Page 129 of Valkyrie Unknown

The same one I’d just climbed down. I ran my hand loosely along the side, careful not to catch splinters under the flaking paint. Notches were carved in the side. My initials. My first attempt at carving an image. My last.

I couldn’t be going in circles. I turned and sprinted in the direction I’d come from, passing door after door after door, until I reached the same ladder again.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yelled at the empty space.

If this was a movie, Finn and Davyn would argue about how cliche this was, even though they both had the same opinion. Azzie would be screaming at the main character to try the doors.

That made sense. I grabbed the nearest doorknob and tried to turn it. To push it.

Locked.

So was the next, and the next, and the five after that.

“If there’s no way out, you’re cheating.” I didn’t know who I was talking to, but someone had planted the note at my feet in the attic.

“I don’t cheat.” The voice was in my head. Or in my ear. Or?—

I didn’t know, but they sounded offended.

“If there’s no way to accomplish the final goal, you’re cheating. If you’re hiding the rules, you’re cheating.” Now I was talking to an invisible voice. Wonderful.

I’d done crazier. A lot of it before I met Finn or knew there was real magic in the world.

There was no response.

I dug in my pockets for anything that could mark or gouge the door I had just tried. My keys were gone, and so was the pocketknife I kept on hand. My gun was still in the holster, but I wasn’t shooting at the doors. Not until I was at least a little more desperate.

Instead, I pulled my belt off, wrapped the length around my fist, and carved anXinto the wood in front of me. Then I moved onto the next door, and the next, marking each one that didn’t work.

I continued until I reached the ladder again, then kept going.

A few doors down, I reached one with anXon it. I was about to shout about cheating again, when something caught my eye. I tilted my head. This mark dug deeply into the wood. It was neat and clean, as opposed to looking as if it had been carved with a belt buckle.

I tried the handle, and anxiety and anticipation cranked inside.

Part4

Loki

Thirty-Four

Loki

I wantedto believe that Lugh was getting predictable. However, assuming anything where he was concerned, letting my guard down, was more dangerous than taking on the entire TOM Board in to-the-death combat.

Finn, on the other hand…

He was playing double—triple—agent, and it was obvious. Knowing that he only had one goal made it easy to find my way into Lugh’s game, which was how I found myself in an apartment that looked oddly familiar.

The walls were a textured eggshell color, and the furniture was mismatched. The chair near the far wall had a stain on it, and the coffee table had a magazine under one leg, making it level.

The one spot of color, the literal bright spot in the room, was the woman lying on the couch. That was why this place looked familiar—I’d seen surveillance photos among those of a recent TOM target. The woman we sent Nobles after seven months ago. Our best team.

Until one of them went AWOL and the other turned up in a morgue in Salt Lake City.

Not that I blamed the sniper for leaving, and her partner had been an ass, even by my low bar.

They didn’t matter. The woman who lived in this apartment did, and she was sleeping on the couch in front of me. Given everything I’d seen, everything I knew about Azzie, she’d never in her life owned a sundress like the pale yellow one she wore now.

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