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It was a nice idea, and it cheeredas it took for Mikill the frost giant to pull into the cey and summon me to an audience with Hel

Oh, crap

Thirty-five

Hel did not have the spirit of Grandpa Morgan in custody Hel’s sway over the dead was limited to those of the Old Norse faith, of which there were actually h that it probably wasn’t a good idea to cooddess

To reed to a parley without dictating the ter it to be held in the ce in advance that a second, more powerful sorceress would be in attendance I was an idiot for not ensuring that they were disar what appeared to be an empty pickle jar

Hel didn’t actually say "idiot" She said I was foolish and that I was remiss in my duty, her voice as cold and i at reed with her I’d known better I just hadn’t trusted my instincts

So I didn’t defend myself I didn’t blame anyone else I didn’t point out that if Jojo hadn’t intervened at exactly the wrong ht have been fine I just stood there, , until Hel was finished

Then I said I was sorry

Hel closed her ember eye and opened her compassionate one To be perfectly honest, I’d preferred the baleful stare You know that look parents get when you’ve disappointed the up really, really badly? The one that nify that by the power of divinity I’d al trick than look at ht else you wish to say, Daisy Johanssen?" she inquired in her sepulchral voice

I took a deep breath, and envisioned dauda-dagr cleaving a line between uilt and discomfort At this moment they were useless elad to hear the words co to happen because of the ht?"

Her disappointed look didn’t vanish, but it softened "A powerful spirit has been unleashed and the dead of Pemkowet are restless If the spirit is not contained, I fear so zoic, and not even I can say ill manifest I do not believe the dead of Pemkoill rise in corporeal form As for thisduppyit should not be possible, since his body lies ues across the sea"

"But you’re not sure"

She inclined her head "It would be for the best if the young sorcerer fulfilled the terms of the burden his mother has laid upon him"

There hadn’t been a lot of time for Sinclair and me to discuss the issue, not with his father present, but there had been enough for me to sense his fury and frustration at the catch-22 situation in which his mother had placed him

"I don’t know if he can, my lady," I said "It’s an unwanted burden, and I don’t know if he can accept it in good faith But even if he can" The icyinto my bones I balled my hands into fists and pushed the ainst the cold "He’s claient, I’ve declared him under my protection"

"I see" Hel’s eiants azed atI don’t knohat Although I stood in her line of vision, I was pretty sure she was looking throughred one in its charred socket gazing at whatever goddesses contemplate in the unfatho between blowing ontheaze came back from the distance "Then it is a matter of honor, Daisy Johanssen," she said soht"

"How?" I asked her

She beckoned to Mikill He strode forward, bowing and leaning toward the saw-blade throne to hear her bidding, then striding out of the old sawe of time in the underworld, at least for this half-human mortal Hel and her attendants simply went motionless, suspended in a kind of divinely patient stasis I had the feeling that whether minutes or days or years passed, it was all the saht fro utterly uncomfortable

When Mikill returned, he was followed by a retinue of duegars, the taciturn dwarves whose ic had carved out the real sands All of the thenarled hands Returning once more from the distance, Hel accepted it with both hands, the fair and shapely right hand, the hand of life, and the blackened claw of her left, the hand of death

She held it aloft It was an old-fashioned lantern wrought of silver ht, the kind you could inal ships at sea But either it wasn’t lit or the infale ray of light escaped it

Hel opened the shutter with her right hand

Light spilled forth: white light, gloriously radiant, tinged with the faintest ethereal hint of blue It e suspended in the center of the lantern, and in the dark,into stark relief I raised one hand without thinking to shieldbehind h it had never been, plunging us back into an underworld offaintly on the walls Yep, definitely dwarfish craftsmanship