Odin lacked the mastery of the magic arts that his wife and younger son boasted, but as king of Asgard, he had access to every treasure and enchanted trinket in Asgard’s vaults. There were several items within adequate for his purposes. Yet despite the precautions he had taken, he crept through the halls of his own palace with the trepidations of a first-time thief. A sense of calm only returned for him when he was well past the last set of guards and stood outside his son’s prison cell.

The lamps out in the frigid corridor between the cells were dimmed in this late hour, but Loki’s cell remained brightly lit. He must have fallen asleep while reading. He lay on top of the blanket on his bed, fully dressed, with his boots on and a book flipped open beside him. Odin smiled. He knew his pose; he had found Loki sprawled out in the same manner so many times before.

As he had then, he now watched Loki’s chest rise and fall. Loki’s face was half-buried in the pillow, but as far as Odin could tell, Loki was in good health. The cell was orderly, filled with fine, wooden furniture from Loki’s old chambers and a neat stack of books sat in the corner. Likely, a growing one. Frigga would not leave Loki without the comfort of fresh reading material. Like the furniture, Loki’s clothes were remnants of his previous life. And like the furniture, they still seemed in good condition. If they were creased, it would have been from Loki sleeping in them.

Of course, the cell lacked certain base things: privacy, natural light, fresh air. But it was a cell and Loki was a condemned criminal.

Condemned by Odin himself, to be precise. If his will prevailed, Loki would never again have the dignity of full privacy nor the base diversion of seeing sunlight. Odin wondered sometimes – most nights – if it would have been kinder to expedite Loki’s end. Odin’s own father would have done just that. No doubt neither Frigga nor Thor would ever forgive him for such a sentence, and Odin himself was uncertain if he would be able to face himself in the mirror again. But he could also see old Bor’s argument: Loki’s life had ended the day Odin passed his sentence – his days down here were only a mockery of life. Odin’s sentimentality only prolonged Loki’s torment.

Loki turned and in shifting his left arm, he pushed the book off the bed. It landed on the floor with a solid thump. Loki didn’t stir; he had always been a heavy sleeper.

A new possibility stirred in Odin’s mind. He glanced around. Having spotted no one in the vicinity, he stepped through the shimmering barrier that kept Loki contained. The experience was akin to running through a torrent of winter rain, save that one emerged on the other side fully dry.

Inside the cell, the air was colder and stale, and a familiar magic hummed softly. Loki’s magic, undoubtedly, which stoked Odin’s curiosity. The cell dampened Loki’s abilities, he should not have been able to perform a single meaningful spell. Odin stripped the bulk of the magic away.

Illusions. Odin sighed; he ought to have guessed. Loki was a master of illusions and would have been able to conjure them even with his magic weakened.

Odin stripped away the rest, save the magic he had woven himself to hide Loki’s Jotunn parentage. The cell stank of stale sweat. The neat pile was now a haphazard mess and peppered with loose, singed pages. Much of the furniture too bore signs of fire damage or was deeply gouged. Loki himself was still fast asleep, but on top of a stained and rumpled sheet, one corner of which was tangled around Loki’s bare foot. His thin blanket lay across the room, on a low ledge by the magical restraining barriers.

Shaking his head, Odin crept towards his son’s bed. It had to have been weeks since Loki had touched a hairbrush and he was in dire need of a haircut. There were no more fine clothes or leather boots either. The tunic was still in the dark green Loki favoured, but it had been made of the same coarse linen fabric every other prisoner on Asgard wore. The trousers, too short for Loki’s long legs, were standard prison issue. Again, Odin realised, he should have known. He had himself ordered that his son be treated as an ordinary prisoner and issued presentable clothing only when he was brought out to hear the judgement on his misdeeds.

‘This is just punishment for his misdeeds,’ Odin muttered under his breath.

He drew back a little as Loki again shifted in his sleep, but he could not find the conviction to turn away. He had tried to make sense of it over many sleepless nights. What had happened to the boy he remembered? Loki had been so clever and witty and brave and kind. How many times had he sat on Odin’s knee and they both laughed as Loki conjured fireflies out of thin air or practised some other trick his tutors had shown him?

The secret Odin kept from Loki was not the reason Loki had ended up in this cell. It had already been too late by then. As Loki came into adulthood, his humour had taken on a cruel edge and his natural intelligence had turned to the pursuit of darker inclinations. And yet, Odin could not pinpoint where it had gone awry.

