Well, seems like this is the closest he can get to being off the ground. Arche’s grip is one he’s known well - not so much pleading as sheer desperation. She left too much to be done back in the land of the living.

His gaze looked at her steadily.

“I hate to say it but… if we’re already here, there isn’t much we can do to change that. Once a soul makes it as far as this… there isn’t a way to go back. Apparitions cling to the Near Shore because of their unfinished business… so if you’re here, whatever severed your soul from your body wasn’t strong enough to keep you there. Or, whoever or whatever the powers that be that are pulling our strings are simply more powerful. We’re in their field, so we have to play by their rules, whether we like it or not.

The latter half was certainly part speculation. The Ferryman had said that they were in charge of their own journey, that the Ferryman was simply a guide… but Arche wouldn’t want to believe that her being here was part of her own journey to pass on. He also wasn’t so charitable as to give her hope that a Boundary point was here… Not while she was in this state. Not while she could’ve think logically.

“Unfortunately, death is an end. Even being in-between… you can’t finish what you couldn’t accomplish in life. Death isn’t a continuation of that.”