Chapter 15
Elias remained quiet for the rest of the short walk up the beach. Charlie walked just behind him. Henry, having recovered from his tumble down the dune, skittered up and down the sand, pausing to dip his little feet into the lake every time he reached the water’s edge.
Charlie was grateful for Elias’s silence. She couldn’t risk another one-on-one conversation with him right now. Not after what had just happened.
Less than an hour alone with Elias Everhart and she’d already fallen into the easy back-and-forth that came alive whenever they were together. Their banter was a creature with its own mind. A stubborn thing, determined to claw its way back to life no matter how many times she tried to kill it off.
Gods, I missed this.
The memory of his words made her shiver. She couldn’t let this thing between them grow any stronger; she needed to find a way to kill it off for good.
Unless …
As she trudged along the beach, wind gusting through her hair, foamy gray-blue waves crashing against the wet sand, she couldn’t help but wonder: Was that really the best course of action?
Destroying their connection? Or would it be smarter to lean into the trust he was so clearly trying to rebuild between them?
To pretend to fall for his charm and words of placation, to let him believe they were on a path to reconciliation?
After all, only an hour earlier, she’d vowed to start digging for information on how to turn a mare back into a human, and she didn’t think one could find that on Reddit.
Her best source of information was Elias himself.
He would never volunteer that information freely. Not when he knew how much she hated him. But if he came to view her as a friend …
But she couldn’t switch her entire demeanor at once. Charlie was far too stubborn to change her opinion of someone overnight, and he knew it. She would have to play this carefully.
Her mind was still lost in planning how to subtly pivot from hatred to friendship when Elias came to a halt.
She bumped into his back. “Oof,” she said, grabbing on to him to steady herself before quickly shoving him away, face heating. Her palms tingled where they’d touched his body. She cleared her throat. “What happened?”
“We’re here.”
Charlie looked up, taking in their surroundings.
This part of the beach appeared no different from the others: a flat, skinny strip of sand on which they were standing, Lake Michigan to the left, a steep dune peppered with tall grass on the right.
At the top of the dune was a cluster of trees that marked the beginning of the forest through which they’d just come.
Turning to face the dune, Elias cupped his hands over his mouth. “Thrym!” he yelled at the hill. “Awaken! It is I, Elias Everhart, returning with your long-awaited payment!”
Thrym. That name sounded familiar, but Charlie couldn’t quite place it. She stared at the spot where Elias was directing his voice, but nothing happened. “The joturri lives in the dune?”
Elias bit his lower lip. “Not quite.”
The hill started to rumble.
Startled, Charlie stumbled away. The entire dune was quaking. Beach grass tossed in the air. Sand tumbled down its slope in a small avalanche. The trees on its peak groaned and swayed, as if they were about to dislodge themselves from the earth.
Then, the dune began to rise.
Charlie screamed and tripped backward, arms circling wildly as she fell to the ground.
Henry howled and did the same. The dune was waking up.
There was no other way to put it. Its slope rose into the air, sand falling in every direction as new shapes emerged from underneath: a head the color of dark earth, a back covered in trees, two enormous, dirt-smeared legs that had previously been stacked one atop the other but were now folding themselves up into a gigantic version of a pretzel.
The head blinked open two huge, mossy-green eyes.
A giant mouth yawned open, revealing a tongue the size of a school bus and teeth like rotting lemons.
Oh, Charlie thought, staring up at the giant from her place sprawled out on the ground. Elias was right. Thrym doesn’t live in the dune. Thrym is the dune.
“Elias Everhart,” thundered a voice as deep as an earthquake. “Mare of night. At long last.”
Elias bowed, holding one hand to his side like a stage performer. “At your service.”
“You better be,” said Thrym, blinking his mossy eyes down at them. “Seven years I’ve awaited payment for the favor I did you. Seven years of nothing, hiding in this dead-end corner of Yggdrasil. It’s about time you showed up.”
“Oh, come on, Thrymie.” Elias cracked a grin. “You’re older than everyone on this continent combined. Seven years is nothing for you.”
“Every second is an eternity when waiting for the thing one desires most.” Thrym’s head turned suddenly to the left. “No, not those raspberries, you idiot. The other ones!”
Charlie looked at Elias in confusion. “What is he—”
“Sometimes the joturri get lost between their two selves,” Elias explained. “Their double consciousness blends into one. Whatever his second self is doing right now must involve raspberries.”
