I am thrown into a dark shaft and land on my face, which is a good thing. The fall into an old Vorsgardian dungeon from eight meters sends up dust and filmy water—in other words I, as always, make my entrance with a splash. Or I as always cause a shitstorm, depending on the contents of this dungeon's liquid element. I tuck my arms against my skull to reapply my false face before anyone sees; not a moment too soon, either.

Hands grab my shoulders. I am dragged to solid ground and shoved on my side. The movement tears open the gashes on my face and ribs. I come up fighting.

"Easy! Easy, friend." A blurred face follows the hands. He looks Vanir. His scarred hands say Aesir. I don't know his name. "Hold out your wrists," he says.

"Why?"

My vision clears.

A dozen people occupy the gloomy dungeon besides me. Not Chitauri; Aesir. I am surrounded by warriors—Aesir warriors—dressed in underclothes, including an obese knob-faced woman wearing someone's breeches and . . . Ilda.

I sigh from the utmost edge of my tattered soul.

Here at last is the remnant of my investigation.

The Vanir brandishes an astrium dagger and a friendly smile. He is a barrel-chested warrior, tough-looking, with shiny black hair and a close-cropped beard—but my blood turns to ice. "Wrists here, friend. I am going to cut your binds."

Trick. Trap.

"Where did you get that?" I demand.

The Vanir gives me a wounded, mistrustful glare. He waves his dagger at the forlorn crowd around us. "Our sorceress, she concealed this weapon when those creatures overwhelmed our ranks."

Could he be lying?

No.

No, if the Chitauri wanted to welcome me back by slicing off my hands, they wouldn't waste time with a puppet show. This Vanir-warrior is honest: I am a prisoner among fellow prisoners. For now.

I hold out my arms. The Vanir snaps the yellow cord with a single fluid cut. He says, "I am Hruothban Adarson of Asgard," as if this is the very best thing in the entire cosmos. He is one of those perpetually happy people, I can tell.

All right, Hruothban Adarson. It's time for a new lie.

I incline my head to a polite degree for a nonentity addressing a warrior. "Vyir the Enchanter of Alfheim."

Hruothban cocks his head sidways as if this is me trying to put one over on him. "You are not an elf."

Oh really? I hadn't noticed. "I'm a thrall," I invent. "A sorcerer to the Rain Court, of Alfheim. My masters heard rumors of a strange force amassing in this realm and sent me as a scout."

"To Vorsgard?" A short, cleanshaven warrior slinks up behind Hruothban, scowling at me through a half-missing lip.

I make myself grow still. I count to five. "This is Vorsgard?" I whisper. Then, passionately, to Hruothban, "Asgard was once my home; I will tell you all that I have found so long as you ask me nothing that will compromise my masters' House."

Hruothban stows his dagger. He holds out a friendly hand, and a smile. "Well met, Vyir the Enchanter."

We clasp arms.

Ilda comes over to stand at Hruothban's left, looking sad and misplaced in a white silk undergown. She, being a good little sorceress, waits for the head warrior to acknowledge her existence before speaking.

Hruothban gestures for Ilda to join us. "Vyir, this woman is Ilda Ildurssdottir. She is the sorceress I told you about."

Ilda bobs her head. Still the mousy, round, gold-haired mute I remember from before my fall.

"Well met," I say.

Ilda parrots my greeting in sotto voice. She offers me water from a metal bowl, which isn't like the Chitauri to leave, and I notice a large astrium betrothal ring on her left hand. A lord's gift. Which lord, I wonder?

The bowl is placed in my hands with all the ceremony of a mead-sharing, which is what it's supposed to stand in for. I know you now, and you know me, it says. We've had a drink together. We're all friends here, right? Right?

"These creatures," Hruothban says when I've soothed my scorched throat, "they are a species strange to me. Do your elves know them?"

Another warrior joins the group to hear what the elf-thrall has to say: a skinny giant whose flame-red hair and beard are trying to eat his face. Ilda and Cleaved-Lip move aside to let him through. The other prisoners hang back, giving their leaders room to interrogate me.

