The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #3)

She’d look up, then motion with her head for me to keep moving, like Give me some space, Chase.

That first day we were open, the Fourth of July, we had a party for our guests on the roof deck. Blitzen and Hearthstone grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. The kids hung out with us, watching the fireworks explode over the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade, lights crackling through the low clouds and washing the Back Bay brownstones in red and blue.

Alex and I reclined next to each other in the lounge chairs, where we’d sat after killing the wolf in Randolph’s library weeks before.

She reached over and took my hand.

She hadn’t done that since we were marching invisibly toward the Ship of the Dead. I didn’t question the gesture. I didn’t take it for granted. I decided just to enjoy it. You have to do that with Alex. She is all about change. Moments don’t last. You’ve got to enjoy each one for what it is.

“This is good,” she said.

I didn’t know if she meant what we’d accomplished with Chase Space, or the fireworks, or holding hands, but I agreed. “Yeah. It is.”

I thought about what might come next. Our jobs as einherjar were never over. Until Ragnarok, we would always have more quests to undertake, more battles to fight. And I still had to find the god Bragi and convince him to write Jack his epic.

Also, I’d learned enough about othala to know that your inheritance never leaves you alone. Just as Hearthstone had had to revisit Alfheim, I had difficult things still to deal with. Chief among them: that dark road to Helheim, the voices of my dead relatives, my mom calling to me. Hel had promised that I would see my mom again someday. Loki had threatened that the spirits of my family would suffer for what I had done to him. Eventually, I would have to seek out the frozen land of the dead and see for myself.

But for now, we had fireworks. We had our friends, new and old. I had Alex Fierro next to me, holding my hand.

It might stop at any moment. We einherjar know we are destined to die. The world will end. The big picture cannot be changed. But in the meantime, as Loki once said, we can choose to alter the details. That’s how we take control of our destiny.

Sometimes, even Loki can be right.