“ Whomade you do it?” Matt asked.

“H-him,” she sobbed. “He made me do it, and if I don’t come back, he’ll kill my family.” She lifted her face to his and her eyes seemed genuinely red now. “Please, Matt. Let me go, and I’ll tell him you’re heading to North Dakota. You’ll be safe.”

She reached out and wrapped her fingers around his arm, and when she did, the amulet’s heat scorched again.

Matt shook his head. “You’re going to answer a few questions. Then, if I think you’ve told me the truth, I’ll let you go.”

She looked up, and the red shot right through her eyes, through the whites and through the irises and even the pupils.

“You just don’t know when to give up, do you?” She lunged to her feet and gave him a shove.

He’d been crouched on his toes, and the push knocked him off balance. When he saw her going for the bag, he shouted, “No!”

His hand shot out, Hammer launching, but she veered at the last second before grabbing it, and was heading across the yard, for another neighboring yard.

Matt hesitated for a second. He looked at the bag. Then he raced to it, grabbed it, and went after Astrid. He pursued her over three fences, but she was a faster runner, and with each one, he fell farther behind, until he climbed the fourth, looked out, and saw no sign of her.

“You!” a voice boomed.

Matt followed it to a second-story window, where a man glowered down at him.

“Get out of my yard now, or I’ll come down there and—”

Matt didn’t hear the rest. He was already running for the gate.

Matt spent twenty minutes searching for Astrid. There was no sign of her. He’d have to go back to the house and see if Fen could track her. In the meantime, at least they had the shield. And they still had Paul. Whatever Astrid knew, Matt bet the Raiders did, too.

Matt walked to the shed. He opened the door, looked in, and saw a pile of cords and discarded duct tape. Paul was gone.

TWENTY-FIVE

LAURIE

“LET’S GO TO HEL”

When Matt had gone upstairs to Baldwin’s room to talk to Fen, Laurie had followed him. They didn’t talk, but she knew as well as Matt did that Fen had tried to save Baldwin. She wanted to tell all of that to Fen, but he was gone. She walked over to the window—which was still open—but she couldn’t see her cousin outside anywhere. Matt had taken off after Fen had, but Laurie wasn’t really sure if Matt could say or do anything to bring Fen back to them.

Laurie had been to funerals, so it wasn’t the first time she’d been in the room with a dead person. It was different with Baldwin. He’d just been alive, laughing, and being his goofy self. Staying in the room with Baldwin now that he was gone wasn’t like being at a viewing at the funeral home with her dad. This was her friend, one of the descendants, and he was dead.

The whole thing felt unreal, more than trolls or mara. Monsters were one thing, but a dead friend was another. Laurie felt like she was in a haze, too shocked to even cry, though tears kept falling from her eyes. She’d gone downstairs to wait. By then, Fen, Matt, and Astrid were all missing. She was alone in the house with the twins, who retreated to another room. On the heels of their victory in getting the shield, they’d lost in a way no one could have seen coming.

Who dies eating pizza?It was insane. It should be impossible. They weren’t even at a battle.

Laurie half sat, half flopped down on the sofa, thinking about how quickly everything changed. It was wrong to be here in Baldwin’s house now that Baldwin was gone. She imagined his parents coming home and finding him. The boy who was impervious to injury had died—which didn’t make anysense.

The only thing that could kill or injure Baldwin was mistletoe. Pizza wasn’t made with any sort of mistletoe. It simply didn’t make sense.

A door opened, and she scrambled up to see who it was.

Fen walked into the kitchen.

“I’m sorry,” Laurie murmured. She started to go to him, to grab him and hug him, but he looked so angry that she stopped.

Fen looked at her, and she knew he wanted to tell her it was okay, but it wasn’t. If someone had blamed her for anything, Fen would’ve jumped to her defense—even if she’d done it. She didn’t think he had done anything wrong, and she hadn’t thought it when Astrid had implied he’d caused it. She’d been shocked, scared, and crying. By the time she’d thought to speak, Fen was already gone.

“I didn’t think you did anything wrong,” she swore. “I just… I didn’t have time to tell you. I would’ve. It was just that Baldwin was just here, and then he was…” Her words trailed off, and she swatted at the tears that were on her face again.

“Dead,” Fen finished.

He grabbed the jar of red-pepper flakes and unscrewed the top. Silently, he poured it into one hand and poked at the flakes with his finger.

“It’s not all pepper,” Fen said flatly.

Her gaze flickered between his upraised hand and his red, swollen eyes. He might not be crying right now, but she could tell that he had been.

“Mistletoe?” she asked.

“It has to be. Someone put mistletoe in there and left it on the counter for him to… Astrid.” Fen looked at Laurie with fury in his expression. “She said it was easy. She thankedme. She thanked him.”

He slammed his hand down.

“She poisoned him, and she knew I couldn’t stop it.” Fen looked like he was going to snap, and his voice sounded increasingly like an animal’s growls were twisted around his words. “She watched him die. She killedhim.”

Laurie could hear the anger seething in Fen’s voice, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Astrid had poisoned Baldwin. She’d put mistletoe in the pepper shaker, and Fen had put the poison on Baldwin’s pizza without knowing he was killing him.

“I couldn’t save him,” Fen whispered.

Laurie grabbed Fen and pulled him to her. “It’s not your fault.”

Although Fen didn’t pull away, he didn’t hug her back, either. “It’s just like the myth. I had a part in killing him.”

Laurie squeezed her cousin, as much to let her buy time as to let him calm down. She wasn’t entirely convinced that Fen could contain himself if he saw Astrid. What if she comes back?The reality of it was that one of their group had been murdered by another. She didn’t know if she could handle Fen doing the same thing—or if Fencould.

They were still standing there when Matt walked into the room. He looked as devastated as Laurie felt. Fen pulled away from her and squared his shoulders, bracing himself for a fight.

“Astrid’s gone,” Matt said.

At the same time, Fen said, “Astrid poisoned Baldwin.”

There was a long moment of silence as the boys looked at one another. Then Matt took a deep breath. “You were right,” he said. “About not trusting her. I should have listened.”

Fen shrugged. “I didn’t have any proof.”

Matt met Fen’s gaze. “I still should have listened.”

Fen nodded and shifted uncomfortably. Laurie cleared her throat and rescued him by asking Matt, “What happens in the myth? After Balder died, what did the gods do?”

Matt paused, and then, slowly, he smiled. “They went after him.”

“Went where?”

“To Hel, the land of the dead.” Matt looked from Laurie to Fen and back again. “Do you think you can open a doorway there?”

Laurie took a deep breath before she could answer. This wasn’t some little thing they were considering. Go to Hel? Could they even do that? What kind of monsters were there? All sorts of fears swirled through her, but in the middle of the fear was hope. If they could do this, they could bring Baldwin back. She nodded. “I dofind descendants of the North.”