When Loki awoke in the Healing Room, the first thing he saw was Frigga's relieved face.
"Anthony?" he managed to whisper through the driest throat he had ever felt.
"He's alive," she assured him, sitting next to his bed and carefully taking hold of his hand. "He will survive."
"How long ago?"
"You have been here eight days," Frigga said.
"How—"
"Save your strength," Frigga said, stroking his cheek. "Peter helped staunch the flow of blood and raised an alarm to have both of you brought here, which is most likely the only reason you are both still alive."
She poured a glass of water from a carafe on the bedside table and gently held it to his lips. The water felt rough going down, but the coolness helped him feel more alert.
"That is not all. Zechariahson is dead," Loki said. "Peter killed him after that wretch tried to murder Tony."
"Yes, I know," Frigga said. "The lad is still very shaken. The last I saw of him, he was hanging upside-down from the ceiling of one of the guest bedrooms in the palace."
"Why is he not with his aunt?"
"He wanted to remain close," Frigga said. "It seems to be the only way he can sleep."
"But Anthony is well? The spell worked?" Loki asked.
"That was incredibly dangerous," Frigga said, turning to put the glass on the table, then sitting back and absentmindedly picking at the skin of the palm of her left hand.
"Something is wrong," Loki said. "You only do that when you are worried."
She flinched at the obvious tell and stopped immediately.
"How much do you know of the spell you used?" Frigga asked.
"It does not always work," Loki said, "but as we are both still living, that does not seem to be the case, thankfully."
"Yes, but what else?" Frigga said.
"The heart that is used needs to be removed while the owner is still alive, which is why Obadiah's would have been useless. Dividing it and then replicating the missing half of each side has to be done at once, and the injured heart must be taken out and replaced quickly," Loki said.
"All true, though you have neglected to mention the excruciating pain you went through," Frigga said. "Your love for this man must indeed be deep."
"It is," Loki said.
She shuddered as though her worst fear had been confirmed. Loki frowned, confused.
"What is wrong? You have said and proven more times than I can count that my inclinations do not repulse you," Loki said.
"And they do not. My one complaint is that you have never introduced me to your love, but that is not the issue," Frigga said. "There is another problem with the spell you used."
"It proves immediately fatal for both parties about nine times out of ten," Loki said. "I knew that, but the Norns smiled on us there."
"No, that is not what I meant," Frigga said. She drew a deep breath before saying, "The one who gives and the one who takes must be compatible."
"Obviously," Loki said, feeling the conversation was going nowhere. "One could not, for example, give a heart from an Aesir to someone from Vanaheim without complications, but Anthony and I are both Aesir, so that is not a problem."
Frigga rubbed her head with her hand as though fighting a bad headache before sighing and saying, "No, that is precisely the problem."
"Anthony isn't Aesir?" Loki said, confused. "Does his family have Alfheim blood or—"
Frigga grasped his hand and seemed to be steeling herself, "No, darling. You are the one who is not Aesir."
Loki sat in silence a long moment, utterly baffled, before he finally asked, "Is it you or father who isn't Aesir? Or both of you?"
"No," she said. "We are both Aesir. It is you who are not."
"I—"
He stopped.
"Mother, I don't understand," he said, though a dark suspicion was starting to form in his mind. "What am I?"
She drew a breath again, then said, "Odin came to me with a baby after the war with Jotunheim. At first he tried to lie, claiming that he had fathered the child with another woman. In honesty, it would have been neither his first nor his last infidelity, but I soon realized it was not the truth."
"I am this child?" Loki said, horror starting to twist his features. "I am not the son of either of you?"
"You are," Frigga said firmly. "In all ways that matter, you are my son, and I could not love you more than I do if I had borne you myself."
His head was spinning from the revelation, and while his mind cried out that it simply wasn't possible, a voice in the back of his mind whispered that it would explain a great deal, including his father's inability to approve of him and his favoritism towards Thor going all the way back to their earliest childhood.
"And Thor?" he asked. "Is Thor your true son?"
"You are my true son," Frigga insisted, "but Thor is of my blood, yes, and your father's."
"He is not my father," Loki said sharply, his voice rising. "And why is he not here with you for this revelation?"
Frigga looked pained, but remained silent, and Loki became even more angry.
"Why, if I were so lovingly adopted and taken fully into the bosom of my new family as you say, was I never told this before? Am I the offspring of some criminal? Some villainous elf? Perhaps a wastrel from Midgard? If so, did you put one of Idunn's apples between my infant lips to lengthen my life and keep the secret?"
"No, you already had the gift of long life," Frigga said. "And I would have told you sooner, but Odin extracted an oath from me not to reveal this unless I had no other choice."
"And now you believe that is true," Loki said, feeling the color drain from his face. "What have I done to Anthony without knowing?"
"He is alive, and that is your doing through your bravery and self-sacrifice," Frigga said, but he slipped his hand from her fingers. "Nothing will change that."
"But something crucial is wrong," Loki said. "If it were not, this secret would not have been revealed. What is it? What price must my lover pay for my gift to him of a poisoned heart?"
"I do not fully understand it myself as I know of no precedent," Frigga said, "and I have searched for one. Anthony woke two days ago, and he is well in body and mind."
"So far, your news is good, but your expression says you are telling only half the tale," Loki said. "If you truly have any love for me, be honest at least in this and spare me the torment of not knowing. What is wrong?"
She attempted smiling at him, but her features crumbled into sorrow before she said, "My darling, he cannot love."
He heard the words but couldn't understand them.
"I first noticed something was wrong when Peter came to wish him well. Anthony knew who he was, calling him by name, but there was a," she paused, "a coldness. He never asked after the boy or you, showed no gratitude over what both of you did when it was explained beside simple thanks, but heard all of it as though the speaker were listing off the capital cities of the Nine Realms. It was as though it were the history of a stranger, one for whom he had no feelings at all."
"He is in shock," Loki said, his voice breaking. "It must be that."
"No, it is not shock," Frigga said. "The healers have looked at his brain, and the symptoms of it are not present. He is only perfectly calm. Too calm. He remains polite. There is nothing about him that gives offense, understand. He simply does not love in much the same way that a rock does not love. He is incapable of it."
"This is madness!" Loki said. "Whatever the poets say, the mind and not the heart is the seat of love! Is that damaged in some wise?"
"Oh, Loki, you speak of medicine and science, good, solid fact," Frigga said, looking sad. "We both know magic flies in the face of such things, its power rooted in its ability to overthrow the laws of Nature. When magic goes awry, anything is possible, including the impossible, my son."
"I am not your son!" Loki all but screamed. "Tell me! Who was it that the King of Asgard plundered to bring me here? Who am I!"
"Be calm! You are but newly healing from grave injuries. You will hurt yourself!"
"Tell me!" he repeated, his volume only rising.
"You were the son of Laufey," Frigga admitted. "He cast you away, and I am glad of it, for it let you come to us."
"Laufey," Loki said, looking at her as though she had gone mad. "A frost giant? They are three times my height with blood-colored eyes and skin the hue of burning sulphur!"
"An illusion," Frigga said softly, and she moved her hand, allowing the layers of camouflage to disintegrate for the first time since his infancy.
Loki looked at his transformed hands and saw she spoke the truth. His mouth gasped for air, his eyes begging his mother to wake him from a nightmare, and then his mind took pity upon him as he slipped back into unconsciousness.