"So you are really bringing him back to the island?" Carter asked.

I was still in the habit of visiting the island once a week if I could, to check up on the villagers and the wards. Basic necessities were provided to the islanders by the Council of Venice, but I always brought some treats for the kids with me. Things like chocolate, crisps and fizzy drinks.

We were having a picnic at Danny's favourite place, the Skateboard Park. I could see the golden beam of light shining down on Thor's altar from here.

"I am," I answered Carter's question. " He'll be here to help, and I promise I'll be keeping an eye on him all the time."

"Well, if Loki shows his face I'll stab him here, and there, and here!"

Kyra was swinging a stick around as if it was a sword, jabbing at the air as if to punctuate her words.

"Ouch," Danny winched, "At the height that she's poking that stick she'd be stabbing him right in the…"

"There will be no stabbing Loki!" I interrupted before Danny could finish his sentence. "As I said, he's here to help improve the wards. We're not going to stab him," I glared at Kyra, "set him on fire," I looked at Danny, "Or anything else!"

"But can you really trust him?" Carter asked. "What if he breaks the wards instead and goes after the Gaia engine again?"

"Then Sorcha will turn him into mush with her hammer, won't you Sorcha?" Kyra asked.

"But she won't have to do that, you see?" Danny explained. "Because he's one of the good guys now. Right, Sorcha?"

"Of course he isn't," Kyra answered for me, "He's only behaving now because the Templars are making him and he's scared of Sorcha."

"But, what if he isn't?" Danny's eyes gleamed with enthusiasm, "What if he isn't a villain anymore? He did try to help here on the island with that charity stuff, right? What if this is his redemption arc? Like in the movies?"

Carter just shook her head at him, "You are such a kid sometimes Danny! This isn't the movies!" she threw an M&M at him, and he threw a marshmallow back. Soon the kids were having a food fight, and I grinned. It was nice to see them just being kids again.

Tonight was movie night with Richard, and tomorrow I'd take Loki to the island to see if he could help with the wards.

"He is a conman, Sorcha. A silver tongued charlatan. Loki can not be trusted. I'm simply worried about you. You're spending far more time in his presence than I am comfortable with. Not only do you work together in the field, but he has dinner at your place every night, and you seem to be spending almost every waking hour in his company."

Every Thursday night Richard's wife went to her book club, and I would go over and watch Romcoms with Richard. They were his guilty pleasure, and Anita couldn't stand them. I don't mind them, so we'd watch movies together and eat far too much junk food. But now Catherine Heigl was showing off her bridesmaid dresses in the background while Richard and I argued.

I knew who Loki was, of course, I did. I knew what he was. A liar, a cheater, a trickster. A conman and a charlatan. A master manipulator.

His mind spells don't work on me, thanks to my Bee I could resist that kind of magic easily enough. But he was charming and observant. It would be simple enough for him to learn exactly how to manipulate me.

A compliment here, a little joke there.

And yet, I could not help but feel that that wasn't what was happening between us. I felt that he was being sincere, that he liked me enough to occasionally show his true self to me, at least as a friend.

There had been the kiss of course, but that seemed to have been a once-off occurrence. It had not happened again. It must have simply been a moment of weakness, a moment of vulnerability on Loki's part, a mistake.

He was way out of my league. Girls like me didn't end up with men like him. I had given up all hope on a tall, dark and handsome knight in shining armour a long time ago. He wasn't a knight of course, and unlike in the movies, he wore no shining armour either. But you know what I mean. He was way, way out of my league.

"I don't like him, and I don't trust him," Richard interrupted my thoughts. "And not so long ago, neither did you. I fear he is using you, and you are too kind to notice."

"Hey! I'm not some naive teenager!"

The water in Loki's apartment was disgusting. He'd talked, even yelled, at the landlord multiple times, but the reply was always "I'll fix it soon."

"I've even tried using my magic on him," Loki had angrily admitted to me, "But there has to be a brain present for my mind magic to work and that halfwit has none!"

So it would make sense for him to have his showers at my place instead.

