The shoot went well. Martin, though, was waiting across the street when I emerged, makeup washed off, but still feeling pretty good.

“Walk you home?” came a voice from behind me.

“Gladly.” I turned and saw one of the studio workers…except it wasn’t. Hello, Loki.

He fell in next to me. “I see you have yet to convince the demon to leave.”

“He enrolled in high school. I think that makes him determined.”

“It makes him crazy,” Loki quipped. “You should get out of that place.”

“Nah. I’m learning stuff.”

“Silly stuff.” He grinned. “What use is mortal history to us?”

“Better understanding of just how crazy they are?” That was what came out, but it might have been triggered by a keen knowledge of just who I was talking to.

He laughed.

“Still think the world is going to hell in a handbasket?”

He spread his hands. “Just look at it. The way things are going, they will take care of Ragnarok for us.”

I shook my head.

“War. Climate change. Terrorism. They long for self-destruction.”

“Not all of them.” If this was what I was supposed to be doing, at least arguing with Loki was fun. With a spice of danger. I did have to remember this being was quite capable of cold blooded, premeditated murder. “Why did you do it?” A change of subject.

“He was insufferable?” The slender hands lifted. I wasn’t seeing his disguise any more.

“That’s not a good reason. Even for you. Why would you cross every line there was?”

“You might not believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.” I turned to face him slightly, stopping on the street corner, the street lamp glittering in his hair.

“Two reasons.” He checked them off. “One, Frigga broke the rules. Two, no matter what we do or wish, Ragnarok will happen one day. When it does, only those in Hel’s Realm will be safe. And as insufferable a man as Baldr is…” He tailed off.

“…he takes over. After Ragnarok. But you started a blood feud. One that isn’t going to end. One that might cause Ragnarok to happen sooner.”

His lips quirked. “Bear in mind I don’t survive it either.”

The tense was odd, but… “And I?”

Again, the lips quirked. “I don’t know.”

Which meant I wasn’t in the prophecy. Just in a different one. Or maybe it meant I wouldn’t survive that long.

Yet, there was something oddly reassuring about a god admitting he didn’t know something.