I stood there staring at the spring for a long time. Then I shook my head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know who I was before. How do I know the person I was wouldn’t happily stand there with Surtur and watch the world burn?”

“‘Cause you’re still you.”

I shook my head again. “No.” Maybe I’d have to say yes eventually, but I really did fear that…well, Odin had had his reasons and he presumably had his reasons for not restoring my memories.

Coyote tilted his head. Then he laughed. “Well, then. Let’s go prank your father.”

He didn’t say whether he thought I’d made the right decision or not, but there was something about it that felt right. Or rather, as if I was choosing to be who I was…memories or no memories.

I was not going to risk being the entity that started Ragnarok, even if that meant I never remembered my childhood. “So, what did you have in mind? And bear in mind, you did still kidnap me. Which means you owe me.”

“I offered you what I have.”

I shook my head. “You owe me a prank.”

He grinned again, showing all of his teeth. “Alright, then.”

“I wonder if there’s a way to…hrm. I could put something in the brownies, but he’d smell the difference, I think.”

“We could change all of his clothes to chainmail bikinis?” Coyote suggested, tongue lolling.

I grinned. “He’d probably like that.” I didn’t have any good ideas, though. And Coyote did owe me…so why should I come up with the prank?

“Maybe I could drag you somewhere kicking and screaming?”

“He wouldn’t believe you’d really hurt me,” I noted. “Or he would and then it would turn into an actual fight.” Which was a scary proposition. I certainly didn’t want to be in the middle of it.

It was hard to come up with a good prank at the best of times. It was extra hard when going up against a master. And the only ideas I had would upset Kanesha. “Any chance we could go pick up my girlfriend?”

“Why?”

“Because I have some ideas but she’d need to be in on them.”

Coyote grinned. “Alright then. How about you wait on the beach and I’ll get her?”

I considered demanding to go with him. Then I changed my mind. The boat was still bobbing out there, Coyote jumped onto it and it powered away. I realized he’d never tied it up. I sat on the beach and watched the lake. Maybe I should go to the real world version.

Maybe I should demand Coyote give me at least one trip back here. It was nice to be somewhere where there were no signs or sounds of humanity.

An image flickered into my mind of mountains. That, I thought, would be even nicer.

Mountains and quiet.