“And if there was need, I would do it for you again. But there is no need—it is finished. Paid in full.”

I reached down to my left pocket. I gasped as I felt the bulge. One by one I pulled out the shafts of pointed metal. On them I saw dried blood. How could this be?

“I still have nails in my pocket.”

“Yes. But only for now. There will be none in Charis.”

“I don’t deserve what you’ve done for me.”

“Of course you don’t deserve it.” He smiled. “If you deserved it, you wouldn’t need it. And I wouldn’t have had to die to give it to you.”

“But if you knew all I’ve done, all that’s inside me …”

“If? I know everything. I am never taken by surprise. There are no skeletons in your closet. I took care of them all. You were wrong—I do not expect the impossible of you. But I have done the impossible for you.”

He reached out his hands to me, hands I once thought monstrous. I held them, put my fingers on his scars. I lowered my forehead to his marred hands.

When I looked up, I gazed at Charis, poised beautifully on Mount Aletheas, the red road winding toward it. But it still seemed far away.

“I’m confused,” I said. “We’re not there yet.”

“No. Of course not. Your journey isn’t over. Your service for me is just beginning. There was no work you could do for me on the other side of the chasm. But I have much work for you to do on this side.”

“And when the work is done?”

“Then you will enter Charis, capital city of my unending country that stretches to the far reaches of the cosmos and beyond—and should you ever make it that far, Nick, I will create for you new worlds that surpass anything you have ever imagined.”

I felt my ears move back, pushed by my grin. I wondered if it was as big as his grin. “I long to go to Charis.”

“Why?” he asked, surprising me.

“To escape from reality, maybe that’s part of it.”

He laughed. “Going to Charis is not escaping reality—it’s entering reality! You have always lived in the Shadowlands. You cannot conceive what it will be like once you’re in the light. Yet in your dreams I have given you faint glimpses of it. That’s why Charis has always called to you, why you have always longed for it.”

“But why is it still so far away?” I asked, pointing to the west.

“At moments Charis will seem close to you; sometimes it will seem impossibly far. But every day on the red road you will be one day closer to it. I am building a home for you. I’ll be there to welcome you when you arrive.”