The chandeliers jingle lightly, almost as if they are reacting to the flute song. I walk past the mirrors and giant windows that look out upon the snowy landscape. I move past the gilded moldings and the seven-foot gold candelabras that burn with crystal flames. Each step on the marble floor pushes a little more strength into me. Each step convinces me that I’ve done the right thing. Each step makes me harden up a little more, because if I don’t make myself harder, I will just fall down and cry over losing the chance to see my dad.
Hel waits for me at the end of the hall. She envelops my hand with hers and ushers me onto an interior balcony that wraps around a large courtyard-type room full of people who are both lounging and busy. The flute music comes from a little girl who sits on top of a gilded piano in the center of the room.
“She’s so young,” I whisper.
“Many of us are young when we die.” Hel states this like it is nothing, and maybe to her it is nothing, but to me? It’s a whole lot of something.
As we walk, I get a better angle at the room below us. There are about two hundred statues, spouting water. They are bronze and gold and crystal, and most seem to have something to do with Norse mythology. Giant wolves snap at the moon. Horses paw at the air. Giant tree sculptures reach up to the ceiling and embrace it.
“So,” I say again, hoping for more information, “how do we stop this Ragnarok thing?”
“You can’t wait for it to happen. You have to go to it. What is the word you use in your country, in your time? You have to be proactive, not reactive?” Her hand flutters up into the air like she’s trying to find the right way to tell me.
“Strike first?” I can’t believe a god is telling me to be proactive.
“In a way.”
“Everything we’ve read says that freeing Loki is the big signal that starts the apocalypse rolling. It’s in all the books, the ancient texts, the Internet sites. Because I can refuse to do that. I will never do that.” My voice comes out so hard and so tough that it surprises me.
She stops and leans on the marble railing. Her hands look so different from each other. I stare at them as she says, “You cannot say what you will never do, Zara. Loki is trapped unfairly. Though I am partial because he is my relation. But it is better for him to stay trapped than to kill all in your world. Still, there will be circumstances that may sway you.”
I ask, “Can you see what happens like Cassidy does?”
“The girl with elf blood? Like her, I see only glimpses.” She sighs, uses her ghoulish hand to pick a speck of dust off of the railing. She holds it in the air and lets the current of wind whisk it away. It catches the light and then I can see it no longer. “Let me tell you what I can: you need an army that has nothing to lose.”
Her voice matches my insides like they are made of the same sad emotion. Where do I find an army that has nothing to lose? I think about all the kids we’re training. They all have so much to lose. Still, we are fighting against an apocalypse, so we sort of have nothing to lose. I start to explain this and ask her if I’m right. She gives a slight shrug, the kind of shrug that makes me think I am probably wrong.
“Can you tell me anything else?” I ask.
“Only magic will stop them.”
“A magic thing?”
“The kind of magic that comes from inside.”
Something beneath us has caught her attention. I figure out where she’s looking. It’s past the galloping horses fountain, past a lovely old couple in tweed, over to the left a bit and—
“There’s something going on down there,” I say.
“There is,” she agrees.
“Should we check it out, maybe? Is everything okay?” I’m worried by her lack of concern.
The air in the room seems to empty out. The flute stops. I see him.
My voice fills the void with a rushed whisper. “That’s my dad, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
He’s leaning against a wall, talking. His legs are crossed casually at the ankle. He stops in midsentence and his head slowly moves up so that his gaze meets mine. His lips part just the tiniest bit like they always do when he’s surprised.
“Daddy!” It’s a little-girl word, but I don’t care. That’s what he is. That’s who he is to me.
I fly down the stairs, head spinning, any resolve I had before about not seeing him no longer mattering. My father—here. He is truly here. I hadn’t quite believed it. And so close. And he is running too, racing across the marble floor. People part for him, stepping out of the way so we can get to each other more quickly.
“You’re here! I mean, I knew you were here, but I’m not supposed to see you. I chose …” My words have rushed out of me before I even know what I’m saying, and I break them off as he scoops me up into what we used to call the Daddy Bear Hug. He squeezes and squeezes and I clutch on to him. Nothing has ever felt so good. Not ever. I hold on and hold on. I will never let go.
My feet come back to the ground, but we still hug.
“You died?” he whispers. “So soon?”
“No! No! I’m still alive, just trying to save the world.” I rush out the briefest explanation I can and since he’s my dad and ridiculously smart he understands all of it pretty much instantly.
“I’m so sorry I left you like that, Zara,” he starts. His voice breaks and he tries again. “I-I’ve been so worried about you and your mother. I’m so sorry. So sorry I’m not there for you, to help you, to take care of you.”
“Daddy, you can’t apologize for that.” My fingers flutter up, go to each side of his beautiful dad face. He is scruffy. “You didn’t choose to die. It’s not your fault at all.”
He swallows so hard that his Adam’s apple visibly rides up and down in his throat. An icicle of light shines in his brown eyes.
“I saw him at the window and I was so shocked. My heart froze in my chest. That’s what it felt like …”
“Saw who, Daddy?”
He eyes me. “Your biological father.”
The air whooshes out of me. All this time, that’s what I’d thought had happened, but knowing it still shocks me. My biological father frightened my dad to death. The horribleness of it makes my stomach clench.
My dad’s hand moves across the hair on the top of my head. “I am so proud of you. We never told you so much about who you are, our history, and you—you are so strong and beautiful, Zara. You’re so strong.”