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As they passed the Colosseum made of skulls, carnal roars arose from within. Peeking in through an arch, she saw two dead gladiators in armour fighting in the arena, as rows of colourless shades cheered and heckled. They couldn’t be killed, or even injured, so the fight raged for hours, providing endless entertainment for the Roman undead.

The same was true in the Circus Maximus, where ghoulish riders of broken death-chariots raced around an infinity-shaped track, with a captive audience of ghosts. Each of them reflected their appearance when they lost their lives – from crying babies with mottled skin to men with beast-ravaged faces, cheering on the victors.

Claudia had always hoped that the dead would be reborn and renewed somehow, suspended in a state of eternal youth, and certainly, some of Rome’s heroes were indeed forever beautiful and unageing, dancing and dining with the gods of the Isles of the Blessed. But many more were here, among the miserable masses, living a faded second-life that was an inferior copy of reality. She feared that she might see her father or brother among them so she did not pay close attention to their faces.

Thankfully, they made their way out of the city, into the fields and farms that surrounded the outer walls, where there were fewer dead persons to be seen, and far more ghost animals.

Graceful and translucent, moving fluidly, Claudia watched as a hare bounded past, chased by dogs in a never-ending hunt.

Time flowed differently in the underworld. The scenery was always shifting and reshaping, reacting to the presence of those who entered it, formed by the collective consciousness of every dead mortal and deathless god. Hills became mountains. Lakes became seas.

The underworld was a living thing, a kind of beast that fed on the memories of all who dwelled there.

Crossing a single field of weeping, whispering poppies seemed to last for a century, pushing Claudia to the brink of her patience. Conversely, they traversed vast forests of feral centaurs and black-sand deserts in minutes.

Eventually, the land curved into what looked like the crater of a dormant volcano, but as they drew closer, Claudia saw that it was a ginormous dark staircase, spiralling deep down into the pits of the Earth.

It gave her a bad feeling.

‘This is the way?’ she said.

‘There is no other,’ said Invidia.

She could no longer avoid looking at its gaping mouth. It was calling to her… to her, personally. Claudia couldn’t resist it any longer, so she followed the others and began to descend.

She was ready to meet her fate.

She spiralled downwards for so long that it made her dizzy. She could no longer tell how much time had passed – whether it was minutes or aeons or something in-between. When she asked how long it had been, the goddesses told her they did not recognize time.

‘Time is a human intervention,’ said Invidia.

‘Deities live by the clock of the Earth turning,’ said Discordia, ‘but down here, in the underworld, we cannot even see the days and nights, or the seasons or the weather. Time has no meaning for us.’

‘You cannot tell me how long I have been gone?’

‘It could be minutes, or days. We do not know.’

If days had passed, Claudia was certainly gone. Her body would be rotting in a cell or burning on the pyre.

She began to think the staircase would never end, that she would never reach the bottom, endlessly spiralling with no destination. The goddesses assured her that it would come to a conclusion, but, by their own admission, they didn’t know the difference between a minute and a millennium. By the time they reached Proserpina, it would be far too late.

Claudia thought about turning back and returning to the palace, but she could no longer see the surface, entombed by the dark.

She could only move forwards – or downwards, in this case.

They descended for another century or so, until torches appeared on the cavernous walls. Claudia was gleeful at these primitive signs of life, delighting as carvings and sculptures began to emerge from the rock. They must be close, she thought, but still they plunged onwards. At some point, Claudia stopped thinking, stopped feeling, stopped existing, hypnotized by the motion of her eternal descent.

Just when she had accepted this unfortunate fate, the stairs finally opened out into an enormous chamber.

‘I thought it would never end,’ she said.

‘You mentioned,’ said Invidia. ‘A few times. This way.’

Claudia rushed forwards with relief, as they navigated a series of caverns decorated with hot-red sculptures made of lava. The twisting structures looked like pillars, while rocky blobs formed crystalline creatures who peeked out of the endless folds of primordial stone, seemingly alive.

Time hurtled ahead of them as they moved through the labyrinthine network of caverns.

Still, it didn’t seem quick enough.