Thaddeus's young face paled as he finally realized what they were discussing: whether Mona Lisa had died and become demon dead. "Maybe your bond, your sensing of her, changed if she… if she died. Maybe she's down in your realm and you just don't know it."

"I wish, I truly wish that were the case," Halcyon said gently to Thaddeus, a boy who looked years younger than his age of seventeen. He had the same dark exotic eyes as his sister. "If she were a demon now, my awareness of her would be even stronger. I'm sorry, Thaddeus."

"So you think she is just no more?" Tersa asked. A quiet girl in her early twenties, she had a birdlike delicacy to her, and was normally shy and withdrawn. That she had spoken up showed her deep concern. What she asked put into words what others there feared, what he feared.

When the Monère died, those who where strong enough became demon dead and existed in Hell for as long as their psychic power sustained them. Those unable to make the transition simply faded away into the darkness. Before, Mona Lisa had more than enough mental strength to make the jump. But that was before she had become demon living. Halcyon's greatest fear coming here had been that — that she had died and was no more. Now, hearing their tale, he found himself filled with an even more horrible consideration, a possibility that hadn't even occurred to him before.

"You know something," Aquila said.

Damn his sharp eagle eyes. Halcyon could have lied — considered it for one moment — but he chose not to. "I fear something even worse than that has happened."

"What could be worse than dying and being no more?" Thaddeus asked.

"Do you know the significance of this particular day, other than it being a full moon?" Halcyon asked.

"It's the spring equinox."

Halcyon nodded. "My people call it Aequus Nox, equal night. When day and night are of equal length. In Hell, it is the time when the wall between the realms thins, when inhabitants of one realm can sometimes cross over into another."