Aleksei rolled his eyes. “I did you a favor. You thought Asgard was all happy days and handsome soldiers? I tried to tell you. But now you know the price of order here. Now you know who our father is and how far his sons will go to defend the ones they love. Exactly how far”—he glanced at Torden—“and no further.”

“Let’s not pretend any of this was about me.” I stared at Aleksei, my teeth clenched. “Or about anyone but you.”

You, and your father, and everything he refuses to give you.

This quest had humiliated me, crushed me, made me sob till I had no tears left. And I ached for Aleksei; I did. But I didn’t feel like crying now.

I closed the distance between us in one, two, three strides, stopping just beneath Aleksei’s pale, fine-boned chin. “Maybe you light fires for fun, or to get someone’s attention,” I hissed, “but consider this your warning to start them someplace else.”

As I stomped off toward the door, Aleksei mumbled something in Norsk. Bragi sucked a sharp breath through his teeth. The boys outside the room stiffened, expressions freezing.

I turned around in time to see Aleksei stumbling backward over a desk chair as Torden pounded toward him.

“Torden—” he stammered, pitch frantic over the crash of wooden furniture.

“Torden!” Fredrik threw himself forward, gripping his brother’s forearm before he could take a swing at Aleksei, who was backed against the far wall. Bragi seized Torden’s other wrist.

Glasses half sliding off his nose, Hermódr snatched their cowering brother up by the collar. “Take a walk, Aleksei,” he bellowed, shoving him toward the hallway.

“Why me?” Aleksei demanded. “Why am I always the one being thrown out?”

“Because you are the one who did this! Again!” Torden shouted. “Because Midsummer is for luck, and you turned it into ashes!”

The room was suddenly cold with silence, thick with stillness, crowded with boys who wouldn’t look at one another. It was so different from the heat of the moment before.

Again?

I frowned a little, glancing between them. Bragi. Hermódr. Fredrik. Torden. Aleksei.

When I met Aleksei’s eyes, he cocked his head, stalking near Torden again. “So you didn’t tell her,” he marveled. “You didn’t tell her. We’re still not talking about it.”

Torden said nothing. His brothers stayed silent.

I was choking on the quiet. “Somebody please say something.”

“Yes. Let’s defy all our Asgardian instincts and say what we’re really thinking.” Aleksei turned to me, spreading his arms out like a ringmaster. “It’s my fault,” he pronounced grandly. “I am the reason that Baldr is dead.”

I stared at him blankly, not comprehending. “But—but you said he fell.”