Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the grand scheme of things, I probably shouldn't be too surprised that something like this has happened. Karma and all that - considering the amount of times I've personally scorned both the powers that be and whatever mundane vessels they choose, it follows that they'd dump something like this on me. Greek heroes have been turned to bugs for lighter insults.

Even if I'd predicted that I'd be struck down one day, though, I never would have guessed that it'd happen like this.

I'm in what looks like an enormous courtroom, surrounded by flickering candlelight. The cold of the ground beneath me seeps through my too-thin-to-do-anything school-issued tights, and I glance down to find that I'm sitting in the centre of what appears to be a pentagram of some sort.

"Oh," I say out loud, mildly confused. "That's new."

I don't have time to observe anything else - at that moment, a shadow falls over me. I look up and meet a pair of mischief-filled golden eyes.

"Welcome to the Devildom!" The man greets me with the bravado of someone who has never had to repeat himself in his entire life. His arms are open wide, as if offering a hug, but I'm not gullible enough to actually go for one.

I stare at him cluelessly for a long while, wondering vaguely how hard I might have dissociated. If I'm honest, this is a little too impressive to be something plucked out of my brain. 

All red clothes was definitely a choice and a half, though. I think I understand how bulls feel now. Why's his coat so long? Is he Cinderella? He certainly looks like he's going to a ball.

I've been staring for at least a minute by the time I finally realise that he's waiting for a response. I hurriedly clear my throat and attempt to do so.

"Uh," I say aloud, noting absently that I'm still sitting on the floor, wondering if I should get up. "What?"

He gives a hearty guffaw, setting his hands on his hips and looking down at me with a boisterous grin. "Oh, do pardon me! You must be rather confused, correct?"

His voice booms around the room, then fades, replaced by a long and slightly uncomfortable silence. I blink rapidly at him, his previous words echoing around my head. Devildom? What? Is that some kind of code? Is this a cult?

...no, not a cult. What kind of cult targets some school kid in the middle of a History lesson? Got to be something else...

"Am I dead?"

The red man laughs again - and while I'd normally be mortified if someone had laughed at me twice in a row, somehow I get the feeling that it doesn't take much to tickle his funny bone. 

"Hahaha, of course not!" He beams. "Dead human souls don't come to the Devildom - they wouldn't make it through the barrier, for a start! No, no, young miss, you're very much alive."

I nod as if I understand what he's just said - something I have plenty of practice doing - and reply, "Right, yeah, of course..."

He just carries on smiling at me. Looks like I'm not getting any answers without finding them myself...  "So, uh... what's this... Devildom?"

"Hmm..." He folds his arms and raises his eyes to the ceiling, looking as if he's thinking hard, then answers, "Well, it's... a different world, I suppose. One that exists in a different sort of realm to yours."

Ooh, that sounds very Doctor Who. Wait, what? "...what am I doing here, then??"

"Oh, relocation spells like this are easy enough to master after the first century or so of training," He explains, as if that's a perfectly normal thing to say. After a split second, he suddenly seems to realise something. "Oh, how rude of me! I don't believe I've introduced myself..."

He bends forward and holds out a hand to me, his smile returning ten-fold. It's only now that I realise just how much of a giant this man is. His hand alone appears to be at least three times the size of mine, and I'm pretty sure he could punt me across the room like a football if he wanted to.

I scrutinise his hand for a moment, observing absently that his nail polish is very nicely done, then tentatively place my own hand in it. He pulls me up onto my feet with a brisk tug. 

Giving my hand a vigorous shake that makes my arm feel as if it's about to be yanked right out of its socket, he says brightly, "My name is Diavolo. I'm the prince of this realm - acting ruler only, I'm afraid, but I'll be in charge of most matters you might find issue with."

"Oh— oh, okay," I mumble as he lets go of my hand, then gives me a hearty clap on the shoulder that almost sends me straight back to the floor again. My arm feels alarmingly numb. "Uh, nice to meet you, Mr Diavolo...?"

"You will address him as Lord Diavolo," cuts in another voice, and for the first time I realise that the red man - no, Diavolo - and I aren't alone in the hall. 

There appear to be at least four other people, one of which is now standing directly behind the newly-introduced Lord. I glance over their faces quickly, then blanche. Just my luck - they all look about eight feet tall, and that orange one over there has to be at least nine. 

You know, that one sitting on the end doesn't look too strong. I could probably beat him in a fight, right? If it came to it... I could go for the knees. Not like I'd be able to corner him on his own, though...

The one who's just interrupted us is still staring at me sternly. He radiates an air of pure authority that activates my fight-or-flight reflex in an instant - but the absolute bullshit that's happening right now renders me too numb to feel any fear. Instead, I just stare blankly back.

Oh, his hair's cool. I don't really get how the colour works, though. Does he dip the ends in bleach? Does he go to a hairdresser to get it dyed? Or is he just going grey early? 

He looks like he's in his twenties, but I suppose nothing's impossible right now. Especially for a guy whose irises can apparently be a shade of dark grey with crimson pooling at the bottom.

The corner of his mouth quirks almost derisively when he looks down at me. Like a king looking down on a jester... or a haughty noble at a sickly dog abandoned at his door.

"Sorry," I squeak.

One of the other guys sitting to the side giggles. I fight the urge to slap my hand over my mouth and correct myself. "I mean, um... nice to meet you, Lord Diavolo."

"Now, now, there's no need for that!" Diavolo says genially as I bow, though he does look pleased by the gesture. "Feel free to drop the formalities."

I quickly straighten up, and he pats my head so hard that I almost keel over - again . As I attempt to regain my bearings, he continues, "Well, now that introductions are out of the way, would you like to take a seat? We still have much to discuss."

I glance quickly at the scary man out of the corner of my eye. He raises an eyebrow at me, but doesn't say anything otherwise.

I take that as a good sign, and obligingly skitter over to the chair that Diavolo is indicating with his hand. There's a small problem, though... the seat's too high up for me to reach.

After a moment of panic, I decide to just jump at it and hope for the best. Fortunately for my dignity, I don't immediately fall and make a fool out of myself, but it's a close call.

I shuffle forwards, right to the edge of the chair, but then find that I'm still not quite close enough to the table for comfort. After a moment's deliberation, I reach down and grab the edges of the seat, and jerk my entire body forward so that the chair almost hops along the floor.

There, I think in satisfaction, then look up. Diavolo, who I finally notice has been watching me with a kind of intrigued fascination, clears his throat as he realises that I've situated myself, and pulls up the chair opposite mine. 

The scary man doesn't sit down; instead, he chooses to stand behind Diavolo like a kind of bodyguard. For some reason, he's holding a hand to his chest - like a scorned Victorian woman. That looks really awkward to keep up.

"Well then," Diavolo says brightly, clapping his hands together and looking for all the world like a particularly fresh-faced secretary, "First of all, I'd like to offer you a warm welcome to our school – the R.A.D."

"R.A.D.?" I repeat, cogs already beginning to spin.

"It stands for Royal Academy of Diavolo."

I attempt to disguise a snicker, but I'm too slow. The scary man's eyes narrow dangerously at me. Voice deliberate and threatening, he asks slowly, "What is it that is so amusing to you?"

I hurriedly shake my head, coughing to cover up another snort before I can give Scary Man another reason to murder me right me now. "Ahem— sorry, it's just, uh... it spells out 'rad'."

There's a long silence. One of the other men – the one with green eyes and blonde hair – lets out an amused chuckle. I grin nervously up at the scary man as he scrutinises me.

"Very well," he says finally, and his brows smooth out again.

Not a man of many words, is he? I comment to myself, a whole lot more relieved about him backing off than I'm willing to admit.

"...so, uh... sir," I venture after a moment's silence, "I have a question, if that's alright?"

The scary man's eyes narrow again, but Diavolo looks more pleased than anything. "Of course! Ask away!"

I hesitate, debating whether or not my question is a dumb one, then decide to hell with it, and ask anyway. "What's the atmosphere down here like?"

Diavolo goes quiet. I'm about to get extremely worried for my own safety when I realise that the look on his face is more one of very deep thought rather than anger or offence. 

To be fair, it's a valid question, right? A person's got to breathe.

"Well, ah..." He begins after a long while, raising his hand to his chin, "I'd... hope it's welcoming?"

I hurriedly hold my breath to prevent another laugh. The scary man shakes his head. "I don't believe that's what she meant."

Both Diavolo and I turn to look at him, one of us with more surprise than the other. I hadn't expected him to just step into the conversation like that, but I suppose he's a man of more words than I'd originally anticipated. 

"I believe the human was referring to the air," The scary man tells Diavolo. His hand is still firmly planted on his chest - I don't think it's even moved a centimetre. Has he glued it there or something?

Hey, wait - what did he just say??

"Sorry, 'the human'?" I interject, too bewildered to remember my fear. "So does that mean you guys are— what, demons?"

Diavolo and the scary man both go silent. I shrink back slightly, wondering if what I've just said is really offensive in some way or another. Shoot, what if 'demon' is like... a slur down here?

I'm saved from mental combustion when the scary man finally nods, and responds with an almost hesitant, "Indeed. That's sharp of you."

Oh. Not a slur, then. Phew. "Oh, well... not really. I mean, it's called the Devildom, it's not really— uh, anyway, about the atmosphere...?"

"It's breathable, if that's what you're asking," Diavolo reassures me quickly. "After all, I'm sure that if it wasn't, we'd have noticed by now."

I frown slightly up at him. "You... didn't check that first? So I could've died in... what, five minutes, tops?"

It isn't until I've finished talking that I realise how casually I've just spoken to him. Luckily for me, though, the scary man doesn't seem to have noticed - he and Diavolo are exchanging a slightly apprehensive looks. From somewhere behind him, the blonde man lets out another quiet chuckle. He's loving this, isn't he?

"I... suppose," Diavolo says finally. "But, well, that didn't happen, so... we shouldn't dwell too long on it...?"

I almost laugh at him – the way he's trying to brush off a potentially life-risking oversight reminds me of my school's headmistress. At least Diavolo seems a genuinely nice guy, so I forgive him. (The scary man's also still right behind him. Mostly it's that.)

I shrug. "...sure, I'll go with that."

"You're being oddly calm about this," The scary man states, raising an eyebrow at me. "I'd have thought this ordeal would be more distressing for you. But you seem to be taking it well."

"I mean, I guess..." I shrug and look down at the wood-grain pattern of the table, finding that he's extremely hard to look in the eye. As most people are, but it's even worse with this guy. "It's just.. whatever. Might as well happen. Who cares?"

"Well, that's one way to think about it," he comments, then goes quiet again. 

I wonder if I've somehow managed to piss him off again, but it seems that he's just run out of things to say. He repositions his hand on his chest and starts staring off into the distance.

The Victorian lady parallels really are becoming too heavy to ignore. His expression and posture resembles a photo of an old governess I had to study in History almost uncannily.

Diavolo, at any rate, doesn't seem to have been bothered by the blip in conversation. Rather, he seems to take it as more of an opportunity.

"Ah, I don't believe I've formally introduced you yet," He says brightly, indicating the scary man with his hand. "This here is Lucifer. He's the vice president of the R.A.D.'s student council, and just so happens to be my right-hand man – and not just in title, I assure you. He'll be one of the first you go to when you need help. Lucifer, I'm assuming you know what you need to explain?"

The scary man – Lucifer, like the devil, apparently – immediately exits his reverie, then nods sharply and moves to meet my gaze again. 

"You've been brought down here to the Devildom to be part of a student exchange program that Lord Diavolo has devised to strengthen the bonds between the three worlds. Two of the R.A.D.'s students have been sent up to the human world, and another two have been sent to the Celestial Realm; you are one of two four students enrolled here at the R.A.D. - the other three being another human and two angels, respectively. The program will last precisely one year, after which you will be returned to your life in the human world."

He doesn't pause even once during his entire speech – he sounds as if he's swallowed a script. It takes me a long moment to process what he's just told me - it's quite a bit to unpack.As soon as I do, though, I'm immediately filled with a whole lot more questions than answers.

"...sorry, what?" I ask blankly. "You... know kidnapping is illegal, right?"

My voice is definitely a good few decibels above what's considered courteous, but luckily Lucifer seems more amused than angered. He answers with a surprising amount of benignity. 

"Well, it's true that our method was a little uncouth," He says. "But I can assure you that we'll do all that is in our power to make sure you won't fall under any harm during your time here. And - let me make this clear - that is a lot of power."

"I mean— I don't doubt that, uh... sir.  I was thinking more about everyone back home." I shake my head slightly. "You haven't asked my dad or anyone for permission, have you? He's supposed to tell the school office about taking time off."

Lucifer and Diavolo exchange another look. Now that I think about it, I'm starting to see far too many holes in this plan. First of all, how does this improve relations between realms if the human world isn't even aware of there being other ones? And, even if they were, is this really the best way to do it? 

I'm starting to get the feeling that Diavolo doesn't really know what he's doing.

...are they ignoring me now? Or are they talking with their minds or something? ...is that a thing demons can do?

"Excuse me," I venture, holding a hand in the air. Lucifer and Diavolo both turn to me; Lucifer raises an eyebrow to indicate that I should continue. "So... I'm here to be a student?"

"Yes...?" The uncertainty in Diavolo's voice is not very comforting at all. "Well - we wouldn't be forcing the full curriculum on you, of course, but you'll be attending classes along with the other pupils."

I take in a very deep breath. Not that the prospect isn't exciting - this whole situation is a fever dream, honestly - but it's more than a little intimidating. Presumably the other students will also be demons roughly twice my size, and I'm already fairly terrified of the sixth formers who're only a head taller. Then there's other issues..

Planting my elbows on the table, I press my hands together as if praying and hold them to my face. "...um... I don't wanna be the bearer of bad news, but that's a really bad idea."

Diavolo gives me a bemused and slightly worried look. "...why?"

I sigh. "Because I'm really stupid."

The blonde man snorts so loudly this time that Lucifer turns around and shoots him a stern look. Diavolo, on the other hand, lets out a roaring bellow of a laugh, throwing back his head as if he's just heard the funniest joke in the world.

"My, my, you certainly are an amusing one!" He exclaims, and I'm not entirely sure whether to feel insulted or not. "I have a feeling you'll have no trouble settling in here – in fact, I'd wager you might be just the kind of human we're looking for!"

Oh, that's a lot of pressure. Don't like that.

"Now, let's not get too ahead of ourselves," interjects Lucifer as I try to offer Diavolo a smile that ends up feeling more like a grimace. "We still have to discuss what you'll be doing during your year here."

Uh oh. "Um... right."

Lucifer smiles – which doesn't look nearly as terrifying as I'd thought it would – and begins, "You'll be following a typical first year curriculum that students here do – with some tweaks made to account for your age. The student exchange program also features several special tasks throughout the year, and you'll be expected to write a paper about your stay here once it ends."

He pauses, and there's an uncomfortable silence as I wait for him to continue. When he clears his throat with a subtle cough, I suddenly realise that he's already finished. "...wait, that's it?"

Lucifer frowns slightly, then inclines his head. "Yes. Do you have any questions?"

I think for a moment, mentally sweeping the stupider queries away, then sort through the few remaining to find the most pertinent one. Finally, slowly, I ask, "Do you have... a written syllabus?"

Diavolo wrinkles his brow and brings a hand up to his chin. "I believe we do, but I don't know where they're being kept..."

"Then it's a good thing I took the precaution of keeping one on me," Lucifer says, reaching into the pocket of his jacket and pulling out a neatly folded sheet of parchment. I hurriedly reach to take it as he leans across the table to hand it to me. "Go ahead and read through it. It'd be wise to familiarise yourself with the subjects."

I do exactly as he says, scanning through the units and lessons listed. A growing sense of confusion pools at the bottom of my stomach. The subjects listed include 'Curse-Breaking', 'Foundation Potions', 'Enchantments Level One', 'Plants of the Underworld', and 'Devildom History'. As opposed to, like... angel-land history.

It must show on my face, too, because Lucifer cocks his head slightly to the side and asks, "Is something wrong?"

"Huh?" I glance up at him, then shake my head, folding the paper and tucking it into my blazer. "Oh, no, I was just wondering... no maths? Or science? You know, like... photosynthesis?"

"Photo...?" Lucifer goes quiet for a moment and thinks. "...I'm afraid I'm not familiar."

What. I stare at him. "You... don't know what photosynthesis is?"

"No. Should I?"

Lucifer doesn't know what photosynthesis is? Giant intimidating demon man... doesn't know basic biology?

I jam a hand to my mouth to prevent myself from laughing out loud. It's not even that funny! Why is everything so weird? Am I going into shock? Do I need a blanket? Oh, I'm getting hysterical..

"Is there something wrong?" Diavolo asks as my shoulders begin to tremble with effort. "Should we get you something...?"

"No, no, it's fine," I manage to get out, beginning to cough furiously into my fist in an attempt to mask my glee. "Just– hem – got something in my throat, give me a moment, sorry..."

Unfortunately, while I successfully prevent Lucifer from realising that I'm laughing at him, I end up breathing in awkwardly and choking on my inhale, which reduces me to a series of distressed and very real coughs. Diavolo and Lucifer's expressions become more and more disturbed as each second passes, but I manage to stabilise my breathing before I can cough up my lungs.

"Ugh," I mutter under my breath, thumping a fist on my chest to make sure I don't start choking again. "Sorry about that."

"Are you feeling alright?" Diavolo asks tentatively, as if afraid I'll start asphyxiating on the spot.

"Yeah, yeah, just got... my strings crossed." I clear my throat one final time before leaning forward on the table. "So, um, anyway, about that paper... is it just an essay, or a full...?"

"Essentially, yes," Lucifer replies after a moment, evidently jarred by the sudden shift in subject. "You don't need to worry about it at the moment. You really don't need to start preparing for it until your last month."

I nod several times, almost reaching below the table for my not-present bag to retrieve my also not-present homework diary out of reflex. "Is there a word count?"

"We're still working that part out," Diavolo chimes in. "We'll wait until we see how you exchange students do with your tasks."

"Right..." I tap my finger restlessly on the table. "What... tasks, exactly?"

An amused huff escapes from Lucifer's mouth, and he gives me another smile, this one a lot more reassuring than the last one. "You don't need to look so nervous, you know. You'll have someone to look after you during the year as well – that someone being my brother, Mammon."

Isn't Mammon another, what's the word.. theological one? I'm starting to see a pattern here. I swear, if there's just a dude wandering around down here called Satan... well, I don't know what I'll do, but it'll be pretty funny.

"In fact," Lucifer continues, now looking a little irritated, "He was meant to be here for your arrival, but it seems he's not planning on showing up. Well, you'll still be needing this, in any case."

He spins round and retrieves something from behind him, then sets it down on the table and slides it over to me. I stare down it for a moment, unsure.

"Take it," Diavolo encourages. "It's not going to bite you."

I look up at him - for some reason, I don't really believe him - then nod and reach out to pull the thing towards me. It looks like a small tablet of some kind.

"This is a D.D.D.," Lucifer tells me. "It's quite similar to the smartphones of your world..."

He pauses as I slowly pick the D.D.D. up. It's almost the size of my face. "...ahem. You'll be using it to keep up with your work and to keep in contact with anyone you need to down here. Now, place your thumb on the home button for me."

The figurative devil sitting on my right shoulder wants to know how he'd react if I just refused, but unfortunately my fear outweighs my curiosity. I do as he says; there's a quiet click, and the display lights up with a series of colours, followed a jolly little jingle as a notice from a bot called Karasu welcomes me. It has a whopping total of six apps.

"Great," I say. "What do I do with it?"

"Your first order of business should be to call Mammon, since he insists on being tardy," Lucifer tells me as I fiddle with the volume buttons on the D.D.D.'s side. Are they tiny devil faces? Oh, that's adorable. "He should already be in your contacts. Go ahead."

I obediently tap on the app labelled 'Phone', taking a moment to appreciate that the symbol for the app also has tiny devil horns, then scroll down the list of contacts to find the one labelled 'Mammon'. 

I hover over his name for a while. I don't think I've ever willingly sent an outgoing phone call out to anyone. I mean, texts get your message across just fine, don't they? Why do I need to talk?

"Well?" Lucifer asks with a raised brow, and I realise with a start that I've probably been staring at the screen for longer than is considered normal.

"Right, sir, sorry, sir," I mumble vaguely. "Right away."

After one final moment of contemplation, I hit the contact and raise the D.D.D. to my ear. It's surprisingly lightweight for its size, but I'm sure I still look like an idiot considering how large it is.

The D.D.D. beeps for about half a minute. I'm in the middle of wondering if this Mammon is just waiting for me to give up when the D.D.D. lets out a chirrup to indicate that my call has been answered.

"Oi, who the hell is this?" A rough voice barks. I immediately blanche and move the D.D.D. away from my ear slightly. It's so loud that I'm pretty sure everyone else in the room heard it as well.

"Uhhh," I begin tentatively after a moment. "Hey?"

"Don't 'hey' me." Mammon, I'm assuming, responds irritably. "I'm not gonna say it again. Who the fuck are you?"

I pause. I've been given an opportunity that not many come across in their lives by sheer chance, but I don't know if I'm strong enough to take it. 

Finally, though, after steeling my nerves as much as possible, I reply in a comically exaggerated voice, "Who the fuck are you?"

To my complete and utter joy, Mammon responds perfectly - so perfectly that I wonder if he knows what I'm referencing and is just playing along. "I asked ya first."

"I asked you second."

There's a long silence. The blonde man lets out another short, sharp laugh. I think that's the third time now. I'm kind of honoured he thinks I'm so funny. Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night...

"..." On the other end, Mammon is quiet for so long that I start to think he's already hung up on me. Finally, though, he responds gruffly, "Whaddya want?"

"Oh, well, I'm supposed to be telling you to come to the... uh..." I trail off. I don't actually know where to tell Mammon to go.

I look up at Lucifer for help. He quirks a brow, then obliges, saying, "The R.A.D. assembly hall."

"To come down to the rad assembly hall," I relay to Mammon, adding a little bit of twang to my words for effect. 

Lucifer's eyes narrow yet again, evidently displeased by my little joke, but when Diavolo chuckles in amusement, he relaxes again. 

"Huh? So you're one of those human exchange students, are ya? Why should I listen to ya?"

This isn't going well. I respond, now back to my usual voice, mostly calm out of necessity at this point, "Um. Cause you're supposed to be helping me or something, apparently."

There's a pause. Then Mammon starts cackling. "Psh, no way! What am I supposed to get outta babysittin' some human? Good luck to ya, but I ain't doin' squat."

I can't say I wasn't expecting him to say something like that. Lucifer gives me a meaningful look, and I quickly interject, "Mr Lucifer's the one who told me to call you."

Mammon pauses. Then he scoffs, but I note that he sounds substantially more subdued now. "Lucifer? What, d'you think you can just hold a name over my head and I'll do whatever ya say? Nice try, but you'll have to try harder to make me listen to ya!"

"Well, it's your grave you're digging," I mumble, then look back up at Lucifer and point back at the D.D.D. awkwardly. "What do I do now?"

"Pass it over," He sighs, an irked expression on his face. I obligingly pass it over the table, and he brings it up to his ear. A dangerous-looking smirk pulls at the corner of his lips; it isn't even aimed at me, but I still feel kind of terrified for a moment. "Mammon?"

There's an indiscernible yelp on the other end, followed by some nervous stammering that I can't quite make out. A moment later, Lucifer nods, satisfied, then taps something on the screen before passing the D.D.D. back to me. I glance down to find that he's taken the liberty of ending the call already.

Hey, aren't you wearing gloves? How the did you use the screen with gloves on? I don't say. I opt for a more polite, "He sounds... reliable?"

Lucifer gives me an unimpressed look. "Does he?"

I go quiet. Then, my voice low, I admit, "Not really, no."

The blonde man laughs yet again. The sound seems to remind Diavolo of something; he snaps his fingers and announces, "Ah, I almost forgot! We still have a few introductions to make. Lucifer, if you'll do the honours?"

"I suppose so..." Lucifer's expression makes a funny motion that, in another reality, could be considered 'pulling a face'. "Much as I dread the idea."

He moves away from his spot by Diavolo's chair and motions for me to stand up. I quickly obey, jumping off my chair so hurriedly that I almost trip and smash my face against the table. Still, I manage to catch myself just in time and scamper around the table to Lucifer before anyone can notice my slip-up. 

He pauses to let out a quiet, long-suffering sigh, then indicates with his head for me to follow him over to where the other three demons are sitting. The blonde man is the first to stand up in greeting; guy-I-could-possibly-fight and the orange one follow soon after.

"Here they are," sighs Lucifer dispassionately, folding his arms and looking them over with what can only be described as exasperation on his face. Poor guys haven't even said a word and he's already disappointed in them. "Three of my brothers... Satan, Beelzebub, and Asmodeus."

Haha, I was right! I'm almost too distracted by my delight that there really is just a guy down here straight up called Satan to realise that one of the others is talking.

"Really?" He complains, pouting. He tosses his elaborately styled fringe out of his eyes and crosses his arms. "That's it? You could sound a bit prouder, you know? It's me we're talking about!"

"That's Asmodeus," Lucifer tells me, showing absolutely no indication that he's heard a thing. "You might want to keep your distance from him. As the Avatar of Lust, he's not exactly the safest individual to be alone in a room with."

"Well, I never!" gasps Asmodeus, pressing a hand to his chest in pure offence. "First you ignore me, and now you're talking about me like I'm some— some scoundrel!"

I inspect him carefully. He seems harmless enough, but looks can be deceiving, I suppose. Hang on. "Wait... lust??"

"I believe you call them the Seven Deadly Sins in the human world," The blonde man chimes in, smiling pleasantly when I turn to look at him. "There are seven of us brothers - one for each. Lucifer's the Avatar of Pride, in case you were wondering."

He pushes himself off the table he's leaning on and approaches me, holding out his hand. The smile on his face doesn't shift even a bit – it's almost unsettling. "Anyway, since he's neglected to, I might as well introduce myself. My name is Satan - Avatar of Wrath. I'm the fourth."

I inspect his hand for a moment as if it might turn into a snake and bite me, then reach up and give it one of the most pathetic shakes ever. "Nice to meet you. So... fourth?"

"Fourth eldest. Well— it's more based on power rather than actual age," Satan shrugs, releasing my hand and shifting his weight onto one leg. Strangely enough, his hand moves to rest on his chest, much like Lucifer, except that he uses his left hand rather than his right. "Lucifer's the oldest, which means he's the most powerful."

I nod, finding that this very much makes sense. "He's got the air for it."

Satan raises an eyebrow. "The 'air'?"

"You know, the way people just give off those... vibes?" I wiggle my hands about in front of me uncertainly in an effort to get my message across. "And that thing they do when they look at you like you're a worm stuck to the bottom of their shoe."

He shakes his head, but lets out a laugh nevertheless. "Well, you've summed up Lucifer pretty well there."

"That's enough, Satan," Lucifer interrupts. He turns to me. "You'd best be careful around him as well. If you provoke him, you'll be unlikely to come out of it in one piece."

"So that's how it is, is it?" scoffs Satan. The smile on his face slips briefly, replaced by a scowl that physically makes me recoil a little. "I can control myself, Lucifer."

"Hey, are you all ignoring me now?!" interrupts Asmodeus before Lucifer can respond, now looking rather miffed. "You didn't even finish introducing me!"

Lucifer lets out another sigh, and I swear I hear him mutter a snarky, 'it was intentional, I assure you' under his breath. At any rate, Asmodeus doesn't seem to actually need him for introductions; mere moments later, the irritated look on his face is replaced with a dazzling smile as he skips up to me with his own hand outstretched.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, darling!" He exclaims, sweet as honey. "You just call me Asmo, okay?"

"Oh, um, yes, hello..." I gingerly place my hand in his. He has a rather peculiar handshake – he just kind of delicately flicks his wrist up and down. I can't exactly complain, though, considering the absolute joke of a handshake I gave Satan about a minute ago. "Oh, I like your nails."

He gives a delighted gasp, and I'm not entirely sure if he's being dramatic or not. "Why, thank you! They really are lovely, aren't they?"

With all the enthusiasm of a child with a new toy, he holds out both hands, bending forward slightly so that they're both at eye level for me, palms facing down so that I can get a good look at the colours. "I spent aaaages on them. I'm glad someone finally appreciates them!"

"Right, yeah," I nod absent-mindedly, leaning forward to get a closer look. "Whoa, they're really smooth..."

"Aren't they just?" He coos happily, wiggling his fingers about. Then, quite suddenly, his voice seems to take on an odd... sinister quality, and he leans forward. "You're gonna get along just fine down here, I think."

I wrinkle my nose in distaste and take a subtle step backwards, wondering if Lucifer would object if I hid behind him. Asmodeus notices quickly, and he cocks his head to the side, his voice returning to the bubbly-bright tone it had been before. "Hey, what's up with you?"

"Nothing," I dismiss, suddenly becoming very fascinated with my shoes. "Sorry..."

Asmodeus seems to want to question me further, but Lucifer quickly steps in, a rather pinched look on his face. "Are you done?"

I nod quickly; Asmodeus, on the other hand, goes to say something, then changes his mind when he sees Lucifer's expression and scuttles backwards to stand beside Satan. Lucifer, satisfied, finally indicates the final demon and tells me, "That one there is Beelzebub – the sixth oldest."

Beelzebub, who looks to be about nine feet of muscle with hair so orange that it completely redefines the term 'ginger', huffs and digs his hands into his pockets like a child. "Lucifer, I'm hungry."

Lucifer shoots him a warning look. "Behave yourself."

"..." Beelzebub scrunches up his face for a second, then hesitantly shuffles up to me, proffering a large hand. "You can call me Beel if Beelzebub's too long. I'm the Avatar of Gluttony."

I place my hand in his. His handshake is firm and rather toasty. "Nice to meet you, Mr Beelzebub."

He nods and pulls back. There's an awkward pause as the three brothers and I just look at each other, unsure of what to do now. Eventually, Lucifer speaks up.

"You've already spoken to Mammon," He says. "Which just leaves Levi, but you'll meet him in due time. Meanwhile, we still need to talk about your living arrangements..."

"Lucifer and his brothers will be acting as your guardians during your stay in the Devildom," Diavolo chimes in brightly. He's vacated his chair and is now standing with the rest of us, hands set on his hips and a grin pulling at the corners of his lips. "Which means you'll be staying with them at the House of Lamentation."

"The House of...?" That's a Halloween horror attraction title if I've ever heard one. "Wait, there are other, uh, exchange students, right? Are they staying there too?"

Diavolo shakes his head. "No. The others have their own methods of protection, but you're the only one out of them who doesn't have any kind of magical power at their disposal - so you'll need some extra protection. Hence why we've put you there."

"Oh. Okay."

"Rest assured, you'll be perfectly safe," Lucifer tells me. He's placed his hand back on his chest. Is that really his preferred resting position? Seems kinda inconvenient to me. I mean, his elbow would just be sticking out all the time... "You'll be our responsibility throughout the year, and so I will personally make sure you don't come to any harm."

"O-oh," I say slowly, unsure of how I'm supposed to respond, fiddling with the ends of my sleeves. "Thank you...?"

He nods. We subside into silence again, but it feels a bit more natural this time. I take a moment to collect myself.

This whole thing really is just... wild. What's going on back up at home? I know Diavolo said I wasn't dead, but maybe he was just talking about my soul or something? Is my body still back at school? Did I just drop dead in the middle of History? I mean, pretty gnarly way to go. Kind of drab, though. I would've liked being eaten by a dragon or something.

And what if I just disappeared in the middle of class? How are they going to figure that one out? What's Dad going to think? Will they let him take a break for once? And what am I supposed to say when the year's over and I get back? Hey, maybe I'll end up on Unsolved...

I'm shaken out of my thoughts by a series of loud thumps approaching the room, as if a giant is stomping along the corridor. My first instinct is to reach for cover, but I have the sense to look at Lucifer and Diavolo first; neither look particularly phased.

"Ah," Lucifer sighs, "It seems the idiot has arrived."

A split second later, the large doors at the end of the room swing open, and a man with a shock of white hair and a poorly-knotted yellow tie barges in. He looks, for lack for better of a word, pissed .

"Hey!" He shouts, "Just who do ya think you are—"

He stops short and looks around. The angry expression on his face flashes with confusion. "Oi, where the hell's the human?"

I stare at him for a moment and feel my face scrunch up in pure disbelief. Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

Satan, meanwhile, lets out a loud laugh. "Seriously, Mammon? You're even stupider than I thought."

"What are you talkin' about?!" Mammon spins around on the spot. "You hidin' it somewhere or something?"

Seriously...? I cough slightly and raise my hand. "Uh, sir, I'm right here."

He blinks and swings around. His eyes dart around for a moment, then finally move down and land on me.

"That's the human?" he asks, looking almost thunderstruck. He strides up to me and roughly pokes a finger into the side of my head. 

I reel back and make a reproachful noise, but don't raise any other complaint; he scoffs and sets a single hand on his hip, pointing at me with his thumb with the other. "This little thing?"

"Hey, watch who you're calling a thing," I object, taking a step to the side to get out of his reach when he reaches out to poke me again. "That's not very nice."

He cackles, evidently not very intimidated by my attempt at a protest. "D'you really think you can boss me about, pipsqueak?"

"I'm not bossing you around—" I begin to reply, but cut myself off as he crosses his arms and stomps right up to me. "Oh, uh..."

"Now listen here," He begins, leaning forward to look me right in the face, a nasty glint in his eyes. "I could crush ya like a bug if I wanted to, so you'd better listen up! If ya wanna live, you'll hand over all of your money right now! And all your valuables, too!"

Am I being mugged right now? Is that what this is? A mugging? "Bold of you to assume I want to live, sir."

"Don't mess around with me!" He barks. "You won't be so smug when I eat ya! From the head right down to the feet! Yeah, you heard me!"

I raise my hands in a gesture of surrender, moving backwards skittishly, making an effort to conceal my rapidly growing nervousness. After all, showing weakness in front of a predator is essentially a death sentence for the prey, right? "Wait, wait, no, I really don't have any money—"

With every step I take backwards, however, Mammon stalks even closer, refusing to give up. Lucifer lets out a weary sigh, a frown steadily climbing up his face as I slowly shuffle behind him in an attempt to hide. Maybe my growing panic is showing on my face, or maybe he just feels sorry for me, because a moment later he takes a step forward to block the way.

"Mammon, you stop that this instant," He says frostily, arms crossed, as I peer around his side. "Before I punch you."

