Leo looked at her, taking in her expectations, the way her face changed and lit up. How had such a girl but the right choice to come to the underworld? He shook away his thoughts with a sigh, looking out as she did into the fields. He could remember a time when they were more like neatly tended gardens, protected and cared for by the queen. Those days were long gone, far beyond the last Queen or even before her; what had changed? He found himself distressed about the girl named Emily, whom he had hardly even known. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

“That's it for today. I can’t teach you how to send on the souls, but you need to learn. Keep trying.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the next few days, Risa spent countless hours out in the fields or exploring the castle. The first proved to be comforting, but revealed nothing new, while the later was open boring; there were almost no doors or accessible rooms besides her own and Ravi’s, and she had come to assume that everyone else used portals to move about— which would explain why she had seen no one.

Ravi was allowed to stay for the time being; Leo hadn’t been specific about why, but Risa found herself relieved. Now her trip to the underworld had become a strange adventure with a friend, rather than an inescapable solitary fate.  Ravi accompanied her most days as she wandered around, and she quickly fell into a new routine. One thing was bothering her, though. Ravi didn’t know that he wouldn’t be staying.

She should have been excited to tell him the good news, but she couldn’t bring herself to be excited about it. It meant she would lose a friend, and here she had very few. Leo did not rush her, or make any comment on the situation. He as always nearby, answering questions or guiding her as needed, but generally he simply watched. Risa  slowly got used to being there on the sidelines.

She once tried to ask him when she would meet Hades, but he refused to answer, saying that she should instead wait for him for come when he was ready. She didn’t like that answer.

It was her fourth day there when Risa finally decided to do something about it. Ravi was nowhere to be found, and she had long since dressed and had nothing to do. With the sun always up and shining, Risa could never tell what time it was. A day or a year could have passed and she would be unable to tell. It both distressed her out of habit but also gave her a new sense of freedom, that she wouldn't have to bend to the whims of a spinning earth anymore. Time was her own.

And with it, she decided to explore in a new way. She had walked down countless empty corridors, so barren with their seamless stone walls that she would be excited to fine even a window here or there. But, if Hades and Leo and any others were using portals, then she should be able to get anywhere as well, as long as she could find the portal.

Coming out of her rooms— Risa had explored them, too, but there was nothing particularly unique about them— she turned to look down the hall. She was at the end of the hall, and it went on wide and straight and utterly empty until it ended with the spiral staircase. There were several hundred feet, at least, between that point and herself.

She put her hand on the wall and started walking.

She went slowly along the left side first, moving her hand up and down slowly over the smooth stone as she walked to try and keep from missing anything. If there were any portals, this was the only way she knew to find them. If her hand disappeared into the wall, then the rest of her could follow. Risa trailed her hands down both of the walls, paying careful attention, but to her surprise and annoyance there was nothing. Displeased with her failure, she tried again, starting from the very beginning and going down the hallway once more.

“Nothing…” She mumbled to herself. “But it's the only way it could work. It's the only way Leo and anyone else could get around without me ever seeing them…”

She placed her hands on her hips and looked either way once more; had there been anything special that Leo had done before they walked through the portal? As far as Risa could remember, the spirits had done nothing when she and Ravi had first entered the Underworld. So why couldn’t she find the portals now?

Utterly convinced that they were there, she continued on, dragging her hand along the smooth as she went down the spiral staircase. From there, there was the larger room with the table, and several hallways splitting from there. She had ready explored down each of them; one led to Ravi’s rooms, which were much the same as her own, and another led to a downward staircase that lead to nothing. There were several other hallways, many of which simply funneled to outside, but now Risa headed directly to the one with the staircase.

How strange was it to have a staircase into a wall? With her hand still on the smooth stone she went around the outside of the room, skipping only the spaces where the corridors branched out, and eventually made her way to the one with the stairs. Risa walked down it cautiously, looking ahead even though her entire hand was on the wall, and waited for the stairs to appear. Though the hallway was enclosed with not a single window, it was somehow light inside, as though the perpetually day outside had aded the stone inside as well.