Chapter Text
Sigyn yawned. A gaping, inelegant yawn that she revelled in because no one could see her. With her feet up on the highly dignified librarian seat – which shoes were definitely not supposed to go on – it was an easy action to drop her chin onto her knees. She scrubbed her eyes and peered at the two books open in front of her again, as though the words might have rearranged themselves whilst she wasn’t looking. She wouldn’t put it past this pair.
“Well, one of you is definitely wrong,” she said aloud. The two almanacs supposedly detailed the same scrying spell – except they disagreed on multiple fundamental details.
She tugged her notebook closer again, jotted a quick calculation under all the other scored out ones already spread across the page. She groaned. “Or you’re both wrong and both right and it’s going to take me all night to tease you apart. Why can’t you just –”
She cut off abruptly, self-conscious, and jerked her gaze up as the library doors swung open.
Asgard’s royal archives did not normally have visitors even at the main library’s busiest hours (which usually meant half a dozen people at most), so for someone to be here after the dinner hour, when it was already pitch-black outside... that was unheard of. And Sigyn didn’t even recognise the woman now standing in the doorway.
“Can I help you?” Sigyn asked, sheepishly lowering her feet to the floor.
“I have been given permission to consult the royal archives,” the visitor said, holding up a folded and sealed document as she approached. “For research purposes.”
The doors closed silently behind her as she came to a stop in front of Sigyn’s desk. Sigyn took the proffered document, and to her surprise saw that the seal was the Allfather’s own. There was an office that would issue these, normally; in her time at least, the Allfather had never issued a pass himself.
The woman’s name, apparently, was Theoric. It didn’t ring any bells. And apparently...
“You’re writing a play?”
“Yes.”
Now that she was right in front of Sigyn’s desk, Sigyn realised that the initial impression that she’d got of her, which was that she was very tall, didn’t even begin to cover it. Sigyn rarely found herself to be towered over by another woman, but it was clear that this woman would easily achieve that. She must have been taller than most men, even on Asgard. Her long legs were particularly apparent in the breeches and high boots she wore – not clothing unheard of for women, but certainly unusual. Oh, and she was beautiful. Long black hair left loose, sculpted features, and glass green eyes which were currently looking down at Sigyn with a detached hauteur.
“What’s it about?”
“The lost prince. It is to be called The Tragedy of Loki of Asgard.”
Sigyn just about managed to stomp on any reaction she might have had to that, though Theoric still gave her a narrow look.
“Are you going to be playing the prince?” she deflected.
“No,” Theoric said, as though it were an absurd suggestion. “I shall be holding auditions. I’m the writer. Hence why I need to research. And the director, of course.”
“Oh, right.” Theoric was still looking at her like she was being unimaginably dense. Sigyn couldn’t see why it had been such a shocking thing to say. “It’s just because – well, surely you get told you look like him?”
Theoric’s mouth twisted. “I cannot say anyone has ever made such an observation until now.”
Sigyn wasn’t quite sure she believed that. It was more than the physical features. It was something... less tangible. Probably exactly the thing that made Sigyn ever so slightly weak at the knees as she got to her feet.
“Where would you like to start?” she asked, picking up her ring of keys.
Theoric’s gaze was intense. “The beginning,” she said. “What do you have from when the Allfather was at war with Jotunheim?”
Sigyn felt a rush go through her. “This way,” she directed, trying her best to hide her excitement. That was why Theoric had a pass straight from the Allfather. They were going into the Ultra-Restricted Section (not an official name – the senior archivist, a man who seemed to have worked here so long his very skin had gone papery, would chastise her for calling it that, but it was the most accurate term for it and that was that). Junior archivists like Sigyn were strictly not allowed entry to the Ultra-Restricted Section except on the most official of official business – which, apparently, Theoric was.
She tried to refrain from skipping her way down the dim passageway between the shelves, towards the dense, heavily bolted door, carved of a potent blend of protective woods – oak, juniper and rowan. It did occur to Sigyn that it was strange that this woman, who needed such very high-security resources, would come now, rather than a time when the senior archivist could attend. But asking anything about it would risk Theoric deciding it was the senior archivist she needed, and Sigyn would lose what might be her only chance to glean something of a knowledge she (not without a sizeable serving of guilt) hungered for.
But Theoric broached the subject herself, in a sideways fashion: “Are you always here this late?” Her glance at Sigyn was sidelong, too.
