I start to stand and he does, too. “I should probably go.”“I think you do not understand the rules...

I start to stand and he does, too.

“I should probably go.”

“I think you do not understand the rules of the Underworld,” he says. “You have crossed the threshold, you have leveraged and lost to me.”

I wait for him to say it. To speak the words.

“You are mine to keep.”