My legs wouldn’t move. I looked at Duncan. I had betrayed him and broken his heart, that I couldn’t deny. But he was sending me to torture and death. He was really going to do it. Though I didn’t want him to save me, it still stunned me.

The redcoat shoved me in the back. “Move.” I stumbled forward, toward a hatch set into the decking. “Down you go.” The man swung it open with a clang. “Welcome to the end of your life.”

I stared down, waiting for my eyes to adjust. The top of a ladder dropped into darkness thick as coal. Trembling, I stepped into it.

Words I’d read in Virgil sprang to mind as my foot found the first rung.

The descent into hell is easy.

There was nothing below me; the bottom could be five feet away or a thousand. I climbed down another rung.

The descent into hell is easy.

“Hurry up.” The redcoat jabbed his bayonet at me.

I jerked back, nearly losing my grip on the greasy bars. Toeing for the next rung, I climbed down again.

The descent into hell is easy.

This was something thicker than darkness, something that swallowed my own hands. The hot smell rising from below was worse than sewage. It was misery.

“Is there a problem, Lieutenant Duncan?”

I looked up. Duncan stood at the hatch, framed by a square of starry night. His eyes on me were frantic. “Stop,” he said. “Please. Make this stop.”

I kept going.

Rung for rung.

Virgil for Virgil.

Finally, my foot touched something fleshy that let out a groan.

I jumped away and tripped over another body and landed on yet another, my chin smashing against sweaty muscle and bone.

“Watch yourself, boy!” said the hoarsest voice I’d ever heard. The heat of stinking breath pushed into my face. Invisible hands shoved me aside. I stumbled again, shoves and growls following me as I weaved blindly, desperately. The ladder had disappeared and there was nowhere to stand. Only bodies everywhere.

A nightmare.

My worst nightmare.

Finally, I found an open spot and let out a shaking breath. There, I lay down slowly and pulled my knees to my chest, tightening myself into a knot.

Breathe, I told myself. Breathe.

But the air was so thick with vile smells, I couldn’t bear it. Cool wetness seeped through my trousers, dampening my thighs. The boards beneath me were gritty and covered in scum. I didn’t want to know what it was.

My ears came awake to noises. Breathing and wheezing. Coughing and moaning.

Someone was weeping.

Someone else was rambling about a fire.

“We are burning. Can you not feel the flames?”

“Go to sleep, Fire Man,” muttered a voice.

“How? How can I sleep when we are engulfed in flames?”