Inside the great domed structure, Loki introduced Elsa to Heimdall, the all-seeing Gatekeeper. From there, they went out to the edge of an enormous bridge that spanned a vast void, bigger than any mountain canyon Elsa had ever seen. When Loki offered his arm, she held on tightly. The bridge shimmered with a rainbow light, and though it was wide enough for a ship, the emptiness beneath made Elsa nervous. The bridge seemed to vibrate beneath their feet, and she heard a distant rumbling.

"There is a magnificent waterfall on the other side," Loki said when she asked what that sound was. "You'll see it before long."

There was a faint light on the far side of the path, but Elsa could not tell what it was until they were halfway across. As though they walked from night to dawn, the horizon grew lighter, until she saw a golden hill in the distance. They passed the waterfall, where the waters roared so loudly that they had to shout to each other to be heard. After that, there was no longer a void beneath the bridge, but a flowing river so wide that Elsa could not see where it ended.

Eventually the river narrowed, and small islands dotted the waters. The gold hill grew until Elsa saw that it was a building—Odin's palace. It dwarfed every other structure in Asgard, but it was not the only golden edifice to be seen. The sun glinted off gold, silver, marble, iron, and bronze all around. Elsa had to shield her eyes to see anything.

Every room inside the palace was filled with sculpture, decorative plants, mosaics, sconces and torches, and luxurious draperies. The view seemed unique to every window, all equally breathtaking. Elsa could have taken an hour in every room, but Loki hurried her along a stone corridor full of sky-high columns.

"Where are we going?" Elsa whispered. Even that volume echoed in the chamber. "To the king?"

"I thought I would introduce you to the real seat of power in this realm," Loki said.

They turned away from the entrance to what looked like the throne room—Elsa thought she heard a man's voice inside—and walked down another corridor. She lost count of how many servants and soldiers passed them, nodding or bowing to the prince and his guest. Aside from their costumes, it was not so very different from a stroll down the hall of Arendelle Castle.

They came to another elaborate set of double doors, and Elsa found herself outside again. A wave of fragrances struck her nose the moment the doors opened. They stepped onto a stone-paved terrace adjoining a garden bursting with flowers and foliage. Most of the vegetation was entirely exotic to Elsa. A few species were almost like their Midgardian counterparts. They were larger, or brighter, or colored differently, or growing a different way. She heard fountains beyond the hedges that bordered the terrace. Several statues peeked over the tops of the plants.

"It's…glorious," she said.

Loki made a move toward the steps leading into the garden, but hesitated. He looked at Elsa, who seemed to have forgotten he was there. Her expression was hungry. He reached out to pluck a purple, tulip-like blossom from a vine wrapped around a balustrade. When he held it out to her, Elsa looked up at him with eyes full of worry.

"Is it safe?" she asked.

"Fear not, our gardens do not bite," he said with mock seriousness. She gave him that annoyed, no-nonsense look.

"You know what I mean," she said. "No one ever gave me flowers before. They…freeze on me."

"That was then," Loki said, keeping up his solemn tone, "and in another place. Here you are a weak, pathetic little mortal who is no match for Asgard's mighty flowers."

With another little scowl, Elsa snatched the bloom out of his hand. Loki smiled as she slowly twirled the stem between two fingers, watching it. The blossom stayed just the same, and did not frost. Elsa brought it to her nose, inhaled, and finally smiled again.

"Thank you," she said.

"Loki!" another female voice called out.

A tall woman with golden hair emerged from behind the hedgerow and climbed the steps to the porch. She was older, though it was difficult to know what that meant in this country. The only lines were around her blue-gray eyes and her mouth when she smiled—which she was doing now.

"The servants told me you had returned," the woman said, kissing him on the cheek.

"I thought to find you here," Loki said.

"So you have." The older woman turned her attention to Elsa. "You brought a visitor."

