush through. We can do museums tomorrow and Friday. Today we should focus on places we can get in and out of easily, so we can meet your friend as soon as he gets off work."
They pored over a complimentary map while finishing their sandwiches. "The luggage lockers are in Oslo Central. We can walk to the opera house from there," Madge said, tracing the route with her fingertip. "Or we can take a tram to Vigeland Park."
Gale took a swig from his water bottle. Finn had given each of them an Aegir-branded bottle with a replaceable filter before they left, as a gift and also for marketing purposes. "Let's do the opera house first. It'll give us a view of the city and we can find our bearings. Then we can just keep walking until we get tired enough to turn back."
There were some crumbs on the corner of Madge's mouth when she looked up at him, and Gale reached out to brush them off with the pad of his thumb. When they left Annie's apartment this morning, he'd promised himself that he wouldn't touch Madge unless he absolutely had to. But now, just a few hours later, Gale was becoming more and more flexible with the definition of "absolutely had to". Madge might not have read anything into their almost-kiss at the photo shoot yesterday, but Gale was definitely giving her plenty to read into now.
Madge's hand flew up to cover his. "Sounds like a plan," she said, and Gale wondered how much he should be reading into those times when she was doing the touching.
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Under the afternoon sun, the pristine white marble of the Oslo Opera House gleamed like Arctic ice, the planes of its sloping roof emerging from underneath the turquoise waters of the fjord and rising majestically into the sky.
It took Gale's breath away. It didn't have the raw, savage beauty of nature, like what he had seen at Jökulsárlón. But he was an engineer, and more appreciative than most of the effort that went into artifice: the precise calculations that breathed life into a design, theory transformed into practice, into a tangible, material thing, like this mass of marble, glass, aluminum, and granite. It wasn't so much a building as it was a deconstructed iceberg, calved from the glacier of human achievement, a Valhalla on earth to challenge the gods.
"Fuck me," he said, shaking his head. "Fuck me."
Madge's features lit up with a smile. "I thought you were more of an outdoorsy, woodsman-y kind of guy."
"I am. But there's something about manmade things, too. I see this place, and I think of all the work that went into it… all the math, all the physics."
She lifted an eyebrow. "Math?"
"Yeah." He gestured at the opera house with impassioned, sweeping motions of his arms. "The structural integrity, the heating and cooling, the sound system… that's geometry, thermodynamics, computational fluid dynamics, acoustics. Lessons we learned from nature, and are applying the best we can." He realized what he was doing, and let out an embarrassed laugh. "Sorry, I didn't mean to nerd out on you like that."
"There's nothing to be sorry about," Madge reassured him. "It's fascinating when you put it that way. If I had you in high school—I mean, if I'd met you in high school," she clarified hurriedly, "I probably would've liked math a whole lot more."
Gale thought for a moment. If Madge had gone to his high school, would they have been friends? She would've been in Katniss's class, so their paths could have crossed. Then again, Madge also had the kind of polished porcelain perfection that his angst-ridden former self would have raged against on principle. "Nah. You would've hated me in high school." He was glad that Madge had gotten to know him now, after he'd had the chance to grow up a little.
The guided tours weren't free, and since Gale and Madge were still reeling from sticker shock in general, they opted to simply climb up the roof for the time being. The ground was clear of snow, but freezing temperatures at night kept the surface icy and slippery, or at least that was what Gale kept telling himself as he offered his arm to Madge on the way up.
She accepted.
"This was a really good idea to come here first," Madge said once they were at the top, overlooking the city of Oslo. "You can see everything from up here." She pointed down at something in the harbor. "Ooh, look!"
Unlike the smooth lines of the opera house, this was all jagged edges and sharp angles jutting out in all directions. From one angle it looked like a Viking ship covered in ice; from another, like shards of broken sea-green glass. Light filtered through the transparent panes and reflected off the mirrored ones as the structure floated on the Aker river, slowly turning this way and that on the tides.
Gale squinted. "What is that?"
"It's a sculpture," Madge informed him. "It's inspired by a famous painting—a shipwreck in the North Pole. The sculptor is one of Seneca's favorites. Her name is Monica Bonvicini."
"Who's she?"
"An Italian artist. Her stuff is very modern—she talks a lot about sexuality, control, and power. I think this piece is about nature versus culture."
"Not her," Gale said. "Who's Seneca?"
Now it was self-consciousness, instead of excitement, that was coloring Madge's cheeks. "Oh. She's, um, she's a he." Her face flamed. "He's my ex-boyfriend. Annie mentioned him before. We, um, broke up just before I went to Iceland."
And there it was again: the jealousy that had reared its ugly head last night. "I'm sorry to hear that," Gale replied, trying to sound sympathetic and nonchalant at the same time. So his idle speculation about Madge's type—worldly, sophisticated, artsy—was right after all. "Seneca is the name of an Indian tribe, by the way. Is he by any chance…"
"No," she said, licking her lips. "I don't think so. He said he was named after the ancient Roman philosopher."
"Seneca," he repeated gravely. "They're an Iroquois nation. The Iroquois were historically the enemies of my people, the Ojibwe."
Madge let out a nervous laugh. "It's a good thing he's not, then."
"Oh, I wouldn't be prejudiced against him if he were," he said in a neutral tone. "Of course not. That's all ancient history, as you say. Although I do feel a little prejudiced against him for being dumb enough to let you go."
