Clandestine

'Another?' Geir asked as he gathered up the cards on the table. 'I guess if we keep playing, there's a chance you'll get better at this game. How many is it in a row now?'

Ranveig huffed. 'There's only so much I can do with the shite cards you deal me.'

'You deal then.'

Curled up in bed, Loki gritted his teeth at the inane chatter drifting into his cell.

Four days had passed since Agnar and Tyr had staged their coup. He had received no further visits from his mother nor any messages from her. The cell itself wasn't a hardship in the grand scale of things. He was given food whenever he requested it and some of his personal belongings had been brought down. He was well-fed, clothed and moderately entertained, but as much as it heartened him that Asgardians still remembered that he was the king's brother, his anxiety over the lack of news from the outside gnawed at him.

The only thing to change in the past days were the uniforms of the men stationed outside his cell. As Loki understood it, more Einherjari troops had been called to the front, which left the palace guard to manage more of the emergency tasks inside the palace.

Ranveig and Geir weren't half as attentive to their duties as their Einherjari counterparts had been. They had set up a table in the middle of the corridor and occupied themselves with lewd jokes, complaints about their superiors, and card games. Loki had initially thought their relaxed attitude would be a boon, but now that it was two in the morning and their conversation continued to keep him awake, he wasn't so sure.

As Ranveig finished shuffling the cards, however, Geir dropped the volume of his voice a notch. 'Have you heard from your brother-in-law?' he asked. 'There's not much news coming from the fighting.'

'Not since his company went in. Not that he expected anything good. Last time he was at my house, he spent half the night ranting about how they prepped for the last war against Jotunheim, not today's.'

'Should he be talking like that about what happens in the planning room?'

'Drink loosens his tongue,' Ranveig replied. 'I've told him often enough he needs to contain himself, but he doesn't give a fig about what I've got to say. Whatever's happening out there, I hope the old king wakens soon and sets things aright. Clearly, the queen can't do much.'

I wish father would wake too. If only to shut up the two of you.

Moving slowly so he wouldn't draw the guards' attention, Loki pulled his blanket down and turned so he could see them seated at the table.

'I thought she was really something,' Ranveig added, dealing out the cards for the next round. 'No joking, I did. Except, what's she doing now? Hiding out in her room, weeping. She's the queen! We all have family problems and we still come in to do our work.'

'I'm a card short.'

'Oh, sorry.' Ranveig slapped one more card onto the table. 'I suppose I hardly know what the queen does. Maybe she's just supposed to sit by her husband and look pretty.'

Geir took a glance at his cards and shook his head. 'Use your brain, Veig. The queen's quarters are as well-guarded right now as the Treasury vaults. Sure, she's confined in there by her own choosing.'

Loki sighed. Now he had his explanation and it was exactly what he had feared.

'What are you saying?' Ranveig asked.

'Well, don't go repeating this, yeah? But it seems to me everything worked out neatly in Lord Agnar's favour. Everyone can see he's getting on in age and rumours were, the new king disliked him, so it was only a matter of time until he was thrown out of the king's council. Now he rules Asgard. If he manages to get rid of the king's family properly and keeps Tyr occupied with the frost giants, he could probably proclaim himself king by the end of the year and no one will do anything about it.'

Ranveig clearly wasn't the type who spent his time thinking about the intricacies of palace politics. He furrowed his brows and through the next several turns of their game, seemed to be mulling over his friend's words instead of focusing on his cards.

'Agnar's a good man,' he said finally. 'We had a traitor on the throne and he found a way to be rid of him.'

Geir leant back, sending his chair creaking. 'I'm sure he thought only of Asgard when he had the prince thrown down here.'

'You aren't one of those who think he's innocent, are you?'

'Of course not. Only an idiot would trust a frost giant.'

'True, but… I don't know, he never seemed so bad to me, even with his magic and his petty tricks. It must be shite growing up the little brother to the future king. You know, they say he was as shocked as anyone else when they revealed what he was.'

'He's always been a good liar.' Geir's face twisted into a grimace. 'Besides, he hardly need to have known he's not Asgardian to betray us. Sometimes blood will just win out.'

Loki clung onto the edge of his blanket and forced himself to take slow, even breaths. In his younger days, he would have leapt out of bed already and would be at the bars at this very moment, making sure Geir knew what Loki thought of him. The urge was certainly there even now — Geir's words stung as much as a physical strike would have. He had a lot of things to say to the man in return, but if he revealed he had listened in on their conversation now, Loki would forgo the chance of scraping information from their future conversations. There were times where you have to swallow pride in order to secure future advantages.