"May I present to you Queen Elsa, of the land of Arendelle, in the realm of Midgard," Loki said. "Elsa, may I introduce to you Queen Frigga of Asgard, wife to our king, Odin Allfather, and my lady mother."

"How do you do," Elsa said, curtseying as she had been taught from a young age. After her coronation, it was strange to be the one presented to a queen.

"My son has spoken of you, your grace," Frigga said. "You are most heartily welcome to Asgard, where we are all at your disposal." Her tone was kind, but her gaze was sharp. Elsa might be a queen herself, but she could not help wondering if she would pass muster.

"I am honored and grateful to be your guest, your highness," Elsa said. "The palace is breathtaking, and the rainbow bridge is…expansive."

"Loki," Frigga said, "did you make her grace walk all the way across the Bifrost? A visiting queen demands more courtesy than that—you could have sent for a pair of horses, at the very least."

"Oh, I don't demand anything," Elsa said. "Really, I didn't mind."

"You must be worn out," the older queen said, leading Elsa to a round, metal table with four chairs. "Come, sit here. I will send for refreshments."

When she imagined what her visit to Asgard would be like, Elsa had not pictured any sort of teatime. She sat at the table with Loki and Frigga, eating fruits and breads and sweets and drinking spiced wine and mead and strange teas, beneath a robust Asgardian sun, surrounded by flowers whose bouquet were more intoxicating than the mead. The foods—and the servants that brought them—seemed endless.

Frigga, draped in a light blue, tunic-like gown that set off her complexion perfectly, was not out of place in the riot of colors and sunshine. Neither was Elsa, in a pale green dress and silver traveling cloak. Loki's garments of leather, metal accents, and dark fabrics were out-of-place, but he seemed comfortable enough. He was fairly quiet, keeping a look of vague amusement on his face.

The older queen asked Elsa more questions than Loki ever had. The younger queen spoke about her sister, the kingdom, her parents, the household, her political mentors, the city and the mountains, the fjord and wildlife. Elsa could not believe how long it took for Frigga to make the critical remark she had long been waiting for.

"Loki tells me that you have magic, your grace. I understand that is unusual in Midgard these days."

"It is," Elsa said. "Very unusual."

"Were you born with your powers?" the older queen asked. "Or were they bestowed upon you?"

"My parents said I was born with them," Elsa said.

She remembered the night of the accident, when the trolls had taken away Anna's memories of magic. "Born with the powers, or cursed?" the grand-troll had asked. Elsa preferred Frigga's phrasing. Bestowed…like a gift.

"All the more powerful, then," Frigga said. She reached out her hand to the younger woman. "May I?"

Elsa was not sure what she meant, so she extended her own hand. It was evidently the correct response. Frigga took Elsa's hand in her own, lightly touching the palm like a fortune-teller. Elsa held back a shiver, remembering how Loki had held it in much the same way, with a similarly curious expression. Much like Loki's had done before, Elsa felt Frigga's touch calm her power somehow. She could sense that Frigga held a power both dangerous and beautiful—and far beyond her own.

"When you have rested a bit, I would very much like to see the workings of your magic," Frigga said. "Perhaps tomorrow?"

"Of course," Elsa said. When Frigga released her hand, though, Elsa felt her power slowly return. "Although…" she said uncertainly.

Both Loki and his mother gave her curious looks. Elsa picked up the blossom that Loki had given her from where she had set it on the table. She held it up and watched it turn cold and blue as her frost crept out of her fingers and up the stem, until the entire flower became a tiny ice sculpture. Loki's mouth twitched, and the elder queen smiled indulgently.

"You do have some talent, your grace," she said. "I am most anxious to see your powers after a good night's sleep."

No doubt it was kindly meant, but the remark made Elsa feel foolish. Her demonstration must have seemed a childish parlor trick compared to what an Asgardian sorceress was capable of producing.

Frigga stood. "Alas, your grace cannot rest until a room has been prepared for you. I assume that my son has not taken care of such details, so I will take the liberty of assuming the duties of hospitality."

