I wanted to tell Roman that I understood, deep down, why he hadn't spoken up before.

It was clear from his fragmented words and confused thoughts that, whatever enchantment Atticus had done to him, it was preventing him to share the full truth. Even if Roman could physically get the words out, why would he, when he couldn't share the whole of his memories?

He was right, in a way, when he said no one else would have believed him. But I did.

It reminded me of Athanasios. I, too, hadn't shared a single thing of what it was like growing up with him. The only words I said were carefully selected as to not make a huge statement. And it wasn't even loyalty, or fear, or confusion that I felt.

I simply liked the way the Prophet looked at me, and I wanted to keep it this way. I knew that the moment the words were out, he'd look at me differently.

It had never happened before, because I never let it happen. However, I never had any kind of kinkship or friendship based on truth before. And what if telling honestly how Athanasios was could have saved lives or prevented my friends from making bad choices?

I migth have wanted to speak up, in that case, but I was not sure I would have.  As I was thinking over all of this, I barely noticed a ship had arrived in front of us, sailing placidly on the river of fire.

Roman still looked hurt from our previous fight, but could not help but spare a glance at me. I'd found it much harder to keep my thoughts focused since our descent into the Other Side, and the fears my demonic double had awakened had started my mind into a loop of my fragments from my childhood.

The sword, too heavy in my hands.

A Creature exiting out of the shadows. My heart was beating so hard it was trying to escape from my chest.

Athanasios saying, "Jonathan, go to the cellar. When I command you to do something, what do you say?"

"Yes, sir."

"Wrong," Athanasios' voice was syrupy sweet. "You don't say yes, because I'm not asking."

"Jonathan?" Roman woke me up from my flashback.

The ship had stopped right in front of us. From up close, it looked like a pirate ship. Apparently designed to embody the essence of darkness and chaos, with menacing black sails and an ominous skull figurehead. It was equipped with powerful cannons, allowing it to plunder any unfortunate ships that cross its path. It looked like a ship that came with a devilish crew and treacherous reputation.

"I've always wanted one," I said, mesmerized. "A ship, in general. Let's get aboard!"

"Are you for real, now?" Roman scowled. "Did you notice that it's shimmering, like Lerato before she took on her corporeal form? It's the ghost of a ship."

The pirate vessel was starting to become solid in front of our eyes. I took it as a welcoming sign to go inside and start manuvrating it. But Roman grabbed hold of my arm. It was the first time I noticed how torn apart my shirt was, since I'd spent most of the past hours dozing off.

Who knew how time passed on the Other Side --- from what Alefpeneash had told us, it could have been days.

"Wait a minute," Roman scolded me. "Aren't you wondering why a ship should have a ghost? It's not something that has a soul."

"She," I corrected him. "Ships are usually shes."

"Still, that doesn't make them worthy of journeying to the realm of the dead. The only explanation is that there is a ghost inhabiting it. A captain who went down with the ship, as they say."

"But there is no other way to cross this river of fire," I pouted. "Unless you were thinking of taking the bridge of fire. In that case, good thinking."

And as I said that, I pointed at a fiery bridge in the distance. Gently arched, like it belonged to a fairytale, it was shining with the coppery color of flames even in the distance.

As we were deciding on what to do, the strangest thing happened. Some human-like figures started appearing out of the fire. They seemed to be made of the very flames of the river. Then, they started chanting in an old tongue, similar to the old dialect we used to speak in Meglenia that was also the sacred language of the Endless One. Similar, but not quite the same.

The voices were melodious but incredibly loud, and the sight couldn't help but make me shiver. Roman and I exchanged a puzzled glance, and it was clear to us, in that moment, that boarding the pirate ship was our only possibility of making it out alive.

"Maybe the humanoids weren't dangerous," I reasoned as I climbed aboard. "But the last time we heard something sing like that, it was the Behemoth."

When we settled on the starboard, I sat closer to Roman and started examining my body for bruises. I looked fine, all things considered, but my white shirt was still torn, see through and caked in blood. My green cravat was askew. I put on my jacket, so that I wouldn't lose it, but the truth was that the Other Side was starting to feel warmer than it had been before, what with having a river of fire right underneath us.

"I'm sorry for lashing out at you before," I told Roman.

"It was the least I expected," he shrugged. "Not from you, specifically, but from anyone who heard the story."

"Still, it hurt," I tried to make amends. "I might not have told you everything too, though not about important things. But I understand what it's like to play pretend things are better, or having to withold the truth for any number of reason... One gets stuck in it if they do it too long. As for you, you knew you didn't have enough proof to be even believed. I always tried to stick with honesty myself, but my words are often a mix of what I believe the listener would like to hear and what I would like to hear myself. You see, it's important to me because I drilled into my head, as a child, that words were important. I had to. Athanasios didn't like to speak honestly. He preferred lies or mocked politeness that could be used for certain advantages in a conversation. He was one of those who thought the truth was boring and cliché. As for me, I love the truth, all of it, good and bad, but I do understand mocked politeness and taking advantage and I could often be blamed of both."

