Page 30 of Thor

The featherlight brush of something on her wrist drew her attention to the ribbon, which Thor had already untied and was now carefully storing back in its pouch. "Gods willing, we will use it again in a year, when we are wed."

She stared at him. He meant this, too.

But none of this made any sense. Handfasting, marriage, all of it. Not to mention...

"There isn't any more mead. I only bought the one bottle!" Sibyl hissed. "We can't go back in there without more mead!"

"It does not matter. In a traditional handfasting, the couple usually leave the feast early to engage in a more intimate celebration. The mead is merely an excuse."

Well, they'd have the tent to themselves, at least, with Jorunn still in the mess tent. But everyone would hear them...

"What matters is that the search is finished," Thor finished, nodding at a shadowy figure waiting beside the tent.

Sibyl's blood ran cold, sobering her up almost instantly.

"Who are you?" Sibyl asked, looking the new man up and down. He was dressed like Thor, but way more wiry. Like he was Thor's younger brother, which couldn't be possible. Thor had said he had no family left.

"Loki," Thor growled in warning.

The man closed his eyes and sighed. "Your betrothed said if I so much as looked at you wrong, he would punch me. As I don't want to offend, here." He shoved something into her hands. "We didn't find a hammer, but we did find this. I hope it means more to you than it does to me." He stalked off into the darkness.

Sibyl looked down. "Why am I holding a satphone?" She brought it closer to her headlamp. "This isn't Lara's one. It's smaller." She pressed a button, and the screen lit up. "Looks like someone's been taking pictures of the waste barrels." Why anyone would do that, she had no idea. Maybe it was a mistake, and there were better pictures further along. "A whole gallery of barrels and...wait, is that your hammer? It looks like the handle..." She peered closer. "It went in one of the waste barrels to keep it safe, because it was too big for any of the boxes! We have to go back to the lab before the waste company comes to dispose of them. If only Jakop hadn't already left..."

"We don't need donkeys to get there. I can fly you over the mountains before morning, if we leave now," Thor said.

"I can't just leave..." she began, but she also couldn't risk sending that precious hammer and her PhD to the nearest landfill, either. "I'll tell Karl you're an experienced hiker, and that we left something at the lab, so we have to go back and get it. I'll tell him we'll catch up with Jakop and travel the rest of the way with him."

THIRTY-FOUR

"Quick, get inside before the sun's up," Sibyl said, pushing Thor through the door before following him into the cramped vestibule. She was half dead on her feet, after flying all night with Thor, but he had to be exhausted, seeing as he'd been the one actually doing the flying, while she'd just been along for the ride.

"We need to make sure the hammer's here," he said.

She sighed. "All right, I'll go check to see if the waste barrels are still here. We can check the contents in the morning."

She lurched across the yard to the shed, where an open padlock dangled from the door. She tugged it out of the bolt and opened the door. It took her a lot of fumbling before she managed to turn on her headlamp, but as the beam played over the stacked barrels, she dared to breathe again. The hammer was here. It had to be.

Sibyl closed the door and clicked the padlock into place.

She returned to the lab building, where she found Thor sitting expectantly in the cafeteria. "The barrels are all still here. No one's come to pick them up yet. We can check them tonight."

"But if my hammer's there..." he began eagerly.

She set a hand on his chest, before almost toppling over onto him. "I need to sleep, Thor. I'm no help to you like this, and you can't go out in the sun, remember. So if you're stuck here until sunset, the least you can do is let me sleep until we can go out there together. I promise I'll help you get your hammer back. I'm just...not an immortal Viking gargoyle Norse god..." Then the world sort of slid sideways.

Luckily, Thor caught her before she hit the floor.

"Of course, Miss Sibyl."

THIRTY-FIVE

It was past lunchtime when Sibyl finally woke up. Thor was nowhere to be seen, but as it was still daylight outside, she figured he'd reappear by the time the sun went down. She considered searching through the barrels herself until she found his hammer, but she'd barely been able to lift the hammer when they'd first found it, and now it was packed in a barrel with who knew how much padding and other stuff to protect it, she'd definitely need Thor's help to get it out. Not to mention there were a lot of barrels in there, which she'd need help moving them until she found the right one.

Poor Thor. It must really suck not being able to go out in the sun. To know his hammer was so close, and yet still out of reach for a few more hours. Maybe there was a way to break the curse. Not that she knew much about witchcraft or magic, but she knew someone who did.

Unfortunately, Callie wasn't answering her phone.

Sibyl tried three times, but still no answer. Maybe Callie was in a lecture, with her phone on silent. She'd try again later.

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