Killer Frost (Mythos Academy #6)(82)

Nike shook her head. “Not exactly.”

“But you told me I had to kill him. That’s what you and the Reapers have been saying all along. That I was going to kill Loki. Why go through all of this if that’s not what I actually did?”

“In a way, you did kill him,” Nike said. “You killed his body, and without it, he can never return to the mortal realm.”

“But how will his being . . . here . . . wherever here really is . . . help?” I asked, throwing my hands out wide in frustration. “Can’t he just escape again and go back to the mortal world? And then we’ll have to go through this all over again.”

Nike shook her head again. “No, Gwendolyn. He can’t escape. Not this time. He cannot leave this realm, not as long as he is wearing that.”

She pointed at Loki, and I noticed a thin silver bracelet gleaming around his right wrist—one that was very familiar. I glanced down at my own wrist, but the mistletoe bracelet that the laurel leaves had been attached to was gone. He was wearing it, and he kept glaring at it and grimacing, as though the mere sight of it pained him greatly, along with the feel of the silver actually touching his skin.

“The bracelet was transferred to Loki since you were wearing it when you killed him,” Nike said, answering my silent questions. “Mistletoe has very powerful properties. It’s what Loki used to trick another god into killing Balder, the Norse god of light, so long ago. And it is what will keep him here where he belongs, along with other things.”

“What other things?” I asked.

“Blood,” another voice called out. “My blood.” Suddenly, Raven was there, striding down the main

aisle toward me, Nike, and Loki.

“What is she doing here?” I whispered to Nike. “You’ll see.”

Raven stopped, her white hair and gown swirling around her in a way I’d never seen them do before. Her black eyes locked with mine.

“You always wondered what I was hiding with my wrinkles, Gwendolyn,” she said, her voice light, sweet, and pure. “Well, let me show you.”

Raven held her hands out wide, her palms up, as though she were somehow drawing the air in around her. And I watched while her hair slowly blackened, her wrinkles melted away, and her skin smoothed out and tightened up, as if she were growing younger instead of older. The only thing that remained the same about her were the old, faded scars that marred her hands and arms. In a moment, she went from a mysterious old crone to a gorgeous goddess. And suddenly, so many things about her made sense to me, including her real identity.

“Sigyn,” I whispered. “You’re Sigyn, the Norse goddess of devotion. Loki’s wife.”

Another thought occurred to me, and my gaze flicked up to the second floor, where her statue was. “That’s why your statue in the library seemed so hollow and empty that one time I touched it when I was searching for the Helheim Dagger. Because you were in the mortal realm all along instead of being . . . here.”

Wherever here really was.

Sigyn smiled. “Yes, Gwendolyn. That is exactly right. I have spent centuries in the mortal realm, watching over the members of the Pantheon, the Protectorate, and the academy students.”

“But why?”

Sorrow filled her black eyes. “Because Loki tricked me into helping him escape all those centuries ago. Because I believed he was truly sorry for orchestrating Balder’s murder. Because I thought he had really changed and wanted to be a better person, instead of trying to bend us all to his will. If I hadn’t been so foolish, none of this would have happened. So much pain and suffering could have been avoided. So much . . . loss.”

She stared down at her former husband, who was still on his knees in the middle of the marble floor. “So I decided to devote myself to setting things right, to making up for my mistake as best I could. And I finally have, with your help.”

She stepped toward me and held out her hand. I realized that she wanted Vic, and I handed the sword over to her. Sigyn stared at the blade a moment, then sliced her palm open on it before handing Vic back to me.

She walked over to Loki and stared down at him again.

“I’m sorry that it had to come to this,” Sigyn said in a soft voice. “But you gave me no choice.”

Loki glared at her, but he didn’t say anything.

Sigyn sighed, so much sadness in that one soft sound, as if she felt all of the evil Loki had done more intensely than anyone else. In a way, I supposed she did. Then, she clenched her hand into a tight fist until blood dripped out from between her fingers.

Plop . . . plop . . . plop . . .

One by one, the drops of her blood hit the mistletoe bracelet still wrapped around Loki’s wrist. He hissed and struggled with all his might, but some invisible force held him in place. Strangely enough, it felt like that same old, watchful, knowing force I had sensed around Grandma Frost so many times when she was having one of her visions of the future. Somehow, I knew that it was Nike’s victory magic at work.

Finally, Sigyn stepped back.

“There,” she said in a tired voice. “It’s done. The mistletoe is bound on him, and he is bound here—forever.”

“And now,” Nike murmured. “For the final step.” She waved her hand. I blinked, and Loki was gone,

and the floor was empty again. I whirled around and around, but Nike placed a hand on my shoulder and pointed up to the second-floor balcony. For as long as I’d been at Mythos, there had been a lone, empty spot there in the circular pantheon of the gods—an open space where Loki’s statue would have been.