“So you do love her.” Ryquin smiled.
“I’d never say those words to a woman,” Jesstin retorted. “Elloven saved my life. Twice. It’s the least I can do to protect her from another terrible man.”
Ryquin nodded at him, then the stall. “Lexsea will help you. But first you must help us. First you must see.”
“I can see just fine from here.”
Ryquin motioned for him to enter. “This is part of how you help us, Jesstin. It begins here. If you don’t understand what we need, you can’t deliver on it.”
With an unenthusiastic sigh, Jesstin shoved through the dense curtains. The interior was much larger than the exterior would indicate. It was as large as a palace hall, with colorful veils and pillows scattered across an endless, richly carpeted floor. Dozens of people were dispersed along the pillows, enjoying drinks and conversation. It reminded him of a brothel on the Row, the Never Choose, where for a steep fee, one could rent a lavish room for the evening and as many courtesans as their gold could afford.
In the corner were six small stalls identical to the one he’d entered, more appropriately sized to what he’d expected walking in. Jesstin was compelled toward the third one, and his legs moved ahead of any command.
An icy gust walloped him when he entered. An older man with long golden hair sat upon a steep pile of pillows and nodded for Jesstin to sit on the one across from him.
Jesstin, shivering, glanced behind him to see where Ryquin was.
“He cannot follow you,” the man said. “This conjuration is for you.”
“Look—”
“Listen. And watch.”
Maybe it was better not to know, so he wouldn’t back out. Estelar had lied about the bond, and whatever his reasons, they couldn’t be good for Elloven. So far, Jesstin’s best bet was to work with the two people offering another way, as long as he remembered they were just as dangerous.
Reluctantly, he sat.
“I know all your desires,” the man said, “though they are few. I will present one of them to you this evening. Do not be afraid, Jesstin, Son of Sestinn. Nothing here can harm you, other than your own fearful mind.”
Great, so I’m going to die was Jesstin’s last thought before the air in front of him became something else. The effect was initially subtle, almost a trick of the eye, but a distortion took form and continued until the shape became corporeal. Dark-red, wavy hair framed an angelic face, trailing down to a cerulean gown sitting neatly on a slim figure. A terrible bout of confusion came just before the clarity; he remembered Lexsea’s strange question in the garden.
Can you think of anyone you might like to see? Anyone at all?
“Adynara? Mother?” Jesstin’s voice split, even though he knew it was a trick. If she were real, she’d have visited him already, many times. She would have known he could talk to the dead and would never have let him walk through these past years without her.
The illusion of his mother slumped with despair. “My Jessie. My darling boy. How long I’ve waited for this...” She approached, but Jesstin cringed, nearly toppling backward off the pillows. She wasn’t real, and nothing she said could be trusted.
“You’re not her,” he croaked. He was grateful no one but the old man was there to witness his intolerable moment of weakness.
“I know what you’re thinking, but I couldn’t visit you.” She tilted her head with a long, sad blink. “Most of the dead are stuck in Infinita Mori, and only here, in Rivenholde, can they be reached by the living.”
Jesstin laughed to himself. It had only taken a minute to reveal the trick for what it was. “Then why can I talk to Gennady?”
“Gennady is stuck somewhere between here and there. It happens to some, though I don’t know why. His presence is weaker where you are now. But I envy him, in a way. I’ve toiled here nearly two decades, Jessie, and the Infinitum isn’t a place you want to be for any longer than you must.”
The specter’s claim matched what Ryquin and Lexsea had said, but that was a compelling reason not to trust her—it. Ryquin had arranged this. Ryquin needed him, had waited years for him, and apparently had no better prospects. None of it stopped Jesstin’s pain from surfacing though. “You’re not real.” Years of suppressing difficult emotions kept him from saying more.
“I’ve spoken with different necromancers over the years, searching for any answers about you and your brother and your sister, how you were doing. Someone said you would come and help the pretor’s son liberate us. It made no sense to me, until right now.” She folded her hands across her chest. “I have waited so long for a chance to see you again.”
“Nothing you’ve said makes me think you’re anything but a tool of his.” If only it felt that way too. Her warm, honeyed voice was the love and warmth he’d craved, a shadow of a memory that would never form.
“I worried you might think so. I’ve learned of some of your struggles.”
“My struggles?” Jesstin bristled. “And what would those be?”
“How you hurt yourself as you do, Jessie. My sins caused your pain.”
Branding his choices as sins was insulting enough, but suggesting his actions were not his own? “What do you want? What are you?”
