He is too young to know better, but the way he speaks of Loki is different from his new siblings.

"Master this and Father that," taunts Emebor, who is ten and loud and intimidating enough that Edvard usually seeks the companion of his adoptive sister rather than this Branson. "As if you have ever met the Silvertongue!"

"But I have," Edvard mutters, pinching his brows together. He fists his hands and glares at his brother. "He saved me, you know, and then he told me –"

"You must have been dreaming!" Emebor says dismissively. Then he tips his nose into the air, sniffing at the scent of braised meat coming from the longhouse on the farm. "Food!" is all Emebor says before he darts off, his stomach quickly making him forget his teasing of Edvard.

But Edvard stays behind, tucking his arms close to his body with a mighty frown on his face. Emebor says he must have been dreaming, but Edvard knows better. He knows that he did not dream of Loki because Loki told him so himself – and then he showed him that Edvard is just like Loki, with green magic eager to leap to his skin. Loki had told him to call him Father, because he is, and then Master, because he will be.

Loki has lied to many, but he had not lied to Edvard.

His mother always said that parents never truly lie to their children. Of course, now both his mother and his father are gone, and the only father he knows now are Bran, the farmer who has adopted him, and Loki, who steals Edvard away in the night to teach him seidr.

But nobody will believe Edvard about Loki and he does not know why. It has become a source of teasing for older children, so more and more Edvard falls silent, not daring to speak his thoughts. He had thought Emebor would listen, but he has been proven wrong.

Edvard trudges back toward the farm, his steps heavy and his mind sad. He does not notice his adoptive sister has also found her way home on the same path until Alise turns up at his elbow. He rears back slightly, then blinks at the dampness clining to her simple dress. "Where have you been?"

"With Iza," Alise answers breezily. "We made soaps."

Iza, Edvard thinks with a muted sense of glee. He does not see her as often now that he lives on the farm, but when he lived closer to the village with his parents he would frequently see her stepping on her father's heels as she followed him around. He thinks she is pretty, but he does not know how to speak to her, even if she does always spare him a wide smile.

Yet he also knows that Alise seems to be her only friend, except for an infant cousin, Jakob, who is not related by blood. He wonders why Iza does not come out to the farm and then wonders why he should care at all. Pretty girls are not as useful as knowing Loki, after all.

"Tricksters," Alise says abruptly.

Edward looks at her. "What?"

Alise's odd eyes turn his way, slightly clouded. "Even if you trust him, you should remember that tricksters twist to get their way. Do not let yourself be twisted."

Edvard would like to say that Alise's words are nonsensical, but he knows better by now. The whole village knows better by now, and she is not even eight springs old. So he knows that the trickster she speaks of can be nobody else but Loki.

Edvard thinks about how he is being alienated by his peers, thinks about how Iza has already been alienated for not conforming, and thinks that he does not want that for himself. Even if Loki is Father and Master, he is still not here all the time and he does not want to take Edvard with him – he had asked, repeatedly, and had been denied each time.

So Edvard takes Alise's words to heart, and when he sits down for the evening meal with his new family, he does not speak a word about Loki for the first time since he was adopted. He does not miss the relieved look the farmer and his wife share, or the way that Alise smiles with serene approval.

This is the price for acceptance, Edvard thinks. Keeping secrets and playing normal.

And so, Edvard starts to keep his first secret, and he does not speak of it for another twelve years.