"Your Majesty?" I use this address because your majesty is less pathetic than Mother, even alone in her private study. I need all the less-pathetic I can get, turning up like an eleventh-hour hero three days after I supposedly skulked off to live under a rock.
Frigga looks up. She rises from behind her desk with an imperious sweep of her skirts, although she is drawn; pale—almost visibly shaking. Unmasked, she advances on me while thunderous pink spots stain her cheeks an ugly blood red. "Tell me now," the Queen demands, "Did you steal the Casket for Jotunheim?"
My tongue turns to lead.
"Did you?" She reaches out to grab me. I stumble sideways, out of reach. "Loki?"
My name is a curse.
The peace we reclaimed, however brief, is shattered. "No," I say.
"Tell it true. Did you steal the Casket?"
"No!"
Frigga snatches my collar and drags me down to look me in the eye. "For feeding you. For making you my son. For making you Prince of Asgard. Tell me if you—" her voice quavers. She alters the question. "Tell me that you didn't take anything from the vault."
"How dare you think me an agent of Jotunheim." I want to go back to Midgard. Make this not be happening.
"Swear," Frigga says, "that you didn't take anything from my husband's trophy room."
"I swear it."
She grabs my wrists. Her fingernails bite into my skin. Almost nose-to-nose, she peers into my face as if she will find the Casket locked inside my hateful skull.
"Lord Aumdyn told me that your army has found Vorsgard." Frigga lowers her voice to a harsh, breathy whisper. "Your army took Odin's force captive. Two men turned traitor for your name and stole weapons—"
"I had nothing to do with it. I sent the force to Vorsgard because we lost contact with our outpost. They took me captive as well, and would have killed me if I hadn't escaped."
"Am I to believe this?"
I grind my teeth together. I can survive being hated, even by Frigga, but to be hated for such an illogical crime is more than I can stand. "Why in vastest reach of Helheim would I send emissaries to be captured and then released just to steal weapons when I could sneak off to the vault any time I want?" I slam an Odin-Mask over myself, and leer, "Don't mind me. I'm just going to be taking my own things." I swap the Mask for an illusion that I'm Thor. I plant my fists on my hipbones and throw out my now not-so-weedy chest. "Ah! Noble guardsman. You must stand aside that I can borrow this shiny magic-thing here. My evil brother, Loki, is doing horrible deeds again and I must use this weapon to stop—"
"Stop this childishness." Frigga cups my face in her hands. "What of your army?"
"It's not my army," I hiss. "They belong to a being called the Other. That's why I came back."
Frigga releases me. I rub my jaw with a shaking hand. She heads for her desk and I can't tell from her halting, stiff-armed walk if she's going to summon the guards or not. If she tries to have me arrested—
If she tries to have me arrested I will run.
If I run, there is no coming back.
The Queen tugs a hand cloth from her desk drawer and reaches up to dab her nose. She doesn't call the guards. Bit by bit her shoulders straighten instead, and she stands taller. Her breathing hitches—evens out. Her hand lowers. With her back to me she says, "Tell me what you were doing on Vorsgard."
I comply. From start to finish. I leave out no details—except for the part where I wanted to aid the supposed colonists against Asgard, because having her know that won't help my cause. When I explain about shooting Hruothban so we could find the dungeons Frigga turns around eyes narrow, but she listens to my story about rescuing the last two prisoners, how Ilofn spent the whole trip back limp as a corpse and how Od dismembered a Chitauri. She is silent while I admit that it never occurred to me that either could be in league with our captors—or, since the Chitauri's master possesses weapons for mind control, that they might be Chitauri puppets. Being chased by the swarm put those thoughts from my head.
"This enemy," I finish some ten minutes later, "is a brilliant strategist. That was a very well-executed ploy. I don't think I could have come up with anything better."
"It disturbs me that you sound so fond." I can't tell she believes what I've said or not. I am seated on her divan and she is standing over me without expression. She still hasn't called the guards, so this is a mark in my favor. "Who is he?"
