What was different about Julia, that the dead couldn’t see her? It was a serious question, but not one they were going to answer right now. Instead they watched the crowd some more, and listened to the kuh-tik kuh-tak of the Ping-Pong games. For all the time they had to practice, the dead didn’t seem to be that good at it. Nobody ever tried for a slam, or a fancy serve, and the rallies only ever went a few shots before the ball hit the net or went bouncing off into the crowd.

“This whole place,” Benedict said. “It’s like somebody almost tried to make it nice, with all the games and stuff, but then they didn’t quite care enough to think it through. You know? I mean, who gives a shit? Who wants to play games forever? I’m just so bored of everything, and I haven’t even been here that long.”

Somebody. Those silvery gods, probably. Benedict kicked at his solitaire game, messing up the nice straight rows.

“You don’t even get powers. You can’t even fly. I’m not even see-through.” He held up his hand, to demonstrate his opacity, and let it drop again. “Because you know, that would have been too cool or whatever.”

“What else can you do here? Besides the games and such?”

“Not a lot.” Benedict put his hands in his hair and looked up at the ceiling. “Talk to the other shades. There’s nothing to eat, but you don’t get hungry. A few people fight or have sex or whatever. You can totally watch them do it even. But after a while, I mean, what’s the point? It’s just the new people who do it.

“Once they did a human pyramid, to try to reach up to the lights. But you can’t reach them. They’re too high. I never had sex,” he added. “In the real world. Now I don’t even want to.”

Quentin talked on for a while, filling Benedict in on everything that had been happening.

“Did you have sex with that Poppy girl yet?” Benedict said, interrupting.

“Yes.”

“Everybody said you were going to.”

They did? Julia, a ghost’s ghost, smirked.

Out of the corner of his eye Quentin couldn’t help but notice that they were attracting some attention. Nothing obvious, but a couple of people were pointing at them. A kid—he might have been thirteen—stood there watching him fixedly. Quentin wondered how he died.