26. Dante
DANTE
Virgil and I wander on through the hell he claims doesn't exist. I'm starting to think our definitions of "exist" differ considerably, because as we traverse this landscape—ash blowing off the river in pale clouds that coat my lungs, the screeching cries of creatures I can't name and don't want to see, the ground itself seeming to pulse beneath my feet like something buried and breathing—it feels distinctly real to me.
Despite that, somehow I feel lighter than I have in years.
Perhaps lighter than I ever have.
There's a strange sensation within me. That Virgil is right and this is all constructed from my own mind and I need only realize it deeply enough so I could cease to be in this wretched place. To simply dissolve into that light, the way the child did in the field.
The problem is, Virgil remains firmly convinced he will never reach that light.
And I cannot abandon him.
So we continue our journey, discussing matters serious—the nature of guilt, whether harm done in ignorance carries the same weight as harm done with intent. Philosophical—whether free will exists if our choices are shaped by wounds we didn't choose to receive. And, occasionally, lighthearted.
"I have a confession," I say as we navigate a ridge overlooking a valley of smoldering stone.
I’m not sure why I offer this. In my life, I would have dismissed the impulse as a waste of conversational energy.
But something has shifted in me. The walls I built so meticulously, brick by brick over decades, have developed cracks I no longer feel compelled to repair.
And I find myself wanting Virgil to know these small, hidden pieces of me.
Not because they matter strategically. Simply because he might find them interesting.
And maybe simply because I want him to know me. The real me. Whoever that is.
"Oh?" Virgil glances at me with that curious tilt of his head.
"I watch films. Watched, I suppose. It was my single indulgence.
Every Sunday evening, alone in my apartment, I'd select something, usually old, usually considered a classic by modern standards.” I glance at him.
“Though I suppose to you, anything with moving pictures qualifies as shockingly contemporary.”
We share a smile at that.
“Anyway, I’d pour a glass of wine and watch. An hour and a half, sometimes two, with absolutely no intention of productivity. No analysis for professional application. No networking value. Just…” I search for the word. “Enjoyment. Pure indulgence.”
Virgil's smile is slow and genuine. "Why do you say this as though confessing a crime?"
"Lingering guilt, I suppose, from a life I thought I could run with the efficiency of a trading floor."
I smile a bit self-consciously at how foolish this indulgence felt.
But that life, that perspective, is behind me now.
Its rigid metrics, its relentless productivity, its insistence that every moment justify itself in measurable returns.
I walk at Virgil's side instead, through a realm that defies measurement, and I find I don't miss the efficiency at all.
"What was your favorite film?” he asks.
I consider the question. "Casablanca, perhaps. Something about watching people ruin themselves for love or art. I found it—" I pause, searching for honesty. “Bizarre. Comforting, even, maybe. To know that even fictional people made catastrophic choices."
Virgil laughs, and the sound carries across the desolate terrain like something that doesn't belong here. Something alive.
I spend the next hour recounting the entire plot of Casablanca in meticulous detail.
Virgil listens with the rapt attention of a scholar discovering a new text, interrupting only to ask clarifying questions about airplanes and Nazis.
By the time I reach the ending, he looks genuinely mournful that Rick lets Ilsa go.
With each conversation, I find myself returning to what I told him on the hill. That I don’t fear the light—maybe even long for it—but I wish for more time with him first.
We make our way down toward the river, the path narrowing as we descend into a valley. Virgil grows quiet, that careful mask sliding onto his face like armor being fastened into place.
It makes me aware again. Alert. I'd nearly forgotten that we wander not through some unpleasant neighborhood best avoided after dark, but through a realm with real consequences. Gods and power. Demons eager to prove themselves.
At the river's edge, a small dark boat bobs against the muck of the shore. The water itself is wrong—too thick, too still, carrying with it the faint sound of whispers I can't quite parse.
"Charon." Virgil speaks the name with weight and intention, the way he does when wielding it as an anchor, a summoning.
The figure in the boat turns. His black robes shift, catching some sourceless light, and his face becomes visible.
It takes all my fortitude not to step back.
His face is destroyed—ragged strips of flesh clinging to an ivory skull gone dry and ancient.
The eye sockets are empty, absolute darkness pooling where sight should be.
