I talked to Clara over a sandwich after school. She would have joined us on cleanup, but she was still in school.

 

“I almost played truant to come help.”

 

“It’s fine. There’s enough hands. I’d rather you tried a scry to see if you can locate the next target.”

 

“I can do that.”

 

We were in the sub shop I’d worked in for a while. The fyrhund was actually present. In the toaster oven. “Thanks. So…what do you know about places becoming drained of magical energy?”

 

She pursed her lips. “It can happen. You have to do a lot of magic in the place.”

 

“Do they recover?”

 

“Eventually.”

 

“Is there any way to speed it up?”

 

“Hrm. Pull magic in from some place else.”

 

“If there isn’t a some place else?”

 

She fixed eyes on me. “Do you think…”

 

“From what I’m gathering, Muspelheim has lost energy. As a realm. There’s no place to pull it from.”

 

“Well, where is it going?”

 

“It’s being used by belligerent fire giants fighting each other. I don’t think we’re talking about a fast drain. Something that’s happened over centuries, even millennia.”

 

She furrowed her brow. “It has to be going somewhere. Do they take energy with them when they die?”

 

“I don’t know.” That would be something to ask Thruor. She knew more about what happened when somebody died.

 

“They shouldn’t be, but I don’t know that much about fire giants. So…”

 

“All of this is because Surtur is convinced Muspelheim is dying and he thinks I can help him get the energy to save it from the Aesir. Or failing that start Ragnarok and reset everything.”

 

“Which would obviously work, but I don’t think we need to go that far. And…I assume…”

 

“He wants to use theft, not diplomacy. He’s pretty sure Odin won’t give him what he’s asking for.”

 

“Would he?”

 

I paused. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Maybe if there’s no other way…but Odin is stubborn.”

 

“He’d push things to Ragnarok before giving in, wouldn’t he.”

 

“To Surtur? Yeah. So I’m looking for an alternate source of fire energy.”

 

“That isn’t you?”

 

“I don’t think I could do enough.”

 

Clara nodded. “I don’t think you could. But you might be able to buy a bit of time by temporarily draining yourself, if you were in the right place. It would suck, but…”

 

“It would leave me wide open to being abducted by Surtur.”

 

“Yeah. It would.”

 

I decided to put that on the back burner for now. At least until I could find out how much time it would buy.

 

It might be worth it.