Patrick Wolf is the calm, calculating presence behind the polished marble counter of Never’s lone bank, a man of impeccable dress, clipped diction, and an uncanny memory for names, dates, and debts. To the townsfolk, he is the very picture of stability and discretion, the sort of banker who never loses a ledger and always knows exactly how much interest your sins are accruing.

Unbeknownst to them, Patrick is a demon, dispatched not with flames and fury, but with ink-stained fingers and a hunger for souls dulled by greed. His mission in Never is one of quiet corruption, exploiting the town’s ambitions and desperation to nudge the living ever closer to damnation. Loans with shifting fine print, “chance” investments that seem to work until they don’t, deals made under pressure, and promises that bind tighter than they seem — Patrick turns the dreams of prosperity into traps, one eager signature at a time.

And yet, Patrick has a fondness for routine, for the small rhythms of mortal life that no infernal training ever quite prepared him for. He drinks his coffee at the same time each morning, enjoys feeding the sparrows outside the bank on his lunch break, and collects pocket watches, each one meticulously wound and tended. He finds himself inexplicably soothed by the orderliness of ledgers, the satisfaction of balanced books, the quiet pride in a well-run institution. For all his demonic purpose, Patrick sometimes wonders if his fascination with human striving has made him softer than he ought to be. But so far, no one in Hell seems to notice.