For a long time after his adventure with the gods, Shadow travels the world. At one point, he visits Reykjavik, in Iceland, where he simply wanders and watches the people. The women there are pale and pretty—the kinds of girls Wednesday would have liked.

One day, Shadow eats a meal in a restaurant, where a waiter asks if he is American. When Shadow says yes, the waiter wishes him a happy Fourth of July. At this stage in his travels, Shadow has forgotten the date, so he is surprised to learn that it is Independence Day. He thanks the waiter and reflects idly that independence is a good thing.

After his meal, Shadow walks around and sits down in a nice spot in some grass. He wonders whether he will ever go home. This seems like a difficult question because he is no longer sure what home is now that Laura is gone. It seems to him that his next home may be something that happens to him, not someplace he goes back to.

While Shadow is thinking, an old man sits down next to him. The man claims to know Shadow, and though he does not say who he is exactly, Shadow figures it out quickly: “You are Odin,” he says. The god nods, but he adds that he is not Wednesday. He is the version of Odin that stayed in Iceland with the people who believed in him there.

The man asks Shadow if he will go back to America, and Shadow says he has no reason to. But as soon as he says it, he realizes he does have reasons to go, and he will do so eventually.

Shadow has been carrying Wednesday’s glass eye since Wednesday’s death. He gives it to Odin, producing it the way he would produce a coin in a trick. Odin laughs, both at the gift and at Shadow’s way of giving it. He promises to take care of the glass eye.

Odin loves tricks, so he demands another one from Shadow. Shadow is frustrated: “You people . . . You’re never satisfied,” he says. He thinks back to the coin trick Mad Sweeney taught him long ago. Carefully, Shadow pushes his hand into nowhere and takes out a gold coin. He takes a normal one, not a special coin that can bring the dead back to life. He says it is the last trick he will do for Odin. Then he tosses the coin in the air. As American Gods ends, Shadow walks away, not bothering to wait and see whether the coin falls back down again.