Loki had set us all up. Of course he had. I loved him, but right now I wanted to hit him.

And I wasn’t all that keen on Angrboda’s idea of a good meal, either. Spit roasted pig I could get behind, but I wasn’t sure what those greens were.

Probably the only thing they could get to grow here. And the tea she offered us appeared to have been made out of moss and bark. It tasted surprisingly good for that, but…I’d rather have a hamburger.

Probably makes me a bad Asgardian, and I certainly wasn’t about to say it in front of her.

She did not, however, live in…okay, she did live in a cave, but it was a comfortable, well furnished cave. More like a hobbit hole than something one would imagine Neanderthals living in. Yes, there were cured furs as rugs, but that wasn’t so bad, and we sat around a table cut of stone.

Not many trees, it seemed, in Jotunheim.

“So, you really intend to destroy this?” she said, finally, after the meal.

“Yes,” I said firmly. “You can’t tell me…”

She laughed. “Oh, I was watching Anansi with some amusement. Having somebody else’s power, that’s easy. Having a clue how to actually use it, that’s a little more difficult.”

I relaxed inwardly. “I suppose, we all get the power we need.”
“And choose. And which fits us.” She studied me. “Oh ho. Now this could be really interesting.”

I didn’t ask her what, because I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to even remotely consider telling me for half a second.

Loki leaned forward. “So, what are you going to do with it, dear?”

I almost elbowed him.

“Hrm. I could take over Jotunheim. I could…hrm. No, it doesn’t work on artifacts.”

The chains that bound Fenris. Except that I wasn’t sure Fenris had needed to be bound before. Now? Now he was likely to start eating people because they’d done that.

Every evil that faced Asgard was created by Asgard. It was an insight, and a sharp one. People didn’t hate you for no reason.

“We can’t let him go. But they shouldn’t have tied him up in the first place.”

“From the mouths of babes. Maybe you won’t be Odin’s blind, following servant after all.”

I shook my head. “I never have been.”

“Oh, no. You were. Then he did it to you too, exiled you for something you might do. Always his mistake.”

If she was right…but no. I would not bring down Asgard. “None of us are perfect. If we were…”

“If we were there would be no mortal world.” That was Loki, soft. “So, Angrboda. What will you do?”