"Odin gave me a second chance," I tell her when the worst is over. I've calmed down, and she's calmed down. She no longer looks like she's about to break my jaw—or hug me—and I've stopped my womanish tears. We're sitting in her herbalist's room with the remains of sweetmilk and floral cakes between us like children at a Midsummer party. Dried flowers and medicinal greens color the air in layered scents, some crisp as a fire pit and others a mystifying half-dream that would lead a person half-mad trying to find the source. We could be . . . years ago. Centuries ago. I've just come home from Alfheim. Or I've just come by in between judiciary terms at the High Council.

Frigga pours mead in the silver mug she's found for my use; mead being a drink for truce. Sharing this drink is sharing trust and honor; this drink is owned by warriors and owed the night before great battles. It's a grievous offense to betray someone pouring one mead—provided one actually drinks the mead. The cakes are more my style. They taste like flowers—not real flowers, which as any five year old can tell you taste absolutely disgusting—but the way flowers would taste if flowers tasted anything like they smell. They are delicious lies.

"I lured him to Svartalfheim disguised as a palace guard," I say around a blue pastry that complements the mead not in the slightest. "I wanted to have a good long chat with our king where he couldn't have me thrown back behind bars. If the man who used to pretend to be my father did not bother to hear what I had to say before sentencing me to life in prison, he was certainly going to listen to me then."

"Odin was angry with your actions," Frigga says, because of course this reconciles everything. "As was I." She hesitates around her next bite of pastry. Her lower lip twitches, but I can't tell if she's masking a frown at me or her absentee husband. Frigga sets aside her fork with her own cake untouched.

I make an elaborate point to drink every last drop of her mead. I can't let her think I've got anything to hide now. When I am finished, I add the empty mug to our make-believe symbolism scattered on the table between us. "Do you have anything less . . . noxious? A good Vanir bitter per chance, or even a—"

"Loki." Her fingers knot together in her lap where she must think I can't see them. "Where is your father?"

I have to quirk an eyebrow at that. "I'm going to assume you mean your husband. I think we both well know what happened to the creature who gave me life." Even here in the herbalist room there are gaudy ornamental touches from the rest of Odin's personal territory: a shining managull crest and doorknob that don't match Frigga's naturalistic sensibilities. The flawless glowing metal seems to be watching us, ordering me to leave. Frigga's dried vegetation and wooden apothecary table are intruders much the same way that I am: a small green heart out-armed so much polished sterility.

Frigga's hands are corpse white. "Where is your father?"

Unhappiness tries to slice up into my ribs. Whatever lie I've let settle around me, that she and I could be whiling lunch and I'm still her son and she's still my mother, is gone. I swallow a sour lurch that wants to be blood. I can still taste the mead. My throat is plastered in rancid beehive.

She watches me with dark, wet eyes.

My mouth peels into an overlarge smile. Mistrust is not a sight I'm used to enduring from Frigga. "Odin?" I say. "Or Laufey?"

"Don't." Her voice is hollow.

"Don't demand to know why I was captured as a prize and lied to my en—?"

"Don't . . . pretend you don't know what I'm asking." The Queen doesn't rise to my bait for an argument. The distance in her eyes is a stinging rebuke.

I blow out a weary breath. The apothecary chairs are no good for comfort, so I kick one leg up to rest across the other and face her above the empty mug. "He listened to my story. He went to verify its truth. When he found out that I am not a complete honorless liar, he decided that I should be allowed to go into hiding. I am on my way to anonymity now and would be gone if you hadn't startled me. Not that I minded being startled, understand, but you're not exactly at the top of my list. I was to collect anything I meant to take from my rooms and leave—I wanted to say goodbye to you first." What a mistake that's turning out to be. I would rather hold Frigga's likeness as the grief-stricken mother from last night than remember the dirty reproach she's using to dissolve my vitals.

Her emotionless facade doesn't so much as flicker. "What story?"

