"A little smaller, brother!" Loki called back, throwing a couple more blurring spells on the new arrivals. No sense leaving them easy to target! But it was a good point; Surtur's crown plus the Eternal Flame would resurrect him for Ragnarok. If this thing had something similar, perhaps it had a similar resurrection planned? "Less decorative!"

He didn't stop moving or casting just because he was thinking, though. To give Stark time to get mobile (and incidentally keep Thor's component atoms together), Loki wrapped the skull in silence just as it started to chatter again. The silence would break one spell, but by then it would hopefully be too late to catch everyone on the ground anymore.