"The Chitauri," I say. I am trembling.

Hruothban nods, as if this means anything at all to him. "So . . . what do these Chitauri want?"

"Pain. In you. In everyone." Some black alchemy in my skull takes the sick, hollowed feeling in my chest and turns it into a manic rush. Rather than trembling, I now have to fight the insane leer creeping up my face. "They are quite single-minded in that way."

Hruothban's expression turns to stone. He shares a glance with Cleaved-Lip and Beard-Face. "They took Ilofn and Oddoutril some hours ago."

"Oh," I say. That's all I can say.

An ill shadow settles over the group of prisoners. Their terse, sullen faces magnify my diseased terror back at me. I can smell sour wounds yet to come, phantom limbs, missing teeth, nights filled by beating your head with bloodied fists, fingernails tearing at one's own throat in the hollow where future means an unquenchable red flood.

They don't know it yet. I can see it in their steady, unblinking eyes. The determined jaws set against what enemy they think may come. Enemies make threats and ultimatums, right? Enemies are to be fought. The fools don't know. They're still worried about honor.

Honor.

There is honor in being a warrior. There is honor in being a dead warrior. There is honor, even, in being a thrall. The trick is: don't scream too much. If one does scream too much, there's still hope. There's still honor: Make them kill you.

The Chitauri won't kill you.

Curious. They're curious.

They like to explore.

Jittery scrabbling inside my arms. Inside my chest. I can't breathe.

You're fools. You're all fools. I'm not you. I'm not here with you.

"Slave?" Ilda says.

What was and what is rights itself. The trembly drowned feeling sucks away, replaced by iron heat. I surface.

"Yes?" I can taste bitter acid.

"You said that you were an enchanter," she murmurs. Even when addressing a thrall Ilda sounds apologetic. "Can you—maybe—enchant yourself to climb up the wall and along the ceiling?" She looks away, and I follow her eyeline up our smooth, cylindrical prison. This dungeon was an alchemical tank in a former life. The high walls are polished habrium, too smooth to climb without magic. Eight meters up there is a sealed hatch, but no doors or windows. Dusty bones, gravel, the water bowl, and the suspicious liquid tell me that the Chitauri are not the first to make use of this place as a prison.

"He should send a warrior," Cleaved-Lip says. "It shouldn't be a woman or a thrall."

"But—" Ilda starts.

Hruothban slaps my shoulder. "Vyir, my new friend, can you enchant me to climb up the wall?"

Loki, can you make their swords into paper? A different voice. A different time. Brother, think of it! They will swing at us and be astonished when their blades come apart in their hands.

"You don't understand how it works," I say. "Magic isn't wishes; I can't make you able to climb solid habrium just because I might want to."

"Why not?" Cleaved-Lip demands. He crosses his arms and stares down at me.

"Oh, goody," I sneer. "Here's a lesson in magic for you: I can paint runes on your bare feet and hands to make you stick to the wall, yes. But the moment your enchanted skin touches a surface we'd have to cut off your hands and feet to get you free again. Shall we try it?"

The warriors fall grim.

"Could you lift someone up by magic?" Ilda says. "I told them lifting things up by magic is only for small things, like moving levers or summoning coils. But do you think-?"

"No," I say. "The forces at play would break your bones."

"Can you paint your sticking runes on a length of rope?" Hruothban says, mildly. "We could throw the rope's end up to the ceiling and simply climb to the hatch."

I swallow an irritated retort. "And where, pray tell me, would we get enough rope?"

Hruothban plucks at his undertunic with a theatrical thumb and forefinger.

That's . . . not actually a terrible idea. I'm impressed. "If we can find a weight heavy enough to stabilize the throw," I say. "You'll have a limited number of tries. We can wrap the weight in an extra cloth and write the runes on that, so if you miss we can untie the cloth and try again. The runes will bind irrevocably to whatever they touch: The floor. The wall. Another part of the rope. Your face."

Hruothban flashes a brilliant, happy smile. "I won't miss."

Naturally not.

