The next storyline, Season of Mists, involves Sandman returning to hell. It starts when Destiny calls a family reunion. This is when we truly get to meet the other members of the Endless family (they’ve been here and there throughout the previous stories). Desire goads, and Death supports, Dream returning to hell to free Nada (the princess with whom he fell in love in The Doll’s House). When he gets to hell, he finds that not only is Nada no longer there, but no one is. Lucifer gleefully tells him that he has quit his job and is abandoning hell, closing it up and giving Dream the key.
Word gets out that Dream now has the key to hell and powers come to the Dreaming to bargain and try to obtain it from him (gods galore: Odin, Thor, Loki, Bast, Chaos, Order, Azazel, and others). But two angels, Duma and Remiel, come down from Heaven and take back the key. They have been designated the new keepers of hell. Needless to say, this turn of events upsets all those in attendance who were hoping for the key and the demon, Azazel, reveals that he has Nada and attempts to destroy Dream. Dream, being at the center of his realm and power, easily frees Nada. They have an awkward meeting where he finally and truly apologizes for what he has done, and she forgives him as best she can and they part on better terms. The story ends with the three angels. Lucifer is down in Australia looking at a sunset. Duma is silent, while Remiel decides that maybe it won’t be so bad, maybe he can make hell a place where they torture out of love, and maybe it can end, “happily ever after, in hell.”