‘Because you never visit,’ said Hel. ‘And because the General’s birds were here only a couple of hours ago. I’m guessing you want to know why.’

I grinned. ‘That may have crossed my mind.’

She turned her living profile away, subjecting me to the full impact of her dead face. The eye that gleamed from the socket of bone was horribly, darkly sentient. The binding-rope of runes that she wore twisted around her narrow waist reminded me uncomfortably of Skadi’s runewhip.

‘You’re none of you immune to Death,’ she told me in her grating voice. ‘The General knows that only too well. Death takes everyone in the end. Heroes, villains, even gods – you’ll all end up as dust one day. Even the General,’ she said, fingering her binding-rope. ‘One day Death will take him too, and there’ll be nothing left of him, or of Asgard, or of you.’

This was beginning to sound unnecessarily morbid to me, and I said so.

Hel gave me her twisted half-smile. ‘Balder’s been having dreams,’ she said.

‘Dreams of what?’

‘Of me,’ she said.

‘Oh.’ I was starting to understand. Ever since she’d first seen him, Hel had been crazy for Balder. Balder the Beautiful; Balder the Brave; Balder, Asgard’s Golden Boy. Well, there’s no accounting for taste, but there was no denying that a certain type of female found him irresistible. Skadi was one; Hel, another. But while Skadi had long since accepted that Balder would never belong to her, I guessed that Hel still hoped to see Balder at her side one day.

Of course, he’d have to die for that – but as she said, everyone dies.

‘So, Golden Boy’s been having nightmares?’ I grinned at Hel’s expression. ‘He always was on the sensitive side. Though what that has to do with Odin . . .’

‘Frigg has been having dreams as well,’ said Hel. ‘Forebodings of Balder’s death. She wants to know how to protect him. That’s why Odin sent his birds.’

‘And?’

She gave me a look from her dead eye. ‘Odin made me who I am,’ she said. ‘He gave me Death’s dominion. I take my role very seriously, and I can’t make exceptions. Not even if I wanted to,’ she added, with the hint of a smile, most gruesome on that half-dead face.

‘But why would Balder die?’ I said. ‘He doesn’t fight. He doesn’t play dangerous sports. He rarely, if ever, leaves Asgard. The only risk he ever takes is that of choking on his own smugness. So tell me, why the anxiety?’

Hel shrugged a shoulder. ‘I don’t know.’

Of course, Death and Dream are very close. Their territories intersect, which is why we so often dream of the dead. They dream of us, too, in their watery way, and sometimes they can tell us things; things about the future.