AN: Here it is. Also, on an unrelated note, I must inform you all that this story will be almost entirely focused upon Darcy and Loki as the main characters. However, I do have a third story brewing in my mind that concerns Jane, Thor, and (to a lesser extent) Erik, bringing them further into the spotlight of the plotline.

One little thing to keep in mind: Loki's doppelganger might be kind of a jerk, but it's a jerk that is bound by its nature to obey Loki's orders. It couldn't steal the Apple because to do so would be to violate its duty. Good theory, though. It would certainly fit its (his?) personality.

Soundtrack: "The Immolation Scene," "Padme's Funeral," and a random little leitmotif I wrote ages ago that I should probably post on YouTube sometime because I like it a lot. (I'll post it eventually—I'll link to it when I do).

CHAPTER SEVEN

The room erupted into chaos.

"We will find this thief and strike them where they stand!"

"Gone? How could it be gone?"

Odin held up his hands in a gesture of silence. After several seconds of delayed murmuring, the room quieted. He turned to Hermes. "As king of Asgard, I offer you and your people my most sincere, humble apologies. My people and I will do everything in our power to apprehend this thief and return to you what is rightfully yours." He turned to survey the room at large. "Our first course of action must be to determine the identity of the thief."

Loki's heart hammered against his chest. He couldn't think. He couldn't feel anything. His mind was numb. It couldn't be…It couldn't. She couldn't have done such a thing. It was impossible. It couldn't be true. And yet, he knew deep down that it had to be. The pieces fit together perfectly. Darcy had vanished, and so had the Apple. He had worded his instructions so that she could access the Apple without needing to perform any magic. His stomach twisted. It couldn't be true. It couldn't. He wouldn't believe it.

He raced from the room wordlessly. He had to know the truth.

The doppelganger didn't look up as Loki entered the chamber where the Apple had once been. It traced a lazy finger across the dais.

"You want to know who took the Apple," it said smoothly.

Loki swallowed hard, a muscle in his jaw working frantically.

"You let somebody take it," he said, trying in vain to keep his voice from shaking. "Who was it?" He stared at the doppelganger as it turned around to survey him with detached amusement in its eyes.

"I think you already know the answer."

Something inside Loki snapped. He surged forward and grabbed the doppelganger by the collar, every tendon, every muscle in his body standing up in fury. "TELL ME!" he screamed. His voice broke, choking with suppressed sobs. "I have to know for certain! Say it! Say her name!"

"Darcy," the doppelganger spat.

Loki let go of the doppelganger. He felt cold. His entire body was numb. It was so cold. He shivered and collapsed on the dais, barely able to lean upon it for support. He couldn't think. He couldn't understand what had happened. He didn't even care when he began to sob silently, didn't care that the doppelganger was watching him. This was worse than learning of his jotun blood. This was worse than any pain he had ever felt in his life. He felt as though something were ripping apart in his chest.

It was several minutes before he managed to stop weeping. He shivered violently. His legs shook as he pushed himself to his feet, his mind still spinning.

"She was part-fey, you know."

Loki glanced over his shoulder wearily. Hermes stood at the doorway, looking solemn.

"Yesterday, when Titania saw Dar—her eyes, she said the name 'Nick.' She had a mortal lover by that name, in the Midgardian Elizabethan Era." Loki blinked slowly. He stared at Hermes, his mind still struggling to process what was happening. He knew distantly that something about what Hermes had just said was very strange. "Over four hundred years ago."

Loki laughed hollowly. "What are you suggesting? That she is four hundred years old?" Hermes looked back at him without any change in expression. Loki's stomach dropped. "No," he said quietly. "She's twenty-three. She told me. She…" He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth. He could say her name. He wasn't so weak as to be unable to do that. "Darcy," he said with some effort, "and I had a fight shortly before her theft and flight. I'm sure she just…got angry with me. I expect this is her idea of getting back at me." He sighed. "I certainly deserve it after the things I said to her." He shook his head furiously. "She couldn't be Titania's daughter. Lots of people have blue eyes. They were probably just the same color by coincidence."

"Oh really? From what I witnessed yesterday, Lady Darcy has quite a knack for magic. Particularly nature magic. How do you account for that?"

Loki stayed silent.

"Loki," Hermes said quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder, "my friend, look at the facts. Within a short time of Darcy's arrival upon Asgard, someone tried to steal something from Olympus. Someone proceeded to steal the girdle of Aphrodite. Now the Apple of Discord has been stolen, and Darcy has vanished with it." Loki shook Hermes' hand from his shoulder, glaring at him.

