All of them turned as one. Only Nancy smiled when she saw the man standing in the doorway. He was tall and thin, with skin the color of volcanic ash and hair the color of bone. Like his wife, he wore a flowing garment, almost Grecian in design, which drew the eye to the length of his limbs and the broadness of his shoulders.

“Nothing here is free,” he said. “Eat nothing, drink nothing; visitors are told that upon arrival. What makes you think we would give our treasures away, if we will not share our water?” His voice was deep, low, and inevitable, like the death of stars.

“What do you need us to pay, sir?” asked Kade warily.

The Lord of the Dead looked at him with pale and merciless eyes. “One of you will have to stay behind.”

6. We Pay What We Pay; The World Goes On

6
WE PAY WHAT WE PAY; THE WORLD GOES ON

“NO,” SAID KADE, without hesitation. “We’re not for sale.”

“This isn’t a sale,” said the Lord of the Dead. “This is an exchange. You want to take one of my residents on a fool’s errand. You want to promise her that she can be alive again, when there’s no possible way. I would forbid you entirely if I thought you would listen, but you’re not the first among the living to seek to play Orpheus and lure what’s mine away. Putting a price on the process is the only way to keep you people from robbing me blind.”

“Sir,” said Nancy, and curtseyed, deep and low. She froze when she was folded fully forward, becoming a statue again.

The Lord of the Dead smiled. He looked strangely human, when he smiled. “My Nancy,” he said, and there was no doubting the fondness in his tone. “These are your friends?”

“From school,” she said, rising. “This is Kade.”

“Ah. The fabled boy.” He turned to Kade. “Nancy speaks highly of you.”

“Highly enough for you to give us a freebie?”

“Alas.”

“Wait.” Nadya took a step forward, nervous, glancing around at the others. Her hair, dry after so long away from either bathtub or turtle pond, was a fluffy brown cloud around her head. “Mr. Lord of the Dead, do you have turtles here? Not ghost turtles, I mean. Real turtles, the kind that swim in ponds and do turtle stuff.”

“There are turtles in the River of Forgotten Souls,” said the Lord of the Dead, looking faintly baffled.

“Okay,” said Nadya. “Okay, okay. Because your, um, your wife, she said she knew Belyyreka. That’s where my doorway led. To a Drowned World, where I was a Drowned Girl. I still am. It’s too dry where I come from. The air doesn’t forgive.”

“I know the place,” said the Lord of the Dead solemnly.