"I don't know." Not Thanos or the Other. They are working with someone or someones unfamiliar to me, but I have no idea who—The spy. "There's something more," I add. "I don't dare say it aloud."
I help myself to the contents of her desk, and dig through the unlocked drawers until I find a clean-ish paper sheet and a stylus. I write a brief message and hold my paper where she can read:
Someone opened a world-gate between two points on Asgard. That is how the party from Vorsgard appeared in the weapons vault and exited without being noticed. The magician who did this knew where to find the vault, which means that the magician who did this is a high-ranking dweller of Asgard.
Frigga drags in a short, ragged breath.
I tear the paper into bits while staring her in the eye, and dispose of my note in the only way one can hope to hide a message from a rival sorcerer—sorceress, more like, if just for the sheer numbers game—by eating it
Frigga says, "Do you think someone is listening to us?"
Her rage has vanished into cold, cruel pragmatism.
"Possibly. If someone is, they already know I'm here.
She gazes at me without blinking. I can't read the emotions in her dark, glassy eyes; too many flicker behind her mask. There is fear, but from me or from what I've said? And anger—at me? Not at me? And grief.
Did you steal the Casket for Jotunheim?
At least now I know how she really feels. I want to scream.
I wet my parched lips with my tongue. My teeth are so dry my mouth tries to invert. "I told you—the last time I was here—that . . . I'm not really the monster you need worry about."
Whatever she is considering, Frigga seems to reach a decision. She draws another anxious breath. She lifts a hand to the the side of my forehead. I flinch, but her touch is not meant to hurt. This is a small concession. She settles back on her heels, puts her cloth away. "What of the enemy from which you are hiding?"
"The same enemy." I take a moment to compose myself. I never wanted to tell her this part. "When I . . . fell off the Bridge I was lost in deep space. It was the Chitauri who found me. They are a cybernetic race led by a sorcerer who calls itself the Other."
Her eyebrows raise, but I know she's heard this much already in sketchy explanations from our beloved Thor. The part she hasn't heard is the part that happened next—or at least, the part where I'm telling her an edited version out loud and she's listening to the inflections I'm trying to mask behind a pristine, calm facade.
"Somehow," I say, making my tone light, "the Chitauri worked out that I am a magician and they told this Other. The Other has a master as well, who it seemed was growing quite frustrated with his sorcerer failing to deliver on an important promise. Thinking it had found a solution, the Other made me a bargain: I would be granted release from the Void if in exchange I would steal for them an object of great power. An object that had been lost on a small, backwater realm."
"Tesseract," Frigga murmurs.
"I refused."
She pulls away from me, eyes poisonous. Liar.
My heart is so huge and heavy in my throat I am going to strangle on it. "I am son and daughter of Asgard. I do not use the magics the High King's wife taught to me to open a world-gate that would endanger all of my father's empire. Odin-King's empire," I specify. Her jaw is clenched. "I did not know what the Chitauri might do with this Tesseract, but if they wanted to possess its power above all else I must not let that happen. No matter what they promised, or threat—"
"You think me so blinded by affection that I am going to believe—" Frigga starts.
"You said you wanted to know why." I throw it back in her face. "You said my actions on Midgard made no sense. I'm telling you why. Do you think me a power-crazed madman, out to steal a crown that isn't mine?"
Yes, she does. That is exactly what they've always thought, she and Odin.
"If I wanted to be a king," I hiss, "I could have played politics again on Midgard until the people there begged me to rule in office. I do not want the throne."
Liar. She watches my face, unsmiling.
"Oh, no. You're the liar. See, this was never about me. This was you. You and Odin." I fight to swallow. "All this time you and the King have been terrified of the viper you let into your house, because no matter how many times I tell you I don't want—"
She reaches for me. I can't endure her petty apologies. She manages to get a few fingers through my illusionary hair before I jerk away.
