Page 57 of Soul of Shadow #1

Charlie spit the bullet onto the ground.

Everyone—every single creature in the room—stared at her in stunned silence.

“How did you—” Elias blinked. “What just—”

One side of Charlie’s mouth raised. “A magician never reveals her secrets.”

Finally recovered from his shock, Mason let out a howl of laughter. “No way.” He clapped twice. “She figured it out. She actually figured it out .”

Gradually, Elias’s expression morphed from shock to fury. She knew exactly what he was thinking: three times, she had bested him. Three times, she took his carefully laid plan and spat in its face. Now he had nothing left. Nothing to present to his precious master, Loki. Nothing to do but—

He flung out a hand, shooting a shadowy cord across the chamber.

It wrapped around one of the Fenrir’s broken teeth, which lay scattered on the floor, then reeled back in.

Elias caught the tooth, which was the size of a kitchen knife and still wet with saliva.

Charlie tensed, but she knew Elias was fighting a losing battle.

All the humans were protected from supernatural attacks by Freyja’s feathers—except Lou, though Charlie planned to remedy that as soon as she could—and she highly doubted the tooth would do much damage to either of the enormous Vikings.

But when he threw the tooth, he didn’t aim it at Charlie, Abigail, or Mason. He aimed it in the opposite direction, down low.

Straight into the chest of the v?tte.

It drove through his long beard, drilling into his body so deeply that the tip of the tooth stuck out of the creature’s back. He squealed with anguish, tipping backward and falling over.

“ No! ” Charlie screamed, running across the cave and falling to her knees beside the v?tte.

“No, no, no.” She touched his chest gently, but he flinched in pain.

Did she take the tooth out? Leave it in?

God dammit , how could she have forgotten to give him a feather, too?

He was so small, so innocent. She never thought… she never…

A sob racked her chest.

She had to take the tooth out. Wasn’t that what they said to do in doctor movies? Or was it the opposite? She didn’t know. She couldn’t think. All she could do was remove the thing that was causing him so much pain.

She wrapped her hand around the tooth and yanked it free.

Right away, she knew she had made the wrong decision. The v?tte choked, blood burbling out from beneath his beard. His tiny body twitched in agony.

“ No ,” Charlie sobbed, scooping him up into her hands. He shook and shuddered on her palms. “Please. You can’t die. I need you here. I need…”

As the v?tte’s twitching began to cease, to slow down, Charlie felt herself starting to shut down, too. This was it. This was how she said goodbye to her friend. This was how …

It came to her like a long-forgotten song.

Like a set of lyrics she never realized she knew, blossoming to life in her mind and playing on repeat.

Later, she would tell herself that she didn’t make it up.

That it had always been there, hiding within her, from the moment he first clapped at the idea of watching The Witcher , waiting for its moment to emerge.

“Henry,” she whispered. “Henry, I’m here. I’m right here.”

His name. The name she had always intended to give him, even if she didn’t know it, not until it was already out of her mouth, floating in the air between them, solidifying their bond.

“Henry.”

Henry let out a gasp, his body shuddering. His little head crooked up from her palm, beard fluttering as he drew in several unsteady breaths. Gingerly, Charlie shifted his body so that he balanced on one of her hands. With the other, she brushed aside his beard, checking his injury.

His gray tunic—the same one he always wore that never seemed to dirty or take on a bad smell—had a hole at its center, but his skin… his pearl-white, delicate little skin…

It was whole.

Charlie choked out a sob of relief. Her shoulders sagged forward, head slumping down, hair falling in a protective nest around Henry. He was alive.

He was alive .

“It was the name,” came an awed whisper from across the chamber. Charlie’s head snapped up to find Elias staring at her and Henry, green eyes enormous. “The protective bond between you two—it healed him.”

Charlie sniffled, looking down at Henry.

With a little squeak, he sat up, inspecting his chest curiously.

Once he determined that there was nothing wrong there, he looked up at Charlie.

Though she still couldn’t see his eyes—his red hat was pulled down over them as always, exposing only his button nose—she saw gratitude written on his face.

She picked up the tooth from the ground, turning it over in her hand. She had what the ash wife needed, at least. She tucked it into one of the pockets of her dress.

As she did, she noticed the glow around her body beginning to fade.

