Back at Valhalla, Thor starts a raucous party, but Magnus’s group doesn’t join in the celebration. Several hours later, Thor leaves, bellowing that he must go to Midgard and “demonstrate his hammer’s power by blasting some giant armies to sizzly bits” (435). Magnus and his friends follow the hotel manager to his office, which looks out on the branches of the World Tree. Loki has gone to the Eastern Shores, where he works to complete The Ship of Nails for Ragnarok. While Loki’s escape is the event said to begin doomsday, if the god is reimprisoned, Ragnarok can be delayed, and Odin has tasked the group with returning Loki to his prison. As they process this, the squirrel who lives in the World Tree crashes against the office window. The manager studies the squirrel because its agitation can help determine what’s going on beyond the hotel, and judging by its actions, “some serious stuff was going down in the Nine Worlds” (440).

While Sam gets additional information from Odin, Magnus, Blitz, and Hearth go to Magnus’s room, where Hearth falls asleep. Blitz and Magnus are worried about Hearth’s unfinished business with his father.