and kept climbing.
When Patrick finally reached the branch overhead, he scrambled onto it, crouching low to make himself as small of a target as he could. They’d hung Odin from one of the lowest branches, but it was still many stories up from the ground. A fall from this height could be deadly.
More magic seared through the canopy, crashing into Yggdrasil. Patrick ducked his head and kept his shields anchored as leaves fell around him. Something crashed through the canopy, and he barely missed getting hit by a larger branch that had been shorn off.
The wood beneath his bleeding hands grew hot, and Patrick had to let go to keep his skin from burning. He pulled his dagger free and carefully moved down the length of the branch to where the rope was tied. He was halfway there when the faint connection he was doing his best to ignore tightened from close proximity.
Patrick’s heat charms had been burning through their magic since he’d left the SUV. He kept meaning to recharge them. It wasn’t the weather that made him freeze, but the knowledge of who was behind him, balancing on a knife edge that doubled as a tree branch hanging over the world.
For a moment, a memory flashed through Patrick’s mind—of them laughing as he chased Hannah through a kitchen that smelled like cookies into a warm backyard in the middle of summer. How he followed her to the tree house someone in his mother’s family had built for them.
It was a blurred mess in his mind, time having faded the edges of that home and the features of his sister’s face when she’d been young and alive and not the starved thing watching him with a goddess’ tormented eyes.
Patrick kept his balance on the branch, dagger clenched tight in one bleeding hand, as he stared at his twin while the battle raged beyond them.
Hannah was dressed in casual clothes not fit for winter, and her red hair, once tangled and long, had been shorn up to her shoulders. Patrick didn’t have to think very hard about what spell Ethan would’ve used her hair for.
There’d been idols and a sacrifice and prayers to a god for a reason.
Hannah said nothing, but her intent was communicated through the burning magic that poured from her fingertips, the power of a nexus cradled in her body and soul from a godhead aching to be freed.
Patrick had no hope of containing Hannah and the godhead trapped in her soul—not here, not now. Persephone could want Macaria back all she liked, but Odin was Patrick’s priority right now, and he clung to that mission with every last bit of him.
Bleeding fingers included.
Patrick threw himself off Yggdrasil’s branch, reaching for the rope Odin hung from with his one free hand. The spell meant to kill him burned through the space Patrick had been standing in, charring leaves to ash as gravity pulled him down.
Patrick got his fingers around the rope, and momentum had him crashing into Odin’s body. They swung there in the open air like a pendulum, and Patrick found himself staring into Odin’s eyes.
They blinked back at him.
Patrick bit back a yell of surprise and tried to ignore the way the rope was shredding his palms. Planting one foot against Odin’s chest, he levered himself upward and pressed the edge of the dagger blade against the rope. White heavenly fire flickered in its depths, along with countless silvery words giving voice to the prayers that shaped the weapon.
He didn’t bother with sawing through the rope, just put his strength and the dagger’s magic behind the blade to cut through the fibers with a single slice.
The rope separated and Patrick was weightless for not even half a second before they plummeted to earth.
I didn’t think this through.
Patrick and Odin fell through snow and wind and bursts of magic—landing not on the ground, but caught by Brynhildr.
Patrick slammed against the back of Dynfari behind Brynhildr, the valkyrie’s free hand snapping out to grab him by his leather jacket to steady him. Patrick reflexively tightened his grip on his dagger as Odin’s weight where it swung in the air nearly pulled his left arm out of its socket.
“Shit! Shit!” he cried out as he scrambled to not fall off the pegasus or let Odin’s body go.
“Hold on!” Brynhildr yelled.
“I’m fucking trying!”
The ground rushed up to meet them. When they were close enough he didn’t think any bones would get broken, Patrick let go of Odin. The god’s