He regards Virgil first, then turns that ruined visage toward me.
It's impossible to read a creature with no expressions, no features save that bone mask and the void behind it.
Then he turns back to Virgil. "It hath been long since last thou crossed, Virgil." His voice is the creak of old wood, of coffin lids, of things that should stay closed.
"I wish to cross the river." Virgil is as unemotional as I've ever seen him. Not the performed boredom he displayed before the demons at the fire, this is something harder. Immovable.
"A soul hath clung to thee."
"I bring him with me."
Charon fixes that rotted face in my direction again, and I swear I feel the phantom pounding of my nonexistent heart.
I trust Virgil. Truly, I do.
Yet I'm hoping what he wants to show me isn't this boat on this river piloted by hands made of splintered bone and hanging flesh.
"I ferry not for souls." Charon's voice carries no negotiation, only fact. "The damned alone cross here."
"You can ferry whoever you choose," Virgil replies calmly. "I happen to know there are no rules restricting your passengers. And—" He hesitates, turning his face from me just enough to block my view of his expression. "As always, I am willing to pay."
"This boat ride costs?" I ask.
Charon shifts back toward me. “Is anything free, soul?"
Nothing is free.
That's what I would have said once. Before the loops, the genesis, the journey. Before the confrontation with my father. Before the near-drowning. Before being humbled in ways I didn't know I needed.
Before Virgil.
Before he held me with arms that cannot hold, listened to me like I was worth saving, saw something within me I didn't know existed.
I don't answer.
Virgil speaks instead. "I'll pay well."
The ferryman replies, shifting into what I assume is an ancient version of Greek, though it scarcely matters. I would have missed the words regardless.
Because something else has entered my mind.
Mr. Dante. Constance's voice slides through my consciousness. Virgil may attempt to ignore me, evade me, but I wonder if he knows our connection allows me to find you as well.
I shiver, and Virgil shoots me a look. I don't reply. I try not to think at all.
Constance's laughter echoes through my skull. You may both run. But there is no path in this realm that does not lead back to him eventually.
Suddenly, I sense her, her mind pressing against the edges of mine. The chaos of it. The hunger. Oh, the endless, gnawing hunger. For more. For food. For pleasure. For recognition. For power.
For us.
She's searching. Closing in. And for a specific purpose.
She searches on his behalf.
We have to cross this river. We can't stall here. I hadn't noticed during our descent, but the valley has narrowed around us, the only path back up through a single passage. If Constance planned to corner us, she couldn't have chosen better ground.
She'd known. She'd known we were heading this direction and waited for us to reach the bottleneck.
Her chilling laughter echoes through my mind again, triumphant and patient.
Virgil frowns, reacting to something in his own head, perhaps. Her voice in his mind as well.
"He would not look kindly upon me ferrying this soul." Charon switches back to English, speaking like a creaking door, each word reluctant. “All know he hunts for you both.”
Virgil glances back at me, desperation flickering in his gaze. "This was foolish," he whispers. "We should turn back, but—"
He looks up the path.
No one is there. Yet.
But I understand what his silence implies. Constance waits above, ready to catch us like fish driven into a net.
A realization settles on me. Perhaps I regret the life I lived. But Virgil said no experience is truly wasted. And there is one skill I've mastered.
"If you had no interest in negotiating," I say, stepping toward Charon, "you wouldn't still be talking."
He turns that bone-and-shredded-flesh face toward me. I force myself not to react.
I continue, “You're drawing out this exchange to increase the perceived value. Standard tactic. We're already committed, and you know we need to cross. Name your price."
Charon goes very still.
For a moment, I think I've misjudged him. Mistaken silence for calculation, calculation for interest. The river laps against the hull of his boat, thick and sluggish, carrying bone fragments and debris past us like refuse in a current that has never known mercy.
Then the ferryman laughs.
"A unique soul, this one." He addresses Virgil, not me, though his empty sockets seem fixed in my direction. "Wherever didst thou find him?"
"Our time is limited," Virgil states.
"An interesting concept, time." Charon wraps those ragged, mostly-bone fingers around his oar. "Very well. Thou knowest what I desire."
"No." It's the first time I've heard Virgil sound entirely immovable. Whatever price Charon asks must be tremendous.
"Then ‘tis my reply as well."