It was tempting to say that Laufey’s blood, which ran in Loki’s body even as Odin’s did not, was to blame. But to draw that conclusion, would be to deny the obvious. Odin had raised three children and all three had grown up to do heinous things. But even the king’s children were not immune from the law, thus, as king, Odin had pronounced judgement first on Hela, then on Thor and now Loki. And by extension, it seemed, on his own inadequacy as a father.

‘Why? No,’ Loki mumbled, his limbs jerking. ‘No, please.’

Loki sharply turned his head to the other side of the pillow and clenched his jaw. For a long moment, he was still and although his brows remained tight, Odin wondered if he had slipped into a calmer dream. But then Loki threw up his arms, as if to defend himself from an attacker, and mumbled out a long string of words, all of which were too badly slurred for Odin to make them out.

Odin caught Loki’s flailing arms in one hand and with the other trailed across Loki’s furrowed brows. ‘It’s all right, my boy, it’s only a dream.’

Loki’s eyes shot open.

Odin staggered back, but it was too late. Loki sucked in a breath and with his eyes almost impossibly wide for someone who had just awoken, he peered around the cell. Seeing no one there, he tugged at his filthy sheet until he released his foot, which had been tangled in it, but then made another scan of his surroundings.

‘Mother?’ he said, his voice breaking. His mouth remained slightly open and his eyebrows drew together in obvious confusion. He looked centuries younger. ‘Is there someone here?’

Odin started, but caught himself. He had stumbled upon Loki in an unguarded moment, which Loki had always detested. Loki might tolerate his mother seeing him like this and acquiesce to a measure of tenderness, but he held only contempt for his father and expected nothing else in return. His expression would twist and his tone turn bitter. Odin could almost pre-empt his son’s words: ‘Is it time for another one of our chats? Or have you tired of feeding the beast in your dungeons and come to smother me in my sleep?’

‘Great,’ Loki muttered, rubbing at his eyes. ‘Now I’m imagining things.’

He sighed and let himself sink back into the mattress. A few moments later, he rolled to his side, to face away from Odin and towards the solid rather than the magical walls of his cells, then drew his legs up until his knees almost pressed up against his chest. Odin waited for Loki’s breathing to slow, while Loki was awake, he could hardly leave the cells without Loki noticing. The elvish trinket strapped around Odin’s wrist ensured he could move about unseen and unheard, but he would disturb the magical barriers on his way out.

However, sleep now seemed to elude Loki. His breaths only grew more uneven and soon he started to shiver, which unnerved Odin. True, the dungeons were cold and Loki’s tunic could provide little warmth, but a bit of cold air was not something that typically bothered a frost giant. Odin glanced to the blanket lying unused on the other side of the cell. It was a father’s instinct to make his child comfortable, but to relent to that instinct would mean revealing his presence here.

Loki let out an ugly, choking sound that sent a quiver through his body. Was he sick? There were several sharp, uneven inhales and shuddering exhales. Or was he crying? Or both? Odin began to move around to the other side of the bed, then cut himself short. To find out what troubled Loki this night would help no one. Loki would not find comfort in his father’s presence and Odin had known he had condemned his son to a lifetime of misery when he pronounced his sentence.

There was, however, one thing other he could do without Loki noticing. Frigga had taught Odin that spell long ago, when Thor and Loki were still sharing a crib and neither boy would sleep more than twenty minutes at a time. As Odin drew out the magic, he could almost feel the warm, golden sunlight that had flooded the nursery when he had last used the spell. Just as then, Loki’s breaths took on a calm rhythm and tension seeped out of his limbs.

Yet there was still a slight trembling. Odin glanced to the blanket and rejected the thought for a second time. Loki’s mind was not addled, he was bound to notice if he woke up with a blanket covering him that had not been there when he fell asleep. But the shivering nagged at Odin. He attempted a warming spell. Although it would not last past an hour, it was better than nothing.

With that, Odin resolved to leave. It was late in the night and come morning, he would have some work to do. He would order for all prisoners in the dungeons be provided with warmer clothing. He would have to find a reason to change out the furniture in Loki’s cell and replace all the damaged items. And, the books. And the bedding too.

‘Try to sleep well, my boy,’ Odin said softly. ‘I feared he was lost forever, but Thor came back to us. Perhaps, one day, you too will find your way back.’