He had taken his ruse too far.

Tripping over the last twisting root of the forest behind him, Loki stumbled into their camp and skidded to a stop beside Jane's sleeping form. He gave her shoulder a rough nudge with the toe of his boot, and she let out a groan in response.

"Jane, get up!" he hissed, kneeling to shake her awake.

Jane blinked up at him before scrambling backward. "Oh!" Fear darted behind her eyes. "Loki, if this is about yesterday—"

"Not now!" He had shoved away from her and was hurriedly packing camp, his mind racing. Where is Yggdrasil's closest branch?

But Jane seemed bent on confessing. "I was sleepwalking, and then there was this guy…"

"Frey."

She blinked. "How did you know?"

Loki did not look up. "His palace in Álfheim was a gift to him. He has lived here longer than most can remember. I'm sure it was him."

His frenetic pace was contagious, but Jane was clearly struggling to keep up with it. Loki tossed a second empty pack in her direction. "We need to break up supplies to travel lighter. I can't run with everything."

"Run? What are we running from?" Jane's voice, still thick with sleep, cracked as she began stuffing her blanket into the bag.

He did not answer, but stood staring as the morning sun spilled over the tops of the trees and struck the Falls like a brandished sword of gold. The jump from Yggdrasil into the Night Falls was a portal he had not expected nor ever experienced. He had almost always landed on a green rolling hillside in past visits, but never in water. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to think. How had he gotten here in the past? It had been so long since—his eyes shot open as his mind traced the route. North along the east side of the forest until they reached the Villsvin Gap and from there—

A crash in the distance sent fire through his nerves as he hurried to grab Jane's wrist and wrench her forward. She stumbled before finally gaining her footing, her stride lengthening to match his as they raced across the beach into the far side of the forest.

"Again, why are we running?" Jane asked impatiently, her voice jolting with each step.

"Because we will be killed if we don't."

As if to affirm this, a tree cracked before crashing to the ground a few hundred yards behind them. A grumbling roar echoed eerily through the woods, followed by the galloping of hooves and tearing of underbrush.

"I'm inclined to worry more about the boar Gullinbursti," Loki said as he leapt nimbly over a fallen log. "He's not much for negotiations, as goring seems more his wont."

Jane reached out to pull hard on his arm. "Loki, who the hell is chasing us?" she snapped, her nails leaving marks in his soft leather sleeve.

"Frey."

"Why would he do that? I just spent yesterday with him and he was so nice and—"

"No, you spent the day with me."

Jane suddenly stumbled to a halt, staring as Loki slowed and came striding back toward her. She backed away, her voice dropping flat with realization. "You were Frey the whole time."

"No."

Jane's fingers curled into tight fists. "So only part of the time, then? I guess somewhere along the line you decided to have a little fun with it?"

Loki felt a twinge of irritation at the accusation. She knew nothing of her predicament, much less of the danger that he had saved her from and here she thought—

"So the meal, the boat ride, the conversation about the lake…that was all you?"

"Now is not the time, Jane."

"Now is the perfect time!"

Loki's hand found Jane's waist and he pulled her toward him with such force that she lost her balance. "If you want to live to have any answers, you will run!" he hissed in her ear as he shoved her forward.

Then they were sprinting, feet pounding on the rocky dirt beneath them. The path was becoming too clear and Loki abruptly changed direction without word or signal. Veering to his right, he sprang down the steep hill that dropped sharply away from the path. His speed lost him traction on the slick leaves that lay strewn over the forest bed, and he slipped and fell heavily to his knees. Jane cleared the path behind him before tumbling into him and sending them both crashing into the side of a broken boulder.

Without thinking, Loki pushed Jane behind him as his fingertips glowed an eerie green behind his back. From out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of gold move between the leaves in time with the approaching hoof beats; it would only be seconds now. He felt a force of energy suddenly shake his hands, and whirling around he found Jane gone, though the imprint of a body still pressed against the ground. Loki stared down at his hands in wonder. He had conjured a cloaking device without the slightest thought of doing so, and for her protection.

