Seeing the dead on that riverbank always felt strange. All of it did, no matter how long he'd been here.

He dipped the oar into the water. Dark and impossibly deep, riddled with the luminous glow of souls beneath the boat.

That never got easier to see, either. How easily he could've been one of them, coin exchanged for the passage from living to dead. Sometimes he wished he had.

He dipped the oar again, watched the languid bob of the lantern at the bow of the ship. It swung back and forth, glow made dim for the fog that pervaded everywhere. This was a damp, dismal place.

And yet everyone ended up here.

The boat reached the bank. It wobbled with the shift in weight, and Jason watched as they -- his mentor of sorts, he supposed -- stood, cloak falling back against their shoulders as they stepped out to do their job.