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The figure shifted, as if anxious. “Even if you don’t ring the bell, it won’t change the truth.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“The ferryman,” he replied.
“Do you have a name?”
There was a pause before the man jumped off the boat, landing in the knee-deep water. Here, she could finally see what he looked like. He was tall, stupidly so, and broad-shouldered. He took up so much space, it reminded her of the time she had gone to California and walked beneath the redwoods, feeling their power and strength and age, and she wondered how she could feel that now. He was spectacularly, almost inhumanely, large, but his face didn’t come with the feeling of depth and wisdom she had felt when she was humbled by those trees. He was beautiful, but he was young. Only his eyes hinted at something deeper.
“Tuonen,” he said. “I am the Son of the Death. And whether you want to believe it or not, nothing changes the fact that you’re dead.”
Son of Death, she thought. She wanted to laugh; she knew she would have under other circumstances, but somehow, the title felt right. He looked maybe a few years older than her, in his late twenties, and he had the thick, shiny black hair, high cheekbones, and haunted eyes that anyone cosplaying Death would have. But it was also in his presence, his smell, his energy, that seemed to envelop her with each passing second, that made her think of a forest in autumn.
She had the distinct feeling he could make her do anything he wanted.
Again, a lightning strike of fear, something telling her that maybe she should turn around and run.
But before she could, she felt herself reaching for the bell again and giving it a ring. The sound was so loud and jarring, it made her teeth clack together. Then, everything flipped around, like she was trapped on a negative of film passing through a shutter, and when she blinked, she found herself on the boat.
“The more you fight it, the harder it will get,” Tuonen said from behind her.
She whirled around, though it felt like her body was moving underwater, and spotted him at the back of the boat. He was sitting casually, one leg up, leaning against the knee and eating an apple. Something about eating an apple always struck Aven as the epitome of casual, and here, she especially didn’t trust it. It was like Tuonen was wanting her to let her guard down.
Then again, she got on the boat somehow, and she didn’t think it was of her own accord. Her guard was down already.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, noticing that the boat was moving fast enough through the black water that a cold wind was blowing back her hair. There was nothing but mist for as far as she could see, though snowflakes were starting to fall from above, adding to the haze.
“To the City of Death,” Tuonen said before swallowing. “Where the Magician will tell you where in the city you will spend your afterlife.”
“A magician?” she asked. “You’re the Son of Death and you don’t even know?”
“I’m afraid I know nothing about you, not even your name.”
Don’t tell him. Giving him your name will give him more power, she thought.
But still, her lips were moving.
“It’s Aven.”
I’m in serious trouble, Tuonen thought. Despite everything he was doing to play it cool, he was one hundred percent enamored with this woman.
“Aven,” he repeated, letting her name sink in richly, like chocolate on the tongue. She had a name, a powerful one at that. He didn’t always know the names of the dead he was transporting—most of the time, he didn’t care to ask—but he knew her name meant something to him. What, he had no idea. And why he was so smitten with her already, he didn’t know. After all, he had seen millions of beautiful humans cross his path into the afterlife, and none of them had any hold on him the way Aven seemed to.
Ridiculous, he thought to himself.She doesn’t even look all that special.
But while he finished his apple, staring at her, trying to find flaws, he couldn’t. Back in the Upper World, she would have been considered pretty. Beautiful, even. Her features were large—brilliant blue doe eyes, a wide full mouth, strong nose, round jaw, high forehead—but put together, they made him think of ancient goddesses that past worlds would paint: a memorable, commanding face. Her shiny dark hair fell around her shoulders, and she was wearing sneakers and a navy-blue dress littered with snowflakes as the boat glided toward the Frozen Void. Though her skin was as pale as milk, he surmisedit was probably summer back where she was from, and he was grateful for it, since her body was exquisite.
“Where are we?” she asked, breaking eye contact with him to look around. Damn. It was like he was spellbound.
“Tuonela,” he said. “The Land of the Dead.”
“Tuonela?” she said, looking puzzled. Then, she looked to him with raised brows. “You mean in Finnish mythology?”
He shrugged. “Many call it that, but it is not myth. It is fact.” He paused. “Most people haven’t heard of thismythology, though. It’s always about Hades and the Greeks…”
“I studied it in school,” she said, and a look of awareness came over her face as she remembered. “Yes, I went to university. In London. I went to Queen Mary.”
Tuonen frowned. When people first died, they remembered bits and pieces of their previous life, but as the journey progressed into the Underworld, they quickly forgot. When they reunited with their loved ones (though that wasn’t always the case, depending on which part of the city their loved ones were in), they knew who they were, recognizing their soul and spirit, but the mundane details of life slipped away.