“Every day apart from my day off. We close at midnight, and I’m the last shift.”
“All alone?”
She focused on the complex system for opening the door to cover being slightly unnerved by the question. “People don’t normally come to the archives after dinner,” was her only answer. She left out that people rarely came to the archives at all. It was a lonely job, in some ways, but Sigyn didn’t mind it; it meant she could study at her desk. And be left in peace with her thoughts. And she had plenty of friends outside.
The first step to opening the door was a series of three locks. Each had to be turned with precision – one by two and a third rotations, one by exactly one quarter only, and the third in one fast full circle and then a slow circle in the opposite direction – and in the right sequence. Doing so clicked open a panel to reveal a small obsidian screen, against which Sigyn held Theoric’s pass. There was a musical hum as the seal and signature were both scanned. Theoric was holding her breath. Sigyn was too.
There was a heavy click, and then, with a rush of stale air, the door swung inwards. They both exhaled in relief. Didn’t botch that, thank the Norns.
The archives were a complex structure, almost as old as the vaults, and were the only other part of the palace save the vaults with so much magic built into the very walls. When you walked through its doors, you were met with a semi-cultivated forest of shelves, crammed with mostly books, but some folios and boxes of papers, all catalogued in a bizarre runic system that it took years of highly arcane training to learn, and even more to accurately use. The near-impossibility of finding your way through the labyrinth the shelves created, let alone finding the item you wanted, made the archivists essential. Past these shelves, around the edges of the room, were dotted heavy doors like the one Sigyn and Theoric had just passed through. The sum total of what was behind all these doors comprised what Sigyn called the Ultra-Restricted Section, spread across a dozen locations. The layout of materials was wholly different behind each door. Some were well-sized rooms lined with more shelves. One just contained a single chest of magical wood, sealed with yet more protections, with barely space to stand in front of it. Sigyn had only seen behind each door once, at her orientation almost a century ago. The senior archivist had opened each door and shown her the layout, standing so close he was almost in contact with her the whole time, silently reminder her that these were not her materials (he had probably wanted to loom over her, but he wasn’t tall enough), and then swiftly moved her on. She had, at least, remembered that this one was the one with the flight of stairs.
Lanterns lining the narrow staircase flickered to life as they stepped over the threshold. They gave a hazy, orangey light that left considerable shadow, particularly where the stone steps curved round a corner further up. The air was stale and chill.
“Up we go,” Sigyn said, rather pointlessly. She moved up the stairs first, leading the way. There was only room for them to walk single file. Sigyn trailed a hand against the wall to keep herself steady.
“He really didn’t want anyone coming in here, did he?” Theoric said.
“The Allfather?”
A hum of confirmation from behind her.
“This is definitely one of the trickier ones,” she acknowledged.
“And now we know what he wanted to conceal.”
Sigyn felt a familiar prickling deep in her chest that she knew had nothing to do with the tomb-like feeling of the stairwell.
They had rounded the turn on the stairs now and reached another door. Except it didn’t look like a door. It was intricately carved with runes which both identified the contents (The Jotun Wars) and sealed them, but there was no apparent way to open it. Sigyn carefully traced a new rune over the carving for ‘lock’. The rune shifted and rearranged itself, and suddenly there was a keyhole.
She thought she heard Theoric mutter, “So dramatic,” under her breath as she pressed the key into the lock.
Finally, their last barrier swung open. They both peered in eagerly. The room gave them plenty of room to move around, but was not dauntingly large – it would have fit well with Sigyn’s modest suite of rooms in town, given an armchair or two. The three walls facing them were entirely taken up by shelves densely lined with bound volumes, folios and bundles of papers. The centre of the room was dominated by an enormous black table, long, unusually high, and complete with a cushioned, V-shaped book rest to support an open document.
“How far back are you going?” Sigyn asked, eyeing the classification marks denoting works on the shelves. “Are you looking for any of the political background? Asgardian-Jotun relations and the causes of the war?”
“Not now. I’m looking for anything about Odin finding the prince in the temple,” Theoric replied, slightly husky.
Was she awed by what they were about to look at? Sigyn was. She was glad Theoric wasn’t interested in the war itself – other writers had analysed and condensed the source material into more readable accounts of the war (though Sigyn would have to concede that if there weren’t a subject of such specific personal interest pressing her attention, seeing how those histories compared to the raw materials would be endlessly fascinating to her); what they were looking for was one of Asgard’s great secrets. Sigyn felt a delicious chill run down her spine, quickly followed by another sharp twist in her chest.