Mammon stops in his tracks, but it seems Lucifer's warning was less of a warning and more of a prediction - because he still takes a step forward and drives his fist into him hard . Mammon reels back with a wheeze, clutching his side, then looks up with a strange mixture of betrayal and resignation on his face.

"Hey, what was that for?!" he complains. "I thought you were gonna at least give me a chance to stop before ya punched me!"

"Well, that's what you get for being a big old meanie," comments Asmodeus, looking completely unfazed. "You were scaring the poor thing."

"Now introduce yourself properly ," Lucifer commands firmly. "And be at least a little polite about it."

Mammon grumbles something bitterly, then sighs and approaches me again, throwing out a hand. I peer distrustfully up at him, still partially hidden behind Lucifer, then very slowly grasp his hand with my own. He gives it a single shake, then drops it, returning both his hands to his hips with a huff.

"Mammon's the Avatar of Greed," Satan tells me, seeing as Mammon seems to be taking up a rebellion and refusing to speak to me now. "He also happens to be the second oldest out of us."

"Second oldest?" I repeat, glancing up at Mammon, who's determinedly glaring off at the wall. "So... second most powerful?"

At this, Mammon seems to perk up. He turns and grins down at me, crossing his arms and looking for all the world like he's just won a prize. "Haha, that's right! And you'd better not forget it!"

That rebellion didn't last long. Satan shakes his head. "He may be, but he certainly doesn't act it."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?!"

"Seeing as we've gotten introductions out of the way," Lucifer interrupts, shifting slightly on the spot, clearly eager to finish the meeting, "Mammon - as we've discussed - you'll be in charge of this human for the year."

"What?!" Mammon rounds on his older brother, then seems to think better of it when Lucifer folds his arms and glares down at him. He takes a step backwards, but still refuses to step down. "Why me?! I ain't a babysitter! Can't it take care of itself?!"

"She's not an it, Mammon," sighs Asmodeus, shaking his head in disapproval. "Have a little courtesy, will you?"

"As we've discussed," repeats Lucifer severely. "You've forgotten, have you? Or perhaps you weren't listening?"

"Well—!" Mammon seems to be about to protest, but the moment Lucifer's gloved hand lands on his shoulder, he freezes. Lucifer doesn't even say a word, but his touch alone seems to have been enough to scare the ever-loving daylights out of his brother. "O-o-of course not...!"

Lucifer is still for a moment, then nods in silent approval and releases Mammon from his grasp. He lets out a subtle, relieved sigh, then turns and jerks his head at me. 

"But you listen to me, and listen good, got it?" He starts, jabbing a finger in my general direction. I'm only doing this since Lucifer told me to. I ain't gonna let you push me around! I'll do as I'm told and make sure ya don't get eaten, so long as you listen - clear?"

I nod hurriedly, not wanting him to start getting in my face again. "Crystal."

"What?"

"Clear as crystal," I clarify.

"Crystal ain't even clear half the time..." Mammon raises an eyebrow at me, but he seems appeased by my agreement. "Well, s'long as ya understand!"

He gives my head a rough pat that probably would have sent me through the floor if it wasn't made of stone, but I don't complain. At least he's not threatening to eat me anymore. 

Satisfied, Lucifer nods. "Well, now that that's all over and done with, -we have one last thing to discuss before I send you off to get settled."

I turn to him, tilting my head to the side slightly. "The tasks?"

"Correct." He inclines his head with a small smile. "You catch on quickly. Well, in short, your tasks all have one thing in common – to test your soul. We've planned them out in a way that you'll also be building up your immunity to corruptive attacks throughout the year.

"At this points, other demons at the R.A.D. will be given tasks that go directly against yours. In other words, it is an experiment of sorts."

This all sounds very illegal. Also, I thought the whole point of this thing was to improvise relations between realms, not put two species against each other in some sort of competition. "So if I lose, I die?"

"There now, you needn't be so pessimistic," Lucifer says. Whether he's attempting to be reassuring or not, I can't tell, especially through that smirk on his face. "You have us to assist you, and you will be the only student we lend our powers to throughout the year. Does that make you feel better?"

"Well, I mean..." I purse my lips slightly and shift on my feet. "It does, but... isn't that kind of unfair?

Lucifer chuckles. "How very human of you. A demon would take the advantage without a word... but no, you don't need to worry about that, either. If anything, the only thing we're doing is elevating you to start on the same level as everyone else."

I nod. "Right... so do tasks, don't get eaten, got it..."

This whole thing is becoming more and more nonsensical the more I think about it, so I decide not to. I can worry about the logistics and particulars later, but for now I should probably focus... but I can't help but wonder if I could just... accidentally get myself killed? If I just refused to do the tasks, would I just get swallowed by a demon after a couple of weeks?

No, no, we don't need that right now. Snap out of it. Life is good. Life is fine.

"Well, I just want y'all to know that if anyone gets eaten, it ain't gonna be my fault," Mammon declares. "Just look at the stupid look on that kid's face. She's probably gonna get herself killed in the first five minutes."

"I don't think you're in any position to be calling anyone stupid, Mammon," Satan shoots back at him.

"Lucifer, I'm hungry," Beelzebub suddenly complains again, interrupting the rapidly growing tension. I jump slightly - I'd almost forgotten about his presence until he spoke. "Can't we go yet?"

"No. Behave yourself, Beel."

Beelzebub crosses his arms and stares grumpily down at his feet. Meanwhile, I suddenly remember something.

"Hey, I think I have a croissant in my jacket," I find myself saying, raising a hand. After Mammon's mishap when he first arrived, I can't trust anyone to see me down here. "Do you want it?"

"Croissant?" Beelzebub looks up - or down, I guess - so quickly that he almost gives himself whiplash. "You mean that twirly bread from the human world?"

"Yeah, the French one." I quickly scuttle over to the chair I was sitting on earlier and pick up my blazer, rummaging through many pockets before finally finding what I'm looking for. "I was going to... well, it doesn't really matter now. It's not much, but it's food, right?"

I finally find the pocket that I'd stuffed the croissant into this morning - it could only have been hours ago, but it feels like it was weeks away now – and pull it out with some considerable effort. It looks rather squashed and sad inside its little paper bag, but nevertheless still intact and edible. 

I look up to find that Beelzebub is already standing over me, looking at the croissant with what I can only describe as want. I hold it up tentatively for him to take, and he grabs it so quickly that I don't even see it happen. He barely gets out a muffled 'thanks' before he's shoving it into his mouth, bag and all.

"He does that a lot," Satan tells me in response to the slightly disturbed expression on my face. "Don't worry. He's perfectly capable of digesting it."

Beelzebub chews and swallows, then gives me an approving nod. "I like her."

"Really? That was fast." Asmodeus comments.

Beelzebub shrugs. "I like croissants."

Oh, I can tell we're going to get along swell.

Almost as he's read my mind, Diavolo gives a jolly laugh and says happily, "Well, I don't think you'll have any trouble getting along down here, little one!"

"We're essentially finished here now," Lucifer puts in. He indicates to Mammon. "Mammon, why don't you show her to the House of Lamentation?"

"Huh?" Mammon starts, having seemingly been lost in thought. "Ugh, fine. C'mon, kid."

I stay rooted on the spot for a moment as he sweeps out of the room without another word, unsure of what to do. Finally, I give a hurried bow to Diavolo and the others, bundle my blazer up in my arms, and scamper out after him with a quick, "Um, goodbye!"

Mammon's almost out of sight when I make it out into the corridor, but I manage to catch a glimpse of his white hair disappearing around the corner. Willing my legs to work just a little faster, I hurry to catch up with him.

He glances down at me when I finally get to his side, scowling slightly, but doesn't say a word. I have to increase my pace substantially to keep up with his long strides, and I'm pretty sure he's speeding up just to try to lose me. 

Afraid as I am of getting him angry again, though, I'm more afraid of getting left alone and lost, so I determinedly do my best to keep up with him. Even if I am beginning to develop bit of a stitch. I really should get out more...

"Oi," Mammon says eventually as we approach what appears to be the building's exit. "Just so ya know, I ain't scared of Lucifer or anythin', got it?"

"Yep, got it, you're not scared of him," I say immediately, like a liar.

He's finally slowed down his pace a little, which means I can now reduce my light jog to a speed-walk. He refuses to meet my eyes as he swings the gigantic door open and pushes me roughly through it. I stumble slightly and almost go careening down the steps leading down from the doors, but catch myself on a railing just in time.

"Watch it," Mammon grumbles as he walks past me, flicking me in the back of the head. "Lucifer's gonna have my head if ya break your neck before we even get to the House."

"Sorry..." I mumble, beginning to carefully hop down the stairs – they're too tall for me to comfortably step down. 

That's definitely at least three times he's done something like that now, which, according to that those anti-bullying assemblies I had back in primary school, means I am being bullied. I haven't even been here for a day. This sucks.

I follow Mammon in silence as he strides down a neatly brick-laid path, taking a good look at the scenery around me as I do. It's dark, and the whole 'Haunted Palace' aesthetic from inside the assembly hall and the R.A.D.'s corridors doesn't change out here, either. All in all - very gothic.

Though the quiet is comforting at first, it quickly becomes a little unsettling. Searching for something to talk about, I finally land on the one thing that absolutely no one would argue about: religion.

"You know, back in the human world, people think the ruler of hell is a demon called Satan."

That seems to grab Mammon's attention. Though he doesn't turn back to look at me, at least he responds verbally. "Don't be stupid, ya know Diavolo's the ruler of the Devildom."

"I mean, I don't know the details," I say, kicking at the ground slightly as I mentally debate how to explain it. "It's this whole thing based on this really big book called the Bible. And there are peple who really like the Bible, and they believe in this guy called God, and also God's worst enemy - some dude who used to be an angel. And he was called Lucifer, actually."

Mammon's shoulders freeze slightly.

"I think the story goes that God had four super elite angels, and the Lucifer in the Bible was originally one of them... I think what happened is he got a little bit miffed that God was being too nice to humans... or was it that he wanted to be more powerful? I don't remember, but God was pretty upset about the whole thing, so kicked him out of Heaven. Then he fell down to Hell and ended up being put in charge of it or something."

There's a long silence. Finally, Mammon mutters, "Man, that's spooky..."

He turns around to face me – he even slows down so that we're walking properly side-by-side. "Where'd ya even get this all from?"

"RS, mostly."

"Well, either way, its seriously givin' me the chills..."

"There's more after that, actually. There's this guy, Jesus, and he dies."

"What're you talkin' about now?" He asks irritably, apparently having lost interest already. Somewhere ahead of us, something that looks like a haunted mansion emerges from the mist.

I quickly shake my head, dismissing my train of thought - who knows, Mammon could end up taking it as a threat of some kind. "Nothing..."

He sends me a suspicious side glance. Sensing that he's not impressed by my deflection, I hurriedly attempt to assuage the situation by asking the first question that comes to mind, which happens to be a rather gormless and probably controversial, "So, is God real?"

Mammon actually physically stops in his tracks for a moment. For a moment, I'm afraid I'm about to get eaten for real, but then he lets out a sharp laugh.

"You've sure got some guts, kid!" He exclaims, a grin forming on his face "Askin' a question like that down here! You got a death wish or somethin'?!"

I mean... maybe a little bit. I hurriedly speed up to keep up with him as he begins walking again. "Is it rude?"

He chuckles. "Well, it ain't really rude, but demons sure won't appreciate hearin' that name. You try to keep quiet when it comes to that, got it?"

"Got it..." I go quiet for a moment, but I'm unable to prevent myself asking again. "So... is he?"

"What does it sound like?" Mammon shakes his head and reaches out to flick the side of my head again. He's getting way too comfortable with doing that. Also, ow. "'Course he exists, but I dunno if he matches whatever you weirdos think he is."

"A lot of people think he's an old dude with a really long white beard," I say mildly. "Anyway, is it true God hates gay people?"

He goes quiet again. Then, "What kinda question is that?"

"Well— actually, never mind."

He scoffs, speeding up slightly to open the massive gate looming ahead of us. It creaks so loudly that I almost slap my hands to my ears to block it out. 

After a moment, he says, "...nah, he doesn't really care about that sorta thing."

"Nice," I say, unsure of what else to say in response.

We both go quiet as Mammon searches about in one of his pockets for a moment, then pulls out a jingling keyring. It takes him almost a full minute of fiddling to find the right key, but I don't blame him - there's got to be at least fifteen on there. How many locked doors is he opening on a daily basis? Or are they just for show?

"You're gonna have to get one of us to open the door for ya for now," He says to me as he finally picks out the right one and jams it into the lock. "We'll get you a key soon enough, but it takes forever to get 'em made."

"Got it," I mumble in response as he turns the key with a decisive click and swings the door open. 

The first thing I see two enormous dragon statues perched atop a pair of pillars. I immediately decide I like it here.

"Well, this is the House of Lamentation," Mammon says lamely, gesturing around the entrance hallway. I don't see why he seems so unenthusiastic about it - I'd be thrilled to live in a place like this. "Home sweet home."

I move further in as he turns around to shut the door behind us, then pause. "Are those candles?"

"'Course they are. What, you never seen one before?"

I squint up, then immediately regret it when about ten million little beams of light are immediately reflected right into my retinas. "No, it's just that... do you have to light them up every single time you want the lights on?"

"You got a problem with it or somethin'?"

"I mean, not really. Just doesn't seem very efficient..." I crane my neck to look around at the many paintings hung everywhere - there's so many that there seems to be more painting than actual wall. I'm no interior designer, but I'm pretty sure that's too much.  "You have phones, so why don't you have electric lights?"

"Oi, have some respect, will ya?" Mammon cuffs me around the head and almost sends me into the wall. "You've got the honour of living with the top of the R.A.D. social pyramid here, so watch ya mouth."

He pauses for a moment, remembering something. "Mind you, Diavolo's even higher up. He's even got his own castle all to himself."

"Must be nice to have money."

"Ha, sure is!" He gives me a hard pat on the shoulder and starts walking further into the house. I scurry after him, casting my eyes over a bulletin board with nothing but a flyer for something called 'Walpurgis Night' attached to it. "C'mon, kid. I'll show you to your room."

"This place is ginormous," I comment as he begins to lead me down a corridor. We're barely a minute in and I already have no idea where we are. "Is there a map?"

"Nah, but you won't need one anyway," He throws his arms behind his head. "You'll get it soon enough. Ain't that hard once ya get the hang of it."

"Sure..." I mutter, a little sceptical. My sense of direction is about as impressive as my hair is long, and my hair doesn't go past my shoulders.

"Well, ya don't sure don't sound too confident about it," Mammon quips. "Tell ya what, I'll— oomph!"

It takes me a good few moments to register what has just happened. One moment Mammon is offering me a grin, hands tucked into his pockets and his shoulders relaxed, and next moment he's sprawled out on the floor with a great big red mark bang in the centre of his forehead. An open door swings about innocently as I stare, positively dumbfounded, at Mammon's prone body. I feel almost as if I've just witnessed a murder.

"Uh... are you okay—"

"Mammon, you BASTARD!"

I leap backwards as something bursts out of the doorway with such force that several of the candles on the neighbouring wall are blown out. Before I can even fully process what's going on, the something has pounced on Mammon like a cat on a helpless mouse.

"O-oi!" He tries to get up, but is immediately knocked back again. "What's this about?!"

"You took my money again, didn't you?!" accuses the guy straddling him, jabbing a finger into his face so forcefully that he very nearly takes out an eye. "You haven't even paid me back for last time!"

"What're ya talkin' about?!" Mammon yells back, attempting to push him off. "I didn't take nothin'!"

The new demon has unkempt purple-blue hair brushed into a long sideswept fringe, and sharp yellow eyes that remind me uncannily of a snake's. His lips are pulled back in a snarl, and I swear that I can see his canine teeth elongating even as I look at them. 

"Don't lie to me!" He hisses. "Give me back my money!"

"Hey, hey, maybe we should calm down a bit..." I attempt to assuage the situation, but my voice comes out so small that even I can barely hear myself. Stopping quarrels is not my strong suit (not that I had any to begin with), so how am I supposed to break this up? 

Should I throw something at him? No, no, from what they were saying, they seem to know each other... is this another one of the brothers? Either way, I can't just attack him...

"C'mon, I said I'd get it to ya!" 

In one sudden, unnatural movement, Mammon contorts his entire body like a pretzel and lifts his body from the ground in a smooth arc, sending his attacker flying backwards. The purple man scrambles to his feet as Mammon pulls himself up, glaring at him so furiously that his yellow eyes seem to glow.

"You've been saying that for two hundred years!" he accuses, pointing harshly. "Why should I believe you now?"

"Psh, no!" Mammon scoffs, brushing off his coat and trousers. "It's two hundred and sixty years, get it right!"

"Two hundred and—?" I find myself exclaiming out loud - quite unintentionally. "You're that old??"

"Two hundred years ain't nothing' for a demon!" Mammon says turning around, shooting a slightly offended look down at me. "And who are you callin' old?"

"Uh — sorry..." I take a small step back and lift my hands into the air. Purple Man whips around and looks back and forth for a moment, his head swivelling around like a robot sentinel, then finally looks down at me.

Quick as lightning, the thunderous expression on his face disappears. In fact, his entire demeanour seems to do a complete 360: he lets out an extremely unintimidating screech and shoots about fifteen entire feet off the ground. 

Now, those are some long legs, but I'm still pretty sure that's not supposed to be possible. Actually, considering that I just watched Mammon break his back, I don't think any of these guys do anything normally.

"W-what the—?!" The man jabs his finger at me, trembling slightly. "Where did you come from?!"

At first I'd been planning to reply with something snarky, because this is the second time a demon has somehow managed to completely overlook my presence today. Purple Man, however, somehow manages to change my course of thought with a simple question. All I can think now is where did you go, where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Joe?

"H-hey, I'm asking you a question!" Purple Man half-shouts when I don't respond, but I notice that he appears to be trying to subtly shuffle away from me. Am I really that intimidating? He does know he could beat me up really easily if he wanted, right?

"Why are you looking at me like that?" I ask in reply, cocking my head to the side and giving him a puzzled look.

"Y-y-y-you just appeared out of nowhere!" He almost leaps backwards through the wall when I take a step closer to him. "W-what even are you?!"

"Oi, c'mon," Mammon interjects, having recovered quickly from his assault and spinal contortion. Straightening out the lapels of his dishevelled-looking blazer, he strides over to me and nudges me with his elbow. "You're just overreactin' now."

"Overreacting?" Purple Man squeaks, eyes going so wide that it's as if his eyeballs are going to pop out at any moment.

"It's that human exchange student Lucifer was tellin' us to mind," Mammon shakes his head. "Have ya really been holed up in your room so long that every little thing scares ya? She's the size of a plant pot, she ain't gonna do crap."

Turning to me, he points his thumb back at Purple Man and tells me, "Anyway, this is Levi— uh, Leviathan. Avatar of Envy, blah, blah..."

"Pleasure to meet you, Mr Leviathan." I quickly chime, tucking my hands together neatly in front of me and giving him a sharp bow. Another pause follows, and Mammon lets out an amused chuckle.

"Well, there ya go," He comments cheerfully. "See? Totally harmless. Loosen up."

Leviathan coughs as I raise my head again, raising a hand to his mouth and averting his gaze to the side. Try as he might though, I can still see the pleased little grin tugging on the corners of his mouth.

"Th-thanks," He says after a moment, moving his hand from his mouth to rub awkwardly at the back of his neck. "Uh, nice to meet you too... I guess."

I offer him a hesitant smile. After a moment, Mammon claps his hands together and coughs.

"Well! I still gotta show the kid her room, sooooo..." He says, subtly grabbing my collar and beginning to pull me backwards. "See ya 'round!"

Before Leviathan can make any reproach - or even process what Mammon's just said - Mammon yanks me around the corner and starts walking again.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow," I complain, fruitlessly attempting to wrench myself out of his grasp. Still, Mammon holds fast, continuing to haul me down the hall, before finally coming to a rough stop in front of a painted black door.

"Close one," He whistles, finally releasing me. I stumble and totter about slightly as my feet hit the ground again, then steady myself on the wall. "Levi's a wuss most of the time, but he can be real scary when he wants to be, y'know?"

"What was all that about?" I ask, catching my breath. "He seemed really mad at you."

Mammon at least has the grace to look a little discomfited by the question. "Well now— see, uh, I borrowed somethin' of his a while back... and Levi's always been stingy with his stuff..."

"Sounded more like he was mad about something financial," I observe. Mammon flounders for a moment, then sighs and shakes his head, knocking me in the forehead with a reproachful knuckle.

"Don't ya get smart with me now, kid," He scowls as I flinch back and raise a hand to rub at the sore spot. "I'll have ya know that Levi agreed to it himself. I didn't steal nothin'."

"Got it, sir," I agree quickly, defeated. I wish he'd stop doing that.

He stares down at me for a moment, as if jarred by my easy agreement, then grins again. "That's the way, kid. Ya learn to listen nice and good now, and we'll get along just fine."

"Thanks," I mutter. Then, after a moment, I ask, "...so is this my room, then?"

"Sure is, kid." Mammon raises a hand and raps his fist smartly against what I thought was wood, but judging by the clangs sounding each time his hand meets the door, is actually some kind of metal. "You've got a pretty great deal with it. It's soundproofed, got its own bathroom, everythin'... right next to the kitchen, too."

I can't help but perk up at those last words. "Oh. So can I... use it?"

"Huh?" Mammon seems a little preoccupied fumbling about on the mantlepiece beside the door to my new room. "Oh, yeah. We take turns makin' food, but to be honest, you're welcome to do whatever ya like in it. So long as ya don't make a mess, anyway."

He pauses and glances at me. "I'd tell ya to mind how much you eat, but you don't really look big enough to fit much in ya..."

I don't say anything in reply, too busy tucking a certain notion into the back of my head. The likelihood of this kitchen in a place called the Devildom having human world food isn't particularly large, but the idea of trying to fit hell ingredients into one of my favourite recipes is a compelling one. Well, at any rate, hopefully Mr Beelzebub wouldn't mind being a taste tester.

I look up as something jingles and then clicks. Mammon's found a little key sitting on the mantelpiece and stuck it into a keyhole that I hadn't spotted on the door handle earlier.

"Here," He says, tossing the key to me once he's turned it in the lock and the door begins to creak open. "That's yours. The House can get pretty wild sometimes, so Lucifer wanted ya to have your privacy and all that."

I catch the key with relative ease, then bring it to my eyes to inspect it. It's much smaller and less ornate-looking than half of the keys I managed to see on Mammon's keyring, but still far more intricate than the ones back home, with little flames carved around the handle and what look like dozens of runes patterning the metal.

"Whatcha lookin' so hard for?" asks Mammon as I move the key even closer to my face, squinting to get a good look. "What's so interestin' about a key?"

"Do these symbols mean anything?" I ask in lieu of an answer, holding the key forward slightly so Mammon can see what I'm talking about. He leans over, looks over it for a moment, then shrugs and leans back.

"Just ya standard safety enchantments," He says nonchalantly, turning to swing the door to the room open. "The key'll start burnin' white-hot if someone takes it without permission, and it'll reappear in ya pocket if ya lose it somewhere for longer than an hour or so."

"Whoa," I say in quiet awe, looking down at the key again.

Spinning the key around my finger once, I slip it carefully into the only zip-equipped blazer pocket I have, and look up as Mammon gestures for me to follow me into the room. I'm barely five steps inside when I stop in my tracks.

The room doesn't look particularly glamorous at a first glance, but one look around tells me that the interior decorating in here would probably cost more than my entire life had it been up in the human world. There's neatly pruned foliage climbing over a feature wall, curling across the ceiling in neat spirals, and decorated sporadically with tiny flower buds of a deep purple colour. Even all the furniture looks like it's been carved from tree trunks or braided from branches.

...though that might not be entirely a good idea. There's more candles in here, after all. Now that's a fire hazard.

The bed itself looks as if it's the size of my entire bedroom back home. It's almost a meter off the ground, and even if most of that height is the ridiculously thick mattress, it's still going to require quite a bit of work to get up on. What happens when I inevitably roll over too far in the middle of the night and fall out? It'd be pretty funny, but I really don't want to have died in a place that's full of demons and possibly cool deadly monsters by falling off a bed.

Mammon interrupts my train of thought by clearing his throat and rapping his fist on the desk sitting against the back wall of the room. "So! Comfy enough for ya?"

"Huh?" I'm a little preoccupied with staring at the giant bookshelf beside the desk. Is it shaped like a coffin? It's shaped like a coffin. "Oh— yeah! Yeah, it's great."

He inspects me critically for a moment, as if trying to check whether I'm lying. I only offer him a sheepish smile in response, bouncing slightly on the balls of my feet as an awkward silence fills the room.

"Alright then," He says finally. "That's good."

He pauses, looking around the room, then turns back to me and says roughly, "Well, I'm guessing ya won't need my help finding your way around here, right?"

"I mean, it's just a room," I reply with a shrug. "So, no, probably not."

"Good, good..." He eyes the door, evidently not wanting to stay for any longer than he has to. "Well, I'll get going, then!"

He pauses for a moment, then raises his hand and gives me a final pat on the head. "You keep outta trouble, got it? I'll be the one blamed first if ya get killed, so don't."

And then, without another word, he sweeps out, leaving me standing in the middle of my new room.

I stand on the spot for a long, long time after the door slams shut. As the silence grows in volume, everything seems to slow down. It's not like the bizarreness of all this has missed me at all, but more and more problems are beginning to surface the harder I think.

One year. I'm just going to be here for a year. That's... fine. That's fine.

The only things of my own that I have with me are the clothes I'm wearing - and the things in my blazer pockets. I quickly drop it on my bed and start rifling through it, pulling out bits of screwed-up paper, a single, tiny locker key, a set of earbuds - nothing particularly of note. 

I don't even have my bag with me, which is where I keep most of my actually useful things - including my phone, my pencil case, my notebooks, my calculator, one of those camping tools that has a screwdriver, knife, nail file, bottle opener, pliers, and torch all in one...

I glance over at the enormous wardrobe sitting in the corner of the bedroom. It's a particularly opulent affair, with panels that have been carved into intricate swirling patterns and what look like little green gems embedded along the edges. Even the joints and handles have been polished to a shine - it's so pretty that I feel kind of bad that I'm only going to end up putting about ten variations on the exact same outfit in it.

Oh, hang on, I realise as I trot across the room to hang up my now-emptied blazer up. R.A.D. clearly has a uniform, I'll probably have to wear one as well... how do I get one of those?

The wardrobe is completely empty, save for a couple of clothing hangers that look as if they've been stolen directly out of Marks & Spencer's - even the colour coded little size stickers have been left on them. I suppose whoever put the whole thing together was a little strapped for time. In any case, it does give me an oddly comforting sense of home.

I deposit my blazer with little difficulty (though I have to go right up onto the tips of my toes and physically step up into the wardrobe to reach the rack to hang it) and return to the enormous bed on the other side of the room. I pause for a moment, mentally debating what the most tactical way to hop up onto it would be, then decide ah, who cares, and decide to just throw myself at the bed and hope for the best.

Despite my best efforts, though, I just end up bouncing off the edge of the mattress and landing in the floor in a heap with a pathetic thump.

I stay there for a long moment. A tired sigh makes its way slowly out of my mouth.

This is going to be a long year.

Chapter Text

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

"Oi! I'd be sleepin' right now if it weren't for you, so ya better not keep me waiting!"

I open my eyes blearily to find the wall directly in front of me and something cold beneath me. I shift my legs slightly, then realise, with a sudden flash of exasperation, that I appear to have spent the night sleeping on the floor. How did that end up happening? Did I just... conk out? I can't believe this...

"If ya aren't gonna come out, I'll just come in!"

I roll over onto my back and stare up at the ceiling, stretching briefly before pulling my knees back up to my chest. Rigid and chilly as the floor is, it's actually kind of comfortable. Still, though... how did I end up on it?

Ah - now that I think about it, I remember. After spending who-knows-how-long contemplating the coming year on the floor, I'd been tentatively asked if I wanted some food by Beelzebub, who informed me that I'd apparently been forgotten by the rest of the house at actual dinner-time, and that he'd just remembered my existence on his way to the kitchen for an evening snack.

Well, I'm para-phrasing a little, but that's basically what he'd said. While I appreciated the sentiment, I was a little too busy still thinking myself into a sixty feet deep hole, so I'd just responded with a 'no thank you' and gone back to staring at the ceiling as his footsteps disappeared around the corner. After that... well, I can only assume that I ended up falling asleep.

Another set of furious knocks sound from the door. Before I even have time to formulate a response, a distinctive voice hollers, "Alright, that's it!"

I raise my head from the ground just in time to see the heavy door swing open and a pair of black shoes appear in my field of vision. Mammon stands in silence on the spot for a moment, then abruptly jumps backwards.

"What the hell are you doin' on the floor?!" He barks, looking a lot more alarmed than he really should be. He shakes his head aggressively, then sets his hands on his hips, peering down at me with a sneer. "Did ya fall out the bed or somethin'?"

I slowly sit up and squint up at him, rubbing at my crusty-feeling eyes with one hand and attempting to pat down my hair with the other. "No... I think I fell asleep down here."

"Stupid," He says simply in response, bending over and hoisting me up by the arms - the same way you'd pick up a misbehaving cat - then setting me back on my feet. "There's a perfectly good bed, like, right there."

I dust off my shirt and start stretching out my arms. "I know that. It just kinda... happened."

Mammon scoffs, flicking me hard in the side of the head for my apparent foolishness. "Idiot. Go wash your face or somethin'. Breakfast's in a few."

I nod and turn around, then pause. "Where?"

He shoots me a look, then points at something with his thumb. "Right there. You've got ya own bathroom, see?"

I follow the line of his gesture to see a door that I hadn't noticed yesterday. "Oh."

The bathroom is easy enough to navigate despite the size of everything inside, so I wash up quickly, taking a moment to lament just how much like a disturbed panda I look when I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror. Well, the top of my face, anyway. The mirror's too high off the ground for me to really get a good look at myself in it.

Mammon is tapping his foot impatiently when I emerge. He's taken the liberty of sitting himself down on my bed, and I have to take a moment just to complain to myself about how easy he makes it look to get up on that thing. To be fair, though, he has much longer legs, but still...

"Took ya long enough," he comments, getting to his feet again as I hurriedly pull my blazer out of the wardrobe and tug it on. "C'mon, breakfast."

The kitchen is barely a minute away from my room, but I amuse myself on the way there nevertheless - by craning my neck back about 45 degrees to get a good look at all the paintings across the walls. One in particular looks remarkably like a wonky hole-punch.

"It's usually Levi's turn to make breakfast today," Mammon says to me as we pause in front of a wooden door with about seven locks on it, all of which have been undone, and six of which appear to be broken anyway. "But he's always sleepin' in and forgettin', so we've just gotten used to fixin' something to eat for ourselves."

"What sort of things do you eat down here?" I ask as he swings the door open. "I'm guessing you don't have cereal."

"The hell is that?" is Mammon's reply.

In any other case, I would have been pretty disturbed by someone not knowing what cereal is, but Lucifer's already proved that demons don't even know what photosynthesis is, so I'm not nearly as surprised as I should be.

"It's, uh... you know, I don't actually know how to describe it. It's breakfast... oh, good morning!"

That last exclamation is directed at Satan, who I hadn't noticed sitting by the table in the middle of the kitchen. He raises his eyebrows and waves in a good-natured sort of way, setting down the book in his hands.

"Good morning to you as well," He says with a polite smile, then pauses. "Ah, now that you're up, I have something for you..."

"Huh?" I frown slightly in confusion and approach the table as Satan rummages through his pocket for a moment, then finally pulls something out.

"Your D.D.D.," He says by way of explanation, sliding it across the table like a bartender would a shot of vodka. "You left it in the assembly hall yesterday."

"I did? Oh, right..." I fumble for a moment as the D.D.D. almost slips off the table under my touch, then hurriedly scoop it up and shove it into one of my blazer's many pockets. "Thanks, Mr Satan."

"You're welcome," He smiles again, then indicates to the many cupboards around the kitchen with a single hand. "Well, help yourself to breakfast. You don't want to run through your first day at the R.A.D. on an empty stomach."

"Oh, uh— I don't usually eat breakfast," I admit, pulling awkwardly on a stray thread on my blazer sleeve. "Normally I just have some tea... or coffee on school days. It's supposed to help you stay awake."

"Well, what sorta things d'you like eatin'?" Mammon asks. I turn to see him eating from what appears to be a bag of shrivelled mushrooms. He seems to notice my confusion quickly. "What're ya looking at me like that for? You never seen deathcaps before?"

"Uh, no..." I trail off and blanche slightly as Mammon grabs an entire handful of mushrooms and drops them all into his mouth. They crunch between his teeth in a way that reminds me of breaking bones. "Deathcaps sound kinda... inedible."

"Psh," He scoffs in reply, wiping his mouth roughly with his sleeve and dropping the now three quarters empty bag back on the counter. "What, you gonna die if ya eat one? Humans're so sensitive..."

"Actually, probably, yeah," I say after a moment of thought. "I've never tried it, personally, but I read somewhere that just touching some kinds of mushroom is dangerous."

"Really?" asks Satan, mildly intrigued. "Do you know what they were called? There might be some more information about them in the library..."

"No, but I'm pretty sure the touching is only actually deadly if you, I don't know, touch your mouth afterwards," I explain with a shrug, moving my arms behind my back and beginning to tap the fingers of my right hand restlessly against my left palm. "I don't think it goes through your skin... and mushrooms are poisonous, not venomous."

"What, there's a difference?" Mammon asks. "Between poisonous and venomous, I mean."

Satan turns and sends him a withering look. "Of course there's a difference, idiot. Venomous means it kills you if it gets into your blood - poisonous means it kills you if you ingest it."

"Basically, if you bite it and you die, it's poison," I chime in when Mammon just pulls an even more confused face in reply to Satan's explanation. "If it bites you and you die, it's venomous."

"Oh," he says, clarity forming across his face. Then his expression drops again, and he asks, "So what is it if it bites ya and it dies?"

"Then you're the poisonous one, obviously," Satan replies, his own face pulling into one of unimpressed derision. "That's basic logic, Mammon. Use your head for once."

"If you bite it and it dies, then you're venomous," I quickly jump in with some more facts before Mammon can climb over the table and start attempting to fist fight Satan, which he's beginning to look close to doing. "And if it tells you that you've changed and that it thinks the two of you should take a break from each other, then you're toxic."

"The hell are you goin' on about now?" Mammon scoffs. At least he doesn't look like he's about to commit aggravated assault anymore.

