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I pivot my line of questioning. “How old are you?” I ask.

The question seems to annoy him. His expression shifts subtly, but noticeably, though at least this time he answers in a way that almost makes sense.

“I am dead,” he says evenly. “I do not age.” For a moment, I think that is all he is going to give me. Then he continues. “But I have been a demon for many thousands of years. I’m one of the oldest in this realm.”

I sit back slightly, my fork hovering over the plate. My hunger has faded, replaced by a sharper appetite for answers. “How did we get here?” I ask.

“The way all beings—living or not—enter the afterlife,” he replies. “Through Charon. Though you may know him by his more common name, the Ferryman.”

That name stirs something in my memory. A half-remembered story about coins placed over the eyes of the dead, payment for passage across dark waters. I remember hearing that if the coin is missing, the soul will wander, unable to cross, trapped between worlds.

My stomach twists.

“Does that mean I’m dead?” I ask. I’m not sure I want the answer. But I need it.

“No,” he says, just that.

Any lingering appreciation I had for his calm delivery evaporates. It isn’t refreshing anymore. It is infuriating.

“Okay,” I murmur. “Then what happens if I die here?”

He lets out a measured breath, like he is beginning to tire of the conversation.

“You will go to your own afterlife,” he replies. “Are you finished with your questions?”

I shoot him a sideways look.

I am absolutely not finished.

Still, I don’t press the topic. Instead, I trail after him as he goes about the rest of his day, if that’s what it is. There are no windows here, no way to mark time. I follow him like a lost puppy while he works, reshaping stone where the new door will go, adjusting things around his home with practiced ease.

At least, I assume it is his home.

As I watch, another thought surfaces. Is it always dark here? I tuck that question away for later.

I ask plenty of others as we go. Some he answers freely. Others he dismisses entirely, responding with an irritated sigh or a sharp look that tells me I’ve hit a boundary.

But I keep asking.

Because if I am going to be trapped in Hell with an ancient demon who clearly has no idea how to handle a human girl, I am going to understand exactly where and what I’ve landed in.

Whether he likes it or not.

I learn quickly that not all demons look like Seraphel.

What I see is not, as he calls it, his true form. Most demons are something else entirely terrifying, monstrous shapes that belong more in nightmares than in stories. Only the higher demons, the oldest and most powerful among them, are capable of taking on a human appearance.

It isn’t just for convenience.

He says it is a reminder of what they once were. A small comfort, perhaps. Proof that they are not all mindless beasts, no matter how the world above chooses to imagine them.

He speaks about hierarchy next, about demon nobility, and lays it out carefully, making sure I understand the structure of the world he brought me into. Power rules everything here, but it is bound by ancient laws that keep the realm from collapsing into complete chaos.

“Is the king the Devil?” I ask.

“No,” he says immediately.

What humans call the Devil, he explains, goes by many names. And he abandoned the Underworld long ago. It was after that abandonment that the current order took shape, the oldest and strongest demons stepping forward to lead, binding themselves to laws older than memory.