"My story. Strange that anyone's bothered to ask after all this time. I've been growing accustomed to being written off as a blight to be silenced. My story, Mother. Starting with the moment I fell off the Rainbow Bridge and ending when dear sweet Hlothorri marched me back home as a criminal in chains. As I have lamented, If our beloved king had thought me worth time enough to even speak with after condemning me to suffer alone and die, he'd have known two years ago that I am a harbinger of terrible truth: I'm not really the monster you need to be worrying about."

"Where is Odin?" Frigga repeats.

Hatred swells black and cold in my chest. "Why? Do you think I've killed him? Am I a murderer now, in your eyes?"

She places her hands on the table, but whether to form a barrier between us or hope that I will reach out to her like a child I do not care to find out. Now as before, I've told her something important and all she worries after is whether her precious—

"Loki."

My name is not a rune of binding.

"I cannot protect you," Frigga says. Her voice is strange, old and very weak. "Whatever you have done is of your own making, and although I love you this is—"

What did I expect? My dearling, I am so glad you are alive. Let us forget this last cen—four years—and go back to the way things were. Come here. You don't have to go into hiding. Please stay on Asgard. I am still a fool.

"I don't require your protection," I snap. "Or your help."

Frigga inhales sharply through her nose. She is going to ask her question again.

"Odin is watching me as we speak," I say, so I won't have to endure her wishing me away. Again. "The information I gave to him is the only reason I am alive. Even separated by the branches of Yggdrasil he won't let me be. The man who made me call him father is waiting for one wrong move—any move—to use as his final excuse. He wants to have me executed. Don't be shocked, Mother, you know how he is."

"I find it hard to believe—" She is shocked, but not for that reason. Frigga's lips are white and barely move— "that he wanted you to impersonate him."

I take my time finishing my floral cake. This one has a bite to it like blood peppers, which is much preferable to sugary sweetness. Sweetness is best when accompanied by a pinch of salt, or liberal application of heat. Sweetness drizzled over sweetness is repellant—too much of a good thing is a badly told lie botched by someone trying too hard to make you their friend. The cakes add a floral garden to the other falsities in this herbalist's room: the garden isn't real, and the sensible wooden table isn't sensible for a High King's wife, and the hand-gathered herbs drying from the rafters weren't picked by Asgard's queen nor tied by Asgard's queen, nor hung from real rafters. The rafters are decoration. Furniture.

"And I find it hard to believe," I say, "that my execution means nothing at all to you."

Frigga's chin wrinkles. She won't cry. I love her that she doesn't won't cry. Frigga sees this detour for what it is, and watches me like a headsman.

"Well, no," I finally admit. "But we can't always get what we want, now, can we? I needed to get into my suite and my choices for going inconspicuous were you, Thor, or Odin-King. You and your son are currently on Asgard, while Odin-King is currently playing hide-and-seek with the Chitauri. Did you like my eulogy?"

"Tell me what he is doing." Frigga doesn't rise to this detour, either. "You said he is watching you. From where?"

"Ask him yourself when he returns."

"I am asking you." Her lips tighten. "Please tell me where my husband is."

I don't shrug. I don't smile. This is too serious for games. "In the Void. Looking to convince himself I'm still an honorless liar. He wants to see that this mysterious Other I've told him about isn't a figment of my ill imagination. Your healer told me that I was mad, and I suspect your husband agrees. The last I saw of him, he told me he would plant me on a spike if I misused his trust."

I sit upright and shuffle forward in my chair. "Say! I have a question for you. Earlier today in the War Council, while I was ordering a territorial massacre rather than, I don't know, establishing a second world, I was perplexed to realize that there is a bizarre gulf in the Red Council's knowledge. Why isn't it know that it was I who slew Laufey-King? I suppose by now I should stop being hurt when Asgard brushes my triumphs under the rug and brandishes my defeats for all to see, but so long as this is an unexpected chance for honest dialogue I might as well ask."

Frigga's brow furrows. "We did not think you would be proud to have that known."

"Why shouldn't I be proud? Laufey was a dangerous enemy of Asgard who would have murdered both you and Asgard's king. I am a hero."