He rolls to his feet and raises a fist to rally the other prisoners to us. Our little council meeting is over. "We will use tight formations," he commands. "If we have the element of surprise—"

"Before anyone tries to climb up into the middle of a Chitauri fun-fest," I say, "I'm going to cast an illusion to make them believe we've already escaped. That should scatter them; confuse them."

"You have grown too accustomed to the Elves," Cleaved-Lip sneers. "We are not afraid like your masters."

I re-tune my brain to Channel Idiot. "There will be glorious battle against them," I promise, heading off the Second Worst Idea in twenty minutes. The first being, Let's paint eternal sticking runes on our bare feet and plant our bare feet on unbreakable habrium. "I myself was privileged to hear of it when the mighty Thor Odinson slew a great number from their host on Midgard-"

"They are the ones who attacked Midgard?" Hruothban's smile turns to glass. "This the army once marshaled by the traitor, Prince Loki."

Nice.

A clamoring yell sounds from the others. Shouts and oaths echo from the smooth walls; competing voices roar against our metal prison: Vows that will take off the heads from each so-called Chitauri, promises about how our captors should die and in what order, how many generations will be wet upon our swords.

"Let them die without honor!" Beard-Face howls.

I prowl up to Hruothban's side. He is the center of this frenzied storm, showing off a bicep in frozen, obligatory rally-pose.

He no longer looks half so happy.

Curious eyes.

"You're planning to fight the Chitauri as an Asgardian warrior," I say. "If you do, you and your band will die."

Without moving his ready arm, without faltering in the slightest, Hruothban flicks his gaze toward me. "What makes you say this thing?" He speaks in an undertone, so the riot around us won't hear.

"What do you do with foes?" I sigh. "You fight them, you kill them, you move on before the dead ones can summon the rest." I take a breath. I can taste my own heart. "The Chitauri are a hive mind. As soon as you kill one, the others will know exactly where you are and how you fight. They will swarm you."

Color bleeds from his face as fast as if I've cut his throat. "You see it now, don't you. They won't advance on you in regular battle lines, but neither will they fight you as guerillas. This is a new form of warfare."

Hruothban says, "How did Prince Thor fight them?"

"He didn't. A Chitauri puppet opened a hole in space between their home and Midgard, so all Prince Thor and his mortal warband had to do was close the hole. The battle ended prematurely."

Hruothban hesitates. "You are talking about Prince Loki. I do not think you are right, calling him a puppet."

No, I wasn't. I bypass this, however, without comment. "Listen, the Chitauri waiting to get through to Midgard were unable to continue the attack and the Chitauri trapped on Midgard were cut off from the hive mind, which rendered them catatonic. An elegant solution. The battle ended without lengthy bloodshed."

"The hive is on Vorsgard?" he says.

White noise erupts behind my eyes. I see empty space.

Hruothban says, "If they must fight within the same realm as their—what, king?-then you are telling me that this king is in our realm."

"No."

"You said that they are catatonic if the—"

A bottomless pit opens just below my ribs and whatever was inside of me, comprising me, is ripped through. My skin is a loose bag around shapeless blood and bile. Screaming. There is screaming in my head. It isn't me.

Hruothban is no longer pretending to join the in his band's martial dance. He is a dark, nebulous shape to my right. He says, somewhere, "Could the cowardly Prince Loki have opened a second portal before facing his death on Svartalfheim?" It doesn't matter. I'm not listening to him.

Vorsgard.

Vorsgard?

How have they come to Vorsgard?

More importantly, why?

A few scouts I could understand. But this . . ?

Political currents whisper just out of sight. I can feel the shape of things unfolding many decades ago:

The Other laying plans to invade Midgard to seize back the Tesseract. How, before his Chitauri ran across me lost in the dark? What would they have done, instead?

The Convergence.

A sickened tremor worms into my stomach.

They would have plotted to march through the Converging gates between realms in full force. They would have slaughtered whatever mortals lay in their path.

My heart grabs higher up my throat. I cannot suppress a shudder.

I fucked that up for them, of course. The Tesseract wasn't on Midgard by the time the Convergence came around.

