Revna held a small section of Reidun’s long hair as dark as the feathers on their raven mechanicals, then gently worked the boars’ hair brush through the knots at the bottom. She sighed. Her little sister could brush her own hair now, but that didn’t mean she was any good at it.

“What are you going to do with this rat’s nest of hair when I’m gone?” Revna asked, trying to keep her tone light and teasing. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she shouldn’t leave her sister, no matter what Alvis had told them about her being needed on this mission.

“Same as you. Brush and braid it myself.” Despite her tiny frame, Reidun sounded so sure of herself and so grown up. She didn’t sound like someone whose big sister was going to step through a portal to another world to possibly never be seen again.

Revna sighed, as she worked the brush through another section of snarled up hair.

“I still don’t understand how your hair makes these knots. You need someone to brush it for you. Who will make you breakfast, little bird?”

Reidun shrugged at the nickname. “I’ll make my own breakfast. You weren’t much older than me when you started brushing both our hair, when you started making our breakfast.” She left unsaid that that was when Mama had died. “Besides, I’ll have Thought with me, just as you’ll have Memory. They can communicate across the gap. You can still boss me around through the birds.”

The ravens were too quiet, and it was too late for them to be asleep. Revna had left the windows shut, so that meant they’d be getting into trouble somewhere in the cottage.

“Rev…” Reidun trailed off, her voice an echo of what it had been when Mama died.

And suddenly, Revna saw it. The seams of her sister’s brave act. She was being tough, the same as Revna had done when Mama died. But she was falling apart, terrified of what it would be to be alone without her big sister there to take care of her.

“Rei-rei.” Revna set the brush down, the worst of the knots worked out, and rested a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “I love you. I’ll do my best…I’m not…I’m not going to go like Mama. I wish…I wish I could stay. But Alvis saw…” She trailed off because she didn’t know actually what Alvis had seen. Just that he had had a vision of the future and that Revna was in it—crucial to whatever mission they were being sent to take care of on Midgaard.

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“I know.” Reidun sighed. “And I’ll be okay, better than okay. The money from Mama... it will go farther with one mouth to feed, and they’ll be giving me your money, too. For you being gone on a mission. I’ll be okay.”

A horrible tapping began at the door, like a bird pecking. Revna started. Were the ravens trying to get out? She turned to look across the tiny cottage to the door. And noticed for the first time the string—part some kind of gadget the birds had used to escape the cottage over the night. The clockwork ravens couldn’t just sit calm and avoid causing trouble. She supposed they took after her famous ancestors that way, both Odin, who they’d been meant to serve, and Loki.

“Let’s see what the birds brought us.” Reidun stood and gathered her hair over her shoulder, her fingers sticking in the tangles as she tugged the hair out of the knots, separating it as she worked her way towards the crown of her head.

Revna sighed. “You really won’t let me braid your hair one last time.”

“It’s not the last time. It’s the last time for now.” The girl bounded to the door. “What gifts did the birds bring us?”

Revna stood, the keys hanging from her belt jingled. Outside, the ravens squawked and pecked harder. The fool birds had snuck out, but hadn’t thought to leave themselves a way in.

She opened the cottage door to find the two huge ravens. Thought held a shiny coin and his beak, and Memory had an intricate chain hanging from hers.

Reina held out her hand to the ravens, who dropped their gifts. The coin fell smack into her palm, nothing special, but the chain slid over her fingers until a pendant settled into her palm with unsettling ease. The pendant felt warm and took the shape of Mjolnir, Thor’s hammer. Reina sucked a breath in through her teeth.

“What?” asked Reidun.

“I don’t think this is a copy.” Revna closed her hand around the pendant. Erik was supposed to use Mjolnir to open a portal to Midgard later this morning. She was supposed to meet him at the under ground sea several hours from now. But why would the ravens have stolen it from him? How could they have stolen it? Stories said Thor had once accused her famous ancestor of stealing Mjolnir while he slept, and forced Loki to adventure to retrieve the hammer. Now her ravens had done the same to his descendant. She had to return this before she was accused of theft, or worse. They would accuse her of cowardice, trying to stop the mission Alvis’s vision said would put the jotun on their knees.