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half-brother is an eight-legged horse that Dad gave birth to while he was prancing around as a mare. (His saga gets worse and worse, doesn’t it?) Then my full bad-blood brothers: a wolf and a snake. Then assorted man-eating hags.(I never asked him about the ogresses. I guess I didn’t really want to know the answer. Would you?) Dad and all his hideous brats, popping up everywhere. What was he trying to do, create his own crèche of horrors?
    He got away with everything, my flickering, deceitful, shape-shifting father. Sometimes he was a handsome god. Sometimes an old woman. Sometimes a mare, or a salmon, or a fly.
    That’s Loki, turning a disaster into a triumph.
    Shame he could never work the same miracle on me.
    I used to pretend I could shape-shift like my father. I’d look at my half-dead body, close my eyes and imagine myself transformed into a whole living one. Not even anything special, just legs that were ivory-pink instead of festering, gangrenous black.
    *
    So why didn’t the gods just kill us, Loki’s monstrous children? Stupid question.
    We were related to the gods, the children of a god. You don’t pollute a place like Asgard with gods’ spilledblood. Even bad blood.
    Bet they wished they could. Bet they wished they had. But you can’t change your fate. You can only try to hide from it.
    For a while the gods thought they could tame Fen. Maybe they hoped Asgard’s balmy air would sweeten his breath and ease his rage. Ha. I could have told them that was a non-starter. Especially as he got bigger and bigger, less and less playful.
    Instead, they came up with subtler plans.

15
DEATH TUMBLE

    HE GODS GATHERED in one of their glorious meadows and whistled for Fen. I saw Tyr and Heimdall lugging a massive, iron-linked chain between them. It clumped and thudded, each fetter broad as an oak trunk. I remember the breeze, warm on my skin and the smell of apple blossom.
    Fen sidled up.
    ‘Wolf,’ said Tyr. ‘Are you eager for fame?’
    Fen said nothing, watching them with his burning yellow eyes.
    ‘Are you as strong as this chain? I’ve bet you are – Heimdall insists that you’re not.’
    Fen sniffed the chain then sat back on his haunches. He’s got bigger , I thought. A lot bigger . His mighty paws no longer looked too large for his body.
    ‘If you can break it, you’ll be renowned for your strength throughout the nine worlds.’
    I watched Fen eye up the fetters. The gods gathered round, eager for the sport. Magni, Thor’s son, tried to push one of the links, and gave up.
    Suddenly Fen bared his terrible teeth.
    ‘Bind me,’ he said.
    Fen let the gods wind the heavy fetters round his neck, his legs and his hairy belly till he was trussed like a ham. I could feel Fen playing with them as he sank beneath the chain’s weight. I knew he was pretending; I don’t think the gods did.
    ‘Ready?’ they asked.
    Fenrir flexed his muscles. The chain shuddered, but didn’t crack.
    The gods held their breath.
    Fenrir lashed against it, straining his muscles, bracing his heavy paws. Then suddenly the chain exploded, every link shattering, flying through the air like rocks. The gods leaped back. Magni shrieked and burst into tears as a link gashed his shoulder. His father slapped his face.
    The next day, they tried again. This time with a chain twice as strong as the first, a chain with links so huge that even Thor struggled to lift them.
    Again Fenrir, eager for fame, and keen to mock, let the gods bind him.
    There was a clinking and clanking as my brother heaved and strained. This time I knew he wasn’t pretending. He dug his paws into the ground, filled his chest with air, straining and growling and flexing every muscle in his body. Then – TWANG! – the bonds burst, the links breaking into a thousand pieces.
    The next time they tried it was with a fetter as soft and smooth as a silken ribbon, but woven by dwarves with cunning and magic, from the sound of a cat walking