Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Aiden
The next day, I pull Oliver aside in the kitchen before breakfast. I hate to leave Izzy, but the other guys will watch over her.
Mr. Time wants me to see just how much we can trust him. When I became anyone’s go-to guy, I’m not sure. After thinking I killed my sister for years, I’ve just assumed everyone sees me as the fuck-up. I still feel like the fuck-up deep down--it amazes me that Izzy loves me.
But it’s starting to feel a little less amazing and a little more natural every day. Because the five of us are family.
“What is it?” Oliver asks suspiciously. He grips his coffee mug in one hand, and he takes a step back as if he’s putting some distance between us.
“Why are you acting all squirrely?” I demand. Is he up to something?
“Ha,” he says. “Well, you people kind of have a track record of killing me, remember?”
“We’re bigger than the gods inside,” I tell him.
He scoffs at that. “Sure.”
I guess it really doesn't help our case that Wilder already killed him once. But I still say, “You know none of us have to be the gods’ servants.”
I can practically feel Thor grunt his disagreement. It makes me smile. The most powerful warrior among the gods has a hard time being contained...and I know he’d do anything to get out again.
“What are you talking about?” Oliver asks. “That’s literally why we exist.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so. If we hadn’t been marked by the gods, we’d be living our own lives, right? What would you be doing? Right now?”
He raises his eyebrows. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Well, I guess, right now, I wouldn’t be having a stupid conversation that has nothing to do with our actual plane of reality,” he says drily. But then he seems to think about the question.
I go on, “Well, anyway. Mr. Time wants me to go to a museum today to check and see if there’s some weird old relic there. He thinks it’ll help us defeat Viggo.”
He looks at me suspiciously. “And you want me along because why?”
“Because I want to get to know you better, so I know if you’re going to open the front door to those other assholes while we’re asleep and gut us all in our sleep,” I say frankly.
He huffs a laugh at that. “Those other assholes would gut me too for running off, trust me. I know from experience.”
“They’ve accidentally killed you too?”
He stares back at me, a grim set to his lips. “No. They killed me on purpose. They knew I’d come back, so they did it to make a point.”
That’s dark. “What a bunch of assholes.”
“Yeah, well,” he says. “So far you don’t seem much better.”
But his tone doesn’t hold any rancor anymore.
“Breakfast.” Brenda leans in the doorways, her tattooed arms crossed over her chest.
“We’re going to hit the road,” I say. “But thanks.”
She tilts an eyebrow at the two of us. “I’d say to stay out of trouble, but let’s be frank, I don’t hold high hopes.”
When we’ve settled into the car, Oliver confesses, “She is cute in a hot mom kind of way...”
“She’s terrifying.”
“Well, yeah, that too.” He flashes me a grin that almost makes me want to like him.
The two of us drive out to a museum far away. It’s a long drive through the beautiful scenery, but Oliver and I don’t talk much yet, we just listen to music.
“What does this thing look like?” he asks me.
“It’s a knife that absorbs some of the power of the gods,” I say. “So I assume it looks…pointy. It also has runes on the sheath and the blade.”
I pick up a folded piece of paper from between us and lift it between two fingers. He unfolds it and studies the runes.
This mission isn’t entirely fake. It would be handy to have the knife, but it doesn’t do much to the gods. It absorbs their power to imbue the knife with magic.
But for someone like Viggo, who seems to have some of the power of the gods because of a bargain he made with them, that knife might just drain him.
“I don’t know how you’re going to take out Viggo,” he says.
“We stopped Thea and the godslayers before,” I say. “Now we’ve maybe got you and Thea on our side. Against Connor, Barret, Viggo? I like our odds.”
He scoffs at that. “You can’t trust Thea.”
“I know,” I say.
He looks as if he has more to say, but he returns to just studying the runes. “Do you really think this could work? That Viggo could lose his powers?”
“I really think this can work,” I promise.
When we arrive, the museum is just opening.
We go inside and look around, checking out all their regular exhibits. There are no knives with runes like the one we’re looking for, so the two of us wait until a security guard isn’t looking, then duck into the employees-only stairwell that leads to the basement and the rest of the storage.
“We’ve got to figure out how they archive--”
“Relax,” Oliver cuts me off. “It’s a treasure.”
“And?” I stare at him as if he’s lost my mind.
He closes his eyes as if he’s concentrating, holding out his hands. “I’m picturing the knife. It looked like it was etched with gold, didn’t it?”
I have a feeling he wasn’t even really talking to me.
Suddenly, there’s a ripple of energy through the hall, the tingle of a static shock. A drawer flies open, and suddenly a knife hurtles through the air toward Oliver. He catches it out of the air and smiles as he hefts it in his hands.
“Isn’t it pretty?” he says, studying it.
“Gorgeous,” I say, even though to me it’s just a knife. I can’t get a handle on him. “Let’s get out of here before we're caught.”
“Let me hang onto it,” he says when I hold out my hand.
I hesitate, then shrug. Part of me wonders if he lied about not being able to teleport. What if he brings the knife straight to Viggo?
But I’m going to gamble on him. Carefully.
“Gullveig loves pretty things,” he explains as we head out, the knife concealed under his sweatshirt. “Especially gold.”
In the car, on the long ride back, he’s quiet for a while. Then he says, “You asked what I’d be doing if it weren’t for…all this.”
“Yeah.”
“I’d be home with my parents,” he says, “Getting ready for college in the fall. I had a little brother, he’s a freshman in high school now. I guess he grew up his whole life in the shadow of the missing brother… I read this newspaper interview.”
He stops and shakes off the obvious emotion that’s just come over him. “If Viggo never took me, it wouldn’t just be my life that would be different.”
I nod. “I know all about wishing life would be different. For the sake of the people you love.”
I tell him about my sister when he asks. I don’t have to hide my past anymore. I’m not ashamed.
“I’d love to use this on him myself,” he says, petting the blade, and I don’t think it’s just because of Gullveig that he strokes the gold-etched blade.
He’s asked so many times now if we really think we can pull this off, and he always laughs at the answers. He doesn’t believe us; he doesn’t want to hope.
But the way he looks out the window as we take the long, winding roads makes me think he’s starting to.