“Far from it. You’re here because the story says you must be here.” From the folds of his doublet he pulled out a book. I grabbed for it, but he held it out of reach. “Tut, tut, this is not a story for your eyes.”
I screwed up my face as Dante consulted his book. Quoth had gone completely still now. Panic rose in my chest. “I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do. You know that stories create the world. You work in a bookshop. You know the power of words. Stories are what connect us, shape us, bring us into existence and snuff us from history.” Dante gestured around him at the vastness of the plains. “The reality of this, and what’s beyond all this, is too complex for the human mind to conceive. But stories give form to the universe, order to the chaos, substance to the unknown. Stories give us beginnings and middles and endings. Stories take our base instincts and weave love and heartache and redemption and pleasure and forgiveness into every word, until we believe ourselves to be essential to the plot rather than being swept along by it. Is it any surprise to you that your story has brought you here?”
“I guess not.” I stared around me at the barrenness and figured I could do worse than take a chance. “I guess I’ve come to ask you a favor.”
Dante turned the page. “I assumed so. I owe Homer for that time he got me out of a pickle with Sylvia Plath. Who knew the Ruler of Heaven had such a sore spot about oven-roasted chicken?”
“Wait, Sylvia Plath is God? I mean, obviously, but—” I shook my head. “No, wait, it’s not important. So yes, I’d like to cash in Dad’s favor. I even brought this wine, which I assume is some sort of libation? Do I have to dig a trench like the Odyssey and pour it in—”
Dante swiped the bottle from my hand and popped the cork. “Don’t you dare waste a drop. It’s impossible to find a good bottle of plonk in this place. Well, out with it – what favor am I granting the great Mina Wilde?”
I held out my arms, revealing Quoth’s lifeless body. “Dracula turned him into a vampire, and now he’s…” I couldn’t even say the words. “Can you bring him back to life? Only, can he come back to life as Quoth? Not as a vampire.”
“Is this what you want?” Dante takes a swig from the bottle. “I have the power to restoreanythingyou wish. Wouldn’t you like to be healed of your blindness?”
“No, thanks. I really just want my friend—”
“I can make your eyes new again, better than new. I can give you visions of the future. I can give you dreams that divine the fortunes of the human race. Or, what about the power to fly? Or what about superhuman strength?” He took another deep swig. “You have endless possibilities.”
I shake my head. “I don’t care about any of that. What’s the point of having eyes if Quoth isn’t in the world with me? So if you could just fix him—Oh, and Fiona and Grey Lachlan and all the others bitten by Dracula back on earth.”
Dante wagged a finger at me. “That sounds like more than one favor to me.”
“Please? I promise I’ll throw a few extra bottles of wine into the water once I go back—”
“Sold.” Dante rubbed his hands together. “And you’ve definitely decided?”
“I have.”
“And you definitely don’t want new eyes? Or to be able to walk through walls? Or the ability to fly?” He looked mildly disappointed. “I’ve always wanted to make someone wings.”
“No thank you. Just my friends healed is all I need.”
“No take-backsies?”
“No take-backsies.” I shook his outstretched hand.
“Well, then. Since you asked so nicely.” Dante took Quoth from my arms. He poured the tiniest dribble of wine over his forehead, then took him and washed him in the water before handing him back to me.
“Quoth?” I peered down at his broken form. He still felt cold and hollow andgone—
One wing flapped.
I thought I’d imagined it. My stomach twisted up with hope and horror. I leaned down, brushing my lips against Quoth’s tiny head. His body convulsed, writhing and snapping and twisting in a way no bird’s body should twist.
“Croooooak?”
I glared at Dante. “What’s happening? What did you do?”
Quoth’s cry tore at my soul. He was dying all over again, and I was dying with him. I closed my eyes and I wished and hoped and begged as his body twitched and jerked in my arms.Please, Quoth. Don’t leave me in this abyss without you.Not the angels in Heaven above or the poets down under the waters of Meles can ever dissever my soul from yours.
Please, please, please…
“Careful, Mina,” Dante tsked. “Poe could sue you for copyright infringement, and trust me, you don’t want that depressing bastard in your face.”
I opened my eyes. Two orbs of deep brown ringed with orange flame stared back at me from behind a curtain of shimmering midnight hair.