'It's your turn.' Ranveig gestured towards the sprawl of cards at the centre of the table.

'No. Bor's wrinkled ball-sack, is it so hard to pay attention? I just put down my card.'

'Right, sorry.'

Geir snorted when Ranveig set down his card. 'You can't blame your shoddy playing on my shuffling this time.'

'Shut it,' Ranveig replied. He froze for a moment, as if listening out for something in the distance before he went on. 'You know, I don't think it's as simple as what people are saying. The old king brought the prince to Asgard for a reason.'

'Kings make stupid decisions too. The fact he's half-dead from an arrow wound and his son's been captured by frost giant just proves that that's so.'

A thunderous bang swallowed Geir's reply.

By the time the two guards were on their feet, the hallway had begun to fill with viscous smoke. Loki ignored their panicked exchanges. He pulled his blanket over the lower half of his face and scrambled out of bed. He hadn't been permitted any weapons inside the cell, of course, so he grabbed the best available alternate — his table lamp.

'I can't…' someone muttered.

The smoke had become so thick, only vague outlines of people remained distinguishable. Loki thought the speaker might have been Geir. Whether through panic or due to the smoke, his voice had climbed an octave.

Moments later, when both silhouettes swayed and slumped to the ground, taking a chair down with them, Loki decided the smoke had been the culprit. He pressed the blanket tighter around his nose and mouth. His eyes had begun to sting too, but he didn't dare deprive himself of his vision when he understood so little of what was happening around him.

Metal clinked further up the hallway. Hurried footsteps.

A new silhouette emerged from the cloud smoke. As it drew closer, it took a more solid shape, but it was the swagger in Fandral's walk that Loki recognised first.

'The sergeant had the keys,' Loki called out. The blanket garbled his words, but Fandral seemed to understand the gist of it.

'I'm glad you're conscious, I didn't relish the thought of having to drag you out of here,' he responded, his words similarly muffled by the scarf drawn over the lower half of his face. He flung a ball of wet fabric through the cell bars and turned his attention to Geir and Ranveig.

Loki pulled the ball apart and found it was a thin scarf. Tossing the blanket aside, he secured it over his face. The scarf had been soaked in a potion that reeked of yerba and spearmint. Loki grinned. This was his mother's work.

After a bit of rough handling, Fandral extracted a set of old-fashioned keys from Geir's pocket.

'No reason to dawdle, is there?' he said as he quickly worked to get the cell door open. Typical of Fandral, he appeared nonchalant about the clandestine activities he was carrying out this night. Or at least he hadn't been until Loki slipped out of his cell and stood close enough for Fandral to see him clearly. His jaw slacked and he produced a strangled half-wince, before he recovered the use of his speech. 'Pardon me. I'd heard, but it's different to actually see you.'

'Yes, Fandral,' Loki replied. 'I can tell by how your face has turned the same shade as the smoke. Hearten yourself, just think of how many pranks there could have been had I known about this.'

Fandral cleared his throat. 'I, for one, always thought Kronans were much scarier than frost giants.'

Loki shrugged and let this trail of conversation peter out. There was no sense stirring up trouble with a man who had just stuck out his neck for you. Instead, he grabbed Geir's legs and dragged him inside the cell. Fandral was quick to shift Renveig into the cell also. The smoke's effects were unlikely to linger; it would be foolish to leave guards free to raise alarm about Loki's escape.

'Let's go,' Fandral said, already heading towards the stairs at the end of the corridor. 'Your mother will be waiting for us by now.'

Loki started after them, but a stray thought stopped him in his tracks.

'Baugi?' he called out. 'Are you there?'

The frost giant's cell wasn't lit half as well as Loki's had been. Loki only spotted Baugi when he turned onto his back and sat up in his rickety bed. He had pulled up his shirt to help him breathe, which suggested he was cognizant of what had just transpired, although Loki doubted that Baugi had cause to be worried that the potion would overcome him. He was larger than an Asgardian and further away from the source of the smoke.

'Stopped by to say farewell?' Baugi asked sourly.

Loki slid his hand along the cell bars. 'A trade. I get you out of here, you help me in return.'

'Help you?'

