The Sword of Summer (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #1)

by Rick Riordan

BACK IN SCHOOL, I loved ending stories that way. It’s the perfect conclusion, isn’t it? Billy went to school. He had a good day. Then he died. The end.

She made me promise that when she died, I’d have her cremated. I’d scatter her ashes in the woods of the Blue Hills. If I died first, she promised she would do the same for me. Neither of us liked the idea of being embalmed, turned into some chemically stabilized exhibition, then buried in a box. We wanted to be in the sunshine and the fresh air and just kind of dissolve.

“Somebody once told me that a hero’s bravery has to be unplanned—a genuine response to a crisis. It has to come from the heart, without any thought of reward.”