“Weird.”
He shrugged. “I’ve heard weirder.”
Like a glacier changing direction, Thrym’s head swiveled, and he looked back down at Charlie and Elias. His eyes narrowed. “You brought a human,” he growled, the earthquake of his voice sharpening with menace. “This is against the terms of our agreement, mare. No one is to know where I am.”
“The human is part of your payment,” Elias said.
Charlie whipped her head to face him, eyes bulging. “What?”
“She is a daughter of Loki,” Elias explained, ignoring her outrage. “Half-human, half-god. Her divine blood will allow her to enter Thrudheim, Thor’s home, and take Mjollnir while he sleeps.”
Blood roared in Charlie’s ears. Was this a trap? A scheme Elias had been plotting all along? Trick her into coming down to the dunes, then force her into Thrym’s service as payment for whatever favor the joturri had done for him seven years before?
Bastard. Screw her plan to make him human again. He’d be dead before sundown.
Thrym’s mouth spread into a hideous yellow smile. “At last. Revenge for that disgusting trick Thor and Loki played on me at my wedding.”
It was then that Charlie realized where she’d heard the joturri’s name before.
“You’re the giant from the legend,” she said, feeling awestruck despite her anger. “The one that stole Thor’s hammer and demanded Freyja as your bride for its return.”
“And I would have had her.” He spat in disdain, the result of which was more of a watery mud missile than a glob of saliva.
It soared through the air and landed in the lake with a fifteen-foot-high splash.
“If your lying father hadn’t disguised Thor and brought him in her place.
All you puny creatures look the same to me, cockroaches scurrying about the floor.
How was I supposed to know he wasn’t the goddess? ”
“The arms as thick and hairy as bears might have been a clue,” Elias muttered.
“What was that?” asked Thrym, leaning his mountainous torso down and rustling the trees growing from his back.
“I said, a completely understandable mix-up. And absolutely despicable on the part of the gods.”
Thrym nodded in satisfaction.
“I’m confused,” said Charlie. “The stories all say that Thor killed you with Mjollnir as soon as you gave it back to him. How are you still alive?”
“The writers of those stories didn’t know that I am a joturri. Neither did any of the Asgardians. When Thor attacked me with his hammer, he didn’t know that he was only killing one half of my being.”
“Oh,” she said. “And your other self was eventually able to resuscitate you?”
“Not resuscitate,” Thrym corrected. “Regrow. All giants are half creature and half mountain, born of dual incubation: ten years in the mother’s womb, ten years in the dirt.
As a joturri, my soul was preserved in my second self.
All my other self had to do was plant a piece of that soul at the foot of a mountain, and eventually my giant self regrew. ”
“Right.” Charlie blinked. “Sounds … simple?”
“It is,” said Thrym. “Though lengthy. And I had to do it in secret, lest Thor find out I was still alive.”
“Is that why you’re hiding in a sand dune?”
“I am not hiding,” the joturri snarled, the sound raining down in a tumble of rocks. “I am biding my time until I find a way to take back what should have been mine and reclaim my rightful place on the throne of Jotunheim.”
“Which is where we come in!” Elias piped up. “Charlotte here will sneak into Thor’s house, snatch Mjollnir out from under his nose, and bring the hammer straight to you. Problem solved.”
Charlie wanted to stab Elias in the neck. What the Hel was he talking about? She opened her mouth, ready to announce that she would not be going anywhere near Thor’s hammer, but Elias turned to look at her with wide, meaningful eyes.
“Isn’t that right?” he asked, winking. Play along, he mouthed.
Her shoulders relaxed. Oh. Elias was playing a trick—but on the giant, not her.
Or so it seemed.
She didn’t know if she’d ever truly be able to tell when Elias was lying.
That was just the nature of working with a mare.
But it was the risk she had to take if she wanted their partnership to work.
Er … pseudopartnership. Partnership-that-would-end-in-her-betraying-him-by-destroying-the-thing-he-loved-most-about-himself (besides his butt, apparently).
Plus, Rattatosk had killed four people already. Even if Elias was wrong and his true target wasn’t her and Mason, the monster needed to be stopped before he could kill anyone else. And Thrym was their best chance at getting the info they needed to stop him.
She would play along. But she would do so while keeping her guard up. Always.
Looking up into Thrym’s SUV-size eyes, Charlie smiled. “That’s right.”
“Excellent,” said Thrym. “Stand, child of Loki.”