'This is a deal you want to take, Baugi. When they find out I've escaped, they will be angry and they will take it out on you.' Before Baugi had a chance to reply, Loki called out to Fandral. 'Hold on! Get this cell open first.'

Fandral retraced his steps and came to stand beside Loki. His brows knitted together as he understood what Loki was asking.

'Why would this be a good —'

Loki pulled Fandral closer and hissed into his ear. 'For your sake, if nothing else. He'll be questioned when my escape is discovered. Even if he didn't see you clearly, he heard you.'

Fandral nodded, but even with half his face covered, Loki could tell he pouted like a spoiled child as he unlocked Baugi's cell.

Loki grabbed Baugi's arm. 'Time to get out of here.'

By the pace Fandral set, one would have thought he was the prisoner who was fleeing his captors. He led Loki and Baugi up the steep stairs and through several palace tunnels, glancing back only to prod Loki to keep up the pace. They passed through three more sets of guards, all incapacitated, before Fandral took a sharp left and flung open the door to one of the unused servant dormitories.

Frigga waited inside. Loki didn't even have the chance to greet her before she wrapped her arms around him in a suffocating embrace.

'Mother?' he struggled out.

Frigga smiled sheepishly as she drew back enough to allow Loki to refill his lungs. 'My room was guarded, that's why this took so long. And the materials I had to work with were… Never mind all that, it's done now. Let me get that collar off you.'

'Thank you.'

Loki couldn't see much of what his mother did, but after a few moments, the collar clicked and split into two parts. He ripped it off, then palpated the base of his neck. The collar had chafed and there were now several weeping sores around his throat. He left them as they were. Should any Asgardians see him, he wanted them to know what had been done to their prince and from a more practical standpoint, he planned to expend his magical reserves on more important things.

'We'd best not frighten the children any longer,' he muttered and with an exhale, warmth flooded his skin.

Thank the Norns.

Frigga's lips tightened. 'You don't have to do that.'

'It'll be easier to make our way around Asgard if I don't look like the enemy,' Loki said. 'Fandral, do you have a weapon to spare?'

While Baugi had chosen to skulk around the edge of the room, Fandral had positioned himself before the half-open door so they could have warning should they have company. At Loki's words, he finally pushed down the scarf covering his face and offered Loki a small dagger.

'You won't need a weapon,' Frigga said.

Baugi snorted. 'It is an insult to call that a weapon.'

As Loki turned the dagger in his hands, he found himself agreeing with the frost giant.

'I've arranged for a place on Alfheim where you'll be safe,' his mother explained. 'You can open a portal to Alfheim from this room and I'll send a message to you when it's safe for you to return to Asgard.' Loki's expression must have told her what he thought of that plan, because she went on. 'Or if Alfheim is not where you wish to be, go to Midgard.'

'I'm not running off into exile. Not while Thor is being held captive.'

Why do you think Baugi is here?

'No, Loki —'

He slipped the dagger into his pocket, then set his hands down on Frigga's shoulders and pressed his forehead against hers. 'He's my brother. Send me to Alfheim or Midgard or the farthest corner of the universe, I will crawl my way back to Jotunheim and find a way to set Thor free.'

'And if you get in trouble yourself?'

'You know me,' he responded. 'I find trouble all the time and, sooner or later, I find a way out of it.'

Frigga shook her head in exasperation. 'You'll be careful at least?'

'Of course, I will,' he replied. 'Let me think for a moment.'

He tapped his fingers against his thigh. The Bifrost was closed to him; the Einherjar would have commandeered the bridge for their purposes. It was the portal then. That too would be guarded, but perhaps not as heavily. From there, it was a long and unpleasant, but manageable hike to Laufey's house. And once he was there, things would only become more complicated. Thor wouldn't be kept unguarded.

'Do any of you have paper?' he asked.

With a sigh, Frigga conjured a short scroll, ink and a dip pen for him. Loki unrolled the scroll. Even if he couldn't use the Bifrost to enter Jotunheim, changes were the portal would be out of reach for his return journey. He would need Heimdall's help. Loki scribbled down his few rough ideas for his plan in Jotunheim, then, unsatisfied with himself, stared at the scroll. He needed Heimdall's trust, otherwise, the man would betray him to Tyr at once.

Loki bit his lip. Heimdall had already looked askance at him when Loki had travelled to Jotunheim with his father.

