Page 56 of Where Light Cannot Follow

She wants to be indispensable. Chosen. Important. But she doesn't believe it of herself, not truly. No one secure in their position postures the way she has. Security is quiet. Hers is deafening.

Which means she's vulnerable. She needs this deal to close.

That changes everything.

"Why would I want to stay in hell?" I ask, letting genuine curiosity color the question. Let her think I'm considering it.

"Why would you want to dissolve into nothingness when you could remain here and rule?" She spreads her hands, gesturing at the blighted landscape around us as though it were a kingdom worth inheriting. "Ascension isn't salvation, Mr. Dante. It's annihilation. Everything you are—erased. Absorbed into something you'll never understand because you won't exist anymore to understand it."

I smile at her. It's the smile I've used across a thousand conference tables—pleasant, patient, and utterly in control.

"I've never been particularly good at sharing authority. Perhaps oblivion suits me better."

Her jaw clenches, just slightly. She recovers quickly, but I've seen it. The flash of frustration. The desperation beneath.

"You navigate this realm with unusual ease," she presses. "Have you considered that you might be suited to it? That you belong here?"

"I've had a good guide. Perhaps that explains my resilience.”

The words land harder than I intend. Her composure cracks, just for a moment, but enough.

"If he's anything like he used to be, he does no guiding at all." Her voice turns harsh, edges sharpening. "He watches. He waits. He lets you make your own choices and calls it freedom. Everything you've accomplished here, Mr. Dante, you've accomplished yourself. It has nothing to do with him."

"Everything you wanted in life," she continues, smoothing her voice back to silk, "you could have here. But magnified. Perfected. You've only seen the miserable corners of this realm—the bogs, the loops, the drowning souls. But there are territories where you could be a god. Entire dominions you could shape to your will."

I glance around the clearing at the withered bushes, the sulfurous sky, the distant orange pulse of ashy fire on the horizon. "If that's so, why are you here? Playing messenger in a wasteland?"

Something flickers across her face. She clacks her heel against a stone at her feet, and it crumbles to dust.

"I've had to earn my way to my position." She looks up again, and there's something raw beneath the polish now. "But some gather his attention immediately. They don't have to claw their way into his good graces. They simply... arrive. And he wants them."

I file that away. She's been here for some time, then. Worked for whatever status she's accumulated. And she resents those who might skip the climb she had to make.

Useful information.

But I'm done with this conversation. Virgil will have reached the tree by now. He'll have discovered I'm not there. I can picture the panic he's trying to hide, the way his hands might tremble at his sides. Hands that can't touch anything, can't help anyone, can't pull me back from whatever edge I've wandered toward.

"What is it you actually want from me?" I ask, letting impatience sharpen my tone.

"For you to have a conversation with him." She says it simply, as though she's proposing lunch. "That's all. Hear what he has to offer. Then make your decision."

I remember Virgil's reaction every time Satan’s name surfaced, the way he shrank into himself, the way his voice dropped to something barely audible. His specific warning, delivered with more gravity than anything else he'd told me: never make deals with the Devil. I have to assume any bargains through his emissaries would receive the same counsel.

"This offer holds no interest for me."

"Oh, but it should." Her eyes narrow, running down me like she's reassessing my value, and I recognize the look. It's the same one I've given a hundred opponents when I've found the leverage I needed. "You see, should you slip away without this conversation, I believe our leader would take his disappointment out on your guide. Virgil has been a thorn in his side for centuries. It wouldn't take much provocation for him to decide the thorn needs removing."

I swallow. It takes me a moment to find my voice.

"Then I'll have the conversation before my journey ends." The words taste like ash, but I keep my expression neutral. "For now, I return to my journey.”

Her lips press thin—disappointment, frustration—but then the expression transforms into something almost amused. "Very well, Mr. Dante. Then make me a vow." She tilts her head, calculating. "On Virgil's name. Vow that you'll have that conversation before you reach ascension."

So I was right about the mechanics of vows here. The confirmation offers little comfort as I weigh my options.

I believe her. That she has some connection to Satan, that he wants something from me. But I don't believe for a moment that he intends to grant me a realm of my own. I've been a man in positions of authority. I know how such men think. They don't share power; they delegate it strategically, and only when the arrangement benefits them more than it costs.

Whatever he wants from me, generosity isn't the motive.