“Nice try. Very nice disguise,” he said before I could get close.

“You know I have to try.” He wanted me to stop him. I was more and more sure of that.

“Come here.”

He couldn’t compel me. He couldn’t force me. But if he had the artifact… I stayed where I was. “I’m not stupid.”

Why wasn’t he trying to use it on me? Probably because he really did have to have control over the person.

Or… I smiled slightly. “Not stupid at all.”

“Not with your parentage, no. Why not join me?”

“Because I can see what it’s doing to you.”

I had to get out of here. I’d failed, and if he tricked me into sticking around.

“It’s worth it. It’s worth it to give them this freedom. Even to give it to you, Asgardian.”

I closed my eyes. Opened them. “When the cycle comes to an end…”

“It doesn’t have to. Don’t you see? Ragnarok would never happen.”

Then I knew what he wanted of me. “It’s not just humans that have lifespans, Anansi. It’s gods. Planets. Stars. The vast array of the universe itself. One day the world must die so the new world can be born. It’s about making space.”

“And becoming like these?” He indicated the ghosts.

“No.”

I had to get out of here before he did try to get out of me what he wanted. He couldn’t defeat death with just one death god in his grip.

He wanted my sister. Who had more sense than to come after me.

My father would, though. I felt the flickering of flame within him.

“Take her,” he told the ghosts.

For the first time, deliberately, I let it out. The ghosts recoiled. “I don’t think so.”

“Starting to grow up, are we?”

I shrugged, and turned to walk away. None of them came anywhere close to me. The flickering aura of flame surrounded me.

I didn’t turn it off until I was well out of there, and I was shaking. Starting to grow up?

What was I turning into? If I could remember, maybe I would know, but right now? Right now I feared I was becoming something like Surtur.