Chapter 27

I swat Loki's hand away from his hair for probably the twentieth time.

"Loki," I say, "if you put your hand anywhere near your head again, I swear to god."

"You swear, hmm? And what will you do if I…" He reaches his hand up and back. I hastily move the pieces of the french braid into one hand and grab his wrist just before he runs his fingers through the black tendrils I have worked for so long on. Then, I lean forward and stop when my lips are hovering a centimeter from his ear. I sense his whole body stiffen as I suck in a breath to speak.

"If you ruin this braid, I will not let you read the rest of the Lord of the Rings books…if the chance arises."

Loki gasps. "Would you, really? How cruel." I can hear the smirk in his voice.

I peck a kiss on his neck before straightening. "No."

"The god you are swearing to would be very disappointed in you."

"Not if the god I was swearing to was you," I say, separating a piece of hair from the rest with my pinky.

"If the god you were swearing to were me, you are correct. However, why would you swear to me when it is I who is aggravating you?"

I laugh. "You're right. I should be swearing at you."

Loki chuckles.

"So," I say, changing the subject before the sudden urge to kiss him overwhelms me too much. "What do gods do on their birthday?"

"Have you forgotten the ball already?" he asks.

"Obviously I haven't forgotten the ball, Loki. It's a ball. I'm from Midgard."

"Well…" He shifts his position in the grass and his hand brushes my leg. The accident sends warmth coursing through my body and I have to stop braiding to fully focus on keeping my breathing normal.

"Don't stop," he says. His tone is soft. "I do not know what it is you're doing, but, whatever it is, it feels extremely good."

I immediately get back to braiding his hair and he sighs. "Don't forget, Loki." I pull another strand into the braid. "You have to do something with my hair after this."

"I was hoping you would forget and simply start over with mine."

I grin. "You aren't the only one who enjoys having their hair played with. On Midgard, girls always ask their friends to style their hair because it feels good."

"If I was not experiencing it now, I would call another of your traditions silly."

"Yes, but instead I'm going to finish braiding your hair and you are going to tell me what else gods do on their birthdays."

"It all depends on whose birthday it is." He picks some grass and twirls it between his fingers. "Those who can, celebrate extravagantly. Those who can't—ehm…do not. I must admit I do not fully know what those who can't do on their birthdays as I am a prince. However, Thor usually helps organize a hunt for one wild beast or another. It always begins and ends with food and drink. As you know, a ball is being organized in my honor and…"

He trails off just as I'm about to wrap a hair tie I fished out of my bag around the end of the braid.

"Loki, are you—?"

"I do not deserve this celebration," he mutters, dipping his head and pulling the braid out of my hands. His hair slips out of the braid and back to normal but I don't fully notice.

"What?"

"I do not deserve this, Freya." He turns in the grass to face me. "No one wishes to honor me. Most, if not all, of Asgard hates me for the destruction I have caused." He throws the grass away from him, hissing, "The Banished Prince."

"I'm sure—"

He glares at me, through me, not really seeing anything. Or, maybe seeing everything. Maybe feeling everything. "You cannot be sure of anything."

I take a breath in and blow it out in his face. It ruffles the shorter hairs that didn't make it into the braid and this time the urge to kiss him is deep in my chest, aching to make him feel better.

"I can be sure of some things, Loki. I'm sure that Lifa has warmed to you. And, if she has, that means others can too." He looks at his hands. "I'm sure that people have the ability to change. I'm sure that if they want to change, they can. I'm sure that there are people who want to honor and celebrate you. If they are few and far between, then so be it. But I am sure that I am one of those few and far between people." I place my hands over his clenched fists and gingerly pull his fingernails out of the small crescents they have made in his palms. Pulling them to me, I hold them against my chest, over the place that wants to kiss him, and raise my eyebrows at him.

Loki finally meets my gaze. I feel the brief, filing cabinet sensation of my thoughts being rifled through—he must be checking to see if I'm telling the truth—and then it's gone and he nods at me.

