19. Virgil #2
"That's why I must leave you now," I say.
Dante's head snaps up. "No." Then, before I can interject, he moves closer, shaking his head. "Virgil, no. You said as long as I wanted you by my side, you'd stay with me. You're a man of your word."
His rebuke stings, for he's right. And also because I don't wish to abandon him. That is the deepest truth, the one I've been circling since we met.
"Dante," I say, his name a spill of silk in this blighted world, "you don't know hell yet.
Most of what you've walked through are the original loops and genesis rooms—the structure that existed before he added on to this place.
If he discovers you with me, he'll torment you solely to torment me.
You see, I'm one of the demons he has very little power over. "
"Because you push back. Because you don't feed on people, as that woman said."
"No. Because of my name." I kick a stone, watch it tumble into the darkness that is deepening around us, shadows falling in sheets.
"He made a mistake with his promise to me.
By making my words last forever, so does my name.
And that gives me—a modest, irritating—amount of power.
He's not one who enjoys competition. Certainly not when he perceives me as posturing myself as a savior of sorts, leading his prey away from his table. "
Dante crosses his arms. His sweater is impossibly soft-looking, nothing like the armor of his first conjured outfit. He's changed, I realize. Not just his clothing, but the way he holds himself. Less rigid. More present.
"Well, I'll inform him you're a terrible savior. You don't intervene at all, and you only speak in riddles."
I chuckle, and there's a moment of lightness between us—brief, precious, entirely undeserved. But it only further contrasts how the world is deepening into navy and black all around us. A sure sign that demons have arrived—and perhaps their master.
"You must go." I try to speak firmly, but the words come out unsteady, frayed at the edges. "You've faced some of the worst parts of your journey, the hardest temptations. I believe you can manage the rest. Use my name as an anchor point if needed. It does have power here."
He started shaking his head halfway through my speech and is now doing so vigorously. "No," he says, and it's like the crack of thunder against the sky. "I'm holding you to your word, Virgil. You promised to stay with me as long as I wanted you at my side. And I still want that."
I close my eyes, squeeze them against the encroaching dark. "Dante, I bring you trouble now, not aid. You should go. Ascension is worth it. It's—"
"Come with me. Come to ascension alongside me."
I open my eyes. He's being sincere. There's no guile on his face, no sardonic tilt to his lips. Instead, his expression is open and hopeful, almost vulnerable. As though he's the one asking for something he fears he won't receive.
"I cannot," I reply. "I am a damned soul, but you—"
"Maybe this is your loop." That startles me enough that I fall silent, and he fills the quiet. "Maybe this isn't real either. Perhaps you're stuck in an old belief, and you need to break it."
I stare at him, mouth agape.
I had never considered that. In two thousand years of guiding souls through their prisons, watching them shatter the bars of their own making, I had never once turned that lens upon myself. I had simply accepted…
But perhaps...
No. No, it's not true. It's merely what he longs to be true. What I, in my weakest moments, might long to be true as well. But longing doesn't make a thing so. I learned that lesson with Musa.
"You should go. The path is just there to the left. You could make it to ascension in perhaps a few days of mortal time if you leave now and—"
"I'm staying with you."
There isn't a beat of hesitation in his voice. I'm surprised his clothes haven't shifted back to his crisp suits and polished oxfords, because he's fully in Mr. Michael Dante, Managing Partner, mode now. The man who closes deals. The man who doesn't accept no.
"If I join you on the path again, he will find us easily," I try to reason. Shadows have overtaken the world, and I'm stumbling over my words, searching for the ones that will drive him toward a sensible decision. "He knows I guide souls along it."
"Then we go another way. There's another route to ascension, isn't there?"
"It's treacherous." Please, Dante. Go. Don't break my heart by making me watch you face torment.
"Then we go that way. Or we can take the path. But wherever we go, it will be together."
I swallow, trying to think of any way to convince him not to take this course.
But I can see the truth of it. I am throwing myself against a mountain, and Dante will not shift.
He is as immovable as the man I first watched walking his empty loop through Manhattan, but now that stubbornness is aimed at saving me rather than destroying himself.
The shadows have grown so dark I wouldn't see Dante if I didn't know so firmly that he was there, if my mind didn't conjure him for me.
"Fine," I declare. "But we must go at once. He's coming."
Dante's shoulders drop with relief, and he turns back toward the way we walked.
"Excellent. And we go together to ascension. Perhaps I'm the one to help you break your loop."
"Perhaps," I whisper, knowing I'm lying to him.
The word tastes bitter, though I cannot taste.
It feels like betrayal, though I tell myself it's mercy.
He won't leave without believing I'll follow.
So I let him believe. I nod along to his hope, and I hate myself for it, and I know I'll do it again and again until he's safe, until he's standing in the light and I'm watching him disappear into it, and he'll never know that I knew all along I couldn't follow.
It's the kindest lie I've ever told. It may also be the cruelest.
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.