I can see the answer written on her face as thinly-veiled pity. Heat snaps to life in my heart; I can taste cinders; sparks explode behind my eyes. She reaches for me in an infantile attempt to comfort. I jerk backwards so hard the chair scrapes. "I was raised as Odin's son. I was Prince of Asgard. I dealt the finishing blow to Jotunheim to end the war my foolish not-brother started, to save Aesir lives before the first battle-cry sounded. Does that not prove my loyalty beyond call of doubt? No, Your Majesty. Tell it true: Odin didn't want my heroism known for fear that the War Council might back me instead of Thor as heir to the throne. I slew Laufey-King."

She shakes her head. "We thought you dead. Keeping that secret wasn't an attempt to discredit you—What you did with the bifrost was not honorable. Yes Thor foolishly provoked them to war, but once war is declared a realm has the right to reclaim its honor in battle."

"We are not talking about the bifrost. We're talking about Laufey." Pressure wells behind my eyes. I fight against the bitter rush. "Tell it true, for once in my life: I am not your son and never have been."

Frigga reaches for me. I won't touch her. This lie is worse than any she's told me outright.

"Anyway, about my dishonor," I say, to pull us back from that abyss. "What if Jotunheim had won the battle? What would we have done then?"

"War," she says.

War. I am alone at the bottom of a black well. Somewhere written on the runes of my soul is the damnable idea that honor is less important than long-term results. So what if Jotunheim is denied the chance to slaughter us? I am doomed by my own creation. "So, you did not wish to dishonor me? What was my last act to be in our peoples' eyes, then? To send the Destroyer after my own brother for reasons never explained? To dishonor Asgard by using the bifrost as a weapon? How was I to be remembered? Don't lie to me!"

Frigga's shoulders are rigid. Her mask tightens to an impenetrable armor. "Your father thought it best if Asgard hear that the Jotnar renegades who invaded his trophy room made a second attempt to breach our city. You as King went to meet them in battle. Thor earned his redemption on Midgard and returned in time to assist you. There was a great fight on the Rainbow Bridge, worthy of songs. The Jotnar sought to control the bifrost in order to bring more of their warriors to Asgard. The fate of our golden empire came down to you, Thor, and Heimdall against thirty of Laufey's bravest. Blood soaked the sky. The ground shook. Thanks to the sons of Odin the invaders were turned back. You slew a dozen of Laufey's fiercest before taking a spear through the heart. You fell from the Bridge when the bifrost was destroyed."

I fight to stay seated in my chair. "How fitting that Loki the Liar was to be remembered with a lie."

"It was an honorable death."

"I'm surprised Thor went along with you. I would have liked to see the look on his face when Odin taught him that absurd recitation."

The skin around her eyes tightens almost imperceptibly, as if she wants to look down at her knotted hands and fears that I am going to read her in pain. "Thor said," she forces out, at last, "that you fell off the Bridge on purpose."

Oh? Yes, this is the story she told me while I wasted two years of my life in a cell. I don't remember doing this. From anyone else's lips I wouldn't believe it, but honest golden precious Thor couldn't make up a cover story this shameful. If he had killed me he would have blamed my death on me . . . he would have explained, with his handsome honest face scrunched in passion, that I deserved to die. He had to kill me, you understand. And everyone would have believed. It was only a matter of time anyway, they would have whispered to each other. We knew this is how it must end, someday.

I remember being forced to the edge by Odin-King, who had decided that knowledge of my birthplace made me too dangerous, and Thor, who wanted revenge for my trying to prevent his illegal return from exile. I remember Odin's spear striking blood from my head, tearing sharp across my back, knocking me to my knees. I remember Thor picking me up and pitching me bodily from the Bridge like waste. I don't remember the fall into nothing.

I remember Frigga telling me, with her illusion's weightless hands pressing through my boney fists, that none of that had ever happened.

It is a terrible thing, not being able to trust your own mind. Trying to sort out what's real and what's not is like trying to keep my footing on shifting sand. Every time one thinks one has a good foothold the the tide comes in and the pattern changes. And one is lost.