She walked along the shelves, following the classifications clockwise until she was well along the right-hand wall. Here the runes were more promising. She looked closely, finger hovering just above the shelf as she scanned the contents, until – “Oh.”
“What?” Theoric demanded. “There is something isn’t there?”
“Yes.” Sigyn pulled out the slender portfolio which had caught her eye. “It’s bizarre that this is here.”
“That what’s here?”
She carried the sheaf of papers to the cradle and carefully opened it, letting Theoric see. “Letters.”
“From –” Theoric seemed to stumble over the question.
“This is the Allmother’s handwriting.”
Theoric’s eyes were strangely fixed on it. “I thought – I mean, are royal correspondence normally included in these thematic archives?”
“Sometimes; it’s a rather flimsy distinction. But normally only correspondence from much longer ago... I actually requested to catalogue the Allmother’s letters. I haven’t heard back about it yet – some bureaucrat’s probably still shuffling the paperwork around to arrange it, even this far into the Reconstruction...”
It had been almost a year since the attack on Asgard, since the Allmother’s death, since... So much loss. National mourning. Major reconstruction of the palace and surrounding area. And Sigyn’s private loss that she had no right to grieve at all, kept tucked tight in the cavern of her chest against her heart.
“So how is this here?” Theoric’s eyes were still ranging over the elegant script – very large, the Allmother’s words unashamed to claim the page. It read: Select correspondence of Odin Allfather, my husband, and myself, Frigga Allmother, at the time of the end of the Asgardian-Jotun war. For this is our history and our family. It will not be always concealed.
“I can only guess she put them here herself – I could probably confirm that by checking the access records...”
“Do that.” As soon as she said it, Theoric seemed to realise the commanding tone had been out of line. Her apologetic smile was dazzling. “I’m sorry. I care very deeply about my art.”
“And this will be going in the play?”
“Perhaps. It is important to get a full picture; the words should have more behind them than themselves.”
Sigyn reasoned that you could probably get away with being a bit eccentric when you looked like Theoric did.
Silently she turned over the first page of the collection. The first letter was dated as what Sigyn recognised as the last day of conflict in the war.
“That’s the Allfather’s writing. It looks original.”
Theoric, of course, would have no interest in the textual quality of archival materials. That wasn’t what she was here for.
She said, “You have to supervise me in here, I suppose?”
Sigyn gave her most apologetic look, not really feeling it at all. It was very important she played her cards right here. “I’m afraid the rules are very strict. We can’t risk any damage to the materials.”
Sigyn was slightly going against her usual principles, but this was – for more reasons than one – new territory. Unlike the senior archivist, Sigyn didn’t normally like hovering over people’s shoulders whilst they consulted their documents. She’d keep an eye on them, of course – that was her job – but she gave them breathing room. But she’d never accompanied anyone to the Ultra-Restricted Section before; this was much higher security. And given who Theoric was researching... Sigyn was maybe letting the personal intervene. But it was higher security, she defended herself to herself once again.
Theoric was looking down at her (Sigyn really was not used to being so pronouncedly looked down at by another woman), assessing her.
“And if you need any assistance with the documents, of course, you’ll need me here,” she added in her most professional tone. When that still didn’t seem to be selling it, she took a measured step back to give Theoric some sense of privacy with the letters.
She held Sigyn in her gaze for another long moment, almost as though she were cataloguing her the way Sigyn herself would catalogue a new acquisition, and then turned silently back to the sheaf of papers in the cradle.
Sigyn, ashamed but unable to resist, went up on her toes and carefully tilted her head to read over Theoric’s shoulder.
My Own One, (eww, Sigyn thought)
We have won. Such small words to express such an immense thing. It hardly seems real. We have lost so many. So many friends. So many foes, too, which is a source of such conflicted feeling to me now. I remember, dimly, as though it were someone else, that I used to love war. Crave it. It was once the only time I felt alive, when I smelt blood and tasted victory. I hardly recognise that man now. The monster that I was long before I knew you. I live always in fear of some shadow of him returning and blotting out our sun. I do not believe I found him today, and am glad of it. I detested the bloodshed every moment I was here. I pray now it is over. That this will be the end of it. I hope I have found a way to assure that.
