“I don’t suppose you brought any drink?” Svan asked as he finished a strip of meat of his own.
Like I wanted him drunk. A gust blew beneath the overhang. The fire flickered, but Svan made a quick hand gesture over the flames, and they steadied and burned on. I felt some spark deep within me yearn toward those flames.
Svan looked sharply up. Did he feel the spark as well? He reached toward my singed hair. I jerked away. No way was I letting him touch me. Ari stiffened beside me.
“A bit close,” Svan said. “You should have walked faster. The realm must have begun to change to fire as you jumped.”
No begun about it, but I didn’t tell Svan that. I still didn’t trust him.
He fed a piece of damp driftwood to the fire. It hissed, but then the wood caught. Flames leaped toward the stone above us. “Do you still have Hallgerd’s coin?”
I’d dropped it—but I drew away from Ari and reached into my pocket. The coin was there, warm against my fingers. Would I ever be free of it? No matter what I did—dropped it, threw it away—the thing always found me, just as it must have found Mom.
The coin—Hallgerd’s spell—had killed Mom. I clenched my hand around the silver.
“We must destroy it,” Svan said. “Only by destroying the coin can the fires Hallgerd called on be contained.”
Muninn had thought it best to hide Hallgerd’s coin away in his cave, because destroying it might only make things worse. Katrin thought we needed to bring the coin to Hallgerd’s home and return it, but I didn’t exactly trust her anymore, either.
And I didn’t want to give anything back to Hallgerd. “Will it hurt her much, if we destroy the coin?” Hallgerd said she’d released her claim on it—maybe that didn’t make any difference. She was still the one who’d cast the spell.
Svan wouldn’t meet my eyes. “What matter that, if it keep Hallgerd’s fire from burning the world?”
You don’t understand. “Will it hurt her a lot?” Because right now, I’m more than okay with that.
“It might,” Svan admitted, his gaze on the fire.
“Good,” I said.
Ari and Svan both looked at me. “Truly, you are Hallgerd’s kin,” Svan said.
Ari scowled, showing what he thought of that. He didn’t understand, either. A stray raindrop landed in his hair. “If destroying the coin will hurt Hallgerd, what will it do to Haley?”
Svan loosened his cloak. “Hallgerd altered my teachings in ways I did not anticipate. She always thought she understood more than she did. I cannot say for certain what will happen. Destroying the coin could destroy all those bound to it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I’d risk myself a hundred times if only I could make Hallgerd suffer.
“The hell it doesn’t.” Ari pressed his lips into an angry line. Outside, the wind began to blow the rain sideways.
Svan raised his voice to be heard over it. “I believe Haley makes this choice willingly.”
“No,” Ari said. “Don’t, Haley.”
Easy for him to say. “Your mother’s still alive.”
Ari flinched, then looked right at me, his green eyes sharp.
Ari and his mom were Hallgerd’s kin, too. Why should my mom be dead, while his mom was just fine? Especially since Katrin was the one who had—what? Slept with Dad? Only messed around a little? I didn’t want to know. It was easier when I didn’t remember.
How could Dad have even thought of cheating on Mom? What sort of jerk was he? I thought of how lost he’d looked when he came home last summer. Funny how you left out the part about how it was your fault, Dad.
“We’ll take what precautions we can,” Svan said, “but given the liberties Hallgerd took with her spell, I can make no promises.”
Ari drew his jacket back on, staring at me all the while. “If you need someone to blame, Haley, blame me and be done with it.”
“You didn’t—”
Ari picked up a gray rock and turned it in his hands. Outside, the wind and rain continued. “I came home early, okay? From my summer job. I opened the door, and there they were together. It’s not like Mom hasn’t had other boyfriends, but none of them were married. The worst part was how Gabe and Mom kept saying it was none of my business. The hell it wasn’t. I was so angry.” Ari drew a breath. “One day I’ll learn to keep my big mouth shut.”
“So you walked in on them.” I quickly pushed the images that brought up out of my mind. “That doesn’t make it your fault.”
Ari flung the rock out into the storm. “Who do you think told your mother? Do you think my mom and your dad just walked up to her and confessed?” Sparks flew up from the fire. Svan shut his eyes, but his shoulders remained stiff, watchful. “I thought Amanda had a right to know,” Ari said, quieter now. “I am such an idiot.”
“She did have a right to know.” My voice was low, too, almost too low to hear over the wind.
Ari shook his head. “You don’t understand. She got so angry. She just couldn’t stop yelling, while your dad—”
“Got really quiet.” My throat felt suddenly tight. “I know.”
“Who could blame your mom for running?” Ari said.
I can. Smoke stung my eyes. Because she ran from me, too.
“Your dad thought she just needed time to think, only she never came back. And then my mom, she started looking at the earthquake patterns—there was a decent-sized quake, you know, the day Amanda disappeared—then went down by the waterfall, found a place where some footsteps ended—and began going on and on about Hallgerd and sorcery. I thought it was just another excuse. Mom had all sorts of excuses, like when she told me your parents were thinking about getting divorced, anyway—”
“What?”
Ari scowled and threw another rock out into the rain. “See? I never know when to shut up. I thought you knew.”
“No.” Mom and Dad fought, sure, I knew that—but they weren’t getting-a-divorce fights. They’d never talked about getting a divorce.
How could I not have realized, anyway? “I am so stupid.”
Ari’s mouth pulled into a rueful smile. “So you see, we have something in common.”
It doesn’t matter, I told myself again. All that mattered was that Mom was gone. That was Dad’s fault, and Katrin’s, but most of all it was Hallgerd’s.
I looked at Svan. “Do you have any spells to bring back the dead?”
Svan opened his eyes, and I knew he’d heard our every word. “You need a body to bring back the dead.”
Hallgerd hadn’t even left me that much. I glared down at the coin I held. The fire in me rose toward it. Funny how I could feel so much heat, when every time I thought about Mom, everything in me felt like cold ashes.
The ground trembled a little, as if in response to the fire—my fire or the coin’s fire, I couldn’t tell.
Svan raised an eyebrow. “So you see, Hallgerd’s spell remains active.”
Ari scowled. I ignored him and shoved the coin toward Svan. “Hell yes, I want to destroy it.”
Svan nodded. “As soon as the storm ends, I’ll gather the necessary supplies. We shouldn’t waste any time. There’s no knowing what my niece’s magic will do.”
What about my magic? I kept the thought to myself. “The sooner the better,” I told Svan. I’d cast any spell, if there was a chance that Hallgerd might feel it. If there was some chance I could hurt her as much as she’d hurt me.