No.

No, they had to recast their nets for deeper waters. They have to steal back the Tesseract from somewhere more dangerous: shining, lovely, golden, glorious Asgard.

A hand closes around my left wrist tight enough that I yell.

"Enchanter," Hruothban says. He releases me.

I am fizzing. My skull swarms with carrion flies.

Hruothban says, "These Chitauri, do you think they have honor enough to wish to kill whatsoever killed their leader?"

"What?" His words make no sense.

"I wonder if they are after revenge," he say. "Prince Loki died on Svartalfheim. Could they blame Asgard for his death and want war with us to reclaim his honor?"

Once war is declared a realm has the right to reclaim its honor in battle. That is what Frigga said.

Idiot, idiot, stupid honor.

Here, though, is an opening.

I seize Hruothban's undershirt, wrenching my face into earnest dismay. "Revenge on Asgard! I hope you are not correct. Never mind our battle with they who would dare take us captive; we must escape to warn the city!"

Hruothban gathers our warrior's council from the bloodthirsty riot: Beard-Face, Cleaved-Lip, and Ilda Tongue-Tied. They go silent once the situation is explained.

"Let me cast the illusion that we've already escaped," I say. "When our captors open the hatch to see where we've gone we must dispatch them quickly. There is no glory to be had if we die and leave Asgard unprotected. Strike hard, strike fast, strike lethal. One hit. Don't draw the Chitauri into open battle. Hide and run. Kill only when you have to. Once we make the surface, head for the bifrost site."

"These Chitauri will think we are cowards," Beard-Face says.

"We would be cowards," Cleaved-Lip adds.

"I would rather my enemies think me a coward than betray Asgard," I say.

"The Enchanter is right." Hruothban stares them in the eyes, one and then the next, puffing up to corral his pack. "If we fight now we risk leaving Asgard at the mercies of these creatures. Sometimes it is better to run than lose everything should we fall. Today is not a day to die."

"Your battle will be on Asgard," I agree—fancy that. "The entire city will witness your bravery. Today, however, it is time to prove your loyalty."

"Loyalty?" This does not sit well with Cleaved-Lip.

"Yes." I smirk. "Would you have your ancestors know that an elven thrall bears more loyalty than the sons of Asgard?"

"Never!"

Hruothban orders his band to be silent while I set about laying my illusion. The Chitauri who took me captive did not recognize me; there are ways to prevent a sorcerer from using magic and, happily, this tim e around none have been applied. A few deft charms erase our sounds. A hush falls over the dungeon which has nothing to do with warrior discipline. Another charm vanishes our shadows. A third removes our ripples from the wet floor.

Hruothban takes a practice step and, to his evident delight, finds that he has become the most surefooted assassin in Nine Realms. "This sorcery is eerie. Under your spell, a warrior might walk into his enemy's hall undetected."

"But that would be dishonorable!" I cry.

Hruothban shakes his head. "Thrall, when this day is ended, give to me your masters' names. I will pay for your release. Such power should not be in the hands of the Elves."

This would delight Vyir, so I play my part as a grateful servant: lavishing praise upon the oh-so-noble warriors of Asgard, pledging to serve faithfully in all their endeavors . . . that sort of self-flagellating rubbish.

Ilda appears without warning at my side. "I have never seen this enchantment before," she murmurs to the dead space behind me. "Is this magic you learned from the elves?"

Who remembers? The wrong sort of Elves or the imprisoned sort of Vanir or books on dark magic I lifted, bought, or traded for in some unregulated hollow at the far reaches of space. I had the advantage of my title, of course: I could exchange my false face for my real one and lead Black Tower enforcers to such places, in the event that my contact had a stubborn streak, and confiscate what books of intrigue I could not barter for. Those were interesting days: raking up minor glory ridding the universe of dark sorcery and, in my off-hours, learning how to do better what my targets could not. I am by no means the first sorcerer who dedicated centuries to prying apart the wrong spellbooks, after all. The Dark Arts, the Dire Arts, the Mortuary Arts, Necromancy, Sanguine Rites, Pale Spells . . . it all blends together in the end.

