The group split up as, huffing, Tez turned his back on the rest of us and made his way further into the mirror. I hesitated for a few moments before jogging after him, footsteps splashing on the sodden ground.

“You’re supposed to be figuring out dimensional logistics,” he said when I caught up, not looking in my direction.

“Sure,” I agreed, slowing to match his pace. “But in case you haven’t noticed, you’re the mirror expert. And since I can’t use runes for this, I’m limited in what I can do. Ideas would be useful.”

Glancing behind us, I made out Durga and Apollo following along, hanging back from a tentative distance.

Tez made a non-committal noise, exhaling a puff of air through his nose. The sound of his footsteps altered slightly as he walked, becoming solid and hollow, and I glanced down to see wide wooden boards springing into being under his feet, rising up from the white crust. I couldn’t help but notice the VIP treatment didn’t extend to myself, ending shortly before the edge of my personal space.

“I see you showing me a boundary,” he announced, a fuzzy approximation finding its way into my head by way of confirmation. “Seem about right?”

I lifted my hands in a pair of thumbs up, even though Tez’s version comprised a more complete picture than the one I could currently perceive. My future self had gone scouting, no doubt.

Those of us from the Norse contingent tended to have a lot more interdimensional travel under our belts than the average pantheon. Since the premature wartime destruction of the Bifrost, the simplest means we'd had of getting to and fro, I’d had to find other means. My survival had depended on it.

Without the Bifrost, returning to Asgard or Niflheim hadn’t been an option, the fate of my surviving children unclear. Jörm had gone missing at some point during my imprisonment, and the others were stranded in who-knew-which dimensions doing who-knew-what. Two hundred years was a lot of missed history to catch up on. Even the local languages had needed a fair amount of adjustment.

And adjustment was the key word. My powers, while restored, could only heal the physical damage. My mimicry, once flawless, could no longer cover up the marks left by my gaping absence. Whether it was my displaced accent, gait, or just some lingering mark people saw in my face, I found myself given a wide berth no matter my appearance during those first subsequent years.

With Providence distracted by its ongoing conquests, it should have been freeing. I insinuated myself into aristocracies, humble communities and wandering tribes. Yet underneath it all something had soured beyond mere restlessness into a deep-seated unease.

Midgard – Earth – was a vast and wonderous place, but ultimately still a larger, more comfortable prison. I needed out.

With immortals falling to Providence left and right, I sought out the Tuatha Dé Danann again, only to find them much changed since my previous visit. Where they’d once roamed Ireland, they were now cooped up in isolation inside their strongholds. Their feasts, once carefree, had become cold and ritualistic, filled with insincere protocol and glacial decorum. Familiar faces once so welcoming now only stonewalled me with suspicion.

I spied on them from a distance instead. For all their prowess with illusions and glamour, that pantheon couldn’t tell a true shapeshifter from a mindless fly if it hit them in the nose. Which it sometimes did, for entertainment purposes, not that I’d know anything about that.

Stalking the Danaan paid off. In addition to a number of secret but formalised doorways sprinkled around the world, it turned out there were also rare thin patches where, if you were careful about it, you could squeeze through the cracks and end up… elsewhere.

So of course I explored all of them.

There were more worlds out there than the nine realms, that much was immediately clear. Most of the Danaan’s portals led to one particular dimension replete with fancy palaces, beautiful vistas and the most tediously sheltered immortal population I’d ever encountered. After what felt like the five hundredth near-identical conversation about what to wear to various parties, I found myself beginning to sympathise with the Vikings and their penchant for knocking common sense into people’s heads. I stayed just long enough to shake things up and left.

The wilder patches offered more varied results. Once I’d learnt the locations, I took my time to feel my way around them. Being able to sense transitions between worlds was a quirk common to all the Norse gods, but one which tended to get very little practice. Unsurprising when you could simply point the Bifrost at a destination and have it carve a temporary hole through the universe.

These methods were much trickier. Turn the wrong way, make the wrong move, and you could end up in an entirely different world from the one you’d visited last time. Or a different time. One experiment left me wandering for twenty minutes in a thin patch only to emerge eleven years from my starting point.

