“The rest? It was a pretty straightforward deal, Tez. You get me my powers back, I give you a foot. And not to brag, but it’s perfect.” There were few others who could do what I’d done, and with those who could, I was willing to bet there’d be something wrong with the end product, even if it only came to light long after the fact. Maybe the toenails would curl upwards, the blood types would turn out to be incompatible, or it would attract families of fire ants at inopportune moments. Apparently everything Zeus had ever transformed into smelt like sweaty potato chips, for example, since long before that particular delicacy had been invented. Having met Zeus, who was basically the god of mid-life crises, this didn’t surprise me.

“Fix the foot,” Tez corrected me. “This isn’t useful to me in this state. What am I going to do, use it as a desk ornament?”

“There are worse things you could do with it.”

“Loki.”

“Look, you can’t spring this on me all of a sudden and be surprised if I don’t live up to your expectations. I could give you feet until the pile reaches the sky and it still wouldn’t get them onto you. Not with your kind of injury.”

“Cut the crap,” said Tez. “I know you have a plan.”

‘Plan’ was perhaps a little more advanced a term than I would have used. ‘Educated guess’ was closer to the mark, and the ‘educated’ part was iffy.

“Of course I do,” I agreed, conducting a little bow from the stool. “But it’s not going to happen here. I need time to talk to some people, make discreet arrangements -”

“No you don’t. You already have access to a qualified healer who knows all about your powers.”

“You’re not serious,” I said, curling my lip in distaste. “There are plenty of other people I can approach who don’t induce the feeling you get in your bowels after eating too many apricots.”

“I don’t really care how your bowels feel,” he replied. “What I do care about is you holding up your end of the bargain. So I’ve taken steps to make sure it happens.”

“And it will,” I promised. “Just not with -”

The starlight filtering in through the window dimmed, interrupted, and I broke off mid-sentence to examine the source of the silhouette. My mood darkened almost immediately. “What’s he doing here?”

“I live here,” said Shitface. “What’s your excuse?” He snapped his fingers and flooded the room with golden light, completely ruining the gentle effect of the stars.

I looked down at the scuffles we’d left in the dust and back up at him. No one had been here in a long time. “Oh, so you can lie. Disappointing.”

He scowled back at me. “What part of ‘I don’t get a break’ don’t you understand? You think I get time to relax and look at pretty vistas?” He broke off and shook his head. “Why do I even bother defending myself to you? It’s a waste of time.” Turning to Tez, he held eye contact with the other seer while the two conferred behind my back.

“I didn’t think you meant it literally,” I said, filling the silence. “That would be insane. Oh, wait.”

No response. Finding myself ignored, I tried to leave and discovered Apollo had turned off my powers again. A surge of rage rose up within me at the confinement, but I clamped down on it, forcing my features to remain indifferent and resisting the urge to walk over and rip the earring straight out of Shitface’s ear. The seers would both be suffering interference right now, but I still didn’t fancy my chances.

Instead, I rose to my feet and made my way to the back of the room, fiddling with the lock on the door.

A hand fell on my shoulder as I got it open. “Come on, Fake Me,” said Tez, teeth chattering a bit. “This is what we signed up for. You both knew you’d have to work with each other. You can at least try and play nice.”

“I could. If he’d stop being such a complete shit.” I fixed him with a cool gaze and he dropped the hand. “And I’m not too happy with you right now, either. I had every intention of honouring my end of the deal, and you went and dragged him into it anyway. The pact is one thing, but this is between us. It has nothing to do with him.” I glared past him towards Apollo, who was pretending not to be listening and doing a very poor job of it. If he thought I was going to smile and let centuries of enforced obedience go at the drop of a hat, he was deluding himself.

“It does, though, and if you really wanted to hold up your end, you wouldn’t have a problem with it.”

“You have no -”

“Don’t try me. Figure out a way to tolerate him for fifteen minutes. Do that, and I’ll get him to remove the bridle.” He nodded to the leash encircling my wrist.

So he knew about that, then. I supposed it would have been obvious after my last transformation. We were wearing short sleeves and the bangle was on show for all to see. Although his choice of words was interesting. “Bridle?”

Tez glanced back at Apollo.