"Oh, no," I tell Ilda. "From Nithavellir. They use this magic for insulating living quarters, you see? The mines and industry can be quite imposing there."

I cast my invisibility spells before she can ask any more questions. Light remaps the dungeon, bending around us to reform within the habrium cylinder littered with its skeletal debris and foul water as a perfect recreation—minus a dozen Aesir and myself.

In the pool below my illusion the world is a messy, flickering afterimage. My hands are nebulous impressions in a pulsating soup. The warriors are sketchy shapes, phantasmic holes where magic resonates beyond the visible spectrum—ghosts. We are ghosts.

Residual, scalding want speeds the blood in my temples to a surging ache. What I would have given to have my magic the last time I came across the Chitauri. This all-consuming, expanding need fills me from scalp to heels, until my lungs strain for air against unobtainable desire. If only I had been Loki, Prince of Asgard instead of a squalling bundle of severed nerves.

Freed from any chance discovery via poorly-timed inspections, Hruothban orders four warriors besides himself to strip down to base undergarmets. I am the final person required to give up my goods for the group's benefit, being the owner of a near-indestructible biosuit whose quality is—could you believe it?-high enough to befit royalty. Fancy that. Ilda, being a woman, is assigned position as rope-maker while the warriors regroup to strategize. Ilda, being an enchantress, binds our clothing together with a few simple spells. She tries to catch my attention to continue our conversation about how I'm not a dark sorcerer, but I avoid her to join Hruothban.

When my warrior friend gives his order I conjure another throwing knife set for his fellows' use. The warband fans out to encompass the dungeon, making practice swipes with my enchanted blades or leaping in place to loosen muscles. Ilda passes Hruothban our rope, and I find a nice unobtrusive shadow from which to observe. A cold fist sinks through my ribcage at the thought of seeing the Chitauri again. I grind my teeth together.

Hruothban circles the the waterlogged floor. He settles upon someone's boot, wraps it in a spare undertunic, and has Ilda spells this to the rope's end for weight.

We are ready.

Hruothban gives me a nod. He passes the boot into my hands without a word.

"You don't want to make a practice throw?" I demand.

He grins at me.

I say, "Once I paint these runes there is no failsafe. If the boot ricochets without landing it may stick to a wall. You'll have to climb the rope to untie it before trying again."

He gives me another thousand-gold-piece smile, visible even through my ghostly illusion. Oh, very well.

I spell my index finger in casting ink and draw a Curse of Binding to the cloth's top face. Hruothban lifts the result from my grip. He paces back to the dungeon's center, just left from the hatch eight meters above, and twirls the rope like a sling. When he lets loose, the cloth-wrapped boot slams into the habrium ceiling with a deep, echoing thrumm.

And doesn't fall.

I let out a breath. Muffled cheering erupts among his warband. Hruothban waves them to silence. Huh. The son of a Jotun whore did it.

The stage is set. Lights down. Curtain up.

I fabricate an illusion that the bifrost blasts into our prison. Prismatic light explodes in a brilliant flash, which our captors cannot help but see.

The icy knot which used to be my internal organs evaporates into an acidic cloud. I am an empty casing with a cold, impermeable wall digging into my spine.

Footsteps clump above.

I have just drawn the Chitauri to me, on purpose.

I am a small, in-Aesir thing curled in on its own body in a prison many worlds from home. I am two beings: the one pressed to a wall, and the creature huddled inside.

The hatch opens.

A blue searchbeam bisects the gloom, sweeping the prison's contours like a tongue. The light bends around Hruothban and his warriors while giving all appearance that it continues its original trajectory, and falls to a damp stop inches shy from my toes. I creep tighter to the wall.

Three Chitauri warriors drop through the hole into our dungeon. They are hideous symmetrical constructs fused from tissue and armor. All three carry plasma rifles.