"Please don't take any trouble," Elsa said.

"Nonsense," Frigga said. "A word in a servant's ear, and all is seen to. Sit, and we will meet again."

After she had disappeared back into the palace, Elsa turned to Loki. "It isn't just me—you don't tell anyone anything, do you?"

"I reveal what is necessary, when it is necessary," Loki said.

Elsa looked at the doors where Frigga had gone inside. "I like her."

"She likes you," Loki said.

"I wasn't sure," Elsa said. "I couldn't tell if she was just being gracious, or—"

"She likes you," he repeated. He stood and held out a hand to Elsa. "If you are finished with your refreshments, your grace…?"

Elsa took his hand as he helped her to her feet, but even once she was standing, he did not let go. "What now?" she asked.

"What would you like?" He drew closer to her, smiling as he took her other hand. "We have sat out here for some time now, and as I recall, the sun hurts your eyes." He released her hands and curled his arms around her waist. "The queen is the kindest woman in Yggdrasil, to give us privacy. We might go inside, where it is shaded and cool. I could give you a tour of my favorite rooms in the palace."

"What rooms are those?" Elsa asked.

"The library, of course," Loki said, all wide-eyed innocence.

Elsa could not help laughing at that. Then his arms shifted and bumped against the dagger hanging from her hip. She fell abruptly quiet and pressed her lips together.

"My dear little queen, I think you are concealing something extra beneath your skirts."

She took a shuddering breath. "The dagger," she said. "I didn't know what to expect, so…"

"I suppose that speaks well of my choice of gift, that you would not like to be parted from it," he said. He surprised her by adopting a slightly more serious tone and expression. "Keep it hidden. Let no one know you have it."

"I don't think anyone else would find out the same way you did," she said. It was Loki's turn to laugh, but he still did not let go of her. "Weren't you going to show me that library you like so much?"

Loki's grin was indecent. "Perhaps it is not time to cool off yet, after all."

Elsa would have snorted with derision had she the time, but Loki pulled her closer before she could respond. Whether it was the Asgardian climate, the scent of the garden, the strength of the mead she had drunk, or some combination of all three, the kiss was more potent than the others before them. His cool touch was refreshing in the day's heat, and his slim torso was like a pillar of strength for her to lean upon. She felt safe in his arms, however much every particle of common sense told her to feel otherwise. Elsa stood on her toes to kiss him back, for a moment forgetting everything in the world but Loki and the concoction of sensations rising within her.

She opened her eyes a fraction of a moment before he did, and in one instant she saw a flash of—what? It was in and out of his eyes like a candle snuffed out, but Elsa knew she had seen something.

He loves you, Anna had told her.

But how could she know that?

I wish he did. Heaven help me, but I wish he did.

Elsa looked down from his face, almost as though to give Loki some privacy, though he still held her. She pressed her forehead against his chest, feeling his heart beating and his lungs stirring.

The crunch of boots on gravel and a clamor of boisterous voices came too quickly. Loki and Elsa disentangled themselves and stepped away from each other just as a small group of armed soldiers came around a hedge corner. Thor was among them.

"Brother!" he said, his voice loud and jovial.

By the grin that touched both his mouth and his sparkling blue eyes, Elsa knew he had seen enough. One of his companions—another blond man with a goatee and dashingly unkempt hair—looked more openly amused. Elsa felt blood pooling in her freckled cheeks, and could not remember feeling more foolish and less queenly.

Another armored man was so stoic that Elsa thought he must not have caught the glimpse of her and Loki—or simply did not care. It seemed the same for another soldier—the largest man Elsa had ever seen—due to the shaggy hair covering scalp and chin, but then she saw that his eyes were wide with shock. The last of the group, a maiden dressed in warrior's plate, wore an expression of horror that she valiantly tried to quell when she saw Elsa looking at her.