After a moment, he spins around and swings open the massive fridge sitting beside one of the counters - the one that looks like it could store about five human bodies at once, not the slightly smaller one beside it.

Two fridges in one kitchen... these guys really are living a life of luxury. "Well, whatever. You sure you don't want anything right now?"

I think for a moment, then answer, "Uh, something to drink, I guess?"

"Sure," He says, beginning to rummage about. After a series of clinking, scrambling, and what sounds suspiciously like something smashing, he finally emerges with what looks like a bottle of juice.

I fumble to catch it as he chucks it nonchalantly over his shoulder, then inspect it. "...what is it?"

"What does it look like?" He responds, pulling a tinted container out of the fridge and then bumping the door closed with his hip. "It's a drink."

The bottle is unlabelled and made of black glass, with a pretty little golden cap screwed on top. I pause for a moment, then think, hey, what's the worst that can happen? and carefully twist it off.

There aren't any immediate explosions or poisonous gases released into the room, but, keeping in mind what Mammon's just eaten, I still don't trust the drink not to have some kind of hidden deadly element to it. I raise the brim of the bottle to my nose and give it a hesitant sniff.

There isn't a scent that causes any immediate alarm, but at the same time, most drinks smell of something or another. And somehow I doubt that this is a simple bottle of water.

"Hey, Mr Mammon," I say, pulling the bottle away from my face and swirling its contents around a little. "What exactly is this?"

" Cyanide Crush," Mammon grunts back, struggling to pry the lid off of the container he's retrieved from the fridge. "It's one of Levi's, actually, but he probably won't mind if ya just have one."

I immediately recap the bottle, set it down on the table, and push it away from me. Mammon looks up from his box at the clink of the glass against the wood, then scowls at me. "What's your problem? Too good for it, are ya?"

I look at him, then back down at the drink sitting innocently on the table, unsure of how to explain that he's essentially just handed me death in a bottle. Luckily, I'm spared from coming up with a tactful way to say that Mammon's just given me a sure-fire way to off myself when Satan steps in.

"Cyanide is poisonous to humans, Mammon," He says slowly, enunciating each syllable with great emphasis, as if he thinks Mammon won't understand him otherwise. "She's going to die if she drinks that."

"...oh."

"Yeah, oh," Satan shoots back, shaking his head as he reaches across the table to grab the bottle. He pauses and looks at it for a moment, a tiny smirk spreading on his face. Then he reels back his hand and flings it directly at Mammon.

I yelp and duck behind the table as Mammon immediately whacks the bottle with his hand with all the strength of an all-star baseball player, sending it flying across the room. It hits the wall at such velocity that it immediately shatters into roughly a million little pieces, sending its contents spilling across the floor.

The three of us stare at it in silence.

"...I'm not cleaning that up." Satan says finally. Then he gets up and legs it out of the door.

"Oi!" Mammon barks after him, hands flying to his hips as he storms to the doorway and sticks his head out into the corridor, presumably to yell at Satan's rapidly retreating back. "Get back here! You're the one who threw the damn thing!"

I subtly skitter backwards as the cyanide juice starts getting dangerously close to the tips of my only good pair of shoes. Mammon yells one final, indiscernible insult, then pulls his head back into the kitchen, turning to see me rooted to the spot in the corner like a terrified rabbit as the cyanide puddle grows ever closer.

"The hell are you doing?" he asks. "It's not gonna kill ya if ya step in it."

"I don't want to ruin my shoes," I reply, shuffling as far back into the corner as I can physically get myself. The cyanide juice puddle is beginning to bubble threateningly. "Dad spent a whole month's savings on them. And, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to let cyanide touch your skin."

"Oh, for the love of..."

He sighs, then strides over, ignoring the puddle completely, grabs me by the arms and easily hoists me up, then turns and sets me down on the table. I blink and lean over to look down at the still-growing puddle, feeling tall for the very first time since I've appeared down here.

"Stay there, ya little troublemaker," Mammon tells me, then turns and yanks a large tea towel off of a clothes line that's been rigged across the room. I swing my legs back and forth restlessly as he carelessly dumps the towel on the puddle, then starts pushing it back and forth with the tip of his foot.

"Do people just drink poison on the regular down here?" I ask after a moment as Mammon picks up the now sopping wet tea towel and dumps it in the sink.

"Depends what ya definition of poison is," is his nonchalant reply as he quickly rinses off his hands, then dries them on the hem of his blazer. "But if you're just talkin' about the juice, then yeah. It's a pretty big favourite, actually. Hey - ya need help gettin' down from there?"

I pause and look down over the edge of the table again. My feet are nowhere near the ground, but it doesn't look like I'm high up enough that I'd immediately shatter anything if I jumped down. "Uh... I don't think so."

"Don't think —" Mammon begins, but before he can finish, I push myself off the edge of the table. "Hey!"

I forget to bend my knees properly, so an unnervingly sharp jolt immediately runs up my legs and through my entire body as I land. Fortunately, though, I don't seem to have broken any bones, so I quickly shake out my limbs and send Mammon a thumbs up.

He shakes his head and lets out another worldly-weary sigh. "You're gonna be the death of me."

"Sorry," I say, not particularly sorry. After a moment, I glance over at the clock on the wall and ask, "Hey, when's registration?"

"Registration?" Mammon follows my gaze to the clock. It takes him a while to put two and two together, but he does get it eventually. "What, ya mean class? Not for a good hour n' a half. Lucifer just wanted ya up early to get all your stuff sorted. You still have time for some breakfast if you're hungry."

You know, it's pretty weird that this entire other realm uses the exact same time system as the human world, I think to myself as I nod in response to Mammon's clarification. "I'm alright. Can we start heading there now, then?"

He shrugs. "I don't have anythin' to do right now - too damn early. If ya wanna go now, then we'll go."

He starts walking out before he's even finished talking. I quickly shake out the rapidly developing cramp in my ankles and scurry after him. I notice after a moment that the laces on one of my shoes have come loose, but I can't afford to stop and tie it up - to be honest, these pound store laces that I bought two years ago because they looked cool come undone every five minutes, so I've just gotten used to running and walking with them trailing behind like little tails.

"Do I need a bag?" I ask. "For books and stuff."

Mammon glances down at me. He's walking with his hands linked casually behind his head in a way that I've only ever seen in animation, but it doesn't look nearly as unnatural as I'd have thought it would on someone in real life. "I mean, if ya want one, sure. You could just ask for a locker or somethin', though."

I consider it for a moment. "... the R.A.D.'s massive, though. Do you just go back and forth to your locker?"

"Well, not everyone just sticks with the lockers," He replies. "I don't bother. I'd just forget it, y'know?"

I make a non-commital sound as we cross the threshold of the front door and start walking down the path to the gate. "...oh, where do I get... you know, stuff to write with?"

Mammon shrugs. "If ya go ask Satan, he'll probably let ya tag along with him into town. He's always lookin' at that sorta things - collects pens like rocks. Might even let ya borrow a few if ya ask real nice.

I go quiet again as we walk, thinking very hard over the many school-related questions beginning to spin through my head. There's a certain art to managing all the equipment you need, but the school culture here is already shaping up to be completely different to what I'm used to.

Well, it doesn't seem like the dress code is too strict - Mammon's tie would've gotten him a behaviour point back home. Lucifer had, like, a turtleneck under his jacket... and Satan had a bow tie. So it seems like you can modify it a bit? Alright, that seems simple enough...

Okay, what about the hallway rules, then? Do we have to all stick to one side of the corridor? Oh, I guess I could just wait until we actually get into school and see what everyone else there does.

What're the rules about missed deadlines and detentions? What does detention even entail down here? Do they, like... put you on the rack? No, that's ridiculous...

I stay in this vein of thought for a while, eyes fixed on the ground in front of me. Mammon glances down at me at regular intervals, as if checking to make sure I haven't somehow fallen into a pit or gotten lost already. I only snap out of it once I hear my D.D.D. ding.

I quickly pull it out and and turn it on. Mammon leans over to have a look, then asks, "What's Lucifer textin' you for?"

"Beats me," I reply, pressing my thumb to the home button and unlocking the device. Karasu greets me again.

I pause, then ignore the little red one staring up at me from the Messages app icon in favour of the Setitings. Mammon loses interest in watching me mess with my profile data quickly, which is just as well, since I'd feel kind of awkward putting in my newly chosen username in front of him.

Satisfied with my new virtual identity, I close Settings and finally move to the Messages app. Lucifer's name is handily highlighted in pink above his incoming message to let me know that its unread, and a quick glance down reveals that I've also been messaged by Beelzebub and Diavolo, with both texts timestamped to around five hours ago.

I make a mental note to reply to them - once I've seen what Lucifer's messaging me about. From what I can tell from my limited interaction with him, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who messages people just to have a chat...

Lucifer:
Good morning. Have you arrived at the R.A.D. yet?

bread man:
not yet

should be there soon though

Lucifer:
Good.

I see that you've taken the liberty of changing your account name.

Is there any reason behind it?

bread man:
because i like piano man by billy joel and i also like bread

Lucifer:
...I see.

Onto the topic at hand. It's come to my attention that we haven't gotten around to giving you an uniform. We did originally have several prepared, but it's become clear that they wouldn't fit you.

bread man:
sorry about that

Lucifer:
You don't need to apologise. It couldn't have been helped.

bread man:
right sorry

Lucifer:
I just told you that you didn't need to apologise.

bread man:
sorry

wait no i mean

[...]

you know what i'll just stop talking

Lucifer:
That would be wise.

Well, in any case, we still need to get you fitted for a uniform. I've already asked Asmo to help you with that. He should be waiting somewhere in the entrance hall for you by the time you arrive.

bread man:
got it

Lucifer:
And since we're still here, I might as well ask...

Have there been any problems with settling in so far? Or has Mammon given you any trouble?

bread man:
no problems right now

it's just that everything's so BIG

and mr mammon hasn't given me any trouble, he's been lovely

Lucifer:
You can just call him Mammon.

And I do not think that 'lovely' would be the word to describe him.

bread man:
i mean he hasn't threatened me with battery or assault yet. that's a ten out of ten in my books

Lucifer:
Hmm.

As long as you don't have anything against him, I suppose I can't say much about it.

Good luck with your first day. I'll see you at the R.A.D.

Conversation notwithstanding, I put the D.D.D. away. The R.A.D. looks closer now, and I'm still trailing behind Mammon - which is impressive in and of itself. At this point, I probably should've gotten lost or left behind already.

"Mr Lucifer isn't a chatty guy, is he?" I comment. Mammon starts slightly, as if he'd forgotten that I was following him.

"Nah," He answers at last, voice a little hesitant, as if afraid that Lucifer will appear behind him like some sort of punishing spectre if he says a word about him. "Can't hold a conversation to save his life."

I wrinkle my nose slightly, remembering how authoritative he'd been back in the assembly hall. "I was thinking more like... you know, big boss doesn't have enough time for small talk."

"Well, ya only met him yesterday," Mammon says dismissively. "I dunno about that, anyway. He's just bad at sayin' interesting things."

"Like?"

He snorts. "Just listen to his conversations with Diavolo. He's never got anythin' to say - Diavolo does all the talking."

"Checks out," I mumble. I might not even have known him for twenty four hours yet, but I'm already fully aware that Diavolo isn't exactly shy.

The entranceway into the R.A.D.'s main building is already bustling by the time Mammon and I reach it. I shrink back a little, and wondering how much trouble I'd be in for running away - only for Mammon to simply stride ahead and into the throng.

I hurry to catch up with him, but it's too late - by the time I've managed to navigate my way around them, dodging several elbows, Mammon's disappeared.

I spin around on the spot in a panic, attempting to pick out his white hair from the crowd, but it's fruitless - the sea of students beginning to swell and file through the main door is so large that I wouldn't be able to pick him out, even if I did somehow spot him for a moment.

Oh, this is bad. This is bad. I determinedly raise a fist and knock my knuckles into the side of my head as I feel a familiar tightening in my chest. Stay calm, stay calm...

My D.D.D. buzzes in my pocket, and I dig it out with slightly trembling fingers. A brief flicker of relief sparks in my chest when I see the contact name, but it disappears as soon as I read the message.

mammoney:
Yo, just remembered I got something to care of. You can manage on your own right

Just text Lucifer if you need something

But don't tell him I left you or anything got it?

bread man:
mr mammon if you didn't want to have to babysit me you could have just said so

mammoney:
I never said that!

bread man:
yes but i'm right aren't i

mammoney:
[...]

I don't have to answer to you!

Lucifer just told me to make sure you got into school so I've done my job. That's it, capiche?

bread man:
dubious piche

mammoney:
Watch it. Just because you're an exchange student doesn't mean you're a big shot. I could totally crush you like a bug if I wanted!!

So don't go around thinking you're the boss of me!

bread man:
whoa

i mean you're right but bit harsh

mammoney:
[...]

Look just keep your nose clean and stay outta trouble, got it? Not my fault if you do something stupid.

You're on your own now, kid.

I look at his final message for a long moment before pressing my thumb firmly down on the power button. I'm well aware that Mammon made it clear yesterday that he doesn't want anything to do with me and that, had he had his way, he probably would have left me to my devices for the rest of the year.

I really thought we'd bonded over the whole cyanide thing this morning, though. Guess I should stop getting attached to anyone who's nice to me.

Still, I don't really blame him. And it's not like he has an obligation to take care of me or anything. 

I huff out a breath through my nose and place my D.D.D. back in my pocket. That reminds me of something - I'm supposed to meet Asmodeus to get a proper uniform.

Now that I think about it, I'm actually a little excited about it. The R.A.D.'s uniform is downright snazzy, so hopefully I'll stop getting so many looks for my out-of-place outfit once I get one...

"Yo, tiny," I jump as a voice abruptly breaks me out of my train of thought. "You might wanna get moving. Traffic's going to get pretty bad soon."

My first thought is that this new voice sounds eerily similar to my History teacher's. My second thought, as I turn around and reflexively look up, is that the demon behind the voice looks exactly the way I'd imagine a bottle of champagne would if it was a person.

"Oh, sorry!"  I hurriedly jump to apologise when he raises an eyebrow at me, only now realising that I've been standing bang in the middle of the entranceway for about five minutes.

It's a wonder no annoyed demons have attempted to eat me already - if I'd pulled something like this back up at my school in the real world, I'd have been bullied to hell and back.

"Hey, don't give yourself an injury, now," He says in good-natured kind of fashion as I almost trip over my still-trailing laces in an effort to skedaddle as quickly as possible. "Can't run from a demon on a sprained ankle."

I narrow my eyes and turn to him. "Is that a threat?"

He opens his mouth to respond, hands already raised in the air as if in apology, but before he can, my expression shifts. My tone serious and flat, I state, "Please do it. I'm having such a bad day."

He stares at me for a moment, then lets out a single 'ha!' of laughter. Shaking his head, he folds his arms and shoots an amused look down at me. "I can't just eat you right here. The amount of trouble I'd get into is unimaginable."

"Oh," I say, disappointed. "Too bad."

"Too bad indeed," He echoes, flashing me a grin that reveals a single, pointed canine. "But I can't exactly kill the human transfer right at the beginning of the year, can I? Lucifer would smite me on the spot."

I tilt my head to the side slightly and ask, "What about after a month or something, then?"

He laughs again. "I'll consider it."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." He raises his head and looks at something some distance away, then back down at me. "By the way, I think that's Asmodeus waiting for you over there."

"He is?" I crane my neck, but am predictably unable to see over the sea of heads around me. 

"Just outside the doors," He clarifies, adjusting his position to set one hand on his hip. "You might wanna speed it up a bit. Asmodeus isn't the most patient of guys."

"Got it," I nod quickly, going up on my tiptoes briefly as if that'll help me see wherever Asmodeus is, then deciding that that's a stupid idea and dropping back down. "Um, thank you!"

I start taking off into the crowd before the demon has time to respond, which I know is a little rude, but I really don't want to stay in the middle of this crowd any longer than I have to. Besides, now that I have the reassurance that someone I can recognise is close by, I'm willing to scurry my way through the crowd like a mouse through a maze so that I won't have to just stand around on my own.

Luckily for me, the demon hadn't been lying; Asmodeus, sure enough, is leaning against the wall beside the entrance doorway, fiddling about with his D.D.D. with one hand and restlessly finger-combing his hair with the other. I note with approval that his D.D.D. has a little cat charm dangling from it.

Somehow he notices my approach before I even have time to call out to him - which is just as well, since I'd been having trouble hyping myself up to do it - and immediately offers me a wide smile as he and slips his D.D.D. into what looks like a specially-fitted pocket in his pink messenger bag.

"Morning!" is his cheerful greeting as I skid to a stop, almost tripping over my laces again. I really should tie those up properly.

"G'morning," I reply with much less energy, offering him a short wave.

"Hey, no need to sound so down," He pouts, pushing off the wall and setting his hands on his hips. A moment later, he looks down at me and cocks his head to the side. "Did you have a rough night? You're all kinds of ruffled."

Well, I guess you could call accidentally falling asleep on the floor a rough night... but I actually feel more refreshed than I usually do after sleeping. "Not really. Just had a bit of a panic."

"Oh?" He indicates for me to follow him as he begins walking into the building. "Why?"

I kick at the ground a little grumpily, frowning as I remember. "Mr Mammon left me in the crowd."

Asmodeus clicks his tongue in sympathy and shakes his head. "Typical Mammon. Don't mind him. He's never been able to think of anyone but himself."

"I won't," I say, then pause and add, "Mind him, I mean."

"Attagirl," He coos, turning to offer me a smile. "Don't take any nonsense and you'll get along down here just fine."

"Thanks, Mr Asmodeus."

He clicks his tongue in disapproval and reaches down to give me a reproachful poke in the shoulder. "Don't call me that! Asmo's fine. 'Mr Asmodeus' makes me feel old."

I choose not to point out that he probably is extremely old by human standards and mumble an affirmative instead. I mean, am I going to listen to him? Something about addressing figures of authority by a nickname just doesn't sit right with me... well, either way, I'm not going to start calling him Asmo. Maybe Mr Asmo. Yeah, that works.

We make a turn down an unfamiliar corridor at one of the junctions, one where the polished grey bricks of the floor and the carved stone of the wall slowly fade into a plush red carpet patterned with what look like black vines and golden wallpaper edged with dark blue. I look around in fascination, slightly jarred by the sudden change in interior decorating style.

I'm not entirely sure whether the clash of the red-and-black and gold-and-blue is awful or revolutionary. The longer I look at it, the more unsure I am about how to feel about it - and the more I notice that its aesthetic feels familiar - and then I realise where the familiarity comes from when I see a portrait of a distinctive golden-eyed face hanging along the wall.

"Hey, Mr Asmo," I begin, trying to sound as casual as possible. "By any chance, did Mr— I mean, Lord Diavolo choose the design for this hallway?"

His eyes widen slightly as he looks back at me. After a moment, he responds, "Yeah, actually. This corridor got kind of wrecked in this big fight a while back, so he got to choose what the renovated version would look like. How did you know?"

I glance back at the portrait on the wall. "...just a hunch."

The two of us walk in silence for several paces before finally reaching what appears to be our destination. Asmodeus pauses to flip the sign hanging from the doorknob around, then pushes the door open and ushers me in.

I obey and quickly scurry into the room, then stop short in my tracks. If the gold-blue-red-black of the corridors I've just passed was a jarring colour palette, this room's entire design is nothing less than... well, it's not less than anything. Quite the contrary - it's too much of everything.

Ten different shades of lanterns dangling from a ceiling both carved into swirling gold patterns and painted with vaguely humanoid shapes, a thick, velvety carpet with what looks like the entire colour spectrum splashed all over it, flickering candles made of wax so brightly coloured that they look almost neon, hung from brackets dangerously close to the bouquets of flowers decorating the walls... the nicest way to describe it would be 'creative'.

"Oh," I say plainly as Asmodeus skips in after me and makes a beeline for several boxes lined up beside one of the enormous oaken tables. "Um... nice room?"

"Aw, thanks - but this wasn't my design," He says brightly, beginning to dig out a bundle of fabric. "We had a bunch of votes - one for the wallpaper, one for the wall decor, one for the carpet colour, one for the carpet pattern, that sort of thing - so this is what we ended up with. I just chose the flowers."

"That explains it," I mumble as I glance up at the ceiling. Is that guy naked? Uh oh, better look away... "I like the flowers as well. They're really pretty."

"You think so?" I turn to see Asmodeus pop up from the boxes with an armful of clothing and a grin on his face. "You're too sweet! It was nothing, really..."

He arefully sets the pile of clothing on the table, then turns and gestures for me to come closer. "...but, anyway, we need to get you a uniform. We can always talk flowers later, hmm?"

"Sounds good," I nod, though I'm pretty sure that his words are more of a polite rhetoric than an actual invitation. "Do I need to get measured or anything? Because, um... I'm not very about that."

"Oh, don't worry!" Asmodeus reaches down to chuck me under the chin - I freeze slightly at the sudden contact. "I know plenty about spell-resizing, so you just need to put them on and look pretty. Then I'll just adjust them for you - is that okay?"

Well, I can do the first part, but probably not the second. I catch the teal shirt he throws my way and hold it up in front of me. While it's certainly smaller than the general size of the shirts that the demons are wearing, I can tell just by looking at it that it's definitely at least four sizes too big.

That's just how I like my clothes, to be honest. I'm happy with this. "That's fine, Mr Asmo."

He nods cheerily, slinging a miniature jacket over his arm and ushering me closer. "Here - do you want a skirt or trousers? The default's trousers, but you're allowed a skirt if that's what you'd like."

"Um..." I assess my options briefly.

Pants have the whole ease-of-movement thing going for them, but depending on the fits, teh skirt would probably hide more... and there's no guarantee that the R.A.D.'s uniform's pants would actually be comfortable. They seem to fit everyone else pretty tightly, after all. Besides, I'm kind of used to wearing a skirt for uniform.

"... skirt, please."

"One skirt coming right up!" Asmodeus sings, sorting through the pile of clothing and pulling out just that. I blanche slightly at the sight of it, and he pauses. "What's wrong?"

"O-oh, it's just, well..." I avoid his gaze, feeling a sudden wave of awkwardness hit me like a dumpster truck. "It's kinda... short."

"Is it?" Asmodeus looks genuinely confused. He shakes the skirt out and holds it up in front of his face, inspecting it with a critical eye.

"Um, yeah," I grimace slightly as Asmodeus bends down and holds the skirt in front of me. My initial hypothesis was entirely correct. It's probably a fashionable length, but it isn't a comfortable one for me. "Not really my style."

For a moment I expect him to dismiss my complaint and tell me to put it on anyway, but then he nods his head so vigorously that his fancy fringe looks as if it's going to go flying right off his head. "Oh, you should've said so sooner! I'll fix it for you right away, don't worry!"

He flicks the skirt's folds out and tells me to hold it up around my waist. I oblige, trying not to feel stupid as Asmodeus measures out the distance between the hem of the R.A.D. skirt and the hem of my own uniform skirt with two fingers, then murmurs something about excess length under his breath, clicking his tongue agitatedly as he seems to think very hard about something.

"You okay, Mr Asmo?" I ask as he lets out a defeated sigh.

"I'm a little rusty with my measuring," He mutters with a thoughtful pout, pulling back and frowning at the skirt in his hands. "So I might end up messing up the length a bit."

"That's fine." I tell him as he closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them, his honey-coloured eyes are glowing a soft rose gold. "Oh, uh...?"

"Spells like this are super fiddly," He says, tilting his head from side to side as the glow spreads from his eyes and runs down his arms to his perfectly-painted nails. "Fabric's hard to manipulate... especially when it's as stiff as this. I keep telling Diavolo we should use softer stuff for these uniforms, but he never listens..."

He hums a jaunty tune under his breath as glimmering tendrils of the light start snaking down the skirt, multiplying in number and weaving together. I blink and rub my eyes as the light intensifies, and by the time I pull my hands away from my face, the skirt has lengthened at least two inches.

Asmodeus fluffs it out with a flourish and holds it out to me with a smile. "Ta-da! How's that, then, darling?"

I allow Asmodeus to press the skirt enthusiastically into my hands, then lift it up to give it a look-over. It seems that Asmodeus has done more than lengthen it - he's added some pleats (for flavour, obviously), as well as subtle sort of braided belt around its waistline. "Looks good."

"Great!" He chirps, pressing the blazer into my hands as well. "Here, here. There's a screen just over there - go ahead and get changed."

I obligingly gather the host of clothing items he's given and scurry over. I wave a hand about behind the stretched-out material experimentally, but it seems that the fabric it's made from is robust; even though there's a lamp directly behind it, no shadow comes through.

"That screen's super thick," Asmodeus's voice comes matter-of-factly from behind me. I stop in my tracks, my hand still hovering awkwardly in mid-air. "So you don't need to worry about your shadow coming through. I'm facing the wall, too - see?"

I hesitate for a moment, then do as he says and turn around. Asmodeus is indeed firmly stood with his back to me; he's so close to the wall that his nose is practically touching it. Even as I watch, he raises a hand and shoots me a peace sign over his shoulder.

"I figured you might be a little uncomfy changing in here," He says, his voice taking on a sympathetic tone as he drops his hands and folds them behind his back, "But I didn't wanna risk taking you to one of the big changing rooms, either... demons can be scary, you know? So I asked Diavolo to lend us the screen."

I blink at the back of his head blankly. A smile pulls at the corners of my mouth. "...thank you, Mr Asmo."

"Oh, it's no problem, darling!" He says with an airy laugh, swinging back and forth on his heels. "Come on, now, go try it on! You don't want to end up late for your first class, do you?"

I nod and hurriedly duck behind the screen. There's already a chair standing behind it, so I dump my armful of clothes on it, then start tugging off my blazer.

Even before I've gotten the whole thing on, I can tell that nearly the entire ensemble is several sizes too big. The jacket in particular keeps drooping to one side and threatening to slip right off. I struggle with the complicated button design for a moment, then give up and just leave the blazer hanging as is.

Asmodeus perks up slightly as I hesitantly creep out from behind the screen and, being careful not to look around, asks, "Are you done?"

"Um..." I glance down at myself. At best, I look like a toddler who's just raided their dad's wardrobe. "Yeah. But, uh, it's kinda... big."

"Oh, I figured it would be," He replies cheerfully, and turns around. He pauses for a moment, and though he's making a valiant effort not to show it, I can tell he's holding back a giggle.

"You can laugh if you like, Mr Asmo," I tell him plainly. Normally I'm not particularly fond of being laughed at (most of the time it reduces me to tears), but Asmodeus doesn't seem to be amused in a malicious way, and I'm fully aware that I look kind of stupid right now.

He does inadvertently let a tiny 'heh!' slip out of pure surprise, but he quickly covers it up with a smile and cough. "Why would I laugh at you, darling? Come here, come here, let's get it all fitted."

I obligingly shuffle up to him, taking care not to drop the whole thing. Asmodeus indicates for me to take off the blazer, so I do so, leaving me standing awkwardly in just the giant shirt and skirt.

"Now let's see here," He mutters thoughtfully, moving around me to have a closer look at the back of the shirt. He pinches at the fabric around my shoulders, then clicks his tongue. "Ooh, dear... we're almost five entire sizes off."

"That's a lot," I comment awkwardly, unsure of what exactly to say. Asmodeus huffs in amusement, his eyes already beginning to take on the same rose gold glow as before.

He gently touches a hand to my right shoulder, pinching at the bottom of the shirt with the other. The shirt tenses, then tightens around my shoulders. "...yep, there we go! How does that feel?"

I hesitantly raise my arms, then flap them a little. "...good."

"You sure?" He asks, absent-mindedly straightening my collar out for me. "I kept it a little bigger 'cause I thought you'd like that, but I can always resize a bit more if you like."

I shake my head, brushing imaginary dust from my front. "No, you were right. This is how I like it."

"That's perfect, then, isn't it?" He beams, then crouches down slightly. "Alrighty, now everything else!

The jacket takes a lot longer than the shirt did, what with how needlessly complicated the design is, but by the time Asmodeus's finished with it, it fits like a glove. Then, at some point or another I mention that I get cold easily, to which he responds by whipping a little black jumper as well. Somehow he manages to put up with me for long enough to get it to just the right size, which takes no small amount of fiddling.

"What're the uniform rules?" I ask as he starts fussing about with the little red cape on my left shoulder, apparently unable to decide how to let it sit. "Do we get into trouble if we, like... don't do the buttons up properly or something?"

I'm pretty sure I already know the answer, but I want to check, just to be certain. Sure enough, though, Asmodeus shakes his head.

"Diavolo's actually pretty lax about that kind of thing," He says, fluffing the cape-thing out and finally leaving it to just hang down my back. I wonder if it'd billow if I run fast enough... "He won't care, but Lucifer might."

"Oh," I mumble as he stands back with a flourish. "Guess I should stay neat, then."

"Mmm, good call." He's inspecting me like an artist would an unfinished painting. Finally, he decides, "...we're missing something."

"Are we?" I glance down at my clothes, then up at the ones he's wearing. As far as I can tell, we're essentially dressed in the same general uniform. After a moment, I realise what he's talking about. "Like... a tie or something?"

A grin flashes across his face, and he snaps his fingers at me. "That's it! Here, I've got a couple in my bag..."

The one he finally settles on is a subdued shade of dark purple. He holds it up to my collar for a moment as if to compare the colours, then nods approvingly and hands it to me.

"You know how to tie that, right?" He asks as I wrap it around my neck. I nod and begin doing just that. "Great! That's everything! How do you feel, darling?"

"Uh... normal."

"And is normal good?"

"Yeah."

"Then we're golden," He concludes, chucking me under the chin again and giggling when I  make a surprised noise in response. "Now, let's go find Lord Diavolo! This way, this way..."

"Do I get a map?" I ask as I follow him out of the room.

"Barbatos or Lucifer'll probably get you one if you ask," He says thoughtfully. I don't bother asking who Barbatos is - I have a feeling I'll be meeting him soon, anyway. "If not, there'll probably be someone who knows how to draw one..."

His expressions scrunches slightly into a frown. "...you know, Mammon was supposed to be the one showing you around. Lucifer's not gonna be happy with him..."

"I don't really mind," I say quickly as we round the corner. The corridor's still empty, thankfully. "He's probably got better things to do. I mean, he didn't really wanna do this in the first place..."

"You're giving him too much credit," Asmodeus shakes his head with a sigh. "Mammon just doesn't care about anyone except himself - that's the long and short of it."

"That's probably not it..." I attempt to reason, though even I can hear the uncertainty in my voice. Asmodeus pulls a face and looks down at me.

"What're you being so nice to him for?" He asks, raising an eyebrow. "First day in a scary new school, and he's already basically abandoned you."

I pause and think it over. "...good point. But... still... I don't wanna, like... be mean. He's probably got something going on."

Asmodeus looks at me for long moment. Something unreadable crosses his expression for the briefest of seconds, but then it's gone. 

His eyes are strangely distant. "That's the sort of thinking that'll get a little thing like you killed down here. You should be careful, darling."

A sudden chill creeps up my back.  It's subtle, but it's definitely there, in the twitch of his brows and the shrinking of his pupils - and I don't really recognise it, but what I do know is that this kind of Asmodeus is dangerous. Lucifer's warning back in the assembly hall suddenly makes a lot more sense.

Just like before, though, the edge in Asmodeus's voice disappears as soon as it had come, and he blinks down at me innocently. "Hey, what's with the long face? Cheer up! Not like I was criticising you or anything..."

He turns his gaze back in front of him and continues walking. "...but you really should watch yourself."

"...got it." I mumble half-heartedly, suddenly filled with an odd desire to turn around and make a break for it. 

Asmodeus himself doesn't seem to notice, beginning to hum a tune under his breath as he continues to lead me along. As I follow, it strikes me that this feels very much like I'm being walked to the gallows.

I shake off the idea as we emerge into an enormous hallway. Maybe he's just trying to scare me. That's what people do to new kids, right? You're supposed to win them over, somehow...

As I begin wondering if I'm even going to get my old clothes back, I notice a familiar figure. He's kind of hard to miss, what with the bright red clothes - he's standing by one of the staircases and chatting enthusiastically with Lucifer, and another dark-haired demon that I don't recognise.

"That's Lord Diavolo there," Asmodeus announces to me, as if he thinks I might have forgotten who he is. "Just go say hi, and he'll get you set up for the day, okay? See you around, darling!"

He pats my head, twirls around, and sets off again without another word. Ah - abandoned again. Right after he was criticising Mammon about it, too. Though at least he's seen me off.

Still, if anyone down here's got me, Diavolo's probably got me. I think. He's been nice so far, anyway.

I glance around at the various demons buzzing around the hall - there's a lot less than there were around the front entrance, thank goodness - and quickly skitter across the floor to where Diavolo is laughing uproariously at something, refusing to look anyone in the eye. I very nearly run face first into his pristine uniform in the process, but I manage to catch myself and reel backwards just in time.

"Oh!" Diavolo exclaims in surprise as he turns around and looks down to find me awkwardly waving up at him. A grin quickly replaces his slightly startled expression, and he reaches down to give me a hearty clap on the shoulder that feels like it have broken a bone or two. "You're here early! I wasn't expecting you for another ten minutes!"

I don't even have time to formulate a response before he's patting my shoulder again, this time apparently in appreciation of my new clothes. "Well, don't you look dapper! I must say, you look a lot more at home here in uniform."

"I see that Asmo's done his job," Lucifer puts in, giving me a nod. He glances around briefly, then asks me - looking exasperated, as if he already knows the answer, "I presume Mammon left you?"

"Uh..." I search frantically for some kind of excuse to make for the poor guy - the look on Lucifer's face doesn't exactly promise sunshine and rainbows if I expose him. I can't think of anything, though. "...yeah. Kinda."

Lucifer's eyes narrow dangerously, and I hurry to defend the poor guy before his brother can storm off to guillotine him or something. "But it's okay! He probably had, uh... homework to do or something. It's not a big deal, really."

He doesn't look particularly appeased, but he does at least seem unlikely to go sprinting off to deal out punishment anytime soon. "Hmm. 'Not a big deal', you say?"

"Uh, no...?" Is this a trick question? "I mean... he got me to school. Nothing wrong with clocking out once your job's done."

"Why do you insist on defending him?" His borderline glare isn't very comforting, but I feel like that's more of a default expression for him than one of displeasure at the moment. 

Just as I think that, though, his lips curl up into a slight smile. "You seem to have formed some sort of loyalty to him already. Are all you humans like that?"

