Opening his eyes was a bad idea. So was breathing; greasy ash filling his mouth and nose instead of air.

Sigmund lurched upright, onto his hands and knees, coughing and retching and rubbing his ash-filled eyes. The stuff was everywhere—he was buried in it—clinging to his clothes and skin and hair, covering him with its gray and oily film.

“Jesus. Gross.”

He scrambled to his feet to escape the awful stuff, or at least escape choking to death. His glasses were ash smeared, leaving the world an indistinct, colorless blur. Sigmund tried to clean them on his shirt, which did more to spread the film than to clean it off.

Where was he? This wasn’t the cave. From the drifts of ash and the featureless fog around him, Sigmund thought he was outside again. Somewhere. Not the apartment block, not trapped in that hellish place beneath, with only the echo of his own mind to drive him onward. And Sigyn, proud and relentless, who’d stood over Sigmund and—

His wrist still ached. When Sigmund looked down, he saw ugly purple bruises forming around the circumference, left by a hand that gripped like ice and iron. Sigmund wondered if his own fingers would line up against the shape.

Somewhere, through the silence, came the sound of lapping water.

“Dad?”

The cry of his own voice made Sigmund wince, sharp cry swallowed by the endless, hungry fog. He couldn’t see anything in any direction, just the ash beneath his feet, piled up as high as his knees, leaving his jeans feeling stiff and damp.

“Lain?”

Still no reply but the water, and maybe something else. A wooden sound? Like knocking, maybe.

“Baldr?” Sigmund figured he was already yelling. If Baldr was around, he’d have heard. And at least he’d be someone.

Either Baldr was not around, or he was lurking in the mists like a huge creeper. Sigmund hoped for the former and started walking toward the sound of water.

Moving through the drifts of ash wasn’t as easy as it looked in video games. Like walking through snow, maybe. Except the only time Sigmund had ever seen the stuff for real had been when he was eight, and Dad had taken them for a weekend up at Perisher. Sigmund mostly remembered the experience as being cold and wet and humiliating.

Today was numb and greasy and horrifying, which was similar. The ground beneath Sigmund’s feet echoed, like he was walking on something hollow. When he kicked the ash away enough to look, Sigmund saw what looked like thick, dark slats. A boardwalk, maybe? Some sort of modern plastic, not wood, which at least boded well for him still being in Panda.

Through the mist, Sigmund saw a shadow. A rectangle a few feet high, standing on its narrow end. It didn’t seem to be moving, so Sigmund approached it, and the shadow slowly formed into a squat, iron post. A pillar, dark paint worn away in a ring toward the bottom, where a mooring rope would rub. There was another one a little way to the left, a third on the right, and a drop just beyond.

Where Sigmund peered over, he saw water lap black rocks.

This was the lake. The Pier, to be precise. Not a really real pier, just a sort of park area where families came to walk their dogs and buy coffee and gelato. Or fish for carp in the shallow, muddy water. On the plus side, the lake was in the city, and LB wasn’t far. On the minus side, where the hell was Dad? And how the hell had Sigmund wound up here?

The knocking sounds were coming from his left, along the waterfront. Sigmund walked toward them, watching as another shape began to emerge from fog. This one was a boat, or half a boat. The front half, in fact, jutting up out of the lake at a nonfunctional angle. The rest of the boat was spread out in a shattered mess against the shore, floating on the gentle tide. When the fragments hit against the rocks, they made a knocking sound.

The boat was made of wood and had a carved dragon on the prow. It wasn’t a modern boat. What it looked like, in fact, was a longboat. A Viking longboat.

When Sigmund looked around, he saw more shadows of similar shapes, jutting up like rows and rows of giant shark teeth.

A longboat graveyard, scattered out along the edge of the lake, and this definitely wasn’t here in the real world. Sigmund counted maybe a dozen ships in all, some in the water, some beached up on the land, all in various stages of disrepair and looking like they’d been that way for a while. A long while, and the wood was soft and rotten under Sigmund’s hand, peeling away in paint-flecked chunks. Some of the ships had barnacles, some looked like they’d never been to sea. Like someone had started crafting and carving, only to abandon the exercise halfway through.

Some of the boats looked . . . familiar. Something about the dragons’ heads, maybe, the way they curved and snarled. Locked forever in decaying anger, collars of runes carved around their necks.

