The Ship of the Dead by Rick Riordan

YOUR TYPICALtrip back home.

Golf-cart rides, trying to remember where we parked our warship, sailing into the treacherous mouth of an unknown river, getting sucked into rapids that shot us into the tunnels underneath Valhalla, jumping off a moving ship and watching the Big Banana disappear into the darkness, no doubt on its way to pick up the next lucky group of adventurers bound for glory, death, and Ragnarok-postponing shenanigans.

The other einherjar welcomed us as heroes and carried us to the feast hall for a big celebration. There we found that Helgi had arranged a special surprise for Samirah, thanks to a tip-off from Odin himself. Standing by our regular table, looking very confused, wearing a name tag around his neck that proclaimed VISITOR. MORTAL! DO NOT KILL! was Amir Fadlan.

He blinked several times when he saw Sam. “I—I am so confused. Are you real?”

Samirah tented her hands over her face. Her eyes teared up. “Oh. I’m real. I so want to hug you right now.”

Alex gestured at the crowds pouring in for dinner. “You’d better not. Since we’re all your extended family here, you’ve got several thousand heavily armed male chaperones present.”

I realized Alex was including himself in that group. At some point during the voyage home, he had shifted to male.

“This is…” Amir looked around in wonder. “Sam, this is where you work?”

Samirah made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a joyful sob. “Yes, my love. Yes, it is. And it’s Eid al-Fitr, isn’t it?”

Amir nodded. “Our families are planning dinner together tonight. Right now. I didn’t know if you would be free to—”

“Yes!” Samirah turned to me. “Would you give my apologies to the thanes?”

“No apologies necessary,” I assured her. “Does this mean Ramadan is over?”

“Yes!”

I grinned. “Sometime this week, I am taking you out for lunch. We’re going to eat in the sunlight and laugh and laugh.”

“Deal!” She spread her arms. “Air hug.”

“Air hug,” I agreed.

Alex smirked. “Looks like they’ll need me for chaperone duty, if you all will excuse me.”

I didn’t want to excuse him, but I didn’t have much choice. Sam, Amir, and Alex rushed off to celebrate Eid and eat massive quantities of tasty food.

For the rest of us, the evening was all about drinking mead, getting patted on the back a few thousand times, and hearing the thanes give speeches about how great we were, even if the quality of heroes was much better back in their day. Above, in the branches of the Tree of Laeradr, squirrels and wombats and tiny deer ran around as usual. Valkyries zipped here and there serving food and mead.

Toward the end of the feast, Thomas Jefferson Jr. tried to teach us some of his old marching songs from the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts. Halfborn Gunderson and Mallory Keen alternately threw plates at each other and rolled around in the aisles, kissing, while the other Vikings laughed at them. It made my heart glad to see them together again…though it also made me feel a little empty.

Blitzen and Hearthstone had become such fixtures in Valhalla that Helgi announced they were being made honorary hotel guests, free to come and go as they pleased, though he made a point of saying they did not have rooms, or minibar keys, or any sort of immortality, so they should act accordingly and avoid flying projectiles. Blitz and Hearth were given large helmets that said HONORARY EINHERJI, which they didn’t look too happy about.

As the party was breaking up, Blitzen clapped me on the back, which was sore from all the other clapping that my back had received that night. “We’re heading out, kid. Gotta get some sleep.”

“You guys sure?” I asked. “Everybody is heading to the after-party. We’re doing a tug-of-war over a lake of chocolate.”

Sounds fun,Hearthstone signed. But we will see you tomorrow. Yes?

I knew what he was asking: Was I really serious about following through with my plan—the favor I’d asked Odin?

“Yeah,” I promised. “Tomorrow it is.”

Blitz grinned. “You’re a good man, Magnus. This is going to be awesome!”

The tug-of-war was fun, though our side lost. I think that’s because Hunding was our anchor and he wanted to bathe in chocolate.

At the end of the night, exhausted, happy, and doused in Hershey’s syrup, I staggered back to my room. As I passed Alex Fierro’s door, I stopped for a moment and listened, but I heard nothing. He was probably still out enjoying Eid al-Fitr with Sam and Amir. I hoped they were having a great celebration. They’d earned it.

