Frigg had not slept a full night in a week, and she could no longer weave a clean thread. She sat at her loom in Fensalir, her marsh palace of gold and reeds, and tried to pull fate from her radiant distaff. The cloud-threads shimmered, then snarled. Every night the same dream returned. She saw her son Baldr on cold ground, a dart in his chest, light draining from his skin. She was Queen of the Aesir, mother of the most beloved god in the nine realms, and she could not stop shaking. She had already made every living thing swear to spare him. Fire, water, iron, beast, and stone had all given their oaths. No weapon could touch Baldr now. The gods threw stones and spears at him for sport, and he only laughed as they bounced away. Yet the dream did not stop. That was what frightened her. A dream that keeps returning means fate is not finished. Baldr came to her at dawn. Light spilled from him and lit the dark hall. "Mother, you look ill," he said. He knelt and took her cold hands in his warm ones. "You have already saved me. Rest." "I cannot," she said. "The dream comes back. Something still hunts you." He smiled, gentle and sure. "Nothing can. You made the whole world promise." He kissed her forehead and left to join his brothers. Frigg did not believe him. She rose and dropped the loom. If the dream would not leave, she would find the flaw herself. She went to Odin. She found the Allfather beneath the great tree, his one eye fixed on the horizon. He did not turn. "You locked the beginning of Ragnarok away from my sight," he said. "So I would not stop it." "I locked it so you would not despair," she answered. "Now my dream shows Baldr dead. Help me. What did I miss?" Odin was silent a long moment. "Every oath," he said. "Name them." She named them, one by one, all the plants and beasts and stones. Fire. Wolf. Oak. Ash. Snake. She counted them like beads on a string. Then she reached the smallest green thing and stopped. There had been one she passed by. A little sprig on a branch, too young and too soft to swear. She had thought it harmless. She had not asked it for a single word. "The mistletoe," she whispered. "I never bound the mistletoe." Odin turned his eye on her. "Then it is the only thing left that can kill him." Frigg felt the dream snap into place, sharp and clear at last. She knew now what the vision meant. She also knew a darker thing. Loki had returned to Asgard, the pupil she once taught the deepest craft. If a weakness remained, he would find it. She seized her cape. "Then I ride now," she said, "before he learns what I forgot."