Sigmund kept walking. Through the shark-tooth shadows, until the outline of a different shape emerged, this one low and long. A tongue, not a tooth, and when Sigmund got close enough he realized it was a house.

The house looked to be a similar vintage as the boats—all stone and wood and mud—and was almost completely buried under the ash. It felt familiar, too.

“Hello?”

A house, surrounded by ships, looking out onto the—

(“sea”)

—lake. Sigmund knew this place. He’d never been here, but he knew it. He’d dreamed it. Inside the house, he knew, was warm and clean and homey. A man lived here, a widower, building ships with the help of his young daughter. Or had done, anyway. Once upon a time.

(“people are not the only things that die. stories do, also”)

The area around the door was cleared, tracks leading away and to the shore. Not Sigmund’s tracks, and he wondered if whoever made them had been coming from the house or going.

No one answered when he knocked. “Hello?”

Opening the door and going inside was an awful idea. Sigmund did it anyway. At least it wasn’t the hole.

“Um. Is anyone here?”

No one was, but someone had been.

Inside, the house was mostly one big room, walls decorated with hide and shields and axes, floor covered in rushes that looked fresh. Or at least fresh compared to the rot outside. Carved wooden benches ran around the edge of the space, softened here and there by woven blankets. The center of the room was mostly taken up by a huge stone fire pit, cauldrons and skillets hanging above. The cauldrons were empty, but the fire beneath was blazing, sending red-gold light flicking and dancing across the walls.

Woodsmoke and earth, and for a moment Sigmund’s heart ached with thoughts of bright eyes and sharper teeth.

A pile of furs and blankets sat on the bench against the far wall, arranged in a sort of doughnut shape. A nest, Sigmund knew, and not just from the scattering of feathers lining the bottom.

Someone had lived here, once. Not for very long. Just long enough to fall in love and make a deal.

On the ground next to the blankets was a wooden chest, carved with wolves and serpents. The lid wasn’t locked, and when Sigmund pushed it open, he saw enough gold and jewels to restock Tiffany’s for a decade. Arm rings featured heavily in the treasure, all strangely identical, but no less valuable for their out-of-place mass-produced appearance.

(“this was the bride price. trinkets and baubles to a god, yet more riches than a king”)

Sigyn wasn’t crushing Sigmund’s wrist bones anymore, but she was still there. Watching, not quite buried.

And this? This was her story, or the start of it; Sigmund understood that much. She’d found a bird, broken in the forest, and had spent months carefully nursing it back to health.

Always a dangerous business in fairy tales, nursing strange animals back to health.

There was nothing here. Just a memory, a forgotten legend, comforting and familiar. And Sigmund wasn’t stupid, he could see the parallels: a mortal, courted by a god. Lain had called it the Wyrd, called it fate and coincidence and stories. The same stories, told over and over and over again. Two cups Cinderella, one tablespoon Beauty and the Beast, mixed together in a Hero’s Journey, served up on a bed of unhappy endings.

Well fuck that shit. Sigmund would write his own ending if he had to. And Sigmund’s ending did not involve anyone being trapped in a cave for a thousand years.

The first thing he had to do was finding Dad, the second was meeting up with Lain, and third was escapeing from this ash-choked wasteland. But zeroth was leaving this dead memory of a house.

Sigmund turned.

Then he stopped.

Because there, leaning against the stone wall of the fire pit, was Dad’s poker. The one he’d used to send a chunk of Lain’s horn flying across the living room. And if it was here, then that meant—

“Dad? Dad!”

Sigmund was out the door, back into the fog and ash. He took the poker as he went. Just in case.

“Daaaad!”

Outside was quiet and still, just the gentle lap of wood and water and the soft flurry, falling from the sky.

And the tracks, the ones heading from the house and to the water.

The shore here was muddy sand, not the neat wall and black rocks from the Pier. The tracks changed from a straight line to a chaos in the dirt, scattered in hops and leaps all around a shallow hole. Some of the marks around the edge looked like handprints, as if someone had spent time digging something from the ground.

The tracks continued toward the water, this time accompanied by one long, single groove.

Sigmund didn’t have to be Jimmy James to figure out what had left it. Not standing in the middle of a goddamn ship cemetery.

With the water lapping at his sneakers, Sigmund thought he could see something, out in the lake.

