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Could You Please Stop Killing My Goat?

LESSON LEARNED: If you take a Valkyrie out for coffee, you’ll get stuck with the check and a dead body

I hadn’t seen Samirah al-Abbas in almost six weeks, so when she called out of the blue and said we needed to talk about a ht away

(Technically I’ didn’t apply, but still…Sam sounded anxious)

She hadn’t yet arrived when I got to the Thinking Cup on Newbury Street The place was packed as usual, so I queued up for coffee A few seconds later, Saht over the heads of the café patrons

Nobody batted an eye Regular ical stuff, which is fortunate, because otherwise Bostonians would spend iants, trolls, ogres, and einherjar with battle-axes and lattes

Sam landed next to me in her school unifor-sleeve navy shirt with the King Acade from her belt I was pretty sure the ax wasn’t standard dress code

As glad as I was to see her, I noted that the skin under her eyes was darker than usual She aying on her feet

“Hey,” I said “You look terrible”

“Nice to see you, too, Magnus”

“No, I mean…not terrible like different than normal terrible Just terrible like exhausted”

“Should I get you a shovel so you can dig that hole a little deeper?”

I raised my hands in surrender “Where have you been the last month and a half?”

Her shoulders tightened “My workload this se kids after school Then, as yousouls of the dead and running top secret missions for Odin”

“You kids today and your busy schedules”

“On top of all that…there’s flight school”

“Flight school?” We shuffled forith the line “Like airplanes?”

I knew Saoal was to become a professional pilot so lessons “You can do that at sixteen?”

Her eyes sparkled with exciterandparents could never have afforded it, but the Fadlans have this friend who runs a flight school They finally convinced Jid and Bibi—”

“Ah” I grinned “So the lessons were a gift from Amir”

Saer I knoho has a betrothed, and it’s cute how flustered she gets when she talks about Amir Fadlan

“Those lessons were the hed wistfully “But enough of that I didn’t bring you here to talk about my schedule We have an informant to meet”

“An informant?”

“This could be the break I’ve been waiting for If his inforood—”

Sam’s phone buzzed She fished it out of her pocket, checked the screen, and cursed “I have to go”

“You just got here”

“Valkyrie business Possible code three-eight-one: heroic death in progress”

“You’rethat up”

“I’m not”

“So…what, so down! Need Valkyrie ASAP!’ followed by a bunch of sad-face emojis?”

“I see your soul to Valhalla You didn’t text me”

“No, but I’m special”

“Just get a table outside,” she said “Meet my informant I’ll be back as soon as I can”

“I don’t even knohat your informant looks like”