I am afraid, Frigga, that this has all been preamble. Much-felt preamble, I won’t deny, but there was a purpose of this epistle beyond giving a personal relation of our victory and my own feelings upon it. You will hardly believe what I have to tell you. I must ask you to take the news with as measured a response as you can, and, above all, to tell no one. This must be kept a perfect secret.
Frigga, when we reached the outskirts of Utgard, we found a Jotun temple there. And within it was a baby. Laufey’s heir, Frigga. Abandoned. A runt, a tiny thing; the right size for one of our own young. The Frost Giants consider such under-sized babes curses, a sign of displeasure from their gods. They submit them to exposure, leave them at the mercy of the frozen clime as a sacrifice to appease the angered gods. Laufey no doubt blamed the infant for the tide of war turning against him. His heir was meant to die. But I found him first.
I know you will see what I am building to; please bear with me until you have read all. Frigga, the child possesses seiðr. I lifted him and he shifted. I suspect it was a response to the temperature of my own body; I readily accept you will be better informed in answering such questions. Fair skin, green eyes, tufts of black hair. He could pass for one of our own people. As, I will not insult you by pretending you will not have already deduced, it is my intention for him to do. Consider it: he is the heir to a kingdom hostile to Asgard and the other realms; to raise him as one of us, educated in our more civilised ways, would herald a new future for Jotunheim and its place within the Nine when he succeeds to his father’s throne (aided by Asgard’s backing, of course).
I know what I ask is no small thing. But could you find it in your heart – great and good enough to love the gruff and battle-haggard Odin Borson – to raise this child as our own? I have a way to ensure the realms will believe you to have carried a babe these last months; announcing this arrival as a new birth will be an added celebration to the victory celebrations. I know I ask too much. But I find I must ask it nevertheless.
The babe will precede me to Asgard; I must remain here a few days more to negotiate peace terms, and I will be too surrounded to safely convey him in secrecy. I also fear he must eat, and none here have aught to offer him. Heimdall will take him from the Bifrost to the palace. When I return, and have struggled through the fanfare, we can further discuss our course of action. Please do not be too angry, Frigga. We do what we must, as Allfather and Allmother, do we not? If you will consent, I will send the infant to Asgard before dawn. I am sorry to ask this of you.
I truly cannot wait to return to you and to Thor.
With love, my darling one,
Odin
Then, scrawled beneath in a sloppier hand, but still the same handwriting:
P.S. He just laughed. The baby. My horse puffed hot air on him. Despite his time exposed in the cold, I think he will recover well.
Theoric turned around. Sigyn didn’t have time to settle herself on her feet again; she was still stretched up on her toes when Theoric looked at her.
“Do you need me to turn the page?” Sigyn asked rather sheepishly.
“If you would.”
She did so, trying to be quick whilst still being careful of the precious document.
The next page contained just a single line in between the address and signature. Merely looking at it amounted to reading it.
Odin,
Send the baby.
Frigga
“You really are remorselessly nosey, aren’t you?”
“These are very high-security documents,” Sigyn said, as levelly as she could. “I have a duty of care to them.”
Theoric raised a derisive brow.
“And, well, it is fascinating, isn’t it? Prince Loki’s story. I mean, that’s why you’re writing a play about it after all...”
All the response she got was a tart, “Would you be so good as to turn to the next letter?”
Sigyn did so, and trooped back to her position a few paces away. Theoric did not turn round to look at her again, but Sigyn was certain she was fully aware she shifted herself into a position she could still see. Extenuating circumstances, she reminded herself.
This letter was again in the Allfather’s hand.
Frigga,
I am utterly at a loss. I cannot fathom what point you are trying to make. Please, enlighten me. If you are angry that I proposed we bring up the Jotun infant, why take him with you in leaving Asgard? What are you hoping to achieve in running to Vanaheim? And such a reduced train? But still taking Thor? I wholly admit I do not understand what it is you are endeavouring to do. You know I will be engaged on Jotunheim for some days more; I cannot leave until peace is successfully brokered. Please, tell me why my family has departed to Vanaheim without a word. Why did I have to hear this news from Heimdall? (Who apparently you have sworn to secrecy; I would greatly appreciate being enlightened on that score too.) Frigga, at least let us talk about the Jotun babe. What is the purpose of this flight?
