The obol I always carry burns a hole in my pocket while I stare in fear and desperate longing at the silent, shrouded ferryman. After a long, terrifying wait, Charon lifts a skeletal hand and beckons.
A shaky sound leaks from my throat. But the chorus of wails that swells behind me taints my relief. I want to take the people without a coin with me. Surely I’ve done and caused things more hideous than they?
I look back at their outstretched hands and mournful faces. There are children. Why should I cross to the other side while they suffer along with the punished?
I reach for my coin, my heart heavy with the knowledge that I can’t help even one of them without condemning myself. But a power beyond my control doesn’t leave me the choice to sacrifice my obol, even if I could bring myself to give it up. My feet carry me toward the ferry, drawn inexorably.
The drooping figures and their sobbing fade, and as I walk, a girl crests the hill on the opposite side of the river. She emerges from between two soaring cypresses, hurrying along the golden path. She’s small and lithe, her long blonde hair shining like the morning sun.
My breath hitches, and I start to run, holding Charon’s payment tightly in my hand. It strikes me as odd considering I’ve only just arrived, but I want her and that golden path more than anything I’ve left behind, even Griffin. He’ll get here eventually. We’ll be together again. I’ll just wait for him, as long as it takes.
I race through the mist, wondering if this is Hades’s gift to the people who pass into his land—to make them yearn for their dead more than they ache for the living.
Across the river, Eleni holds up a staying hand. “Eat,” she calls.
Slowing, I look around. There’s no food here. Only fog and shadow and the promise of something better on the other side.
I suddenly ache all over. My steps falter, and the vapor creeping around my legs starts to feel like a tangle of giant spiderwebs, holding me back, weighing me down.
“Eleni!” I shout, alarmed.
“Eat!” she yells back. The panic and sternness in her tone shake me to my core. Her voice… It’s not quite hers. It’s deep and fierce. It reminds me of—
My eyes prick with tears. I don’t understand. I scream my sister’s name again, but she waves me away. She doesn’t want me.
Charon lowers his hand. He pushes on the pole, and his boat slips backward through the mist.
“No! Don’t leave me!” I struggle to get him the obol, to reach the shore, but I can’t move.Oh my Gods, what’s happening!“Eleni!”
“Eat!” she screams from across the water, her voice overlapped by a terrified, masculine roar.
Pain lances through me. Breath stabs my lungs. I open my eyes and gasp.
Griffin!My heart explodes as thoroughly as my body, agonizing, inside and out.
“Yes! That’s it!” Griffin pries open my jaws and then stuffs something into my mouth. “Eat! Damn it!”
He forces my mouth closed and then holds his hand over it, sealing it shut. My eyes widen and my nostrils flare, drawing in short, panicked, painful puffs of air. The salamander is smooth and slimy and tastes of sulfur and mud. Tiny claws scrape my tongue. A flat tail whips the roof of my mouth.
I gag, wrenching my destroyed body, but then nature forces me to swallow, and the creature and its magic slip down my throat.
Increased consciousness slams into me almost immediately along with the painful throbbing of broken bones. My vision darkens from the sheer force of it.
“Cat?” Griffin leans over me, his expression filled with petrified hope. His gray eyes start to glisten.
Magical warmth coils through my middle, and suddenly I can breathe again without wanting to crawl into a hole and die. “I’m here,” I croak.
He exhales slowly, unsteadily, his eyes swimming now. “I got you back.”
He saved me. He stole me from Death. “Need more,” I say.
“Then start chanting,” he replies gruffly, blinking hard.
From the side, Kato shouts, “I did it! I made one!” I hear a splash and turn my head enough to see him pull a bright yellow salamander from the stream.How did that happen?
“Open,” Griffin orders, pinching my jaw.
Kato stuffs the creature into my mouth, and then Griffin pushes my jaw closed.