Frigga says, "You never told me how you came to make alliance with the Chitauri."

"Nor will I," I say.

Her eyes are very bright. I like the bright, honed look better than the shadowed, dead look. "You did not tell me, either, how you thought to claim Midgard for yourself without Asgard's intervention. That part I understand less than all the rest, and the rest is . . ." She closes her eyes. "Loki, you have always been bound by an understanding of political current—a certain logic, if not honor." This is as grudging a compliment as can be given, in both the circumstances and attached to the phrase if not honor. "Your actions against Midgard make no sense to me at all. Knowing you, I know you have some larger scheme and if I could only understand the context I could understand why. I want to know why. What did you hope to achieve? If Thor did not stop you, your father would have been forced to deal with you himself as he did with . . . past attempts to subjugate the folk of Midgard." Laufey. She doesn't say it out loud. As he dealt with Laufey.

You are Laufey's heir, following in his father's footprints.

No, these aren't Frigga's words. These aren't real expect in my own head. I want to pull them from my skull, sink my fingers into my brain, scratch this from existence.

"Must we have this argument again?" I complain. "Now you know that I'm not a murderer. Did you truly think I had killed your husband? Don't worry, I will be gone from Asgard soon and Odin Allfather returned. You will be happy then. And this started out such a nice visit."

The ice dissolves from her mask. Frigga holds out her hands. I hesitate—but this time I take them. "All right," she says, and she could be my mother again.

"All right?" I am dangling from a thread.

"All right."

The silence in Odin's suite is no longer so oppressive. We are sitting on the edge of memories—real memories—and the start of forever. Peace returns in waves, tip-toeing through the ashes of all that remains of our lives. There is a bubble between now and the rest of the cosmos, which nothing and no one can break.

Frigga says, "Would you like for me to read to you?"

Smiling hurts, but I have to smile. "No. I don't want to waste it getting lost in some other world. Can we just sit here for a bit more?"

Lemony warm sunlight draws me from broken sleep. Frigga's divan is more comfortable than it was last night, seeming now like downy fluff wrapped in the tail end of oblivion rather than a cage, or a cell, or an inexplicable tank with broken wires growing into my arm.

If I don't wake up . . .

If it's possible that I won't have to wake up . . .

The mud of pre-consciousness slides back over my head. Never mind, it whispers in a tongue too primordial for words. Never mind. There is yellow-white light kissing across my face; morning happens somewhere through the gauzy, luminescent drapes. Morning has nothing to do with me. Never mind. Go to sleep.

I am vanished.

Flames roll across a pyre boat. Lightweight, shining gold in my hand. Flowers, smells of flowers everywhere, cakes and fear. Remorse. Regret. Festering sickly gnawing from head to foot.

I break the surface in a rush with yesterday unspooling behind my eyes. Mid-afternoon bakes sweat across me in a sticky film more grease than liquid. Salt and dirt compounds into a smothering cocoon under the heavy blankets twisted around my neck, arms, and legs. My heart screeches into terrified spinning; I claw for the light. My left hand breeches the enshrouding blankets and sacred cool air pours down my skin. Every hair on my arm stands straight, reinvigorating. I tear open the gap, kicking forward to crawl out into open day. Sunlight and fresh air cleanse me in melted ice.

I dump the blankets on the marble floor and smudge my hands across my clammy face. My heart is still scrabbling like a small panicked furry thing, digging for shelter in the dark. There is a part of me that is un-Aesir, devolved, crushed into a hole. My forehead feels like snow.

Did I almost die? Or do I only think I did?

I want . . .

Dark space and distant stars and yellow eyes. Faces smeared like reflections in oil, rippling bone, armor from teeth sewing up every surface. Skeletal faces on waxen, wiry bodies.

I want nothing that's in my head.

