Page 67 of Soul of Shadow
“What is it?” Charlie asked, taking the pouch from Sophie and turning it over in her fingers.
“Feathers from the cloak of the goddess Freyja, imbued with extraordinary magic of protection against supernatural beings. After a lifetime spent chained to a rock, that is what the Fenrirwill desire above all else: protection from the power of the gods. The feathers are one of the only things that can provide that.”
Curious, Charlie pulled on the ties of the bag, trying to open it. Sophie reached out and grabbed her fingers, stilling them.
“Don’t,” Sophie warned. “Those feathers are not to be used lightly. Each contains immense power and can only be used once. Don’t open that bag. Not unless you absolutely need to. Trust me.”
Charlie hesitated, studying her sister’s eyes. Then she nodded, setting the pouch on her desk. “I’ll keep it safe.”
“Good. Because, Charlie—” Sophie reached down and took her twin’s hands. Her leather gloves felt soft and worn on Charlie’s skin, as if they’d held many swords in their lifetime. Charlie gripped her hands tightly within her own, a miniature version of the hug she so desperately wanted to give. “The cracks in the Seal are widening. Beasts are slipping through all around the world, out into the human realm. If we don’t act quickly, things will get very bad, very fast.”
“What are you going to do?” Charlie whispered.
“Leave that to us,” Sophie said. “To the Valkyries. You need to focus on finding the Fenrir, saving those kids, and stopping Elias from getting any information on the location of the Seal.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice slightly. “I know it’s a lot to ask of you. But I also know that there’s no one better for the job.”
Charlie shook her head. She hadn’t realized how afraid she was until her sister spoke those words. It was her and a bag of feathers against a mare, a monster, and a trickster god. Could she really do this? Her, a powerless human being?
“I don’t know, Sophie,” she whispered at last. “What if you’re wrong about me?”
Sophie’s eyes softened. She squeezed Charlie’s hands, her grip strong and fierce. “I’m not,” she whispered back. “Do the things that scare you, Charlie. Go into that forest. Find the Fenrir before Elias does. Allow yourself to see, to trulysee, all the magic that you now know lives around you. Bebrave.” She squeezed her hands again, looking deep into Charlie’s eyes. “Be the girl I always knew you could be.”
Her words plunged deep into Charlie’s chest. They stirred up old feelings, old desires, like stones thrown into a long-empty sea.You were always meant for more, her twin had once whispered, in a dream or in a memory, Charlie still wasn’t sure.
She sensed that their time together was coming to an end. She wanted desperately to grab her sister, to beg her not to go. A foolish part of her imagined that Sophie could fold into their family again. Could heal the grief that had hung over them for the past two years. She could move back into this bedroom, could come to school and sit with her, Lou, and Abigail at lunch; she could be Charlie’s twin sister again. Life would be so easy. So wonderful.
Yet that wasn’t her life anymore. Her life was goblins in the forest, lying mares as homecoming dates, Valkyrie sisters with wings. There was no going back to what used to be. Charlie knew that without having to ask.
With one last smile, Sophie stepped backward, releasing her hands. Charlie’s heart ached at the absence. “Promise me, Charlie,” she said. “Promise me you will carry out this mission.”
Charlie swallowed, barely able to scrape together enough saliva to coat her throat. “I promise,” she said at last.
“Good. There’s just one more thing.” Sophie reached around her waist, extracting a knife from the tangle of weapons on herback. She flipped it around, catching it by the blade and holding out the hilt. “This knife can cut through anything. Concrete, bone, iron—you name it. It’ll go through. But it willnevercut its owner. Not even if you stab yourself with it.”
Charlie widened her eyes, closing her hand tentatively around the blade’s hilt. “Are you… giving that to me?”
Sophie nodded, releasing the knife. “It’s yours now. Keep it safe.”
Without another word, her sister turned and leapt up onto the desk, her legs as strong as an Olympian’s. She ducked low, stepping through the open window and out into the night. Sophie turned for one last look at her sister.
“I’m counting on you, Charlie,” said Sophie. As she spoke, her wings unfolded, preparing for flight, and the light Charlie had seen around her earlier began to glow again, getting steadily brighter and brighter. “As is the rest of the world, even if they do not know it.”
The light around her body built to a blinding peak, like a star exploding, and Charlie squeezed her eyes shut and heard the sound of wings flapping against the wind. When she opened her eyes, the night was dark and her sister was gone.
30
The show had to go on. Elias might have been a liar, and a manipulator, and hell-bent on destroying the very Seal keeping the human race from falling victim to Loki’s army of horrific beasts meant to bully Odin off his throne, but he was still Charlie’s homecoming date. She had to pretend that nothing had changed. That her sister had never visited. That Sophie hadn’t tasked Charlie with thwarting Elias’s mission at all costs.
Charlie had to be a spy, and she had to do it well.
It wasn’t going to be easy. Last night, the minute her sister had vanished, Charlie’s legs had given out, like bone turning to butter, and she’d slid to the floor, grabbing at the foot of the bed for support. The vätte had hopped down from the duvet and waddled over, plopping himself down on her knee. Shakily, she’d reached out a hand to touch his back. He’d nuzzled his hat into her hand.
Don’t break, she thought over and over.Do not break.
She’d felt the tears coming. Whether happy or sad, she didn’t know, but she knew that she couldn’t let them out. Because when she did, she knew they wouldn’t stop. Two years of repressed emotion would bubble forth, drowning her, fillingher lungs with water until she could no longer move. And not moving simply wasn’t an option.
She had a job to do.
As she sat curled up in the library that Saturday morning, laptop shut on blanket-covered legs—not reading a book, not watching videos on close-up magic, not even thinking about what she would do about not having a dress to wear to a dance that was happening that very night—all she could do was plan. Plan how she would act around Elias. What she would say. How she would weasel any information out of him that he had on the Fenrir’s whereabouts. Maybe she could play off what he said he’d figured out about the symbols. Use that as a jumping off point to more targeted questions.
