I swallowed. “Am I . . . Are you saying I’m going to have to kill ghouls, my lady?”

The fair side of Hel’s mouth curved in a faint smile, while the wizened, charred side didn’t move. Creepy, yet at the same time, oddly reassuring. “I am not omniscient, Daisy Johanssen. Such is not my gift. The time has come when you may venture into danger in my service. I would be remiss if I did not offer you a measure of protection.” Raising her black, shriveled left hand, Hel beckoned, and a pale blue frost giantess stepped forward, a bright, shiny little dagger lying across both her cupped hands. She offered it reverently to the goddess, and Hel’s claw closed around the hilt. “Dauda-dagr.”

I blinked. “I beg your pardon, my lady?”

“It means ‘death day.’” She surveyed the dagger, the length of it etched with runes, then reversed it, grasping the blade. “When first you swore yourself into my service, I marked you with the hand of life, did I not?”

My left palm itched, and I closed my hand into a fist beneath my sleeve. Almost a year ago, Hel had traced the rune onto it with her forefinger, her right forefinger. Ansuz, the rune of the messenger, the liaison between worlds. “Yes, my lady. You did.”

Proffering the dagger’s leather-wrapped hilt, Hel extended her left arm. It hung in the murky, misty air like a dead tree branch. “Tonight, I offer you a gift from the hand of death.” This time, it was the ruined left side of her mouth that lifted in a grim rictus. Definitely so not reassuring. “Dauda-dagr can slay even the immortal undead.”

“Oh?” The word came out sort of squeaky.

“Come and take it from me, Daisy Johanssen.” There was a hint of impatience in Hel’s voice.

“Um . . . okay.” I made myself approach the throne, putting one foot in front of the other, trying not to trip over the hem of my fur coat. Hel sat motionless, her right eye closed, long lashes curling gracefully. “You’re sure about this, my lady?”

Her ember eye gave me a baleful glare. “Take it!”

Pushing back my overlong sleeves, I grasped the dagger’s hilt and felt a frisson of pure cold pass through the weapon as Hel relinquished it.

“Well done.” Her other eye, her compassionate eye, opened. “I hope that you do not have need of dauda-dagr, young one, but it is best that you have it in your possession. Order must be enforced, lest we all be imperiled.”

I took a deep breath.

The dagger was heavy, heavier than I had expected. Also bigger. Hey, everything looks small in a frost giantess’s hands.

“Find the truth,” Hel said in an implacable tone. “Find it and report it to me, Daisy Johanssen. If you need to dispense justice, you have my leave.”

Great.