I plant my feet on the clean cold floor so the icy shock will clear my mind. Sliding upright is a dangerous effort, so I creep for the royal washroom with my toes eating up as much chill as I can get. Despite the late hour Frigga's marble should be heated, but this lack is a small miracle because I—I

Damn it.

Because I prefer the cold.

I stick my head under Odin-King's washroom spigot with the flow dialed as far down the temperature scale as I can get. Tepid spray slicks down my face and neck in ropes of soothing, tickling, diamond-chip water. The water is endless. The water is numb. The water is untouchable.

I'm drowning.

I'm not drowning.

I'm breathing, even with water closed above my head. The air is stale, burning dry. My nose and throat have blistered from

I grope along the too-warm wall for a towel. Odin-King's towels are too soft and with too high of a thread count—more like tiny waterproof decorations than towels, with as much absorbent power as oil—and make a few useless swipes with the plush decor. When I stand up there is a hateful, green-eyed monster glowering at me from the mirror.

He looks . . . less like paste than yesterday. His hair is odd. I know I didn't bother with style in lopping off my hair, but his hair . . . his hair makes him look like an escapee from one of Midgard's mental hospitals. Does Midgard still have mental hospitals? Things change so rapidly there. He looks like a patient at a mental hospital.

He is not my friend. He is no one's friend. I would rather we went our separate ways, as Thor did and Odin did and Frigga will, but he is the only ally I have.

I bathe and then reassess my pilfered clothes, which are a utilitarian triple-layered biosuit protected with mesh and armor: black duricloth slashed with silver at the shoulders, elbows, and under my jacket. I used them for military campaigns that didn't require finesse; they were never really mine, as such, so much as a costume I wore when needed. I feel nothing for them, which is why they are coming with me. After ripping away the crescent at my collar which marks me as second prince, the armored biosuit could belong to anyone with wealth and a moderate amount of taste. And now, what to do about the madman in the mirror?

The thought of using Odin-King's grooming or cosmetic supplies leaves me feeling like a vagabond rooting through someone else's scraps. I must make myself presentable with glamors. Daily cosmetic glamors are the domain of whores and elves, but at least this magic will stick to my face, hair, and clothing until I remove it, unlike—

A hollow weight sinks to the base of my stomach and expands. The chilling marble tilts under my boots. I project my soul into the weapons vault in frantic, bloodless fury. If I've been caught—

Silence. Raw cursed light glimmers unaltered on blank, veined walls. The vault is empty. No alarms have sounded.

Good.

I recast the two illusions that cover up my shopping excursion. There is an unhappy tingling in my chest, and this is a problem almost as severe as if the vault guards had done a random inspection last night.

Am I bored, already? Would I like someone to run screaming to the palace gates that we have been robbed?

I don't like being a ghost.

My drying hair is covered with an illusion that I never did what I did to it yesterday. My face is charmed to hold as much color as I've ever had. There is a weird bullseye scar on my right arm that I do not remember acquiring but probably predates the Chitauri since the Chitauri do not leave scars; this can stay. I can make up a good warrior's tale to explain it. The black and silver biosuit has already been spelled free from dust, and looks as respectable as it can be made—which, pathetically, isn't much. At least the madman in the mirror is gone. I am a person wearing the person I used to be as a disguise . . . while disguised as a person I never was. Ha! How is that for a mental knot? And that mental knot recesses into an honest-to-godless-Nine rabbit hole, since, you know, between Odin-King, Loki-that-was, and Loki-that-is, in an odd twist of fate the person I used to be wanted nothing better from a miserable life than to please the person I never was—and now we the three of us are layers under the same make-believe Aesir skin. I am my own worst enemy.

That's enough to give anyone an identity crisis.

How far down is the blue under all that, I wonder. I can see no trace in the mirror. Does the blue even count as my skin? Or is the blue like muscle and bone at this point: an inert building block for what I really am?

I think I'm either sinking deeper into madness, or getting religion.

