“You think you have power over me, little human?” he said, laughing, but an indescribable look crept over his face as he stopped fading. He looked like he was standing in a dense patch of fog, his figure kind of wispy and indistinct, but after a few seconds of that he solidified again and marched toward me, his jaw tense and his hands fisted. “The Vikingahärta has the power to summon me, not keep me. What have you done to it?”

I held it up. “I did nothing to it. But it got zapped by an Agrippan and the triangles shifted.”

He stared at it for a moment, then turned a haughty scorn-filled gaze upon me. “I begin to regret my leniency on you earlier. Very well, since you have summoned me, what sacrifices have you made in my name?”

“Er . . .” I tried to think of what I had with me at the moment—other than the Vikingahärta and Tesla—that Loki might be willing to accept as a sacrifice. “I didn’t know I was supposed to bring one. That is, I know we’ve used them in the past, but I wasn’t aware they were mandatory.”

“No sacrifices?” His red eyebrows rose.

“Don’t have any on me at the moment, no.”

“No boons meant to sweeten my favor?”

“Er . . . sorry.”

“No gifts to honor me as the greatest of all the Aesir?” His hair stood on end as he spoke.

Tesla suddenly flicked his head up and snorted at him.

“I’m afraid I don’t have—”

“We have the sacrifices, goddess!”

Loki sniffed in an irritated manner, his jaw set pugnaciously as Eirik stepped forward, pulling out of his voluminous shirt a purple plastic object. “O father of lies, O bale-smith, O Loki the sly, in the name of the goddess Fran, the goddess Freya, and Odin All-Father, we bring to you these highly valuable sacrifices, which we gladly make in your name that you might bestow your favor upon us.” Eirik lovingly caressed the purple vibrator, then laid it at Loki’s feet, bowing three times as he backed up to where the other Vikings stood.

Oh dear goddess. Not the sex toy! Loki is going to go ballistic!

Loki spared it a brief glance. “Have one. What else have you brought me?”

He has one? I asked Ben, astonished.

I really think it’s best you don’t ask.

Agreed. But still . . . Loki has girl toys? Who’d have thought?

You are speaking of a man who was a pregnant mare at one point in his life.

Point taken.

“I bring unto you captured images of many large-breasted women,” Isleif said, presenting the magazine.

“Bah,” Loki said, looking down his long narrow nose at Isleif. “I have many such magazines.”

“This one has twin double-D cups in the centerfold,” Isleif pointed out.

Loki’s lips pursed as he took the magazine. “I accept this gift. What else have you brought me?”

Okay, that’s it. I’m just going to stop being surprised by anything he says from here on out.

Ben laughed in my head.

“We have the chocolate most fine, hewn by many peasants in the Toblerone province,” Finnvid said as he offered up the now yard-high stick of chocolate.

Loki looked at it, then at Finnvid. “Someone has eaten half of my chocolate sacrifice.”

“Turks,” Finnvid said without batting so much as one single eyelash. “Turks tried to take your fine sacrifice, many Turks, clad in the finest steel, riding elephants, and with legions of bowmen, but we slayed them and retrieved your sacrifice before they could completely consume it.”

“Turks love chocolate,” Loki said darkly, taking the giant candy bar. “All right, I accept your offerings. Since it is clearly your wish to humiliate me before my descendant, you will tell me now what it is that you desire of me.”

“I’m not humiliating you before Tesla!” I objected. “He’s not even awake! He’s dozing!”

We all looked at the horse. It was true his eyes were half open, but he had that dreamy look that told me he was enjoying a little horsey nap.

“It is true that my descendant looks well,” Loki admitted. “But I expected nothing else when I arranged for him to be taken into the care of a high priestess of Ashtar.”

“Mikaela?” I asked. “You arranged for it? I don’t think so. I had her and Ramon take Tesla when they decided to leave Circus of the Darned to become farmers.”

“Who do you think urged them to do so?” Loki asked with a self-satisfied smirk. “I did not trust you, a mere child, to see to the welfare of my descendant. But a priestess of the Asatru is a different matter. Tesla is well. I am content to have him remain here.”

“Good, because that’s what I arranged,” I snapped, then remembered that it wasn’t good to lose one’s temper with a god. “We’ve gotten off track. You asked what I want of you, and I’ll tell you—I want my mother back, so you can just stop seducing her now.” I straightened my shoulders in an attempt to look like the sort of person who routinely summoned gods to do her bidding. “And don’t tell me you haven’t done so, because I know for a fact you’ve been stirring up all sorts of trouble, like trying to kidnap me, but getting my roommate, Geoff, instead.”

