Page 96 of A Dangerous Bargain

The nothingness is almost as unsettling as the blood splattering the dock.

Breathing hard, and trying to rein in my terror, I step into the boat and reach up to help Niccolo in.

The demon grabs his elbow, faster than a snake. “Not you. Only the dead can journey down the river.”

Niccolo’s brows become narrow slashes. “I’ve been here for ages!”

The demon lifts its hand, its webbed fingers pulling on a sleek golden thread. It runs from Niccolo’s glow across the dock, through the horde of cat-demons, into the gray city back where we came from.

“That wasn’t there before!” Niccolo says.

The demon gives the thread a firm tug. My brother stumbles back, gasping. “Your soul is lost, but you are not yet dead.” It grins a predator’s smile. “You can’t go deeper into hell.”

Niccolo makes a soft, helpless sound, eyes sliding to me.

My brother, lost in two worlds. But how?

“You’re a demon, yes? Why couldn’t one of you possess my brother’s body in Florence?”

The demon considers me thoughtfully, a pantomime of a smirk on its inhuman mouth. “His attachment to earth is too strong. He could not let go enough for one of us to take him. He remained anchored there, even as his soul was summoned here.” It flicks the golden thread savagely. The force knocks Niccolo to his knees, but the thread doesn’t fray. “I cannot break it. Only the devil possesses such power.”

The struck thread vibrates like a liuto string. Not a song, but a single sweet note echoing strangely across the water. The cat-demons fall silent and cock their heads. Niccolo quiets it with a hand, glancing nervously at them.

My gaze latches onto the empty space of this Niccolo’s knuckle. How curious for his ring to be missing when the rest of him is here. I think of the ring on the stranger’s hand, how often he twisted it. My heart thuds unevenly. Surely something so small isn’t enough for an entire soul to cling to?

“The ring I gave you. I think it’s your anchor,” I whisper.

Niccolo had offered it to me when he left. What if I had taken it? Would he have been lost forever? The old fear of getting it wrong swirls in me like smoke. I take a deep breath and let it out, let it go.

This isn’t about what could’ve happened, but what did happen.

My brother is lost but not yet gone.

He can still be saved.

Niccolo throws back his head and laughs. “It’s not the ring. It’s you, Virgil. You’ve always been my anchor. In any sea, through any storm.”

The words settle in the deepest, softest part of me. My brother couldn’t leave me even when he tried. Tears fill my eyes.

Niccole moves to wipe them away. As his hand crosses the dock’s edge, the demon hisses, and green sparks crackle along the wood. They leap and burrow into his skin like worms. Niccolo winces, but he doesn’t back off, doesn’t stop thumbing away the dampness on my face before taking both my hands in his. “You’ve got to go. Demons aren’t known for their patience.”

I nod, even as my belly fills with lead.

A brother for a brother. A soul for a soul.

“One more thing.” He drags me closer, expression stern. “Why did you kill yourself to come here?” His face crumples with sadness. “ ’Tis a sin, Virgil. You might be stuck forever. You had to know I wouldn’t want you to do it.”

A question with so many answers and not enough time. My brother is already fading, his color going pale.

“There’s a boy.” I swallow, the truth making me tender. “I had to save him because I love him.”

His grip tightens. Behind him, the river demon heaves itself onto the dock, no longer mostly human but broad and scaled. Its eyes burn a horrible, fervent green. “What’s his name?”

“Leonardo.” Gold trembles through the air. “The Medici want him to paint for them.”

Niccolo leans his forehead to mine, the pressure softer than a kiss. “If anyone can stop this, it’s you.” Hell’s pale light burns through his ghostly form now. “I love you, Volpacchiotto.”

“I love you too, Volpone.”