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attempt to escape the cruel trap her horrible brother had snared her in—and then that the guy who called himself the Fennrys Wolf and Calum Aristarchos had appeared out of nowhere on Harleys, doing their damnedest to ride to Mason’s rescue. With, it became apparent, limited success. From inside the train, Heather had watched Fennrys climb from the back of the bike Cal was driving onto the train. She’d been a helpless observer, trapped behind a pane of glass as Cal’s bike had wobbled treacherously and then pitched him off.
    She closed her eyes at the memory of him cartwheeling into the air . . . falling down toward the unforgiving waters of the East River far below. Just like that, in a flash, Calum was gone. And with him, Heather’s broken heart.
    In the wake of Cal’s plunge into darkness had come a sudden, blinding brightness. It had lit up the interior of the train car like a blazing sun, rainbow colors building to coruscating whiteness. The air in the cabin had crackled with lightning-storm energy, and time had seemed to slow and stretch. . . .
    Then everything went dark.
    Once Heather had been able to see again, the world had returned to normalcy. The train chugged across to Long Island and down the ramp that curved away to the south. Framed by the lounge car’s picture window, the elegant, sweeping bow curve of the Hell Gate Bridge grew smaller behind them.
    And then, Heather recalled, the bridge exploded.
    When the center section of the massive iron span blew apart, the train had been far enough away not to derail. The tracks had shuddered and bucked, and Heather had screamed and fallen to the floor, jarred by the shock-wave impact.
    Moments later, Rory had come staggering back into the passenger compartment, beaten and bloodied, his arm a twisted wreck and his face pummeled. He’d collapsed on the floor across from Heather, whimpering in agony, as the train had shunted off a main track and entered the mouth of a tunnel, slowing to a stop in a dimly lit, rock-walled cavern somewhere beneath Queens. And only a few moments after that, the door had slid open once again, and Gunnar Starling had stepped inside.
    Now Heather Palmerston—rich, privileged, beautiful, never one to back down from anything or anybody—cowered in a corner, afraid for her life. She watched, scarcely daring to breathe, as Rory climbed awkwardly to his feet and stood swaying, his arm hanging useless, bloodied, bent in places where arms don’t bend.
    “What happened?” Gunnar asked, all his attention focused, for the moment, on his son. “Where is Rothgar?”
    Heather wondered fleetingly what Mason’s hottie older brother Roth had to do with this whole situation. As far as she knew, he wasn’t on the train. She hadn’t seen him anywhere and hoped, just for the sake of her own opinion of him, that he wasn’t involved in this insanity.
    “And where is the Fennrys Wolf?” Gunnar continued.“ Not in Asgard, I take it.”
    Asgard? Heather thought, her thoughts a tangle of disbelief. He’s not serious. That’s gotta be a code word or something. Or, like, the name of a nightclub. Or a high-tech business park. Or . . .
    Or was it?
    Maybe when Gunnar Starling said “Asgard,” he actually meant . . . Asgard.
    Every year, one of the mandatory humanities courses for all students at Gosforth Academy was a comparative history of world mythologies. The faculty had always taken it seriously, which was why Heather had to repeat it in summer school when she’d blown it off in her junior year. But suddenly she was grateful that she knew her gods and goddesses—and the places they called home. Places like Asgard. The faint hope that Gunnar Starling was employing some kind of weird metaphor began to dissolve in her mind.
    He’s not. You know he’s not.
    But that was crazy. Wasn’t it?
    Crazier than storm zombies? Fighting naked guys with swords? Or any of the other bizarro stuff Mason has told you about? Maybe not so much.
    She