“Shit.”

Sigmund didn’t have a boat, but the lake wasn’t very deep. Supposedly.

It was still decidedly unpleasant walking through it. It wasn’t cold, exactly, but the consistency was wrong. Like baby oil, oozing into Sigmund’s shoes and up the inside of his jeans, mixing with caked-on ash to leave a pale, oil-slick trail behind him as he walked. The lake was opaque brown, the bottom was rocks and mud, and Sigmund had to shuffle his waterlogged sneakers to avoid slipping.

It was a slow and awful trip. But the shape ahead was clearer, now, and it was definitely a boat. A small one, no more than a dinghy, and there was someone in it. Someone moving.

“Dad?”

The moving stopped. Then:

“Sigmund?”

“Dad!”

Sigmund ran the last few meters, or tried to, feet dragging and sloshing through the mud. He stumbled twice, but didn’t fall, and soon the fog parted enough that he could see his father.

David was, indeed, sitting in a small boat. It looked similar to the others on the shore, except for its size, and that the figurehead didn’t seem to be a dragon. Sigmund couldn’t see what it was, exactly, from where he was standing. A woman, maybe?

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Sigmund.” Dad looked . . . okay. Well enough, considering where they were. Wet and covered in ash and streaked with mud across his brow and all up his arms, but Sigmund figured he probably looked about the same. “What are you doing in the lake?”

Sigmund had to laugh at that, something strained and half hysterical. “Looking for you!” he said. “C’mon. This is not the time to go boating. We’ve gotta get back to the car. Lain said he’d meet us at—”

But Dad held out his hands and said: “Forget all that now. Just get in the boat. We have to hurry. I found her, Sigmund. I found your mother.”

“What . . .”

Because Dad looked okay, mostly. A little muddy, perhaps. And pale. And sort of . . . waxy. Like he was covered in some kind of oily film.

“She’s here,” Dad was saying. “But she needs us, needs our help. We have to go to her. Then we can be together. We can be a family again.”

(no . . .)

“What are you saying?”

(no. no no no nonononono Dad no)

“Won’t that be great?” Dad said, grin fixed and eyes glassy. “Think about it, a real family. You, me, and Mum. Finally.”

Sigmund took a step backward, away from his father’s outstretched hand. “No. What are you talking about? We are a family. You and me.”

David’s expression cracked. Just a little. Just enough for the slightest line of a frown to appear etched into his brow. “Get in the boat, Sigmund,” he said. “This isn’t up for discussion.”

Sigmund was not going to get into the boat. Getting into the boat was a Very Bad Idea. Sigmund was going to get Dad out of the boat, and then they were going to head back to shore, then they were going to leave. No boats involved.

“Listen to me,” Sigmund said. “Listen to yourself! It’s this place talking. It gets to you. It got to me. But just think about what you’re saying. Mum is dead, she—”

“Sigmund Gregor Sussman you stop making excuses and get in this boat right now. Your mother is waiting for us.”

Dad definitely wasn’t smiling now, and Sigmund knew this expression. This was the one Dad had worn when, at age twelve, Sigmund had announced he was going to be a video game designer.

Parental disapproval, and Sigmund knew it well. But Sigmund wasn’t a kid. Not anymore.

“No,” he said. “We don’t have time for this. I’m taking you back to shore.” He grabbed hold of pale, weathered wood, and began to pull.

“Stop that,” David said. “Stop that right now.” He lunged forward, the motion sending the little boat rocking dangerously in the water. “Sigmund! We have to get your mother. You will come with me. We will be a family again.”

“We’re a goddamn family now!”

“Not like your mother would’ve wanted!” Dad’s fingers closed around Sigmund’s wrist, crushing the already-bruised skin. Sigmund gasped as the pain lanced up his arm, his fingers uncurling from the boat.

“Mum’s dead, Dad,” he snapped. “She’s been dead for twenty years! You have no bloody clue what she would’ve wanted!”

“I’ve heard quite enou—”

But Sigmund wasn’t done. “Stop co-opting her death for things you want, or things you’re too scared to do yourself. She’s gone. Let her go. You have me. Just let that be enough. For once. Please.”

Dad shut his eyes, looking away as if the words had cut. “And how long will I have you for?” he said. “You’re already a grown man. You have a partner now. You can’t live at home forever, and when you move out and I’m alone . . . then what? Who will I have then?”