The feather. Its power was waning, which meant she needed to get them out of that chamber as quickly as possible.

“That’s a shame,” said Elias, who seemed to have recovered from his shock. “No matter. I have one last trick up my sleeve.”

Charlie looked up to find Elias raising his hand yet again, pointing it toward Lou for the second time.

At first, Charlie thought he was going to try to have Lou shoot her again, or maybe Mason or Abigail.

But like a machine swiveling its lever, Lou slowly turned the gun around to point at her own head.

“ No! ” Charlie and Mason yelled in tandem.

The feathers. Why hadn’t she made sure Lou was protected by one of the feathers?

With a sharp smile, Elias removed the dodssten from his stomach and threw it onto the platform, where it rolled until it fell into the groove at its center.

Charlie had no time to worry about what that meant; she and Mason leapt to their feet and sprinted across the cave, hoping to knock the gun from Lou’s hand.

But before they could reach her, before the chamber echoed with another gunshot—

Everything turned sideways.

This was no low rumble. No shake of the Fenrir’s body hitting the floor or the doors sliding open.

Something rattled the entire space, as if the cave were a mere toy box picked up by a child and shaken violently about.

Everyone grunted as their bodies were thrown to the side.

They sprawled on the stone floor. And Lou’s arm had flown out to the side, sending the bullet up into the wall instead.

Her head hit the stone floor hard, knocking her out entirely.

Charlie witnessed everything, even as her own body fell to the ground. Even as she struggled to maintain her bearings, to tell which way was up. All she could do was keep her eyes locked on her best friend. To make sure she didn’t die.

She was so focused on Lou’s limp body on the stone floor that she didn’t realize there was someone else in the room with them until she heard his voice.

“And just who had the audacity to interrupt me in the middle of happy hour?”

Charlie groaned and craned her neck, trying to get a look at whoever had just appeared.

But before she could, blackness covered her vision and tightened around her chest. Elias.

He’d seen the feather’s power waning and had wrapped her in yet another length of shadow rope, this time starting at the very top of her head and extending all the way to her ankles.

She was caught. She was mummified. She was a fish that could do nothing but flop about on the stone floor.

And if the grunting behind her was any indication, Mason and Abigail were, too.

The feathers must have worn off from all three of us, she thought.

She tried to open her mouth, but all she could do was choke on the cords around her mouth.

“Loki,” came Elias’s voice, suddenly subdued, deferential—and with that single word, every cell in Charlie’s body froze at once .

Loki.

Loki was here. Standing above them.

How was that possible?

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Elias went on, “but it was of the utmost importance that you come.”

“Well,” said the god, voice dangerously light, as if he stood in the middle of a party, not a room full of bound and gagged bodies. “Be quick about it. You know I only have a few minutes when I do this.”

“I’m aware,” said Elias quickly. “The thing is—”

The Fenrir gave a low growl.

Loki, who sounded as if he hadn’t noticed the creature until that moment, said, “Ah. I see you’ve found my son.”

The Fenrir made a spitting noise. “You’ve hardly earned the right to call me by that title, seeing as you let the other gods leave me to rot on that rock. Some father you are.” His voice was garbled, gummy—no doubt due to the holes where his teeth used to be.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” At this, Charlie could almost picture the god holding up his hands, trying to play off his betrayal as nothing personal. “Come, now. I’ve been dealing with my own drama, locked down in Helheim. You know that.”

Loki’s voice was so strangely familiar. Though Charlie knew it was impossible, she couldn’t help feeling that she had heard it before. Perhaps in a dream. For all she knew, Elias had been sneaking in her window and giving her Loki-tinted nightmares.

“Right,” growled the Fenrir. “You were busy. Is that why you sent your little errand boy to find me?”

“Hey,” said Elias, as if this title deeply offended him.

“You know well why I sent my mare to find you,” said Loki.

“The gods know of the raven that you spoke with. The one who brought you news of the Seal’s location.

” He paused, and Charlie could almost imagine him pasting an oily smile onto his slimy face, though she still didn’t know what he looked like.

“Don’t you wish to share the news with your dear father?

Isn’t that why you’ve been looking for me? ”

“I’ve been looking for you,” the Fenrir snapped, “because I wanted you to be the first of the gods to die.”