"Yeah," Magnus says. "It was a really controversial decision. She almost got fired from being a valkyrie for it, since I dropped my sword and nobody believed the fire-giant I was fighting was Surt. Even though it was. Every new einherji gets their story told during their first feast in Valhalla, you see. The story of how they died. And then their future is read. There are these seers who will determine what their future in Valhalla is, and if they have a godly parent or if they're just someone with a specific sort of belief in honor. Literally no one else in Valhalla has a Vanir god for a parent, except me. It's all Aesir... I don't know if your book said this, but the Aesir are mostly gods of war and the Vanir are gods of nature? But instead of the regular seers coming to read my future, the Norns came. The Norns," he explains, "Are these giant women who control fate. And they gave me a prophecy."

He closes his eyes, and quotes: "'Wrongly chosen, wrongly slain; a hero Valhalla cannot contain. Nine days hence the sun must go east, ere Sword of Summer unbinds the beast.' The Sword of Summer is Jack; he's destined to set Fenris Wolf loose at the start of Ragnarok. Everyone thought that the prophecy meant Sam chose me wrongly, but it turned out it meant that Loki marked me for death wrongly. He thought that I could be controlled into retrieving Jack, who had been lost for centuries, and then letting it go so that he could be freed. I couldn't." He thinks for a moment, then adds: "Because Sam actually did such a good job, though, Odin basically made her his special projects right-hand valkyrie."

Something occurs to Magnus, mid-stream. "I wonder if, if me and Jack just stay here, Ragnarok won't start?"