Coyote and Loki showed up two hours later. Arm in arm. I rolled my eyes at both of them.

“What happened to revenge?”

Loki grinned. “He tricked me into thinking this horrible vegetable juice was mead!” He seemed pleased.

Coyote, though, frowned. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

“Not your fault. It wasn’t one of yours, as you said.” I mock-glared at Loki. “It’s yours.”

He lifted a hand.

“Okay, no. Surtur was responsible for that thing, I’m sure.”

“Probably.” Loki glanced at his fellow trickster. Then he did something unexpected. He hugged me.

“Did I scare you?” I asked, almost incredulously.

“No, but please don’t try dragon riding again.”

I grinned. “I don’t plan on it. It was a long way down. So…”

“So, do we have brownies?”

I located some from the last batch, without warning Coyote. Of course, we’d mentioned the brownies…but we hadn’t gone into details.

Loki handed him one and just grinned, which probably clued him in. To his credit, he ate it anyway. Then he laughed.

I grinned. “Tricksters and cayenne brownies. Always seem to go together.”

Probably because they were a trick themselves, to at least some point. I glanced between the two. “By the way, next time you try to get me on a boat, I’m pushing you in the harbor, Coyote.”

“You should have.” He grinned, twirled with the faint sense of a tail, and headed out.

“I am totally not getting involved in the next round of the war,” I informed Loki.

“Did he try to get you to drink from the memory spring?”

I nodded. “I felt it was the wrong thing to do. I mean, I don’t know what it would do to me and I don’t want to become somebody I’m not.”

Loki hugged me again. And whispered, “You make yourself. Remember that.” Then he went to follow Coyote.

To a bar, probably. Where there would probably be some kind of bizarre bar fight involving drag queens and a banjo or something. Something weird, anyway.

“And the weird zone leaves.”

I grinned at Kanesha. “Yeah. We should check the police blotter tomorrow.”

They didn’t publicize everything, all the time, but they did love to post the weird stuff.

I added, “And I am not paying his bail.”