Hope in the Forest of Despair

What do you do when your drastic measures to save your own life result in you becoming a strange, half-undead creature that even other monsters are afraid of? If you’re Jill Hamilton, you start a company dedicated to the study of those monsters—and anything else that looks remotely magical.

What do you do when you lose your best friend when she falls off a bridge in Purgatory? If you’re Clara Nordstern, you try to find the next thing that needs doing. Even if it means confronting your worst fears and your deepest guilt.

What do you do when you get sucked into Hell by the demon Lilith? If you’re Selene Shields, you start walking. One foot in front of the other. Even if it means going right through the center of Hell.

The world of Driving Arcana, always subverted by magic, is becoming openly mythic, and Jill, Clara, and Selene must navigate a landscape increasingly compromised by powers beyond anyone’s expectation—but not, Jill would point out, beyond potential understanding.

This is Wheel 3 of Driving Arcana, Hope in the Forest of Despair. It follows Wheel 2, Paving the Road to Hell, and is comprised of Lightning Does Strike Twice, Moonrise Over Hades, The Hour I First Believed, Hope in the Forest of Despair, Cloth of Man, Blood and Fury, Fear Not, A Cold Day in Hell, and The Great Gate. It also contains a related short story “The Lady in the Gray Suit” which provides a glimpse of the magical mayhem occurring on the opposite side of the globe.