I stumbled into my room. I stood in the foyer, dripping chocolate all over the carpet. Luckily, the hotel had great magical clean-up service. I remembered the first time I’d entered this room, the day I died falling off the Longfellow Bridge. I had stared in wonder at all the amenities—the kitchen, the library, the couch and big-screen TV, the big atrium with the starry night sky twinkling through the tree branches.

Now there were more photos on the mantel. One or two magically appeared every week. Some were old pictures of my family: my mom, Annabeth, even Uncle Randolph and his kids and wife during happier times. But there were also newer pictures—me with my friends from floor nineteen, a photo I’d taken with Blitz and Hearth when we were still homeless. We’d borrowed somebody’s camera to do a group selfie. How the Hotel Valhalla had retrieved that shot from the ether, I didn’t know. Maybe Heimdall kept a cloud library of all selfies ever taken.

For the first time, I realized that walking into this room felt like coming home. I might not live at the hotel forever. In fact, I’d just had lunch that afternoon at the place where I would probably die someday. Still…this felt like a good place to hang my sword.

Speaking of which…I took off my neck chain, careful not to wake up Jack, and set his runestone pendant on the coffee table. He hummed contentedly in his sleep, probably dreaming of Percy’s sword Riptide and all the other weapons he had loved. I wasn’t sure how I was going to locate the god Bragi and get him to write an epic about Jack, but that was a problem for another day.

I’d just pulled off my sticky chocolate-soaked shirt when a voice behind me said, “You might want to close the door before you start changing.”

I turned.

Alex leaned against the door frame, his arms crossed over his chain mail sweater vest, his pink glasses low on his nose. He shook his head in disbelief. “Did you lose a mud-wrestling contest?”

“Uh.” I looked down. “It’s chocolate.”

“Okay. I’m not going to ask.”

“How was Eid?”

Alex shrugged. “Fine, I guess. A lot of happy people partying. Lots of food and music. Relatives hugging each other. Not really my scene.”

“Right.”

“I left Sam and Amir in good company with their whole families. They looked…Happy doesn’t cover it. Delighted? Ecstatic?”

“Head over heels?” I suggested. “Over the moon?”

Alex met my eyes. “Yeah. That works.”

Drip. Drip.Chocolate dribbled from my fingertips in a completely suave and attractive way.

“So, anyway,” Alex said. “I was thinking about your proposal.”

My throat constricted. I wondered if I had a chocolate allergy I didn’t know about, and I was dying in a new and interesting manner.

“My what?” I squeaked.

“About the mansion,” he clarified. “What did you think I meant?”

“No, of course. The proposal about the mansion. Absolutely.”

“I guess I’m in,” he said. “When do we start?”

“Uh, great! Tomorrow we can do the initial walk-through. I’ll get the keys. Then we wait for the lawyers to do their thing. Maybe a couple of weeks?”

“Perfect. Now go take a shower. You’re disgusting. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

“Okay.”

He turned to leave, then hesitated. “One more thing.”

He walked up to me. “I’ve also been thinking about your declaration of undying love or whatever.”

“I didn’t—it wasn’t—”

He clamped his hands on the sides of my gooey face and kissed me.

I had to wonder: Was it possible to dissolve into chocolate on a molecular level and melt into a puddle on the carpet? Because that’s how I felt. I’m pretty sure Valhalla had to resurrect me several times during the course of that kiss. Otherwise, I don’t know how I was still in one piece when Alex finally pulled away.

He studied me critically, his brown and amber eyes taking me in. He had a chocolate mustache and goatee now, and chocolate down the front of his sweater vest.

I’ll be honest. A small part of my brain thought, Alex is male right now. I have just been kissed by a dude. How do I feel about that?

The rest of my brain answered: I have just been kissed by Alex Fierro. I am absolutely great with that.

In fact, I might have done something typically embarrassing and stupid, like making the aforementioned declaration of undying love, but Alex spared me.

“Eh.” He shrugged. “I’ll keep thinking about it. I’ll get back to you. In the meantime, definitely take that shower.”

He left, whistling a tune that might have been a Frank Sinatra song from the elevator, “Fly Me to the Moon.”

I’m great at following orders. I went to take a shower.