He hasn't been invited to sit, but Loki still takes a chair from a nearby vacant table and settles into it, eyes on the board to find the next pattern of moves that will lead to a victory. "It came to Asgard at around that time. Thor and I played against each other and against our father, to exercise our strategic abilities," he says, picking up one of the dead white pieces and examining it. Only a horse's head, not the figure of a rearing Valkyrie on her winged mount that Loki had played with in his youth.

"No wings?" he asks, setting it back down and taking a sip of his "Valentine's latte," which proves horribly sweet on first tasting, cherry and vanilla mixing with the coffee and milk, but after the initial shock, it's better than he expects.