It’s also dark, cold, and misty.

The dune buggy’s headlights cut through the mist. Mikill pulled up beside the abandoned sawmill that served as Hel’s headquarters and killed the engine. “We have arrived,” he announced.

I climbed out of the buggy and shrugged into the fur coat. Its long sleeves hung well below my hands, and its hem trailed on the ground, making me feel like a little kid playing dress-up. Still, it was better than freezing.

Mikill ushered me into the dark, cavernous interior of the sawmill, the only light source patches of glowing lichen on the walls. I actually see pretty well in the dark, but it takes my eyes a minute to adjust.

“Daisy Johanssen.” A sepulchral voice tolled out of the murky dimness. “Welcome, my young liaison.”

I took a knee and bowed my head. “Thank you, my lady.”

“Rise.”

I obeyed.

The goddess Hel was seated on a throne made from immense saw blades salvaged from the abandoned mill and repurposed through the cunning of dwarfish craftsmanship. It was hard to look at her, or at least half of her. The right side of Hel was fair and beautiful, a white-skinned woman with a clear, smooth brow and a benevolent gaze. The left side of Hel was black and withered, like a charred and burned corpse, only it was a black so dense it seemed to drink in what little light there was. In a sunken eye socket, her other eye glowed like an ember. A handful of shadowy attendants stood beside her throne.

“It has come to my attention that a mortal boy has died,” Hel said. “And you are making inquiries among my subjects.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Her ember eye closed in one long, slow blink. “Is one of them complicit in the boy’s death?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I know there are ghouls involved, but I don’t know how or why. One of them attacked me tonight.”

“It is very important that you uncover the truth, Daisy Johanssen.”

“I’m trying, my lady.” I held out my hands, my long sleeves dangling. “Do you have any counsel for me?”

Hel was silent a moment. “Ghouls. What do you know of ghouls, young one? It is an unkind name that the age of modernity has accorded them.”

“Not much,” I admitted. “I know they subsist on human emotion, and they’re more or less immortal.”

She inclined her head. “In a sense, they are tragic figures. They are beings who were once ordinary mortal humans, slain at the height of great passion and rejected by heaven and hell alike. Because they are immortal creatures born of surpassing passion, they require emotion to sustain their existence. I possess an imperfect knowledge of the particulars, for they did not exist in my own cosmology. But it is true that they can no longer be killed by mortal means. It is well that you know this.”