"Say so," I hiss. "You are horrified by the thought that I might be king in your own son's stead. I told Heimdall to run tattling to Odin-King when Thor led us to Jotunheim. If I wanted Thor dead all I would have needed do is keep my mouth shut, cast a blanket over our movements so Heimdall couldn't see, let Laufey's warriors slay them, and teleport back to Asgard in tears to weep over my beloved brother's oh-so-timely death. The throne would have been mine with no fuss at all. This was never about what I had done—this was you. This is why, when Thor started a war with Jotunheim—a war which I stopped—he was banished for a whole few days into the arms of a mortal woman and when I started a war I was sentenced to life in a cell? A stay of execution only because the High King's wife begged?"
"Is that—that isn't." Her chin wrinkles. "Is that really what you think?"
"Yes. But I am not here to play games. I told you—"
"My little son—"
"No." I recoil from her. "You listen to me now. I told you I refused to fetch the Tesseract and I did—at first. Everything changed when I learned who the Other's master is."
"Loki." She sinks to the edge of her divan and pats the cushion at her side. "Come here."
I can't. If I sit down our peace will be a lie, and I'm tired of living in lies.
I say, "When I found out who the Other's master is, I had to escape. I had to break my vow. I had to get the Tesseract off Midgard. This was more important than anything else. If I refused, sooner or later the Other would find another champion. If not me, than someone who would want what it had to offer in exchange. If not me, we were all going to be in deadly trouble."
Frigga pats the seat beside her again. "We'll talk about it later."
"To make my betrayal look convincing I knew I couldn't just agree to steal the Tesseract," I explain. "Not after refusing already. I had to look like I wanted something from that bargain, as well. You understand? Not my freedom. Something more. I needed to make it a mutual business venture, rather than thrall and master, so that I had a goal invested in the scheme's success. Do you see it? I told them I would give them their Tesseract if in exchange they would help me take all of Midgard for my private kingdom. I told them that Thor, my idiot brother, will inherit Odin's empire."
"Please, Loki."
"I would be left with nothing. I would be councilor to a king who will ignore every word of advice I give him. Thor would never listen to me, you know he wouldn't. He's been ignoring my suggestions since we were children. This is what my life would be: whispering good advice into a bad king's ear only to get laughed at and pushed aside. Unless I am very lucky, of course, and he chooses to openly disgrace me by not selecting his own brother as advisor to the throne. But on Midgard I would be king in my own right. No—better. I would be a god."
Frigga shakes her head. "Your father—"
"-would never allow me to do that. I know. That was the whole point. I agree to steal the Tesseract from Midgard in exchange for Midgard itself. Isn't it brilliant? A very elegant solution. Whoever designed the trap on Vorsgard isn't the Other; I know this because the Other agreed to my insipid plan to conquer Midgard. All I had to do was show up on Midgard, steal that damn blue cube, cause the largest scariest shitstorm I could, and sit back to wait while reinforcements flew in to stop me. Not only would I win myself a free ticket back to Asgard, but I would get the Tesseract out of the Other's reach for good and warn Midgard in the process that there are dangers out here with an interest in their realm. Consider me a false alarm for what is coming next."
Understanding drains all the color from her cheeks. Frigga is still as death.
"I know Midgard," I tell her. "If I'd really wanted to be King of the Mortals, all I would have had to do is show up in a white robe and start preaching miracles. I could have made myself a messiah. I could have chosen any one of their holy books; fulfilled whatever prophecies were requisite to be hailed as the Coming—or Second Coming—of their Savior. The humans thought Thor and I were gods a millennium ago, they would think me a god now as well. I could make an illusion of myself descending from the sky. My supporters would have reached critical mass within a week. More elegant, don't you think?"
She says nothing.
