Actively interfering with the lives and schemes of those with significant magical prowess wasn't something that Heimdall liked doing, but when the shimmer haze of a spell ward presented itself to him on Earth, it was something he Watched. Seeing the Loki's collapse and the subsequent magic interacting negatively with his made the decision a simple one. Permission was requested and easily granted before he sent Sif and Hogun with to Stark's tower with the knowledge of a specific location and a guess as to who the power might belong to.
The first thing that she was aware of when then darkness began receding was pain. It lanced through her muscles and made her spasm when she breathed shuddering gasps of air in. Reaching for it made it slither away even as the roots dug deeper into her and laced its way through her magic. The next thing she became aware of was the cool warmth that she seemed to be curling around. Memory came next and her eyes snapped open to take in the sight of Loki's sweat slicked skin and eyes squeezed against the pain. It was his pain, she realized, and it was an overload so great that he was reaching across their magic looking for an outlet.
Wrapping her arms around him, she whispered the words for a nerve block and was gratified when his breathing evened out and his fever hazed eyes cracked open. His eyes, normally so bright, had shifted to a dull reflection of their normal brilliance. "Agyn," he said, struggling to form words. "Agora…Simora…Not Enchantress. Wife. Name." His normally strong grip was more than a little weakened when he wrapped his fingers around her shoulders and pulled her towards him.
She followed the movement until she was lying chest to chest with him as he continued, "Wife. Name?"
Realizing it was a question, she choked back the initial panic. "Sigyn, love. Sigyn. Amora is the Enchantress, my sister and our enemy."
The green haze that rolled through his eyes in that moment made his muscles seize and jerk beneath her. She framed his face with her palms and cast every healing spell she knew, throwing the weight of her magic against Amora's. In the end, she didn't recall screaming, or the hands that pried her away from Loki's unconscious form, or being moved to another room. When she was next aware, she opened her eyes to stare up into the familiar divets and folds of the ceiling she had spent weeks waking to while she lived in the Tower.
At her bedside was Clint, taking care to oil three different strings. "Jarvis is of the opinion that Amora's magic has infected him somehow and has quarantined him until further notice. As far as scans and diagnostics can tell us, he's stable if a little feverish. He hasn't woken since you tried whatever you did."
She wouldn't admit it, even to someone who might have understood, but her vision blurred with the news and she had to take several breaths before she was calm again. "Will he be safe here?" she asked, forcing the panic from her voice.
There was no telling how much time had passed since Amora had first cast the scrying spell to spy on them, no telling how much damage might have been done in their absence. Loki wasn't going to wake up or heal with her constant hovering, trying ineffective spells. His magic would purge Amora's or it wouldn't. Until then, she needed to look in on Fenrir, Sleipnir, and the other wolves and ensure their safety against more of Amora's games.
"I won't attempt to murder him or anything and I'll get Natasha to steer clear of him when she gets back. Other than that, no promises," Clint grunted, wrapping his gear into its case. "If the Hulk tries to smash the Tower apart, I'm not getting between him and your husband." The glare she shot him made him almost regret his attempt at humor. "Right. Well, while you were asleep, one of yours and Thor's friends arrived. The female that was unconscious most of last time?"
"Sif?" she asked, almost not daring to hope for it. "Just her or…"
"Her and knife thrower," Clint said quickly. "Jarvis really wasn't happy to see him. Tony had to override some sort of code that would have gased him like you and your husband. They opted to stay in the medical ward where they're not going to get automatically knocked out." She was halfway out the door by the time he finished speaking.
They'd arrived only three hours previously and had already been subjected to the hostility of Stark's pet, the interrogation of the archer, the guarded looks of the scientist who could change forms, and the perplexing…creature…that Pepper Potts had become and they were still nowhere near informing Sigyn of the news that Heimdall had sent them to relate. Seeing Loki unconscious on the other side of a glass wall and ashen seemed almost improper and kept them on the other side of the room, leaving Sif to dart worried glances in the direction of the sorcerer while trying not to appear worried. Hogun had only just begun considering sharpening a few of his daggers-the blades might not need it, but a keen edge was better than a dull edge-when Sigyn came bursting into the room, her hair wild from sleep and her magic sparking around her in her agitation.
"What news?" she asked.
"We might know where Amora is," Sif answered.
