Page 146 of The Oath We Give

“Then swear!”Rook shouts, “You guys don’t understand. You have to swear you’ll keep your mouth shut. Or I’ll snitch about who put spiders in Dorian’s underwear drawer.”

Technically, that was all of us. Alistair was just the one who poured them in.

It took Rook and I days to find that many granddaddy long legs, not to mention we had to deal with Thatcher bitching about the dirt.

"Swearing doesn't mean anything if there is nothing to swear on." I say quietly, even though Rook didn’t need to ask me. Every secret, every fear, every dream.

I’d keep for him. Keep them safe.

“I will not be swearing on my family.” Thatcher reaches for one of the apples sitting in the kitchen, taking a bite from the red flesh, “That’s just bad taste and it would be a lie.”

“Got any better ideas then, genius?”

He walks to the fridge; I’m still confused how he didn’t sweat through his sweater on the bike ride here. It takes forever to get from his place to Rooks.

"In Greek mythology, Styx is one of the river of the underworld." He murmurs, pulling out a bag of frozen peas that he hands to Rook, which he takes happily placing it on his swelling mouth, "In the Iliad and Odyssey, Homer said the gods swear by the water of the Styx as their most binding oath."

"Then we swear on the Styx." Rook says quickly, nodding his head, I’m not even sure he knows what it means, but he’s too afraid not to have some kind of binding that keeps our silence.

“Wait.” Alistair reaches into his front pocket, digging out a black sharpie marker. He grabs my arm first, jerking it towards him before scrawling a shitty circle with what I think is a skull inside it and words scribbled along the inner lines.

It reads, Admin One along the top and Styx Ferryman on the bottom.

“What are you doing, don’t draw one me.” Thatcher tries to avoid his touch, but with a little fight Alistair gets him to hold still.

“What is it?” I ask, starring at the bleeding ink in my brown skin.

“Charon's Obol.” He mumbles around the sharpie cap in his mouth. “To pay our way across the Styx to the afterlife.”

My brows furrow as he draws the same image on Rook, then himself.

“There.”

“What exactly does this shit do?”

He shoves the marker back into his jeans, then answers.

“This way we find a way back to each other.” He looks at each of us, jaw set, “We steal. We burn. We bleed. We promise that no matter what, we make our way back, even in death.”

It’s a silly drawing. A silly promise we make. Who knows where we will be in twenty years? We might not even know each other tomorrow.

“You read The Iliad and the Odyssey? Did anyone else know Ali could read?” Thatcher says.

"I will fucking hit you if you call me that again.”

I shake my head, looking at the mark on my arm.

Right now, this feels like the biggest moment of my life.

Like, no matter where we go or what happens, I’ll remember this. I’ll remember I had friends, that cared enough in this moment to make this promise.

It feels good.

It feels like enough.

“To the Styx?” I say the question, and they respond in tandem.

“To the Styx.”

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