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Not an important one, he promised. Nothing large enough to leave a hole I would trip over later. He didn't care which piece of my life he took, only that it belonged to me and me alone. Something small. Something entirely mine. Once it was gone, I might never notice its absence.

I agreed before I could think too hard about what that meant. There was a damp receipt in my hand with nine questions on it and a woman who had hidden a library book inside a wall for a daughter she would never meet. Charon could have whatever he asked for. I had paid more for much less.

He reached toward me. The tip of one talon touched my forehead, and the black shore vanished.

For half a heartbeat I was seven years old, standing in a kitchen that smelled like cinnamon. Someone was behind me. A voice, warm and familiar, said…

Black sand snapped back beneath my feet and I staggered. River moved, then stopped before touching me.

A cold spot sat behind my eyes. I knew with absolute certainty that a piece of my life had just disappeared, but when I reached for it my mind simply moved past it without slowing down. There wasn't even a gap to find in my memories.

"Done," Charon said, satisfaction curling through both layers of his voice. "Ask away."

I unfolded the receipt again. My fingers shook hard enough to make the paper rustle, and I let them, because there are things pride has no business interfering with.

"Last time, I asked whether you guided my mother across the River of Souls on the night I was born. You told me nobody crosses without you knowing and that if she had paid the price, you had granted passage."

"I did."

"And everything you said was true."

"Everything I say is true."

"That was the problem." I looked down at the question I had rewritten nine times, then up at that ruined face. "Did Lyra Byrne cross this river?"

The sand under my boots went too solid, and the quiet around us closed up like a held breath.

Charon tilted his head, curiosity written plainly on his face. "No."

My heart kicked my ribs hard enough that I felt it in my throat. "She never crossed?"

"She has not crossed."

Hope came fast enough to be cruel. "Then she's alive."

"I did not say that." The slow curve of his mouth killed the hope before I could take another breath, and I shut my eyes for one second, furious with myself for walking into the same trap twice.

"You are improving, Byrne child. But you are not finished yet."

When I opened my eyes I looked at the receipt instead of him. Question four was barely legible, written while River had been doing sixty and I'd been trying not to drive the pen through the paper and into my thigh.

"On the night I was born, did my mother's soul come to this bank? To you?"

"Yes."

My mouth had gone dry. "Did you offer her passage?"

"Yes."

I tightened my grip until the paper crumpled between my fingers. "Did she refuse?"

He paused.

It lasted less than a second, but this was a creature who had been answering questions since humans first worked out they could die. He didn't need time to think. The back of my neck prickled.

"She did not refuse," he said at last, his gaze hungry and prodding. "She was unable to accept."

I chose it with my eyes open.