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Suddenly he was looking down at her, at the spot her hand wrapped around his. Her nails were green, his were black. He liked the way they looked together, like the scales of a serpent.
“It stands for the Society for Hospitable Activities—” Mrs. S. began, but Loki interrupted. “Yes, I heard you the first time.” “We picked an acronym and worked backward,” Theo murmured. “Perhaps you could find something more accurate. You could call yourselves the Society where Hospitality is Ignored Totally. Or, for short—
The SHARP Society office was located at Number 3½ Finch Street, like it had been forgotten until the last minute and then squashed into what was meant to be an alley.
“Those people have families.” “Everyone has a family.” “That doesn’t mean their lives don’t matter.” “Oh, please.” Loki snorted. “Life is the opposite of precious and rare. It’s everywhere. If you wept for every life lost who mattered, you’d weep until the world ended.”
holding up her glass to the light of the fire, like she was examining it for flaws,
Her eyes combed him, that same intense, searching gaze he remembered. It made his skin itch. It made him want to look away. It made him want to touch his hair to make sure it wasn’t out of place.
“I like SHIELD, because there’s an L in there, so you can work Loki into it.”
“You’ve made friends.” “I have not,” Loki replied crossly. “I didn’t mean it as an insult,” Thor replied, then added, “Most people wouldn’t have taken it as such.”
A hard, unflattering portrait of a man with a sharp smile and a cruel stare, beneath the title Loki, the Trickster. God of Chaos. A few words and phrases jumped out at him. Vain. Shallow. Manipulative. A cruel predator. The father of lies. He cheats. He steals. Murderer. Villainous. Villain.
“Here’s the thing.” Loki stood, tucking both hands behind his back. “No.”
“Oh, I’m almost certain that’s what’s about to happen,” he replied. “Though it took me longer to catch on to it than I care to admit. Love truly does make you blind, but fortunately for me I’m not much for sentiment. It’s so very”—he flicked his fingers in disdain, like he was brushing a bug from the air—“human.”
The deep, shadowed fear that lived inside him had always been right. He would not be king. Not only that, but Odin had never considered him a contender for the throne. Would never see him the way he saw Thor, a young, reckless creature whose rough edges could be sanded off with time and patience and lies. Loki was all rough edges to his father. All jagged and sharp and too difficult to touch without cutting yourself.
He could be the witch. He could be the villain. He could be the trickster, the schemer, the self-serving God of Chaos, prove the mythology books right. Prove them all right in what they had all thought, that he was rotten from the start. He would serve no man but himself, no heart but his own. That would be his choice. He could be the witch. Be the witch, and know everything.