"I didn't think you did it on purpose, you know. Just a little, to seem more agreeable."

"It started that way, for sure. There was a time I thought Athanasios would like me better that way. And then I understood that it just meant that he was able to stand me. But even having him being able to stand me was better than nothing, you know. If I wanted to survive."

I had shared that last sentence on purpose, to let him see I could open up slowly, but I was already regretting it. He didn't speak for a long time, and pretended he was looking at the fire. But I knew him enough to know he was not so easily led astray.

"Sometimes your sentences get so long, one would think you talk to bore people to death," Roman smirked.

I pretended to be greatly offended. "The next time my charming crewmate calls me boring, I might as well throw myself in the river!"

"Do you really find me charming?"

"Not when you try your best not to be, no," I replied. Though it had a certain charm, in itself. But I didn't think it was wise to let him know. "But you do not find me boring so we're even."

"And about the poison..." I added after a while. "Let's just say that jokes in dire situations humor me to no end. So I cannot promise you that that will stop anytime soon. But as for the recklessness... After I died the first time, I went through life thinking I had nothing to lose. I don't think that it will change me greatly, but lately I've been finding out that I do have things to lose. So I could try to be more careful."

I added this last sentence begrudgingly, and heard a booming laughter that was certainly not coming from Roman. We looked up in surprise, and a corporeal ghost was staring us.

"What are you peepin at, lads?" the ghost asked in thick Caedish accent. "Did you think the ship sailed itself?"

Our mouths were still hanging open, but I gathered the courage to reply. "Not even a welcome for your new crewmates?" 

The Caedish ghost seemed to ponder my question. He was tall, probably as tall as Roman, but did not have his lithe muscles --- he was as broad as a wardrobe. He had red hair, a touch more coppery than Minx Morris' and a long ginger beard. He was wearing a striped shirt that was as bloody and torn as mine, tight-fitting breeches and he had en eye-patch.

"You're right!" the ghost conceded. "Welcome aboard the Wench!"

"The... the Wench?" Roman asked displeased.

"Yes! The Wench! Now, would anyone like some choccies?"

The ghost showed us a ghostly box of chocolates that took corporeal form in a couple of minutes. I tried to reach for one, but Roman slapped my hand away.

"How old are these choccies?" Roman asked.

"Everything on the Wench died with me when the ship sank, so I am the only ghost with a generous amount of material wealth, me. Now, do you want them or not?"

"He's got a ship, and chocolates," I exclaimed. "He's who I want to be when I die!"

"Your ghost and mine would not get along," Roman gave me a pointed look. "Besides you might have Watcher privilege, or duty, when your time comes."

He seemed to have remembered a little too late that I didn't like to be reminded of that. But I had no time to complain --- the ghost started sniffing me.

"Watcher?" he asked. "What a queer fish. You smell of blood and sweat but not of death."

"Does the dead smell?" Roman asked. "Is it sulphur?"

"Why, yes, how do you know that?" the ghost looked trouble and possibly paranoic.

"Just wagered a guess," Roman replied, looking at the fiery river underneath the Wench. "Everything here smells of it."

"Where are my manners?" the ghost wondered aloud. "They died with me so they should be around here somewhere. My name is Auld Pipes. As for the real name, you cannot have it. I heard people use it for all kinds of magic nonsense these days."

Roman and I exchanged a look as if to say, this ghost is out of his mind. But Auld Pipes went on speaking, "When the two of you jumped aboard I heard you squarrelling. What was it about?"

"It's in the past now," Roman said helplessly. It was clear none of us wanted to give our secrets to the mad pirate. "But if you must know," he added, looking at the plank and at the river of fire beneath it. "It was mostly about my brother, Atticus."

"Oh, I met one or two Atticuses in my time. Litigious people. Or is it Attici? When it's more than one?"

"How hard did you hit your head?" Roman asked the ghost unkindly.

"When I died? Hard to say."

"I thought you drowned inside of your ship, after a storm or after someone shot at you. But your weaponry doesn't seem lacking, nor your vessel ruined," Roman pointed out.

"Me? No. The ship, however, she went down when I hit me head and I couldn't sail it anymore. As for who hit me, I do not remember who it was but I imagine what I said about their mother must have been nasty."

I thought about everything I knew of vengeful ghosts. It wasn't much, but still enough to give me a light shudder. "So, were you killed?" I asked conversationally.

"Swordsman," the ghost took a look at my longsword. "Did you think I bumped me head meself?"

