The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #3)

I took the elevator up to floor nineteen. Unfortunately, the elevator music hadn’t changed. It was getting to the point where I could sing along with Frank Sinatra in Norwegian. I was just glad I lived on a low floor. If I lived somewhere up in the hundreds, I would have gone…well, berserk.

On floor nineteen, everything was strangely quiet. No sounds of video-game violence emanated from Thomas Jefferson Jr.’s room. (Dead Civil War soldiers love their video games almost as much as they love charging up hills.) I saw no signs that Mallory Keen had been practicing her knife-throwing in the hallway. Halfborn Gunderson’s room was open and being serviced by a flock of ravens, who swirled through his library and his weapons collection, dusting books and battle-axes. The big man himself was nowhere to be seen.

My own room had recently been cleaned. The bed was made. In the central atrium, the trees had been pruned and the grass mowed. (I could never figure out how the ravens operated a lawn mower.) On the coffee table, a note in T.J.’s elegant script read:

We’re at dock 23, sublevel 6. See you there!

The TV had been turned to the Hotel Valhalla Channel, which displayed a list of the afternoon’s events: racquetball, machine-gun tag (like laser tag, except with machine guns), watercolor painting, Italian cooking, advanced sword-sharpening, and something called flyting—all done to the death.

I stared wistfully at the screen. I’d never wanted to practice watercolor painting to the death before, but now I was tempted. It sounded much easier than the trip I was about to take from dock twenty-three, sublevel six.

First things first: I showered off the smell of Boston Harbor. I changed into new clothes. I grabbed my go bag: camping supplies, some basic provisions, and, of course, some chocolate bars.

As nice as my hotel suite was, I didn’t have much in the way of personal stuff—just a few of my favorite books, and some photos from my past that magically appeared over time, gradually filling up the fireplace mantel.

The hotel wasn’t meant to be a forever home. We einherjar might stay here for centuries, but it was only a stopover on our way to Ragnarok. The whole hotel radiated a sense of impermanence and anticipation. Don’t get too comfortable, it seemed to say. You might be leaving any minute to go die your final death at Doomsday. Hooray!

I checked my reflection in the full-length mirror. I wasn’t sure why it mattered. I’d never cared much about appearances during the two years I’d lived on the streets, but lately Alex Fierro had been teasing me mercilessly, which made me more conscious of how I looked.

Besides, if you don’t check yourself from time to time in Valhalla, you could be walking around for hours with raven poop on your shoulder, or an arrow in your butt, or a pair of yoga pants wrapped around your neck.

Hiking boots: check. New pair of jeans: check. Green Hotel Valhalla T-shirt: check. Down jacket, appropriate for cold-water expeditions and falling off masts: check. Runestone pendant that could turn into a heartbroken magical sword: check.

After living on the streets, I wasn’t used to my face looking so clean. I definitely wasn’t used to my new haircut, which Blitz had first given me during our expedition into Jotunheim. Since then, every time it started to grow out, Alex hacked it off again, leaving my bangs just long enough to fall in my eyes, the back chopped to collar level. I was used to my hair being much wilder and more wiry, but Alex took such glee in murdering my blond locks it was impossible to tell him no.

It’s perfect! Alex said. Now you at least look like you’re groomed, but your face is still obscured!

I slipped Randolph’s notebook into my pack, along with one last item I’d been trying hard not to think about—a certain silk handkerchief I’d gotten from my father.

I sighed at the Magnus in the mirror. “Well, sir, you’d better get going. Your friends are eagerly waiting to laugh at you.”


“There he is!” yelled Halfborn Gunderson, berserker extraordinaire, speaker of the obvious.

He barreled toward me like a friendly Mack truck. His hair was even wilder than mine used to be. (I was pretty sure he cut it himself, using a battle-ax, in the dark.) He wore a T-shirt today, which was unusual, but his arms were still a wild landscape of muscle and tattoo. Strapped across his back was his battle-ax named Battle-Ax, and holstered up and down his leather breeches were half a dozen knives.

He wrapped me in a bear hug and lifted me off my feet, perhaps testing to make sure my rib cage would not crack under pressure. He put me down and patted my arms, apparently satisfied.

“You ready for a quest?” he bellowed. “I’m ready for a quest!”

From the edge of the canal, where she was coiling ropes, Mallory Keen called, “Oh, shut up, you oaf! I still think we should use you as the rudder.”

Halfborn’s face mottled red, but he kept his eyes on me. “I’m trying not to kill her, Magnus. I really am. But it’s so hard. I’d better keep busy or I’m going to do something I’ll regret. You have the handkerchief?”

“Uh, yes, but—”

“Good man. Time’s a-wasting!”

He tromped back to the dockside and began sorting his supplies—huge canvas duffels no doubt full of food, weapons, and lots of spare leather breeches.

I scanned the length of the cavern. Along the left-hand wall, a river rushed through the canal, emerging from a train-size tunnel on one end and disappearing into an identical tunnel on the other. The barreled ceiling was polished wood, amplifying the water’s roar and making me feel like we were standing inside an old-fashioned root-beer keg. Supplies and baggage lined the dock, just waiting for a ship to be put on.

At the far end of the room, Thomas Jefferson Jr. stood deep in conversation with the hotel manager, Helgi, and his assistant, Hunding, all three of them looking over some paperwork on a clipboard. Since I had an aversion to paperwork and also to Helgi, I walked over to Mallory, who was now stuffing iron grappling hooks into a burlap sack.

She was dressed in black furs and black denim, her red hair pulled back in a severe bun. In the torchlight, her freckles glowed orange. As usual, she wore her trusty pair of knives at her sides.

“Everything good?” I asked, because clearly it wasn’t.

She scowled. “Don’t you start, too, Mister—” She called me a Gaelic term I didn’t recognize, but I was fairly sure it didn’t mean dearest friend. “We’ve been waiting on you and the boat.”

“Where are Blitzen and Hearthstone?”

It had been several weeks since I’d seen my dwarf and elf buddies, and I’d been looking forward to them sailing with us. (One of the few things I was looking forward to.)

Mallory grunted impatiently. “We’re picking them up on the way.”

That could have meant we were stopping by a different part of Boston, or stopping by a different world, but Mallory didn’t look like she was in the mood to elaborate. She scanned the space behind me and scowled. “What about Alex and Samirah?”

“Alex said they’d meet us later.”

“Well, then.” Mallory made a shooing gesture. “Go sign us out.”

“Sign us out?”