Yours, still,
Odin
With only a look, Theoric summoned her to come forward and turn to the next letter. Sigyn wondered what she was making of these letters. Was she getting good material for her play? Her face was a paradox – it was expressive, in that it was clearly she was feeling something, but the emotion itself was totally closed off, resistant to categorisation.
The next letter ran:
Odin,
You ask why I have come to Vanaheim – to my own home, I might add, so you certainly need not fret. The most immediate answer, as surely you can see, is that it keeps our options open. If we were, ultimately, to decide to present Loki – His name is Loki. Perhaps I should have begun with that. But Loki is his name, so you must stop referring to him as ‘the Jotun babe’. You chose Thor’s name; I felt it was my turn. And I always liked ‘Loki’. As I was saying, if we do ultimately decide to present Loki, for whatever period of time, as our son, it will doubtless be a smoother process if we can deliver a pretence of my having partaken in lying-in. The fewer eyes on this moment the better, surely. It gives us time to make reasonable decisions as parents.
More than that, however, I must question if you had given any thought to the actual process of raising a baby, much less a baby with nascent magical abilities? So far, certainly, Loki’s ability to maintain a form that passes as Asgardian is truly astounding, but until we can fully ascertain what is safe for him, did you really think he could be surrounded by the raucous crowd that thronged round Thor every moment after his birth? You might not recall the absurd arguments I was involved in simply to be allowed to breastfeed my own son, but I do. And we must be glad that I won that battle; could a wet-nurse be safely procured for Loki? (I have made extensive observations and carefully monitored him myself, and fortunately my milk appears to give him everything he needs, thank the Norns.) Could the tests I have had to take to work out the right temperature for his bath be explained to a nurse? (That was a terrifying process. Fortunately, the answer seems to be that it doesn’t much matter; cold water can do him no harm, but he prefers his water warm, curiously, and that does him no harm either.) These things cannot be carried out in the constant scrutiny of Asgard’s palace.
You ask me if I am angry. The truth is that I am angry, though not for the reasons you seem to believe. I am angry that anyone would threaten Loki. I am angry that Laufey left him to die. I am angry that you never seemed to consider the danger he could be placed in in Asgard. I am angry that his unique needs seemed never to cross your mind when you handed him off. And don’t you dare interpret that as me saying you shouldn’t have taken him from that place. Of course you couldn’t have left him there. I would never have forgiven you if you had. But I am angry, and I feel it is my right to be.
I feel as though I have given birth again. Is that not strange? When I birthed Thor and he was placed into my arms, I looked at him with such instant love and wonder. All that pain and struggle and horror – you could never imagine – and there he was, my son, living and breathing and tied to me by bonds inseverable. I thought the pain might have been part of it in that moment, that of course to bring something so wonderful into this world there would have to be struggle. But from the moment I first lifted Loki up, I felt exactly the same. The intensity of that moment when I first beheld him. I loved him, instantly. I was struck to the heart by the force of it. I had not birthed him at all, but every part of me in that single moment irrevocably claimed him as my own. I will not allow him to be taken from me now, so do not suggest such a thing. I am being selfish, I know. But he is my son and I am his mother.
And I know that you are being selfish in some way, too, though I cannot yet glean how. A part of me feels I should tell you that your plan is foolhardy, riddled with logical flaws. Why do you suggest we raise him as our son, pretending he is Asgardian, when surely it would do more for your proposed cause to acknowledge him as Jotun from the start, to prove that they are not the enemy by nature but rather raised to be so? My own selfishness would grapple with that alternative, I am ashamed to say. I want him to know I am his mother. He is my son and I want the right to be his mother. But we cannot keep his heritage from him forever. He needs to know who he is and see it is not a thing to be kept hidden, not a thing to be ashamed of. He needs to know he is Jotun and also our son. This, Odin, is the point which we need to discuss when you return. What, precisely, we tell Loki, and what, precisely, we tell the Nine Realms.
