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No matter how many centuries Mab had lived, everyone held onto the insecurities that plagued them as a child. Mabremembered how it felt to be second best, to be the dark child to her brother’s golden light.

Just. Like. Estrella.

“They will love her until their dying breath,” I finished, watching a shudder work through her body. As if the chill of my words crept up her neck, forcing her to acknowledge the truth of them.

“Perhaps I’ll kill her first,” she said, her voice cold as she snapped at me.

I continued my work, depositing my golden coins before I finished and stood before her.

“Maybe you will. If you were smart, you probably would,” I admitted, and it was a small comfort that if Estrella left this world, I would go with her. Our blood vow worked in the best of ways, ensuring that I would never be without her. “I felt her horror when she was with you. Knew it didn’t relate to pain for once. It didn’t take much for me to comprehend what you might have said that would elicit such a reaction from the woman I love. I know her, but even beyond that, I know you. I have spent centuries watching you collect children, watching you prey on the weak. You cannot get what you want from her if she is dead.”

“And what is it I want so desperately that I would allow her to live?” Mab asked, lacing her fingers together as I took a single step toward the souls waiting to go into the canal. To float down the river while I rowed my boat to where the ferryman waited at the entry to the Void. The Styx flowed just outside the cavern, waiting to take us there.

“Our child,” I said, a smile curving my lips as her mouth dropped open in dismay.

I may not have been able to speak to my mate, I may not have been able to hear her direct thoughts until the momentwhen our bond would be completed, but I knew her better than she knew herself.

“You want to bind our child to your will. Children are malleable. You could mold him or her into your image.”

“You are my greatest failure. I hope you know that,” Mab snapped.

I grinned at the reality that she’d been unable to break me the way she had so many others. That I hadn’t changed to suit her purposes.

“I take great pride in that,” I said, turning my back on her as I walked to the canal.

A lone rowboat waited for me; a single, double-sided oar placed within the boat. I stepped in, watching as the souls of the dead followed down the steps into the river. They floated in the water, lingering just beneath the surface as their transparent forms almost blended in.

Pushing off the stone with my oar, I rowed myself into the center of the canal and let the current lead me out. The ride was smooth, the water a slow glide as it guided me out from the cavern that housed the worst of Mab’s crimes. The fire behind me burned brighter, embers flashing through the air as the Undertaker shoved the first of the human bodies into the flames.

Only when I emerged from the cavern did I draw in a full breath, the fresh air filling my lungs as the boat curved around the river bend. I sailed down-river in silence, left to only my thoughts as the rolling white hills passed me by.

Two centaurs filled their cups in the river, their heads jolting back when my boat came into view. In the distance, the entrance to the Void came into view. Two identical figures loomed overhead, carved into the white marble of the hillside where theriver disappeared beneath them. They were an exact replica of the ferryman, cloaked in shadows with hoods that draped down over his forehead. Their arms crossed as they raised them toward one another, swords arching toward the sky.

At their center, two black doors were carved into the limestone of the hill. They were foreboding, unforgiving as they remained shut tight. Only water filtered through the cracks between them.

The ferryman’s boat lay across the narrowest part of the river, bones and skulls hanging off the side as he paced from one side to the other. It was no coincidence that Tar Mesa was located so close to the entrance of the afterlife, not with my father’s ties to it as the God of the Underworld. It was his job to protect the sanctity of such things, to make sure that the two realms did not bleed into one another.

This was where he’d chosen to lay his head at night. Where he’d decided to position himself so that he could do his duties.

I passed between two of the rolling hills, the white sandstone cracking as it fell into the river. The Ferryman looked up as I approached, stopping his pacing, and those golden eyes landed upon me. Estrella’s memory, and the knowledge that this creature I had known for centuries had somehow played a part in the raising of my mate, haunted me.

Had he known that all this time? That each and every day I came to him, waiting for her, he knew exactly who she was? My boat stopped just before his; my oar easing into the water to hold it still as I stood.

Something arched between us, a newfound knowledge that hadn’t been there before. At some point, I might have considered the ferryman very close to a friend.

“Some secrets are better left in the dark,” I said, grasping the coins from my pocket. I let them fall through my fingers, tumbling into the bottom of his boat as he stared at me.

The souls I’d brought passed by his boat finally, waiting at the entrance to the Void. The river behind the doors gleamed with gold as they opened slowly, allowing the souls to continue in their voyage. The ferryman picked up his oar, prepared to usher them to the Void beyond and deliver them to The Father and The Mother if it was their time.

“Do you love her?”

The ferryman stilled, turning back to face me for a moment. Something almost human passed over the gaunt face that remained unnaturally still.

“Your mate is… unique,” he said finally, his voice inhumanly low.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” I said, wanting the answer for the benefit of Estrella.

She’d mourned her father, spent a life grieving for him. If she was nothing more than a duty to the ferryman, a service to the Fates, then she deserved to know the truth. She deserved the opportunity to carve him from her heart once and for all.