A few weeks after Ship of the Dead

Mallory had once joked and Samirah was a Fangirl.

Correction: Mallory had once insulted Samirah by calling her a Fangirl.

She, Magnus, and Mallory had been confronting Frigg on a train—well, Mallory was doing most of the confronting—and Samirah had gotten a little too excited that she was meeting The Frigg.

"Will you stop fangirling, Valkyrie?" she has said.

In her defense, Frigg was her favorite Aesir. And no one has seen her in a really long time. It was kind of mind-boggling that Samirah got to meet her.

And now, that Fangirl was shining through again, as she read a dystopian book that had all her favorite stuff: fake royalty, badass main female character, and betrayal.

She had gotten into reading when she was 12, and ever since then, it had been her escape. Then she became a valkyrie at Valhalla and had gotten her own magical world. But she realized that it was all a lie when everyone hated her for being a daughter of Loki.

In short, reading had always been her way to forget the world for a few hours, and go to a better one.

—

Amir knocked on the al-Abbas's door, and a few seconds later, Bibi opened it.

"Amir! How are you? Come in," she said

"Im great, thank you. Um, is Sam...irah here?" He asked, remembering that her grandparents usually addressed Samirah by her full name.

If Bibi noticed, she didn't say anything. "She's upstairs, in her room."

"Ok, thank you!" Amir said and walked up the steps.

The door was open, and Samirah was sitting on her bed, eyebrows raised. Then she threw the book against the wall and buried her head in her hands.

"Are you gonna get that?" he asked

Samirah looked up and her entire face glowed when she saw Amir. Samirah's grandfather watched distantly from the top of the stairs.

"Hi, um, I didn't know you were coming," Samirah said

"I texted you, but I don't think you saw it," Amir said, picking up the book and handing it back to her. Samirah took it.

"Now, what happened that made you get so mad at characters that don't even exist."

Samirah crossed her arms. "They're real to me. And if you must know, he betrayed her. Like, tried to murder her."

Amir looked disturbed. "What are you even reading?"

"Just a book,"

"Tell me about it," Amir said

Samirah blushed. No one had ever asked her what her book was about. In fact, they usually didn't care. "Ok so basically it's about this dystopian world where everyone's blood is either red or silver..."

As she explained, Amir nodded along and asked questions and actually paid attention. He looked genuinely interested in what she had to say.

"But then she discovers she has powers, even though she has red blood..."

After 10 more minutes, she finished explaining.

"That sounds look," Amir said, "Maybe I'll read it."

Samirah bounced in her seat. "Really?"

"Yeah,"

"Yay! Then we could read the entire series together and talk about all the characters and the ships and the plot and ships and most importantly, the ships!"

"Let me reading the series first, Mira,"

Samirah blushed. "Ok,"

—

Shorter than usual but this weeks chapter! I changed all the other chapter titles, so don't get them confused.

I would like to take a moment to thank my sensitivity reader, brilliant_light

See you next week!