Page 22 of Fallen Gods

I don’t know why I fixate on that, other than it’s odd to think of him as a normal little boy. In another, he’s holding up a fish in his hand. It’s so small it probably has no meat on it, but he’s proud.

His smile is wide. Bright. Anyone looking at that picture would think Aric was the happiest boy in the world. There’s absolutely no trace of that boy in the man he is today.

In the next picture, he’s standing with Reeve, who’s wearing his high school graduation cap and gown. Aric’s smile is less bright now, his posture tense. I compare the photo with those taken earlier. He doesn’t even look like the same person.

What happened to change him?

His parents’ deaths, no doubt. The thought makes my stomach sink.

I flip through the next few pages. They show his schedule, information about his hobbies, current favorite books and movies, and so on. All the usual intel. I’m sure Sigurd Erikson, being the mob boss he is, has a similar file on me—probablythicker. I pause a moment, my mind wondering what else Aric and his family might know about me.

Nope, don’t need to go there.

Shaking my head, I keep reading. Aric suffers from insomnia. That makes two of us.

I skim a newspaper clipping of the time he was struck with lightning. I remember this. Odin denies any involvement, though it’s not like he’d tell me either way.

I flip the page. An allergy to kiwi?

Hmm. That, I didn’t know.

I flip back to the pictures of Aric, of his dorm room, schematics of the house he shares with his grandfather. There’s a picture of his SUV and another of the gym he works out at.

My chest tightens. The dossier is thick with endless information about Endir and Aric, and even Reeve has a few pages in here. No detail was too small to include. And yet, other than a crude drawing and a couple of scribbled notes, almost nothing about Mjölnir’s potential location is included.

It’s like my father wants me to struggle, then fail spectacularly.

Why would he not include more information about the object I’m meant to find? To steal? I understand it’s not been seen in ages, but Odinfather is as old as time. Older than the hammer, in fact. So why wouldn’t he have shared everything that might help me succeed?

I start frantically flipping through the notebook again, searching my father’s notes. Page after page after page on the Erikson family.

But no sign of Mjölnir being used since the destruction of the Bifrost. Of course, Father already knew that. He prepared this dossier. He threatened everyone I love if I don’t find the hammer.

There’s a need to keep your secrets to yourself for the sake of power—but then there’s intentionally keeping someone in thedark whose life depends on succeeding.

But Mjölnirwasn’tlost. Was it? No onemisplacedit. It wasn’t a set of car keys. It was hidden on purpose by someone who could wield it. Someone whose bloodline called to the ancient weapon, was remembered by it. That’s right. Mjölnir could remember…

My hands freeze on the page as the pieces click into place.

Aric does know exactly where it was hidden.But he’s completely forgotten.

What’s done can’t be undone without Mjölnir. Father can’t restore their memories. That’s what Father’s been hiding. That’s why he needs me. I’m not really here just to steal Mjölnir.

I was chosen for this mission for a reason. There’s more to it. Isn’t there always, with Odin?

Bile rises in my throat. My father didn’t send me because he believes I’m capable of anything. He sent me because, like most men who fear what they can’t control, he’d rather a woman be the weapon than the one holding it.

That’s what he saw in me two years ago, long before I ever saw it in myself: a soldier he can send into battle while keeping his hands clean. And this mission is no different.

I never let myself think about that day at the beach. But now, it comes back anyway—the wind, the salt, and the silence between us.

Aric and I weren’t supposed to be alone.

The others had gone back to the house—sick of the sand, tired of the wind. But we stayed. Sitting too far apart to be anything and too close to pretend we weren’t something.

I remember the way the waves crashed behind him. The sharp bite of salt in the air. The fact that he kept glancing at me like I was about to disappear.

“You don’t have to be like him,” I said.