Page 79 of Where Light Cannot Follow

It's refined now. Beautiful in a way that nothing I've ever seen has been.

On a rising hill in the distance, massive olive trees rustle in a gentle breeze, their silver-green leaves catching light that shouldn't exist here. Birds sing sweetly, their music tangling with the burble of a stream winding over rocks that shimmer with opalescent color. Sweeping willows and ancient oaks drape over the water, creating cool retreats from the golden sunshine dancing against a sky of impossible, cloudless blue.

On the other side of the path, hedges twice our height bloom in wild profusion—roses climbing through jasmine, wisteria cascading over arched trellises, beds of lavender and sage that feel stolen from another world. It's the marriage of an English country estate and a Persian paradise garden, every element cultivated to suggest both effortless beauty and absolute control.

Constance walks ahead of us with easy familiarity, her heels finding the flagstone path without hesitation. She belongs here. That realization settles into me like a stone. I don’t know how I led her so poorly, nor how she ended up trapped by the very net I struggled to free her from.

Dante quickly masters his expression, swallowing down surprise into cool indifference once more. But his eyes watch everything, brushing against all the symbols of a language he once spoke fluently: wealth without limit, power without apology, authority over even natural elements. Resources so vast that endless indulgences—a garden requiring an army to maintain—make perfect sense.

We have stepped back into his world.

A pit grows in my stomach, though I don't show it. If I could touch him, I would brush a finger against his thumb. Ground him. Remind him I'm here. That he knows himself now.

"Beautiful gardens, aren't they, Dante?" I ask, emphasizing his name, pressing into the power of it.

He turns to me and smiles, a sincere, soft thing he never would have offered when he first arrived here.

"I rather think I preferred your realm, Virgil," he says, using my name the same way. A rope. A tether.

For a moment, we simply look into each other's eyes, and every doubt swirling through me washes away. This man isn't the same one I met at the beginning, marching endless empty roads, easily swayed by deals made over polished tables.

He's someone new. Fragile in that newness, perhaps, but strengthening with each moment.

He nods at me, assurance in the gesture. I don't know what comfort he's offering, but I accept it.

We turn a corner and approach the estate.

It's a thing of staggering beauty, even I cannot deny it. He's taken the greatest architecture from every era and woven them into something that should be impossible. Sumerian cone mosaics frame the entrance. Gothic flying buttresses support walls inlaid with Byzantine gold leaf. Renaissance colonnades give way to Moorish arches, which open onto Baroque balconies.

Half palace, half basilica, wholly breathtaking. It looks too fragile to exist, yet grounded as though it rooted here ten thousand years ago and will endure for ten thousand more.

Dante gives nothing in his expression, but those bright, clever eyes sweep the facade with calculation and a flicker of surprise.

Perhaps he expected hellfire. Three-headed dogs. A swampy river filled with grasping dead. A great black throne and theatrical pronouncements of doom.

Not this. Not beauty wielded as a weapon.

Servants in crisp livery open the front doors, and we step inside to polished marble floors veined with gold, soaring ceilings decorated with understated ivory plasterwork—acanthus leaves and geometric patterns that draw the eye upward without overwhelming it. Crystal chandeliers hang from chains so delicate they seem to float.

Constance's heels clack against the marble. Dante's shoes make a softer sound, muffled leather against stone.

I make no impression at all.

"Virgil." Constance stops and turns. "He'll see you separately first."

"No." Dante steps in front of me, his body rigid, fists curled at his sides. "That wasn't part of the arrangement."

Constance smiles slowly, her eyes tracing up Dante's form in a way that makes me wish I could shield him. I should have briefed him better. Should have spoken of these things instead of hoping we would never end up here, within these whitewashed walls that hide so much rot.

"Dante," I whisper, trying desperately not to let my attachment show through too clearly. From the gleam in Constance's eyes, I fear my efforts are both pointless and poorly executed. "It's fine."

He looks back at me, brow furrowed.

But I mean what I say. Satan isn't one for exhibition. For drama. He won't rip us apart, won't glut and boast and preen as some of his demons do. As he once did. He learned from that long ago.

He's smarter now.

Dante hesitates another moment, then nods. He'll trust me in this.