Page 34 of Where Light Cannot Follow

Virgil's expression smooths entirely until he appears that indeterminate age again—smooth skin and ancient eyes, golden curls catching light that shouldn't exist in this place. His dimples appear, unbidden, as something like wonder softens his features. "Oh. Dante, that's..."

For once, the poet seems lost for words.

The little girl squeals at a pitch that could shatter crystal, hoisting some new toy above her head as she careens around the living room. Matthew and Joshua exchange a private smile, the kind that contains entire conversations, years of shared history compressed into a single glance.

"Come on," I whisper, a smile still lingering on my lips. I study Matthew for one more moment: the laugh lines, the gray hair, the easy joy of a man who found what he was looking for. Then I turn toward the door that’s waiting in the shadows. "This moment isn't for us. We should go."

Virgil looks at me as though I'm a painting he's known his whole life and only just realized is actually a sculpture. Like he’s discovering dimensions he never suspected existed, or angles whose shape he has not yet learned.

Then he nods and follows me toward the exit.

I look back once at the laughter and warmth, at the life Matthew built without me.

And then I step through the door, lighter than when I walked in.

15

VIRGIL

When we step into the swamp, it's raining in earnest. Dante pulls up the collar of his coat and hunches against the downpour. I have no need to. The rain passes through me as though I'm a ghost.

Which I am.

But if that's so, I'm a ghost who has experienced something new for the first time in centuries. Not witnessed some fascinating invention or glimpsed beauty through another's memory. Felt something new.

Rain plops heavy and insistent into the normally beguiling stillness of the water. Even hunched against the weather, there's a looseness in Dante's posture I haven't seen before. His coat flies out around him, and he moves without bothering with precise footwork, without calculating each step.

I can't hear it now, but I imagine the watch ticking steadily at his wrist. Moving forward at last.

I've lost count of the number of souls I've guided through their genesis realms. I've witnessed so many variations of grief in that space that their forms have become nameless. I've seen devastation that brings people to their knees and keeps them trapped in the loop of what-could-have-been for years of mortal time. I've seen bitterness ignite into fury that made me grateful I'm untouchable, that hurled objects pass through me without harm. I've seen people blame themselves, beg and bargain with forces that don't answer, curse their version of god, or simply go numb and retreat so far inward they become unreachable.

I have never, not once in the millennia, seen someone brought to tears of joy.

Tears of joy for another.

For someone they once loved who has moved on without them.

Dante splashes his way across the bog, and I struggle to keep pace, lost in my thoughts. When he reaches the door, he stops and looks up, letting the rain fall against his cheeks.

"I feel good about this one, Virgil. I mean, what could be more difficult than seeing my past?"

I open my lips to protest, but he meets my gaze at that moment, and he's smiling. A real smile. Not the easy, practiced ones that Matthew and his husband shared from the previous realm, but genuine, nonetheless. Crinkles that I’ve never noticed before touch the corners of his eyes.

Thoughts tangle in my mind. Words like pride and caution and something else I can’t remember at this moment.

But all I do is smile in return.

Dante turns and opens the door.

“Dante,” I gasp.

But he's already walked into the space. I follow behind, hurrying to catch up. He burns with energy, radiating it like he might glow and overtake the shadows of this place. Damn hell through sheer force of will.

He doesn't know this realm as I do, though.

Successes do not promise more of the same here. This isn't the financial district of a modern city, where momentum builds and compounds. This is a place built on ancient rules and hidden things, whispered secrets and patient lies.

The room is polished. That's the first thing I notice. A long wooden table, sleek floors buffed to a mirror shine, glass windows stretching the height of two men. The view reveals New York at night but from impossibly high above. We gaze down like deities upon our realm, weighing it with silent judgment.