He had no time to ponder why.

A deafening bellow split his ears as he felt his body slung into the air before being slamming hard atop the flat rock. Loki's breath came out in choking gasps as his eyes stared into those of the giant boar Gullinbursti, its black eyes contrasted sharply against its bristling golden coat. One of its tusks had come dangerously close to impaling his stomach, and still its sharp end pinned him fast against the craggy stone.

"So I catch the vermin at last," a voice crowed from atop the boar. "Loki of Asgard, back in my forests and up to more mischief."

Loki fixed him with an icy glare. "I was just passing through."

"And you thought it fit to steal away my lady as well?" Frey's voice was pleasant enough, though Loki easily caught its dangerous undercurrent. "She was my guest, you know."

"They're hardly ever your guests, Frey."

"No harm would have come to her. I have the highest respect for the visitors to my halls, especially those who seem to have lost their way."

"You make women into harlots," Loki sneered. "Or at least you try."

"You've always been an imaginative liar," Frey said with a musical laugh. "Now, I ask after the lady Sigyn, as she called herself."

"Sigyn died long ago and you know it."

"And yet I found a woman wandering about the other night with that same name upon her lips. A Midgardian, I believe."

Loki swallowed at the reminder. He had overheard Jane introduce herself to Frey that night, but he had forced down the unsettling questions that wound about in his head. He had meant to force the issue with Jane this morning, but Frey had now made that impossible.

"So you found another woman to take her place?"

Loki jerked forward, but quickly shrank back as Gullinbursti's tusk dug deeper into his gut. "How dare you!" he snapped, his teeth cutting the words as they left his lips.

"How dare you!" Frey yelled as he leaned over his mount. "To attack and place a spell on me, to kidnap my guest while masquerading in my form, to eat my food, and then to steal Skidbladnir! Odin had told me you were dead but I should not have believed it, you conniving snake."

Loki smirked. "Oh, come! I never got to sail on that great ship before I gave it to you. As I recall, I sent you this golden boar as well."

"They were gifts from the dwarves."

"Gifts that I dared them to make. They were mine to give to Asgard, and yours to receive."

Frey's jaw clenched visibly. "I owe you nothing."

"Then the debt remains. Allow me leave of Álfheim and I will drop the matter." Loki felt Jane's shield shift and strain behind him, and he silently cursed her for not keeping still. He still needed time to regain lost magic.

Frey reached up to stroke his beard thoughtfully. "Let the gentle lady go, and I will allow your departure."

"I will not leave without her."

"Is she truly that necessary?" Frey lifted an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you're traveling around to recreate your past with Sigyn."

Loki stared at him, stunned. He had only taken Jane to test her likeness with Sigyn, not to— The shock of Frey's words hit him hard. The journey so far had felt so familiar, so natural that he had not thought to truly question it. Or rather, himself.

"You miss her," said Frey. "I could not imagine how much it must pain you."

Rage flared up within Loki, and he found it loosed upon his tongue before he could check it. "Does your wife not keep you company, or do you inhabit this place alone?"

"Gerd has returned to Jotunheim."

"Has she?" Loki drew himself up and leveled a withering glare at Frey. "Such a pity you could not satisfy her."

With a loud curse, Frey kicked Gullinbursti forward and Loki felt the tip of its tusk press hard into his side. Fighting back a cry of pain, he raised a hand to aim a shot of jade fire squarely between the boar's eyes. The magic found its mark and sent the dazed creature reeling away from him, its sharp tusk leaving blood in its wake. Loki turned on Frey just as a new thought crossed his mind. A grin flickered across his face as he shifted his focus to concentrate.

"I just remembered something," he said airily, his hands flashing forward as if to ward off Frey's coming attack. Instead, his opponent stopped immediately in his tracks, his boots weighted to the forest floor. The god grunted as he tried to force his way forward, but his feet would not move.