“I did tell him,” said the latter. “It’s not my problem if his education is lacking.”

“Tez,” I said, bristling, “Do me a favour and run interference while I go and punch Shitface in his shit face.”

Apollo smirked. “You don’t have a chance.”

“It’s only a matter of time before the pact falls under greater stress again,” I observed. “Then we’ll see.”

Tez made a pained noise. “Don’t make me take sides,” he said, waving the foot I’d given him at the both of us. Halfway through the act he seemed to realise how ridiculous that looked, hesitated a moment, and tossed it at the sun god, who caught it without so much as blinking. “You both agreed to help,” he continued. “Loki I would expect this from -”

“Hey,” I protested. Context was important in these situations.

“- but not you.”

“Might want to readjust your expectations,” I suggested, unable to resist.

“Shut up, Loki,” both seers replied in unison.

I shut up, though less because of the peer pressure and more because I had better things to do than wait around being snubbed. Since Tez and Apollo seemed to be best buddies all of a sudden, I stepped outside into the cold in the hope it would clear away the haze of festering resentment I recognised building inside me. There was about half a metre of snow-free space under the cabin’s eaves and I huddled within it, leaning on the outer wall. I might have given my cold resistance a boost, but trudging through thick snow in bare human feet was still pretty miserable in spite of what I’d been telling Tez the day before.

His throwaway comment about the geas was bothering me, and not just because of the notion my mind might have been tampered with. I was still friends with Lucy, after all, who had as good as admitted he’d done just that on who-knows-how-many occasions. At a certain point, you had to accept it as an occupational hazard of working at Providence.

Signs were pointing to Yun-Qi being the manipulator – perhaps unwilling - behind the string of events pushing us towards the destruction of the Vatican and beyond. Or if not him, then whoever had placed the geas on him.

That said, there were still too many disconnected strings lying around for me to think it was that simple. Whether Yun-Qi was our guy or no, there were obviously multiple parties poking around in places Providence didn’t want them to, and that alone was worthy of attention.

The nice thing was that the vulnerability Lucy, Durga and I had left in the pact gave me a convenient way to game the system while simultaneously bypassing the effects of the geas. Provided Tez’ paranoia wasn’t justified and it had already gotten to me. If it even could. I was hoping that wasn’t the case. I didn’t feel like I was being influenced, but that meant next to nothing. For now, I’d have to assume I might not be clean until I could consult with a specialist. It was still worth bringing up the pact with Yun-Qi to see if its protections triggered.

First, though, I had to deal with Parvati, and that meant speaking with Hel. Two days wasn’t a whole lot of time, but my daughter wasn’t one for messing around.

The cabin porch had a wooden rail around the sides at waist height, and I set about scooping all the snow off it into fist-sized balls, using the nearest tree as target practice. On the ninth shot, the door opened and Tez’ head poked out. “Done sulking?”

“No,” I answered, as the remnants of the snowball spattered down around the base of the tree trunk. “But you could say I’ve downgraded to being mildly perturbed.”

“It’ll do.” He emerged from the cabin in shoes and socks, but it did little to hide the fact he now had two perfect organic feet. “Can’t argue with results,” he grinned, noticing where my eyes were resting. “For all that Apollo finished the job, you did the critical part. That deserves thanks.”

“Hardly. It was just part of the trade.”

“A trade I should have made a long time ago.” He was in a good mood, for obvious reasons, all smiles and pleasure.

“I'm not sure it would have been possible,” I mused. “Security have been complacent lately. Even without Apollo jumping ship. I was talking with Durga just before all this went down and she was complaining about not having enough to do. Likely the dry spell made them careless.”

“That’s all about to change.”

“Is it? Pact weighing a little light right about now, don’t you think? Or,” I corrected myself, “I assume that’s still the case, since someone is turning my powers on and off like a budgerigar who’s discovered light switches. I’m sure he thinks it’s very amusing.”

“About that,” said Tez, glancing towards the door, which remained stubbornly closed. “I had a chat to him and he’s agreed to remove it.”

I perked up at the news. “How did you manage that?”

“By threatening to initiate an Armageddon event if he didn’t. I would have gone through with it, too.”

