Thief Eyes

smiling anymore. “You’re only a boy, whatever the color of your hair. You wouldn’t know what to do with her!”

Ari growled softly. In my pocket, the coin flared with heat, burning through the denim. Heat was a weapon—I grabbed the coin. Memory washed over me.

A golden-haired girl and a man—Svan—sitting together on a black beach. The man drew circles and arcs and lines in the dark sand, and the girl carefully copied each symbol—each rune—in turn.

“See, Uncle, I can learn.”

“Yes, Hallgerd. Now do it again.”

“I already understand! Don’t you trust me?”

The coin burned hotter. I flinched, and it fell clattering to the stones.

“I do know you.” Svan’s voice brought me back to the present. He looked at me through slitted eyes, then held his hands out in front of him, as if to show he meant no harm. A bit late for that. “Your eyes are wrong, but you are surely Hallgerd’s kin.”

The distant wingbeats fell silent. Ari still held the flashlight, aimed just below Svan’s eyes now. A listening silence filled the room.

The sorcerer reached for the coin. I snapped it up—it was still warm, but not as hot as before—and shoved it into my pocket.

“The runes inscribed there are clearly my niece’s work,” Svan said. “How did it come to be yours?”

Damn good question. “Who’s Hallgerd?” Even as I asked, I knew: The other one, who Muninn wouldn’t name.

“Hallgerd was a bitch.” Ari’s eyes never left Svan—Hallgerd’s uncle. “She’s also someone you don’t want to mess with.”

“Aye, she is that.” A strange sadness crossed Svan’s features. He picked up his staff. “Teaching Hallgerd was a mistake. She combined the runes in ways I never intended, and in so doing called on fires that yet threaten the land beyond these stones. I think it is not by chance that you’ve come to me now.” He nodded. “It is time to undo my mistake. I will leave with you, Haley, and teach you the sorcery with which to end Hallgerd’s spell.”

“Hell no,” Ari said.

Muninn hadn’t seemed sure the spell could be ended. “You’d let us both leave if we let you come with us?” I said. That seemed way too easy.

Svan glanced sidelong at Ari, and I knew there’d been no both in his original bargain. He nodded. “Yes.”

“It’s the best chance we’re likely to get,” I told Ari in English, though I didn’t want Svan hanging around any more than Ari did.

“You’ll keep your hands to yourself,” Ari told the sorcerer in Icelandic.

“She is my kin!” Svan looked offended. He gestured at Ari with his staff. “What do you take me for, boy?”

“I do not think you want me to answer that,” Ari muttered darkly in English.

Svan laughed and strode across the room, ignoring the birds perched on the table. He fastened his cloak closed with a round silver pin—a snake eating its own tail—then wrapped a strip of leather inscribed with more runes around his staff.

He walked up to the door and pounded the floor three times. The sound echoed through my chest, loud as Ari’s polar bear roar. The sorcerer chanted:

By the sweat of the trolls, open!
By the blood of men, open!
By the voices of the gods
And those who serve them, open!

Svan blew softly over the staff. The door swung silently inward, revealing a patch of gray sky beyond.

Wingbeats burst into the air. The little birds launched themselves right at us.

“Run!” Svan said.

I grabbed Ari’s hand and raced across the room, ignoring the pack slamming against my back and the bird claws grabbing at my hair. A darker shadow swooped into the room. The little birds flew away. Ari and I kept running, through the open doorway. Icy air hit us, way colder than in the cave. We skittered to a stop.

We stood on a stone ledge only a few yards across. To our right the ledge quickly narrowed and disappeared, leaving only a vertical stone cliff. To our left the ledge wound around the curve of a towering black mountain.

Ahead of us, where the ledge fell away, there was only gray swirling fog. I stepped back, fighting dizziness. Ari grabbed a stone from the ground and threw it into the fog. It disappeared silently into the mist, but I didn’t hear it hit bottom. Ari’s eyes widened, and he moved back, too. Svan stepped out to join us, his staff in hand and a leather sack slung over his back. The drop into nowhere didn’t seem to bother him.

“Not wise, Haley.” Muninn’s wingbeats were slow and rhythmic behind me. The raven swooped through the doorway and turned to hover before me in the mist. As I looked into his shiny eyes, my hands fell limp by my sides, even as some small part of me kept thinking about that drop. Fear shuddered through me. I was falling, arms flailing for a hold, knowing when I landed I would die—I wrenched my thoughts away from that memory.

“You do not want to remember.” Muninn’s wings kept pumping the air. “You do not want to return to the world that nearly destroyed you. I cannot bind you, but I can give you one more chance. Turn back before the door closes.”

Maybe Muninn was right. Maybe it was better to forget. I stepped back into the doorway. My thoughts felt fuzzy and strange. Another step and I’d be inside.

Ari grabbed my hand. “Don’t.” He held on so tightly, as if all by himself he could keep me from taking that step. His palm felt warm against mine. I wanted to remember him, even if we only had a day together for me to remember. If I turned back, what he meant to me would always be a mystery.

I walked back out of the doorway. Ari let out a breath, but he didn’t let go of my hand.

Muninn screeched his anger. “I cannot bind you, yet I will do what I can to keep you from acting in the wide world. Know this, Haley, Amanda and Gabriel’s daughter, and Ari, Katrin and Thorolf’s son: None shall remember you, beyond these stones. None shall see you, comfort you, aid you.”

He turned his gaze to Svan and I stumbled, released from the raven’s hold. “As for you, sorcerer,” Muninn said, “you know well enough the price for failing to guard the door. No more will you wander these tunnels, listening to the past and learning its magic. In the human world you shall age and die, like the mortal you are. Now go!”

Muninn gave one final sharp beat of his wings. A bitter wind began to blow. The raven swooped past us and disappeared into the cave, his wingbeats echoing. “I leave you alone, alone, alone.”

“Not so alone as all that.” I felt fur brush against my jeans. I looked down, wind biting my cheeks, and Freki looked up at me. “Thank you for the mead, Haley. Good fortune go with you.” I reached down to scratch the fox behind the ears. He slipped out of reach through the wooden door. It swung shut as it had opened, without a sound.

I searched my thoughts, but still found only darkness in place of my memories. Amanda and Gabriel—my parents—when I searched for images to go with them, I saw only the lifeless pictures in my wallet. Leaving Muninn’s mountain hadn’t changed anything.

“So,” Svan said. “That went better than expected.” Staff in hand, he brushed past us, following the ledge like a trail away from Muninn’s door.

“I don’t trust him,” Ari whispered.

Neither did I, but what choice did we have? It wasn’t like there was anyplace else we could go. I followed Svan. Still holding my hand, Ari walked by my side, only a couple of feet from the edge. Looking at the fog made me all trembly. I forced my gaze away. To my left, the mountain rose steeply, a solid, comforting presence.

The wind picked up. Icy raindrops blew into my face. Svan disappeared around the mountain’s curve. Ari and I walked faster. The sorcerer glanced back as we came into view. “What do you wait for? The mountain will not