Frey's eyes blazed as his head shot up. "A pretty trick. Who taught you?"

"Sigyn." Loki turned on his heel and released Jane's shield with a flick of his wrist. She appeared before him, brown eyes wide with confusion. Grabbing her elbow, he jerked her to her feet and led her roughly down the hill, their running steps slipping on the carpet of dead leaves beneath them.

A jagged wall of rock rose immediately to their left, its frowning fissures darkening into large, black crags that even the sun could not hope to reach. Loki felt his mind spin as another possibility struck him. He knew his spell would not last long; Frey would be free and on their trail again. Even with their slight head start, the closest branch of Yggdrasil was too far to reach without detection. They would have to hide for now, and he would take no pleasure in it. Behind him, Jane's voice had been a constant stream of breathless questions, mounting until he could take them no more. But his scathing response died on his lips as a rumbling roar sounded at the top of the hill. Gullinbursti had returned for his master.

Loki immediately swerved into the shade of the stone hillock, his eye catching a large crag almost hidden in the shadow of a larger boulder. He paused briefly at its entrance, seeking a path into the darkness. The crash of hooves above resolved his hesitation and he pushed his body flush against the wall as Jane rushed in after him. Loki immediately found his position intolerable as he felt her body press against his in the now breathlessly tight space. He raised his chin and dug his fingers into the porous rock behind him. He would not touch her, not after Frey had so brazenly accused him of taking Jane as a replacement. The very thought incensed him.

They stood frozen in silence, listening as Frey's boar crashed over the hill and into the surrounding trees. Frey's voice rose high above the din and needled its way to their ears, despite his apparent distance. Loki imagined him riding high on his steed, wheeling it about like a man breaking in a wild horse. "Mark me, Trickster," Frey shouted, "The next time I find you in my forests will be the day I cut your sly tongue from your head!"

The bark of laughter that caught in Loki's chest pushed him hard against Jane and he immediately shrank back, knocking his head hard against the uneven wall behind him. He hissed in pain, but managed to barely bite back a curse. When he was certain Frey had turned east once more toward his hall, Loki tried to free himself but found the force of his recoil had snagged a strap of his armor on some unseen object. He needed only room to twist away, but Jane still firmly blocked his path and showed no signs of moving.

"Tell me exactly what's going on, Loki," she said evenly, her lips pressed in a thin line.

"Move away and I shall."

"No, I'm done waiting for answers."

"I will do it for you if you do not step aside."

"You're stuck, so start talking," she said, and Loki let out a frustrated sigh. Jane crossed her arms and so filled the little space between them as she waited. She must have felt him cringe, for she added, "What, too close for comfort?"

Loki only glowered at her in response.

"Start with yesterday. When did you…become Frey?"

Loki was struck by her bold tone, but the slight tremor in her voice betrayed the slight unease behind it.

He began slowly. "Frey had found you that night and brought you back to his palace. I…disabled him for a while and took his place the following morning, or yesterday as it was."

"Why?"

"I thought it would be an entertaining challenge."

"No, it was more than that," Jane said, her hesitation fading as a realization seemed to dawn on her. "I saw you on the TV when you were in New York. I watched you gloat like you had outsmarted the world and you wanted us to know it every second of the day. You want everyone to know when you win, so why didn't you reveal yourself yesterday?"

"Perhaps I wanted to do it again."

"You actually got me to believe you were this kind, charming guy. Don't tell me you didn't think about rubbing my face in it as soon as you could." Jane's brown eyes were flashing even in the dim light, and Loki found he could not look away. "But then you told me today, as if was a…a confession. Like you didn't want me to ever know."

"You never stop searching for the reason behind everything, do you, Jane?"

"Things like this need a reason!" Suddenly, the vial of lakelight was glimmering between her fingers as she held it up to him.