'I beg your help, Heimdall,' Loki added to the end of his message. 'Asgard is in greater danger than anyone in the Nine Realms knows. Tyr and Laufey play children's games, unaware of the tides shifting in the wider universe. My brother has a part to play in the war that is to come. I will explain when we return.'

He rolled to up the scroll tightly and added a spell to ensure its contents would be legible only to its intended recipient.

'Watch me being careful, mother,' he muttered, then spoke more loudly. 'Fandral, you have already done me a great service tonight, but would you do one more? Would you take this message to Heimdall?'

Fandral swivelled to look directly at Loki. 'I'd rather be by your side in Jotunheim.'

'Please. This is important.'

'Fine,' Fandral replied. 'But take my rapier with you. The frost giant is right, I mostly use that dagger to peel apples.'

Loki took the sword from Fandral and tested its balance. It had been decades since he had last had cause to hold this weapon. He had no affection for rapiers — the blade was too long for his taste, but the grip of Fandral's weapon at least sat comfortably in Loki's hand. Loki tried a mock attack, then drew back into a low-line parry.

'It's not terrible,' he conceded.

Gripping Loki's message tightly, Fandral offered Frigga an ornate bow and nodded to Loki, then slipped out the door.

Loki motioned for Baugi and Frigga to move also. The Weapons Vault was in a different section of the palace to the once they were presently in and the passage between them was circuitous. Before they had made it two hundred feet, however, an alarm sounded.

'Did the blond one get caught already?' Baugi asked.

Frigga muttered something under her breath, then sad, 'It seems unlikely. But my escape could have been noticed. Volstagg and Hogun helped me cover it up as best we could before we broke into the vaults, but —'

'Or the guards were left behind were discovered. The how doesn't really matter,' Loki replied as he quickened his pace.

His heart already pulsed. He would have broken into a full sprint if not for the fear that he would run straight into a squadron of palace guards. Or, considering his luck of late, Tyr himself.

But despite the continuing thump of the palace alert system, they found the passageways and the stairways on their path empty. Loki had to wonder just how many men had been called to Jotunheim in recent days.

'Halt!' a woman shouted from behind them.

When he spun around, Loki realised the woman half-dressed in the formal Einherjari officer's uniform was one of Tyr's favourite underlings. He couldn't quite remember her name. Her face and her scowl, however, were familiar – she had been there in the Great Hall that night, relishing in Loki's downfall. Her scowl turned into a smirk as she drew her sword.

Loki flung Fandral's dagger. She hadn't taken the time to fasten her collar; the dagger slid smoothly into her bare throat.

'Decent throw,' Baugi said as the woman fell forward, struggling through the last minutes of her life.

Frigga grabbed Loki's sleeve and pulled him after her. 'Hurry. Who knows who heard her.'

There were no half-measures any longer. Frigga, Baugi and Loki raced down to the Weapons Vault.

Loki's lungs burned by the time they reached the top of the stairs to it and saw the wall of men standing there, all itching for a fight. Had Frigga and Loki come alone, perhaps they could have leveraged the oaths of loyalty that had bound the citizens of Asgard and their royal family for generations, but Baugi's presence extinguished that possibility. Once they saw him, the guards closed in around the top of the stairwell and dropped their spear tips down to form a formidable shield wall.

With one sweep of her hands, Frigga lifted a good half of the guards off their feet and deposited them in a crumpled heap. Baugi and Loki leaped atop of them. Baugi swiftly commandeered a spear, while Loki found that Fandral's rapier slipped into the gaps of the guards' armour just as well as his own knives.

'Loki! Go!' Frigga shouted.

She was right, of course. Their aim was escape, there was no need to exacerbate the political turmoil in Asgard by shedding unnecessary blood. Moreover, the longer they spent here, the higher the chance of reinforcements arriving. Loki shouted for Baugi to follow him and set off down the stairs to the Weapons Vault ante-chamber.

Once they were there, Loki skidded to a stop.

Don't fuck up this time.

Loki sucked in a breath and started on the incantation, working at a slightly slower pace than his habit. Portals were tricky magic and the consequences of errors very painful. Two of the guards had pursued them, but Baugi kept them at bay. As Loki worked, the chamber resounded with men's grunts and clangs of weaponry.

With one final flick of Loki's fingers, a ball of light pulsed into being and unfurled into a portal.

'Baugi,' Loki called out. 'Follow me.'