When this aesthetic self-defense is complete I replace my Odin-mask and retreat to the receiving room to order afternoon breakfast for Frigga. The Queen retires late and rises late; something else we have in common. My thoughts wake up at night, when no one else is around to bother me. This makes—made—sitting through early meetings a royal headache, when I had to get up with the sun because this-or-that Vanir dignitary or Aesir governor thought early attendance meant a more productive court—or at least a shine on the armor for punctuality. Night-time is good for practicing magic. I suppose there'd be nothing like an attendant coming to bring his master court transcripts only to butt in at the wrong moment and find himself accidentally turned into a beetle. And then . . .

I am stalling.

Where is Frigga?

I've left my invisible bag on the balcony. I should probably bring it in, or hide it someplace more secure just in case a servant happens by to clean, but the thought of touching it makes me feel as if there is a serpent lodged in my chest. I am hexed to the floor, unable to get up and walk out the ugly pompous door into an ugly grandiose balcony. My feet are stuck to the ridiculous cold marble. My knees are too stiff to move. Whatever aura lives in this horrible old suite is closing in on me, pushing me away from the exit. I can't look at the balcony door without a squirmy, unclean sensation trying to crawl up my throat.

I can't shake the feeling that if I pick up the bag I will have lost something vital.

Odin's suite is watching me, even if its owner can't. Even if his wife won't.

Breakfast comes before Frigga wakes. I eat alone.

I am still stalling.

An attendant begs an audience to know if Odin-King will see Lady Drifa about . . . something Odin-King should already be familiar with. No, he won't be taking appointments today. Eilulsur son of Endrill the High Steward wants Odin-King to put his seal on the documents I pushed through yesterday evening—did Odin-King forget that he changed his seal last year? How could I forget my own seal? Run along, boy. Don't ask questions. There is a meeting with the royal bank that I can't avoid but do, and a request from the High Sorceresses to ignore. Where is Frigga? Svaldir begs to see me in private—fine.

I can try feeling sorry for Vorsgard, for a change.

"Your majesty." The councilor pledges his heart to me in salute like everybody else, and I wave him along. I don't want his heart, and I don't want him here. I don't want him gone, either. His new attendant, Othgam, stands at his master's back doing an impression of a constipated statue.

"You, mage," I demand of the latter, for the thrill of watching him try to hide behind himself. I am Odin, Great and Terrible. Fear me. "What is your name?"

"Othgam," the statue sputters. "Ebbafson. Svaldirsmage."

"Well, Othgam Ebbafson-Svaldirsmage," I drawl, "Can you please tell me what is the most important thing for a boy-sorceress to learn during his apprenticeship?"

The boy blanches. His watery eyes focus to a point outside the curtained windows and his arms manage to lock even tighter to his orange-and-gold-clad sides than physics ought allow. "To always be quick and ready to answer well, for whatever question he is required?" he invents.

Cheeky little bastard.

I like him.

The vice in my chest loosens half a turn. "We'll see you in a green cape yet," I say, more amicably. Othgam tries to hide a gushing, relieved smile. "How old are you?"

He pledges his heart like his master. "I have one hundred and thirty-five years, sir."

And here I thought Asgard would lose its remaining intelligence when I slip off to Helheim knows where.

"Well done," I exclaim. He's almost nine hundred years from earning the right to apply for Councilorship, but apprenticing under the Chief Councilor for Interrealm Affairs is a good way to secure himself a position when the times comes. I do like him. Being Prince of Asgard I was guaranteed a place in the High Council—or War Council, as Thor chose. Othgam will have to either prove himself worthy or wind up detesting himself working as a bondsmage under someone who is. That, or slink off with the women to learn Healing Arts. He's off to a good start.

I clasp my hands behind my back, gone from pointless tyrant to thoughtful co-conspirator in a heartbeat. "And how do you like the Black Tower? You would be . . . let me see . . . in your second tier as a mage?"

"Yes, sir. I do, sir." The constipated statue melts into an orange-haired, somewhat hulking young man whose disposition and skin tone try to blend him into the shadows. "A lot. I mean, I like the Black Tower and I like apprenticing to the High Council. My mother is Ebbaf Imblonsdottir, sir. I've inherited her gifts. I have prowess in arms as well, of course—at the great ax especially."