Hruothban signals his warband to position themselves. He shadows the Chitauri leader, who is a monstrous abomination in bruised, corpse-color plate mail. In utter silence, Hruothban glides above the rank dungeon floor on easy, confidant feet. His powerful stride brings him close enough to strike in a few graceful heartbeats; he unsheathes Ilda's invisible dagger and, with a quick, almost careless precision, drags his weapon across the Chitauri's throat. The creature wheezes as slimy ichor splashes its front. A followthrough stroke shreds it heart—or would, if Chitauri had hearts. They seemed so curious about mine I'm inclined to think they don't. It backhands Hruothban into the ground.

We can't have that.

I collide with the Chitauri leader, get a lungful of imminent pain, and snake my arms around its ugly, synthetic body. When I rip my hands backward, my knife cleaves through its wrists. The creature drives its shoulder into my collarbone. The walls invert—I'm flat to the floor, hands tangled in a plasma rifle, reptilian weight on top of me. The Chitauri draws back one arm and its armored elbow cracks my skull. The rifle is wrenched from my grasp. I hear it skitter across the floor.

The smell—

The cold, alien, primal weight. Its breath gushes over my face and neck. Sweet smells. Chemical solvents. Sterile room. I jerk my right leg up, trying to catch it in a vulnerable joint, and my knee punches soft tissue. The Chitauri vaults into the air—falls as Hruothban snags it by one shoulder and finishes his work.

Across the room, Cleaved-Lip trips the monster he's stalking while Beard-Face tears the rifle from its hands. A mob grapples with the downed Chitauri, rending it apart—the third is missing.

The fight broke my illusion. I reapply my false face before anyone notices. I am panting, half-blind, covered in black ichor.

Hruothban appears above me, flashing his mute smile. He holds out his hand.

This—this—am I taken for so weak that I need help standing up? I roll upright in a flurry without his aid, thank you, swiping slime from my jaw.

"Our invisibility is gone," Hruothban says. If I have offended him, he doesn't let on. He is smiling again.

The dungeon is quiet, now, even without the muting spells. The second Chitauri is motionless at the room's far end, but the final is still . . . No. There it is. It's being removed from the floor's center once piece at a time while Ilda stands nearby, wringing her hands together in her lap and staring at her thumbs. She sees me watching and, sounding somewhat embarrassed, says, "There was a faulty charge knot in his armor. I redirected it. I thought his armor would seize up. I didn't know he would . . ."

"It," I say, without rancor. "They are not hes."

The exploded Chitauri is no easier to look at than its whole-ish counterparts. I have to inhale and exhale twice through my nose before recasting our charms and invisibility. This isn't the sort of magic one wants to get wrong.

Hruothban and his pals, Beard-Face and Cleaved-Lip, shoulder the plasma rifles. They shimmy up the rope and Ilda follows, tying her gown around her knees for easier ascent. She seems to realize too late that the hatch is already gone, and tries to cover by pretending that she is helping fight our way to escape.

And—why not? Except for the blow to our warband's pride, a mechanical-minded enchantress could make a pretty effective weapon against the bio-electrical Chitauri.

She and Hruothban kill two more who were waiting above.

"How long until the hive mind finds us?" Hruothban asks, once I have followed the others up to surface level. Ilda unspells our rope, and we dress in hasty silence.

I give my warrior friend a sideways glance. "They've already found us."

He hooks a finger under his left gauntlet for an experimental tug. His face registers nothing I've said.

"Now you run," I explain.

He grins.

Beard-Face examines his rifle. The warriors are silent.

Ice trickles into my stomach.

Hruothban claps both hands on the woman in breeches. "Fiostla, my good friend, you must lead the other back to the bifrost site. Tell Odin-King what we have discovered."

"I would stay."

Hruothban shakes his head. "Asgard must be made aware. You are in command now. Lur, Braeggvild, and I are going to rescue our sword-brothers."

Curious curious eyes.

I can feel the captives as an extension of myself. What were their names? There are two people the Chitauri took. I can feel them in my head, under my skin, in my throat, fusing then with now. They are pressure inside my chest I cannot shake.

Hruothban finishes making his good-byes. I stagger forward, one slack foot at a time, to interrupt.

"I'm coming too," I say. "But we'll need to hurry."