Hermes stood up straight, his voice turning from understanding and compassionate to stern in the blink of an eye. "A mortal once said that the simplest hypothesis is often the most likely. This is the simplest hypothesis: Darcy stole both artifacts. She broke into Olympus using her magical powers stemming from her fairy blood, but fled before we could unmask her identity. She was able to sneak into the fairy world because of her heritage, and there she stole the girdle. And then she stole the Apple of Discord using some loophole in your enchantments that permitted her access to the Apple."

"There's only one problem with that theory," Loki said tersely. "Darcy grows exceptionally weak when she performs too much magic at once, sometimes to the point of blacking out."

"Does she?" Hermes said. He gave Loki a significant look.

Loki's face turned icy cold, and completely still. "No," he said, his voice rising. "No, there has to be another explanation. What you're suggesting...It's…it's diabolical!" He gestured wildly. "It's positively Machiavellian. It's the sort of thing that I would do, not her!"

"But if what I am thinking is true, then the woman you know to be Darcy is a fiction. A persona, a figment used by her to obtain access to what she wanted to put her scheme into action." Hermes stepped closer to Loki and lowered his voice. "It was all an act. The mortality…the passing out when she used 'too much magic—'"

"Her feelings for me."

Hermes looked at Loki, his eyes aching with what seemed to be true sorrow. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "It's the most logical explanation." He put on his winged cap. "I must speak with Odin. We must act quickly if we are to catch her and return the artifacts to their rightful owners."

Loki didn't react as Hermes left the room. He stared blankly at the place where the Apple had once sat, his mind ablaze with unintelligible thought and instinct. Where he had been cold and numb moments before, he was on fire. He came to life with a vengeance, his frozen muscles tensing and rippling in mindless synchronization. His eyes burned.

It was all an act.

None of it was true.

Everything he had loved was a lie.

She was a lie.

His lips trembled as he surrendered to the ferocity that roiled within his mind; he let out a bellowing cry of anguish, a wavering scream that made the walls shake and his eyes burn. He broke off the cry with a wave of his hand, growling unconsciously as he threw his arms about, shattering and burning and freezing in the wake of each stroke. He heard the walls crack and threaten to shatter, he felt the inferno that blazed from his fingers and scorched everything it touched, he felt the ground beneath him practically snapping at the air as it turned to ice, and he fed upon them. Each blow of destruction fueled the next, his uncontrollable fury feeding upon itself and growing stronger until it exploded in a great shockwave that left cracks radiating in the ground from where Loki stood.

It was a lie.

It was all a lie.

And he had believed her.

He had loved the lie.

He had loved her.

And she betrayed him.

Darcy had long since given up fighting the tears that streamed down her face and left hard, salty tracks as they dried. She lay upon the ground helplessly like a rag doll, hoping against hope that if she just held still, the pain would stop.

It didn't.

She screamed as another wave of agony made her shudder and writhe uncontrollably, arching her back against the invisible chains that bound her to the floor.

"It hurts doesn't it?"

Darcy whimpered as the voice came closer and grabbed a fistful of her hair viciously.

"Well, then," the voice hissed, "maybe you can begin to understand how much it hurts to live the way I have, looking on as the man I love moons over another."

"That's enough, Sigyn."

A new voice. Darcy turned to rubber with relief. Someone was here to help her, finally.

The voice was accompanied by the soft click of heels against the icy stone floor. "We wouldn't want to kill the poor thing. And besides," the voice crooned, "she's been so helpful to us, hasn't she, Sigyn?"

Sigyn muttered something under her breath that sounded like dissent.

Darcy opened her eyes a crack just in time to see the second woman, a tall, statuesque blond, shoot a blue-white bolt at Sigyn. The latter yelped in pain. The blond woman laughed, and turned to Darcy.

She frantically closed her eyes. They couldn't know she was conscious.

The blond woman laughed again. "Oh, darling, I'm not foolish. I know you're alive." Darcy felt sharp, manicured nails grasping her chin. "Come, look at me. I want to see your face properly. Get a feel for your character."

Reluctantly, Darcy let her eyelids open up a crack. She found herself looking directly into a pair of gold eyes. Not brownish-gold—pure, metallic, shimmering gold that hovered somewhere between the shade of the precious metal and the reddish light of sunset. She stared at them vacantly; they were somewhat hypnotic, and she was glad to have something, anything, to detract from the pain.

"Hm," the woman murmured. "Interesting. We have ourselves a little 'pure of heart' here." Her smile darkened. "Pity I have no time for purity."

Everything went black.