You see, Odin, I do have some sense of why you might be so determined to raise Loki as our son. Why you over-emphasise the ease with which he might be able to become King of Jotunheim (how many children does Laufey have? What is Loki’s place amongst them? Is he legitimate? How is Jotun kingship even passed?). I do not know precisely why, no, but you cannot make such a throwaway remark as telling me you would have a way to ensure the realms believed something which factually did not happen and not expect me to begin to speculate. Though I have speculated for some time, Odin. One day you will have to tell me the full history of your time as a warrior king. The man you were before you became the man I know. One day you will have to tell me what happened to the Valkyries. Not the official version; the truth. I see its effects, you know, even without knowing the cause. It twists you with guilt, makes you at times wrathful, even rash, in your desire to prevent whatever it was recurring. One day you will have to tell me everything. But for now I will only say that you cannot treat Loki as the atonement of your sin, whatever that sin may be; he is your son, not your penance. You must treat him as such.
He’s a precious boy. He’s very fussy, but he does like lots of attention and to be held. Getting him to sleep through the night will be much more of a challenge than it was with Thor, I expect. Although who can blame him? The poor boy must be frightened he’ll be left completely once again. He does certainly possess considerable magical potential. I trust that, as he is the second son, not your heir, and of course, since any magical mishaps would endanger his entire position within Asgard, risking the revelation of his original heritage, I will be permitted to teach him as I was not allowed to teach Thor? My noxious Vanir influences might be allowed a little leeway with my younger boy, who will be king of another realm and not Asgard.
Thor himself is well, and quite delighted with Loki. He has been allowed to give him a cuddle under strict supervision. I was concerned that the notion of ‘being gentle’ might be a challenge for him – and an issue for both Loki and him, if Loki froze him in fright – but Thor is clearly understanding more and more of what is said, and has certainly been very careful so far. I have told him I am very proud of him. And Loki was quite calm; he laughs when Thor puts on little shows for him with his toys. They seem a well-matched pair. You must return soon to see them both. And me.
I will end here. Think on what I have said. We will speak when you return. Come to us on Vanaheim.
Yours,
Frigga
Sigyn was moving to turn to the next letter before Theoric had asked her to. She had to catch herself and glance at her to check she’d finished reading. Theoric’s fisted were clenched and she was breathily through her nose, long regular breaths.
“Are you –”
“Yes I’m ready for the next one.”
That wasn’t what I was going to ask, Sigyn thought, but she didn’t say anything.
She obediently flipped to the next letter.
“It’s the last one,” she said, turning it over just to make sure.
Theoric simply nodded.
The last letter was short, too. The correspondence seemed to have ended quite abruptly.
Dearest Frigga,
I will be with you tomorrow. We will discuss it then. Loki is a good name. I am pleased you have bonded with him. And pleased you are able to provide for his... unique needs. Thank you.
He is charming, I will admit that. All this time away has made me fond, I suspect. He will mend so much. But we will discuss this anon.
Until tomorrow,
Odin
“That’s it?” Sigyn said without thinking. “It just... stops? We don’t know what they actually discussed, why they chose not to tell him at all, why – ” She cut off. Theoric was looking at her. She didn’t know how to describe the way in which she was looking at her, but it felt like being sucked into a black hole. She felt self-conscious, defenceless. She bit her tongue.
“Would you like to read back over anything? Or take some notes?”
Theoric shook her head. She was stony-faced, unreadable.
Sigyn gathered up the bundled of papers from the cradle, carefully closed the leather casing around them and returned the folder to its place on the shelf. She paused after replacing it, as still and pensive as Theoric herself.
Steeling herself, she said, “What are you trying to do with this play?”
She turned back to Theoric, who, utterly unexpectedly, grinned. It was not a pleasant grin. Her teeth glinted wolfishly in the uncanny light. “I am going to rehabilitate a monster.”
“Loki was not a monster.” She said it before she could stop herself. She was definitely not supposed to take that kind of tone with authorised archive users.
Theoric was clearly surprised.
“I think that,” she pointed to the folder Sigyn had just put back, “makes quite clear –”
“That he was Jotun. Which everyone knows anyway. That’s not the same as being a monster.”
Now Theoric curious, and also, Sigyn thought, disdainful.
“You think he did nothing wrong?”
“I didn’t say that. But he’s not a monster. If that’s what your play’s trying to say –”
Glass green eyes slid up and down Sigyn, taking her in. She had the sense Theoric was trying to place her. When at last she did speak though, all she said was, “Thank you, Miss –?”
“Sigyn.” She knew she sounded sour, but she couldn’t really help it.
“Thank you Sigyn. I believe that’s enough for today. If you would be so good as to escort me out now.”
Sigyn nodded, wordlessly leading the way out.