Page 47 of Where Light Cannot Follow

Dante looks at me as though he sees through my words. "Give me your hand," he commands.

"You can't touch me. I'm not⁠—"

"Your hand."

I sigh, but reach out toward him. He lifts his hand carefully and places it just above the image of mine, then curls his fingers slowly until—it appears—he's gripped my hand within his. He's not touching me. Not really. It's impossible.

But it's the closest thing I've had to touch in two thousand years.

My breath catches—unnecessary breath, phantom breath, but it catches nonetheless. I feel something I haven't felt since Musa held my hand the night before I left for the journey that would be my last, when he pressed his lips to my knuckles and pleaded with me to stay. I feel held.

It's an illusion. I know it's an illusion. But I let myself have it anyway, just for this moment.

"I don't care about the rules of this place, Virgil," Dante says, and he looks me straight in the eyes as he speaks. "The rules have changed. And we're leaving together."

I'm unable to do anything but nod.

And I think, as we turn to walk into the darkness, I would damn myself all over again, for this. And perhaps that's the most damning thing of all.

20

DANTE

The world is dark. Not metaphorically, but literally dark. The path ahead is swallowed by shadow so thick it feels solid.

Though perhaps the metaphor holds, too. Maybe darkness is what I spent my life running from.

Now I'm walking toward it, chin raised, back straight. The same way I walked into any difficult negotiation. But this is no performance. No posturing.

It's for Virgil.

I understand the choice I'm making. I could walk back onto the path and make it through to this "ascension" he claims holds so much value. But I've never been a man seeking heaven. I'm not sure what I was actually seeking. Security, perhaps. Or maybe I've always been running from the shadows, trying to craft my own sun so I never feel cold again.

Now I walk into the greatest insecurity I've ever known, willingly moving into the dark, toward hell, and all for the sake of a single man.

Virgil moves closer beside me, almost unconsciously. I make no comment and don't move any nearer. He seems on the verge of bolting already. I'm not going to push it.

His appearance has changed—his curls a touch more mussed, his shoes marred with dark streaks, his sweater rumpled at the hem.

It makes him more appealing, somehow. That initial impression I had of him, that he was a retired model just past his prime, strikes me again. Except I was mistaken to think he was past some optimal point. Even in the darkness, I can make out the ringlet on his forehead, the way he holds himself, like posture costs him nothing. He's golden where everything else is ash.

I shouldn't notice these things. I notice them anyway.

He thinks he makes no impact because he cannot physically interact with anything. As much as I wished I could have placed my hand upon his and felt it, truly felt it, that's not what matters.

I don't walk through the shadows for Virgil, the beautiful poet, the classical ghost with sad eyes.

I walk for Virgil the soul.

A soul that breaks for a woman who'd rather blame anyone than face herself. A soul that spends eternity guiding the ungrateful through hell. A soul that weeps over another's pain as though it were his own.

I spent my life turning away from people like him.

Now that's what I'm walking toward. What I'm fighting for.

"Explain to me how it works," I whisper. I don't understand the rules here, but I understand now that there are rules. One being that saying certain names aloud, regardless of my skepticism, carries consequences. Virgil's physical flinching whenever that name is spoken was loud enough. "The feeding, I mean. How does it work for demons?”

Virgil looks away for a moment, then turns back and guides us toward a path branching away from the deepest darkness. He doesn't have to speak for me to understand. The shadows that fell, the hiss of the air. It’s a sign of some dark power approaching. One we don't wish to meet.