It felt like a knife through the heart and a fire poker to the horns, all at once. Because Dad’s anguish, his loneliness, was finally there. All the awful, broken little things he’d never dared to say, spilling out into the mist.

“Dad,” Sigmund tried. “Dad, no. Lain wouldn’t . . . even if . . . if things got like that . . . you’re my father. He wouldn’t take me from you.”

And David said: “He did before! I sold my girl—my strong and beautiful daughter—to that monster for trinkets and I never saw her again. I waited. Every day I waited bumppfh!” Then David’s eyes went very, very round, his hand slapping across his mouth with a muffled, “Oh my god.”

Those weren’t the words of Sigmund’s father.

(“they are the words of mine”)

The same stories, told over and over and over again.

Sigmund closed his eyes against the ache beneath his heart; not his ache, but close enough. When he opened them, Dad was still looking at him, eyes white rings and face as ashen as the sky.

“What . . . what am I saying?”

“It’s this place,” Sigmund said. “It . . . Things happened. Now they’re happening again. But they don’t have to happen the same way. That’s the point of it, that’s always been the point of it. To change things, to make them better.” To make different mistakes, if nothing else.

“Sigmund, I . . .” Dad slumped, head in his hands. “I miss her, every day. I thought it would get better with time but I . . . I still love her so much.”

Sigmund’s vision blurred, then spilled over with a blink. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. But she’s not here. Whatever you saw . . . it wasn’t her.” No hoodie and no tissue, so Sigmund wiped the tears and snot off with the back of his hand.

(sorry, Mum . . . wherever you are)

Dad was still for a while. Then, slowly, he began to nod. “Okay,” he said. “I . . . Okay. Let’s . . . let’s get out of here. Wherever you think is best.” His head still buried in his hands, his voice thick and blurry in a way that Sigmund hadn’t heard since he was a boy.

This time, when Sigmund pulled the boat toward the shore, Dad didn’t try to stop him. After a moment, David even retrieved an oar from beneath his feet and began to row.

They left the boat on the muddy shore, Sigmund spending a little while trying to shake the water out of his shoes before giving the exercise up as futile. He wondered if his old clothes were still in the penthouse at LB. Sure they were a little burnt from blood and fire, but at least they weren’t soaking wet.

The wrecked ships and low-slung house were still there, but Sigmund took his dad past them without stopping. Back into the ash drifts and up the slope to where he thought the road should be, if he was remembering the lake right. The world was still blur and shadow, jagged branches catching on their clothes and in their hair as they walked through stands of dying trees, but eventually Sigmund saw the little log fence that marked the partition between grass and road.

And, just beyond that, a figure, standing in the blur. Watching.

The snakes in Sigmund’s gut began to churn.

“Wha—?”

Sigmund held up his hand, and Dad fell silent.

The figure got closer, walking across the road and toward them. A man. Not a draugr, not by the silhouette. Tall and broad, confident.

Familiar.

(oh. fuck)

“Run, Dad.”

“I would not. There are far worse things out there than me.”

Baldr’s voice, clear and vicious through the silence. Sigmund could see him now, brand-new eye patch but otherwise the same. And yeah, they were fucked. They couldn’t fight a god. Not alone.

Clenching the fire poker in one hand, Sigmund put his other into his pocket. And prayed.

And said, “Baldr.” Because damned if he was gonna let some blond asshole make all the speeches. “Is this what honor is in Asgard, now? Killing civilians?” Lain had mentioned honor, right? It seemed a good place to start taunting.

Baldr made a tsch sound, raising his arms to show his empty hands. “Peace, boy. I bring no weapons, only words.”

Sigmund shifted his grip on the poker. “Not very convincing from a guy who can shoot sunbeams out his ass.” He wondered if iron worked on gods the same way it (allegedly) did on fairies. Probably not.

One single golden eye flicked down to Sigmund’s hands, then back up to his face. “Truly has your cuckolding skin thief poisoned you against me. There was a time you did not look on me with such revulsion.”

Oh Jesus, what? Christ. He couldn’t possibly mean . . .

“That was probably a time before you tried to kill my dad, dickball.”