"Just when I had word of your departure, I find you returned, and with a remarkable prize!" Thor was saying. He seemed more informal and much louder in his own home, surrounded by his own friends. He was still beautiful and fierce, but his natural setting made him seem more human and less the sun-birthed demigod he had been in Aredelle. At the same time, his armored friends and their array of weaponry made a terrifying contrast to the floral environment.

Elsa finally dared to look at Loki again. His face was an immobile mask, betraying no emotion at all.

"We are all standing quite near to you," Loki said. "There is no need to speak so loudly."

"Queen Elsa," Thor said, ignoring Loki, "I am astonished to see you here, but no less delighted. May I present my friends, since my brother has not bothered to do so?" He gestured to the blond man beside him, calling him Fandral, "the best blade in Asgard."

"And the most talkative," the warrior-maiden offered with a smirk.

"That is Lady Sif," Thor said. He introduced the enormous, hairy man as Volstagg, and the stoic soldier as Hogun. After they had bowed to Elsa in turn, she curtseyed. Thor introduced her simply as Queen Elsa of Midgard, which impressed them. They did not seem to realize that she shared Midgard with many other rulers.

"I hope you will find Asgard to your liking, your grace," Lady Sif said. She spoke politely, but there was something in her tone that hinted at something else. Perhaps this armed lady was suspicious of the visitor. Elsa even wondered if she was jealous—a terrible and vain thought, but there it was.

"I already do," Elsa said, smiling. "Loki and Queen Frigga have been very welcoming."

"Most welcoming indeed," Fandral said, grinning. Elsa looked down at the ground, ashamed.

"What did the Silver Tongue say to convince you to join us here after all?" Thor asked her.

"Oh…" Elsa finally glanced at Loki again, but his expression had not changed. He stood still, hands clasped behind his back, and almost bored. He did not even seem to be the same Loki who had teased and kissed her minutes earlier. "Nothing in particular. I decided I wanted to come after all." She tried to smile again. "It seemed only polite, since you were kind enough to come to my coronation."

"Shall there be a banquet to honor the guest?" Volstagg asked.

"If only to give you another excuse for a feast," Thor said, slapping his rotund friend on the back. Everyone but Loki and Hogun at least chuckled. Thor looked at his brother. "Tomorrow, if Father permits?"

At last, Loki spoke up. "Perhaps the queen would like a few days' respite before being put on display for yet another kingdom."

"Thor was only trying to be hospitable," Lady Sif said to Loki, apparently offended.

She is not jealous of me, Elsa decided. It is Thor who concerns her the most.

"I have no complaints about Asgardian hospitality so far," she said, earning another grin from the one called Fandral. She felt something on her elbow and turned to see Loki standing closer.

"No doubt Queen Elsa finds your most hospitable talk fascinating," he said, "but she has requested a tour of the palace reading rooms. It has been a pleasure, as always."

"I am pleased to have made your acquaintance," Elsa said to the group. Loki did not give her time for a proper curtsey before drawing her away, inside the palace. There, they did not retrace their steps, but walked along corridors Elsa had not yet seen. Loki even led her up two flights of stairs.

"I'd thank you for rescuing me," she said, "but I'm guessing you rescued yourself just as much."

"I have an infinite list of things I would prefer to their chatter," Loki said.

"You and your brother don't share friends then," Elsa guessed.

"As you say."

"Is there really going to be a banquet?" she asked nervously. She was beginning to feel like Anna, with all her curiosity and questions, but Anna would be much more receptive to the idea of a feast.

As they climbed a set of stairs, Loki stopped and turned around so abruptly that Elsa, just behind him, almost smacked her face against a metal accent in his coat. "Would you like us to hold a great feast in your honor?" he asked. "It could be arranged."

Elsa grimaced slightly. "Not really, no. After the last feast I attended, I've had my fill for a while."

Loki smiled. "Good." He turned to resume the climb. "If I believed you to be the sort who expected to be honored with banquets and revelry, I would not have brought you here in the first place."

