Chapter 52: Tavin

Baldr was on his feet when Loki reached the common room.

“We’re leaving.”

“Did he—”

“Now.”

They took fresh horses.

By the time they reached Concordia, the lamps along the main road had been lit.

Atreyu met them in the gatehouse.

Loki gave him the address before he had fully dismounted.

“Send men. Quietly. There may be a prisoner.”

“What’s coming?”

Loki looked toward the palace.

“Something that doesn’t need a door.”

Tavin was alive.

Mara found him in a locked storeroom behind a tile merchant’s yard, bound to a chair with a damp cloth wrapped around one hand.

Two fingers had been burned.

He began apologizing before she cut him free.

“I told them. I told them where—”

“Breathe.”

“They said they’d—”

“I believe you.”

That stopped him.

Mara crouched until he could see her face.

“You’re coming with us. Then you can tell me what they asked.”

Beyond the door, Watch officers searched the building.

They found palace drawings.

A basket of discarded clothing.

Three jars containing gray dust.

And an iron stove hot enough that no one could approach it, although its chimney gave off no smoke.

Mara looked at the stove.

Then at Tavin.

“What’s in there?”

The boy began shaking.

“Don’t open it.”

She stood.

“Everybody out.”

The message reached the palace while Thor was checking the chimney in the twins’ new room.

She had removed the grate.

The chimney had been closed with a fitted stone plate before the room was prepared, but she inspected the mortar anyway.

Lexander stood nearby with Ignatius against his shoulder.

Io held Seraphina.

Atreyu read Mara’s note once.

Then he looked toward the window.

“Aurethar.”

The dragon’s eye opened.

“How quickly can you reach the east warehouse quarter?”

“Quickly.”

“There’s something being kept alive in a stove.”

Aurethar lifted his head.

For the first time that night, Thor smiled.

It was not a pleasant smile.

“Finally,” she said, “a sensible use for a stove.”

Loki shook his head.

“We don’t burn it.”

Thor looked at him.

“It’s made from the remains of something Surtr burned. Heat may be what holds it together.”

Aurethar was already rising.

“Keep everyone away from the building.”

Lexander went to the window.

“What will you do?”

“See what it is before I decide.”

Then the dragon moved.

The warehouse street emptied quickly.

People obeyed Mara’s instructions with growing urgency once a dragon descended into the yard behind her.

Aurethar folded his wings with care.

The roof tiles still rattled.

Mara pointed through the open doorway.

“Back room. Iron stove.”

“Water?”

“A well. No running channel.”

“Bring buckets. Keep the people carrying them outside.”

The stove began to knock.

Once.

Twice.

As though someone inside it was testing the iron.

Mara backed toward the yard.

A narrow seam of orange light appeared around its door.

Aurethar lowered his head.

“Out.”

She obeyed.

The stove split.

What came out had been trying to resemble a young man.

It had a mouth.

One eye.

A shoulder that ended in loose strands of blackened fiber.

The rest moved like ash caught in a draft.

It struck the ceiling, searching for a gap.

Aurethar inhaled.

Every loose ember in the room bent toward him.

The thing fell.

It hit the floor with a sound like broken pottery.

Then it crawled.

Toward the open door.

Toward the lamps.

“Put those out,” Mara shouted.

The Watch extinguished them.

In the darkness, the creature’s body glowed through a hundred thin cracks.

Aurethar drew another slow breath.

The glow dimmed.

The thing lifted its head.

For an instant, its face became Tavin’s.

Its mouth opened.

“Please.”

Mara felt the word strike her.

Aurethar did not move.

The face broke apart.

What emerged beneath it had no human proportions.

“Water,” he said.

The first bucket struck the creature’s back.

Steam filled the room.

It shrank away from the wet floor.

Another bucket.

Then another.

Aurethar kept drawing the heat out of it.

At last, something small and hard struck the stones.

The ash collapsed.

Nobody moved.

Mara stood outside the doorway with an empty bucket in her hands.

In the center of the wet floor lay a black object no larger than a plum.

It pulsed once.

Then went dark.

“Is it dead?” she asked.

Aurethar watched it.

“I don’t know.”

He lowered one claw in front of the doorway.

“So nobody touches it.”

They brought a lidded iron vessel.

At Aurethar’s direction, they filled it with water and lowered the black remnant inside using long fire tongs.

The dragon watched until the lid was secured.

Then he remained beside it.

Mara found Tavin sitting in the back of a Watch cart, wrapped in a blanket.

The contractor had arrived.

He sat beside the boy without speaking, one broad hand resting carefully on his shoulder.

Tavin looked at Mara.

“Did it get out?”

“Not into the street.”

His eyes closed.

“They made it wear my shirt.”

Mara sat on the edge of the cart.

“You told us enough to stop it.”

“I told them how to get in.”

“And then you helped us stop it.”

He shook his head, unable to accept the second thing alongside the first.

She did not force him.

After a while, the contractor drew the blanket more securely around him.

“We’ll get your hand seen to,” he said.

Tavin began crying.

Lexander read the report in the children’s room.

All of it.

Then he read it again.

Io waited until he looked up.

“Mara?”

“Safe.”

“The boy?”

“Alive. Lisbeth’s meeting them in the infirmary.”

“Aurethar?”

“Staying with the vessel until we decide where to keep it.”

Thor sat beside the door.

Mjölnir rested across her knees.

“That’s one,” she said.

Loki stood by the window.

“Yes.”

It was all anyone could honestly promise.

Io looked at the linen above the entrance.

Then at the sealed fireplace.

“The ward wouldn’t have warned me.”

“Not if it entered through the flue,” Fulla said.

The older woman had been quiet through most of the night.

Now she came closer.

“You protected the doorway we understood.”

Io’s eyes shone.

“I need to understand more.”

“We will.”

Lexander laid the report aside.

“Tomorrow we inspect every route into the family rooms. With the people who built them.”

Atreyu nodded.

“And the drawings stay accounted for.”

“Copies for the work that needs doing,” Lexander said. “No one gets punished for needing a measurement.”

Loki looked toward him.

A faint approval crossed his face.

Fear could have made that order very different.

Near dawn, Thor finally accepted relief from Baldr.

She remained on the couch.

Relief, in her opinion, did not require leaving.

Io slept beside the twins’ cradles.

Lexander found Loki in the corridor.

For once, neither had sought out a terrace.

“Fenrir gave you the address?”

“Yes.”

“He knew what was being planned?”

“Enough.”

Lexander took that in.

There was no version of the answer that made everything simple.

“He helped save them tonight.”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t settle the rest.”

“No.”

Loki looked older than he had the day before.

Lexander put a hand on his shoulder.

“Tell him the children are safe.”

Loki swallowed.

“I don’t know if he’ll still be there.”

“Then leave the message.”

After a moment, Loki nodded.

Inside the room, Ignatius began fussing.

Lexander turned toward the sound.

His hand was on the latch when Loki spoke again.

“The assembly?”

Lexander stopped.

Six weeks.

Two kingdoms.

A school exhibition he had promised his sister he would attend.

He thought of the contractor sitting beside Tavin in the cart. Of the captain who had held the wagon. Of everyone whose ordinary work had become dangerous because Surtr wanted something from their family.

“It goes ahead,” he said.

Then he opened the door.

Ignatius quieted when Lexander lifted him.

The boy caught his collar and held on.

Lexander stood beside the window until the sky began to brighten, one hand supporting his son’s small, warm back.