Now I was clued in, I realized I’d grown tails pretty much everywhere I went except for school. It wasn’t Her Ladyship. If she was the type to threaten her people, she’d have better control over them.

So, a new player? Or maybe a very, very old one. Odin? He was ruthless enough in the stories, but he had ravens and wolves and stuff like that and could probably watch me without posting anyone as tails or guards.

Tyr, looking for his horn? No. He’d probably just ask me outright for it, if he was eager to get it back. Loki definitely wasn’t doing it, and Hel would probably send a bunch of ghosts.

Thor? Nah. I let out a breath. I wasn’t going to solve it just by thinking through candidates, especially as I couldn’t remember everyone. Well, maybe Kanesha could help me make a list.

I settled for doing my best to annoy the various watchers. I led one into the Ballston Mall which, for some bizarre reason, is the local center of lack-of-taste. I took another on a free tour of the outer edges of southeast. Probably stupid of me, but I was confident I could take on anything that messed with me.

Yeah.

I was actually starting to enjoy this game, which probably would have made Mr. Otter proud of me. He seemed determined to encourage me to be tricksier.

Probably did that to everyone. Or at least everyone he liked. Maybe his real goal was to make the entire world play pranks on each other.

Yet there was that shadow. I knew he was a murderer. Worse than that, the way he’d done it. So, why did I feel inclined to like him, even trust him?

Trust him with limits. He was probably playing some extended con on me, some kind of game involving the horn. Taking advantage of my memory problems to spin me around.

There was a different watcher today. This one was more obvious than the others. A girl in black leather with pink hair. That hair would stand out in any company, I thought. But they’d all looked…fetishy.

I had thought they were human. Now I wasn’t so sure. I wasn’t sure what they were, but human? Nope. They were something else. Maybe they were disguised frost giants?

I remembered the firehound. Maybe they were disguised fire giants. Who was the boss of the fire giants?

I planned on asking Kanesha, and then pink hair abruptly ducked into a building. Glancing around to see what or who she was avoiding, I saw Mr. Otter on a bench eating a hot dog. As I came over, he offered me a second one.

I took it, but warily. And rightly so…he’d put hot sauce on it. Under the frank. I flickered a grin at him. “I like that stuff.”

“I know.”

“Do you know who’s got hirelings following me around?”

“They’re not mine.”