“Ah. Clever.” Night being one of Tez’ domains gave him the edge over Shitface at the moment, and the latter would have been forced to take the bangle off me in order to put it on Tez. A nice little checkmate where the two most likely outcomes both ended in an absence of bangle from my wrist. I had to admire that in spite of how unfair it was. When Tez threatened to destroy the world, not only did his reputation not get blacklisted, but people gave him concessions because of it. By all accounts he’d run a similar protection racket back in his worship days. Proof we lived in an unjust world.

“He’s having a sulk inside, too,” Tez declared, rubbing his head in obvious discomfort. “You’ll have to go in, because he’s not coming out.”

I eyed the door. It was well-made; solid, heavy and well-oiled, with a deep, rich grain. Expensive, no doubt, but given that the place wasn’t much larger than my apartment, the idea that Apollo lived here – if it could be called living – was surprising. I would have expected some sort of well-situated resort in a sunny area equipped with sports facilities and at least three times more balconies than any sane person would deem reasonable. Instead he was going all hermit out here in the forest like Baba Yaga’s posh cousin. All he needed was the chicken legs.

Stepping back inside, I found what appeared to be an empty cabin waiting for me until I looked up and spotted Apollo watching from the overhang, leaning forward with his arms folded along the railing. “Well?” I asked, holding out my wrist. “You’ve had your fun. Save your sanctimonious grudge match for the people who will be coming after us.”

“You don’t deserve powers,” he said in a sour voice. “I was occupied sticking my neck out just now for Lucifer. Do you know how hard it is to put someone through a false questioning with failing powers and another seer in the room? Meanwhile, you’ve been lollygagging around away from your desk when you know full well you’re already under suspicion, and – oh, flying the pope around causing needless havoc and public attention.”

Disdain coated his features in such quantities so as to encourage anyone who saw it to develop creative new psychological insecurities. I mirrored it on my own face and shot it straight back at him. “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought we weren’t babysitting anymore. My mistake.”

“You can’t be trusted with responsibility!”

“I was busy fixing problems,” I snapped. “Have you even bothered looking far enough ahead to figure that out?”

“Most of them were your fault.”

“If we’re assigning blame, I’d start by looking at the person who called the surprise committee meeting,” I responded. “You got yourself into this.”

“You turned the pope into a demon.”

“Say what, now?” Tez had entered the cabin behind me. He padded up next to me and stared up at Shitface. “Did I hear right? We have a demon pope?”

“That’s pretty much the gist of it,” I confirmed. “Fun times ahead. And Apollo knew about it beforehand, by the way. What I’m saying is,” I added, glaring at the property owner, “you don’t have the moral high ground here, for all you’re enjoying your lofty perch up there. You never did. Just admit you’re a sorry bastard like the rest of us.” I stuck my arm out again. “Now do something about this, or Tez attempts to destroy the world.”

“It is past its use-by date,” Tez added, holding his fist up long enough for me to give it an answering bump. “Thanks for the healing and all, but surely you see the sense in having all of us fully functional.”

In answer, Apollo simply scowled. His hands were tied and he must have known it. In some ways, the pact was acting like its own miniature version of the circle of accountability Providence used to keep its management in line. Making an overt move against any of us was going to sow some serious discord. It was a no-brainer who would come out worst in that instance.

With a loud crack and flash of pain, the bangle split apart and clattered to the floor with enough force to send the halves ricocheting across the cabin. One segment narrowly missed the chaise lounge and the other ended up almost embedding itself in the window, chipping a small crystal fragment out of the glass. The pieces vanished a moment later as Apollo summoned them to hand, touching them to his ear where they appeared to be sucked into the earring. I noticed he didn’t take it out.

I healed the scratch on my arm and tried to ignore the sudden insistent signal intruding on my senses, halfway between summons and calling card. The last time I’d experienced something similar was way back when I’d worked for Odin, the first time, before I’d realised what a mistake that was. Except this one was very green and very naudhiz. Odin’s typical calling sign had been grim, feathery and smug.

I’m busy, I told Grace, even though I was about to not be. “Well,” I said aloud. “There might be hope for you yet. But as you so eloquently pointed out, Apollo, I have more problems to solve. So I’m off. Toodle-oo, boys.”