"Besides, when has rampant melee carnage ever been my choice method for getting what I want? Beating people with a blunt object until they obey is Thor's way of doing things. Please, Your Majesty. Loki Silvertongue, you know. I had hoped our noble High King would ask after my reasoning when I was returned home, but clearly it was enough that Laufey's son tried to take Midgard with an army and the son of Odin stopped him. The past is playing out again. What else did the Allfather need to know? That must have put you both at ease—how many centuries have you spent waiting for the second ax to fall? For Laufey's son to fulfill his father's destiny?"
"Do not say such things," Frigga says. "That isn't true."
"Oh? Oh, no? Liar." Black euphoria wrenches my face into a grin I don't feel. "You can imagine how he looked when I told him all this on Svartalfheim. He hardly stopped to threaten me with impaling before he scurried off to verify my story. And he did verify my story, if he hasn't returned yet."
My smile collapses.
"He hasn't returned yet, has he?" I blink, refocusing on her. Frigga is silent. "Only I suspect you would have started our happy chat by shushing me rather than yelling at me, if the man who made me call him Father was listening in the next room. I was supposed to be gone by now, you know. I don't think he'd be very happy to know I'm still lurking around his empire."
Frigga abandons her efforts to entice me onto the seat beside her, and laces her fingers in her lap instead. Her face is placid.
No. Odin Allfather has not returned yet.
She changes the subject by murmuring, "All of those people." From the way her eyes are growing distant, I don't think her words were meant for me to hear. All of those mortals who died defending the Tesseract.
I cross my arms. "A fraction of the cost if I had slipped away unchallenged. You know I'm right. You do see it, don't you?" I feel hollow, grainy, filled with sand. "I rigged the game to lose," I confide. "This is my greatest weapon. Sabotaging myself works when I have no other options left. I've never yet come across an enemy able to see through the ruse; everyone's so happy to defeat Loki they never stop to think about it. This gives me an unstoppable advantage."
Frigga's brows pinch upward in a brief, suppressed expression of grief.
I hate her grief.
I shrug one-armed so she knows that this isn't another attempt at baiting an argument.
The Queen takes some time straightening back into regal nonchalance. She smoothes her skirts with a gentle, distracted air. When she addresses me again her tone is weirdly warm:
"Will you tell me who is it was that convinced you to escape? You said that this Other Sorcerer has a master who wanted the Tesseract?"
I mask a shiver. "Yes, and as soon as the Other figures out how to get the Tesseract off Vorsgard he will have it. Mother—I didn't stop to look, and will have to check the Library, but we need to know in what condition are Vorsgard's old bifrosts. If the Other manages to free its master from the curse that keeps him locked safely between realms we are going to die. The Chitauri came through during the Convergence, but this now must be their plan: build or repair a launchpad and get the Tesseract to him. Use the Tesseract's power to lift his curse."
"What curse?" Her voice is soft and quiet, meant for a child. This saccharine coddling is worse than being yelled at.
"The curse," I say. "The one it took all Nine Realms working together to wield. The only way we defeated him before."
Frigga is quiet.
I wait for her to say something—anything.
She whispers, "Thanos?"
Hairs raise on the back of my neck. I answer with silence, in return.
Frigga begins pacing. She squeezes her hands together. "You must go before Tyr. You must tell him all that you have said to me. If this is true—"
"This is true. This is why Odin is gone." I am not, ever, going to bow before Chieftain Tyr and beg his mercy for my crimes. I've had enough of Asgardian justice for one lifetime.
"Thank you for telling me this, Loki." Frigga walks to her window, unties the curtain, peers out into blue morning as if expecting to see Thanos marching on the palace gates. She's always taken shelter in the natural world—windows, gardens, finding flowers growing from a chink in habrium.
I return to her side. "Your Majesty, you said before that I have a grasp on political current even if certain . . . other qualities . . . of mine are lackluster." Honor. "This is not even a matter for politics so much as simple mathematics: it took nine realms to defeat him last time. Today, Svartalfheim and Jotunheim are dead wastes, Muspelheim and the mist-world, Niflheim, are our enemies so much as the Jotnar were. Nithavellir and Alfheim cannot be trusted with three realms of seven likely to back an enemy of ours; if either one throws in the sword for Thanos the other will scramble for a place in his army. Midgard, as you know, is practically useless in a—"
"They defeated the Chitauri," she says.
