Corten sat on a stack of coiled rope with his back against the Gull’s mainmast. Beside him, Servala leaned on the port rail with her head tilted up and a smile on her lips. Darkness still lurked all around them, but the ship’s aether lamps made it feel less oppressive than before.

Servala snapped her fingers. “Okay, next question. What’d you do for fun back in life?”

Corten shrugged. “I don’t know. I used to study a lot.”

“Studying is not fun,” Servala said with a look of disgust.

Corten laughed. “It is if the books are interesting enough.” He thought for a moment. “When I was younger, my brother and I would sometimes go swimming in a river by our house. After I moved to Belavine, I made friends with a few other necromancers and apprentices who would play cards together at the Bitter Dregs. And some nights I would climb up on the rooftops and watch the stars.”

“I used to swim and play cards back with the Gull’s old crew,” Servala said. “Stars are useful enough for navigating, but just looking at them doesn’t sound like much fun.”

“I guess it depends on the company,” Corten said, remembering the soft smile that would spread across Naya’s face as she stared up at the sky.

Servala leaned forward. “Company, eh? And who’s this lucky lad or lass who’s got you looking all dewy?”

Corten’s face flushed. “Her name’s Naya. But anyway, what about you? What did you do for fun?”

“Nope,” Servala said with a grin. “My ship. I’m the one who gets to ask the questions, remember? So this Naya, you miss her, huh?”

“Of course I do,” Corten said uneasily. Servala’s questions were starting to sound more like demands.

“Well, maybe she’ll show up here someday.”

“Don’t say that!” Corten snapped, surprised by the sudden heat in his voice.

Servala’s eyes widened, then her expression hardened into anger. “You don’t tell me what to do, boy, not here.” The aether lamps flickered and the darkness surrounding the ship inched a little closer.

Corten shivered. “Sorry. Can we just talk about something else? I don’t like thinking about her here.” If Naya showed up here it would mean she’d died again. A part of him whispered that maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. They’d be together. They could face the questions of the door together, just like they’d faced so many other dangers back in Belavine.

Corten clenched his fists, trying to drive the desire away. He didn’t want Naya dead. He didn’t want to see her again just to drag her through the door to that final death. He took several deep breaths, then looked up. Around him the aether lamps had brightened again, and Servala was smiling as though nothing had happened.

“Sure. Let’s talk about something else,” she said.

Corten tried to return her smile, but his unease continued to grow. He was beginning to suspect that Servala’s ship wasn’t the haven it had first seemed. Still, if she was mad, then her madness had to be better than that of the souls standing transfixed by the doorway. The conversation continued as Corten answered Servala’s seemingly endless questions about the living world. Though she listened attentively to Corten’s account of Valn’s plots and the plight of the necromancers in Ceramor, her real interest clearly lay in the mundane details of day-to-day life. As Corten talked, he could feel the ship changing subtly around them. He described the bakery near Matius’s shop, and a moment later the smells of fresh bread and cinnamon wafted across the deck of the ship. When he told Servala about the city’s architecture, splashes of brighter color and carvings of vines appeared along the ship’s railings.

The little touches of home bleeding into his surroundings should have been a comfort. Instead they left Corten feeling more unnerved than ever. The changes were a reminder that this place was little more than a fantasy.

“I’m running out of things to say,” Corten said, trying to make the comment sound light. In truth, he felt as he had walking toward the door, as if something vital were trickling away from him with each story he told.

“I’m sure you can think of more,” Servala said. “What about your brother? You’ve barely talked about him. Or this Naya girl. Tell me what she’s like. Is she pretty? Did you two…” Servala trailed off and made a suggestive gesture with both hands.

Heat crawled up Corten’s neck and into his face. “That’s none of your business.”

Before Servala could respond, a gust of cold wind blasted across the deck of the ship. The rigging creaked, and in the distance Corten heard the howls of the scavengers echoing through the endless dark. “Corten Ballera!” a raspy voice called from beyond the ship.

Servala turned in the direction of the voice. Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, him again.”

