Loki

, this old thing? Merely a token from a rogue Sakaaran who was foolish enough to test his strength against mine.

He would never be king. He’d never be his brother. He’d never be a hero. He would never be Theo, cast aside and still strong without being brittle. He’d never be Amora either. He had proved that when he’d tried to stop their army.
What else was left?
He could be the witch. He could be the villain. He could be the trickster, the schemer, the self-serving God of Chaos, prove the mythology books right. Prove them all right in what they had all thought, that he was rotten from the start. He would serve no man but himself, no heart but his own. That would be his choice.
He could be the witch.
Be the witch, and know everything.

“I am not weak,” Loki said. “I am not your villain, and I am not your fool. I am a protector of my homeland.” He thrust his hand in the air. “For Asgard!”

Theo held his gaze, his face etched with stubborn determination. That brilliant stubbornness that had kept him alive in a world that had cast him

Thank you for running into me on the platform,” Loki said. “It was easier than finding you on the train.”
The light off the Norn Stones reflected up onto Theo’s face. His mouth was hanging open. “Why did you leave them with me?”
“Because I trust you.”

But he’d take a life in the dungeon in chains before he’d settle for one of lock-jawed smiles, pretending he was happy to be the second choice. If fate had dealt him a poor hand, he would stack the deck.

Loki didn’t reply. Instead, he pulled a stool up beside her, reached into his coat, and withdrew a pouch that he dropped onto the table with a hollow clatter. The drawstring was loose, and the leather slipped back to reveal the glittering shine of the five stolen Norn Stones.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s be villains.”

“Tell me what?” Loki said. “That before I even arrived, you all had made up your minds about me? You had decided I was not to be trusted, that I was slippery and cruel and wily, because of a lot of old stories you had read about me? How disappointed you must have been when it was me who showed up instead of my brother with sunshine spurting out of his ass. I’m sure this book”—he flung the volume onto the ground between them—“has some very flattering things to say about him. Because he’s the hero, isn’t he? He was always going to be the hero. And I’m not. I could descend from the heavens surrounded in angelic light and give everyone in your realm cheese sandwiches and a unicorn, and you would all still know me only as the villain from the stories.”

But villain? Is that what he was destined to be? Was there even any point in trying to do the right thing if his future was already written in the myths, if he was the antagonist of everyone else’s stories?

A hard, unflattering portrait of a man with a sharp smile and a cruel stare, beneath the title Loki, the Trickster. God of Chaos. A few words and phrases jumped out at him.
Vain.
Shallow.
Manipulative.
A cruel predator.
The father of lies.
He cheats.
He steals.
Murderer.
Villainous.
Villain.