“Isle of the Blessed?” I echoed blankly.
“Commonly known as Heaven.”
My brows furrowed. If Heaven was the Isle of the Blessed, which was apparently accessible by a tunnel of light…that I did not see…didn’t that mean…
A gasp of horror escaped me. “Are you telling me I’m bound for Hell?”
Say no, say no, say no!
But instead, Tall, Dark, and Heartless started interrogating me like I was a suspect for homicide.
“Have you committed suicide?”
“No!”
“Have you killed any other human being?”
I shook my head.
“Have you seriously thought of it?”
“I’m not a murderer, okay?”
“Are you guilty of any kind of act that you were fully aware could cause another person unnecessary and grave suffering—-”
“No!”
“Whether physically, mentally, emotionally, or psychologically?”
I started to say no, but then a memory drifted into my consciousness, and I asked guiltily, “I bullied my parents into paying for ballet lessons that I ended up hating. Does that count?”
“No.” Hadrian’s tone was dry. “It doesn’t count.”
I perked up. “Then does that mean…”
“Yes, you are not bound for Tartarus.”
His strange use of terms finally hit me. Tartarus? Isle of the Blessed? “What’s up with all these Greek mythology terms?” I demanded. “Why don’t you just use the word Hell?”
“Because Hell, which is another term for the Underworld, is a vast realm, and your idea of it only pertains to the region of Tartarus.”
“Underworld…like in Greek mythology?”
Something flashed in Hadrian’s eyes. “You know of it?”
“I may not like books, but I’m not an idiot. Of course I know what the Underworld is. I did watch Hercules, you know—-” I saw the way his lip curled at the reference, and I couldn’t help bursting into laughter. “Oh my. Are you one of those intellectual snobs who think knowledge can only be obtained from hardbacks?”
“Better that,” he said coolly, “than an animated film that dares to turn gods into laughingstocks.”
“Ooh. Touchy.”
I only got a grunt in response, but one with such a lofty tinge of contempt that I had to suppress another smile. “How do you know so much of these things?” I couldn’t help asking.
“It’s part of my job.”
“Talking to ghosts?”
“Yes.”
“Like a psychic?”
I saw him frown as if seriously weighing the relevance of this term to his job, and then after a moment, he said simply, “No.”
“Is it why I can touch you and vice versa?”
“Yes.”
“Can’t you just tell me what your job is?” I asked with a laugh.
“Hm.”
There was a beat of silence, and I found myself holding my breath even though I wasn’t really breathing anymore. Was he going to pull over? Was he going to kiss me? Was he going to—-
“Hold that thought.”
—-do something I didn’t see coming? Apparently, yes. And I couldn’t help choking out a laugh. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“What if I said no?”