“Sigmund!” David’s voice was a hiss from somewhere behind and to the left. “I really don’t think insults are going to get us—”

But Baldr was bowing, just slightly, hand held over his heart. “A shameful act for which I will make repatriations. You must understand my mind was . . . not clear at that time.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Sigmund felt his brow drawn down into a scowl. Baldr was being . . . nice? Why was Baldr being nice? There had to be some plot, or con, or game. Because no way was this the part when Sigmund found out that his past self had done the nasty with Baldr behind her husband’s back.

Then, as if reading Sigmund’s mind—which, shit, he probably could—Baldr said: “Tell me. How much do you know about your . . . beast. Has it told you its name? Its true name?”

“Loki.” There didn’t seem to be any point in obfuscation, what with the mind reading and all.

Except Baldr’s reaction was odd. Closing his eyes and looking down, sighing. Sigmund didn’t get it. From past behavior he would’ve expected anger or contempt at a minimum. Not quixotic longing.

“It deceives you, boy,” Baldr said, voice soft and raw and, worst of all, utterly honest. “Loki is gone, and this shadow you give his name . . . It has claimed you for its wife, yes?”

“Dude,” said Sigmund, trying to ignore both the choking from behind him and the churning in his gut. “Not cool. My dad’s like right there. Jesus.” Somewhere, in the distance, Sigmund thought he heard a rumble.

Baldr huffed and rolled his eye in an expression that could only be read as, Urgh, mortals, before saying, “You are tangled in fates you do not understand. Hate me if you must but know I loved you once and could do so again. All I ask is that—”

“Whoa! Whoa whoa whoa whoa. Dude. No.” Sigmund took a step back, enough to nearly trip over David. “Time-out. Stop.”

Baldr seemed to crumple at the words, eye squeezing shut and shoulders hunching. Face contorting as if in pain. “Sigyn—”

“No!” And then the tip of the fire poker was under Baldr’s chin. Shaking, but there. “No,” Sigmund repeated. “Not that name and not whatever this love-triangle bullshit is. You hear me? One creepy, obsessive god is enough. More than enough. And I like him. You’re a violent psycho. So there is no asking, no love, and. No. Sigyn. Got it?”

Baldr still hadn’t opened his eye, head hanging and lips curled back in agony. He muttered something in the scratching language. Then, in English, added, “Enough. If you will not listen to reas—”

He never got to finish. Instead, the roar of an engine and the howl of a car horn echoed from the fog. Baldr had just enough time to turn his head in the direction of the sound before he was caught between the high beams.

In the next instant, with the sound of snapping bone, he was gone. Rolling up over a shiny black hood with a series of loud thumps, launching a good few feet in the air from the impact.

“Bloody hell!”

Sigmund didn’t wait for Baldr to land. Just grabbed his dad’s arm and ran forward onto the road, to where the car was turning around. Heading their way.

Dad was pulling back, trying to get out of the car’s path. “Look out! It’s coming!”

“It’s okay, Dad. Trust me.”

Because it was Lain’s car, all black and chrome and smears of creepy asshole god blood streaking up the windshield. Summoned by the key the car had given Sigmund, back before the sinkhole. The one he’d kept in his pocket, the one he’d pressed when Baldr had been distracted.

The car screamed to a halt at Sigmund’s feet, popping open both doors on their side. Sigmund managed to push his dad into the front, before throwing himself into the back, feeling only slightly bad for squelching his gross wet jeans all over the upholstery. Before he could think to apologize, the doors slammed shut all by themselves, and the car was already moving.

Ahead of them, Sigmund saw Baldr stumble to his feet.

“Hold on!” yelled Dad, ducking down in the front seat. Sigmund did as instructed, grabbing on to the headrests from the back.

Baldr saw them coming, eyes wide and anguished. Just before they hit him, again, Sigmund thought he heard Baldr scream a single word.

Then he was just another set of loud thumps, rolling up the hood and over the roof. When Sigmund checked the back window, all he could see on the road was a body. It didn’t move.

“Is . . . is he . . . ?”

Sigmund turned to his dad. “Nah. Gods are harder to kill than that.” He glanced back again, though the fog had swallowed Baldr’s shape.

Sigmund tried not to think of the expression on the bastard’s face, right before the car hit him that second time. Because he’d looked an awful lot like someone betrayed, and that piece didn’t fit.

A lot of what Baldr had said didn’t fit, in fact. About Sigyn, about Lain. About Loki.