"Oh, no way," I answer, thinking back briefly to all the horror stories I've both heard and read about. "A lot of them, maybe. But you can't say that every single cat in the world has fur, even if most of them do."

I give myself a mental pat on the back for that one as Lucifer raises his eyebrows again, evidently surprised by the rather sophisticated reply I've given him. (Well, sophisticated by my standards, anyway. It's not often I think a good thought, especially in front of an authority figure. It's also not often that I actually think.)

Diavolo, at any rate, seems more impressed.  He laughs and pats me on the shoulder again. "Quite philosophical, aren't you?"

"Most of the time I'm really not ," I mumble, but don't protest otherwise. At least he's not patting me as hard now. 

At that point, Diavolo seems to remember that I'm not acquainted with the other demon with him - the one who's done nothing but quietly listen to the conversation thus far. I can't tell if he's wearing eyeliner, or if he just looks like that...

"Oh, I don't believe you've been introduced yet!" Diavolo exclaims, indicating the demon, who offers me a small smile. "This is Barbatos."

"I serve as the Lord's butler," Barbatos tells me. He takes his time enunciating each word clearly, and performs a neat bow to accompany it; the whole thing is so polished that I wouldn't be surprised if he rehearses it in the mirror every day. "It is pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Nice to meet you, Mr Barbatos." I reply, returning his bow with a small one of my own. His posture'ss so perfect that it makes me adjust my own a little self-consciously.

After a pause, wanting to offer a little more substance, I add, "I like your hair."

He pauses in mild surprise, then chuckles and gives me a smile - one that's a lot more genuine than the first. "I appreciate the compliment, but it really isn't anything special."

"I think it's cool. Do you get it dyed? Or is it natural?"

"It is how my hair naturally is," He touches a hand to the bright teal lock on the right side of his head. "Though I do deliberately grow out this part."

I nod along to his explanation. "It's very stylish."

He smiles again. "Thank you."

"I'm sure the two of you won't have any problems getting along," Diavolo chimes in. He looks like a proud mother watching her child make friends at daycare - though I'm not sure if that child is meant to be me or Barbatos. "Well, now that you two are acquainted - do you know where you'll be going for your classes?"

I shake my head. "No... Mr Asmo said I needed to get a schedule."

"Oh, right, of course! I arranged several resources for you earlier..." He fumbles around in his pockets for a moment, then pauses. Defeated, he slowly admits, "...unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced them."

"Not to worry." Lucifer shakes his head and reaches into his own pocket, then pulls out several neatly folded pamphlets. "You left them in the assembly hall earlier. Here, IK."

He holds it out at chest level at first out of reflex, evidently used to giving things to people who are demon-sized. Unfortunately, chest-level for Lucifer is an inch or so above my head, so he fumbles for a brief moment, looking a little lost, before realising where I am and dropping his hand so that I can comfortably reach the papers he's trying to give me.

"Thank you," I chirp, immediately setting about flicking through them. The timetable is conveniently tucked just behind the first paper - which seems to just be a welcome sheet - so I quickly pull it out and scan it. 

Then I realise that there's a bit of a problem, and it isn't the array of subjects that I don't recognise. What the hell is Monstrous Tongues? "...what day is it?"

"Wednesday." Barbatos is the first to answer. I nod and pick out the correct column.

"It says here that I have Curse-Breaking first," I announce, then look up. "So, um... where is that?"

"I've put together a map for you to be able to navigate more easily," Lucifer tells me, indicating one of the sheets at the bottom of the small pile. "The R.A.D. is a large building, but I'm sure you'll get used to it after a while."

Large is an understatement, I comment mentally as I unfold and inspect the map he's pointed out. It's the size of an A3 sheet of paper and double-sided to boot, with almost every square inch occupied by neat black lines. The ink lines don't look like they came from a printer, but there's no way anyone could draw out something like this by hand, right? Right??

Then again, Lucifer does give me the impression that he could do anything if he tried hard enough. He's even marked out each of the rooms where my classes are in some lovely red cursive. I turn the map around slightly, trying to find the one labelled Curse-Breaking.

"Ah, you're on the first floor," Diavolo tells me, leaning over to look at the map over my shoulder. "All of the subjects relating to magic and spells are on the ground floor... these two corridors right here."

Sure enough, one of the rooms in the section that Diavolo is pointing out has been labelled 'Curse-Breaking'. I stare at it blankly for a moment. I know where it is now, but I don't actually know where I am. Which way round do the corridors go...?

"Tell you what," Diavolo says after a moment of thought, apparently taking pity on me as I get progressively more confused by the map by the minute. "I'll show you to your classroom."

"Oh— um, you don't need to do that," I reply quickly, shaking my head. "I'll figure it out... one way or another."

"Somehow I doubt that," He laughs, slapping a hand to my shoulder for what has to at least be the third time now. Between him and Mammon, I'm pretty sure I'll be as bruised as the last banana in a fruit bowl by the end of the week. "No worries! I'm free for the morning, so it won't be a problem."

"Uh... are you sure?" I glance quickly at Lucifer and Barbatos for any disapproval. The former's face is still carefully composed and flat, and the latter is still smiling - albeit more faintly now.

"Of course!" He chuckles. "I wouldn't offer if I wasn't. Come along, follow me."

He's off walking before I can attempt to convince him not to - not out of any personal dislike, but more because I'm absolutely going to end up doing something stupid on the way there. All I can do is offer a hurried goodbye to Lucifer and Barbatos, and follow him before he disappears down the corridor.

"That room we were just in is the main junction between all the R.A.D.'s staircases," Diavolo tells me conversationally, pointing down at the map that I'm still attempting to make sense of. "It's that big room right in the middle - there, see? And that's the entrance hall just coming off the front of it... hmm, I wonder why Lucifer didn't mark those in?"

I turn the map around. So I know where we came from, but I still don't know which direction I'm facing... I should be able to use it once I actually get to a classroom, though. The doors have all been marked out with thin little rectangles, so all I'll have to do is turn the map around to face the right direction accordingly. 

Man, how much time does Lucifer have on his hands? "Hey, uh, Mr Diavolo? Do you have a spare pen I could borrow?"

"Probably," He answers, patting down his pockets for a moment before brightening and reaching into his left one. "Yes, here we are! You can keep it if you like. Lucifer mentioned earlier that you'd need some studying equipment."

"Thanks, sir." 

I fiddle about with the pen he passes me for a moment, then  carefully scribble the words 'entrance hall' and 'stairway junction' in the appropriate parts on the map. My penmanship is nowhere near as neat as Lucifer's, but it's the best I can do. I hope I haven't ruined his handiwork.

"Your writing is tiny," Diavolo comments. I nearly drop the pen entirely - I didn't think he'd be looking at what I'm doing over my shoulder, and hearing a voice like that with no warning is a lot more startling than he probably thinks it is.

"Well, uh, you know," I cough and offer an awkward laugh. "I have... smaller hands than you. So..."

He nods rapidly, eyes widening as if this hadn't occurred to him at all. "Of course! That makes sense."

We both go quiet as he turns away and stands up straight again. I'm finding that it's kind of hard to keep up a conversation with any of these demons for a particularly sustainable amount of time, but at least we've talked - kind of. 

Diavolo doesn't seem affected or subdued by the silence, in any case - he's started humming happily to himself and is not-so-subtly shimmying his hands about, as he's going to suddenly break into a dance routine, like in Spiderman 3. He really is fearless.

By the time we've reached the corridor that my first class is supposedly on, I've finally managed to figure out how the map corresponds to the corridors we're walking through. And I don't actually know if I'm allowed to be doing so, but I've been carefully jotting down little notes here and there to make it easier to navigate the map in future as well. 

Diavolo didn't say anything when he watched me do it earlier, and he's not saying anything about it now, so it's probably fine. Still, maybe I should have asked Lucifer first? He is the one who made the map in the first place, after all. I'll ask him about it later.

(If I'm being honest, though, I'm probably a bit too terrified of him to actually do that. Maybe I'll try asking one of the others to bring it up with him instead? No... Mammon would probably just say no - seeing as he's obviously intimidated as well, no matter how much he denies it, I haven't really talked to Leviathan enough to be able to ask him for a favour, and I'm a little apprehensive of Asmodeus...)

(Which leaves Beelzebub and Satan. Beelzebub might agree since I gave him a croissant yesterday, but he might get angry if I try holding that over his head. And Satan... well, somehow I get the feeling that he'd prefer not to talk to Lucifer if he can.)

(...now that I think about it, there's something off about those brothers. Didn't Lucifer say there were seven of them? Why do I only remember six? Have I not met the seventh one yet?)

"Here we are," Diavolo declares, patting the wall beside the classroom door as if it's an old friend of his. "I believe the exchange students from the Celestial Realm have this class with you, so you won't be completely alone."

"Just them?" I ask, folding the map up again and carefully tucking it into my pocket. "There's another human, isn't there?"

"Well, he's already quite the sorcerer, so all of these beginner magic classes would be wasted on him," Diavolo explains, "You do have some other classes with him, though. You should be meeting him soon enough - I'm sure you'll get along."

"Right... got it." I consider his words for a moment, then realise something. "Hey, um, about the magic classes - what am I supposed to do in them? I can't... do the abracadabra thing."

"...that's a good question, actually." He thinks for a while. He doesn't actually come up with a proper solution, either. "Well, I'll leave it up to your teacher. I'm sure that the theory will be useful, at the very least."

I mean, it probably won't be if I can't actually use the theory to do anything... I decide not to rain on his parade, though. Partially because I feel like Lucifer might actually murder me if I upset his boss, and partially because I'd actually quite like to learn about magic.

"Oh," Diavolo begins, interrupting my train of thought, "Before I go, is there anything else you'll need? I've already made arrangements to get you some writing supplies, and any required equipment should be provided by your classes anyway."

"Uh..." I think back to the conversation I had with Mammon earlier. "...could I have a backpack? Just to carry things around in."

"Is that all?" He asks, pulling another pen out of his pocket, then quickly scribbling the words 'backpack human' onto his left hand.

"I think so."

"Excellent! Well, then—" He checks the time. "You have a little while before your class starts, but you can go ahead into the classroom now. Early start, eh?"

"Sure..." I trail off as he immediately swings the door upon, peeks inside the classroom, and gestures for me to enter. "So, um... see you later, I guess?"

"See you later, indeed," He responds cheerfully as I shuffle inside, raising a hand in an enthusiastic goodbye. "And, by the way - do feel free to message me if you have any questions."

I see him off with a little wave, then turn and peek hesitantly into the classroom. Luckily, it's still mostly empty - the few demons inside just glance at me, then go back to their own business. I take it that anyone who comes in this early would be someone pretty focused on their studies, so they wouldn't be particularly distracted by some kid walking in.

The exception is a pair sitting at the back of the classroom - they stand out quite starkly among the students in those bright white outfits. Presumably those are the Celestial Realm students; the taller one with black hair and a splendid cloak has now started waving enthusiastically - gesturing for me to join them on their bench.

I don't really have many options, and he's also the only remotely friendly face in the room (one or two of the demons have now begun eyeing me up like a cupcake that's been left out on a table), so I decide to follow the nice angel's directions. Ducking my head, I scurry to the back of the classroom and hesitantly sit at the very end of the bench, ready to jump off and move at any notice.

"Good morning!" The angel who had waved at me greets me warmly, offering a gloved hand. "You must be IK, yes? I'm Simeon."

"Nice to meet you, Mr Simeon," I reply, carefully setting my hand in his and giving it a shake. Whatever material his gloves are made from, it's really soft.

"Just Simeon is fine," He twinkles, then gestures to the other angel sitting beside him, beside the window. "And this is Luke. Say hello, Luke."

Luke leans over the table to look around Simeon's shoulder, and I do the same. He's much smaller than his companion - in fact, he might actually be around my height. Though I can't tell precisely with that giant hat on his head - with pale blonde hair and large blue eyes that make him look like a baby goat. (If I'm honest, I'm don't actually know what a baby goat looks like. Luke just reminds me of the concept, I guess. It's probably the light blond hair and the white clothes.)

"It's great to meet you as well, Mr Luke," I say, sticking my hand out. It feels a little odd addressing him by 'Mr' when he doesn't look any older than me, but I don't want to make him feel disrespected or something by addressing him differently to his friend.

He nods earnestly, reaching across the table to grasp my hand and give it a vigorous shake. "Likewise!"

"He can be rather short-tempered sometimes," Simeon says to me in an undertone as I release Luke's hand and sit back again. "So don't take it to heart, alright? He's a sweet angel, really."

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here!" The angel in question immediately protests, his cheeks flushing slightly. Simeon laughs and murmurs a quick apology in reply, but that doesn't seem to be enough for Luke; he turns back to me and points a firm finger in my direction.

"Alright, calm down now, Luke," Simeon intervenes before he can get even more riled up, apparently having finished his little chuckle fest. "You don't need to get into a fuss over these things."

He turns to me and elaborates, his smile returning to his face, "Incidentally, Michael is one of our superiors in the Celestial Realm."

I nod quickly. I thought Michael was one of the Four Gospels? No, wait, that's Matthew, Mark, John, and... oh, hey, Luke! That's a coincidence. Well, probably not, if they're both from a place called the Celestial Realm, which I'm guessing would be Heaven if the Devildom is Hell... does that mean Simeon and Luke know God?

"I mostly just help him with affairs and orders - you know, paperwork and communications," Simeon continues, "Out of necessity, more than anything. My specialty's more on the healing side of things."

"You can do that?"

"All angels have a natural healing aura," Luke chimes in. "Healer angels like Simeon learn to concentrate and use it directly on wherever you're hurt! He's really good at it."

"So it's, like... a tangible thing?" I ask. "How does it work? Does it just speed up what your body would do normally? Or does it wind back time on the hurt bit? Or does it, like... put atoms in something to fill in the gap?"

Simeon and Luke both look bewildered by my questions - as if they'd never even considered how this apparently works. It's not like I do this every time I encounter healing magic in fiction, but it's a different story now that I know it's a real thing. (I feel like I should be more blown away by all these revelations, but...)

"The... first one?" answers Simeon, though he doesn't sound particularly sure about it. "I'm not really an expert in the theory of it. Luke, do you...?"

Luke pulls a face. "They might've explained it. I don't really remember... it's been, like, a century..."

I nod along, but now I'm kind of distracted. So Luke, who looks for all the world like he'd be in my English class, is apparently at least one hundred years old - most likely more. Don't you just run out of things to do at that point?

"There's the teacher!" Luke suddenly exclaims, breaking my train of thought. I look up - and barely manage to stop my jaw from dropping.

In crude words, my Curse Breaking teacher is an absolute unit. I thought Diavolo and Beelzebub were big, but this demon is at least ten whole feet tall, with shoulders the size of cheese wheels and legs like tree trunks.

"I see that our exchange students have arrived bright and early," The muscle man announces once he's situated himself at the teacher's desk at the front, somehow just barely managing to squash his enormous frame on the objectively far too small chair behind it. "Good to see. None of you have your books yet, I presume."

Luke and I exchange apprehensive looks behind Simeon's back as he shakes his head and answers for all three of us. "No, we haven't. Lord Diavolo said that they should be ready tomorrow."

Muscle Man nods thoughtfully and reaches into the pocket of his enormous black greatcoat. "That's alright, then. We won't be needing them today, anyway."

I have to bite down hard on my bottom lip to stop myself from snorting as he pulls out a pair of ridiculously tiny spectacles, then somehow manages to wedge them onto his face. Luke looks as if he wants to laugh as well, but is refusing to do so out of fear.

"My name..." The teacher begins, heaving himself back out of his seat and digging one large hand into his jacket to pull out a piece of chalk, "...is Kazakiel."

He writes it across the top of the blackboard in almost perfect block capitals - if I hadn't watched him write it freehand, I'd have thought he'd used a ruler. He places the chalk down on his desk with a distinctive clack and continues, "But you can just call me Professor Kaz."

Simeon, Luke, and I all murmur our assent. Professor Kaz gives us a large grin in response. 

"You three seem like a nice bunch, so I'll keep this short. As long as you listen and do as you're told in my lessons, we won't have any problems. I'm not nearly as bothered about homework as Professor Ala down the corridor, but I'd prefer you hand things in on time. And I do expect you put at least a little effort into it."

He adjusts his glasses slightly, and suddenly fixes his gaze on me. "Now, I'm told that our second human exchange student here doesn't have any magic. Is that right, young lady?"

I attempt to make eye contact, but end up feeling too awkward about it, so I focus on the glinting bridge of his glasses instead. He shouldn't be able to tell the difference from this distance anyway, right? "U-uh... yes, sir."

"So polite!" He laughs, reminding me of Diavolo. "Well, little miss, you don't need to worry. You don't need any inherent magic ability to learn any of the things covered in the first year courses that you'll be taking - that includes your other classes, not just mine. And, of course, you'll only be here for one year, so there shouldn't be any problems there."

I nod, but before I can formulate a response, he continues, "Now, subjects involving casting and breaking spells - like mine, for example - are going to be substantially harder for you, I won't lie about that. If your other teachers have any demonic decency, though, they'll be willing to give you some extra time on deadline, or extra help in classes - so you don't need to fret about that, either!"

The Devildom's education system is really proving itself to be far better than the one back home more and more with each minute. I nod gratefully. "Thank you."

"No worries!" He chuckles. "All in a day's work. Now, everyone else should be trickling in now - why don't you three get yourselves ready? There should be some spare paper at the back, in the bottom cabinet. You can make your notes on those until you get all your exercise books - just use the quills and ink wells on your tables."

"I'll get them," Simeon volunteers, already beginning to get up. "You two just stay put."

He seems to have a little difficulty getting out from the bench, though. Now that I think about it, it can't be very convenient to wear such a big cloak all the time -  it looks pretty unwieldy. Simeon doesn't immediately strike me as the kind of guy who'd be willing to suffer for the sake of fashion, but to be fair, it is a very nice cloak.

"...do you need some help with that?" I ask hesitantly as he tugs fruitlessly at it. It appears to be refusing to be pulled over the edge of the bench.

"If you don't mind," He replies a little sheepishly. I nod and duck under the table to pick it up by the hem, only to nearly collapse face first onto the side of the bench as soon as I lift it a centimetre of the ground.

"My goodness!" Simeon's gloved hand quickly shoots under the table to steady me, though he misses my shoulder by a good few inches the first try. "Steady, now."

Luke dips his head down to look at me through the gap between the bench and the table, eyes wide with alarm. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," I reply, steadying myself. "Why's it so heavy? How do you walk around in that?"

"I suppose I'm just used to it..." He watches worriedly as I scramble to attempt to lift the end of the cloak again. "Ah, maybe you should just leave it to me?"

"No, I've got it!" I brace myself stubbornly and carefully slip my arms under the hem. My feet nearly slip out from underneath me as I push the cloak upwards, but I manage to hold steady for long enough to shove it over the top of the bench.

Simeon shivers slightly as the end of the cloak slithers across the wood and finally slips down to hang properly from his shoulders. I raise an eyebrow at him. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," He waves off my concern easily as I start clambering out from beneath the table. "The weight of this cloak is meant to replicate the weight of my wings, you see. It's crafted in a way that imitates the presence of them as well, so I can feel things touching it."

"Is that why it's so heavy?"

"Correct," He says with a smile. "Though my cloak isn't nearly has heavy as some others. Michael's is so heavy that most beings would be crushed under its weight."

"Huh." I situate myself back on the bench as Simeon moves over to the drawers to look for the paper Professor Kaz mentioned, then turn to Luke, "Do you have a cloak as well, Luke?"

He jumps slightly at the question. "Oh! Well, um, I'm still really low-ranking, so my wings are a lot smaller than Simeon's..."

He gestures up at the little capelet thing around his shoulders that I hadn't really noticed earlier. "This is it."

I lean back slightly to look at the two long blue strips of fabric (I don't know what they're called, so sue me) trailing from behind the capelet. "That bit, too?"

Luke nods. "They're the main part, actually. They had to make them like that so I didn't over-balance..."

"That's smart," I note, thanking Simeon as he comes back to the table and sets about five sheets of yellowing parchment-like paper in front of me. "So... wait, where are your wings?"

"Well, we have them retracted." Simeon is the one to answer this time. "It's similar to demons and their demon forms, actually."

Demon forms? 

"It's a shame we can't show you," sighs Luke. " But we're not supposed to open them while we're here unless it's for an emergency."

"Why not?"

He pulls a face. "Why do you think? We're in the Devildom! It's full of evil and darkness and demons!"

I make a face. Simeon steps in and adds gently, "What he means is that the environment down here could corrupt them."

"The Celestial Realm and the Devildom have naturally counteracting energies," Luke adds, sounding as if he's reading this word for word. "The positive energy of the Celestial Realm can cast away the Devildom's negative energy really quickly, but when they're left together for too long, the negative energy ends up building up and consuming the positive."

It takes me a moment to process the information that's just been given to me. I have so many more questions, but I feel too self-conscious to ask them all - even if the angels seem happy to explain things to me. I don't think they've ever spoken to a human before; they seem to be regarding me in the same way a primary teacher regards a particularly curious little kid.

We don't get to continue our conversation for much longer - class officially starts not long after that. I'd been too absorbed in our exchange to notice that the classroom had rapidly begun filling with students while we were talking, and now that I actually look at my surroundings again, I notice that nearly all of the benches are now full.

The lesson itself is equal parts bewildering and interesting. Professor Kaz spouts a bunch of technical magic terms that I understand none of - though I manage to scribble most of the definitions down for future reference with the help of Simeon's hushed whispering. My brain's basically melted by the time the lesson ends, but it's the most engaged I've felt in a lesson in a while.

And then I don't end up being able to attend lesson two - Diavolo steps in and whisks me off just as we're leaving the classroom to fill out some paperwork and whatnot. He also gives me a freshly-purchased black backpack with enough pockets and compartments to store every single material item I own (which, to be fair, isn't really that much), and shows me each and every one with great glee.

"The rest of your school supplies should arrive by the end of the day," He says as I happily pull the backpack onto my shoulders. It's actually suitably sized for me, which is an added bonus. "I'll drop them off at the House of Lamentation once they're ready."

Diavolo sends me off just as break begins, which I spend being helplessly buffeted back and forth across the corridors by an endless stream of demon students until Simeon miraculously  swoops in to save me. Just in time for the beginning of our third class, too - which turns out to have been cancelled, owing to the teacher having blown himself up earlier in the day.

"It's a shame you missed that last one," Simeon says as we settle at a table in the corner of the school library to wait out the lesson. "You would have had Devildom Law, am I right?"

I pull my slightly crumpled schedule out of my pocket. "...yup. How'd you know?"

"You have it with Solomon," He explains. "The other human exchange student. You'll have to wait until tomorrow to meet him now - you don't have any other lessons with him today."

"Can't we just meet with him at lunch?" Luke asks. "He should be free then, right?"

"Unfortunately not," Simeon sighs. "He has a meeting with some of the teachers, I'm told."

"Mr Solomon's a super powerful sorcerer, right?" I ask, flicking restlessly through a book written in a language that I don't understand a word of. "Why does he need to take lessons?"

Simeon thinks about it for a moment. "Well, strictly speaking, he probably doesn't. But, um... there are always nuances to magic depending on the species and nature of the person performing it, so I imagine there's an endless fount of knowledge to be found from that..."

It sounds like he's making things up as he goes, to be honest, but he says it with such confidence that I can't help but think that he must be right.

We don't really have much work to do in the meantime, so we spend the next hour idly chatting. At some point, I spot Satan milling about the non-fiction section, but he takes one look at me and hurriedly hides his face behind the leather-bound book in his hands. It's like he thinks I wouldn't be able to see him if he can't see me, never mind the fact that we just made direct eye-contact.

I raise an eyebrow at the large dragon emblazoned across his book's cover, then realise that it's probably something to do with what happened this morning - the cyanide-throwing and all that. I severely doubt he's feeling guilty about it at all, but maybe he's embarrassed? 

Well, either way, I'm not going to force a conversation on someone who clearly doesn't want it. I look away - the next time I look back, Satan's vanished.

Then comes lunch - during which I suddenly realise that I haven't eaten or drunk a thing since coming down here, and that I should probably have some water before I die of dehydration. Simeon is kind enough to get me a bottle from one of the cafeteria's vending machines (which look very strange in an otherwise very old-fashioned-looking room), which he sets in front of me with a smile.

"It isn't poison, right?" I ask nervously, remembering, once again, the cyanide incident. I don't want to accidentally drink a bottle of arsenic or something.

"Of course not," He chuckles, spinning the bottle around so that I can read the label on the front. "See? Just plain water. You'll be fine."

I don't know why the presence of bottled water in the Devildom is such a strange concept - after all, didn't I just use water this morning to wash my face? - but it just is. Among the many other things that, now that I think about it, are very human customs. Did demons just invent school on their own as well, or did they borrow the idea? And did they invent bottled water on their own as well?

I probably shouldn't think too deeply into it. It's just water. And a bottle is probably the best receptacle for it. In any case, it's good to know that there are things down here I can drink without dying a painful, organ-shrivelling death.

Food is another thing, though. There's a menu for the meals provided by the school kitchen, which I manage to dig out from among the various documents Diavolo gave me earlier, but I'm a little too intimidated to try any right now. Not that I know what most of it is.

Neither Luke nor Simeon seem interested in trying any of the R.A.D. cafeteria's food either, since they've both opted for packed lunches. I don't know where Simeon was hiding his - Luke's clothes are baggy enough that they could reasonably have several pockets to put his in, but Simeon's shirt is basically a leotard, and his pants don't seem to have any pockets, either.

Simeon notices me looking at him in confusion, but mistakes the reason for something else. "Oh, didn't you bring lunch? You can have some of mine, if you like."

I shake my head quickly. "No, no, it's fine. It's just— where were you keeping that?"

He looks mildly puzzled for a moment, then looks down at himself and realises what I'm talking about. "Ah - it's just a simple containment spell, really. See this here?"

He points down at a little golden charm on his chest. It glitters slightly as he gently taps at it, as if the sun is shining directly on it, even though the cafeteria is only lit by ominously flickering candles. "It's rather complicated to explain, but, put it like this - it's like a concentration point. Every angel has one. I suppose you could say that it's what we use to channel magic."

"What, so your lunch was in there?" I pull a face. Magic I can get behind, but shoving all that into that tiny little thing is a little hard to believe. 

Then again, I'm sitting with two angels in a school for demons in Hell. Lunches in charms should be the least of my concerns right now.

Simeon frowns. "I'm not too sure how it works myself. I've been using it for so long that I just don't really think about it."

"Is it like your wing-cloaks?" I look at Luke. "Do you have one as well?"

"Two, actually," He says, pointing first at an identical golden charm attached to his collar, then at a substantially larger one dangling from his hat. "We usually have more when we're younger - you know, since we need more control."

I nod. So they're basically the angelic equivalent of wands for wizards...

The rest of lunch passes by uneventfully, and then it's time for the last two classes of the day. It seems that I share most of my lessons with the angels, since we end up all having Potions and Enchantments for our fourth and fifth lessons. 

Potions is easy enough - thankfully our teacher, is an affable demon with wild green hair who seems to have their goggles permanently glued to their face. They stay unrelentingly patient with me and the two angels as we struggle to keep up with the other students, who've already been studying the subject for several terms before we arrived.

Simeon seems to master the process relatively easily, while Luke and I constantly get ingredients and stirring directions all messed up for the first half hour, creating several explosions that mercifully don't get our clothes covered in soot. Professor Baal just laughs a little maniacally and tells us to try again - after all, mistakes and explosions are all part of the process!

It isn't until I think of likening the step-by-step process of brewing a potion to cooking and baking that I finally get the hang of it. It's just like following the recipe for a cake - measure out the ingredients, combine in the right order, and mix carefully. In fact, I'd probably say it's easier than making a cake - it's more like making soup.

Luke doesn't take much longer to grasp the process, either; apparently my baking metaphor works wonders for him as well. After that, the rest of the Potions lesson is easy enough - enjoyable, even.

Enchantments is a nightmare in comparison. Professor Ala seems nice enough at first, but it becomes apparent ten minutes in that she thinks I have the mind of a literal baby - as much as she's clearly lowering herself to what she perceives as my level. She has none of the patience that Professor Baal did, and she doesn't seem to get that I literally can't do magic.

"Focus your mind," She says exasperatedly as my hands start trembling slightly. "This is a simple procedure."

Luke sends me a sympathetic look from behind her as I disguise a long sigh behind a subtle cough and ready my hands to try again. The two angels don't seem to be having much trouble with the colour-changing enchantment we're being taught today, which means that Professor Ala's attention is focused solely on me. Joy.

I have to try hard to hold back embarrassed tears for what feels like the entire rest of the lesson, and I haven't even managed to change even a single spot of the penny's copper-brown colour by the time it ends. Luckily, neither Simeon nor Luke notice me rubbing subtly at my eyes as we leave the classroom and begin to make our way out of the school.

Simeon suggests we go for a walk into town together as we step out into the cold afternoon air, but Luke quickly reminds him that we still have all those textbooks and stuff to receive some time this evening. So, after agreeing to hang out outside of school another time, we split up to head to our respective living quarters at a fork in the road.

Luke does express some worry about the fact that I'll be walking back to the House of Lamentation on my own before he leaves, but I assure him that I'll be fine. I wave the angels off, then set off at a brisk walk, holding tight onto my backpack straps and glancing back and forth apprehensively as I go. 

I don't have any keys to tuck between my fingers - my set's still in my old school blazer, which is still in that room from earlier, as far as I know - and nothing in my backpack or pockets can really be used as a weapon. Though I probably wouldn't be able to beat a demon even if I had one. 

How would one even go about killing a demon? Stabbing them? Shooting them?  Are a guns a thing down here?

Somehow I manage to remember the way back to the House of Lamentation - which isn't much of an achievement, considering the path from it to the R.A.D. is pretty much just one long road.  The front door is already unlocked when I get to it, which means I don't have to wait awkwardly on the doorstep or call one of the brothers to open it up for me.

Even so, I hover at the welcome mat for a good while, wondering if I should take off my shoes, but decide against it. I don't have any slippers, and I don't have any good socks - I don't want my feet to get cold.

I wander aimlessly through the House's corridors for five minutes or so, partially because I'm still a little unsure of how exactly to get to my room and partially to explore a little. There's always been an odd sense of excitement for me when it comes to staying in a new abode - I remember going on camps when I was in primary school, and the first thing I did whenever we got there was explore the cabin we'd be staying in. 

It's been the same story for the few hotel rooms I've stayed in with my dad - no matter how small it is, I can't rest until I've explored every inch of it, including the drawers and wardrobes. And there's a lot to explore in the House of Lamentation.

Though I'm also hyper-aware of the fact that it's not really mine to investigate so closely. It already has seven permanent residents, after all (though I have yet to meet the seventh one), and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't appreciate me snooping around. I'll just stick to familiarising myself with the hallways for now.

I realise at some point that I haven't seen the first floor yet, so I find the nearest staircase and climb up with some difficulty. It looks pretty much the same as the ground floor, as far as I can tell, just with even more fancy decorations. There are stained glass windows placed seemingly at random here and there - there are a few that have been installed directly on the wall, for some reason - as well as what appear to be literal trees just growing out of the carpet.

I'm just inspecting one of these trees with fascination, wondering whether the purple and gold leaves are artificial or not, when I suddenly hear a flurry of footsteps approach from behind me. Before I even have time to turn around or make a getaway, two large hands clamp around my upper arms and drag me backwards.

I'm being pulled so quickly that I can't even muster up the air to shout in alarm. The hands have yanked me upwards so that my feet are hovering off the ground, and the only thing I think of to do to struggle is to kick at the air and hope that it knocks my captor off balance.

Unfortunately, that doesn't work at all. Next thing I know, I'm being yanked into a room. The door slams shut behind me as my captor finally releases me, and I land awkwardly on the floor with an ungraceful 'oof!'.

"Listen up!" orders the mystery assailant. "You're going to be helping me whether you like it or not!"

Chapter Text

"What?" is my intelligent response.

Leviathan glares back down at me. "You heard me!"

I look around myself. For a room I'm technically being held captive in, it's pretty... awesome, actually. 

There are luminescent jellyfish-shaped lights hanging from the ceiling - silvery tentacles fluttering in a imperceptible breeze, and pulsing a soft blue. The ceiling itself resembles those aquarium tunnels, where you can watch the fish swim around you - with water so blue rippling across it that I'm inclined to believe there's colouring mixed in.

That's not even the best part. The wall across from me has been replaced with a full-length fish tank - complete with a vast array of colourful pebbles littering the bottom, coral of all shapes and sizes lining the edges, what appears to be an entire chunk of sea reef, and a single enormous anemone pulsing quietly on the left side. There doesn't seem to be anything in it on first glance, but a closer inspection reveals a single, tiny goldfish hovering inside a stone tunnel.

The rest of Leviathan's room is filled with all sorts of posters, volumes upon volumes of colourful manga that I don't recognise, cabinets filled to the brim with various movies and memorabilia, and entire shelves dedicated purely to figurines. He's even got an entire four-monitor set-up - and multiple consoles by the TV over there. There's an enormous, squashy-looking sofa in front of it, draped with various blankets and littered with several empty snack packets.

In conclusion: a gamer's dream. A very human gamer's dream, actually. I wonder if I'd recognise the logo on those monitors if I got close enough?

I digress. Anyway, even if I don't know nearly enough about the scene to make a proper judgement, I still think it's pretty rad.

"You know, your room is really cool," I say without thinking.

Leviathan immediately cuts off whatever he'd been about to say and goes a shade of bright pink that I didn't think was physically possible. His mouth opens and shuts without a sound for a moment, apparently so absolutely floored by the compliment that he's at a loss for words. 

I know full well what that feels like to be in his shoes, so I quickly glance away to give him time to recover. There's more around here that I somehow hadn't noticed... Is that a bathtub? Does he sleep in a bathtub??

"Th-th-thanks?" Leviathan finally manages to say, but he sounds so disoriented that I don't think he really knows what's going on. 

I don't blame him. I haven't had any idea what's going on since I first appeared down here. Or ever.

"What's their name?" I ask, gesturing over to the tank. The goldfish has drifted closer to glass and appears to be staring directly at me, which is... unsettling, to say the least.

Leviathan looks even more shocked - as if he hadn't expected me to notice it. I'm not really sure why - his wall aquarium is easily the most eye-catching thing in his room.

I still can't quite believe that his room just... has that. He just lives next to this gorgeous thing every day. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't very jealous.