I'm still holding his hands so I squeeze them, look at him as earnestly as I can, and say, "So, are you going to play with my hair now?"

For a moment he looks at me, brows furrowed, mouth on the verge of smiling. When it finally breaks through, I smile back and give his hands another quick squeeze before dropping them. I begin to make my way to where he was sitting, moving on my knees, so that I can look out over the hillside. As I skirt around him, he unconsciously touches my side, at the base of my rib cage. I pause and look at him. Because I'm kneeling and because we are so close, I have to crane my neck down to look at him.

This must be what it feels like when he looks at me.

He moves his thumb farther up my side and my breath gets caught in the back of my throat.

"I th—" I force the air around my teeth, then inhale shakily. "I think you will really like the rest of the Lord of the Rings books." The words come out in another breath. My head gets light and my mind grows fuzzy. "They're—um."

One corner of Loki's mouth quirks up and I feel my stomach do its dancing flips again.

"They're really good." I quickly sit down and turn my back to him, ripping up clumps of grass and tearing them into small pieces.

Loki pulls my hair into his hands, running his fingers through it to get any tangles out. But then he stops and before I can say anything, I feel his breath on the side of my head.

"I believe you." And then he kisses the top of my ear.

I hold down the power button on my phone and cross my fingers. When the apple appears on the screen, I exhale, then look up at Lifa.

"It's still working!" I say, waving it in front of her.

She claps her hands together. "How long will it continue to function?"

"The battery—the thing that makes it work—says it's at 45 percent charge. That means…hopefully a few hours. Maybe?" I click on my image gallery and pull up the album that contains reference hairstyle pictures from high school and college dances. I begin scrolling through them and stop when I get to one in particular. "I was thinking this would go well with your dress. But, obviously, you can keep looking through and pick a different one." After handing her the phone, I get up and walk to the bathroom to get combs, brushes and ribbons from a cabinet.

"Er, Freya. How do I—?"

"Oh! Sorry. To look at them, just swipe your finger over the screen." I rummage through a cabinet across from the sink for any other hair accessories I can find. "Is it working?" I call, my voice muffled by the wood and gold.

"Yes!" Lifa yells back.

I find a purple head wrap of some kind and drape it around my neck. Then, holding everything in my arms, I elbow the cabinet door closed and reenter my room.

"Find anything?" I ask, dropping everything on the bed.

"Oh, yes," she says. She scoots over to the supplies and hands me the phone. I look at the picture and smile.

"This is even better than what I found."

Lifa grins and holds up the purple fabric to look at it. "Do you think this color matches the subtle purple pattern in my dress?"

I frown, trying to remember the exact color of her dress. "I want to say yes," I murmur. I hold the wrap up in the light. "But I'm not really sure."

She presses her lips into a line and her eyebrows follow.

"Although…" I swipe my finger across the screen and mentally cheer when I find more angles of the hairdo Lifa wants. "This style could look cool with the wrap woven through it."

The girl's face lights up and she covers her mouth with her hands, letting out a little squeal. "Yes! That would look perfect—that is truly brilliant, Freya. Yes! And it will look pretty without the wrap as well. That is perfect!"

I smile at her and crawl onto the bed. "Then let's try it."

She nods. "After, you shall look and find a style you like."

"Sounds good."

I get to work undoing the braid she already has in and brushing out the light waves it has created. I glance at the picture, swiping left or right to get a better angle of it every now and then.

"Okay," I mutter. I pick up a comb, smiling at how Asgard has a wide array of combs and brushes and how I was able to find the one I needed so easily. I then proceed to use the point of the comb to section her hair into three parts, one main and two smaller on either side. Using more hair ties I found in my bag, I tie the smaller sections into little pigtails so I can work with the bigger section.

I place the head wrap on her head, an inch or so away from her hairline, then begin braiding the larger section, working in the tails of the head wrap here and there so that the purple only appears in small sections throughout the braid. At the bottom, I wrap a hair tie around Lifa's hair, then tie the remaining fabric into a drooping bow.

"One part done," I say, patting down some baby hairs.

