PART I

A toneless howl assaulted his ears.

Up, down. Future, past.

All melted away.

He tumbled wildly, unable to make sense of the bright lights flashing past him.

‘Loki?’

The howling had ceased. As someone placed their hands on his shoulder and gently rolled him onto his back, the flashes gave way to a single blinding light suspended high above him. Was this it? Or was this only some temporary reprieve? He didn’t recount falling or landing, yet his back was now pressed against something smooth and solid.

Groaning, Loki pushed himself off the ground and propped himself up on his elbows.

Frigga knelt beside him, sunlight turning her hair golden and catching her eyes just at the right angle to make them shine. What little compose Loki still possessed fled him. He scrambled away from her and backed into the balcony railing.

‘What’s happened?’ Frigga said. ‘Loki?’

Her voice was as soft and kind as he remembered it. Her face, presently dark with worry, was also a perfect reconstruction of his memory. After she had died, he had spent hours upon hours lost in the old memories.

Then Frigga moved a step towards him and Loki realised he wasn’t exactly right. She looked younger than she had been in her last days — his mother didn’t yet possess the lines his madness would etch upon her face.

Is this a trick? Or did I really come back years too far?

Loki climbed to his feet and leant against the railing as he palpated his right shoulder. It ached. He must have pulled something when he landed, but it didn’t feel like a serious injury. ‘I’m fine, mother. I was experimenting with a new spell last night and it didn’t go as planned. An unfortunate after-effect, nothing more.’

‘Really? You fainted and slid out of your seat halfway through breakfast. Besides, you were with us at the feast last night.’

Loki glanced to the large oval table that stood in the middle of the balcony. It was laden with food — breads, jams, cold meats, fresh fruit and a variety of cheeses — all barely touched. One of the chairs had been flipped over. It was the one Loki usually occupied when he shared breakfast with his mother out on the balcony of her quarters. Loki turned to look back over the balcony railing and felt a lump solidify in his throat. His mother’s garden was in full bloom.

This was too much. It had been a bitter journey, but in the end he had reconciled with her death and with the knowledge that all vestiges of her life, save Loki himself, had perished either in Ragnarok or by Thanos’ hand.

Yet here she is.

Seeing that no response was forthcoming from Loki, Frigga tried again. ‘You truly do look unwell. Don’t tell me you were awake all night with your books, and before a day like today.’

Of all the things he had missed about Asgard, being chided as if he were a child again had not been one of them. Loki had a number of snide comments at the ready, but as he peered at his mother’s concerned expression, he couldn’t bring himself to utter any of them.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It was ill-advised. I was tired, likely that was why I erred with the spell.’

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‘Do you want to go over it together?’ Perhaps tomorrow or the day after.’

Loki smiled. He and his mother had spent so many days in the quiet surrounds of her personal library, working through arcane texts or experimenting with magic of their own making. Although he usually despised to see his errors exposed, he had never minded sharing his troubles with his mother. Had there actually been a spell that was proving troublesome, he would have told Frigga about it there and then.

‘I think I know where I went wrong,’ he said instead.

‘Still, I would rather you weren’t alone if you attempt the spell again. If these are the side effects, you’re playing with something dangerous.’

If you knew exactly what, mother, you’d be aghast.

‘There was nothing dangerous about it until I skipped two steps in the instructions.’

Frigga shook her head — the familiar gesture that over the years had come to embody Frigga’s repeated admonitions that he needed to be careful when it came to magic.

‘Let us finish breakfast then,’ she said, resting her hand on Loki’s shoulder.

He flinched. She hadn’t touched him since Odin had thrown him in a cell for his attempted invasion of Midgard. That had been the tell-tale sign to her projections. She had always been quick to draw him into her arms, to smooth his hair or to brush away stray speck of dust on his jacket. But not after Loki had disgraced himself.

I can’t. This is too much.

‘I’ve had as much food as I can stomach right now.’ He tried to still the quiver in his voice. ‘Forgive me. I will see you later, mother.’

Not waiting for Frigga’s response, he fled.

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Loki all but ran down the short corridor from his mother’s quarters to the wing he shared with Thor. Paying little attention to what was around him, he nearly knocked over a pair of maids. Loki threw out a hurried apology to the two women and flung open the door to his own quarters. Suddenly, the manic energy that had propelled him away from his mother dissipated. He slid the door shut and leant against it.

It was all as he remembered it. The oak wood furnishings, the slightly faded tapestries, the burn mark in the rug by the door. Even the smell — a peculiar mix of leather from the sparring clothes he always neglected to put away, the herbs kept in his workroom and the scent of jasmine drifting through the open windows — was unmistakably familiar.

Yet Loki crept through his rooms as if he were an interloper. Or rather, he supposed he was. This space belonged to his younger self.

He doesn’t exist anymore. The spell annihilated his mind and I stole his body.

Loki had changed little about the rooms in decades so there was nothing that could give him a clue as to the date the spell had brought him to until he entered the bedroom. The servants, knowing that he preferred to dress himself, had set out his clothes for him. The inner garments were carefully laid out on the bed, while the outer layer of armour and the accompanying cape had been placed onto a specially-constructed valet stand in the corner of the room. Even in this disassembled state, he recognised the clothing immediately.

Loki seized the undershirt and studied the cuffs. He had accidentally dripped a corrosive potion across a sleeve the second time he had worn it, burning several small holes through the fabric. But the cuffs on this undershirt carried no damage. Loki strode over to the armour. He searched the surface for scratches and examined the leather straps for any marks of wear. None. This entire outfit was brand new.

Frigga had implied there was something out of the ordinary occurring today. Now he knew — Thor’s coronation.

His suspicions confirmed, Loki swore. He had set out to kill Thanos, but here he was a decade into the past and half a universe away from where he wanted to be. In fact, Loki wasn’t even sure where Thanos had been this early on. What was Loki supposed to do now? Play along like a puppet, re-treading the same old paths until he could get to Thanos? Living through all of that had been bad enough once, he had absolutely no desire to repeat the experience.

Except, he didn’t have to follow along. If he planned to change the future later on and prevent the Snap, why not go back further? Here his mother still lived, so did his father and brother. Asgard too stood in its full summer glory. Why should he stand back when this was the chance to prevent all the death and destruction the next decade would bring?

‘This time everyone gets to live,’ Loki muttered.

A giddiness he hadn’t felt since he was a child overtook him as he imagined a future where Ragnarok was only a bad dream and the works of the Infinity Gauntlet only a figment of a morbid imagination. Magic was a fickle mistress, but sometimes the gifts it offered were unparalleled.

A wide grin on his face, Loki drummed his fingers against his thigh. What now? He had to begin somewhere after all and since the spell had brought him to this particular morning, there had to have been a reason for it.

Loki pursed his lips as realisation struck him — his ploy to disturb Thor’s coronation.