Which would not be easy. If the Norns were talking, they would have talked. They weren’t. But it was clearly the next step.

 

Find out who it was. Give them help and support. Take him out. Hope his replacement had more honor.

 

My people need you echoed in my mind.

 

One way or another. Angering me into either joining him or killing him. Maybe he didn’t care which any more.

 

Who’s task was it? I assumed somebody on the inside. Maybe the woman who I knew wished to be his queen.

 

Would she be better? I almost, almost thought I understood Surtur, but he had thrown away his honor.

 

He claimed Muspelheim was dying.

 

Was he claiming that Ragnarok and renewal were needed? Or did it only need change?

 

I shook my head, feeling I should talk to my father about it, but he wasn’t showing up even for cayenne brownies. Busy? Distracted? Trying to come up with a way to stop Surtur?

 

Would he be the one who ended up…no, that would certainly only make things worse. I loved my father, but I was entirely aware of what he was. What he is. Trickster.

 

Not meant to be king of anything. And he knew it, I was sure of that. Odin’s left hand. The one who did what the king could not.

 

And who had been released from imprisonment.

 

Or allowed to escape. I thought I had an insight then, although I also thought it unlikely to be true.

 

Maybe Odin felt he had served his term. Maybe Odin thought he was too much of a rallying point while imprisoned.

 

I wasn’t about to ask a raven. I wouldn’t get a straight answer anyway. Little chance of those under the best of circumstances. Not with ravens, Norns, Odin or my father.

 

Thor or Tyr might give straight answers if they had them. I doubted they did.

 

And Monica…well. No. Monica wouldn’t give one either, and I had a feeling I could still ask her if I really wanted to.

 

Which left?

 

It left my mother. I was fairly sure she didn’t know who it was either, but I knew if she did she would tell me. Which put her ahead of most others. And she seemed more likely to have a clue than Thor or Tyr.

 

Calling her wasn’t that easy, but I’d worked out how to get her attention. And where to be – Sigyn liked food, good food and lots of it. I headed to an Italian place I knew which sold fantastic pasta in large quantities.
She also liked cherries, I knew, and I checked the dessert specials. Perfect.

 

She showed up five minutes later.