Page 90 of As Darkness Fall
“Maybe we should keep running?” I suggested. “You know, what with angry fire-god back there.”
Vir shook his head. “No. Hades won’t dare follow us out here. Not if everything he said about Irr was true. He’ll be away from his realm, which means he and I will be on even terms. If Irrhasleft him weakened, then he won’t stand a chance against me.”
“Well, that’s reassuring at least,” I said. “But whatdowe do?”
“I’m not sure,” Vir said quietly.
“Well, that doesn’t sound good,” I muttered. “When a god isn’t sure of something, that really goes a long way to reassuring us mere mortals.”
Vir shot me a look, but I just stared at him blankly.
“It looks like we’re back in Aaron’s realm,” Vir said.
“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it,” I said. “That was my first thought, too.”
We were surrounded by a building. The light stone walls rose on all four sides of us. Yet, there was something different about it as well. It was a tall building, but not giant. Some of the towers I’d seen in the rest of the city had been truly magnificent, easily five or six stories high, which for stone was massive.
Not this one. It topped out at three, if I had to guess, but that wasn’t what caught my full attention. The walls were smooth, but they lacked the chipping, tired look of much of the rest of the city. These walls looked polished. Well-cared for.
Like whoever owned it had money.
“Vir,” I said quietly, remembering what I’d seen on the far side of the courtyard we’d used to enter the Underworld. The gentle upward slope, where the buildings had grown fancier.
“Yes?”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably, “If we traveled from the heart of Hades’s realm to a related realm–”
I really hated this train of logic, but it made too much sense.
“Yes?” Vir said when I stalled.
“What are the odds, then, that we traveled to the heart of Aaron’s realm?” I managed to finish, my voice onlyslightlysqueaking at the end.
Vir was silent for a long time. But I didn’t need him to answer me. We shared a link, the two of us. I’d not had much time to think about it lately, but I could feel him through it if I focused. I did now, and I felt his unease.
“I’d say that the odds are pretty high that you’re right,” he said quietly.
“Sometimes, I really hate being right,” I whispered. “Do you think anyone knows we’re here?”
“No,” Fred said, speaking up.
I looked at him.
“This doorway hasn’t been used in a very, very long time,” he said, looking anywhere but at Vir and me. “Nobody monitors it. If we’re quiet, we should be safe for a bit.”
I glanced at Vir. Neither of us decided to ask Fred to clarify how he knew that. It didn’t seem worth it. Whatever, or whoever, Fred was, he liked his privacy, and until he gave me a reason not to respect that, I would continue to give it to him.
“Then, what do we do?” I asked the duo. “Our guide is…charbroiled.”
“There isoneoption,” Vir said, and the way he glanced at Fred set my spine tingling to the point I clamped a hand over my nudity, suddenly uneasy about everything.
“Don’t look at me,” Fred said. “You know I can’t. And I’m not gonna suggest it.”
Vir frowned.
“Suggestwhat?” I asked, looking between the two of them. “What are you talking about?”
“We need a guide,” Vir explained.
