Stormbringer: Book 2 of the Wyrd

Twenty-Four

Getting back was easier than getting out, thanks to some fancy dvergar magitek Uni had brought along. They looked sort of like glowing poles, and the dvergar set them up in a ring around the group, themselves and the jötnar and the æsir and Sigmund standing inside.

To say things were tense would be an understatement.

Uni's brother had surrendered quietly enough, though he had objected when Uni handed over the much-contested gauntlets to Þrúðr. The pair said some words, stiff and formal, and when they were done, Þrúðr was crying, though she wasn't sad, exactly. Just . . . crying.

"Annulment," Lain had explained. He was sitting on one of the weird hexagonal columns of rock, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, looking damp and miserable. Which, good. He kind of deserved.

At least it wasn't raining anymore. Þrúðr had fixed that, lifting Mjölnir to the sky. Her brother—the one who wasn't catatonic—had been horrified, and the þursar hadn't been much better. But all Þrúðr had done was hold the hammer up, hands cupped just beneath the head. Then the rain had stopped, and the clouds had cleared, and Sigmund had been left squinting against the glare of sun on wet-dark stone, stinking of damp sheep.

When Uni finished setting up his teleporting fence, everyone clustered around inside.

"What about the Bleed?" it'd occurred to Sigmund to ask. Wedged in between Lain on one side and Valdís on the other, wet feathers tickling his nose.

Lain shrugged, unlit cigarette dancing between the stitches in his lip like a sulky teen. "Mjölnir's gone. It'll close by itself."

"Yeah, but . . . the people?" Sigmund had never been to Bowral before. He suspected he wouldn't be hurrying back.

"Few fights, maybe." Lain didn't seem particularly concerned. Just tired, all tattered feathers and ashen skin. Even the glow of his tattoo seemed dull and faded out. "Bit of sledging on the pitch."

Sigmund didn't like it. But there were a lot of things he wasn't liking about today. This was not very close to the top of the list.

Somewhere over the other side of the crowd, Uni hit a button, and Sigmund felt his stomach drop and his vision flare.

When the world came back, everything was dark, and Sigmund was being held upright by Lain's big, hot claws. In the distance, giant glowing mushrooms waved in the darkness.

After that, it was all over bar the shouting.

* * *

"But seriously did you even fucking have a plan?"

Later. Uni—who'd turned out to be a pretty nice guy—had put the pair of them up in a room in his dad's mansion. The rest of the þursar were outside, making camp. Þrúðr and Magni and Móði had vanished down a corridor shortly after they'd teleported in, and Sigmund hadn't seen them since.

He had taken a hot shower, because apparently the dvergar had the same indoor plumbing Ásgarðr did. His clothes were currently drying in a small room sort of like a dry sauna that seemed designed for exactly that purpose.

His phone hadn't made it. Water had gotten into the case, turning it into a very expensive paperweight before they'd even gotten out of the Bleed. Sigmund had panicked for exactly half a second before realizing Lain probably shat new phones twice a day, so whatever.

Lain, who was currently sitting on a low table with a towel over his chipped and healing horns, scowling. And Sigmund, standing not three feet away, whose own towel was wrapped around his waist.