The allowance Loki got from the Templars was a pittance (we can't call it wages because that would suggest he was employed), and Loki wasn't that good with money. He'd spent far too much on clothes and luxuries and have no money left for food, so I would invite him over for dinner most nights. I cook for an army anyway, and it wasn't any more effort to cook for three instead of two.

Most nights Loki would hang around for a while after dinner because he disliked staying at his place.

His apartment stank of stale urine from the alley below and, for some reason, there hung a smell of cabbages in the building. There were always people yelling, dogs barking and babies crying, the paper-thin walls doing nothing to muffle the sound.

And I had Netflix. We had recently started watching Gilmore Girls, and Loki was enjoying it far more than he would like to admit.

"I didn't say you are a naive teenager. Sorcha, I am just asking you to be careful."

"Why?" I yelled angrily. "Because men like Loki can't possibly want to spend time with someone like me? Because the only possible reason he'd want me around is that he's using me? Because girls like me don't end up with guys like that? Because I am plain and awkward, and boring and there is no way, no way in this universe or any other, that Loki would ever want me?"

I was saying far too much, but my emotions had gotten the better of me, and I could feel tears hotly burning in my eyes.

"Well, thanks a lot, Richard! With friends like you, who needs enemies?"

I grabbed my coat and stormed out of the door, ignoring the shocked look on Richard's face.

"Sorch, I didn't say that, I didn't say…"

I slammed the door shut.

I stomped down the street, angrily wiping at the tears that had started to fall. My phone buzzed, and I knew it was Richard, but I wasn't going to answer.

I wasn't angry at Richard however, I was angry at myself.

Because Richard had given a voice to my own doubts that the only reason Loki was spending time with me outside of work was that I cooked for him and had Netflix.

The thought that Loki might be staying at my place all the time because he liked me, liked spending time with me, was just too hard to believe for me.

And not just because he was way out of my league, but because of the rumours that had started going around the Secret World about Loki.

I'm an early bird, I wake up early and go to bed early. Loki is a bit of a night owl. So after leaving my place he'd often visit the Horned God (The local bar in Ealdwic, not named after Loki to his disappointment, but after one of the forest gods), or one of the underground dive bars in Ealdwic. And he would get drunk, and chat up men or women and go home with them. That appeared to happen so frequently that Loki had gotten himself quite the reputation in the short time he'd been living in Ealdwic.

And I was jealous. No, more than that, I was hurt. It hurt so much. My feelings for him had grown over time, despite my best efforts to see Loki as a friend, a work partner. And I couldn't sleep at night, lying awake and staring at the ceiling, crying at the thought that he was with someone else.

But I'd rather die than let Loki know that.

I didn't sleep much that night either, and I woke up tired. I had cleared our little outing to the island with the Templars well beforehand, so all I had to do was collect the bracelet and then pick Loki up from his apartment.

When I got there, the door was ajar. "Loki?" I called, but there was no answer. I readied a lightning bolt in my hand and cautiously opened the door.

The place looked like it had been ransacked. The furniture was broken, and Loki's guitar had been smashed.

"Loki?" I called again, I was really starting to worry. I walked into the apartment, broken glass crunching under my feet. I looked down and saw it was a broken bottle. There were more bottles lying around, I noticed, and the place smelled like paint thinner or at least something like that.

"Loki? Are you here? Are you okay?"

The bedroom door was slightly open. I was too worried to consider whether going in was appropriate.

Loki had collapsed against the wall, unconscious, a bottle in his hand, his hair a tangled mess and his shirt half unbuttoned. "Loki?"

Was he injured? A globe of blood appeared in my hand. He wasn't.

"You're drunk!" I shook his shoulder angrily. "Loki, wake up! What happened to your apartment?"

Loki winced and opened his eyes. He had trouble focussing them.

"Was drunk," he corrected, his speech slurred. "I was drunk."

He tipped the bottle in his hand over his mouth, but not a single drop fell out. He shook his head and then turned green. "Shouldn't have done that.." he muttered.

"I was drunk, my dear Sorcha. Now I am merely hungover."

