Loki: Where Mischief Lies

by Mackenzi Lee

It wasn’t the best strategy for dealing with emotions, but it was his strategy.

But snakes tended to garner attention—Thor would pick up any serpent to admire it.

Who says I want a place in the court of a king who hits himself in the face with his own hammer?” “That was one time!” “And yet it’s burned in our hearts forever.”

Trickster. The nickname used to make him blush. Now every time she called him that, it felt intimate and secret, a name only she used for him. If I’m a trickster, you’re an enchantress, he had said the first time, and he was delighted by how caught off guard she looked. Amora was almost never undone, or if she was, she didn’t show it. Enchantress, she had said, and he could hear the pleasure in her voice. So much prettier than witch, don’t you think?

“Perhaps you could find something more accurate. You could call yourselves the Society where Hospitality is Ignored Totally. Or, for short—”

“Heimdall, this isn’t funny. Bring me back. Tell Father to bring me back. Heimdall, you son of a—” Behind him, he heard a soft crunch, and he whirled on Theo. “Are you eating?!”

“Come along, Your Majesty. It would be my honor to show you how we humans deal with our frustrations.” “How’s that?” Loki asked. “We get well and truly drunk.”

The room was made even smaller by the fact that two walls were stacked to the bottom of the window frame with mismatched books. “You know,” Loki said, toeing a volume that had tumbled from the pile. “You’d have more room if you kept fewer books.” Theo hung his cane on the edge of the grate beside the small fireplace and began to stoke the ashes. “I’d rather have books than space.” “Well, when the floor caves in, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Why waste a cell—why waste your time—trying to punish someone for something that wasn’t a crime?