That made Tony look up from his conversions with Bruce and frown at the three of them. "And that isn't something you thought we should know?" Sigyn's gaze darted to the scientist and then to her husband where they lingered and Tony had to relent. "I'll concede your point on that one, but we're still going to help you fight. Our planet, our fight."
"Sir, as requested, I have completed the calculations," Jarvis informed him and Tony practically leapt for the computer screen at his elbow.
While Tony was sorting through the numbers and equations, Sigyn turned back to Sif and asked, voice hoarse, "Where?"
The hotel suite where she had made her home for however brief stood empty that morning, every nook and cranny swept out and cleaned of any magical residue or artifacts of value to her. She had known the moment Heimdall's gaze turned towards her and knew when the game was up for that area. The only thing she left was the anchor for the glamor and the golden, horned helmet for which she had used as an anchor for her original spell. It had been an item she acquired through great pain after Odin had vanished and had cost her a great deal of time and resources, but-if the spell worked-then it was something that had been worth the price.
Her fingers curved around the helmet they had found, her thumbs stroking idly at the helmed wings. After they had raided the hotel room to find nothing but the helmet and a perfume vial, her mood had shifted from driven to brooding. From the front cockpit Clint glanced at her, but otherwise said nothing. Sif and Hogun had known her long enough to interpret her body language and knew better than to interrupt the thoughts racing through her mind. Tony, on the other hand, was fascinated by the perfume vial she had relinquished to hum upon determining it to be the anchor for a spell that shielded against scrying. Bruce had declined to join them and had remained behind to continue sorting through the equations that Jarvis had given him and his creator.
"She's taunting me," Sigyn murmured, rolling the helmet between her palms to look at the runes inscribed around the edge. "The spell has already transferred and anchored itself into him and she left the thing that allowed her to do it. She even left me the runes that she used to layer her spell into the scrying." She ran a thumb over the first line. "Long reach, love, and compulsion," she murmured. "For distance, obviously, but the compulsion and love make no sense unless she was attempting to make him fall in love with her, but she tried that years ago and the spell failed horribly." She read another line and swallowed against panic and rising bile. "Perception, haze, and replacement." The helmet shook in her hands as she hugged it to her chest and doubled over.
Sif started up from her seat across from Sigyn, but Hogun caught her hand and held her back. The planevibrated slightly with the turbulence it encountered and his grip tightened momentarily on her hand before he released her. His gaze switched from Sigyn to the window that he eyed mistrustfully while Sif's gaze never left her longtime friend.
Tony glanced up from the vial he was handling carefully with the suit's mechanical grip. His gaze lingered on the Healer for a long moment before he turned back to the vial and the readings that Jarvis was feeding him on it. The sight of her shaken was something that struck far too close to home for him to help her through it without suffering some form of setback himself. The nightmares, after all, had only just subsided a few weeks previously.
"Sigyn?" Sif asked cautiously. "Talk to me. Tell me what happened."
She had to take a breath and then another before she could form the words that the runes had belayed to her. "Memory, shadow, and pain. If the spell doesn't work, its designed to kill him or erase all of his memories." Every eye turned to her at that as something hard and cold knotted itself through her heart.
Tony was the one to break the silence. "How?"
In answer, she pointed at the rune for shadow and said, "She used it to hide a spell inside of a spell so that when we pushed against her and got the feel of what the first spell was, it would trigger when we recreated it to see what was being turned against us. Its complicated and takes months of preparation. She must have had the runes chosen and wound them together before she even acquired an anchor and cast the primary incantation."
Tony frowned at that, letting Jarvis take the vial and store it into a part of his suit. "That made no sense."
She smiled faintly, but her fingers were still white around the edges of the helmet. "You, Tony, are a worker of metal, not a worker of power. Think of two sheets of metal carved perfectly to fit into each other until you can't tell one from the other until you look closely. That is what she did."
He had to think about it for a moment and then he shook his head. "The first spell was the bait and the second the trap. How'd it trigger, though? If magic is energy and intention how would she know how to trigger it?"
"The same way that you set your traps for those you've no desire to have wandering the space you've claimed as your."
Understanding flickered across his features even as Steve regarded them with a closed expression and Sif made no effort to hide she barely understood what had passed between the two. "Ah. The first spell was coded into the second and lingered when you touched it. And the second was set to activate when his specific magical signature pulled the spell out of the...ah...space...that magic occupies in the area."
"Exactly," she nodded.