Sorcha's Secret World, Part one.

Chapter 44, Anna.

It took me several more days to recover from the effects of the poison, a testament to how powerful the curse really was.

Loki did his best to keep the household running while looking after me, which was rather adorable. He even tried to cook, albeit with mixed results.

"LOKI!" I hollered as I heard the all fire alarms in the house go off simultaneously, while at the same time I thought I could smell smoke.

After what felt like an eternity, but what was probably a minute at most, Loki poked his head around the bedroom door.

"The good news is that the kitchen isn't on fire anymore..." Loki began.

"That's what you are leading with? You are terrible at this, aren't you?" Jessie barged right past him.

"Don't worry mum. Loki left an oven glove too close to one of the rings and it caught fire, but uncle Thor put it out right away. Your kitchen is still standing, and besides the oven glove, nothing was damaged permanently." Jessie quickly reassured me. I sighed with relief.

"Wait!" A thought suddenly occurred to me. "How exactly did Thor douse the fire?"

"Well, that's the bad news," Loki said rubbing the back of his neck. "We'll be mopping up rainwater for the rest of the night. I'll just order takeaway, shall I?"

Most of the time Loki didn't leave my side though. We binge-watched Downton Abbey, which Loki had heard of, but never seen.

(If you are wondering if Loki cried at a certain character's death, I am sorry, but I swore a strict oath never to reveal how he bawled his eyes out at that part. So there you go, you didn't hear it from me. I will never tell!)

Loki was refusing to talk about what happened on Jotunnheim, and when I tried to bring up the staff it was met with a curt: "It doesn't matter where it is, as long as it's cursed I can't use it anyway."

But I often caught him staring in the distance, a haunted look in his eyes. And I knew he wasn't sleeping at night. Whenever I woke up he was lying next to me, his eyes unseeing as he stared at the ceiling.

I worried about him, worried about the effect his mother's words might have on him.

"LIAR! DECEIVER! CHARLATAN!

BEGONE! YOU ARE NO SON OF MINE!"

They kept echoing in my mind, and I was sure they were haunting Loki as well. But until he was ready to talk, there was little I could do to comfort him.

I still slept on and off, even during the day. I woke up to find Loki on the bed next to me, using his laptop.

"Please tell me you aren't ordering that lifelike Dark World Loki bust with the real hair, the dead eyes creep me out," I mumbled grumpily. "It's not going in the bedroom, I'll never sleep again!"

Loki grinned. "I am doing nothing of the sort! I am reading a business proposal."

"A business proposal?" My curiosity was peaked. I sat up a bit.

"Has Cedric even told you about the business he owns?"

I knew about his work for the Illuminati, and about his LGBTQA+ charity, but I didn't know he owned a business as well. I shook my head.

Loki enthusiastically began explaining how Cedric's business worked. It had to do with buying up real estate for cheap, renovating it and then selling it high. My eyes quickly glazed over.

"Wait!" I suddenly realised, "Isn't that gentrification? And isn't that a bad thing for poor people who won't be able to afford their homes afterwards?"