"It feels beautiful," Lifa says, the smile clear in her voice.

I laugh and pull the hair ties off the two small sections of hair. "Good. Can you hold this part of your hair for me?"

"Of course." She takes it in her hand. "But why did you not simply keep it in the black tie?"

"I don't know. I wasn't thinking," I say, laughing again. I then braid the two small sections and secure them together with another hair tie. After hiding the end of these braids in her hair, I smile at my handiwork, the small braids fall delicately over her head and over the purple fabric.

"Alright," I say, leaning back on my hands. "All done. Go see if you like it."

She hops up and bounces her way to the mirror. I hear her gasp and smile as I look down at my phone to look for a hairstyle I like.

"You did such a beautiful job," Lifa says. She turns to see different angles of her hair. "I love it!"

"Good!" I say. "And I think I found a hairstyle I like. Come see if you think it'll look good with my dress."

She rushes over, her face bright, her grin wide. After she jumps onto the bed, I hold out my phone and she squints at the picture of a girl with her hair in a half updo and braids circling the bun.

"Do you think it would look good?" I ask. "I can't tell."

Lifa nods, looks at me, and frowns.

"What?"

"I wish to try something. It is like this, however more of your hair is up."

I smile. "Sure! Go ahead." I shift to the edge of the bed and feel Lifa start to section off my hair like I did to hers.

"Freya, I…er…"

I want to turn but she tugs my head gently back into place.

"What's wrong?" I ask, looking at the door and noticing the subtle yet intricate pattern carved into it.

"I would like to ask you a question about—well…I would like to ask you a question but I do not wish for you to get upset. So, may I ask?"

My stomach clenches but I push out a laugh. "Of course."

"V-very well. I was only wondering if you have learned any more about why the Dark Elves captured you from Midgard. Of course, word went around when the strange field surrounding Asgard disappeared. Since then, I have been wondering if M-Malekith"—she says his name like she just ate something bitter—"realized and is now coming back."

"He probably did. He probably is." I squeeze my fingers into my palms, thinking. Then I blink when I come to a realization: I never told Lifa that I was the one who brought down the field. "Holy shit, Lifa."

"What? What is wrong with you, now?" She laughs lightly, but I can actually feel the nervous undertone as her hands shake in my hair.

"God, sorry. No—it's just that I never told you what happened with the force field thing. I was the one who made it disappear."

She keeps braiding my hair for a few more seconds and then she stops. "I am sorry, what?"

"It was me. I was the one who made it disappear."

"You were the…you—what? How could—how did you do that?" She drops some of my hair and mutters what I assume is a curse in Norse under her breath.

"I also made it appear but I didn't learn that until more recently."

"You…you did both of those things?" she asks. "But how? Did you not just find out you possessed magic?"

"I did. That's the thing. I just thought all I could do was burn a leaf, and make a magical ball of light hover over my hands. That's what Loki thought, too, I think."

"Valhalla's name, Freya. Your journey has been far more eventful than I realized."

I laugh. "Yeah. No kidding."

"I do not understand," she says. I feel her fingers move through my hair faster. "How?"

"Uh, well." I stare at one of the pillows on the sofa and think about the best way to explain, seeing as I don't fully understand myself. Should I just say that first? "Uh—I don't really understand it, to be honest. What Odin told me was that, even though I was unconscious, I somehow created the field to protect myself. Obviously I was asleep, so I don't really know my reasoning." I clear my throat, my voice growing thick with nerves. "Maybe I knew Malekith was going to leave me here, I don't know. But I created it and then I made it go away. And that is a weird story." I explain how Heimdall told me that if Loki were to try to get rid of the force field, he'd die, and how, when I grabbed Loki's head to make sure he didn't hit it against the side of the Bifrost, the energy went through me and out the top of my head.

When I finish, Lifa leans around me to look at my face. "It went out your head?" Her face is contorted in confusion and surprise, her eyes somehow wide and frowning at the same time.

"Yes."

"Dear gods in Valhalla," she murmurs and sits back to continue working on my hair.