"U-u-uh," Apparently Leviathan really isn't used to being asked personal questions. "Henry 2.0."

"2.0?" I repeat. He nods so jerkily that he looks almost like a robot. I feel a little sorry for him, so I refrain from asking what happened to the presumed Henry 1.0, and look around again.

One particular shelf in his room seems especially favoured, now that I look at it. It sits in pride of place in the centre of the wall and stretches right up to the ceiling, draped with a dark blue cloth patterned with swirling stars. 

The bottom four shelves are home to an vast array of leather-bound books, arranged by order of the golden numbers emblazoned on the spine. I can tell that they're well-loved - there isn't even a single speck of dust to be seen on any of them, and the spines are creased in a way that only happens to hard-covers once you've really read them cover-to-cover more times than you can count. 

The shelves above the books are filled with mostly VHS cases and DVD boxsets. The very top shelf is dedicated to several figurines and little corked glass bottles filled with a variety of glittering powder. The wall behind is plastered with posters, covered with the faces of mysterious, brooding men, mostly with majestically long hair and deadly sharp eyeliner, dressed in some gorgeous medieval-looking clothes. 

Leviathan seems to favour one in particular - the tired-looking one with unkempt dark purple hair tied back in a messy bun, complete with a pair of hair-sticks the same colour as his golden eyes. His face (and his extremely dark eye-bags) seem to crop up a lot more than any of the others.

He seems to like the man with the fluffy brown hair and pink eyes as well, though that might just be a coincidence -  he shows up on every one of the posters that aren't close-ups of the mysterious and brooding men, looking extra mysterious and brooding. There's something vaguely familiar about these posters, but I don't really recognise well enough to say what they are...

Leviathan himself finally seems to come back to life once he realises what I'm looking at. His eyes glinting with what I can only interpret as anticipation, he shoots forward and practically shoves his face right at mine.

I leap backwards, but he barely seems to notice. "Are you looking at what I think you're looking at?Tale of the Seven Lords, right?!"

The sudden shift from stuttering mess to bright enthusiasm is jarring, but it's kind of a welcome change. At least we're not just being awkward at each other anymore.

"It looks interesting," I reply with a nod, pointing to one of the posters. "I like that art style."

"Interesting?" Leviathan repeats, apparently ignoring my second comment. "Interesting doesn't even begin to describe it! It's the greatest series of all time!"

That's a bold claim to make, but considering the sheer amount of apparent 'The Tale of the Seven Lords' content sitting right in front of me, it's got to have at least some truth to it. "Huh. So what's it about?"

"You don't know?! And you still call yourself a human?!" His eyes blow wide. I don't know why he's suddenly so surprised...

"Well, I don't know about a lot of things," I say in an attempt to placate him. "Maybe it's just not been released where I live?"

"Are you absolutely sure you've never heard of it?" He asks, crossing the gap between us and staring me earnestly in the face again. (I could probably pinch his nose from here if I wanted to...) "Come on, there's no way you haven't! Jog your memory or something!"

"I mean, uh..." I look back over at his posters. "...what's the main character's name?"

"Henry Luthier," He says, with the sort of reverence a priest reserves for prayers. "But he calls himsef Henry Crowfeather for most of the series, you don't find out his real name until— well, uh, never mind..."

Henry Luthier... that doesn't sound familiar. Crowfeather doesn't, either... oh, wait!

Now that I look at that guy with the bright red hair in one of the group posters, I'm pretty sure I've seen him before. He was the one doing the weird face in that meme that was going around a while ago... I looked up the source material once, and I remember being so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of words on its Wikipedia page that I just closed the window after about five minutes.

If I remember correctly... it first started coming out way back when Charles Dickens was still around, and it kept coming out even though barely anyone read it at the time. There's a whole internet mystery around how it kept getting published over so many years - but the general theory is that the author's just been passing the pen down. As far as I know, the series never got picked up by any film studios.

It's a pretty niche series... not necessarily obscure, but pretty unfamiliar to anyone outside its cult following. I guess that's where it got all these posters? I don't think I've ever seen this much independent art for a single series in one place before. Should I be taking a picture for posterity?

"...I think I've heard about it," I say finally, conscious of the anticipation that Leviathan's watching me with. "But I don't know anything about the plot or—"

"So you wanna know about it, right?" He interrupts, expression lighting right up. "I'll teach you all about it! Make sure you listen carefully, okay?"

He scrambles to sit down, waving me over enthusiastically. I'm still just a little bit too scared of him to sit next to him - who knows much whacking strength he might have in those lanky limbs - so I opt for the floor instead. It's story-time in Year 1 all over again.

Leviathan doesn't question my choice of seat, thankfully; only raises his eyebrows for a second, before visibly deciding he doesn't really care. He waits just a moment for me to get situated (oh, this floor is cold) - and then he's off like a shot.

"So TSL's this series of fantasy novels by Christopher Peugeot - totally anonymous, no one knows who he really is," He starts, talking so fast that I can barely process it, "It's a heroic epic spanning 138 volumes - the best, most underappreciated fantasy series of all time! Actually, it's even got stage versions, animation, all that - just because so many people loved it that much. And it's been translated into a total of 182 different languages. Isn't that so cool? Well? Any questions so far?"

I suppose a 'completely anonymous' author wouldn't be able to seek compensation for other people using their source material. Peugeot may be a mystery, but at least he isn't money-hungry.

"...they translated every single book?"

"Probably. I don't pay attention to that stuff," Leviathan shrugs. "Anyway -  the first stage version was a total disaster, mostly 'cause they didn't get the characters at all, AND they kept adding random new extras. It totally messed up the story. I remember watching it for the first time and thinking, 'Whoever wrote that in needs to get squashed into a pie and left to go mouldy!'"

Harsh. What kind of pie? Not one of the good ones.

I don't know if this is the same incident, but I remember there being a mini scandal in TSL's controvery section. Apparently TSL fans were so outraged by a poor adaptation that their lobbying got an up-and-coming theatre company shut down. There was this whole thing where one of them sent them cakes laced with rat poison...

"But then the anniversary version came out," Leviathan continues, looking off into the distance with an emotional sparkle in his eyes, "And it was amazing. Better than amazing, actually! It was true to the original, the actors were perfect, the action was perfect, the score was perfect... everything the first did wrong, it does so right.

"Henry didn't need some poor lady stuffed in just to be his girlfriend! All he needed was a friend who really understood him! Besides, the first version totally threw away a bunch of the lords' best moments for these awful romance scenes, and all this weird slapstick with stupid new characters - like, what?!  The lords are the most important part of the story!"

He raises his hands and starts counting them off on his fingers. "So, like the lords are all brothers. The oldest is the Lord of Corruption. He seems like a reliable guy who's just a bit uptight at first, but he's actually always plotting and planning in secret, and you never know what secrets he's hiding. Then there's the Lord of Fools - he cares way too much about gold, but he's actually kind of a sweetheart - he's stupid to do anything really evil, anyway..."

I don't know why, but I'm starting to see a connection here...

"And then there's the Lord of Shadow - the best one! He's a total shut-in and everyone thinks he's kinda a weirdo, but he's really just super sensitive, and he's way cool once Henry gets him out of his shell! Then, fourth is the Lord of Masks - he's the shadiest one, 'cause he's always pretending to be this high-status, upstanding member of society, but then you notice that he's kind of bloodthirsty. But then he gets a bunch of development in Volume Thirty One, so it turns that he might not be so—"

He quickly claps a hand over his mouth and shakes his head. "No, that's spoilers! You're gonna be reading or watching it, right? Okay, okay I'll let you get to that bit on your own, next there's—"

Even if I'd wanted to say something, there's no way I could've fit it in. "—the Lord of Lechery, right, he's fifth - and everyone's just a toy to him. He's meant to be all handsome and dreamy or whatever, but he wants everyone to serve and spoil him.

"Then there's the Lord of Flies, and he's kinda... uh, dim, but you gotta love him for it, you know?. He's probably the nicest out of the lords, actually - he just likes eating. Except sometimes he's thinking about it so hard he accidentally withers a whole— no, sorry, spoilers again—  anyway, the youngest one, the Lord of Emptiness - he's the weird one. you never know what he's thinking, or what he's planning, and he doesn't try to hide it like Masks does."

Okay, there's definitely a pattern here.

If I hadn't already recalled that TSL Wikipedia page, I would've started thinking that maybe Leviathan's just describing his own life to me - or else something someone here in the Devildom wrote. There's way too many similarities here to be a coincidence. 

I mean— isn't Lord of the Flies literally another name for the demon Beelzebub? (That, or book about a bunch of schoolboys murdering each other on an island. Probably not that one, though.)  And I'm pretty sure Lechery just straight up means lust.

As for the others... I don't know Mammon that well, but between the whole Avatar of Greed thing (and his attempt at a mugging when I first met him) - 'cares way too much about gold' isn't a far-fetched connection. The sweetheart part I don't know too muc about, but I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt there...

Satan just seems like a nice guy - he's definitely the most ordinary out of the brothers so far - but Lucifer did warn me about his hidden ill intentions yesterday, so it follows that he'd be like the Lord of Masks in that sense. And Lucifer himself... 'reliable guy who's just a bit uptight' fits him to a t.  Though 'a bit' is an understatement in his case...

So that leaves the third and seventh lords. And...

"Corruption's a big favourite," Leviathan says, frowning a little and scratching loosely at his cheek. "But my favourite's Shadows. He's just got way more nuances than the Lord of Corruption, you know? You just really feel for him, especially when he overthinks himself into a hole. You just want him to pick himself up and realise how cool he really is! But it's super relatable that he can't do that, too!"

Third lord - third brother. Which leaves number seven.

And once again I'm faced with the mystery of this apparently absent seventh brother. 'Emptiness' doesn't tell me much about him - but if the lords match up as well as they initially seem too, then he'll be 'the weird one', apparently. 

(I'm going to honest, though - in any other group of people, every single demon I've met before would be a candidate for 'the weird one'. One draws maps as perfectly as a printer, one eats croissants while they're still in the packaging, one goes around chucking bottles of poison at people...)

 Anyway - I've become acquainted with the avatars of six out of the seven deadly sins. Which leaves just one: sloth.

... so that's all I have on this elusive seventh brother. He's the Avatar of Sloth, and he's weird. And I'm not even sure about that second one.

Should I ask Mr Leviathan about it? I wonder. Then I realise that he's talking again, and hurriedly switch back to listening mode.

"Of course, I like Henry too," He's saying, grinning as if remembering a beloved friend. "He's the main character, and he's almost as great as Shadows. Well—I'm biased, but Henry would agree with me, you know? He's just that kind of guy! It's kind of insane, actually, but he goes to Shadows and he's all like, 'My comrade-in-arms, I will bring you a gift as thanks for your loyalty'  - and Shadows is like, 'Nooo, I'm just a pathetic whelp, I don't deserve it, wahhh—'"

I snort before I can stifle the sound. For a moment I worry he'll take it the wrong way - but Leviathan just grins as well. "I know, right? Course, at this point you're thinking - no, Shadows, you ARE super cool! But he's honestly kind of pathetic sometimes, and it just makes you like him more. Isn't that crazy?! Like... how does Peugeot do it, you know?"

"What present does Henry give him?" I ask. Leviathan brightens exponentially.

"Oh, this bit's so good," He says in an almost conspiratorial fashion, gesturing for me to lean closer. "So, like - Fools, right? You remember him?"

"Number two, gold guy?"

"Yeah, that's right!" He nods. "So, like, he's got this flock of pigs, right? Golden ones, actually. Except he doesn't take care of them, like, at all - he just likes them 'cause they're valuable. And Henry, he sees them cooped up in this tiny pen, and he tells Shadows about it. And Shadows is like 'That's awful! Those pigs should be treated with dignity! I'd take way better care of them!!'

"So Henry goes, 'Well, Lord of Shadows, I happen to be visiting Lord of Fools soon, and since he likes me, I could get away with sneaking the pigs away. What if I bring them to you?' And then he does! Like, no empty promises, no payments, just thinks Shadows will be happy if he does something and— does it! Isn't that crazy?!"

It sort of just sounds like how you'd treat a friend to me, but I nod anyway.  "So he gives Shadows the pigs?"

"Yeah! Just walks straight into the castle, I don't think he even says hi to Fools first, and just charms them away! 'Cause that's just how Henry is, you know? Even pigs love him."

Even cops love him, I think to myself, then quickly bat away the thought. "...doesn't Fools care about that? He doesn't get mad?"

"I mean, kind of? But he gets over it really quickly..." Leviathan pauses to contemplate it for a moment, then shrugs. "He didn't really love the pigs in the first place. They were just, like... show-pieces to him, y'know? But Shadows, he's so happy, and - oh, by the way, he hates touching people, he has this whole thing about it - he actually hugs him! And then, next time they see each other - Henry holds up his hand, and Shadows high-fives him, and— oh, it's the best..."

Does that count as spoilers? If so, Leviathan doesn't seem particularly committed to upholding them anymore. I don't really mind, anyway. "...ohh, so your fish—?"

I gesture over to Henry 2.0. Leviathan brightens again. "Yeah, yeah, that's where I got his name! And my Henry's the best, too! But... I can't really high-five a goldfish..."

"Maybe you could put your hand on the tank," I suggest. "Then at least it'll look like you're high-fiving him."

"S'not really the same thing, though," He mumbles, beginning to look gloomy again. "That's just sad, isn't it? I don't even have any friends who have hands..."

There's a beat of silence. I consider offering a high-five, but Leviathan recovers and continues before I can. "Yeah, that's enough. This is just making me all depressed now... anyway, that's not even what you're here for! I was gonna... man, I got distracted."

"It was a nice," I assure him as he begins to look a little uneasy. "It sounds like it'd be fun to read."

He perks up again. "Really?! Well, it'd take a while for you to get through every single book, so you should probably start with the Jester Co. films, or the stage version - the good one - or else you won't have enough time to even get to the — wait, no, we're talking about something else now!"

He shakes his head with a scowl and points at me. "Stop distracting me!"

"Sorry," I mumble, but he's already continuing.

"I need you to help me get back at Mammon," He says, steepling his hands and bowing his head so that his face is half-cast in shadow. "You got that? And I'm not taking no for an answer."

...okay, this is less fun. "Right. So... how am I doing that?"

"You're gonna make a pact with him," He says with confidence - as if I'm supposed to know what that means.

I look at him blankly. He clears his throat and makes a sort of... fingerprinting motion.

He does that a lot - talking with his hands. It looks like he's trying to lip-sync with his fingers. "It's— look, you don't need to know the details. You just need to do it."

"Uh huh..." I frown up at him. "Why?"

"'Cause that idiot owes me money, duh." He leans forward and holds a finger up at me. "Now it's super important you get this, okay? Repeat after me - he's an absolutely hopeless, worthless, piece-of-crap scumbag."

"Uh..." Forget the fact that they're brothers, that'd be a nasty thing to say about anyone. "...abso.... um.... you know, I don't think I can."

Leviathan's eyes flash a little derisively. "What, are you too dumb? They're just words. Open your mouth, move your—"

"No, I get that bit," I interrupt, shaking my head. "I just... don't want to. On... on principle."

He looks at me for a long moment, throughout which I begin to feel increasingly stupid.  At first I think he's going to get mad - his eyes dart to one of his controllers, as if contemplating hitting me with it. But he just shakes his head and leans back again.

"Hmph." He looks slightly more deflated now - but not angry, at least. "You humans and your stupid... morals. Well, whatever. As long as you're still going along with the plan."

"Yeah, sure, sure," I nod, "So what's the plan?

"Well, the pact goes first, obviously," He explains. "Might be a piece of trash, but Mammon's fast, and he's still older than me. I couldn't beat him if I tried. But, if a human like you made a pact with him - you'd be able to order him to give me back my money, and he won't be able to do anything about it!"

"That doesn't sound very ethical."

"Nothing's ethical down here," He replies wisely. "Anything goes in the Devildom."

Anything apart from poorly-done homework, apparently, I think to myself, remembering Professor Kaz's words from yesterday. "Right... so I need to...?

"Don't you humans have a bunch of horror movies about this sort of thing?" He pulls a face, but explains nevertheless. "The demon makes a contract to lend you their strength, which basically puts them under your control - in exchange for your soul, of course."

I frown at him. "You want me to give Mammon my soul?"

"Of course not!" He waves his hand about in disapproval. "Not yet, anyway. Lucifer'd kill me for putting the idea in your head. 'Sides, there isn't a deadline for collecting souls - some demons never do, some of them do it on the first day. And it's not like he's allowed to - not unless he wants to get hung up in the dungeons again."

Again? How many times has Mammon been hung up in the dungeons in the past? "That's a pretty big loophole."

He nods. "Yup. There are some humans like Solomon who're so powerful that a demon couldn't take their soul even if they tried - so they can make as many pacts as they like without needing to worry. It's not like we demons can change that. It's just a law of our world."

"Alright...so, recapping here," I bring a hand to my chin in faux-intelligent contemplation. "You want me to make a contract... to give Mammon my soul... so you can get your money back."

"Hey, it's not like you won't get anything out of it!" Leviathan hurries to say, "Mammon was totally bullying you before - Asmo said he left you alone at school, right? Wouldn't it be great to be able to make him do anything you wanted?"

"I mean..." I suck in air through my teeth with a hiss and shrug. "In theory, yeah. But... I dunno, in practice... I don't think I'd actually be able to make him do anything."

"Sure you could!" Leviathan exclaims, holding his hands up in some gesture of encouragement. "You just tell him to do something, and he has to do it..."

He looks at my face again, then seems to realise something. "...oh, come on. Is this about... ethics or whatever again?"

I nod, and he groans. "Whatever. As long as you tell him to give me my money, I don't care what you do with him afterwards. Sever the pact, keep it, whatever. Come on, it's a win-win!"

He seems to be labouring under the impression that I'm already agreeing to help him. Not that I'm completely opposed - it's just that this seems like the sort of decision I should probably have parental consent for.

Not like I can contact Dad right now. I feel a familiar flicker of anxiety at the thought - then quickly quash it. Can't get caught up on that right now...

"Okay..." I tilt my head to the side, then sigh and nod. "...yeah, okay, I'll go with that. So what now?"

Leviathan grins, rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain. "Excellent . You do show some promise, human. Alright, listen up! I'm only going to explain this once, so don't go asking questions. 

"First things first, there's no way you can just walk up to Mammon and ask for a pact. He'd never agree. So, what we need is a bargaining chip."

I wait for him to continue, but he doesn't. Thinking that he might be waiting for a cue or is just doing some sort of dramatic pause, I ask, "...what's the bargaining chip?"

He shrugs. "Don't know."

I stare at him.

...are you serious?

He is, apparently. There's no punchline - he just carries on.

"I know that Lucifer definitely has something that Mammon really, really wants," He explains. "I'm pretty sure it's his credit card, but I can't be sure -  even if I was, I don't know where he's keeping it. He'd definitely get suspicious if I asked, but if you do it, you can just pass it off as being curious about your babysitter. It's the perfect plan, right?"

"I guess so...?"

"You could always start by asking Mammon," He suggests, noticing my unease. "If you ask the right questions, he'll let it slip for sure - he's horrible at keeping secrets. Then all you need to do is find a way to mention it around Lucifer."

"Would that even work?" I ask. "Mr Lucifer seems like a smart guy. How d'you know he'll say anything?"

"Well— see, it doesn't seem like, but Mammon's totally Lucifer's favourite," Leviathan says, lowering his voice as if it's some sort of great secret. "If I know him - and I do - he probably wants to let Mammon have his thing back. He just can't, 'cause he needs to make sure he learns his lesson.

"But... if he gave you a hint, let you be the one to find the precious thing and give it back to Mammon, then he wouldn't have to sacrifice any of his pride, see?"

"You've put an awful lot of thought into this," I comment. Leviathan scoffs and tosses his fringe out of his eyes with a swift flick of his head.

"Of course I have!" He says proudly. "We've been brothers for way too long, so I know them like the back of my hand. This'll work for sure."

"If you say so..." I pause. "...so what do we do now? Uh... fist bump?"

His eyes light up considerably, and he immediately holds out a fist. "Sure!"

We exchange a slightly hesitant fist bump - Leviathan makes an enthusiastic 'boom!' sound effect, while I lose track of my own sound and just sort of go 'weoooo...' instead. I have to say - I hadn't expected him to go with it, but I'm glad he did. I think I would've just withered away out of embarrassment if he didn't.

Leviathan quickly shoos me out of his room after that, saying something about how the others will get suspicious if I go missing for too long. I'm quite happy to go - as cool as his room is, the longer I spend in there, the more keenly aware I become of how out-of-place I am in there.

I bid him a quiet goodbye as he clears his throat and scurries over to his desk. Just as I go to shut the door behind me, though, he spins around. "Uh, hey, d—"

But then he seems to change his mind. For a moment, we just both stare at each other in silence.

"...never mind," He says finally, then turns around and aggressively pulls his headphones over his ears. "J-just... shoo."

The plan making not-with-standing, I manage to find my way back to my room. I stand there for a moment, gazing absently at the floor, then clamber onto the bed with a sigh - this time successfully not launching myself to the floor in the process.

It's been a long day. I hadn't registered it earlier, but all those massive staircases at the R.A.D. are definitely taking their toll on my legs now. And there I'd been congratulating myself for maybe being more athletic than I'd thought I was.

I sit there in deep thought for while - thought about what, I don't know, but it's certainly distracting - then begin idly rolling around. This is the first time I've actually been in this bed - I didn't have any idea how darn comfy it is. 

It's massive, too. There's a reason I usually have to barricade myself in bed with old pillowcases, but I don't think I'd be able to accidentally fall out even if I tried. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the bed had some kind of magical mechanism against that.

The bed is so comfortable that I manage to fall asleep again - though probably not in any advisable position. Some time later, there's a knock on the door, and it opens before I can correct myself.

Lucifer stands there and stares at me for a moment. Ooh, that's a cool waistcoat. "...are you feeling alright?"

I clear my throat and hurriedly turn myself the right way up again. "Uh. Yeah."

"..." Lucifer doesn't seem convinced. (I appreciate the concern, but he's the one who knocked and then just came in anyway. Not my fault he doesn't understand how my spine operates.)

He doesn't seem interested in saying anything else, so I decide to prompt him. "Do you... need something?"

"...ah, right." It's only now that he seems to remember what he's here for. "Diavolo is here to see you. You shouldn't keep him waiting."

"Oh, right." I hop up, attempting to flatten my hair. It doesn't work - as per usual.

Diavolo is sitting in an armchair by the fire when Lucifer leads me into the room, now dressed in a comfortable-looking overcoat rather than his red R.A.D. ballgown-jacket. He's enjoying a cup of tea and conversing with Barbatos, who is standing poker-straight beside him, dressed in the same uniform from before. 

There are various books and bags sitting around Diavolo's armchair, which he immediately sets about presenting to me as soon as Lucifer alerts him to our presence.

"I thought you might need something to hold all your new pens," He says, rummaging through one bag and pulling out at least ten pencil cases. "I wasn't sure what sort you'd like, though, so go ahead and pick one."

I manage to stutter out a thank you as he dumps the pencil cases in my arms, a little overwhelmed by the whole thing. Lucifer's sat me down on the sofa across from Diavolo, which is just as well, since I'm pretty sure I would've fallen over from the sheer amount of things that Diavolo is piling onto me by now.

"When did you even find the time to purchase all of this?" Lucifer asks from his seat on the couch nearby as I deliberate between a black cat pencil case with little ears and a pencil case that looks like a sour cream and onion Pringles can.

Diavolo shrugs, rummaging through a series of boxes and handing me the one filled with pencils with little bobbly demon heads on top. "I didn't have any outstanding paperwork to do, so I thought I might as well use the time to do something nice. You know, IK, you don't have to pick just one."

I glance between the embroidered cat whiskers and the Pringles man's moustache, then look up and nod seriously. "Then I'll take them both."

"You can use one for your school essentials and the other for the fun things," He suggests cheerfully, passing me another three boxes - one of dragon-themed colouring pencils, one of scented rainbow gel pens, and one containing an entire calligraphy quill. "Here. Pick out whichever ones you like."

"You'll have a lot of things to put in your new backpack," Barbatos says with a small smile as I fumble with the three boxes and attempt to stack them on my lap along with the tin of watercolours and packet of glue sticks.

"Backpack?" Lucifer repeats, raising an eyebrow.

"IK requested a backpack when I asked her on our way to her first class this morning," Diavolo explains, helpfully helping me steady the pile of boxes on my knee. "So I asked Barbatos to make a quick run out to get one."

"Ah," Lucifer says. He looks rather thoughtful, but he doesn't ask or say anything else on the matter.

Diavolo spends another ten minutes or so showing me everything else he's gotten me - the best of which are a ruler with big googly eyes stuck to the end, an automatic pencil sharpener that dings like a microwave when it's done, and a single extremely large paper clip. He only seems to remember where he is when Barbatos reminds him that he has a meeting coming up.

At that, the prince hurriedly gathers his things and legs it out the House of Lamentation, leaving all purchased merchandise - though not without a cheery goodbye. There's so much that can hardly use it all myself, so it'd probably be better to divvy up everything else among the other brothers.

Lucifer kindly helps me carry the myriad of things that I've been given back to my room, at which point I discover that Diavolo has been kind enough to also include not one, not two, but three sets of pajamas along with all the school supplies - three onesies, to be exact. A football-patterned one, a dragon one complete with detachable tail, and a cat one with ears and whiskers on the hood as well as a snazzy little bow tie. 

All three are definitely at least two sizes too big. I have a feeling Diavolo doesn't really know at which point a human stops being a proper little kid, but they look comfortable, so I'm not complaining.

"I'm not sure I want to ask where Diavolo managed to find those," Lucifer comments, placing a final box full of notebooks on the desk as I hold the dragon onesie up in front of myself.

"I love dragons," I say in half delight and half awe, not listening to him.

"That's... good, I suppose." He gives me an odd look. "In any case, it seems you'll still need some clothes to wear outside of school and sleep. We'll have Asmo help you with that later."

"Alright," I nod, then suddenly remember Leviathan's words from earlier. 

Lucifer seems to be in a relatively decent mood, and there isn't anyone around to interrupt or comment on my suspiciousness. Who knows if there'll be any time better than now to put Leviathan's plan into action?

Lucifer is looking threateningly close to saying his farewells and leaving, so, without time to come up with a way to make it sound natural, I hurriedly ask, "So, um, about Mammon...?"

He pauses in the middle of adjusting his jacket on his shoulders, and gives me a slightly surprised look. "What about him?"

"Uh..." I make an indiscernible gesture with my hands. "What, uh... what's he like?"

He stares at me for a long moment. "...why do you ask?"

"Just wondering. Also, uh..." I think back to what Levi told me about Mammon earlier. "...I'd appreciate it if you could tell me more than just... 'he's a scumbag'."

"Well, it sounds to me as if you know plenty about him already," Lucifer sighs, shaking his head, then offers a flat sort of smile. "In any case, I suppose it's natural that you're curious. Let's see..."

He thinks for a moment, but rather than taking any sort of thoughtful hand-to-chin position like one might expect him to, he plants his hand firmly on his chest and starts staring absently at the wall. It looks pretty ridiculous, if I'm being honest, but I'm too terrified of Lucifer to laugh.

"...well, it's said that you can best judge a demon by what he holds highest in esteem," He says finally. "For Mammon, that's money. Completely and unequivocally so."

I don't know what unequivocally means, but I don't really want to ask and sound stupid, so I just nod in understanding. Is it just me, or is Lucifer being oddly theatrical about this? This doesn't sound like earnest advice - it feels more like he's telegraphing something.

He continues, "Of course, it doesn't have to be Grimm. Regardless of what form it comes in, if Mammon has currency, he'll find a way of spending it. Coins, jewels, antiques - there are no limits with him. Thus, I've had to set some for him myself."

Yeah, that sounds an awful lot like the beginning of a clue. "Like what?"

"In simple words, there are certain ways of spending money that can easily be... frozen," Lucifer says, a small smile pulling at his lips. "Though one doesn't have to work very hard to thaw them out."

I don't know how he'd have found out, but somehow I get the feeling that Lucifer knows exactly what Leviathan and I are up to. The question here is whether he's playing along and giving me a hint, or if he's leading me down the wrong path entirely...

Clue or not, it's all that Lucifer seems to be willing to disclose about the matter for now. He quickly takes his leave, with a brief reminder that dinner will be in about two hours, and that I shouldn't be late if I don't want Beelzebub to eat everything. 

As soon as his footsteps disappear down the hallway and I'm sure that he isn't going to burst back, I sit myself down at my desk and pull out my D.D.D.

bread man
i have an update

L3V1:
??

give

bread man:
i asked lucifer about mammon and he said that money is what's most important to him

L3V1:
what else is new lmao

anything useful?

bread man:
he said something about ways of spending money that can be frozen

L3V1:
huh

sounds like it was mammon's credit card after all

bread man:
well you can freeze a bank account and that's where the money on the credit card comes from. so that sounds about right

L3V1:
idk i think lucifer might have just frozen the card

like with ice

bread man:
that wouldn't make much sense because all mammon would have to do is talk to his bank and they'd give him a new credit card and disable the old one

my dad says that the credit card itself has no value, because it's just the key through which the currency is transferred

L3V1:
i don't think we have those in the devildom

bread man:
you don't have dads??

L3V1:
no we don't have banks

bread man:
oh

wait then where does the money come from?????

L3V1:
idk i don't rlly fw that stuff

bread man:
fw?

free worm

L3V1:
do u seriously not know what that means

bread man:
i do not

L3V1:
well i shouldn't say it

lucifer would get mad

bread man:
if it's a swear doesn't mammon do that a lot anyway

L3V1:
well yeah but not in front of lucifer

and i can't trust you not to show our messages to him

bread man:
fair

so what do we do about the credit card?

L3V1:
hmmm

ur room is right next to the kitchen right?

bread man:
yes

L3V1:
meet there in half an hour

sharp

bread man:
okay

I set a timer, then huff and set my D.D.D. down on the desk. Why does Leviathan want to meet in the kitchen, specifically? It's not exactly the most secretive place.

Is it something to do with his theory that the card's been literally put on ice? Banks apparently don't exist down here, so human logic doesn't apply... assuming that Mammon's credit card operates on some sort of inner computer (or maybe just good old magic), I guess getting rid of the card itself would effectively stop him from using it. 

Judging by his choice of meeting location, Leviathan probably thinks that Lucifer's put it in the freezer. Not that it isn't a pretty genius hiding spot - who would look for a credit card among the ice cream and the garden peas, after all? - but the fact that it's Lucifer makes me a little sceptical. 

He seems a very thorough demon, and even if chances are small, it's's definitely still possible that Mammon (or anyone else, really) could stumble upon it. I'd have thought he'd go for a completely foolproof approach. I don't know what it'd be, but there's probably one out there.

Then again, Leviathan said something about Mammon being his favourite, so maybe choosing a spot where he could accidentally find it was a deliberate decision. Lucifer's thought process really is a mystery.

I busy myself for a while by sorting out my two new pencil cases. As per Diavolo's suggestion, I fill the cat pencil case with all the typical school supplies - pencils, pens, rulers, highlighters, rubbers, even a compass - and the Pringles sour cream and onion pencil case with all the 'fun' stuff, as Diavolo put it - namely the colouring pencils, the scented gel pens, and the one giant paper clip among other things.

By the time I'm done with that, there's still about five minutes left on the timer, so I decide to change out of my R.A.D. uniform and into one of the onesies that Diavolo has so kindly gifted me. I deliberate between the dragon and the cat, then finally decide to go with the dragon.

The whole thing droops a little once I'm all zipped up and cosy inside, but it's so comfortable that I don't mind how melted the actual dragon aspect looks. The sheer detail that's gone into the design is so impressive - the scale pattern of the fabric looks like it's been hand-embroidered, and there's an array of little plastic jewels glued around the neckline as well as the wrist and ankle cuffs. 

It's probably the most expensive piece of clothing I've ever worn. I make a note to myself to thank Diavolo profusely for it next time I see him.

Then my timer goes off, and it's time to go meet Leviathan in the kitchen. I don't have any socks, so I just shove my feet back into my school shoes - I should ask for some slippers - and shuffle out of the room without bothering with the laces.

Leviathan hasn't arrived by the time I tentatively clatter into the kitchen, but to be fair, I did make sure I arrived two minutes ahead of time. I pull myself up into one of the seats at the table and sit in repose to wait.

When Leviathan does show up, it's with a great deal of exaggerated shuffling, and a large black jacket that makes him look far more conspicuous than camouflaged. He keeps looking back and forth as he sidles through the door, as if expecting one of his brothers to suddenly melt out of the wall and ask him what he's doing.

"Uh... hello."

He tiptoes over to the chair opposite mine and sits down, making a show out of flicking out the tail of his jacket like musicians in an orchestra do with their fancy long waistcoats. He also completely ignores my greeting. 

Not much I can do about that, though. "...so do you know what to do?"

"Well, I've got a few ideas, but—" He begins in a whisper, then cuts himself off as he fully takes in my current attire. Voice returning back to normal in a snap, he points directly at me and asks, "What are you wearing ?"

I look down at myself and then back up at him. "Pyjamas."

"I can see that!" He waves his hand about, trying to come up with something to say. "I meant, like— why do they look like that??"

"It's meant to be a dragon," I say, raising my arm and showing him the scales. "See?"

He frowns. and shakes his head. "Dragons don't look anything like that."

"Maybe the ones you've seen don't," I say dismissively, tugging the hood over my head and keeping it there. "It's for good luck."

He pulls a face. "Why?"

"Because we're looking for Mammon's treasure, and dragons like treasure."

"...yeah, sure, whatever." He doesn't seem interested in arguing, but he doesn't look convinced, either. "We don't have time for this, anyway. Did Lucifer say anything else important?"

He asks that last question at such a low volume that I have to lean halfway across the table to hear him properly. Following his example, I answer in a theatrical whisper as well.

"He said something like... 'you don't have to work very hard to thaw it out'."

Leviathan nods thoughtfully, drawing invisible patterns across the table with his left index finger. "Sounds like he really was trying to clue you into something."

"Do you think he's actually just frozen it?" I ask. Leviathan nods, getting to his feet and heading over to what I had thought was just a smaller fridge but is apparently a freezer.

"That's what I think Lucifer's trying to tell you," He says, pulling the door open and beginning to rummage around. "Hmm... I don't see anything."

"That's a lot of peas," I comment, staring at the giant green bag that he's pulled out and set aside. "Are you a fan?"