Of course. Mustn't forsake arms. The boy might read all the books he can get his hands on, but for all anyone cares the question is still whether or not he can kill a man with a bit of pointy metal. At the end of the day boy-sorceresses must make a difficult choice: continue enduring Asgard as a weak magic-wielding excuse for a man, or take up living as a woman. Othgam, I'm guessing, will try for the former.

Svaldir's mage says, "I find that the ax is better for close-quarters combat in a variety of scenarios that do not favor the sword or pole arm. According to Galar's The Skill of Bloodshed, second Principle, the ax is—"

"And have you discovered the secret door out of the Black Tower?" I ask, because I don't care about his obligatory prowess with weapons. "There's a secret door in the second cellar that opens behind a mirror. A smart mage might charm the lock if he's very careful. Who knows where the tunnel leads?"

Othgam's delighted expression says, I am going to find out.

Svaldir interrupts his miscreant shadow with a hammer-hard, "The son of Ebbaf has been a great help to me, Odin Borson Allfather. I am pleased that you approve of his appointment as my new attendant."

"Quite," I relent. Oh well. The Black Tower is full of mysteries, and discovering them is half the fun of being a mage.

The grimace Svaldir turns on me now is prelude to a speech I've seen him give one thousand times to the High Council—seventeen thousand times to the War Council, if Thor's moaning complaints are to be trusted. The councilor has a way of tucking his lips against his teeth that make him look like a disappointed priest about to renounce God for the brandy, as my friend and one-time colleague Father Seg—

Yes, I've had many occupations on Midgard. Some of them more holy than others. Why are you surprised?

In the quiet of Odin's still Frigga-less room, the Grimace settles over us like an electrified fog. Usually this speech comes after some too-tight-in-the-trousers councilman in another realm has decided to blockade a trade route between two other realms, and Asgard finds itself with an unacceptable halt in supplies delivered from processing plants in Blockaded Realm #1 or #2. The Grimace means Bearer of Bad News; a crippling thorn in the heel as inconvenience turns to potential war; political frustration because more important matters get shunted to the side when personnel are rerouted to deal with a pointless, honorless, stupid conflict that serves little but distract from managing the whole; in short: we Have a Problem.

For the sake of thoroughness, here is the way Thor tells it: Any time a confidant young hero (Thor) makes a name for himself in a good fight (nearly causes a war with someone we can't afford to buy off), Svaldir gets jealous because he is too fat and old to pick up a weapon (has a massive damn empire to run).

There. You can't say I'm not open to both sides.

The electrified fog thickens into heady anticipation.

I broach the Problem. "Tell me, councilor. What have our emissaries found on Vorsgard? Have they reestablished contact with our outpost?"

A muscle in Svaldir's jaw twitches. "That's the trouble, I fret. We have lost contact with them as well."

Vorsgard. Ruined homeworld. Colony.

How interesting.

I grind my teeth against the smile that wants to spread across my face, and politely tuck my hands into my cape instead. Odin doesn't delight in chaos. Odin wants everything locked up in labeled boxes. Odin would never give the cauldron an extra stir. Odin would take this news as a call to war.

"Councilor?" I say in a voice that doesn't quite sound like Odin. "Please tell my wife that I have gone to examine this situation myself. The Red Council will expect a call to arms this afternoon, but I would investigate the planet on my own before going that far. There may be more to this situation than petty warmongering would have us believe. Am I too optimistic in hoping that somewhere out in the vast whirling cosmos there is someone else as sane as I? Give Frigga a full report in regards to everything we have discussed. Between now and the hour of my return I am leaving Asgard in the Queen's command."

Having already pledged his heart, Svaldir hunts around his ribs for a second salute.

He and Othgam bow themselves out.

I wait a good five minutes before conjuring a gate between worlds. Strapped across my shoulder once more, my invisible bag flares brightly as teleportation creates a thaumatic charge around its wards. No need for them to see that my magic is green.