Thief Eyes - Janni Lee Simner [62]
Even now, I trusted Hallgerd with magic less than I trusted myself. Hallgerd’s magic already had killed. Yet she hadn’t even seemed to want the coin when last we’d spoken. “Do I have a choice?” I asked Muninn.
“There’s always a choice.” The raven’s wingbeats were slow, rhythmic. “Yet bear this in mind, Haley—if you refuse this bargain, I will do all I can to claim your memories once more.”
“Which, as it turns out, is not very much,” a voice said. I looked around and saw a small white fox crossing the bridge over the mist-shrouded river.
“Freki!” I said.
Freki calmly trotted over to stand at my feet. “You know you have no control over Haley’s memories now, Muninn, any more than you had control over Hallgerd’s memories once she made her bargain. The spirits that burned away Haley’s hair burned away the veil over her memories as well. Those powers are older than you or I, and as you say—we have no sway over them.”
Muninn’s feathers puffed out. “This is none of your concern, Freki.”
“Ah, but it is.” The rain didn’t touch Freki’s fur, either. “Haley gave me a gift, and I may have the chance to repay her, this day. So I will wait. Make your decisions, Haley. Cast your spell, or choose not to cast it. Neither Muninn nor I may interfere.”
I looked at Ari. He looked at me. I knelt down and hugged the little fox tightly. “I missed you,” I whispered, and realized it was true.
Freki squirmed out of my arms. “I have done my job well, then.”
“Do you think I should accept Muninn’s bargain?”
“I cannot say,” Freki told me. “Mostly because I do not know.”
“The fate of the land is at stake,” Muninn said with several short, sharp wingbeats.
“This is not the first time the fate of what matters most has rested on human choices.” Freki curled up at my feet, resting his head on his paws. “None but our master sees the future in full, and the price he paid is not one that others can bear. Haley will do as she thinks best, and no one here knows what will happen after that.”
Rain still fell, soaking through my jeans and steaming back into the air. No one knows what will happen. If only we did know—then Mom never would have gotten on a plane to Iceland. Ari never would have told Mom—or me—the things that he did. I wouldn’t have run from the things I was told. And Dad wouldn’t have—I pushed that thought aside. “None of us know. We just do the best we can and hope we don’t screw it up too badly.”
“Yeah,” Ari said with a wry smile. “That.”
Whatever you steal, be sure to give it back again. Hrut’s words—I had no idea whether he’d meant the coin when he spoke them. But Katrin had thought the coin should be returned to Hallgerd, too. Did I trust Katrin? I thought of her and Dad—then I thought of how Katrin had stayed up through the night for me, translating Icelandic words to English ones, doing everything she could so that I wouldn’t face magic unarmed.
I thought of Thorgerd, Hallgerd’s daughter, whose warnings and instructions Katrin had passed on. Thor gerd’s descendants had remembered, for generation after generation, that the coin needed to be returned. There had to be some reason for that.
I hadn’t destroyed the land or the world yet. Neither had Hallgerd. Maybe there was a reason for that, too.
I fished the coin out of my pocket and set it down beside the black fire stone. “Let’s finish this,” I said.
Ari nodded and handed me the spellbook. I read Thorgerd’s instructions one more time, thinking of how it took a thousand years’ worth of my ancestors—of Hallgerd’s daughters—to get this book to me.
Muninn’s wings flapped steadily as he watched me. The mist thickened. “If this goes badly,” the raven warned me, “you will pay.”
Ari handed me the mead. We exchanged a glance as I uncorked the skin. If things are going to go wrong, this is the place. Freki’s whiskers twitched. The little fox turned away from me and began nosing through my backpack. I poured the mead into the bowl, careful not to splash any to the ground. The amber liquid was tinged faintly