Page 77 of Where Light Cannot Follow

The sky above is velvet dark, a single line of fading crimson bleeding along the horizon where the sun has just surrendered. A million lights glitter below and around us, as though we've fallen into a galaxy. Cars stream through the streets like blood cells through arteries, and people, as miniature as ants from this height, hustle along sidewalks I’ll never walk again.

I never realized how magical this view was. How fortunate I was to stand here night after night and feel nothing but impatience for the next market opening.

What a waste. What an obscene, unforgivable waste.

Virgil walks to the glass railing and stands as close to the edge as he can. His lips part. His eyes glisten, though no tears fall. He simply stands and absorbs it, saving a thousand memories in this single moment. A thousand fragments of wonder to carry back into the dark.

He'd said the hot spring was all he had to give me.

This is all I have to give him. A place with a view I knew would fascinate him. A world he's only glimpsed through borrowed eyes.

"Thank you, Dante," Virgil whispers without looking away from the glittering, breathing thing Manhattan becomes at night. "This is extraordinary. I've never seen anything like it."

"You're welcome," I say. It feels insufficient, but it's all I have.

We stand there together in silence, shoulder to shoulder at the railing, watching the city pulse beneath us. The wind doesn't touch us. I haven't thought to conjure it. But somehow the stillness feels right. Sacred, almost. Like we've stepped outside of time itself.

I don't know how long we remain there. Minutes. Hours. It doesn't matter. For once in my existence, I'm not counting.

Eventually, Virgil sighs. The sound carries something heavy in it—reluctance, resignation, the weight of what still lies ahead.

"We should go," he says quietly. "We've lingered too long already. The mountain awaits, and I fear our absence has been noted."

I nod, though I don't move. Not yet.

"Virgil."

He turns to me, those ancient eyes catching the reflected light of a thousand windows.

"Thank you," I say. "For everything."

He smiles. It’s soft, sad, impossibly tender.

"The gratitude is mine, Dante. More than you know."

We turn from the view together, leaving Manhattan frozen in its eternal night.

I follow Virgil back through the apartment, past the table that never hosted a real dinner party, past the kitchen I barely used, past the leather chairs angled toward a view I never truly saw.

We pass through the empty dark of the creation space, then back into Virgil's sanctuary—the cathedral ceilings and spiraling bookshelves, the steaming springs and flickering candles, the cerulean-blue tiles bright beneath my feet one last time. I want to linger. I want to sit beside the water and listen to Virgil talk about philosophy, about poetry, about nothing at all.

But we've borrowed too much time already.

Virgil steps toward the weathered door. Hesitates.

"Whatever waits on the other side," he says quietly, "stay close to me."

I nod then open the door.

The air shifts immediately. It’s colder, thicker, carrying the ashen taste of the realm we'd briefly escaped. We step through onto the dead grass, and the door swings shut behind us with a soft click of finality.

Constance stands ten feet away.

She's dressed immaculately, as before, the camel coat, the red-soled heels, every detail polished to cruel perfection. Her arms are crossed, her posture relaxed, as though she's been waiting for a table at a restaurant rather than hunting us across hell.

"Well," she says, a smile playing at her crimson lips. "That took quite a long time. I was beginning to worry you'd gotten lost in there."

Virgil steps slightly in front of me. "Constance."