"A fluke. A technicality," I sneer.
Frigga glances my way. "Wars are often won on technicality, my love."
Good point. "Five from Midgard," I amend, "besides Vanaheim and Asgard. This is the army we've got to work with: Two realms and a mortal warband against three realms backed by Thanos, the Chitauri, and—" I indicate the surrounding walls. And we have a spy in our midst. "Leaving two realms undecided. This could fast become a hopeless fight. And worse? Asgard's mightiest warriors will be powerless to win the other realms to our side. Alfheim is not impressed by strength. Nithaveller is proud to a fault. We need someone who is very good at talking."
She's knows what I'm going to suggest.
Frigga's expression is unreadable again. "What did Odin say to this?"
I slump against the wall. "He said practically the same thing he would have said about Vorsgard: None would dare side against us! That isn't a plan, Mother. That's the refusal to make a plan."
"Loki." She sounds too hesitant, too careful. "Councilor Svaldir told me about the colony. Odin would have sent an army to find any such rebellion and crush them on their own soil. Many Chitauri would have been slain at no risk to our city."
Damn.
Frigga says, "When you took judgement into your own hands you sent no army and instead returned with traitors to Asgard. I know—I want to believe—that wasn't intentional. But . . . now the Tesseract is stolen from our protection and our enemies have slipped away unscathed."
"And if your husband had tried my approach more often in the past," I say, "perhaps we would not be two realms against five in an intergalactic civil war. Anyway, you're forgetting that the Chitauri possess weapons for mind control. A thousand Asgardian warriors running around Vorsgard's tunnels would have made for even more traitors back in our sparkly city. Rather than losing the Tesseract to two misguided creatures, we might have suffered a royal coup on the blades of a hundred. No, a warded legion is the only way to fight such weapons and we did not know we needed a warded legion until now."
I hold up my hands in a gesture for peace. "Here is what I am suggesting—and please, hear me out. While it might be more . . . streamlined . . . to turn me over to Chief Councilor Tyr to be re-imprisoned and subjected to a full interrogation, you also know that my loyalty to this city is beyond question, if only because Thanos wants me tortured to death for betraying his mission to steal the Tesseract from Midgard."
Her mouth squeezes to a small pained line.
Whoops. I guess I didn't tell her that part. "This is why Odin-King allowed me to falsify my death," I explain. "Don't imagine that he had any cuddly altruistic reasons; he knows well as I do that as a former Prince of Asgard I possess many secrets that would endanger our city if they were ever pried from me." I quirk an apologetic smile. "Anyway, that doesn't matter. As it stands, we have two realms and a small mortal warband on our side. We need indestructible treaties with Alfheim and Nithavellir. The first step is to take back the Tesseract, and to do that we must launch a planet-wide invasion. Asgard doesn't possess enough warriors to mount such a thing, and even with Vanaheim beside us the odds of locating the Tesseract before the Chitauri use it are slim to none. I am well-acquainted with Alfheim; give me the chance to fortify our relations with the Elves, at least. I can recruit them to aid us in this endeavor."
Frigga is still listening.
I take a deep breath. Here goes everything. "For the moment I am in a unique position so far as knowing how the Chitauri think. Or rather—don't think. I know the sorcerer who controls them. For so long as Odin Allfather is away, appoint me Councilor Regent in his stead: a position that may be withdrawn at the Queen's command."
She does not agree, but neither does she outright refuse. Her mouth is clamped shut. Her breathing is slow, but uneven. Her eyes are locked on me.
"The knowledge of my continued existence will be limited to you and I," I say. "In public, meantime, I will continue masquerading as Odin Allfather—just long enough to build an alliance with Alfheim and Nithavellir and launch a joint invasion. After we recover the Tesseract, I will take my leave from Asgard. Permanently."
