Page 73 of Where Light Cannot Follow

"Do you often bring souls here?" Dante asks, his eyes still closed.

"No. Never."

His eyes open. Dark and deep and fixed on me. "You've never brought anyone here?"

The question breaks whatever spell had held me, and I avert my gaze. "It's not a space I've shared with another. I retreat here sometimes, when I can no longer bear the weight of everything else."

"It's a beautiful space, Virgil."

"Is there a scent?" The question escapes before I can stop it. "I've always wondered if my memories could conjure smell without my being able to sense it."

Dante is quiet for a moment. When I gather the courage to meet his gaze again, there's a frown on his lips, sorrow in his eyes alongside the dancing candlelight.

"It smells of mineral water," he says slowly, carefully, as though selecting each word with intention. "Clean and grounding. The candles carry a honeyed scent, and beneath that, a whisper of smoke, like the softest breath of a fire pit on a cool evening. The books add their own layer. Paper and leather and something older, like dust that's settled for centuries. And there's another smell beneath it all. Maybe it’s the stone itself, warmed by steam." He pauses. "It smells like peace, Virgil. Like somewhere safe."

I take a deep breath, as if I can inhale it too. As if wanting were enough.

"I did not know.” I smile at him, and it feels fragile on my face. "Thank you."

But his frown only deepens. His eyes search my face with an intensity that makes me want to look away.

"You've never been in these springs either, have you?"

I let out a soft sound that might pass for amusement. "It wouldn't do me any good. I can't feel them as you do."

Dante leans forward, lifting his chest from the water, and my traitorous eyes fix on his form—on beads of water gliding down the sculpted planes of his chest, tracing paths I cannot follow.

I force my gaze back up. Dante seems not to have noticed my focus. He's studying me the way one might study the Laocoön upon first encounter, expecting something simpler, and finding instead a complexity that demands longer contemplation.

"You love all of this," he says. I'm not certain if he's asking or simply observing. "The art. The experiences. The food." He cocks his head again, that youthful, curious gesture that makes him look so young, so unburdened. So close to ascension. So close to leaving me. "But you don't get to have any of it."

I move closer to the edge of the pool. At some point, I’ve shifted into Roman sandals, the sight of them pulling me back toward a life I no longer possess. And never shall again.

"Perhaps you understand now why the stories mean so much to me." I chuckle, but it' feels hollow, and Dante doesn't join me. His expression scarcely changes.

"You give so much, Virgil. But what about you?"

"I made my choices."

"So you believe one choice deserves damnation for eternity?" His voice is quiet but relentless. "Yet you tell me you're not sure anyone deserves hell. You believed in a man like me, someone who damned himself through his own repeated choices. You've offered me so much grace."

My mouth hangs open, prepared to respond, to wield words as I've always done. My weapon. My gilded laurel. My tool. My shield. My tomb.

None come.

I can't stop meeting his gaze. Can't find language. I barely manage to shake my head.

Dante runs a damp hand back through his hair, pressing it flat, the dark locks slick and glistening.

"Feed on me," he says.

"What?" I stumble back from the pool, from his words.

"Just a small amount." He places his hands before him, palms up, offering. Or pleading. "I trust you to use restraint. Feed on my pain, or whatever it is demons do. Just enough for you to feel again." His eyes don't waver. "Then you could join me here. Have a moment of sensation. Of pleasure."

I say nothing. Neither does he.

We remain frozen for what feels like eternity. Him—the picture of beauty and masculine grace, gleaming bronze and gold in the candlelight, warmed by steam and flame. An artist would paint a scene such as this.