I was still a bit worried about Thruor doing something crazy. I was the kid; I was supposed to be the one with no patience or restraint.

 

No, she was doing it before I could. And I had a feeling I’d be patching her up or sending her back to Asgard to visit Eir before this was over.

 

Because…I was oddly sure and certain this was not her task either. But then, maybe she could deal with the guy doing the actual fire setting.

 

For my part? I was missing Mike painfully. But for want of a better idea, I wandered over to Will’s church.

 

Stood outside and looked at it. It was stone, so not likely to be a target. Besides, Surtur had already worked out he hardly needed to target specific people. Just, well, people in general.

 

You could only care about a few.

 

But you could protect without needing to care. If you didn’t care at all, I supposed that made you an anti-hero.

 

Or somebody who was selfishly trying to get karmic brownie points or whatever. To get into heaven.

 

That was what some gods promised, after all. A good place in the afterlife for making lives better here on Earth. Not a bad idea, I supposed.

 

Motivated people. But I knew it was often more complicated than that. Mike, I thought, mourning him for a moment and starting to turn away.

 

To almost walk into Sarael. “Hey, angel face,” I teased.

 

He laughed a bit. “You’ve got an arson problem.”

 

“Yes, I have. And I’m open to suggestions. Thruor’s gone to harass him.”

 

“Thruor kicked his butt, but not hard enough. Now he’ll probably pick something important to her.”

 

I thought about that. “A night club, likely.” I sighed. “I’m sorry. I can’t give in or worse happens.”

 

He studied me for a long moment. “I know.”

 

“If there’s anything you can do…”

 

“It certainly doesn’t suit Heaven to have the nine realms at each other’s throats again.”

 

Again? I decided not to pry into that too much. It had been before I was born, or at least before I was old enough to be any use. “Don’t worry. I don’t plan…”

 

“You plan on doing everything one woman can. I know.”

 

That felt oddly comforting. He didn’t expect me to be some kind of prophesized keystone to fix everything.

 

Just to do everything one woman could. “Everything I can without making things worse.”

 

“That’s always the tricky part.”