Corten rushed to the ship’s railing. The shadow man stood just a few feet away, floating in the air above the dark waters. As Corten looked around, those waves seemed to blend into windswept grass, creating an impossible landscape that made his head ache.

“So,” the shadow man said, “this is where you chose to hide.”

“I’m not hiding,” Corten said.

“No? Then what do you hope to achieve sitting here on the threshold with the mad and the lost? You have seen what this place does. Do you mean to become like Servala? Or are you just another fly for her web?”

Corten’s grip on the railing tightened and a shiver of fear danced down his spine. “Don’t listen to him!” Servala said behind him. “That old bastard only ever wants one thing, and that’s to send us through the door.”

“I’m not hiding,” Corten repeated. “And I’m not going through the door. I’m going to find a way back to life.”

The shadow man shook his head. “There is no way back.”

“Then I’ll make one!” Corten shouted. He felt something flickering inside him, a flame of determination that had all but gone out. His fear grew. Sitting here with Servala might feel safer than facing the darkness, but it wasn’t getting him any closer to his goals. And somehow he knew that if he waited too long, the flame inside him would die. He would become like all the others standing around the door—a husk.

Corten turned and started walking across the deck. “Where are you going?” Servala asked, scrambling to her feet.

“I don’t know yet,” Corten said.

“You can’t leave!”

Corten didn’t see her move, but suddenly Servala was standing in front of him. “Stay,” she said more softly, pressing her hand to his chest. “There’s nothing left to you out there. They’ve all forgotten you by now. But I won’t forget you. Stay with me, and we can make our own world.” Her features flickered, her hair tumbling into brown curls and her face softening into almost familiar lines. Naya? Corten thought.

His heart stuttered in his chest. He slapped Servala’s hand aside and stumbled away. “No!” The ship wavered and again he felt the crushing weight of darkness. But with it came realization. Are you just another fly for her web? “You said none of the others could see your ship,” Corten said. “That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Servala’s tone was still pleading. But now her eyes shifted with the desperate look of a cornered animal.

Corten edged backward as the pieces clicked together in his mind. He’d felt increasingly exhausted as he’d talked to Servala, even as she’d grown more animated, more demanding in her questions. “You’ve been feeding off of me,” he said, and he knew from the flash of guilt in her eyes that it was true. Anger lent him a fresh burst of energy. “The others waiting by the door, how many of them are like that because of you? You’ve stolen something from them. Why? Just so you can keep waiting out here?”

Servala flinched. “It isn’t like that!” she said. “I’ve only done what I had to. They were weak. I needed something to keep me going. You’ve felt the door’s pull. There’s something wrong with it. Everything about this place is wrong. I had to fight it. I had to keep myself strong.”

Corten kept inching backward until he felt the press of the ship’s railing. Something brushed his leg and he looked down in horror as a thick length of rope snaked tight around his ankles, binding him. Servala took a step toward him, one hand outstretched. “Please, stay with me,” she begged. “You’re resilient, and you’re smart. I’ll teach you how to draw the energy. Maybe together we can even do what you said. We’ll sail the Gull away from here and find a way back into life.”

Corten hesitated, feeling the allure of her offer twine round him like the rope. Escaping death wouldn’t be easy. He was deluding himself if he thought he had the strength to do it alone. Maybe this was the only way.

“No,” Corten said through clenched teeth. “Not like this.” He didn’t intend to give in to death, but he also couldn’t let himself become like her. The rope around his legs felt like a band of iron securing him to the deck. Servala’s face twisted with rage. She reached for him, and Corten was sure that if he let her touch him again, she would gobble up whatever spark of life was left in him. He reached down and grasped the rope, calling up memories of the relentless heat of the glassblowing furnaces he’d worked with for so many long hours. Curls of white smoke drifted up, then the rope burst into flames.

Servala screamed as though she were the one burning. The rope went slack and Corten kicked it away. Servala lunged for him. The tips of her fingers brushed his shirt as he shoved himself up and back, his whole body screaming with terror as he plummeted over the rail and down, down toward the rolling waves below.