Thief Eyes

real food eventually. I sat cross-legged beside Svan and handed him the mead.

Ari offered Svan the malt balls as well—less than a handful was left—as he sat beside me. The sorcerer shook his head and uncorked the skin. Please, please let this work.

Svan drew the skin toward his lips, stopped, and sniffed it. His eyes narrowed. Shit.

“What treachery is this?” Svan’s voice was low, like Dad’s voice when he got angry. “Do you think me a fool, who does not know what you offer me?”

“Umm.” Now what?

Ari looked back and forth between us. “The mead of poetry,” Svan said, answering his unasked question. “Haven’t I rested in Muninn’s mountain long enough, Haley?” Svan’s voice dripped disdain as he handed the skin back to me, still open.

“Wait—that’s the mead of poetry?” Ari’s eyes grew wide by the firelight. He reached toward the skin.

“Don’t.” I drew it away. “It’ll make you sleep—”

“Yeah, but—”

“But what?”

“If I could write a decent poem for once—a decent song …” He reached for the skin again, then hesitated.

“Oh no, you don’t!” I pulled the thing out of his reach. “I need you here.” I turned the skin upside down. No way was I taking a chance on Ari going unconscious on me.

The mead steamed as it hit the sand. The wind died, all at once.

Svan grabbed the skin from my hands and righted it. The remaining liquid sloshed inside. “You are a fool,” he muttered.

The earth trembled, ever-so-slightly, less like an earthquake than someone shivering at a too-gentle touch. Svan gestured down the beach. A fog bank moved toward us, silver gray in the moonlight. Within that fog a man ambled toward us with a slow rolling gait. His broad-brimmed hat covered one eye; his cloak was the same color as the fog.

Do not spill that. My master would not like it. How stupid was I? I hadn’t thought about Freki’s warning, though. I’d thought only about Ari.

Yet the man didn’t seem angry. He didn’t seem in any hurry to reach us, either. He smiled as he made his way down the beach. Then he saw me watching him, and he winked, though I should have been too far away to see. The trembling of the earth moved down beneath my skin. I started shivering and couldn’t stop. I looked at Ari and saw that he trembled, too, even as he cursed slowly and steadily under his breath.

My sight blurred, and I saw only fog, but the shivering went on. The fire in me burned hot, hot, hot, even as I shivered.

Svan corked the mead and tossed it into my backpack. “You must go.” He began putting other things in the pack as well: the wooden bowl, the knife in its sheath.

Leaving sounded awfully good to me, only—“Wait, if that’s Freki and Muninn’s master, can’t he destroy the coin?” Destroy it without killing anything in the process?

“Haley.” Svan spoke slowly, as if to a small child. “Muninn’s master does not fear the end of the world. He will fight it, to be sure—he and the fire spirits are old enemies—but he will throw everything he has into that fighting. You hesitate to kill a single fox; to him we’re all less than foxes. He won’t hesitate to sacrifice us.”

I opened my mouth; no sound came out. Ari got to his feet, reached for my hand, and pulled me up as well.

The mead had soaked deep into the sand, but steam still rose from the spot. Svan dug a couple of other items out of his bag—a raven’s claw, a dull black stone—and tossed them into the backpack as well.

“I don’t need that stuff. I—”

Svan reached for my shoulder, thought better of it, and let his hand drop. His expression turned almost gentle. “You are my kinswoman. I will do what I can to protect you. I will hold him off as long as I can. Only you must make it worth it. Destroy the coin. Not only for the land’s sake. I felt the fire within you—Hallgerd’s spell could consume you, too, if you do not end it.”

My fire didn’t come from Hallgerd’s spell, but even now I didn’t say so. “What about you?” What did I care about him, after the way he’d attacked me?

A sly smile crossed the sorcerer’s face. “I may be an old man, but I have a few tricks left in me.” He cast a wry look Ari’s way. “Perhaps I’ll see if my poems have more worth than yours. If nothing else, it should make a good story.”

The fog was closer now. I heard footsteps crunching over the sand. Svan thrust the bag at me and I zipped it shut. “Thank you.”

“Go!” the sorcerer said. He grabbed his staff and walked toward the fog. “Hello there!” he called, as if greeting an old friend.

Ari looked at me. “Now we run?” he said.

“No.” I remembered Katrin’s words. You must never run from magic.

So we walked away this time, even as Svan disappeared into the fog behind us. 

Chapter 11

We followed the dirt road, while the earth stilled and our shivering eased. When I glanced back, I saw only fog, no sign of either Svan or Freki’s master. The fog disappeared into the distance as we walked on. The moon cast a bright path over the water to our left. To our right, boulders and jumbled rocks lay at the base of the dark hills.

A sudden roar made me jump. Ari and I scrambled off the road as bright lights blinded us. I backed toward the hills, knowing there was nowhere to hide—

A truck rumbled by, tires crunching over the gravel. Ari let out a nervous laugh. I laughed, too, though my legs felt like rubber. I’d forgotten there were cars. Did I think the entire world had disappeared when Muninn spirited me away?

Ari stopped laughing and ran into the road, chasing the truck and calling after the driver. It was some sort of emergency vehicle, blue lights silently flashing. The driver didn’t even slow down, and the truck quickly disappeared out of sight. “Ah, well,” Ari said as I caught up with him. “So much for our ride.”

“The man in the fog,” I said, because suddenly it seemed safe to talk again. “Who was he?” Aside from being someone who I knew, down to my bones, that I didn’t want to anger.

Ari looked uneasily back the way we’d come. “I’m not sure I should name him. Just in case that would—you know—attract his attention. Look him up when we get back. A one-eyed man with a floppy hat. Before this all happened, I’d have told you he wasn’t real, either.” Ari hesitated. “Speaking of getting back, where are we going, Haley?”

I swallowed hard. “To your mom.” I still didn’t want to go to Katrin, but even though Svan had bought us some time, no way was I casting his spell. “I’ll give your mom the coin. She can send it back to Hallgerd, like she wanted to before I ran.”

Ari nodded. The gravel crunched beneath our feet. He reached into his jacket and fished something out from an inner pocket. A cell phone.

“Wait—you have a phone?” I stared as Ari powered it up. The phone’s white light seemed as unnatural as the rumbling truck.

“I tried to call out while you were sleeping. Couldn’t get a signal.” Ari frowned at the display. “We’re still out of range. I’ll keep trying. If we can figure out where we are, Mom can pick us up.”

Whatever happens, you can always call me. I hoped Katrin meant that, because right now we didn’t have much choice. I looked at the phone display over Ari’s shoulder. Once we got a signal, we’d know the time—the year. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold.