No. I couldn’t let myself think like that. That’s what she wanted me to think. To feel weak, to give up, to lie down in her hall somewhere and let the water and mud take over me and turn me into stone. I needed to stop pitying myself about my powers not working right. It didn’t matter. I’d find a way, and Hel wasn’t going to stop me.

“If you don’t concern yourself with her,” Soren spoke up, his voice in a low growl, “perhaps you’ll concern yourself with the Erlking. Like it or not, we have power and a place in this cosmic game you gods like to play.” He stood with his arms folded across his chest, glaring so sharply, it could probably break glass.

“You at least offered Frigga a trial,” Diaval said, “a way to prove whether or not she was worthy of taking Balder and bringing him back to life—to have every being ask for his existence back, and it would’ve worked if not for the trickster god, Loki. We’re not even asking for you to bring Lydian back to life. We want his shade. We’re not asking for a god either. Just a lowly goblin!”

“Hey!” Lydian objected from his cage of roots.

The goddess sat back on her throne with a smug smile. “Oh, yes, and I’m sure you’ll do nothing that could ruin my own plans with him now, will you?”

I held out a hand to keep the others from speaking, knowing that we’d almost fallen into her trap. Hel couldn’t know why we wanted Lydian’s shade. In the prophecies surrounding Ragnarök, she was always one of the ones who brought it forth, fought against the gods. There was no way she’d give us Lydian back if she knew what we planned to do with him.

I stepped forward, hands on my hips. “And what do you care what we do with a simple shade?” I asked tauntingly. “You have so many others to deal with, after all, and so many things to attend to. We have his heart beating in the Erlking’s palace in the Permafrost. Perhaps we want to taunt him, hurt him. You must’ve known what he’s done to me. Maybe I’ve decided I haven’t had enough revenge.”

The lies slipped through my teeth like millions of tiny snakes, but better they came from me than from the others who couldn’t carry such a hoax. Their curious stares lingered on my back, but I was happy enough to know they trusted me for whatever I was planning on doing.

“Diaval is right,” I said. “Are you so scared of a little fawn you won’t even give her a trial?”