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people would use as a place to retire after meals, Fjalar had placed a long wooden table with benches so that people could sit near the hearth as they ate and then remain for skalds and legends afterward. At the end of the table nearest the hearth, a yellow legal pad that does not belong there demands my attention. Stiff capital letters spell out a message: BUILD FIRE FOR FRIGG AND SPEAK YOUR TRUE NAME TO GREET HER.
    That would work. As a healer, Frigg might actually be a better person to talk to than Odin. I don’t know if this message is intended for me or for Atticus, but it appears that they anticipated our need.
    “Looks like we get to build a fire,” I say.
    
    Using wood stored in a box next to the hearth, I lay a fire and light it, waiting until it’s crackling along before speaking.
    “Frigg, it is Granuaile MacTiernan who calls. I have an urgent matter to discuss with you regarding Loki. Please visit me here in Colorado.” I repeat this two more times and hope that’s sufficient.
    
    “No, we go outside to the front porch. If Frigg wants to talk to me, she will arrive on the Bifrost.”
    And Frigg does indeed wish to talk. The rainbow bridge shimmers before us, sloping out of the northern sky to dissipate into the carpet of leaves in front of the house, and the goddess floats down, dressed in blue and white with her hair gathered in a series of braids behind her.
    “Frigg, thank you for coming.”
    “Well met, Granuaile MacTiernan. What news regarding Loki?”
    “Were you and Odin aware of his mark?”
    The goddess’s brows draw together. “What mark?”
    I show her my arm and explain how it came to be there and what Loki said it meant. “I imagine he has branded Hel and Jörmungandr in the same way, thereby making them invisible to Odin and others. It’s why we’re having trouble finding them.”
    After a few minutes’ inspection and questions about how it feels or felt in the past, and a request for a detailed description of the chop Loki used to make it, she agrees that Odin should take a look. “It is not a normal wound, by any means. Have you the time to visit Asgard?”
    “I do. I’d be grateful for the invitation. May I bring my hound?”
    “Of course. You shall be my guests. Come.”
    There is no TSA on the Bifrost. No one questions my staff or my axe. Orlaith is at first unsure she wants to step on the rainbow bridge; to her eyes, it doesn’t appear that solid, and she paws at the bottom edge a few times to reassure herself that it isn’t a trick of the light. But once she is satisfied that it will hold her weight, we ascend into the sky and the Bifrost proves to work like the efficient parts of airports, the moving sidewalks where you walk and the surface also moves with you, quickening the trip. We arrive in Asgard in less than a minute of walking, passing through starscapes kissed by nebulas and feeling only the briefest flash of heat from Muspellheim and a small blast of frost from Jötunheim.
    It’s difficult to act like this is all normal for me, but I firmly smoosh my desire to take a selfie in Asgard, because I know how deeply uncool that would be. Frigg leads me to the great hall called Gladsheim and shepherds me through a maze of passages until we arrive at Odin’s throne. The throne room is almost deserted, defying my expectations. But I discover that Odin is not truly holding court at the moment. Flanked by two scowling Valkyries and a couple of wolves at his feet, Odin’s single eye bores into me and I feel naked before him—not that he regards me lasciviously, but rather in the sense that I cannot hide anything from him.
    His ravens are absent and with them the majority of his consciousness, so Frigg urges him to call them home. “You will need all your faculties,” she tells him, “and we will need privacy for this news. Meet us in my parlor at your earliest convenience.”
    He grunts and we depart without me saying a