“You did well turning him down.”

She shrugs. “You think he was telling the truth?”

“No.” I shrugged back. “Let’s get some ice cream.”

He had been busy hassling her rather than me. I hoped that meant he was losing his ardor for the idea of making me Queen of Hell.

I added, “And I’ll work on finding somebody to do that uber banishment ritual and see if we can’t get rid of him for a few centuries.”

“Sounds good to me.”

I glanced at her. If he’d been telling the truth, there might even be worse fates for her. But Odin wanted her. For something.

Odin was probably responsible for the cancer. I knew that, darkly. He might not, as Thruor said, throw something at his people that they couldn’t bear. The truth was? He could be an asshole.

No, he could be utterly ruthless for the benefit of both the world and the person he was being utterly ruthless towards. Which boiled down to the same thing. I didn’t want to admit I understood him.

I understood him entirely too well. Which was why I’d forgiven him. “Not that he’s as much of a problem as Surtur.”

“You should just…”

She didn’t say it, perhaps not wanting some random person to overhear her.

I knew what the word she bit back was. It was in my brain. “You know I can’t do that. I think I explained why.”

She nodded. “You’ll get stuck with his job.”

“Right.”

And I was pretty sure I didn’t want it. The fire within me, though, sometimes seemed to have other ideas.

Utterly ruthless for the benefit of the world. Could I be like that myself? I glanced at Monica, and noted that she looked pale. “Let’s go get ice cream. And somewhere with a/c.” It was technically fall, but that didn’t mean it had cooled off yet.

“Yeah…lets.”

I hoped it was only the heat. We ducked into the nearest ice cream place without even looking at the signs. I ordered chocolate chip cookie dough and we settled down to eat.

A moment later, Kanesha called me.