Page 38 of The Fanged One

Fenris gave it twenty minutes before he looked again. She had moved a stack of folders and books from one side of the table to the other and was bent over a binding repair Layla had brought her. He knew that despite her smiles, something was off.

Wounded pup, said his wolf. She has put her head down and wants to be left alone.

Why? Did we hurt her? What happened?

Someone did. Find out who.

Fenris set the codex aside and reached for the next. He couldn't corner her and demand answers. She was already skittish, and it would make it worse.

A short while later, Linnea got up from her stool and crossed the room with a small leather-wrapped book. She came around the trestle to his side.

"Von said this is for the Norse pile." She set the book on the wood beside his elbow before she turned and walked back to Layla.

Fenris looked at the book to hide his confusion. She hadn't touched him. She had that morning at breakfast, so what had changed?

Tor came over a few minutes later and dropped a book on the trestle. "Von wants this checked against what you remember of the ritual."

"Sit, then." Fenris pulled the second stool around with his foot.

Tor sat. He hadn't said much most of the morning, going quiet the way wolves got when they were chewing on something they hadn't yet swallowed.

He flipped the book open and turned it so Fenris could see. "Page one is what the skalds wrote about Loki on trial before the gods."

Fenris turned the page. The annotations in the margins were Von's small, precise handwriting in modern blue ink.

"The skalds are wrong about nearly all of it. It wasn't this theatrical." He tapped the second paragraph. "This part is true. Týr and Höðr gave testimonies."

"Did Týr really just put his hand in your mouth?" Tor asked.

"We had drunk together the night before, he and my father and I, and he told me he wasn't afraid because I had such strong jaws. I could smell the lie, but he did it anyway."

Tor turned the page. "Over here, when it talks more about your binding, it says Havi sang while the binding closed."

"He did. It was the dragging-down galdr," Fenris said, trying his best not to remember too many details in case the spell triggered again. "The one used to put cattle to sleep when they are sick, and to help mothers rest easier when their labors are too long."

"I have a lot of questions," Tor said after a beat.

"Ask them."

"Not today." Tor closed the folder. "We have enough to do."

"I'll tell you whatever you want to know. I have no reason not to trust you."

Tor looked at him for a moment, tapped the table once with his knuckles, and walked off.

"Wolves, I require you," Von called from the hallway.

Tor was already moving, and Fenris got up to follow.

Von was at the foot of the back stairs with one hand braced on another chest of books. "I need this on the kitchen table against the wall, where the light is good."

"Couldn't have asked Arne to help? You'll bust your back trying to shift it," Tor chided him.

Von dusted off his jeans. "Arne is upstairs already on a task. You two are built for this. Be the brawn to my brains."

Fenris took one end, and Tor took the other. They moved it carefully down the hall into the kitchen and set it where Von wanted it.

"Maybe store things in boxes with wheels next time," Tor commented.