Page 68 of Where Light Cannot Follow

It makes me aware again. Alert. I'd nearly forgotten that we wander not through some unpleasant neighborhood best avoided after dark, but through a realm with real consequences. Gods and power. Demons eager to prove themselves.

At the river's edge, a small dark boat bobs against the muck of the shore. The water itself is wrong—too thick, too still, carrying with it the faint sound of whispers I can't quite parse.

"Charon." Virgil speaks the name with weight and intention, the way he does when wielding it as an anchor, a summoning.

The figure in the boat turns. His black robes shift, catching some sourceless light, and his face becomes visible.

It takes all my fortitude not to step back.

His face is destroyed—ragged strips of flesh clinging to an ivory skull gone dry and ancient. The eye sockets are empty, absolute darkness pooling where sight should be. He regards Virgil first, then turns that ruined visage toward me. It's impossible to read a creature with no expressions, no features save that bone mask and the void behind it.

Then he turns back to Virgil. "It hath been long since last thou crossed, Virgil." His voice is the creak of old wood, of coffin lids, of things that should stay closed.

"I wish to cross the river." Virgil is as unemotional as I've ever seen him. Not the performed boredom he displayed before the demons at the fire, this is something harder. Immovable.

"A soul hath clung to thee."

"I bring him with me."

Charon fixes that rotted face in my direction again, and I swear I feel the phantom pounding of my nonexistent heart.

I trust Virgil. Truly, I do.

Yet I'm hoping what he wants to show me isn't this boat on this river piloted by hands made of splintered bone and hanging flesh.

"I ferry not for souls." Charon's voice carries no negotiation, only fact. "The damned alone cross here."

"You can ferry whoever you choose," Virgil replies calmly. "I happen to know there are no rules restricting your passengers. And—" He hesitates, turning his face from me just enough to block my view of his expression. "As always, I am willing to pay."

"This boat ride costs?" I ask.

Charon shifts back toward me. “Is anything free, soul?"

Nothing is free.

That's what I would have said once. Before the loops, the genesis, the journey. Before the confrontation with my father. Before the near-drowning. Before being humbled in ways I didn't know I needed.

Before Virgil.

Before he held me with arms that cannot hold, listened to me like I was worth saving, saw something within me I didn't know existed.

I don't answer.

Virgil speaks instead. "I'll pay well."

The ferryman replies, shifting into what I assume is an ancient version of Greek, though it scarcely matters. I would have missed the words regardless.

Because something else has entered my mind.

Mr. Dante. Constance's voice slides through my consciousness. Virgil may attempt to ignore me, evade me, but I wonder if he knows our connection allows me to find you as well.

I shiver, and Virgil shoots me a look. I don't reply. I try not to think at all.

Constance's laughter echoes through my skull. You may both run. But there is no path in this realm that does not lead back to him eventually.

Suddenly, I sense her, her mind pressing against the edges of mine. The chaos of it. The hunger. Oh, the endless, gnawing hunger. For more. For food. For pleasure. For recognition. For power.

For us.