Frigga's chin raises.
My heart does that odd flipping-thing inside my chest. "I wish I could read you. Tell me what you are thinking."
She doesn't.
"Your Majesty, I know this enemy. Support me in this and I will call a meeting in the Plain of Ida tomorrow morning, as Odin-King. I will tell the whole of Asgard what I have told you. How I—er, Loki—met the Chitauri. That the Tesseract was stolen to free Thanos. That we are on the cusp of total war."
She shuts her eyes.
I say, "Asgard resists going to others for aid, but once the public knows what is at stake they will support Odin-King's meeting with the Elves and Dwarves."
Frigga opens her eyes. "How will you convince them that you speak true?" Her voice is distant, cold, removed. Unhappy.
Ah.
I massage some life back into my tired face. This is the part of my plan I have trouble with. See, it isn't enough that Odin-King says we are at war with Thanos. If he cannot back up his claim his title alone will not convince the councils at Gladsheim. Chieftain Tyr will want to pursue the Chitauri as Asgard would otherwise see fit: a drawn-out, personal vendetta playing tag with the Cube.
I sigh. "I will worry about that when the moment comes. If they question me. They might not question me. I am Odin-King, after all. My word is absolute."
"When you father returns," Frigga says. She speaks slowly, as if she is pulling each word up from some great depths and weighing them with care. "What will you do then?"
"Flee the city." I shrug. "Not come back."
This does not please her. I can see the brittle frown in her eyes even before Frigga says, "You will have to stay."
I shudder. "Don't make me stand trial. Let me die in peace. I will go from here. I could live out the rest of my life on Midgard. Hey, maybe Thor and I will pass each other at a Disco sometime."
"You will stay," the Queen commands. "Or you will go from here now. I will not sweep this under the rug like a criminal. If we do this, we do this with the full force of the Allfather's justice upon our heads. Leave, or stay and stand trial. I will speak on your behalf. That is my choice. This is yours: I will have your solemn oath."
"A solemn oath." My lips curl back around my teeth. It's not quite a smile. "From Loki Liesmith?"
She is impassable.
"Alright," I say. "I swear it. When this is over I will let your husband judge me lacking and only run after he orders me executed."
Frigga shakes her head the smallest of a centimeter. "Your oath. On Hallormr, Halldór, and Hallveig."
Bile lurches up my throat.
Frigga watches to see if I will back down.
"That's a bit petty, isn't it?" I say. "Nine hundred years ago is long time, even for us. I can't decide if you're trying to tease me, or if you think my affection for you is no longer enough to hold my loyalty. Should I be insulted? I think we've come too far to be insulted. Very well. Have it your own way. I swear. On Hallormr, Halldór, and Hallveig."
The Queen's glass facade melts. My mother comes alive in the tired shadows under her eyes, her reedy smile, the way she uncrosses her legs and looks at the floor.
I am sorry I told her out loud that she and Odin never trusted me. Some truths are better left in the dark. I don't like causing Frigga pain.
My mother glances up. She regards me with an odd, masked smirk. "Is that Eja's dress?"
I look down.
"She's been looking for that dress." Frigga tugs the pale purple skirt.
"Eja has good taste." I show her a spin. I haven't been female in a long time. My center of balance is off.
Frigga smiles. "I will buy you your own dress, dearling. You shouldn't take other people's things."
"Shall I read to you, Mother?"
"Not now." Frigga takes my right arm. "Where did you get this scar?"
Oh. I had glamored the bullseye mark away on Midgard. Now, Eja's sleeveless dress shows it off: an odd, indented shape more like part of my forearm collapsed around a small pattern rather than a battle wound.
"Was this the Chitauri?" Frigga says.
"No," I quirk a smile. "When I rescued a ship full of orphans. Orphans bite."
Frowning, she turns my wrist over. "I have never seen a mark like it before. What weapon made this?"
"Honestly? I can't even remember when I got it."