Coming from Loki, that seemed like some kind of compliment, but Elsa did not know what to say.

"An intimate dinner with the immediate royal family seemed quite terrifying enough," Loki added. He stopped in front of a set of enormous, heavy doors of dark wood.

"What?" Elsa gasped. He did not answer, but gave her a wicked grin and pushed the doors open.

Elsa almost immediately forgot what he had said when she stepped inside the huge room. Inside, it was cool and dry and dim, with high ceilings and a marble floor covered with rich carpets. The air was thick with knowledge and magic and history. Within the doors, which Loki had closed behind them, the silence pressed against her ears as though they had been stuffed with cotton wool.

The walls themselves were constructed entirely of shelves, cupboards, and compartments filled with books, scrolls, and curios of every sort. In the center of the room stood glass cases, filled with larger artifacts and surrounded by tables and chairs or upholstered benches. She hardly knew where to look, and could not bring herself to speak. It reminded her of her ice palace newly built—beautiful, silent, and sacred.

Her travel slippers made no noise as she crossed the floor to one of the glass cases. Inside it was laid a scepter of iron, shimmering black, grey, and blue in the low light.

"The scepter of Laufey, king of the Jotuns—the Frost Giants," Loki said in a hushed tone as he moved to stand beside her. "Odin defeated him in a great battle centuries ago, before my birth, and took the source of their power. He forbids any connection between Asgard and Jotunheim." He jerked his chin toward the iron stick. "This object was merely symbolic, hence its presence here. The true power of the Jotuns was in the Casket of Ancient Winters, which my father had locked in the weapons vault.

"The Jotuns tried to use it to enslave the humans of Midgard, releasing a dark and frigid energy that the humans could not oppose. They might have frozen the entire Earth if Odin had not defeated them." He grinned at Elsa. "Perhaps someday we might test your power against that of the Casket. You are not a Frost Giant in disguise, are you?"

Elsa shivered, remembering what she had done to Arendelle and wondering what else might have happened if her sister had not saved her. "It looks…cruel," she said of the scepter.

"As were the hands that held it, they say."

She did not want to look at the display anymore, and so Elsa moved on to look at one of the bookshelves. Some of the volumes looked as though they would crumble under her breath. Others were bound in leather, with gilded and even jeweled covers, that looked too heavy for her to lift.

"Do you enjoy reading?" Loki asked.

"There was nothing else to do when I was little, kept to my room as I was." Elsa reached for a scroll with a broken seal, but when she unrolled it, she saw the page was filled with runes she did not understand. She put it back on its shelf.

"Here," Loki said, pulling out a more reasonably sized volume and handing it to her.

"Efforts to Harness the Visions Beyond," Elsa read. "What's this?"

"An old sorcerer from ages past wrote about his work in conjuring visions of other realms. That was before we had Heimdall as gatekeeper to see everything."

"But you can do that. The first night we met, you showed me Asgard, like a crystal ball."

"That I did." He tapped the book in her hands. "And there you have it. Heimdall's powers naturally allow him to see and hear anything happening in the Nine Realms—or so the legends say. My abilities are comparatively meager, but this dead wizard's work has given me a place to start."

Elsa looked up at the shelves again. "Are these all books about magic?"

"Hardly. There are poems, plays, histories, some very dull ledgers, scrolls of every royal decree made by every king of Asgard, speculations on the future, guides for palace etiquette and righteous living, studies of animals and plants in every realm, and I daresay you might find a cookbook or two."

Elsa let out a giggle as she returned the book to its place. "And this is your favorite room."

"I would say so."

She craned her neck to look around the place before setting her gaze back on Loki. "Mine, too."

The room's torchlight gave his green eyes a strange flicker, but this time there seemed to be nothing mischievous in them. He seemed relaxed, and his smile was almost warm. Looking at him now, in these surroundings, Elsa wondered if maybe she did really love him. She dared not ask, but there was a contentment in his face that made her dare to hope that he loved her, too.