I did not have a reply to this. Thankfully, I didn't have to answer. The choir of humanoid beings stopped, and Roman and I turned our heads to see the entities falling back into the river --- from fire to fire.

"Hey, shouldn't we..." I started saying.

Auld Pipes waved carelessly the hand that wasn't holding the helm. "They do this every day. Poor souls, them. But they are not evil."

"They were not dangerous," I whispered to Roman. "Meanwhile, he is a vengeful ghost."

"Don't think of giving me credit, it was your bad idea," he reminded me. "But I don't think Auld Pipes looks particularly vengeful."

"I can hear everything you're saying!" Auld Pipes commented. "Even though I died with water in my ears. And I agree with your sentiment, Daddy Long Legs!"

I couldn't help but laugh at that. 

"You're so not borrowing that," Roman told me accusatively.

"I wasn't even thinking about it. Cross my heart and hope to die, but not here and now. I'd hate to be a crew member forever. While I did take lessons in how to steer a ship..."

I might have exaggerated --- I spent a few years studying the model and functioning of ship and taught myself how to steer it in the meantime, with theoretics and not practice. Athanasios would have never funded my adventures, and the ones I'd lived after I left the house weren't as fantastical. Still, it didn't mean I hadn't prepared beforehand for about almost everything.

"Good lad," Auld Pipes said appreciatively. "Come here and sail the Wench for a bit. I'm tired. I'm going to rest near Daddy Long Legs, who is clearly the lazy one."

As much as I knew Roman wasn't really lazy, I first attributed his demeanor to feeling as weak and defeated as I did. It was the first time it occurred to me he kept looking at the river as if it unsettled him, the way an eye keeps wandering when something you fear is in the sidelines.

"So, the river of fire," I tried to salvage the situation. We needed clues in case we had to jump off ship. "Isn't really made of fire, is it?"

"Lad, did you hit your head too?" Auld Pipes asked with great worry. "Of course the Rigyon is made of fire. But how did you die? Because if you were good lads in life, the river would not hurt you."

"What? Tell us about it," Roman asked. Though none of us were sure we were especially good persons, we also hadn't died so perhaps the river couldn't judge us.

"Even better, I'll show you," Auld Pipes pushed Roman on the plank. "The long-legged one goes first. If you jump into the fire and you were naughty, the fire burns out the impurities from your body, and I cannot tell you what happens next because there I haven't been yet."

He paused for a minute. I kept looking at the Prophet as if to say that I had his back, but the truth was that I was a little too weak to make sure I could run ahead and get there in time.

"If your soul was pure, and 'tis a trick, because no soul is pure," Auld Pipes added philosophically. "Then the river not only will not destroy you, but it will cure you too. Since I see that you're both bleeding I would take that chance if I were you."

"Of course," he added innocently. "Only if you're sure you haven't been naughty."

There were a thousand things I could have said to Roman. That I didn't think any of his flaws amounted to having his soul destroyed in a purifying river. That people like the man who raised me, or even his brother, might face more challenges than we did in the same situation. That I did not believe in the purity of the soul, and slashing demonic throats, gambling, throwing knives and such were not sins.

But I couldn't take that chance. It was not that I did not believe in him, I simply couldn't. If Auld Pipes was tricking us and something went wrong, I would never forgive myself. I couldn't live with Roman being pushed into the fire, not after having seen the look on his face. I'd never seen him afraid before.

So, when Auld Pipes shoved him, I unleashed my wings. I did not calculate the width of the wings in proportion to the ship, so one of them banged against the foremast and hurt as if I'd sprained a wrist. However, I couldn't let that stop me. Even though my left wing was twisted in an awkward position, and it hurt all the way to the bones of my shoulders, I made a swooping arch in the air and grabbed Roman when he was about to fall.

It wasn't easy, to keep my arms around someone taller than me, and with a body that was agile and graceful but also muscly and well trained from the weapons. I had muscles too, especially in the upper part of my body, but it still wasn't an easy thing to do. Still I held on to him and after it while it seemed as if he was holding on to me, too.

When I put him down on the opposite shore, however, Roman seemed on the verge of passing out. Before I checked out on him, I flew back to the Wench and grabbed the collar of Auld Pipe's shirt.

"We never found out if you were a vengeful ghost," I decided. "But there's only one way to tell, isn't it?"

That said, I dropped him, and he fell into the Rigyon. I did not stick around to see if he came out of it in one piece, but after the way he threatened our lives, I had my serious doubts about it.

When I flew back onto the shore, I was exhausted and my wing still hurt. I tried to make them disappear, but the one that was badly sprained would not hear any reasoning, so I let them out for a bit more.

When I crawled next to Roman, I noticed that he was still looking at the fire, a haunted stare in his light blue eyes.