voice finally dying.
“Oh? So you just happen to be hanging out in the death realm for no real reason? Chilling in the woods, waiting for someone to stroll past?”
“The manner of how I came to be here I cannot discuss with you, but my choice it was not. Even for a man whose home is a well, this place is… unpleasant.”
I put my hands on my hips, no less suspicious. “You can’t? Or won’t?”
“I cannot.” His bushy eyebrows pulled into a frown. “And for now, it is not important. What is important is that I learn the truth of your ability to sustain life in this place before your cold companion returns. Come. Pick me up.”
“He’s not so much a companion as he is my killer. You get that, right?” I said, hesitantly returning to Mimir’s tree stump. I wasn’t sure exactly what the prophet wanted from me, but if he wished to do it before Grim came back, it might mean that he was… well, at least not on the same side as the asshole who’d betrayed me.
“He was the tool that brought you here. I understand,” Mimir agreed. “Now lift me.”
I hesitated for another moment, the thought of touching a severed head making my stomach twist.
Mimir arched his eyebrows at my reluctance. “I don’t drip. The spell that sustains my life has me perfectly preserved. Come now—the woman prophesied to save the world can’t be squeamish.”
I grimaced, reaching down to gently grab him under the ears. He maybe had a small point. “I thought me dying kind of ended that prophecy. Can’t I be as squeamish as I want now?”
“Ah, but did you die, plum?” he said, eyes sliding from mine to my throat. “That is the only question worth asking now. Hold me against your neck. I need to smell you.”
Awkwardly, I did as he commanded. His beard and eyebrows tickled me as he inhaled deeply at the hollow of my throat, and I gritted my teeth to resist the urge to toss his head like a ball.
“Interesting,” he murmured. “Very interesting.”
“So? Am I not dead after all?” I asked, wild hope blooming through the bizarreness of this whole encounter. I pulled him out at arm’s length to look at him again, willing him to confirm that this had all been some horrible misunderstanding.
“Oh, no, you’re dead,” he said, and my moment’s worth of elation withered into dust. “But… there is… something. Some… shred of immortality lingering in your essence where there should be nothing but humanity. Tell me, little omega, has anyone gifted you an item of divinity?”
An item of divinity? I frowned. “What, like a necklace that grants nine lives?”
“A necklace, a trinket… an apple, perhaps?” His dark eyes bored into mine, and those bushy eyebrows quirked knowingly.
An apple. I blinked, the memory of Bjarni feeding me a golden fruit as we crossed Bifrost flickering in my mind, as well as his matter-of-fact attitude as he told me what eating it had done.
Immortal. He had made me immortal. Somewhere along the journey to find Loki and fighting Nidhug, I’d forgotten the magnitude of that gift.
I gasped, eyes going wide as I stared at Mimir. “Idun’s apples! Bjarni… he stole one for me!”
“Bjarni Lokisson! That boy isn’t half as dumb as his reputation would have you believe. Oh, my pretty plum, that is why your womb is still fruitful.” Mimir cracked a wide, toothy grin. “And that is how we are going to escape this miserable place.”
I blinked, my brain taking a while to process his words even as my heart picked up speed. “Escape? There’s… There’s a way out of here?”
“There are…” He looked up toward the sky. “…two ways out of Hel for the omega still carrying a spark of life where nothing but death should exist. But, I suspect, only for as long as the apple’s effect is still within you. Once a year, the gods must eat from Idun’s tree. If you are still here after that time, there will be no stopping death’s final ravishment. And should you be killed while still in this realm…”
“Then no more second chances, either,” I said, but despite the grimness of his warnings, excitement pounded in my veins. “So I’ll be careful, and I’ll be out before a year’s passed. Tell me, how do I escape?”
He quirked his eyebrows at me. “I will tell you in due time, plum.”
“And now isn’t ‘due time’? Grim’s going to come back at some point, and I doubt he’ll