"They're not mine," Leviathan snorts, as if the very idea is ridiculous. "Lucifer just keeps buying them. I don't know why, maybe he thinks it's an easier way to get us to eat more healthy, but none of us really like peas that much. Satan hates them."

"Are they just regular garden peas?" I ask. "I didn't know you could get those in the Devildom."

"Well, I don't know where Lucifer gets them from," Leviathan answers, pushing aside about five tubs of ice cream and a bag of what look like mozzarella sticks. "I've never seen them in Devildom shops. Maybe he's getting them imported."

Seems a lot of effort for peas. As Leviathan continues to shove various boxes and bags aside to no avail, I spot something glinting from the ice tray. "Hey, there's something in there."

He follows my pointing finger and quickly yanks the tray open, rolling up his sleeve and plunging his hand right into the mass of ice cubes without even the slightest bit of hesitation. I shudder behind him as he starts swishing his hand about in search of something solid to grasp - how is he not getting extreme frost-burn right now? Is this just another immortal demon thing?

A moment later, Leviathan gives a triumphant cheer and pulls his hand out, holding a substantially larger lump of ice with something dark right in the centre. Upon closer inspection, it does indeed seem to be a credit card - a black one with fancy gold trim.

"Looks like I was right!" He crows happily, holding the lump of ice up in victory, then quickly catching it with his other hand as he almost drops it entirely. "Lucifer really did freeze it!"

"How did Mammon not find it?" I ask. "It was, like... right there."

"Probably 'cause he's stupid," Leviathan replies. "He wouldn't even think to check. Anyway, I'm gonna go ahead and melt this..."

"Wait, no!" I hurriedly stop him as he motions to shove the lump of ice and credit card into the microwave. "You might blow it up if you don't take it out at the right time. Also, I'm pretty sure you'll break the credit card."

He considers, then sighs. "Well, the look on Mammon's face'd be pretty funny... but I guess we can't use it as a bargaining chip if it doesn't work. How else do we get it out of the ice, then?"

"We could just leave it by the fireplace," I suggest. "Not too close, but close enough that it melts the ice quicker."

"That's not fast enough," Leviathan says, shaking his head. "We gotta make this quick. Any other ideas?"

I think for a moment. "Uh... there's this way you're supposed to melt chocolate that might work. You boil a pan of water and put a bowl in that - so we could put the card in the bowl, and then it should melt a lot quicker."

Leviathan nods thoughtfully. "Oh, that's smart. Okay, so..."

Tasking me with watching the ice (as if it'll go anywhere), he retrieves the necessary equipment, then gestures for me to help him get it set up. I go up onto my tiptoes to turn the tap on for him, filling the saucepan to the halfway point, then follow him to the stove as he sets it down.

I don't know how he's going to heat the water up, since there aren't any of the buttons or dials you get on gas or electric cooker. The so-called stove doesn't even seem to have any stoves on it - it's just a smooth stone surface, covered with a thin layer of soot and ash.

My question is answered when Leviathan shakes his left hand out and just sort of.. slaps the stove. A flame erupts from where his palm hit the stone, and I watch in abject confusion as he quickly waves his hand about above it, calming the roaring flame to a calmer sort of sizzle.

"Is that how you cook all the time?" I ask as he adjusts the saucepan slightly to get it into optimal heat position. "Fire magic?"

"Yeah, of course," He says absent-mindedly, tapping his fingers on the stove top - right in the flame, might I add. From ice to fire - one extreme to another. "Anyone could do a spell like that. Easy-peasy."

"...huh." I pass him the bowl as the water begins to bubble. 

He quickly deposits it in the saucepan, then sets the frozen credit card in it; the ice starts melting almost immediately. It's a little scary how quickly the heat makes work of it, but I guess the fire down here must be a lot hotter than human-world fire. It is basically Hell, after all.

I open my mouth to say something, but I'm cut off by the sound of the kitchen door slamming open. I turn around to see Mammon, who's changed out of his uniform as well - is that a feather duster on his belt?

He's also wearing what appear to be sunglasses indoors in a realm where the sun doesn't seem to exist. Why do they even manufacture them down here? Purely fashion reasons, I assume.

"Alright, what's all this about, then?" He asks irritably as he shuts the door behind him, then pauses and gives Leviathan and me the once-over. "What's the kid doin' here? And why the hell are you two dressed up like that?"

"Stealth and luck," Leviathan says dismissively, sticking his finger in the bowl and stirring the now mostly-melted ice lump around. "Anyway, we've got something that you want."

"What's that s'posed to mean?" He comes closer and peers into the bowl, then lets out a gasp so loud that he probably inhales a fair amount of dust and ash in the process. "Goldie!"

"Goldie?" I repeat. "...you gave your credit card a name?"

"It's Mammon," Leviathan replies, shaking his head. "Of course he did. He loves that thing more than anything in the world."

"Don't call Goldie a thing!" Mammon complains, hopping agitatedly up and down on the spot. "Why's she all... all cold??"

"Lucifer put her in the freezer," I tell him. "She was in the ice box."

"And we found her for you," Leviathan says smugly, giving the thawed-out card one more stir around the bowl before scooping it out. "So you totally owe us one now."

Mammon, who doesn't appear to be listening to a word Leviathan is saying, looks as if he's about to cry. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, give her here!"

"Not so fast!" Leviathan deftly spins around, pulling the card out of the reach of Mammon's outstretched hand, then firmly slaps it into my hands. "This human here was the one who got the clue from Lucifer."

"So what?" Mammon hovers on the spot uncertainly, apparently unsure of what to do now. He probably doesn't want to do anything that risks incurring Lucifer's wrath, and accidentally killing the exchange student in a bid to retrieve his credit card would definitely do that.

"So, don't you think you owe her a favour?" Leviathan asks, making a signal at me from behind Mammon's back as he speaks. I try my best to silently tell him that I have no idea what he wants me to do.

Which seems to work, since he mouths something at me instead. As per his hastily-communicated instruction, I shove the card into my pocket and do my best to give Mammon a stare-down. I don't think it's working - but whether that's my fault or because he's not looking at me, I can't tell.

"Sure, whatever ya want!" Mammon says eagerly, nevertheless. "Go on, name it!"

"I think..." Leviathan pauses as if thinking, but I'm pretty sure it's just for dramatic effect. "...you should make a pact with the human."

"Right, right, a pact, 'course— WHAT?!" Mammon looks positively thunderstruck. "Why would I make a pact?!"

"Well, you're gonna have to make a pact if you want IK to give you the credit card," Leviathan explains, a pleased grin on his face. "Think about it. If you make a pact with IK, you'll have to do whatever she tells you. So all she has to do is tell you to give me back my money, and you'll have to do that! Checkmate!"

"You ain't played a game of chess in your life," Mammon shoots back, scowling. "This was all just a set-up, wasn't it?!"

"What, did you think I was helping you out of the goodness of my heart?" Leviathan scoffs, shaking his head. "Of course I was gonna want something in return. Now are you going to make the pact or not?"

Mammon looks as if he's about to storm right out of the room, so Leviathan quickly corrects himself. "Actually, let's phrase it like this - do you want Goldie back or not?"

"Oh, for— " Mammon grits his teeth, growling an insult under his breath, then abruptly turns to me. "Oi, you! Why're you just goin' along with this? Levi's clearly using ya, ain't he?! C'mon, ya don't have to do what he says!"

"Uh," I say, fiddling about with the card in my pocket. "I plead the fifth?"

"What's that s'posed to mean?!" He raises his hand as if to smack me directly in the head, then thinks better of it and puts it back down again. He turns back to Leviathan, who's watching the whole scene with a great deal of glee. "Levi, what the hell did ya tell her?!"

"All I did was tell her the plan," Leviathan says innocently, raising his hands in a gesture of false surrender. "She didn't have to agree to go through with it. Face it, Mammon, maybe the human wants a pact."

I'm not too sure about that, actually... Leviathan shoots me a look over his shoulder that says play along, so I hurriedly add, "Yeah, totally."

"But—" Mammon throws his arms in the air, gesturing about at nothing in particular (though I suspect that his flailing hands are meant to be aimed at me). "You're just saying that 'cause Levi's tellin' you to!"

I mean, he's not wrong, but I'm not going to say that. If I'm honest, I'm having a lot more fun with this whole thing than I probably should be. "Will you do it if I triple dog dare you?"

"What— what does that even mean?!" Mammon splutters. He's getting more and more distressed by the moment.

"I don't know. It sounded cool."

"Stop wasting time!" Leviathan huffs, setting his hands on his hips impatiently. "If you want the card, you'll have to make the pact. Deal?"

"No deal!" Mammon exclaims, so loudly that dust actually falls from the ceiling at the sound. "I'm not interested! Ya think I'd let some stupid human be the boss of me? Are you an idiot?!"

"A stupid human with your credit card," Leviathan corrects him, and I can't even be mad at him for insulting. "And that credit card's gonna go poof if you don't make that pact, ASAP!"

ASAP is a thing they say in the Devildom as well? I hurry to agree as Leviathan subtly jabs me in the arm. "Yeah, what he said."

"This is gettin' ridiculous now!" Mammon sighs and sits himself down firmly in one of the chairs, crossing his arms and pouting like a child. "Look, kid, I don't know what Levi told ya, but you do know what a pact involves, right?"

"Something to do with a soul and stuff," I reply, shrugging. "But he said that you're not allowed to have it until the year's over, so..."

"That doesn't mean that I ain't gonna take it after that!" Mammon scoffs in disbelief. "How dumb can ya get?"

"I mean... I don't really care that much," I say uncertainly. "I don't really know what soul-taking involves, but as long as it doesn't hurt too much..."

Mammon stares at me for a long while. Finally, pinching the bridge of his nose, he lets out a deep sigh and mutters, "Humans are so damn weird."

Taking in a short breath and sighing once more, he raises his head again and says begrudgingly, "Fine. I'll make a pact with ya. Arm out."

"What?" I try to ignore Leviathan's celebratory air-punch and focus on Mammon, who's shaking his head and standing up. 

He pauses for a moment, then pulls my left arm up and pushes back my sleeve. I open my mouth to protest, discomfited by the contact, then think better of it.

"Wrist up," He instructs gruffly, and I twist my forearm around obligingly.

"Do I need to do anything?" I ask as Mammon deliberates for a moment, then sets two fingers down about four inches below my wrist. It looks like he's feeling for a pulse, but has no idea where to do it.

"Nah, just hold still," He says, then presses his fingers down hard. "Vestiges of sin in the kingdom of the forsaken..."

I hold my breath and try not to focus on the feeling of Mammon's fingers digging into my arm as if he's trying to physically gouge a hole into it. Leviathan gives me an encouraging thumbs up from behind Mammon's back as he continues to mutter, words bleeding together into a jumble of raspy sibilance - to the point where I can't even distinguish the syllables anymore.

"...until the darkness crawls forth, blah blah blah, my strength is yours."

There isn't any pulse of power or rising violin chord to go along with the culmination of Mammon's ritual - in fact, I don't feel any change at all. The only difference is that, when Mammon lifts his fingers, there's an odd symbol marked into my skin.

It looks like a little sun - a black red-rimmed circle with five petal-like shapes blooming from it, and three little stars glinting a soft gold beneath. Even as I look at it, it seems to smoulder and shimmer; the dark sun gives off an odd sort of black mist, even as the stars continue to sparkle happily beneath it.

"It'll settle down after a couple o'days," Mammon says, peering at his handiwork with a look of almost satisfaction in his eyes. "Gotta say, it turned out pretty decent..."

"It's very pretty," I agree, poking at the mark. Mammon shudders and pulls a face.

"Quit it," He says, rolling his shoulders back and shaking his hands out. "I can feel it when ya do that, you know."

"Sorry." I pull my sleeve back down, then reach into my pocket and pull out the credit card. "Here."

"Goldie!" Mammon's entire demeanour does a complete 180, as if he'd forgotten why he agreed to make the pact in the first place. He snatches the card and holds it to his chest like a precious baby, grinning like a child on Christmas Day.

"Reunited at last," Leviathan comments, a look of half distaste and half pity crossing his face. "Well, at least everything went to plan."

I shake my left arm out as the mark tingles slightly, as if it's responding to Mammon's happiness. "Right. What do we do now?"

Leviathan sighs. "Let him have his moment, I guess. We can make him give my money back later."

...well, he seems content, at least. Mammon, too - he's doing a little dance on the spot.

I'm not sure whether or not to feel similarly. As it stands, I feel pretty okay, but I'm beginning to think I should've thought this through more.

Oh, whatever. Getting summoned to Hell, going to demon school, meeting angels - after all that, this just feels par for the course. Nothing about this situation is normal.

I glance over at Mammon again. Despite all that, I can't help but wonder what I've gotten myself into.

Chapter Text

I’m happy about the pact with Mammon, I really am, but if this mark tingles one more time, I’m going to throw something. 

Of course, the fact that I haven’t even been in the Devildom for a full week and have already managed to make a pact with one of the most powerful demons in it is more impressive than any of my achievements up to now, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about every single aspect of it. 

Mammon did say that the whole dark-mist-and-glowing-stars thing would wear off after a while, but he didn’t say anything about the constant pulsing, as if there’s some creature buried under the skin that’s trying desperately to get out. The thought that I might be putting up with this for the rest of my life is… disheartening, to say the least.

The worst part of it is that the mark doesn’t rest at night, either. I can’t even appreciate the comfiness of the bed properly with it constantly throbbing and prickling, and by the time morning rolls around, I’ve barely gotten any sleep at all.

Satan is in the kitchen once again when I stumble in, still mostly asleep, with the dragon onesie looking a lot more sad and squashed than it did last night. Like yesterday, he’s sat at the table with a mug of some kind of hot drink and a book in hand. 

“Morning,” He greets me as I pull out the chair opposite him and clamber into it with some effort. “You look awful.”

Not one to mince words, is he? “I know.”

“Is it the pact mark?” He asks, setting down his mug. “I hear they can be rather irritating at first.”

“Yep,” I kick my legs about slightly, giving a long, exhausted sigh. “I’m starting to regret making that pact in the first place.”

“Cheer up,” He says with some sympathy. “It should stop after a few days. That’s what I’ve read, anyway.”

“I sure hope so,” I grumble, and slump forward onto the table. 

The kitchen is silent for a while, save for the quiet crackling of the candles along the walls. Satan has returned to his book and is evidently uninterested in continuing with conversation, so I dig my D.D.D. out of my pocket in hopes of finding something to occupy myself.

There are several unread messages from the House of Lamentation group chat that I’ve been added to, most of which are about the revelation of Mammon and I now having a pact. Funnily enough, the others didn’t react with any sort of suspicion or hesitance about the fact that their brother was now basically under the control of a human they barely know. On the contrary, upon being given the news at the dinner table last night, Asmodeus and Satan responded with amusement, Beelzebub with indifference, and Lucifer with… well, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but he didn’t seem angry, at least.

Speaking of yesterday’s dinner, it hadn’t been something completely poisonous like I’d initially thought it might be, but I’m not too sure what it actually was, either. Some kind of meat that tasted like chicken but was a bit too green to be, a soup of a deep blue colour that was emitting some slightly concerning purple smoke, a slice of surprisingly normal-looking bread that ended up tasting of sweet potato for some reason, and a bowl of peas. Just regular old garden peas. I’d eaten mine, but most of the others had ignored theirs. I’m pretty sure I saw Satan stealthily tip his share into Beelzebub’s bowl while Lucifer was occupied with telling Mammon off for throwing his knife at Leviathan. 

The meal was far from the oddest thing about the evening though - I noticed that there was a distinct absence of a seventh brother around the table, and, scrolling through my contacts and chatrooms, there doesn’t seem to be any record of one there either. I’m beginning to think that he doesn’t even exist, but I’m also relatively sure that Lucifer and Diavolo both made reference to there being seven brothers in total - plus, there are seven deadly sins, so it just makes sense. 

Satan doesn’t seem to be in a particularly aggressive mood, so I figure it should be okay to ask him. I pause for a moment, then begin, “Hey, uh, Mr Satan?”

He takes a moment to realise that I’m talking to him, but he does look up and respond eventually. “...yes?”

“Mr Lucifer mentioned that there were seven of you,” I say hesitantly, fiddling with the ends of my sleeves. “But, uh... I don’t think I’ve actually seen the seventh one yet. I was wondering who he is.”

Satan goes silent. His hands tighten around his book until the pages crinkle and his knuckles go white, his eyes distant and burning with something that I can’t quite discern, but his face stays carefully composed and neutral. Somehow, though, that’s even scarier than it would have been if he’d started glaring at me.

“...you shouldn’t talk about him,” He says finally, and though he’s doing a good job at disguising it behind factual blankness, there’s a subtle tremble to his voice. Not the sad, emotional kind of tremble, though - the kind of tremble you only get when you’re holding back an immense amount of rage. “It’s forbidden grounds. Lucifer’s orders.”

He says his older brother’s name with such derision that it’s actually chilling. There’s just so much hatred - like he’s willing Lucifer to burn to a crisp and get squashed by an anvil and drown in lava all at the same time. What on earth could he have done to make Satan hate him so much?

“Oh,” I say, now beginning to feel as if I’ve made an extremely big mistake. “Sorry…”

Satan looks at me for a long moment, then shakes his head with a sigh. “Don’t worry about it. You wouldn’t have known. Just… don’t bring it up again. It isn’t any of your business - got it?”

I nod vigorously. “Got it.”

He returns to reading, but I can tell that his fairly light mood is already spoiled; there’s a subtle frown pinching at his face, and he’s started drumming his fingers agitatedly on the table. He keeps turning the pages of his book, but I get the feeling that he isn’t really processing the words on them.

After several more minutes of awkward silence, during which Satan continues to ‘read’ while I desperately attempt to distract myself by swiping restlessly back and forth on my D.D.D.’s home screen, he finally sets his book down with a sigh.

“Do you want a drink?” He asks. “I’ll make you a coffee.”

“Huh?” I look up in surprise to see him already getting to his feet. “Oh, it’s fine, you don’t have to—”

“How much sugar do you take?” He asks, ignoring me entirely and turning to retrieve two jars from one of the cupboards. 

“Uh,” I fumble for a moment, still disoriented by the sudden shift in behaviour. “Just a teaspoon.”

He nods and begins spooning coffee grounds and a little sugar into a mug patterned with little yellow seashells. After a pause, as he pours in the hot water, he says, “Devildom coffee works pretty much the same as human world coffee, so you don’t need to worry about being poisoned.”

“Ah. Thanks.”

“No problem.” He finishes the drink with a generous dash of milk, then sets the mug in front of me and returns to his seat. “Breakfast is usually in about half an hour, by the way.”

“Got it.” I pull the mug closer to myself to inspect the contents. It looks and smells just like regular coffee, and Satan said that it isn’t poisonous, so I assume it’s safe to drink. “So... do you usually get up this early?”

“I try to,” He replies with some satisfaction, picking up his own drink and taking a long sip from it. “It’s nice to have some quiet time to read before the House starts getting rowdy. How about you?”

“Oh, absolutely not.” I half-laugh, tapping my fingers on the table. “Normally I stay up too late and then sleep in for way too long. My dad's always on my case about it. He says I need an actual sleep schedule. Well, that's what coffee's supposed to be for... even though I swear people are making it up sometimes."

“Your father is right,” Satan replies, shaking his head in disapproval. “Adequate sleep is necessary for you humans to function properly.”

“‘You humans’?” I repeat, squinting at him. “Do demons not sleep?”

“Of course we do,” He says, scoffing. “We just aren’t nearly as dependent on it. Most demons don’t need more than three hours of sleep to keep going about their day as normal, actually - those of us who sleep for longer usually just do it for the relaxation. That said, though, there are some exceptions who… need more…”

He trails off, suddenly looking distant again. A moment later, he shakes his head again, much more aggressively this time, then continues as if nothing has happened. “Anyway, as long as you get up early enough to get to school on time, I doubt Lucifer will get too angry at you. Though I would recommend you at least show up to the breakfast table.”

“Do you all eat breakfast together?”

“I suppose so,” He says a little thoughtfully. “We don’t make it a tradition - we just sort of do it. It’s all just part of the routine at this point, really.”

“Huh.” I try a tentative sip of my coffee and wrinkle my nose slightly. It isn’t bad by any means - it actually tastes pretty much just like the cheap instant coffee I have back home - but there’s a bit of a strangely sweet aftertaste to it, despite the fact that there isn’t a lot of sugar in it. I can’t quite place my finger on what the flavour reminds me of. Caramel? Maple syrup?

“You seem surprised,” Satan comments, raising an eyebrow. “Why? I thought that sort of thing was common for humans.”

“I mean, it is , but we don’t really do it all that much in my house,” I explain. “Dad usually has to leave for work way before I wake up, and neither of us really eat anything for breakfast anyway. Dinner is when we eat together… sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“Because he’s always busy,” I clarify. “There aren’t a lot of places willing to take him on, and the ones that do usually have really unpredictable shifts and working hours.”

“Why wouldn’t workplaces be willing to take your father on?” Satan asks. “I imagine he can’t be a particularly bad person if he’s managed to raise such a… polite child.”

“I’m not polite, I’m just terrified of authority,” I say, and leave my answer at that. If Satan notices me deflecting his initial question, he doesn’t mention it, which I’m grateful for. That’s a whole other can of worms that I don’t really trust him enough to open. 

A few minutes later, the kitchen door opens, and none other than Asmodeus patters inside, wearing a rather low-cut dressing gown over some ridiculously fancy-looking silken pyjamas. His fringe is a lot looser and less styled than it was yesterday, and it’s pinned back hap-hazardly with a butterfly hairclip.

“Morning,” He yawns, giving both Satan and me brief cheek pinches in greeting. I guess it must be routine for him - Satan doesn’t react at all. “You two sure are some early birds today.”

“Early bird catches the worm, I guess,” I huff, swinging my legs back and forth. “I’d rather still be sleeping, though.”

Asmodeus clicks his tongue in sympathy as he pulls a saucepan from the same cupboard that Leviathan got his from yesterday. “Pact mark itching?”

“ Itching is an understatement.” I pull a face and take another sip of my coffee. Now that I think about it, that aftertaste is close to honeycomb - specifically the variety you get in Crunchie bars. 

“Poor thing,” Asmodeus hums, briefly passing his fingers over the stove top to light it up just like Leviathan did last night. “Have you tried Blackgrass ointment?”

“No. Should I have?”

“It helps soothe inflammation and irritation in small amounts,” He explains, moving over to the fridge and searching through it. “But you’ll have to make sure you patch test with just a teensy drop before you start using it. When you’re allergic to it, it’s usually the fatal kind of allergy.”

I pull a face. “I think I’ll pass. Thanks, though.”

“Fair enough,” He nods, and goes back to his meal prep.

“Wise decision,” Satan comments, smiling in what I think is approval. “The line between perfect and deadly dosage is rather thin with Blackgrass ointment. Most demons prefer not to go near the stuff, but Asmo’s been using it for years.”

“That's because I know exactly how much my skin can take,” Asmodeus calls over his shoulder. “And it’s done wonders for my complexion. It gives your skin such a wonderful glow if you use it in the right amounts.”

“That ‘glow’ can become chemical burn extremely quickly if you’re not careful,” Satan counters. “Keep doing you, Asmo, but I don’t think you should be recommending it to a human. Especially such a small one.”

“Hey, I’m not small ,” I object. “You’re just really tall.”

“Actually, by Devildom standards, I’m pretty average. You, on the other hand, are far below that,” Satan says matter-of-factly. “Whether or not you’re of a standard height where you come from doesn’t change the fact that, down here, you’re tiny.”

I open my mouth to make a rebuttal, then realise that I don’t have any. “...you’re right, but I don’t like it.”

“You’ve totally got a few perks now, though,” Asmodeus chimes in. “Diavolo thinks you’re adorable, so he’ll probably let you get away with anything.”

I pull a face. Hearing the adjective ‘adorable’ in relation to me is so alien that it’s actually a little uncomfortable. “Where’d you get that from?”

“He said so during the council meeting yesterday,” He explains. “In case you were wondering, it was in relation to your handwriting.”

“Wh—” I squint at him in bewilderment. “—why was I being brought up at a council meeting?”

“Well, aside from making sure all the exchange students were settling in alright, Lucifer specifically mentioned that your teachers yesterday had a few...comments to make about you,” Satan elaborates, then chuckles slightly when he sees the look on my face. “You don’t need to look so afraid. Glowing reviews across the whole board - apart from Professor Ala, but she’s always been quite… strict.”

I think back to my nightmare of an Enchantments lesson and grimace. “...yeah.”

“Diavolo’s specifically instructed all the staff to be a little less hard on you, so you shouldn’t worry too much about that,” Satan says, then raises an eyebrow at me. “He’s placing quite a lot of trust in the fact that you won’t take advantage of that, so if you're planning to use the opportunity to slack off, I’d advise you be cautious about it.”

“Encouraging the exchange student to ‘slack off’ is a disagreeable practice, Satan,” comes a familiar voice from the kitchen door. Both Satan and I stiffen, while Asmodeus simply smiles.

“Morning, Lucifer,” He chirps as the demon himself takes a seat at the kitchen table. I don’t fail to notice the way that Satan unsubtly scoots his chair away from him. “Breakfast will be ready soon!”

“Thank you, Asmo,” Lucifer replies, then turns to me. “I see that you seem to be settling in relatively well. How’s your coffee?”

I glance down at my mug and tap my fingers against it. “Quite nice.”

He nods and doesn’t say anything further. I can see why Mammon said he isn’t very good at keeping up conversation yesterday - that little chat we’ve shared was just about the dullest exchange possible. 

Something about Lucifer’s presence seems to put a complete damper on the somewhat warm atmosphere of the kitchen. Satan has gone stonily silent, sticking his nose firmly into his book, and refusing to even look up at his older brother, while Asmodeus is bustling about the kitchen with even more fervour than before, apparently too concentrated to say even a word. I can’t help but follow his movement with my eyes from behind my D.D.D (which has long since gone dark with inactivity), wondering if he’d object if I asked to help. 

I don’t end up working up the nerve to be able to do so, but I do get to assist Asmodeus in carrying the various plates over to the big fancy table in the dining room. Thanks to the size of said plates, though, I can only carry one at a time, while Asmodeus expertly balances about five across his arms at once; still, he thanks me with such enthusiasm that I still feel like I’m helping. 

The breakfast food itself is mostly made of of things that don’t look like anything I’ve ever eaten in my life - maybe those could be bright orange hash browns if I squint hard enough? - and I’m not actually hungry at all, but I can’t just refuse to eat outright. That’d just be rude. 

Instead, I bring my still half-full mug of coffee over to the breakfast table and keep sipping from it throughout the meal. I’m not sure what I’m trying to achieve, but I think that constantly being in the middle of drinking something every time anyone looks at me means that I look too busy to be eating. In any case, I don’t end up eating any breakfast - orange hash browns or otherwise. 

It’s not the sneakiest way of tactfully avoiding a meal - I'm pretty sure Lucifer knows exactly what I’m doing, actually, based on the way he keeps glancing down at me with a slight furrow in his brow, but he doesn’t say anything about it. I guess he’s too busy eating that single piece of sweet potato bread that he’s been steadily working his way through for the past half an hour.

After a mostly uneventful breakfast - during which both Mammon and Leviathan are thoroughly absent, which just gives Beelzebub time to eat all of their food - I pop back by my room to change into my uniform and pick up my backpack. It’s already packed with all the things I need, thanks to the evening school-prep routine that I’ve had established ever since Year 6, so I’m able to get myself ready to follow Satan and Asmodeus off to the R.A.D. in no time.

The entrance is buzzing with even more students than there were yesterday, which is terrifying, to say the least. I feel like I’ll drown if I take even one step into the crowd, but Asmodeus and Satan evidently don’t have any such qualms, since they both go off their separate ways without so much as a goodbye. That’s probably because I stopped just outside the gate without saying a word to tell them so, but it’s still a little disheartening. 

I move to take a step forward, then hesitate and immediately skitter backwards again, doing my best to look nonchalant as I back up against a tree just outside the gate and just… stay there. None of the students spare me even a second glance, but I can’t help but still feel like there are millions of eyes bearing down on me.

“Yo,” comes a voice from somewhere above. “We meet again.”

I whirl around just in time to see a vaguely familiar head of dusty pink hair drop from the branches above and grin at me. (For clarification - the head is attached to a body. It isn’t of the severed variety.)

“Oh,” I say in mild surprise. It’s the guy I ran into outside the entrance yesterday - the one who sounds like my History teacher and looks like a bottle of champagne. “Hello. Are you ready to eat me yet?”

“Hmmm, not quite,” He responds in faux-thoughtfulness. “Still a bit too early. Give me at least another month. Hey, weren’t you with Satan and Asmodeus earlier? Where’d they go?”

“How do you know that?” I ask in reply.

He shrugs, then shifts slightly and hops down from the tree, landing deftly on his feet like an especially lanky cat. A rather battered-looking camera rattles around his neck; he flicks it on and shows me the screen.

“Got some pretty decent shots,” He says with a slightly lopsided grin, flipping through the gallery. “See?”

I stare at the slightly grainy image of Satan, Asmodeus and myself on our way up the road and shiver inadvertently. There’s something inherently creepy about seeing myself captured so candidly - with no clue that a picture was being taken inn the first place. Plus, even if it’s really pixelated, I can still see my own face, and I don’t like that at all.

“...that’s a huge invasion of privacy,” I say. “Is it normal down here to take pictures of people without consent?”

“Well, when you put it like that...” He shrugs, turning his camera off and letting it dangle loosely from his neck again. “Sounds real creepy, but sacrifices have to be made sometimes, you know. Good pictures make good stories, after all.”

“I don’t think you’re the one doing any sacrificing here.”

He laughs. “Fair enough! Hey, if you’re so uncomfortable, I don’t mind deleting them. I’ve got more than enough material for this week’s issue anyway.”

I nod firmly. “Please do.” 

He turns his camera back on and goes back to find the pictures he’d taken earlier, pointedly glancing at me after each scrapped-paper sound effect to make sure I know that he’s deleting them. 

“I’m Mephisto, by the way,” He says off-handedly as he turns his camera off once again. “Full name’s Mephistopheles, but if you call me that, I’ll happily ruin your reputation. I’m head of the R.A.D.’s newspaper club - guess I didn’t make the best first impression, huh?”

I don’t agree outright, but I do make an affirmative sort of noise as I shake his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Feeling’s mutual,” He says with another lopsided grin. “What’re you doing over here, anyway? Don’t you have classes to get to?”

“I mean, I do, but…” I look back over at the still-swelling crowds outside the entrance and wince slightly. “There are so many people… and I don’t even know where to go.”

“What do you have now?” He asks.

“Creature Studies,” I reply, pulling my timetable out of my pocket and showing him. “It says I need to find ‘the Tree’, but I don’t know where that is. It isn’t on my map.”

“Hmm…” Mephisto taps a thoughtful finger to his chin. “I would escort you, but I have a meeting with Astaroth in ten minutes… here, give me the map.”

I pass it to him obligingly, and he scans it for a moment before clicking his tongue and nodding, flattening the paper out against the tree trunk and pulling a fancy fountain pen out of seemingly nowhere. Then, uncapping it with a deft flick of his hand, he points the nib at one of the marked doors.

“Alright, listen carefully,” He says, beginning to quickly scribble down some annotations. “Take the first staircase on your left in the entrance hall, and just keep turning left until you get to the painting with the ghost hare with the axe - right about here. You following?”

I follow the line of arrows and multiple labels he’s written in rigidly-uniform block capitals. He’s even somehow added serifs onto the letters. “I think so.”

“Good.” He pauses briefly to shake the pen out again, then continues scribbling. “At the painting, turn right and keep going until you see the golden revolving door. The secondary grounds will be just through it. Then you’ll want to follow the stone path - the stone path, got it? Not the sand one. There’ll be a tree somewhere along it with a golden rope around it, right about… here. There should already be some people around it, but if there aren’t, just wait. Classes won’t start in too long.”

He caps his pen and and shoves it down his collar (for some reason), then straightens out the map and holds it out to me. “There we go. You think you can get there on your own?”

I scan over the map one final time, then look up and give him a nod. “Yep. Thanks.”

“Then my work here is done,” He says proudly, flicking out his red shoulder-cape with a superhero-like flair. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to eat you. See you around!”

And with those slightly ominous words, he ducks behind the tree and disappears. 

I stand there for a good minute just staring at the shadow of the trunk that Mephisto has just seemingly vanished into, then decide that it isn’t worth giving myself a headache over it. Devildom logic, I guess - or it might just be a spell.

In the time I’ve spent talking to Mephisto, the crowd around the entrance has been quelled substantially, so, clutching the map in slightly shaky fists, I soldier forward into the main building. Most of the students barely spare me a glance, but there are a select few who decide to pause and leer down at me with rather threatening grins on their faces. The thing is, most of the demons who are doing that aren't  nearly as intimidating as the ones I ate breakfast with this morning - actually, they seem to fall more into the 'seedy' category of looks - so instead of running for the hills like they seem to be expecting me to, I just pretend not to see them at all. 

The details of the Mephisto’s carefully dictated instructions are already fading away, but luckily all the little annotations he’s added to my map are enough to jog my memory about the most important parts. Carefully avoiding eye contact with anyone, I do just as he’s said - first staircase on the left in the entrance hall, keep turning left until the portrait of the ghost hare holding an extremely large and bloody axe in its rather unwieldy clawed paws, take the right corridor to get to the golden revolving door, then follow the stone path until the tree with the golden rope.

There are already several students gathered in little groups around it, including Simeon and Luke, who are hovering slightly awkwardly apart from the others. They seem to be trying to make conversation in an attempt to pretend that they don’t notice the side-eyes they’re getting from the clearly slightly apprehensive demons in the class, but I can tell from the constant glances that they’re not feeling very 'kumbaya’ about the whole situation either. 

Luke in particular keeps swivelling his head about like a sentinel in an attempt to prevent any of the demons from realising that he’s listening to what they’re saying, which means that he’s the first to spot me approaching from down the path. His immediate response is to stick his hand high in the air and wave furiously, but then he seems to think better of it, and drops his hand to perform a much more subdued greeting. 

“Hello,” I say, coming to a stop beside the two angels and raising my own hand in a half-hearted attempt at some kind of salute. “Did you get all your books and stuff yesterday?”

“Yep!” Luke answers, tapping the charm on his hat proudly. I'm guessing the angels are doing whatever they did with their lunchboxes yesterday to carry their things around. “All right here. How about you?”