What was that?

I’ll tell you later.

You’ll tell me now, Ben answered in an inflexible tone that would have rankled if I wasn’t trying to keep control of a pissed-off Norse god.

It’s just like I said—he tried to kidnap me, but got my roomie instead.

Loki continued to look speculatively at me, his gaze sharp and calculating. “I swore to take from you that which you most valued, and I did so. You suffered much—that I know—and it pleased me. If you have continued to suffer, it is not by my doing, although that, too, pleases me. It is interesting, however, that the Vikingahärta did not protect you as you believed it must. Perhaps it has tired of you and is willing to return to me. You will give it to me now.”

“Whoa, hold on there,” I said as Loki took a step forward. Ben did likewise until the two men were just a foot apart, glaring at each other. He already took something from me? What does he mean? What did he take?

I don’t know for certain, but I am beginning to suspect. “Do not approach my Beloved without her permission.”

Loki gave him a jaded look. “Do you think you can stop me, Dark One?”

“I think I can make a damned good attempt, yes,” Ben said calmly, although there was an underlying note of steel in his voice that made Loki hesitate.

“What did you take from me?” I asked, letting go of Tesla to stand next to Ben, my fingers brushing his until he took my hand. “How did you make me suffer?”

He gave me a look that mocked my questions. “I am Loki the Trickster, brother of Odin, and member of the Aesir. I do not need to explain anything to a mere human.”

“Well, I think you’re going to have to explain to this human, because I don’t know what it is you took from me. I don’t recall losing anything I valued except my backpack, and I haven’t so much suffered because of that as I have been annoyed.”

“It is not material things that he stole from you,” Ben said slowly, his eyes a lightish oak color as they considered Loki.

“Then what?” I asked, puzzled.

Have you been happy since you left the GothFaire, Beloved?

I was about to answer that he knew full well I hadn’t been, when it struck me what he was implying.

“You took love from me.” Enlightenment flooded my poor excuse for a brain. “You took the love of my mother and Ben from me by driving me from them, didn’t you? You made me miserable for five whole years!”

Loki smiled a smug smile that I wanted to smack off his face. “I told you that I would have my revenge. Watching you suffer for the last few years has been worth all it has cost me to keep a glamour on you for an entire year.”

“It was a glamour that made everyone drive me crazy?” I asked, stunned by the depths of his machinations. “Is that why everyone—Ben and Imogen and even my mother—was insisting I do what they wanted?” Is that possible? Casting a glamour on someone for a year, I mean.

For a god of Loki’s power? Absolutely.

So it wasn’t you being bossy, and Imogen being pushy, and my mom being my mom? It was the glamour that made us all miserable?

It seems so. Although I doubt if your mother would have changed her mind about me until you were older.

Still . . . I took a deep breath and lifted my chin. “Where is my mother, Loki Laufeyiarson?”

“That you would have to ask Frigga, for I do not know your mother’s fate,” he said with a return of his haughtiness. “Give me the Vikingahärta, and I will let you live in peace.”

I don’t know what to believe. He doesn’t seem to be lying, does he?

No, but he is the trickster.

I sighed. I’m going to have to touch him, aren’t I?

It would probably be the easiest way to determine whether or not he is lying, Ben agreed, his fingers tightening around mine when my stomach clenched at the thought of opening myself up to Loki. I am here, Francesca. I will not allow any harm to come to you.

I know. But I feel obligated to tell you that I love you nonetheless. Would you mind—

You should know by now that you are my earth and stars, Beloved.

It is always nice to hear it, I said as I pulled off my gloves. No sun in there?

The sun and I do not get along, he said with a wry little smile.

“You want the Vikingahärta? You got it.” I held it out, and when he reached for it, I shoved it into his hand, allowing my fingertips to brush his palm. For the space between seconds, I was in the world of Loki. It was a scary place, and left me with the feeling that my hair was standing on end, but one thing was made absolutely clear to me—he wasn’t lying about my mother. He truly did not know where she was.

“Ah, it is as I thought,” Loki said with a fat smile as he beheld the Vikingahärta lying on his hand. “It has returned to me of its own will. I knew the day—” He stopped, frowning. The Vikingahärta didn’t burst into a bright light as it had the last time he touched it, but I felt a slight vibration inside me that seemed to come from it. To our collective amazement, the triangles that made up the valknut shifted for a second time, causing Loki to yelp as he dropped it.