Sixteen-year-old Samirah al-Abbas is an Arab-American high school student, a Valkyrie, and the demigod daughter of Loki. Which is to say, she is one busy girl.
A devout Muslim, Sam prays regularly and follows her religion’s laws and practices—even though doing so has opened her to bullying from classmates. She keeps her long brown hair tucked within her green hijab, a magical headscarf that can expand and camouflage two people hiding beneath it. When performing her duties as a Valkyrie, Sam wears a cone-shaped silvery helmet over her hijab, carries a spear made of light, and rides a flying horse made of mist. Her eyes are an arresting shade of brown that Magnus Chase once described as the color of redwood bark. They have an unusual luster similar to that of her father’s eyes.

A strong-willed, intelligent, ambitious teenager, Sam dreams of pursuing her first and greatest passion: flying. On a nebulous horse, behind the controls of a plane, soaring under her own power—it doesn’t matter so long as it’s flight. Her second passion is for her fiancé, Amir Fadlan, who she has known and loved since she was twelve. Her feelings toward her father are equally strong though much less positive. She fears Loki, who has often controlled her actions with a mere thought. She inherited the power of shape-shifting from him, but hates using it, because it connects her to him. And she is disheartened by the distrust she sees in other people’s faces when they learn who her father is. But fierce fighter that she is, Sam is learning to overcome Loki’s hold on her.