Loki, who wasn’t Lain, at least according to Baldr. Baldr, who hadn’t been lying.

Except, neither had Lain.

“We have to get somewhere safe,” Dad was saying. Sigmund blinked, tearing his eyes away from the retreating road.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, we’ve gotta . . . gotta get to the LB building. Can you, um. Can you take us there? Please?” This last addressed to the car. Sigmund thought it was a testament to their weird-ass day that his dad didn’t even comment.

The car, meanwhile, revved its engine. Sigmund figured it was as good a yes as any.

----------------------------------------

Munin watched the boss get taken out by the kid and his old man, trying not to wince too hard from the impact. That had to hurt, god or no god. Which is why Munin waited until the scary “car” was well out of range, before flapping down from its hiding place.

“Boss,” it said, hopping forward across the tar. “You want me to follow the kid?”

The boss was moving. Except he wasn’t getting up. Just sort of dragging himself to his knees, arms wrapped around his waist, shoulders shaking.

“Boss?”

The boss threw back his head, and roared. Something deep, and dark, and twisted. Pain and anguish. A sound that Munin hadn’t known the boss’d had, maybe. That wasn’t hurt from the impact. That was soul hurt, heartbreak. Despair.

“Boss?”

“Leave me!” The boss gestured for emphasis and—

Odin’s rotting eye! He was not kidding around, and Munin squawked and flapped backward as the ground in front of it exploded in a ball of molten sunlight. For a moment, Munin made eye contact. Just it and the boss’s single, golden orb. Just for a moment, just long enough to see the tears tracking down the boss’s cheek.

Then he turned away. When the boss spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper.

“Leave me. I am betrayed. By my heart, by my flesh. By myself. Why not by my memory also?”

Munin hopped forward, just once. “Boss?” it said. “What’re you talking about?” The boss’d been acting weird for a while. Since he’d come back, maybe. Except they’d all put that down to being stuck in Helheimr for a thousand years. That was enough to mess anyone up, in Munin’s opinion.

Even still, what the boss’d done to Hel, to the Lady of the Dishonored Dead herself . . . that was bad business, no two ways about it. And since then, the boss’d just been getting worse and worse. Really obsessed with killing He Who Must Not Be Named (in the Boss’s Presence), even though maybe a couple of them had suggested he just leave it. Loki was a shifty, traitorous asshole who’d weaseled out of his own funeral by convincing his wife to go in his place, but he’d been pretty quiet on Miðgarðr since then. Just laying low, a different sort of exile. Maybe they should’ve been happy with how things were.

The boss wouldn’t have it, though. First it’d been about executing the guy, about finishing what’d been started at the Ragnarøkkr. But then something had changed. Munin didn’t know what it was.

And now the boss was curled up in the middle of a Hel-bled street, crying.

Munin hopped forward again. “Boss,” it tried. “Tell me what I can do, boss. That’s what I’m for.”

“I told you,” the boss said. “Leave me. You will not wish to stand by my side when this is over. Save yourself the anguish now, and join the others as they seek my end. When it comes, I will relish it. There is nothing left for me here. I had thought . . .” The boss’s hand came up to cover his face. He was silent for a while, shoulders shaking. Then, “It does not matter. Just go.”

Except Munin couldn’t, could it? It belonged to the boss, just like it’d belonged to his dad before him. “You know I can’t do that. We swore to your father—”

The boss hissed, spitting some word Munin didn’t catch. Then he straightened, and stared right at Munin with an eye that burned like the twilight sun. “I release you,” he said. “Whatever oaths you gave unto Odin are no more. His blood no longer holds you; you are freed. Do as you will across the Realms.”

“Boss?”

“No,” the bo— Baldr said. “I am this no longer. Now go.” He flung out his arm again in demonstration. This time with no explosions, thankfully.

Munin would’ve grinned, if it’d had the lips to do so. Instead, all it said was, “Hah! ’Cept you ain’t the boss of me no more. Said so yourself. That means you don’t tell me what to do, whose side to pick. I do what I want. And what I want is we stick around and finish what you started. Deal?”

It took Baldr a moment, staring at Munin as if he’d never seen a talking raven before in his whole freakin’ life. But, in the end, he dropped his eye. Then smiled, and gave a half bow.

“Deal,” he said. “Now let’s finish this.”