“Persephone maced Anansi?” Kanesha exclaimed.

I grinned. “Yup, and he scuttled off like he was afraid she’d step on him next.”

“That’s so funny. It is. And you saw the artifact.”

“Gold disk. He was somehow holding it in the palm of his hand. Might have been strapped in place.”

She nodded. “Alright. And he’s likely to…”

“I don’t know who he’ll go after next. Everyone’s warned. He might try Persephone again, hoping that she’ll think he won’t want to. But I told him. I told him she’s not in the land of the dead.”

“Do you think?”
“He thinks I’m lying. But maybe he’ll think about it. Maybe he’ll start thinking about where she might be.”

Kanesha let out a breath. “You…”

“I thought of killing him in the hope he’d leave it behind and I could grab it, but I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t take it with him, and I wasn’t sure I could anyway.”

She nodded. “And he might have grabbed you if he’d won.”

“He wouldn’t get much from me, but yeah. And then Loki would come try and rescue me.”

“Loki isn’t going to…”

“Loki’s answer to all of this would probably be to seduce Anansi so he forgot about his wife for a bit and then steal it. I’m not doing that. He’s not my type.”

Kanesha giggled. “Good, because if I thought he was I’d have to have words with you!”

“Not for seducing somebody?”

“No, for liking that.”

I shrugged. “I don’t like spiders very much.”

I was about to say something else when somebody knocked on the door and Kanesha sprung up to answer it.

She let Thruor into the apartment without a word beyond “Hey there.”

The valkyrie moved in and made herself at home on my futon. “So, Persephone beat Anansi.”

“I helped,” I noted. “Distracted him for her. But he still has the artifact.”

“At this rate he’s going to get himself killed. Multiple times,” she grumbled.

“I can’t say I’d have any sympathy.”