It was a couple of days before we could try and turn things back on Kanesha’s tail. She ignored them in the interim, pretending as best she could that she didn’t know they were there or realize what they were up to. Grumping about it when we were together.

But finally, I was able to cut around the block, cut them off and corner them as she turned around.

It was a young fire giant. “Explain yourself.”

“I…we…don’t want anything to happen to her.”

I let out a breath. “She can look after herself. I can look after her. Why does she need you?”

“I know who Surtur’s likely to send.”

A slow nod. “Then you can tell me.”

“I…” He shook his head. “I can’t. It’s a geas. If any of us talk about them, they’ll know.”

I nodded slowly, taking him at his word at least for now. There were certainly people capable of doing what he suggested. “But you can warn me if this person or persons show up?”

A slow nod. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“I only hurt people who are trying to hurt others.” Just another fire giant kid. The kids seemed to be on my side.

“Maybe you’d be a good queen.”

My lips quirked. “Nah, I’d be terrible.”

I wouldn’t start Ragnarok, though. At least, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t. Sometimes I doubted myself, wondered what was hiding in the memories Odin had blocked from me.

Sometimes I wondered if Loki was right.

“I don’t think so.”

“For one thing, I don’t have any experience ruling anything.”

He laughed a bit. “I don’t…”

“If I was a true princess I’d be trained for it, you know.” Kanesha was trying not to laugh. I glared at her.

“You are a goddess, though.”

“And I’m about the same age you are, at a guess. Gods need to learn too.” How to god…was it a verb? I supposed it could be.

“…point.”

“And anyway, I don’t want to be queen. Not alone and certainly not sitting next to Surtur.”

“And…we…we respect that. But I still think you’d be good at it.”

“I think,” Kanesha cut in. “That whoever he’s trying to warn us about is going to get suspicious if they’re watching somehow.”

“Yeah. I should pretend to rough you up some.”

He laughed again. That was the second one I’d actually liked. Or were they brothers or something?
Thinking about it, I was pretty sure they were.