Loki put his hand on Maddy’s arm. “Maddy, don’t look. Just keep on going.”

But Hel had already lifted her hand: another room lit, and inside it Maddy saw a woman with cowslip curls and a bearded man whose face was as familiar to her as her own.

“Father?” she said, taking a step.

“Ignore them. Ha’nts. Don’t talk to them.”

“But that was my-”

“I said, ignore them.”

But Maddy had taken another step. Shaking off Loki’s restraining hand, she made for the chamber, where Jed and Julia Smith sat side by side in a stillness that might have seemed companionable in anyone other than the dead. Jed looked up as she came in but with no curiosity, no welcome. He seemed to speak, lips moving silently in the semi-darkness, but no sound came but that of the wind and of the sifting dust.

“This is just glamour, right?” said Maddy in a small voice.

Hel gave her grisly half smile.

“But he can’t be dead. I saw him just a while ago.”

“I can make him speak to you,” suggested Hel in a silky voice. “I can even show you what happened, if you’d like.”

“Don’t,” said Loki tonelessly.

But Maddy could not look away from the room, now lit with an inviting glow. The folk inside were clearer now: Jed and Julia, their faces animated by the flickering light. She knew that they were not her real parents, and yet something inside her still longed for them-for the mother she had never known, for the man she had called Father for fourteen years. It made her feel suddenly very small, very insignificant, and for the first time since she and One-Eye had opened Red Horse Hill, Maddy found herself on the verge of tears.

“Was it my fault?” she said to the shade of Jed Smith. “Was it something I did that brought you here?”

“Leave her alone,” said Loki sharply. “Your business is with me, not her.”

Hel raised her living eyebrow. The chamber darkened; the ghosts disappeared.

“An hour,” said Loki in a harsh voice. “One hour inside. After which I swear you’ll never see me here again.”

Hel smiled. “Very well. I’ll give you an hour. Not a minute-not a second-more.”

“Do I have your oath?” Loki insisted.

“You have my oath, and furthermore, you have my promise-assuming you survive this latest antic of yours, which I doubt-that next time your path crosses mine, father or not, you’ll be a dead man. Understood?”

They shook on it, his living hand in her dead one. Then, with one dead finger, Hel drew a window in the air, and suddenly they were looking out over the river Dream, a vastness of water that no eye could hope to comprehend, wider than the One Sea and ten thousand times as turbulent. Islands dotted its surface like dancers in skirts of pale foam, rocks and skerries too many to count, treacherous sandbanks, cliffs that vanished into cloud, peaks and pinnacles and stovepipe stacks.

“Gods,” said Maddy. “There are so many…”

Loki shrugged. “The islands of Dream come and go,” he said. “They’re not designed to last for long. The fortress, however…”

Briefly he considered it-the Black Fortress of Netherworld, its head lost in a pile of cloud, its feet drowned ten fathoms deep. Its shape was uncertain: one moment a great castle barbed with turrets, the next a great pit with a fiery heart. Nothing keeps to a single Aspect so close to Chaos; this was part of what made the fortress impregnable. Doors and gateways came and went; that was why he needed Hel to keep the way open.

He did not doubt that she would do it. Hel’s oath was legendary-the balance of her realm depended on it-although he did not doubt her promise, either.

For a moment he thought of the Whisperer, its ancient cunning and its intent. Why had it wanted to come to Hel? What had he seen when their minds had crossed? What had he missed in his careful planning for the Oracle to seem so smug?

I see a meeting at Nether’s edge, of the wise and the not so wise.

Wise? In all his life the Trickster had never felt less so.

And now for the last time Hel raised her hand and sketched Naudr, reversed, across the newly created window. All at once Maddy could feel the wind on her face; she could hear the hishhh of the floodwater against the rocks, she could smell its ancient stench…

“You have an hour,” said Half-Born Hel. “I suggest you make the most of it.”

And at that she was gone, and her hall with her, and Loki and Maddy were standing on a rocky turret in the middle of the river Dream, with the Black Fortress of Netherworld gaping at their feet.

6

The Vanir had been gone more than an hour. Ethel Parson had watched them leave with a feeling of peculiar detachment and a sudden certainty that they were gone for good. She felt very strange, very calm, and sitting at her dressing table, looking into the mirror, she tried to make sense of what she had seen.

Over the past twenty-four hours Ethel had seen more than she had in her entire life up until that moment. She had seen gods in battle, women who were wild beasts, her husband possessed by an unholy spirit, her house invaded, her property requisitioned, her life left hanging by a thread.

She knew she should feel something. Fear, probably. Grief. Anxiety. Relief. Horror at the unnaturalness of it. But Ethelberta felt none of these. Instead she scrutinized her face in her dressing-table mirror. She was not in the habit of doing so often. But today she felt compelled to look-not out of vanity, but more out of curiosity, to see if she could find any visible sign of the change she felt within.

I feel different. I am different.

She had changed into a dress of plain brown flannel-not inexpensive, but not good enough to tempt the Faërie woman-and had washed and brushed her long hair. Her face was clean and free of rouge, which made her look younger; her eyes-unremarkable when compared with Freyja’s or Skadi’s-were a clear and thoughtful golden brown. She was not a beauty-but neither was she the same muffin-faced Ethel Goodchild who had almost ended up on the shelf in spite of all her father’s money.

How very strange, thought Ethel calmly. And how strange it was that the Gødfolk had healed her. Perhaps that made her unnatural too; marked, in some way, by their passing. Certainly she did not feel the revulsion she knew she ought to feel; instead she felt something like gratitude. Strangely like joy.

She was just about to go out, thinking that perhaps a morning walk would help to calm her spirits, when a knock came on the front door, and, opening it, she saw Dorian Scattergood, disheveled, wild-eyed, red-faced, and close to tears in his eagerness to tell his tale to someone-anyone-who might believe him.

He had run, he told her, all the way from Red Horse Hill. Lying low until he was sure it was safe, he had at last returned to find the dismembered bodies of Audun Briggs and Jed Smith lying beside the open Eye. Of the parson and Adam there was no sign, although he had seen the six Vanir moving fast along the Malbry road and had hidden under a hedge in a field until the demon folk passed by.

“There was nothing I could do,” said Dorian wretchedly. “I ran-I hid…”

“Mr. Scattergood,” said Ethel firmly, “I think you’d better come in for a while. The servants are due at any moment, and I’m sure you could take a drink of tea to calm your nerves.”

Tea, thought Dorian in disgust. Nevertheless, he accepted, knowing that if anyone in Malbry was likely to believe him, Ethelberta would.

She did. Urging him on when he faltered, she took in the whole tale: the wolf woman, two murders, Nat’s possession by spirits unknown, the disappearance of Adam Scattergood.

When he had finished, she put down her teacup in its china saucer and added a little more hot water to the pot. “So where do you think my husband has gone?” she asked.