"What happened to your apartment?"

"I happened to my apartment," he admitted groggily. "Just go, I'm not in the mood today. I'm too hungover to work, come back tomorrow."

"Come back tomorrow? You promised you'd help strengthen the wards on the island! I took the day off for that, I promised the people on the island we'd be there!"

"Can you stop yelling? My head is splitting!" Loki yelled back. "And you shouldn't make promises you can't keep!"

"I shouldn't make promises I couldn't keep? I'm not the one who got drunk! Get up, you're keeping your promise!"

"Make me," Loki hissed.

I stomped out of his bedroom, looking around the apartment. I wasn't going to use the bracelet, but there were other ways. I smiled grimly as I found just the thing. He was going to keep that promise whether he liked it or not.

"I'm not hungry," Loki groaned as he saw me walk back with a cooking pot and a wooden spoon, "but be a dear and find me another bottle, will you? Hair of the dog and all that."

I began to bang with the spoon against the pot as loud as I could.

"Get up!"

Loki's eyes widened and he held his head, trying to cover his ears as much as he could. "Are you insane?" he moaned.

I banged louder. "I'll stop when you get up and clean yourself up!" I shouted over the din. Loki stumbled to his feet, half tripping over himself as he tried to grab the pot and spoon from my hands. I evaded him easily, he had none of his usual grace and reflexes.

"Promise to clean yourself up and I'll stop!"

"You horrible, deranged woman!" Loki lunged again but I jumped out of his reach just in time.

"Fine, I promise! I yield!"

I stopped banging the pot and handed him a bottle of water from my bag.

"Go and brush your teeth and wash your face, and drink some of that water as well, it will help with your head."

While Loki headed into the bathroom I looked around his apartment. What had happened here? This was more than just Loki drunkenly stumbling through the room; the throw over the sofa had been ripped to shreds, the single kitchen chair was broken and the guitar looked like it had been smashed against a wall.

What had made him upset enough to behave in such a way?

"I'm sorry, it can't be easy for you going back to the island." I thought I knew what had bothered him so much.

Loki had washed his face, but his eyes were still bloodshot, his hair was still a tangled mess and he wasn't looking much better. He sat down on the sofa, which promptly collapsed. Loki rolled his eyes and sat down on the armrest that was still half-standing instead.

"It's not what you think," he said quietly.

"What is it then?"

He was looking so sad and lost and I just wanted to wrap him up in my arms.

"The wards," he said as if that was an explanation. He took a swig of water, cleared his throat, and started again.

"I'm the one who placed them in the first place. One for… for Odin, one for Thor, and, well, the other one."

"I didn't know that," I said softly.

"I did. I was the only one powerful enough amongst us. I was still so young, still honing my magic. But those wards were mine."

He took another sip of water. I stayed quiet, I didn't really know what to say.

"I still wanted Odin's approval so badly. I wanted him to see me, praise me, for once in my life impress him. I wanted to make him proud."

Loki's brow furrowed, and he blinked rapidly so I wouldn't see the tears well up in his eyes.

"He never wanted me! He never saw me! He never…" Loki shook his head and said bitterly: "Nothing I ever did was good enough for him."

Unable to stop myself I put my arms around his shoulders, and pulled him close. He froze for a moment and then buried his face against my shoulder, his own shoulders shaking. "He never wanted me…"

I stroked my fingers through Loki's hair, gently untangling the knotted strands. He clung on to me, and I held him for a while, stroking his head as he cried.

"You don't have to make Odin proud. If Odin can't see how amazing you are then that is his fault, not yours," I said softly. "You have to make yourself proud, Loki, and you are not going to do that by getting drunk and smashing up your apartment."

He looked up. I gently caressed his cheek, wiping away the tears. "You do that by fixing what is broken, by correcting your mistakes and by keeping your promises."

Loki shook his head and said as if in disbelief: "You truly believe that? You truly believe it is that easy, that simple?"

"No, I believe it is very hard and complicated. But I also believe you are one of the strongest people I've ever met. Now get your coat, because we've both made a promise, and we are going to keep it together."