"A memento of your journey," he said unaffectedly. "I assumed you might wish to study it later."

"No, this was something I really, really wanted and you went out of your way to get it for me. Since when do you do anything nice for anyone?"

"You'd be surprised."

Jane reached up to tuck a stray length of hair behind her ear. "Then why didn't you just give me the lakelight when I was awake?"

Loki scoffed, though he knew it was half-hearted. "As if I would give myself away like that."

"You did it later anyway!"

"Only so you would realize the danger we were in. He's not the man you thought he was, and I couldn't risk you letting him catch us to prove it."

"Whose charming personality did I spend the day with, if Frey isn't really like that? Was it yours?"

She had cornered him long enough. Loki pushed forward to tower over her, no longer caring about the space between them. "Who was the woman who introduced herself to Frey the other night?"

Jane was clearly taken aback at this, and he would have smiled at his change of hand had his temper been lighter. She now unfolded her arms and leaned back against her side of the rocky rift, her face inscrutable as her eyes darted away from his.

Loki pressed against her as his voice slipped out in a sharp whisper. "Why did you use her name?"

"I tried to tell you, I was sleepwalking and-"

"Why her name?" Loki's voice rose as wrath once more burned his throat.

"I don't know."

"You knew who she was."

"Yeah, but-"

"You wished to wound me."

"No!"

"To make jest of a tragedy!"

"No, she was only in my dream!"

"Ah, yes," Loki said, tilting his head. "You spoke of that earlier to Frey, as you thought at the time. And still you would not tell me what you dreamt of."

"There's this fire in my nightmares, all right?" Jane brushed past him into the open space of the small cavern, leaving him the room to finally work himself free. "I keep trying to fight these fiery hands off, but they keep dragging me down."

An uneasy curiosity pricked at the back of Loki's mind as he walked through the narrow passage to stop a short distance from her. "That is what frightens you?"

Jane shook her head, frustrated. "It's a consuming fire in space! Space, of all places! I keep falling off a ledge, even though someone is trying to save me. The person lets me go every time though."

Loki felt his mouth go dry. "You said you dreamed of Sigyn-"

She began to ramble. "It's like I'm watching events in her life. One dream she was looking for some Atlas of the Norns and she met you and you had it. Then you invited her to go with you and explore the realms—" She froze, her eyes widening as they flicked to his. "No."

But Loki had already been staring at her. The Atlas of the Norns.

"Oh my God, Frey was right," Jane said, her voice rising. "You're trying to relive your past."

"Hardly," Loki said, the derision in his tone dropping like a weight between them. "I took you because you knew the secret of my survival, remember? It was nothing but a security measure."

"You said I reminded you of her."

"A passing fancy. Any woman in the observatory would make me think of Sigyn." He swept past her and made his way to the yawning mouth of a tunnel behind her. He needed to think, and to think alone. He stepped into the suffocating dark of the passage, his fingers trailing the wall to his right.

"You're using me." Jane's words came closely behind him, sharp and accusing. "I reminded you of your dead fiancée, so you decided to use me to bring her back to life, is that it?"

"You would never come close," Loki said coldly. "But if you insist, I suppose I can see some merit in the idea."

"You sick bastard!"

"Be silent, Jane!" he snarled over his shoulder as he stalked deeper into the tunnel. His mind spun with an endless barrage of questions that all converged on one: how could Jane have dreamt of something she knew nothing about?

Jane's scream jolted him back to the present and he froze, listening. Her voice was fading quickly, and Loki realized that it was now beneath the ground of the cavern, its shrill tone dropping with the depths. Stumbling back to where he had left her, he fell to his knees, long fingers brushing the rocky floor for any hole or gaping fissure through which she might have fallen. His speed increased until he felt his shoulder slam into the wall of a tiny alcove of rock. Cracks sprang up beneath his fingers as the floor crumbled beneath him and pitched him down into nothingness.