Gale turned back toward the water, staring stone-faced at the sculpture. First it was Cato; now it was Seneca. Between the two of them, he didn't know who was the bigger threat: the crush that got away, or the ex who was clearly still on Madge's mind. He sincerely hoped none of the men from Madge's past would come back to haunt them on this trip. He didn't know how much more of this he could take.
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Although Thom had only known Madeleine Cartwright for a few weeks, he had come to see her as a good colleague, an even better friend, and possibly also his mother. It was Delly who volunteered to house him for the duration of his stay; Delly who kept him from starving on his first day with her backup supply of open-faced ham and cheese sandwiches; Delly who taught him how to wrap his own sandwiches with paper in the time-honored Norwegian tradition of matpakke, or packed lunch.
In return, he thought nothing of showing up at her desk every day, just before four o'clock, with a cup of tea.
"What's this?" she asked in surprise, the first time he came around. It was always intriguing to hear her talk: not quite Norwegian, but not quite English either. After moving from one country to another as a young girl, Delly sounded like she could be from anywhere in the world. "We're knocking off soon. We can eat at home."
"But that means you'd be late for tea," he pointed out. "It's Yorkshire, for your English side. The cardamom bun is for your Norwegian side."
"This is lovely, Thom. Thank you," she said, her warm brown eyes shining. She sniffed. "You're quite all right, for a froggy."
"I'm not French," he protested with a laugh. "I'm barely even Canadian."
She pursed her lips, trying not to smile. "That's not what I heard you say to Lene from Human Resources."
Before long, they had established their own tradition, and soon Lakshmi was joining them as well. The three of them would happily stay behind for an extra half hour—something that was unheard of at their office, and most other workplaces in Norway—and have tea together before going back to the apartment.
Today, however, was an exception. Not only did Thom have to pick up Gale and his friend from Central station, but Delly had other plans as well.
"I'm helping my brother with his Russebil," she informed him. Delly had an eighteen-year-old brother who still lived with their parents in the more upscale part of town. "I'll catch up with you lot at home later tonight."
"Russebil?" Thom echoed, confused. He was learning Norwegian, so he thought he recognized the elements of the word, but what on earth was Delly going to do with a Russian car?
Delly frowned. "Oh, I suppose I haven't told you yet. I remember telling Lakshmi and—never mind. You've seriously not heard of Russ season?"
"Oh, that." Of course Thom had heard about Russ season. For one thing, he knew that it had nothing to do with Russia. Russ season was when Norwegian students in their last year of upper secondary school engaged in three weeks of crazy dares and nonstop drunken hedonism, while blasting music from the back of vehicles painted to match their brightly colored Russ overalls. Which was all well and good in Thom's opinion, if it wasn't held before their final exams. "I thought it wasn't starting until the end of the month?"
Delly rolled her eyes. "Alfie and his friends were literally going to spend a million kroner to rent a party bus and a sound system, but Dad convinced them to get a van instead. He carried on about English restraint, Jante's Law and Norwegian humility, all of that. Anyway, Dad conveniently remembered that I fixed up a van for my Russebil ages ago, and now it's become this massive family project."
"You fix cars?" Thom said, impressed.
"We all do," Delly said. "It's a Cartwright tradition. I love doing it, and I love my brother, but I hate Russ season. Also, I just had a manicure." She looked down at the perfect ovals of her fingernails and sighed. "Alfie had to bribe me with tickets to the Inferno Festival this week."
Thom's mouth hung open. "You like heavy metal?"
Now it was Delly's turn to look surprised. "Do you?"
"Hell yeah," he grinned, throwing up the horns. "Dimmu Borgir, Amon Amarth, Rammstein… Europe has the best bands. Are you telling me we could've been rocking out at home all this time? How come I've never heard your music?"
"This brilliant little invention called headphones," she answered, a smile playing on her lips. "Let me see if I can wring a few more tickets out of Alfie. I'd rather go with you than a group of teenagers in their Russ year. Do your friends like metal, too?"
"Gale doesn't like it as much as I do," Thom said. "Don't know about the other guy. But I'm up for it, for sure." He shook his head, incredulous. "I would never have guessed we were into the same stuff. Your room is so… pink." At work, Delly was the picture of a professional mechanical engineer in her immaculately tailored, structured pantsuits, but at home she was almost aggressively feminine. He wondered if she would ever cease to amaze him.
"Liking pink and liking metal are not mutually exclusive," Delly averred. "But I do confess to dyeing my hair black a few years ago. It did not do my coloring any favors."
"Aw, you'd look cute no matter what," he said loyally.
Thom reached out to tweak her nose, but Delly dodged his hand. "Don't," she warned him, laughing. "Between my English side and my Norwegian side, I'll probably never learn how to take a compliment."
"But it's the truth!" he objected.
"What's the truth?" Lakshmi wanted to know as she walked up to them.
Delly blushed. "Nothing, just Thomas being ridiculous as per usual," she told their roommate. She turned to Thom and added, "Let's hope your friend Gale isn't as big of a nitwit as you are."
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A/N.
I've been putting off mentioning Gale's (and Katniss's) family background again because it's the one thing I'm most afraid of getting wrong, and I was trying to buy more time while I continued my research. But it will be a big part of this story, especially the Everlark arc.