I bounce slightly on the spot in an attempt to convey my answer through the sound of the various things in my bag. “Mhm. Mr Diavolo went kind of overboard.”

“Yes, I believe I heard something about this from Solomon,” Simeon says thoughtfully. “He mentioned something about seeing Diavolo and Barbatos approach the House of Lamentation with a rather… copious amount of luggage.”

“Oh, speaking of Solomon, he has Creature Studies with us!” Luke exclaims excitedly. “That means you can finally meet him!”

I cock my head slightly to the side. I have to say, the idea of having a bit of human-human solidarity does sound nice. The others have said that he’s a sorcerer, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything for us to talk about. If he’s already experienced with this sort of thing, maybe I can ask him about how to cope with how big everything is down here. 

“Sounds nice,” I say in reply. “What’s he like?”

“Why don’t you ask the man himself?” Simeon answers with a small smile, raising his hand and gesturing to something behind me. “Here he comes now.”

I turn around, following his pointing finger, and immediately deflate slightly. Somehow, for some reason, Solomon is just as tall as all the demons I’ve met so far. What kind of sorcery is this?

“Hello,” The so-called Solomon calls, waving. “IK, is it? It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” I mutter a little half-heartedly, still disappointed. I mean, sure, Luke isn’t that much taller than me, so I could probably bond with him over the size of everything down here, but he’s still a celestial being. Here I was thinking that Solomon would be like a little piece of home - looking at him, I get the distinct feeling that he’s about as far from the modern world that I come from as is possible. Even if he is carrying what appears to be a Nike sports bag that he’s just poorly spray-painted some stars on.

“No need to sound so enthusiastic,” He jokes, offering a hand. “I must say, it’s nice to see something a little more familiar down here. How’ve you been settling in?”

“Everything’s really big ,” I say meaningfully, deliberately (and pettily) making sure that my handshake is about as loose as can be. “So it’s kind of hard to navigate.”

Simeon raises an eyebrow at me in surprise, evidently a little thrown off by my sudden change in tone, but Solomon only laughs.

“Hey, what are you getting mad at me for?” He asks, reaching forward as if to ruffle my hair, then changing his mind and smoothly moving his hand up to adjust his tie. “I’m just adapting to my surroundings.”

I frown. “How is getting twice as big ‘just adapting to your surroundings’?”

“...ha, caught me there,” He chuckles, rubbing at the back of his neck a little sheepishly. “I suppose I just didn’t like feeling so small down here. Size-changing spells aren’t nearly as hard as the books make them out to be, so I just made a few… adjustments.”

“Surely that can’t very good for your body?” asks Simeon in surprise. Either he didn’t realise that Solomon’s tremendous height isn’t really normal for humans or he just didn’t know how he achieved it. 

(Now that I think about it, it could have been a possibility that Solomon had some sort of genetic mutation that made him so tall, so it was a bit rude of me to immediately get so miffed about it… at least he doesn’t seem offended.)

“On the average human, yes,” Solomon replies, crossing his arms loosely over his chest. “Which is why I can't offer to do the same for our little friend here. But my body’s long since been used to the effects of magical modification.”

That sounds like a hint of a tragic backstory right there… hey, wait a minute! “I’m sorry, did you just call me ‘little friend’?”

“Yes,” Solomon answers innocently, as if he isn’t wearing the most shit-eating grin in the world right now. “You’re little and you’re a friend. Makes sense, right?”

“Hey, IK’s not little!” Luke objects, and I practically cry out of gratefulness. Of course he’d understand my plight. 

“You only think that because you’re little as well,” Solomon says dismissively. “There’s a reason that Lucifer calls you a chihuahua.”

Luke immediately bristles, while I take a moment to process what Solomon’s just said. “...Mr Lucifer calls him a what now ?”

It’s not so much the nickname itself - as much as I feel bad saying so, I can understand where it came from - it’s the fact that it’s Lucifer who’s given it to him. If it had been, I don’t know, Mammon, I’d probably understand, but Lucifer? Sure, I don’t know him particularly well, but it still feels so strange to connect those two things to each other. 

“It’s just a harmless joke...” Simeon explains as Solomon disguises a laugh behind his hand.

“It’s most certainly not a joke!” Luke storms, setting his hands firmly on his hips, which only seems to amuse Solomon even more. “It’s demeaning! I’m an angel, not a dog!”

“He has a point,” I venture. “Especially if he didn’t consent to it in the first place… it’s a bit, uh… rude.”

“See, IK gets it!” Luke beams at me gratefully. “I hate it when that demon calls me a chihuahua, but he just keeps doing it, even when I say so!”

Simeon looks a little thoughtful, while Solomon just laughs again. “He’s a demon - what else do you expect?”

“Well, yeah, but...” I shrug slightly. “Being a demon doesn’t make him exempt from basic decency.”

Luke, eyes practically sparkling, brings his fists up to his chest and nods enthusiastically, while Simeon just stares at me in shocked silence for a moment. Solomon, on the other hand, pauses, then lets out another, single ‘ha!’ of laughter.

“You’re a bold one!” He exclaims, this time going forward with the hair ruffle, even adding a little pat at the end for good measure. “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything less from someone who made a pact with the Avatar of Greed on her first day in the Devildom.”

“Wh—” 

Enthusiasm abruptly quashed, Luke’s head whips around to face me so quickly that the little charm on his hat is thrown into a blurry frenzy. His complexion has gone a shade of stark white even paler than his clothes. “You what?”

“Oh, right, I was pretty surprised too,” I answer absent-mindedly, thinking back to the still-tingling pact mark beneath my left sleeve. Luckily for my sanity, the constant pulsing isn’t nearly as bothersome when I have map directions and conversations to focus on.  “I didn’t think he’d actually agree.”

“No, I meant—” Luke throws his hands in the air with a frustrated huff. “Why would you do that?!”

“Mr Leviathan told me to.”

“Then why would you listen to him?!”

I shrug. “He didn’t try to kill me.”

“That—” Luke looks as if he’s either about to faint or commit a murder - or both. “That cannot be where the bar is.”

“Calm down, now,” Simeon says soothingly, patting Luke’s head. It seems to work - Luke goes quiet, but continues to stare indignantly at me, as if I’ve betrayed him somehow. “Don’t kick up a fuss.”

He turns to me, eyebrows slightly creased. “Though I must say - it is rather early for such a development.”

“From what Levi told me, he masterminded most of the whole thing,” Solomon puts in. “Though I hear that it was IK who actually persuaded Mammon into agreeing.”

“I don’t think I did anything,” I say with a scrunch of my nose. “Mr Leviathan was the one who did most of the talking. I just held the credit card hostage for a bit.”

“And perhaps that was the very persuasion he needed. Who knows?” Solomon shrugs, then pauses, glancing over at the tree. “Ah - seems that class is starting. We’ll have to continue this discussion later.”

I follow his line of sight to see that the tree is beginning to tremble slightly, as if a particularly large bear is scrambling up its old trunk. The leaves shiver aggressively, looking mere moments from falling off and crumbling away, but before any of their precariously connected stems can give way, the entire tree folds in on itself.

I can’t quite describe exactly what I’m seeing, but it feels like I'm watching mitosis happen before my very eyes. I’m fully aware that mitosis involves a cell splitting in half to create two of itself and has nothing to do with a tree turning into a vaguely humanoid-looking figure with the golden rope hanging around its neck like a necklace, but something about the way that the tree’s branches curl and stretch as they conjoin to form long, jagged limbs just… brings it to mind. I can’t explain how my brain’s made the connection - it’s just kind of there. 

The figure unfurls their long-fingered hands with a creak, raising a leafy head to reveal deep, gentle brown eyes set into a weathered wood grain-patterned face. Even though we’re out in the open air, their voice echoes around us as if we’re in some enormous, empty cavern.

“Good morning, class,” They say. Strangely, their mouth doesn’t move as they speak. “Welcome back to Creature Studies.”

Their gaze moves across the faces of the many exceptionally uninterested-looking demons around them, then pauses as it lands on Solomon, Simeon, Luke, and me. While their face doesn’t move at all, remaining stiff and static, their eyes seem to light up.

“New students!” They exclaim, approaching our little exchange student group with rapid, creaking footsteps. I can’t help but think that, if I hadn’t already decided that I love them, they’d make an absolutely terrifying horror game monster. 

“Good morning,” Simeon says politely, unphased, subtly tapping Luke on the shoulder to get him to stop gawping at who I presume is our Creature Studies teacher. “Professor…?”

The tree-person seems to brighten even more, leaf-hair rustling aggressively despite the lack of wind. “Elderflower! Professor Elderflower. Now, let’s see…”

They tilt their head ever so slightly to the side and walk in a little ring around Simeon, who stays still on the spot, looking a little confused by the low, harmonic humming sound they’re making. Solomon politely takes a step to the side to give them some room, while Luke and I both skitter backwards like frightened mice.

“Hey, don’t mind old Elderflower,” says one demon standing nearby, crossing her arms and smiling at me when I turn around to look at her. “He can be intimidating, but he doesn’t mean any harm.”

As I nod in understanding, Professor Elderflower continues to creak around Simeon, then pauses, and carefully touches him on the shoulder with a single, extremely long finger. After a brief moment of contemplation, taking a step back, they clasp their hands together and announce, “A deer.”

“...pardon?” Simeon is smiling, but I can tell that he’s kind of perplexed. “What does that mean?”

“Spirit of a deer,” Professor Elderflower explains, which somehow both clears things up and makes things even more confusing at the same time. “Poised, elegant, and reliable… but your horns may sometimes feel too heavy to keep your head held high.”

It sounds like an innocuous enough statement to me, but something about Professor Elderflower’s words seem to strike a chord within Simeon. He looks up at them with wide, wondering eyes, and while neither say a word, an understanding of a truth that none of the rest of us can fathom seems to pass between their eyes.

“Professor Elderflower is something of an ancient forest spirit,” Solomon says unprompted, startling Luke so much that he nearly knocks me over with his surprised jump. “Truly a kind of wisdom beyond our understanding. He can take one look at you and see things that even you might not know.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, stepping forward and offering Professor Elderflower a smile. “Go ahead.”

They oblige, performing the same ritual that they had with Simeon - they walk five or so rings around Solomon, once again making that strange humming sound all the while, then pause and touch a single finger to his shoulder. It takes them a little longer to speak again, though, and when they do, they sound a lot more… cautious.

“Arctic fox,” They say, and even though their face remains still, I can almost hear a frown in their voice. “Well adapted to the cold - but how will you learn to live with warmth?”

Solomon’s smile doesn’t falter in the slightest, but he’s holding the strap of his bag so tightly that his knuckles have gone white. “A wise assessment - as expected.”

He doesn’t answer Professor Elderflower’s question. 

Luke goes rigid beside me as Professor Elderflower approaches him. They seem to be trying to offer him what would have been a comforting smile, but the fact that the only part of their face that moves is their eyes means that it just looks like they’re staring directly and intensely into his soul.

They repeat the whole ritual again, and this time they come to their conclusion incredibly quickly - a conclusion that Luke does not like in the slightest.

“Dog,” Professor Elderflower says confidently. Luke immediately bristles.

“I’m not a dog!” He protests, jerking away from Professor Elderflower’s touch as if it burns him. “Stop— stop calling me that!”

Professor Elderflower, however remains completely unfazed by the vitriol in Luke’s reproachful glare.

“A fire that is never started will never burn bright,” They say impassively. I get the feeling that they’re trying to make him feel better, but their words are so cryptic that I doubt Luke is really absorbing them. “There is no shame in loyalty. Remember that.”

Luke stares at them for a moment, then abruptly turns away without a word, crossing his arms and looking as if he’s holding back tears. Before I can attempt to comfort him, though, Professor Elderflower turns their eyes to me, and I realise that it’s my turn. 

This time, though, they don’t perform their little walking shoulder-touch rite. Instead, they take one look at me, then immediately announce, “Rabbit.”

I stare at them. “What?”

“Rabbit,” They say again, then gently place a hand on my head. “It’s alright to be afraid. ”

I don’t know if I should feel attacked or not. I open my mouth to speak, but something about the way that Professor Elderflower’s eyes bore into me compels me to stay silent. 

They look at me for a moment longer, then nod and walk away.

“That’s rather strange , ” Simeon comments as Professor Elderflower begins addressing the class at large. “It didn’t take them nearly as long to decide for you.”

“It’s most likely something to do with IK being so young,” Solomon puts in. “You and Luke have lived for centuries on end - IK here hasn’t even lived for two decades. It follows that it wouldn’t take particularly long for Professor Elderflower to read her soul.”

“That’s what they were doing?” I ask, then pause and frown. “Hey, wait - what about you? It took Professor Elderflower ages to decide for you.”

Simeon looks rather curious about it as well, but Solomon simply smiles cryptically and tells us to pay attention to the class. 

I quickly forget the mystery of Solomon’s age as Professor Elderflower takes us through the criteria for today’s class. Apparently we were initially going to be learning how to take care of dragon hatchlings, but the lesson plan has changed as a result of the new students who need to learn some more basics of creature care before we get onto dragons. That earns us exchange students several disgruntled looks from the other demons in the class, who had evidently been looking forward to the initial plan.

The universal disapproval of the change in plans (which I’m very much a part of - who wouldn’t want to take care of dragon hatchlings?) only worsens Professor Elderflower announces what we’ll be doing instead, which is something to do with something called a ‘Puffball’. While the demon students all start muttering what appear to be summoning spells, Professor Elderflower beckons to me and the other exchange students, so we quickly line up in front of them to receive our own. 

The Puffballs turn out to be exactly that they sound like - multi-coloured pom-pom-like creatures whose eyes are mostly obstructed by their multitude of fluffy fur. They don’t seem to have limbs of any kind, and the ones that have been allowed to play about on the grass by their demon carers are just rolling around and crashing into each other like marbles.

“Puffballs are very easy to keep happy,” Professor Elderflower explains as I carefully lift mine up to take a closer look, cradling it in my hands. It’s a lovely light blueish-green, and it keeps making snuffling noises. “They feed primarily off of magical energy, but they like the occasional berry. Your Puffballs will be yours to keep for your year here. Keep them wherever you like - just make sure you have a way to summon them in case we have a lesson involving them.”

“Um, Professor,” I say hesitantly as my Puffball’s snuffling gets even louder, to the point where it sounds like it's gasping for breath. “Is mine alright?”

Profesor Elderflower leans over with a creak, then makes low sound of realisation. “Ah, this is Alatus. He’s a little asthmatic… I’d offer to swap in another one, but he seems to have taken a shine to you.”

“Has he?” I look back down at my Puffball to see that he’s happily nuzzling into my thumb, and almost burst into tears at the very sight. “ Oh!”

“Alatus is really cute,” Luke comments with a small smile. He seems to be feeling better now. His own Puffball, a much more energetic one that’s a violent shade of red, is climbing all over him like a little monkey without limbs. “Mine is kind of…”

“Yours is cute too,” I say, leaning to the side slightly to watch Luke’s Puffball as it starts trying to jump up at the charm dangling from his hat. 

“That’s Chispa,” Professor Elderflower says. “She’s rather… excitable.”

Luke huffs as his Puffball misjudges her jump and smacks directly into his cheek. “I can tell.”

We spend the remaining lesson time just getting to know our new companions - incidentally, Solomon’s is a pastel pink one named Sado, and Simeon’s is pale blue and named Aman. Professor Elderflower seems to find great enjoyment in explaining all the ways we can play with our little Puffball friends, and I in turn find great enjoyment in bouncing Alatus up and down in my hands as he squeaks excitedly. 

Professor Elderflower also kindly takes a little time to instruct me on the specifics of taking care of an asthmatic Puffball. Those specifics mostly just involve making sure that he stays in an area with plenty of magic energy so that he doesn’t lose too much energy with his constant wheezing. 

There’s plenty of magical energy to be had at the House of Lamentation, where there are multiple extremely powerful demons, and Alatus’ll be surrounded by various other magical demons when I bring him to school as well, so there isn’t much I have to do in particular. Still, Professor Elderflower assures me that they’ll give me some extra credit for the added trouble, which is far and beyond anything any of my human world teachers ever did for the multiple all-nighters I’ve had to pull, and definitely earns them a top notch rating in my eyes. 

They also tell me that there aren’t any rules against carrying your Puffball around with you during school hours, which means that, if I don’t want to, I don’t have to part from Alatus at all. This is a very welcome revelation - I’ve already gotten extremely attached in the short time I’ve had him. 

The rest of the school day passes by much more quickly with Alatus constantly squeaking in my ear from his delegated position on my shoulder. After Creature Studies is Plants of the Underworld, which I also have with Professor Elderflower, during which I spend a good twenty minutes trying to wrestle my hand away from a sentient succulent while Luke and Simeon encourage me from a safe five feet away and Solomon laughs his head off in the corner of the greenhouse. 

Luckily my right hand is not removed by the plant, which means both hands are intact for Potions after break. Professor Baal is just as maniacally cordial as yesterday, so I have quite a lot of fun working with the two angels over a bubbling cauldron that smells weirdly like garlic and onion. Solomon, being the apparent overachieving sorcerer he is, is in a different, much higher level Potions class, so I don’t see him again until lunch, and then we split up again for fourth lesson, Curse-Breaking. 

Professor Kaz seems to spend the entirety of the lesson drunk, if his constant word-slurring and slightly stumbling movement is anything to go by, but it’s a fun lesson nevertheless. He seems to take a liking to Alatus, but Alatus seems to be terrified of him - he ducks into my hair every time Professor Kaz so much as looks at him. 

Last lesson is Devildom History, unlike most of my other subjects, I have with Solomon, but not with the angels. Whether that’s a blessing or a curse is debatable - the guy spends much of the lesson waffling on about something to do with spell books and fire while I try to concentrate on my notes. I can’t tell whether he already knows all of the course material and therefore doesn’t need to pay attention or if he just doesn’t care about passing the subject at all. 

I get the feeling that having a fellow human who knows nothing about magic is rather invigorating for Solomon, who, despite constantly receiving dirty looks from the other students, seems to be finding exceptional enjoyment in explaining every trivial thing he can think of to me in great detail. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the new knowledge, but I’d probably be able to actually absorb it better if he didn’t do it while I’m trying to write out a timeline for the history of the Devildom’s rather volatile stock market. 

Solomon also insists on walking me back to the House of Lamentation once the day ends, but I’m about 97% sure that it’s more out of a desire to keep babbling on about the fascinating history of the art of creating magical talismans than concern for my safety on the way back. Still, it’s a pretty fun time, and by the time Solomon is waving goodbye and turning around to make his way to the Purgatory Hall, I’m significantly more enlightened.

Alatus huffs softly in my ear as I approach the front door of the House of Lamentation, as if he’s trying to tell me something. I pause just before the steps and reach up and take him down from my shoulder, and he immediately begins setting up a great big fuss in my palms. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” I ask as he bounces aggressively up and down. “See something scary?”

Alatus doesn’t respond verbally, of course, but he does start squeaking even louder than before. It comes to mind that he sounds a bit like a car alarm - is he trying to warn me of approaching danger?

A moment later, the door swings open, and my question is answered as Alatus sets up a furious protest. Mammon is standing in the doorway, already in his casual clothes, and doesn’t look particularly pleased by what he sees.

“The hell is that thing?” He asks, stepping aside slightly to let me in. 

“A Puffball,” I respond, trying to calm Alatus down by giving him a gentle pat with my index finger. It seems to work. “Professor Elderflower gave him to me.”

“Oh.” Mammon watches as I stomp my feet briefly to get any big chunks of dirt that might be stuck in the grooves in the soles, then begins leading the way down the corridor. “For Creature Studies?”

“Yep,” I nod, giving Alatus a little bounce. He’s stopped squeaking, but all that anger seems to have tired him out - he’s started doing that snuffling again. “His name is Alatus.”

Mammon regards my wheezing Puffball with a wrinkled nose. “Is there somethin’ wrong with it?”

“He’s just asthmatic,” I say reproachfully, holding Alatus closer to myself and giving him a comforting pat, as if he can understand what Mammon’s saying. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“Hmph. Whatever ya say, kid.”

He keeps leading me alone, and I suddenly realise that I don’t actually know where we’re going. Presumably he’s demonstrating the way to my room again, which is nice of him, since I’m still not too clear about it, but at the same time, I’m kind of doubtful. Why would he take the time to do something like that? As far as I can tell, he doesn't particularly care about me. 

My scepticism isn’t completely unfounded  - Mammon does indeed lead me to my room, but instead of going off to do his own thing once I’m there like he did the first time he showed me here, he just waits for me to unlock the door, as if he’s planning to come inside.

I don’t say anything about it for fear that he’ll get mad, but I do exchange looks with Alatus as I place him on my shoulder to free up my hands to find my room key. Just as I thought, almost as soon as the door’s open, Mammon barges past me and makes himself at home on my chair.

“Since I’m stuck with ya now, I figured I might as well make the most of it,” He says as I shut the door behind me and carefully set Alatus down on my pillow, where he immediately starts rolling about excitedly. “I’m gonna make myself clear - it doesn’t matter if we have a pact. You ain’t gonna be bossin’ me around any time soon. Capiche?”

Once again, another figure of speech that I wasn’t aware is understood in the Devildom as well. “Uh… capiche.”

“Good,” Mammon nods, satisfied, then reaches into his jacket, pulls out a sheet of yellowing parchment with some kind of bird emblazoned on the upper left corner, and slaps it down on the table. “Get over here.”

I hurriedly shrug off my backpack and obey. Mammon pulls a pen out of his pocket, bites the lid off, then passes it to me. I look at it in confusion for a moment.

“What do I do with this?” I ask. Mammon raises an eyebrow and points to a dotted line at the bottom of the paper. “...am I supposed to sign that?”

“Yup,” He says, leaning back and throwing his arms behind his head. “Whenever you’re ready.”

I frown and look over the paper. It’s written in some kind of rune that I can’t read a word of. “What exactly am I signing here?”

“None of your business,” Mammon replies, beginning to tap his feet impatiently. “C’mon, hurry up.”

I look at him, then back at the paper. “Is this a contract? Because contracts signed by a minor aren’t legally binding. I need my dad’s permission first.”

He shakes his head with a scoff. “Ya aren’t in the human world anymore, kid. Down here, contracts are contracts - no matter who signs ‘em.”

I’m not sure I want to sign this, but at the same time I don’t want to give Mammon any more reason to want me dead than he already has. I raise the pen for a moment, then hesitate and turn to Mammon again.

“Could you at least give me some context?” I ask. “Just a little bit?”

He raises an eyebrow and thinks for a second. Then another. And another. And another. I get the feeling that he’s trying to avoid answering, but my persistent stare drilling into his head in the same way that an over-curious baby will fixate on one object for hours on end seems to be making him uncomfortable enough to answer just to get me to stop.

“Alright, look,” He groans, as if it’s some monstrous feat that requires far too much effort, sitting up a little straighter. “I won’t tell ya what the contract says, but what it says ain’t gonna hurt you. Hell, I don’t reckon you’ll even need to think about it after this."

...okay, that doesn't sound too bad. At the same time, though, how do I know if he’s telling the truth?

“Give me a minute,” I tell him, setting the pen down on the text and shuffling over to my bed, where Alatus has gotten himself tangled up in one of the blankets. I rescue him quickly, then sit down on the side of the bed and hold him up to my face, whispering, “What do you think?”

“I can hear you, ya know.” Mammon calls from the chair. 

I ignore him and concentrate on Alatus, who is staring up at me expressionlessly. He can’t really stare in any other way, considering he has no facial features to make an expression, but somehow I can just feel the unimpressed aura radiating from him. 

“I feel like blindly trusting him here would be a stupid move,” I continue, keeping my voice hushed despite the fact that I know Mammon can hear every word I’m saying. “But I think I’d just feel bad if I said no.”

Alatus squeaks quietly, and I nod in deep understanding. Mammon lets out a resigned sigh, bu laughs despite himself.

“Dork,” He says, but it doesn’t sound particularly malicious. “Look, I promise that ya won’t get hurt. Cross my heart and hope to die, drop of poison in my eye.”

I hesitate for a moment, then set Alatus back down on my bed and stand up, holding out my hand. “Alright, pinkie promise then. For double security.”

“Pinkie…?” Mammon eyes my extended little finger cautiously, as if he thinks that I might stab him with it. “The hell is that?”

“A pinkie promise,” I repeat for clarification, demonstrating quickly with my other hand. “You just kind of…put your little fingers together… and make a promise.”

He wrinkles his nose in clear disapproval, but goes along with it anyway. His little finger is no less than twice as long as mine and practically engulfs it entirely, but we manage to link them with relative stability. 

“There we go,” I say, giving our linked fingers a brief shake. “That’s a promise, then.”

“What’s that all about, anyway?” Mammon asks as I move back to the desk and pick up the pen. “Do you chop off their pinkies or somethin’ if they break the promise?”

I pause and turn around to give him a scandalised look.” Of course not! It’s just a verbal agreement.”

“That’s no fun,” He huffs, swinging one leg over the other. “How d’you know that the other person’s gonna hold up their side of the deal?”

I consider. “I guess you don’t. It’s just a display of trust, really.”

Mammon goes quiet for a moment, and I take the lull in conversation as an opportunity to quickly scribble my name on the dotted line. I don’t actually have a signature - I haven’t really had any reason to need one so far - but from what I’ve seen, you just need to make it as loopy and illegible as possible. Glancing over my handiwork, I decide that I've done decently well. 

“Here you go,” I announce, capping the pen and passing both pen and paper back to Mammon. The look on his face is kind of absent, as if he’s contemplating something deeply, but as I push the paper into his hands, he starts out of his mini trance with a jolt.

“Uh— right,” He says, still not looking quite all there. After a brief, awkward silence, he hurriedly stuffs the paper and pen into his pocket and stands up. “Thanks.”

I nod. “No problem.”

He begins to make his way out, then stops and lingers in front of the door. He stands there for a moment, just staring at the handle with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, then abruptly turns around to look at me again.

“You aren’t half bad, kid,” He says, offering a lopsided grin. “I don’t reckon I’ll mind having ya around.”

I blink in surprise, then smile. “Thanks, Mr Mammon.”

He nods and turns around again, this time pushing the door open and stepping out into the hallway. Before he walks off, though, he pauses one final time.

“And you can just call me Mammon,” He says, avoiding eye contact. “No more of that ‘Mr’ business. Makes me feel old.”

I open my mouth to respond, almost feeling a little choked up, but he’s gone before I can say anything, waving over his shoulder with a cheery ‘see ya!’. The door shuts behind him, and I’m left to my own devices, with Alatus quietly cheeping on the bed.

I hop up beside him and allow him to climb into my hands, absent-mindedly bouncing him up and down. After some more moments of contemplation, I reach into my pocket and pull out my D.D.D.

bread man:
hey mr solomon can i ask you something real quick 

monSOLO:
Sure. And just Solomon's fine, by the way.

bread man:
i just signed a contract and i was wondering if you’d know what it was

monSOLO:
Do you have a photo of it?

bread man:
unfortunately not

monSOLO:
Hmm. That makes this a little more difficult.

Did someone make you sign the contract?

bread man:
mammon asked me to

monSOLO:
Ah.

Did the contract happen to have a raven logo of some kind in the corner?

bread man:
yes

monSOLO:
[...]

I think I know what this is about.

Owning a ‘credit card’ like Mammon’s Goldie in the Devildom requires a small yearly payment of Grimm to make up for the magical energy that goes into it.

All a demon needs to do is sign the yearly papers, and their signature can be used to open their account and take the required amount of Grimm out.

bread man:
how does that work??

monSOLO:
Magic.

bread man:
ah

monSOLO:
The thing is, the authorities in charge of this usually don’t bother with rechecking signatures and things like that. Meaning that, if Mammon were to hand in his papers with the wrong signature on them, and they were unable to open his account to take the tax, they’d most likely just chalk it up to an error of the system and leave it. 

bread man:
[...]

so i helped mammon avoid paying his taxes????

monSOLO:
That’s one way to put it. 

bread man:
i am going to be in so much trouble

monSOLO:
Hey, relax. You won’t be in the Devildom’s registry, so they wouldn’t be able to track it back to you even if they wanted to. 

bread man:
are you sure?

monSOLO:
Positive.

bread man:
alright

thank you

monSOLO:
Any time. 

I turn my D.D.D. off and lie back on the bed, closing my eyes and letting out a deep sigh. Of all the things that I thought I’d be doing down here in the Devildom, aiding someone with tax evasion was definitely not on the list.

That’s enough excitement for today, I think, patting Alatus as he snuggles into the crook of my neck. I think I’d like to just sleep now.

I do indeed get to sleep for about an hour and a half before dinner, but that is not, in fact, enough excitement for today. Well - maybe it is, considering what happens next is most likely past midnight.

I’m nice and comfortable in bed, back in my dragon onesie, with Alatus making odd purring noises from his sleeping spot just beside my pillow. Despite the warmth of the covers, I can’t seem to get to sleep at all. No matter how hard I try to keep my eyes closed and my breathing even, the very night around me seems to conspire to keep me firmly awake.

And maybe that’s a very deliberate move by the hands of Fate - because, as I stare blankly up at my bedroom ceiling, I hear a voice calling out in the distance.

“Someone… help…”

Chapter Text

"Please... help me..."

I slowly sit up, trying to be as quiet as possible so as to hear the voice more clearly. It's faint, but definitely there - plaintive and forlorn, seeping through the night like a rolling mist. I can't tell where it's coming from, or who's speaking, but it sounds almost like they're in pain.

I glance over at Alatus, only to see that he's already awake, staring at me with wide, unblinking eyes. The voice calls out again, this time even more desperate than before, and he makes a low, humming noise that isn't dissimilar to the one Professor Elderflower made yesterday.

"Are you trying to tell me something?" I ask quietly. He doesn't give a response, but I don't need one. I've already made my mind up.

I push back the covers and carefully hop out of bed, wincing as my bare feet touch the cold stones of the floor. Alatus squeaks, and, after a moment of deliberation, I hold out my arm and allow him to shuffle up to my shoulder.

"You have to be very quiet," I whisper to him as I tiptoe out of my room, forgoing putting on my shoes in favour of how much quieter my footsteps are without them. "We don't want to disturb anyone."

He doesn't squeak again, so I assume that he understands.

The corridors are silent, lit only by the occasional sputtering candle flame. Shadows seem to loom and leer at me around every corner, and the foreboding feeling that something is watching me only grows with each step I take.

"Here... I'm here!"

It's difficult to follow the voice based purely on sound direction, but by listening for a volume increase every time I turn a corner, I eventually seem to come to its source. Somewhere on the first floor, I find a set of stairs that I haven't seen before.

They look incredibly disused - the wooden steps are coated with a thick layer of dust, and the wall seems to be crumbling at the edges. Now that I think about it, I think I remember seeing what looked like an extension on the roof of the House of Lamentation from the outside - is that where these stairs lead? How did I not notice them when I was exploring the other day?

I take a step back and look around. This entire little area feels entirely separate from the rest of the house; even the line where the carpet ends and the stone floor begins feels like a barrier of some kind. Stepping back and forth across it only reinforces that feeling - it's like the temperature around me drops several degrees every time I step towards the stairs.

"That's it! You're close!"

The voice is definitely coming from up there. Alatus is beginning to squeak quietly into my ear, but I ignore him, taking a step towards the stairs.

"IK."

"Wh—!" I jerk around, feeling as if my heart has just taken a swan dive off a cliff. "H... hi, Mr Lucifer."

He raises a single eyebrow at me, arms crossed firmly across his chest. "What are you doing up here?"

"U— uh," I hurriedly debate whether to risk telling him about the voice I heard, but something tells me to keep it a secret. "Taking a walk?"

"I doubt that," He says, eyes narrowing. "How did you manage to specifically come to this spot?"

"Because—" I glance down at Alatus, who's butting his head - or his entire body, really - against my cheek in alarm. "Because Alatus wanted me to?"

Thanks to my rapidly growing fear, my answer ends up sounding far more uncertain than I'd wanted it to. But Lucifer seems to think it's a plausible one, at least - he leans forward and inspects Alatus for a moment, then draws back again.

"A Puffball?" He asks contemplatively, bringing a hand up to his chin. "They feed on magical energy, correct?"

I nod, too nervous to say a word lest I give myself up. He makes a short sound of understanding.

"I see," He says. "I assume that your Puffball sensed the magical energy coming from this staircase and led you here for that reason."

He folds his arms again and frowns down at me, though this time it looks a lot less severe. "Nevertheless, this is not a place a human should be. There is a reason for the spells around it. Go back to bed."

I glance back up at the stairs. The voice has gone silent - is it because of Lucifer's presence? 

Wait - if he's awake at this hour as well, how didn't he hear it before? Am I the only one who can hear it, or is Lucifer just... ignoring it? Does he have something to do with why they were calling out in the first place?

"...what's the reason?"

Lucifer pauses. "What?"

"You said there was a reason for the spells. What is it?"

He's silent for a long moment. I hold back a shiver. Going without shoes was a mistake.

"Something dangerous," He says finally. "Particularly to humans such as yourself."

"How dangerous?" I ask, and his eyes abruptly narrow again.

"Do not push your luck," He says, and he speaks with such force that I can't help but fall silent. "I have entertained you for long enough. Now, come along. I'll walk you back to your room."

There's no doubt about it - Lucifer only wants to escort me to make sure I actually leave, and don't just return to the stairs as soon as he's gone. I shouldn't have expected any less from him.

I have no choice but to follow him, casting one final look behind me at the stairs as I go. Alatus is wheezing again, and I reach up to take him in my hands, giving him a soothing stroke.

"You're shivering," Lucifer says eventually, as we descend the stairs to the ground floor.

"It's chilly," I say in defence of myself. "And I don't have shoes on."

(It's only now that I realise that Lucifer is still fully-dressed - fur-lined coat, perfectly laced shoes and all. Satan did say that demons don't typically need to sleep much, but, still... surely Lucifer would prefer to wear something more comfortable by night? Or was he expecting something like this to happen, and stayed in his clothes in preparation to intervene?)

Lucifer looks down. "Are your feet cold?"

"Freezing," I say with a solemn nod. "I can't feel them."

He frowns. "Is that normal for humans?"

"Kind of," I reply, briefly hopping on the spot in an attempt to get the blood flowing. Alatus snuffles in protest, so I quickly stop.

Lucifer gives a short sort of exhale that might be a tiny laugh. "Well, in that case, I'll ask Asmo to get you some slippers. He's taking care of finding you some clothes to wear around the house."