But I persisted until I was as much of an expert as the limit of my senses would allow. You had to feel them out, where pieces faded or sliced in, and sometimes it needed an extra push to break through. Some of the new worlds were dark and dead, not dissimilar to Niflheim. Others were populated, usually by immortals - though not many.

It was consistent with my past experience with dimensional travel in that regard. Earth had been merely one of nine known worlds, and one that not many immortals chose to live in. It was by far the most populated, though, which, in the absence of better entertainment options, had leant itself to being viewed in much the same way as an exciting interactive TV series. I’d always have a soft spot for my birthplace, but Earth and its complicated squabbles had been far more interesting.

And now I had a means of escape when I needed it, albeit not always to a predictable location. Hopping between worlds sounded glamourous until you realised everywhere else was basically a hick town, full of dead people, or somehow both.

Still, I got in early. Watching Providence stumble around later trying to figure out dimensional travel was about as hilarious as watching a technophobe trying to operate a web browser, if the web browser had been the key to dominating the multiverse.

Of course, the thin spots had all disappeared during the restructure, along with the worlds they connected to. Except for small artificial constructs, there was nothing to link to anymore. I sometimes wondered what it would have been like for all the people in those other worlds when it occurred. If it had been slow and encroaching, or if it had occurred before anyone had had a chance to realise what was happening. If my extended family, or Angrboda – who’d all still been kicking around in Jötunheim to the best of my knowledge – went down suffering. That Providence could erase every living being in every other universe with just a staff-wide Marketing announcement was almost incomprehensible, ending wars before their victims even knew the enemy.

Dwelling on the past wouldn’t help us now, however.

Tez’s mirror was without a doubt the largest artificial dimension I’d seen, the boundaries extending all the way to the edges of the reflected salt flat.

Protrusions were rising out of the landscape ahead of us; tall, rocky spires with flat tops bringing to mind thin upturned buckets. They encircled a rather obvious smaller protrusion in the vague shape of a ziggurat as a contemporary architect might have imagined it, rendered in solid obsidian. As I watched, a low plinth shimmered into being at the top of the wide staircase extending up the front of the structure, topped with two metallic stands forming a spear mount.

I wrinkled my nose. “Why don’t you just add a big red button with the word ‘trap’ written on it while you’re at it?”

Tez finally looked at me, his face betraying a healthy dose of skepticism. “Because it’s clearly a trap. He knows that I know he knows it’s a bait. Pretending otherwise would be a waste of time. If he doesn’t turn up, we’ll just take the spear back and try again later.”

“He’ll turn up,” I sniffed, though I had to admit he had a point.

Tez nodded. “It’s what happens afterwards that worries me. If I were in his position, I’d be notifying my friends about a coup and preparing a counter strike. Then I could just take what I wanted on my own terms.”

“If he suspected a coup, the pact would be kicking in,” I commented. “More likely he just thinks I want to kill him and roped you into helping me.”

“Still a coup. And this is your personal murder fantasy, and you have roped us into it. If he’s left contingencies behind –”

“Tez,” I interjected, “of course he’s left contingencies behind. But we don’t know what they are so we’ll deal with them when we get there.” I paused. “And he doesn’t have any friends. Not really.”

“Are you sure about that?” Not waiting for a response, the fuzzy boundaries still hanging around in my head faded into obscurity as he worked his magic. We could have been hanging around on any unique, one-of-a-kind massive salt flat on Earth.

“See? Knew you could do it.”

Tez ignored me, gesturing instead to the upside-down bucket formation. “I’ve shielded those towers from observation. We can hide in there until he gets close. While he’s climbing the stairs, Durga gets the spear and stabs him with it while the rest of us get in his way. I can’t get a good read on the outcome, but it’s a simple plan and he’s outnumbered.” His tone didn’t sound confident.

“Sure. What aren’t you telling me?”

“I shouldn’t need to state the obvious fact there’s a small chance you might die. And I’m not liking the blackouts I’m seeing for my own future, either.”

