Page 58 of Where Light Cannot Follow

Birds circle ahead of us against the bruised clouds. I'm no longer certain if I see the world through my own eyes or through Dante’s perception. At some point, the boundary between those two blurred beyond recognition—his mind and mine bleeding into one another like a river meeting the sea.

"We shall see this through," Dante says, responding to the thoughts I haven’t spoken aloud.

I throw my hands out before me in frustration, then pause, staring at them. The long fingers, the rounded knuckles, the elegant lines I once used to hold a stylus, to shape words that would outlast empires. Useless appendages now. They can save nothing. Stop nothing. Pen not another word.

"Attachments are dangerous here, Dante."

He cocks his head in acknowledgment but doesn't look my way. "I've gathered as much."

"It would be better for you if you attempted to... diminish any depth of feeling you might have developed. Toward me."

He chuckles, rueful and warm. "And how about you?"

"I don't attach to the souls I guide more than necessity demands. It is dangerous for both parties."

At this, Dante's eyes catch mine. One glance, and I know that he knows. He knows that is usually the truth. But this isn't usual. At some point along our journey, I have grown connected to him, entangled in a manner I neither understand nor know how to sever.

"What is our greatest risk?" he asks.

"Your destruction."

He shrugs. "I don't think I fear it much. I told Constance that becoming nothing doesn't bother me, as an idea. And I believe I told her the truth."

He means his words. They crash into me. I'm already aware of the grief nipping at my heels when I imagine his ascension—the joy of his freedom braided with the ache of his absence. But destruction? Watching him come apart like that woman in the bog, his essence scattering into nothing?

I think it would capsize me entirely.

"Ah," Dante says more quietly. He walks closer, close enough that our shoulders might brush if such a thing were possible. "This—it would bother you, were I to come apart as that soul did?"

It takes me a moment to scoop words from the chasm of my mind. "It would."

"Then I shall be careful, Virgil."

He says my name like he's binding his words to it. Like a vow.

"Yes, then. I suppose we carry on." I force my voice toward steadiness. "I fear we must walk by the Forest, but we should⁠—"

I stop. Speaking and walking both.

Because I feel something pull at me, a sensation so rare it's like hearing a language I'd forgotten I once spoke. A tug like the bonds I’ve shared with those I've guided, faint but unmistakable.

Everything in my mind tells me to keep to this hidden trail, to deliver Dante to safety as quickly as possible. But⁠—

"Dante, I must make a detour."

"Is something wrong?" He looks back over his shoulder and winces in a way that seems unconscious, probably beyond even his notice. He's reliving Malrec's torment. That happened because we strayed from the path, and here I am asking him to do so again.

"There is someone I must help. I wouldn't ask this of you if it didn't matter greatly to me."

Dante studies me for a moment, his dark eyes steady and deep, absorbing light the way rich soil absorbs rain. "Then, as I said before, lead, and I will follow."

Yes. That is precisely what I fear.

But I do as he says, veering off the path and into dark grass that rises to our knees. Dante moves through it with a rustling whisper, parting the blades like water around a ship's prow.

I see the object of my attention, and my nonexistent heart contracts.

He's younger than the last one—six or seven at most. His large, frightened eyes surface above the grass like a fawn separated from its mother, surrounded by wolves.