Thor's Serpents by K.L. Armstrong, M.A. Marr

working for us for almost two years,” Hattie said. “We knew that Ragnarök was coming. He’s been our spy. He left you.”
    “I would’ve saved you, but you aren’t worth saving.” Fen flashed his teeth at Laurie. “You didn’t think I’d care about you after you lied to me, did you?”
    “I didn’t lie.” She tried to step forward, but someone heldon to her arm. She dropped her flashlight trying to pull away from the person who had her arm.
    “You didn’t tell me about Owen. You kept secrets from me.” Fen watched her.
    “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything, but that doesn’t mean you should help
them
.” Laurie tried to reach the flashlight, but it had vanished. The light was still shining at Fen, who was walking toward her now. As he got closer, she could see that there were teeth marks in his arm. Someone—probably one of the wolves—had attacked him. His arms were bleeding now.
    “You don’t understand. You’re not like me.” Fen shook his head. “I hoped you would be a wolf, too, but you’re not. That’s really why I had to leave. You won’t survive the fight, so I’m not going to bother trying to help you anymore. If you were a wolf, you could join me, but only the
wulfenkind
will survive Ragnarök. You’ll die.” He inclined his head toward Baldwin and Owen. “Them too. It was a waste to worry about trying to rescue either of them when they’re going to die soon anyhow. You were weak, and you were trying to make
me
weak, too.”
    “No,” she insisted. “You listen to me, Fenrir Brekke. I didn’t lie, and the world isn’t ending. We can win. You can come back with me, and we’ll win.”
    Hattie and Skull laughed. They were laughing so hard that they seemed to be shaking like they were ready to fallover. Laurie realized that she was shaking, too. It wasn’t from laughter, but because the floor was vibrating.
    “Something’s wrong,” she told them all. “Something is very wrong.”
    No one listened, though, and the vibrations from the floor were making it hard to stand. Earthquakes weren’t typical in South Dakota. Tornadoes were, but that wouldn’t explain why the floor in the museum was rattling.
    “Pay attention!” she yelled.
    Skull and Hattie kept laughing, and Fen was staring at her in anger. Laurie looked around the surprisingly bright room. It seemed strange that she could see when everything had been so dark only a few moments ago.
    Before she could figure out why, Laurie saw the trolls running toward them. Giant trolls, a whole army of them, were running so fast that it would only be a moment until they trampled the Raiders.
    “Fen!” she screamed. “Look out!”
    But the troll grabbed him in a hand that was already turning to stone—even though it was obviously
not
dawn—and Fen was swept up into the air. His legs were dangling, kicking at nothing, and the two Raiders were laughing. He was being choked by a troll, and the Raiders were
laughing
.
    “It’s your fault,” Hattie said. “You lied to him, and now he’s dying.”
    “No!” Laurie started running toward her cousin, but in a moment, she was jerked back by both arms. Fen, the troll, and the two Raiders all vanished. Everything went dark again, as if the light she’d seen all around them had been turned off. Suddenly, she was standing outside the Lakota tipi in the center of the room with Baldwin and Owen at her sides.



“How… Where… What happened to Fen? And the troll?” She looked around the room. The light that she had seen by just a moment ago was gone. “The light went away—”
    “Mara,” Baldwin said quietly. “Remember? Whatever you saw wasn’t real. No Fen. No light. No trolls.”
    “It was like you were asleep but standing.” Owen nudged her toward the tipi, and as much as she didn’t want to move away from where she thought she’d just seen Fen, she knew that she had to. Fen wasn’t really here. Those were her fears. It had seemed so real, but her cousin