“Gungnir?”

“Probably. I’ll be staying out of the way in gas form. You should do the same. Let Durga take care of the heavy lifting.”

“He can counteract it, but yes, that was the plan,” I agreed. “Failing that, I could shift into a walrus larger than your pyramid and bank on the fact he won’t be able reach past the outer layer of blubber. At that point Gungnir’s main threat to me is likely to be eternal psoriasis.”

“Really?”

Almost certainly not. “Absolutely.”

Durga and Apollo had managed to catch up by this point, the former simmering with barely-constrained energy and the latter occupied with scrutinising the looming edifice ahead.

“Are we ready?” the warrior goddess asked. “I don’t to want to rush anyone, but we’ve spent a fair while out of the office. You must be getting the headaches by now. We should get this over with before they get too much worse.”

My head had been fine since I’d gotten my powers back, of course, not to mention the fact I was technically off the books now. Did they revoke break limits for ex-staff? Either way, Tez and Mayari were probably suffering. Not that you’d know it to look at the former.

“We’re ready,” both seers announced in unison.

It was time to give the runes a test drive, I supposed. As had been the case at Facility J, I could still sense them through the dimensional boundary, though it was a bit like seeing them through a glass maze and then having to actually find a way through. I treated it like I would one of the Danaan’s wild patches, testing the waters until I figured it out.

Tru picked up on the other end, the fehu rune somewhat dampened but nonetheless stable. Is this about that delivery?

No better time than the present, I confirmed. Is Lucy there?

Yeah. There was a pause. I paid your electricity bill. It felt defeated.

I pursed my lips, turning my back on the seers and walking a few steps distant. Listen, I said. Don’t think I didn’t notice that business with the tea back there. Being a demon doesn’t make you a servant. Especially because you were pressed into this by accident. Despite what you may have heard, Lucy doesn’t go in for that sort of thing. Those powers come with consequences, so we’ll call on you for favours. But that’s it. And don’t forget it works both ways. Not everyone has a direct line to Satan. Be smart about it and you can make it work for you.

Favours, he said sourly. Like taking over my home.

Well, I admitted. Some larger than others. The one we need right now? Easy peasy.

What’s in the package? Tru asked. Whatever’s in there feels like a landmine waiting to go off.

He wasn’t far off. And since for all I knew Odin was eavesdropping on this conversation via the rune, now was my chance to sell it. He didn’t tell you? It’s a weapon. A unique and powerful one. And before you get all high and mighty about it, yes, we’re going to kill someone with it and yes, it’s deserved.

Fuck, he said, the thought accompanied by a rush of resentment. I knew it. And then what?

Then the fun begins.

A surge of energy flared down the rune even as I spoke, which seemed vaguely in line with the power that had been emanating from Lucy’s map roll. Speaking of, I take it that’s now.

Movement in my peripheral vision alerted me to the fact Apollo and Durga were already on the move, each heading towards one of the towering stone plinths. Upon closer inspection, the rock walls appeared to have cracks camouflaged in the sides. I caught the tail end of a fluttering red sari disappearing through the gaps.

I glanced at Tez, alone now in the centre of the makeshift jetty he’d built. “Is it working? Did he take the bait?”

Before he could respond, a loud crack split the air and the hand mirror the seer had so carefully nursed for the last few hours shattered into a spiderweb of fractures. Several fragments fell to the ground and bounced off the wooden boards.

Tez winced, the remainder of the mirror disappearing from his hand. He stretched out his fingers, flexing the digits, but the gesture revealed worry more than it did relief. “I’d say that’s a safe assumption. It should take Odin a minute to leave the building, but my eyes on the office are gone. You need to get Tru here now.”

I passed on the message. A moment later, the rune moved and shifted back behind the metaphorical glass maze, and it was obvious Lucy had received it loud and clear.

Seconds later, Tez’s eyes widened. “Package received. I’m bringing it in now.”

“No, no,” I countered. “Let Lucy do that. We need mirror-you on sentry duty when Odin arrives.”

