Page 39 of The Unseen Hour

Orion took a breath and started to speak, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat and tried a few more times before giving up.

“The thing about gods, or at least Charon, is they’re powerful. I’d wager he’s as lonely here as I’ve been, but he doesn’t want to risk me spilling his secrets. Even to the unresponsive Shades. If he orders me not to discuss something, then I have no choice but to remain silent.”

I drew back, eyes wide.

“That’s awful!”

A hundred years, and no one but the wilderness and a god for company, one who was sounding worse by the minute.

I gulped when something else occurred to me. I hated to ask, but …

“He noticed something wrong yesterday. If he asks about me, will you have to tell him?”

Orion shook his head vehemently.

“No. We may not know each other, but I promise I wouldn’t have whisked you into the forest if I wasn’t trying to help. I’d have just handed you over first thing. Charon does not appreciate secrets or delays. He wouldn’t be pleased to find out I lied to him. It’s a risk, but I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think I could pull it off.”

Orion shuddered, and my anger for the god whose existence I’d only just learned of grew even more.

“Now then”—Orion pointed, and I looked back at the Shades—“let’s start with Shade basics. They’re exactly what they sound like—shadows of their former selves.”

“That’s exactly what I thought yesterday!” I blurted, shocked that he’d captured my own thoughts.

“The Ether holds their souls, but make no mistake, they are dead.”

The entire concept was still overwhelming. The churches always preached that when our lives ended, we went to a realm of Death or Day, but what happened there was only discussed in vague terms.

“If they still are, or have, or whatever the wording would be … if they still possess their souls, does that mean they remember themselves? Could I speak with one?”

They hadn’t been helpful yesterday, but they’d been new to the Ether, just as I had been. Maybe they were different once they were settled.

Orion shook his head, then paused.

“Well, yes, and no. Their emotions and thoughts are dampened in the Ether. Something about this realm suppresses it. You’ll have noticed when you arrived that emotional reactions were quickly squashed. They just float around the Meadow.”

“But?” I pressed, sensing there was more.

“You can talk to them. It can be frustrating, and it’s difficult to rouse them enough that one stays engaged long enough to respond, but it’s possible. I’ve attempted it quite a few times over the years. It never turned out as I’d hoped.”

His shoulders slumped, and I reached a hand out, placing it on one of his arms.

I had been on the verge of another question but bit my tongue. He’d been down here, virtually alone, for nearly a hundred years. What did that kind of isolation do to someone? I sometimes felt alone and trapped in a house full of family.

Orion, though, had none of that.

He was right. The Shades, for all they looked like people, did not behave like them. Even as blurs in the distance, I noticed how they didn’t appear to engage with one another beyond clustering together.

“What does make the Shades interact?”

Orion ran a hand over his neck.

“During the Unseen Hour, they come alive, so to speak. It’s as if … as if all the longing and grief and fear that they must have felt when they arrived are bottled up all year. When the Unseen Hour arrives, Charon sends them to the world, and it’s all unleashed. The closer we get to the hour, the easier it will be to get a response from them. After they call the new souls down, that’s when they’re most deflated. It would be hard to talk to any of them right now.”

My eyes widened, and I threw a hand over my mouth.

“The Shades? Are they the ones who …”

“Yes. Using Shade song, as I mentioned earlier. Charon’s fog covers the Shades during the hour, so they move around Rayus virtually unnoticed, unless you hear one. All Shades sing. I don’t think they can help it. My theory is they’re drawn to the ones they once loved. Shades from Emrys go to Emrys, those from Mejje to Mejje, and so forth. There are even Shades that haunt any ships unfortunate enough to be caught on the seas.”