'It's me, Mallory. Caitlin. The one, the only, the original.' She smiles, kisses him on the cheek.

Virginia hugs Caitlin tightly, the first time she has looked like a little girl. 'Have you come to play with me?'

'I said I would, didn't I?'

With a whisper of desperate thanks, Virginia buries her face in Caitlin's midriff. 'No hide and seek,' she says. 'I don't like that.'

When Virginia has raced away to fetch a board game from her room, Mallory observes, 'She likes you.'

'We have an understanding.'

'I still don't want to take her to that place.'

'She's tougher than you think, Mallory. When it comes down to it, we all are.'

He watches the bees, and the clouds scudding across the blue sky. 'Do you think it's enough?' he enquires. 'Wanting to do the right thing?'

'No, it's not enough,' she replies. 'But we do it anyway.'

6

And so you move again through the twisting, ever-multiplying branches of the World-Tree, and now you watch the walls of Asgard crumble. From out of the swirling blizzard, blazing rocks crash with a steady beat of destruction. The Enemy's siege machines never rest. The monstrous troops wash out of the snow in a black tide that Hunter wills to ebb but which never does. They swirl around the foot of the walls, throwing up ladders as quickly as the Aesir can despatch those who scurry like insects to the ramparts. But their greatest weapon is insubstantial: a potent atmosphere of despair radiating from every fibre of their being, infecting any who allow their defences to slip; a moment's doubt is all that's needed. Hunter sees shoulders sag, heads bow, weapons fall to their sides.