“Lucifer’s not here,” he said with a shake of the head. “He arrived with Tru and tossed over the artifact, only for the two of them to immediately leave again.”

“Why would he do that?” I demanded, locating the fehu rune in my senses again. “Tru I understand, but we need Lucy for support.” Sure enough, it was already back at the apartment, and I’d have to go through the whole complicated rigmarole to open a line of communication to the demon lord again.

“I don’t know, and we don’t have time to argue,” Tez responded. “I’m bringing it here, because if I don’t, most of that prep work will be for nothing and we can all look forward to an eternity in demotion land.”

“Fantastic,” I growled. If the sarcasm had been any heavier, it would have solidified and dripped onto my shoes. “Someone has to be there. I’ll do it myself.”

I shifted form, my shape dispersing into a cloud of fine particles as my regular senses dissolved into the same kind of textural input Tez had experienced as a gas during the raid on the suppressants chamber. It took a few seconds to adjust to the change, and my perception was limited to the immediate vicinity.

Fortunately, they didn’t call us jötnar ‘giants’ for nothing. I let myself grow until I covered most of the ground between the boundary and the ziggurat, bumping into Mirror Tez the Second on the way, sprinting full pelt towards the ambush point with the map roll in his hands. He passed through me without so much as a blink.

I was probably one of the few people alive who could give Janus a run for his money in the omnipresence stakes, and I’d probably lose my mind just as fast if I tried. I couldn’t tell much of a difference at the moment, because the salt flat was barren and empty of distractions, and I wasn’t bothering to grow larger than I needed to. But I’d experimented before, and could feel myself slipping after a certain threshold. It was one of those areas I didn’t like to touch too much.

Mayari was waiting just inside the mirror’s edge, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

Change of plan, I informed her. I’m your new backup.

Her lips moved for a second before she seemed to remember I lacked ears. How did you find me? Tez's reflection dosed me up with invisibility before he took off.

Oh? And you’re not screaming?

I know, I know, he made that up. Someone needs to talk to him about when it’s appropriate to joke about things.

It’s always appropriate to joke about things, I asserted. What did Lucy -

Oh, shit, Mayari interrupted, making a double-take in the direction of the border. She ducked into a crouch. He’s here. That was much faster than I expected.

It was the only warning I had before another figure stepped through the mirror and into the range of my senses. Senses that brushed every outline of his form until they reached the missing eye, which wasn’t an empty space as much as it was a void, a more portable version of the one everyone knew. Just carried around in his skull like it was no big deal. As I'd known it would, it remained on the same side of his face, unaffected by the transition.

Ten steps in, Odin stopped, a grin forming across his face.

Ah, Loki, he said, his voice entering my head in an unwelcome intrusion. I see you haven’t learnt anything since last time.

The hand came up, the rune was drawn, and I felt an outside pressure accosting me, leaning on me to change form back to the one I’d worn at our last encounter. But I had my powers this time. Not even Odin could force me into the wrong shape now.

I can take him out now, Mayari whispered at me. Just give the word.

It was tempting. So very tempting. But here, just ten paces from the exit, there was too much to lose. If anything went wrong and the attack failed, he’d be gone and out of the snare before we knew it. All of our lives would be over. From the way Odin’s head was turned toward Mayari’s position, I was also sure he knew she was there. That accursed eye. It made three of us now whose involvement had been compromised. Four, if you counted Lucy.

And Odin wasn’t the kind of person to let himself be taken out so easily.

He didn’t have Gungnir yet, I reminded myself. He needed to be distracted from the absence of his runic arsenal, lured further in to where the trap could be sprung.

Back at the foot of the ziggurat, Tez’s form shimmered into a haze of mist just before I condensed myself back down out of it, his double arriving at the base of the pyramid and beginning the long trek up the stairs to the top.

“Alright, you demented old fuck,” I called out, emerging near the border well out of arm’s reach. “I’m here.”

“So you are,” Odin agreed, the grin not fading. “And how well, and how very predictably you’ve done.”