I sigh a little. "Yeah."

I feel her wrap a hair tie around my hair and then I feel her begin pulling at the braids.

"Freya," she asks after a while of this, her voice low, "is he coming back?"

I'm silent, still staring at the pillow on the sofa. It's a deep red with an image of trees sewn in green and the Bifrost sewn in silver and gold. Then I blink and shrug and sit up straighter.

"I don't know." And quieter, "I hope not."

Another moment of silent hair wrapping passes, and I feel the lack of sound filling up my ears.

"But let's not worry about that, okay?" I say, a bit louder than I meant to. Lifa jumps and pulls some of my hair too hard. "Ow!"

"Oh, Freya! My apologies!"

"It's"—I begin laughing—"It's fine, Lifa." I can't stop laughing and it's all I can do to not buckle over and make Lifa drop my hair.

"What is it?"

I can hear the smile in her voice and it's not too long until we're both laughing uncontrollably.

"I have finished, with your hair I mean," she says between gasps. "But what is so humorous?"

"It's"—I try to stop laughing but all I do is cough—"stupid."

"No! Tell me!" Lifa cries, hitting my arm. "Do not fall back, though! Your hair!"

"S-sorry." Finally I'm able to speak clearly. However, before I do, I lean forward and wipe my eyes, getting rid of the tears that were brimming. "It's nothing, really. But we're doing each other's hair to get ready for a ball when there is a psychopathic Elf probably on his way right now to capture me again and make me search for a magical rock." I wipe my eyes again. "An Elf. Jesus!"

"Who?"

"No one. Nothing." My breath hitches as I trap more laughter in my chest. "God. This doesn't happen in real life—I'm living in a book, or a movie, or a really bizarre TV show. People would probably really like this TV show if it were a thing."

Lifa frowns. "I knew the first word, but the other two…"

"Sorry," I say, grinning and rubbing my eyes. I cross my ankles on the bed in front of me and lean back on my free hand. "I have to stop making references. A movie is something people go to watch in a big room full of chairs. Stuff happens in them and they can be about romance, or action, or drama, or comedy. A TV show is like a bunch of short movies that all relate to each other."

She nods like she understands what I'm talking about but I can tell she doesn't: her eyebrows are still pulled into sideways question marks. Then she shakes her head slightly, smiles and motions to my head. "Go look at your hair!"

"Right! I will!" I jump up and rush over to the mirror. What I see is beautiful and I crane my neck to look at all the angles. Lifa had made two braids, one on either side of my head, then pulled out pieces of hair so that little waves fell from the somehow-still-intact braids and brushed my neck.

"Lifa!" I cry, spinning to face her and feeling the loosed curls tickle my skin. I hop and do a little dance before running back to the bed. "This is perfect!"

"You like it?"

"I love it! You did such a wonderful job. Are you sure you don't do this more often?"

"I am positive. My brothers have long hair, of course, but they never let me touch it."

I grin at her. "You've got a knack for this type of thing."

I'm about to pull her up so we can both look in the mirror when there's a knock on the door.

"One minute," I call. Lifa follows me as far as the mirror and I continue on to the door. I open it and see Frigga smiling and holding a large platter of food. Lifa's mom stands beside the Queen and smiles at me as well; she carries a pitcher and a precariously balanced stack of cups. Behind them are eight people. Two—a man and a woman—carry a small array of instruments; some look like large flutes, others look like bodiless cellos and violins with their strings suspended between gold violin-and-cello-shaped rings. Three other women push three separate rolling racks that look like the things you put your luggage on at hotels. On each rail hangs a dress and on the floor of each sits the shoes we picked out along with assortments of large and small bags. The last three people, two women and a man, hold piles of what look like folded towels and a robe; at the tops of the piles sit small pouches that look like elaborately decorated makeup bags.

"Hi," I say, breathless after taking everyone and everything in. "We were just trying out hairstyles."

"That is perfect timing because," the Allmother says, shifting her grip on the platter's handles, "it is time to get ready for the ball."