"Oh," I say, suddenly beginning to feel rather guilty for thinking so suspiciously of him earlier. "You don't need to spend money on me. I can make do... uh, probably."

"That is nonsense and you know it," Lucifer says flatly. "You'll be here for a year. You need something other than a school uniform and pyjamas."

I can't argue with that, so I just nod and mumble, "Thank you."

We come to a stop outside my bedroom door, but neither of us make a move to go out separate ways. Lucifer seems to be deep in thought for a moment, and eventually turns to me.

"I will ignore what happened tonight," He says, in the sort of tone that tells me I should be very grateful for what he's saying. "In return, I expect you not to go near those stairs again. Is that understood?"

I hesitate. "...yes."

"Good," He nods, and turns around. "Now get yourself to bed."

I stay on the spot for a moment, watching as he disappears down the corridor, then turn around and let myself back into my room.

I don't go to bed, though. Instead, I stay by the door, listening carefully to the sound of Lucifer's footsteps until they fade to silence.

I wait another ten minutes or so for good measure, checking the time on my D.D.D. so often that it feels like an eternity, and finally open the door again - this time leaving Alatus on my bed. No alarm immediately goes off to alert the house to my misbehaviour, so I hurriedly go back the way I came, listening as hard as I can for any signs of the voice from before.

Unfortunately, I don't even make it past the first flight of stairs. Lucifer is standing at the bottom of them, apparently waiting for me, his arms folded and an unimpressed look forming on his face as he sees my dumb face peek around the corner.

"Out for another stroll?" He asks. He sounds more amused than angry, so I decide it's safe to come out from behind the wall.

"Uh," I say. "Would you believe me if I said I was?"

He chuckles then - a proper one, not the dangerous 'I'm going to kill you' kind, which is a little reassuring. "I wouldn't."

He walks up to me, setting a hand on his chest and regarding me with a searching sort of expression. I wonder briefly if he's known all along what I was doing by those stairs, just as he seems to know every little thing that goes on in the House of Lamentation... but for some reason, in this instant, I really don't think he does.

"There is nothing wrong with curiosity," He says after a moment. "In the right situation, it can even be commendable. In this one, however, it will only lead you to harm."

The look on his face tells me that he isn't exaggerating - and Lucifer definitely doesn't seem the dramatic type. "Oh."

"Oh indeed," He says, allowing a small smile. "Now, let's get you back to your room - and you really should stay there this time. You still have a full day of school ahead."

I want to argue, to tell him that there's clearly someone in distress and possibly imprisoned up those stairs, but I feel like one wrong move will provoke him. He's acting pleasantly, sure, but there's a sort of very fragile tension in the air - one that I'm too scared to risk breaking. 

So, taking a deep breath, I nod, and let Lucifer walk me back to my room again.

Once back in my room, I finally climb back into my bed and flop back down into the covers, carefully making sure I don't squash Alatus in the process. I lie there for a while, staring at the ceiling and straining my ears, but the voice doesn't come again.

I think back to the pleas for help, the mysterious staircase, Lucifer's stern frown. What exactly is going on in this house? Who's up those stairs? Are they alright?

I don't know, but it seems that I have an obstacle to clear before I can get to the top of that staircase and get some answers. Despite Lucifer's advice, I stay up late thinking it over for a good few more hours; by the time I actually drift off, it's not long before Mammon's banging on my door again.

"You're gonna be late if ya don't hurry up!" He hollers as I slowly push myself up. My head is pounding something awful. "C'mon, breakfast!"

I groan and mutter a curse under my breath as I push back my covers and swing my legs over the side of the bed, rubbing furiously at my eyes. I feel like I'll just fall right over as soon as I try to stand up.

Mammon slams his fist on the door one more time, and I suddenly remember what he did when I didn't respond to him the first day. Not wanting him to see just how pathetic I look right now, I open my mouth to say something—

Too late. The door swings open, and Mammon barges in.

"Just so ya know, I don't like comin' in here any more than you do," is the first thing he says with a scowl. "But I ain't got a choice if you're going to—"

He pauses and fully takes me in. I blink at him, trying hard to prevent my vision from doubling.

"...you okay?" He asks finally. He looks almost... afraid? "You look like you're gonna drop dead any moment now."

"Honestly, I think I might," I sigh, rubbing at my eyes again. My words slur together like bleeding ink, and Mammon looks even more disturbed.

"What's up with ya?" He walks up to me and taps me gently on the head. "Did somethin' happen last night?"

"Uhhhhhh," I take in a long, deep breath, then let it out with a heaving sigh, finding that saying words is a lot more difficult than it should be. "Not really."

Mammon definitely doesn't believe me, but he doesn't say so. Instead, he sits down next to me, swings one leg over the over, crosses his arms, and stares directly into my face.

Is this some kind of psychological trick? I try to look him in the eyes, but I'm unable to maintain the contact for longer than two seconds. I'm banking on the hope that Mammon will get tired of trying to pressure the answer out of me, but he absolutely refuses to budge.

While Mammon may be stubborn, however, I'm still not giving in just yet. Rather than admit defeat and tell him the truth, I opt to throw my hood over my head and hide my face from him entirely.

I can't see him anymore, but I imagine that he's giving me an unimpressed look. "...seriously?"

I shift about and tug the hood even further down, then muffle out, "Can't peer pressure me if I can't see you."

Mammon is silent for a moment. Then I feel something jab me in the side.

Much as I hate to admit it, I am extremely ticklish. It would've been cool if I'd been completely unfazed by Mammon's attack, but unfortunately, I'm not very cool, so instead I immediately jerk to the side and collapse on the bed with a defeated sort of yell.

"Hey!" I protest, curling up into a ball in an attempt to defend myself. "That's not fair!"

"Life ain't fair, kid," Mammon says, and I can practically hear the cocky grin in his voice. "Fess up!"

He jabs me again, and I throw myself backwards with a yelp. "Leave me alone!"

"Kgh—!" I pause as Mammon lets out a strangled noise, then gives an indignant shout. "Hey, what the hell?!"

I hesitantly lift my hood to peek up at him, only to see that he's been pushed back a good few feet, and is hovering precariously a few inches from the edge of the mattress, hands held in the air by some unknown force. Even as I watch, he attempts to jerk himself out of his invisible handcuffs, but only seems to get restrained even more forcefully.

"Um," I begin, "Are you okay?"

"What does it look like?!" He scowls at me. "It's the pact, idiot! I have to do whatever ya tell me to!"

I furrow my brow at him, then pull back my left sleeve to look at the pact mark. It's glowing a soft red - like a gentle sort of fire. "Oh. How do I let you down again?"

"Just cancel the command!" Mammon attempts to jolt himself free again, to no avail. "C'mon, hurry up!"

"Right..." I think for a while, then say, "You can... come down now?"

It seems to work. Mammon abruptly collapses forward and lands face first on my bed, sending Alatus, who had still somehow been snoozing peacefully through his loud entrance, flying about five feet up into the air.

I hold out my hands to catch Alatus as he slowly drifts back down to earth, like an extra-fluffy dandelion seed on a faint breeze. Mammon, meanwhile pushes himself back up with an annoyed groan.

"Sorry," I say hesitantly, setting Alatus on my lap as he immediately sets about going back to sleep. "Did that hurt?"

"Didn't hurt nothin' but my ego," Mammon mutters in reply, rubbing his nose with a huff. After a moment, though, he seems to have a bright idea, and perks up substantially. "Tell ya what - you can apologise properly by tellin' me why ya look so bad today."

I blink at him. Oh, you sneaky snake...

I've been painted into a corner here. If I continue to refuse to tell him, he's probably only to get even more persistent . It'd help if I could be all cool and remorseless, but the thing is - I do feel bad for accidentally doing that. But it's completely unfair that he's figured that out already...

Well as long as I leave some parts out, I can avoid telling him too much, right? A typical lie of omission.

The thing is, my brain is so lacking in cohesion and logical thinking right now that I can't come up with anything particularly clever - so I'm nable to find way to string together the more innocuous events of last night into something that actually makes sense. The only answer I can give him is a question.

"That staircase upstairs," I start slowly. "What's at the top of it?"

Mammon pauses. Then he groans.

"You tried to get into the attic?" He asks incredulously.

I lean to the side with an absent sort of sigh, then nod. "Mr Lucifer caught me as soon as I get close, though."

"Ain't that a surprise," Mammon scoffs, shaking his head. "He knows everythin'. Jeez, do you have a death wish?"

"I don't know, maybe..."

He frowns at me. "Why d'you even wanna get up there so bad? Ain't nothing up there that'd interest ya."

Now it's my turn to frown. Does Mammon not know about that person calling for help in the attic? Or is he just pretending not to know? "...then why are there so many spells around it?"

"I dunno, Lucifer's weird," He sighs, throwing his arms behind his head. "I mean, I reckon he's hidin' somethin' real gossip-worthy, but it's not like I'm gonna cross him by tryin' to get in. You oughta be the same way."

I open my mouth to counter, but he shakes his head.  "I'm serious, kid. Diavolo might be his boss, but that doesn't mean Lucifer ain't gonna kill ya if he gets mad enough."

I think back to the subtly dangerous glint in his eyes last night. "...yeah."

Mammon looks at me for a moment, then opens his mouth to say something else, but is interrupted by another knocking at the door. Beelzebub doesn't even bother to give a warning before pushing the door open and poking his head inside.

"Lucifer says you need to start heading to school in ten minutes," He says steadily, regarding Mammon with only the smallest amount of surprise on his face. "Or he'll string you up by the stairs again."

And so the discussion is abruptly cut short. Mammon leaps to his feet with a curse and hurries to get dressed properly, leaving me with only an instruction to get myself ready as soon as possible. 

Beelzebub doesn't linger for long, either, only stopping to give me an extremely half-hearted apology about eating all of my portion of the breakfast. I'm not too fussed, so I just tell him that it isn't a problem, and watch as he nods and leaves as well.

Mammon is nice enough to let me follow along behind him to the R.A.D. today, and this time - by some miracle - I'm able to walk straight in and head for Potions without panicking. I did debate bringing Alatus with me, but he seemed so happy sleeping on my pillow that I decided to just let him be.

The entire school day passes by in a sort of dreamy haze - I drift in and out of consciousness throughout nearly all of my lessons, during which my fellow exchange students have to wake me up an embarrassing amount of times. It's kind of bizarre how absolutely bone-tired I am - I've been able to function decently well on less sleep before, and even without any at all on a few occasions.

I do get in a nap during lunch - mostly thanks to Simeon's constant (but concerned) nagging about it. First, though, Luke manages to coax me into eating half the sandwich that the angels so kindly brought for me - Solomon asks whether I'd like him to add some sleeping potion.

It's a tempting offer, I decide not to take him up on it. He's already mentioned that he's a little rusty with some particular brews, and he even admits that the wrong dosage would probably put me in an extended coma. Somehow, his reassurance that 'it'll probably be fine!' doesn't help.

The nap still isn't nearly enough to actually energise me, though. Especially since Mephisto abruptly decides to drop out of the tree beside our picnic table and wake me up about fifteen minutes in.

Luke shoots to his feet as Mephisto lands neatly on the grass right beside him, scooting backwards and abandoning his lunchbox on the other side of the table. I lift my head slowly to give Mephisto a reproachful look, while Simeon hurriedly pulls Luke back into his seat before he can start attacking the guy. 

Meanwhile - Solomon's gone stock-still. His eyes dart back and forth for a long moment; finally, his odd expression pulls into an unnatural frown, and he sighs.

"Mephisto," He says - in a tone of recognition. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know I love showing up when I'm not invited," Mephisto says brightly, sitting down beside him on the bench, clearly too close for Solomon's comfort. "So, what's up?"

Solomon shuffles away from him without answering, and pretends to be completely occupied by his sandwich, which appears to still be wrapped in cling film. (Is he planning to eat the plastic with the sandwich?)

Mephisto waits for an answer for a full minute or so, despite the fact that Solomon clearly isn't willing to give him one. In the end, it's Simeon who strikes up the conversation once more, breaking the unbearably awkward silence.

"So," He says pleasantly, "What brings you here?"

"Uhhh," Mephisto drawls, leaning forward on the table and dropping his chin into his hand. The camera around his neck makes a threatening hissing noise. "Just thought I'd check up on the little one, I guess. You good?"

Those last two words are directed at me, though it takes me a while to realise that. "...huh?"

"You kinda looked dead from a distance," He elaborates, grinning lazily. "Shame, though. It would've made a pretty great story."

I glance down at his camera and frown. "...you didn't take any pictures, did you?"

"Nah," He shakes his head, beginning to twirl a strand of hair around his finger. "Didn't think you'd appreciate it."

"So you have morals now, do you?" Solomon suddenly asks. He's removed the cling film from his sandwich now, at least, but he's doing a pretty weird job of eating it.

Simeon and Luke exchange surprised looks, but Mephisto just laughs. "Sassy as ever, you sexy sorcerer."

Solomon immediately chokes on his sandwich, while Simeon abruptly claps one hand to one of Luke's ears and the other hand to one of mine. I'm not sure what he thinks he's accomplishing - for one, he's only covering up one ear per person, and for another, he didn't even do it in time to cover up the bad word - but I appreciate the gesture, I guess.

"Don't call me that," Solomon says finally, once he stops coughing.

"Why not?" Mephisto pouts at him. I get the feeling that he's enjoying this way too much.

Solomon doesn't answer, instead opting to go back to eating his sandwich with even more fervour than before. Mephisto watches him for a moment, and for a split second his own grin seems to falter.

On another day, I'd probably be more concerned about the odd energy crackling in the air. Solomon's clear resentment is odd in particular - my impression of him so far's been of a chill guy who doesn't really care enough about most things to hold grudges. 

Today, though, I'm too tired to think that hard. I just laugh in a dopey kind of way, then immediately collapse back onto my backpack and go back to sleep.

Mephisto's already gone by the time Simeon wakes me up for fourth lesson (presumably having melted into the shadow of the tree again), and Solomon looks much more cheerful without his presence. I consider asking him about whatever beef they seem to have, but in the end I decide against it.

He waves the rest of us off and starts heading for his own class, while the three of us start making our way to Curse-Breaking. I feel like I've been seeing an odd amount of Professor Kaz recently... though that's just because all my Curse-Breaking lessons happen on three consecutive days of the week.

I try to pay attention, I really do, but somehow the brief nap during lunch seems to have made me even more tired. I don't know how the psychology of that works, but maybe my brain got a taste of what actual restfulness felt like, and decided that it wanted more.

Well, whatever the reason, I keep drifting in and out of sleep throughout the lesson - which isn't exactly conducive to learning. Professor Kaz definitely notices, too.

"Hey, little miss," He whispers about halfway into the lesson, not-so-subtly creeping up to me while the other students are focused on copying something down from the blackboard. "Are you planning on drifting off in my lesson?"

Luke goes poker-stiff on the other end of the bench. Simeon simply offers me an encouraging pat on the arm as I attempt to formulate an answer.

"Uhh," I say after a long, long moment, too tired to be afraid like I usually am of any teachers talking directly to me. "No...?"

Professor Kaz raises an eyebrow, then, glancing briefly around the classroom to make sure that everyone's behaving, crouches down in front of my desk so as to get on eye-level with me. I blink absently at him.

"Didn't get enough sleep?" He asks quietly. I nod, and he clicks his tongue. "I see. In that case, I'll call someone to take you home."

It takes me a moment to process his words - both because my brain is still extremely sluggish, and out of disbelief. "...huh?"

"You obviously aren't going to be able to absorb any information in this state," Professor Kaz says matter-of-factly. "You can always catch up later."

"Wh..." I squint at him in bewilderment. "...really?"

"It's a matter of student welfare," He says, raising an eyebrow, as if this is obvious. "I'm not going to force you to just sit in this classroom and suffer! Now, I'm told that young Mammon's in charge of taking care of you?"

"Uh..." I'm so blown away by this entire concept that I can't even formulate an answer. Luckily, Simeon steps in and helps me out.

"He is," He answers for me, giving me a gentle pat on the shoulder as if to make sure I don't just pass out on the spot. "I believe he has a free lesson right now, so he'll be somewhere around the school. Maybe the cafeteria or the library?"

"Cafeteria, most likely," Professor Kaz says thoughtfully, standing up straight again and slipping off his spectacles. "Boy's far too loud to spend ten minutes in a library. Well, sit tight, little miss. I'll be back shortly!"

And, ithout even pausing to let the rest of students know where he's going, he disappears out the door.

I sit in stunned silence for about a full minute before I actually process what's going on. The class doesn't seem to be fazed in the slightest by their teacher's sudden exit - does this sort of thing happen a lot? Oh, Professor Kaz is the best.

"I have to apologise," Simeon says suddenly, turning to me with a small frown. "I should have offered to take you home earlier."

"Huh?" I shake my head slightly in an attempt to clear the fog out of it. "Oh. Don't worry about it."

"Still..." Simeon still looks rather guilty. "I ought to have brought it up. You were clearly exhausted."

"You did bring it up," I counter sleepily, rubbing at my left eye. "You kept telling me to take a nap at lunch, remember?"

"I can't believe that demon just woke you up like that," Luke interjects with an indignant scowl. "It was so rude!"

"Speaking of that demon..." Simeon looks thoughtful. "His name is Mephistopheles, correct? I wonder what his history with Solomon is?"

"Mephisto and Solomon?" interrupts one of the demons sitting in front of us, swinging around with an eyebrow raised. I don't think I've ever been in such awe of someone's hair before - it's all curly and fluffy, gathered around her head like a dark cloud. "You don't know about them?"

Simeon shakes his head. "I'm afraid I don't. Do you?"

"Do I!" She laughs, then beckons. "C'mere - keep quiet. So, here's the story..."

The three of us glance at each other, then do as she says and lean closer. "Apparently they were plotting to dethrone the prince."

"What?!" Luke bursts, only to quickly get shushed.

"It's only a rumour," The demoness whispers. "But everyone knows Solomon's shady - what does he need all those pacts for, huh?"

"And Mephistopheles?" asks Simeon in anticipation.

The demoness smirks a little. "Well, he's a whole other thing. He just kind of showed up one day - and, you know, even though no one said anything, everyone knew Lord Diavolo was watching him. Apparently even the student council was spying on him."

"So how do you know he knew Solomon?" I ask in confusion.

"Not sure about that part myself," shrugs the demoness. "But here's how I hear it goes - Mephisto wanted to get at the prince, so he charmed Solomon into helping him. You know how sorcerers are - they always want more power, don't they?"

"And then...?"

"And then Mephisto realised that the prince had cottoned on," She explains. "So he abandoned the plot - just totally left Solomon cold. That's how I've heard it goes, anyway."

"That— !" Luke looks about five minutes from crushing his quill in his fists and running off to throw hands with Mephisto on the spot. "That's despicable!"

"He's a demon," The demon shrugs, picking at the pin on the lapel of her blazer. Hey, those colours look familiar... "I mean, who knows how much of it's true. Mephisto's a weird little guy."

Simeon says something else, but I'm too busy staring at the demon's pin and trying to figure out what's so familiar about it to listen. 

"...hey, watch it," The demoness says suddenly, snapping her fingers in front of my face. "My eyes are up here."

I blink in confusion and look up at her. "Huh?"

"You're a cute kid, so I'll let you off," She continues, scratching at the star-shaped plaster on her cheek. "But— oh, wait, were you looking at my badge?"

I nod slowly, still confused, and she lets a loud laugh, slapping her knee so aggressively that I'm pretty sure I actually hear her bones crack. "Oh, that makes sense! Sorry, sorry, I thought— well, never mind. Do you like it?"

"It's pretty," I say, squinting at it again. I've definitely seen it before. Blue, white, pink.... OH!

My realisation must show on my face, because the demoness laughs again and reaches over to pat me on the head. "There we go! Aren't you humans the one who came up with this thing in the first place?"

"Yeah..." I rub at my eyes and attempt an apologetic smile. "I'm not... thinking today."

"Well, it's a good thing that Kaz's finding your babysitter then, eh?" She says with a wink, then perks up slightly and looks towards the door. "Speaking of which, I reckon that's them now."

She's right - the door swings open again, and Professor Kaz sweeps back in with a rather irritated-looking Mammon in tow. Is there a shortcut he took or something? How did he manage to retrieve him so quickly?

"Come on, little miss!" He calls, successfully drawing way too much attention from the other students in the class in the process. "Pack your things up! Good old Mammon'll take you home."

I nod (accidentally making myself see stars in the process) and turn to do so, only to find that my pencil case has already disappeared from where it was before. Something gently taps my shoulder, and I turn around to see Simeon holding out my bag.

"It's the least I can do," He says, passing it to me. "Here."

I take it and push myself up from the bench, slinging it over my shoulder with some effort. "Thanks."

"Make sure you get some rest," He replies with a smile, raising his hand to wave a goodbye as I start weaving through the desks to get to the door. "Hopefully you'll feel better tomorrow."

"See you later!" Luke adds. 

I offer both angels a small smile and wave, then turn to Mammon, who gives me a nod and moves to start leading me down the corridor.

"I'll speak to your teachers for the rest of the day," Professor Kaz whispers to me conspiratorially before I go to follow Mammon. "It's still early in your term, so there shouldn't be much to do in terms of catch-up work. Don't stress yourself too much."

I nod and smile. "Thank you, sir."

"Don't mention it!" He says with a genial grin, stepping back into the classroom. "I'll see you in our next lesson!"

"Bye..."

I trail off as the door shuts and I hear Professor Kaz's muffled voice begin addressing the students, then turn to see Mammon tapping his foot impatiently. He doesn't look too angry about having his school day cut off, but I still feel kind of bad for taking up his time like this.

"Sorry about all this," I mutter, dipping my head.

Mammon looks at me with a raised eyebrow, then lets out a sigh. "...it's fine. I ain't gonna complain about leavin' early. C'mon, let's get you back to the House."

We walk in silence for a minute so, with me trying to yawn subtlety about once every five seconds and Mammon whistling a jaunty kind of show tune as if to distract himself from it. Eventually, though, it seems that he can't ignore it any longer.

"D'you really wanna get into the attic that bad?" He asks, turning to look at me with a frown. "Just how late did ya stay up last night?"

"I don't know..." I pause for a second as my vision goes all wavy, then attempt to shake it off and keep walking again. "Long, I guess."

Mammon is silent for another moment.

Then, glancing around quickly as if to check for any listeners, he leans in and says quietly, "Look, I might have an idea that'll help you out, but ya can't tell anyone that I was the one who told ya. I ain't havin' anything to do with it after this - got it?"

I tilt my head slightly to the side in confusion, but nod nevertheless. "Got it."

He hesitates for a moment longer, glancing around once more, then begins, "If ya wanna get into the attic, you're gonna have to get Lucifer outta the way first, yeah? Well, Lucifer's totally obsessed with music, 'specially the classical sort. Y'know that series Levi's always rantin' about? Lucifer's been wanting to get his hands on this fancy vinyl for one o' the soundtracks for the films lately."

"Mr Lucifer likes music?" I repeat, then smile a little goofily. "I like music."

Mammon pulls a face and gives me a look that clearly says that he thinks I have a few screws loose. To be fair, he isn't wrong. "You're really out of it, aren't ya?"

He doesn't wait for me to answer before continuing, "Anyway, I'm pretty sure Levi has one. Work things out with him, get ya hands on that disc, then give it to Lucifer, and I reckon he'll be off-duty for the night. That'll get ya to the top of those stairs."

I hum under my breath and consider his words for a long while. I notice absently that both Mammon and I have stopped walking - when did that happen? 

"...what if he senses me going up or something?"

"Then you're screwed," Mammon says plainly. "Best ya can do is get somethin' in place that'll warn ya first, and leg it outta there as soon as it goes off."

He thinks for a moment, then brightens, as if he's gotten an idea. "Hey, what about that Puffball of yours? I heard you can train 'em to do that sorta thing."

"You mean Alatus?" I ask, scratching at the tip of my nose. It doesn't itch or anything, but I feel like I need to be doing something with my hands. "How would that work?"

"Beats me," He replies with a shrug. "Barbatos might know, though. He was talkin' about 'em in our meeting yesterday."

"I guess I'll find a way to ask next time I see him..." I stifle a yawn into my hand and hoist my backpack straps further up my shoulders as we begin walking again. "...so... why does Mr Lucifer want to keep what's in the attic such a secret?"

"Do I look like I know?" Mammon asks in reply. He looks as if he wants to flick me in the head, but is refraining out of fear that it'll straight up knock me out in the state that I am. "And, even if I did, I wouldn't tell ya. The way he's protectin' it, Lucifer would totally rip me to pieces..."

He scoffs, shaking his head. "Scratch that, he'd probably death-hand me on the spot."

"Death hand?" I repeat. Isn't that Star Wars? Wait, no, that's the Death Star. "Sounds... bad."

"That's 'cause it is bad," Mammon replies, kicking at a stray paper bag in his path. "A lotta higher-up demons like us have some kinda big power move, and that's Lucifer's. Spreads through your body like poison, and once it gets to the core, it basically starts meltin' ya from the inside out. Haven't seen him use it for a while, actually..."

"Jeez..." I shiver in spite of myself. The idea that I'm living with a guy who could very well do exactly that to me if I step out of line is unsettling, to say the least. "Would he really use that on you...?"

"Never in his right mind, but ya never know what he'll do when he gets angry," Mammon says nonchalantly. "It's not like it'd kill me. It's actually pretty easy to get the poison out before it gets to your core."

...I'm not sure I like Mr Lucifer anymore. Melting from the inside out sounds like one of the worst possible ways to go -  that he might even contemplate using that on his own brother is a chilling thought. Even if Mammon says that Lucifer wouldn't do so in his 'right mind', the fact that he even thinks it's a possibility is... troubling, to say the least.

"...hey, what's with that look on your face?" Mammon asks after a moment of troubled silence. "Ya look totally miserable."

"Huh? Oh, no, uh..." I wonder if I should voice my concerns - would I be overstepping my boundaries? Probably. "It's nothing."

"Didn't look like nothin'," Mammon says with a flat frown, folding his arms and raising an eyebrow. "You sure like lyin', don't ya?"

"No, it's just... oh— " I cut myself off as we come out into entrance hall. There are two familiar figures lingering at the bottom of one of the staircases, and I take the opportunity to attempt to get out of Mammon's pseudo-interrogation. "Good afternoon."

Diavolo and Barbatos pause briefly in their procession - almost too briefly, as if they'd already anticipated our arrival - and turn to greet us. Diavolo's holding an enormous stack of papers in his hands, apparently having just taken them off Barbatos.

"IK!" Diavolo exclaims with a smile, adjusting the documents. "And Mammon too! What brings you over here?"

"Professor Kaz sent me home early," I reply, wondering absently why Mammon has just subtly punched me in the arm.

Diavolo's brows crease, but it's an almost performative sort of motion. I can't help but feel like both he and Barbatos were already anticipating this meeting. "Oh? Why?"

"I didn't really sleep last night," I explain, gesturing feebly in an effort to convey my words. "So I've just been kind of... wobbly all day."

He peers down into my face for a moment with an almost uncomfortable kind of intensity, then nods with a sympathetic sort of frown. "I understand. You do look quite...worn out."

I'm pretty sure that's his way of saying that I look like a demented raccoon. "...yeah. I am."

"Then it is a good thing that your teacher let you leave early," Barbatos says pleasantly, dipping his head briefly. For some reason, as his head is on its way back up, he abruptly freezes, eyes glazing over for a moment. Then he glances downwards, and asks, "Does your knee feel alright?"

I give him a puzzled look. How does he think fatigue works? "Yeah. Why wouldn't it?"

He looks surprised for a moment, then suddenly shuts his eyes and shakes his head slightly. When he opens them again, he looks a little disoriented, blinking rapidly and rubbing at the his temples, as if he has a headache.

"...apologies," He says finally, a frown pulling at his sharp features. "I simply... got things mixed up."

"Don't worry about him," Diavolo says with a chuckle. "This kind of thing happens a lot."

I frown in confusion, trying to ignore Mammon continuing to aggressively poke me in the back of the arm. "Do you meet a lot of people with hurt knees?"

Diavolo and Barbatos exchange a knowing kind of look. Diavolo doesn't look dampened in the slightest, but Barbatos looks almost concerned - though what about, I don't know.

Barbatos turns back to me and offers another, smaller smile. "You'll know in time."

Mammon gives me a particularly hard jab, and I suddenly realise what he's trying to signal to me - Barbatos is right here. I was going to ask him for help with the attic thing, wasn't I?

The thing is, Diavolo's here as well - what if he tells Lucifer about our conversation? They seem close, so I wouldn't put it past him, and if Lucifer somehow manages to figure out my intentions (which I don't doubt he could do, even with a minimal amount of evidence to work with), I'm dead as a door nail.

"Well, I'll get going," Diavolo says after a moment of silence. He turns to Barbatos and, giving me and Mammon a quick side glance, says in an undertone, "I'll leave you to do your job."

I don't understand what he means - isn't Barbatos's job just to serve him? - but Barbatos himself evidently does. He nods and stays in place as Diavolo walks off and up one of the nearby staircases. 

After watching his boss's progress for a while, he turns and looks back to me and Mammon in almost expectant silence.

"...so," I venture, encouraged by Mammon's increasingly hard prods at my shoulder. "Can I ask you something, Mr Barbatos?"

He smiles. "Of course. What is it?"

For some reason, I get the feeling that he already knows the answer. It's almost like a sense of deja vu, but not quite - rather than having previously experienced the situation myself, it feels more like he has.

Nevertheless, I decide not to question it - I'm probably just overthinking again - and begin, "...so, theoretically... if I wanted to make, like, a link between me and my Puffball... would that be possible?"

Barbatos doesn't look surprised in the slightest by the admittedly ridiculous request - like he was expecting it. "What kind of link, exactly?"

"Uh..." I'm becoming increasingly aware of how ridiculous I sound. "The kind where the Puffball could warn me if... something... happens?"

It's a good thing I didn't take Drama for GCSE, because I'm doing an absolutely awful job at trying to act nonchalant. Barbatos, however, doesn't seem affected at all - but I can't tell whether it's because he already knows exactly what's going on, or if he's just really oblivious.

"Let's see..." He says, thinking. "Puffballs are rather more intelligent than they're given credit for, so as long as you tell it what you want to be warned about... all you'd have to do is establish something for it to use to send you the 'signal', so to speak. Something that you can wear, perhaps..."

"Like jewellery?" Mammon asks. It's the first time he's spoken since we came upon Diavolo and Barbatos in the first place.

Barbatos quirks a brow, then nods. "Jewellery would work very well. For example, a necklace, a ring, a bracelet..."

He pauses for an oddly long moment, as if he's waiting for something. "... or a watch."

"A watch, you say?" asks an all-too-familiar voice as an all-too-familiar figure comes sliding down the banister of the staircase beside us. Mephisto lands gracefully and shoots me a grin. "Seems we're running into each other a lot today, eh?"

"Mephisto," Barbatos acknowledges with a nod. Once again, he doesn't look affected at all by this unexpected happenstance. I'm beginning to think that I'm looking too far into this - maybe the guy's just really apathetic. "I assume you received Lord Diavolo's message?"

"Yeah, yeah," He flaps his hand dismissively in Barbatos' direction, fiddling with the ribbon tying up his hair with the other. "Where is he, anyway? He said to come see him in the entrance hall."

I glance over at Mammon, who's already looking at me with one eyebrow raised. Once he realises that I'm looking at him, he makes a sort of reverse-nod of acknowledgement, then not-particularly-subtly jerks his head in Barbatos' direction. It seems that I'm not the only one thinking that there's something strange about this whole situation.

"He's just returned to his office," Barbatos tells Mephisto. "You'll find him there."

"Alright..." Mephisto pulls a face and leans to the side, seemingly resting his elbow on nothing (Mammon grumbles 'show-off' under his breath), then perks up slightly. "Well, before I go, what was that about a watch?"

The most logical thing for Barbatos to do would be to politely dismiss him - after all (and pardon the rudeness), it's none of Mephisto's business what we were talking about earlier. But, for some reason, he nods and tells him everything in full detail - almost word for word. Now I'm thinking I was right for overthinking... this is too strange to be coincidental.

"I see," Mephisto says after a long moment, stroking an imaginary goatee with his left hand. "So you need a magical bit of jewellery that you could link to a Puffball, so that it could send you a signal when it wants to give you a warning?"

I exchange another look with Mammon, who's beginning to look visibly creeped out by the sheer coincidence of this whole thing, then turn back to him and nod. "...that's pretty much it, yeah."

"Hmm..." His faux goatee-stroking speeds up, and he smiles mischievously. "I might have just the solution, then..."

He fumbles briefly with his right sleeve, then pulls it up with a flourish, revealin... a very fancy-looking silver watch. 

After a moment, sensing that he's waiting for something, I make an appropriate (and still slightly woozy) noise of amazement. Mephisto practically preens with pride.

Mammon, however, doesn't seem impressed in the slightest. "...so?"

"So," Mephisto says excitedly, beginning to undo it from his wrist, "I happen to have a magical watch right here."

Okay, that settles it. This whole thing is absolutely not a coincidence. "Ah."

"And," He continues, brandishing the watch at me like he's expecting me to drop to my knees and start worshipping it on the spot. "It happens to be enchanted with just the kind of magic that you need."

"Sounds shady to me," Mammon grumbles, sticking his little finger into his ear and twisting it about like a screwdriver. "You tryin' to sell us somethin'?"

"Oh, there won't be a fee for this," Mephisto shakes his head, pressing the watch enthusiastically into my hands. "Just the knowledge that it'll be put to good use is enough."

I look down at the watch for a moment. The lustrous metal seems to hum against my palms, as if there's a heartbeat somewhere inside its casing. "...why do you even have this?"

"It's been one of the sharpest tools in my arsenal." He explains with a grin. "This little beauty's saved me from getting caught so many times that I've almost lost count."

"So why are ya givin' it to us?" Mammon asks suspiciously, glaring down at the watch as if it might grow fangs and attack him at any moment.

"Well, Lord Diavolo's put a seal on it, I'm afraid," Mephisto sighs. "So it wouldn't work for me even if I wanted to."

"However, as IK isn't a demon, she doesn't fall under the jurisdiction of the seal," Barbatos puts in. "Which means she can use it without consequence."

"I don't know," I say uncertainly, glancing down at the watch again. It glints almost threateningly. "Do you need magic to activate it or something?"

"Nope," Mephisto answers, digging about in his pocket and pulling out what looks like a circlet of some kind. "You just need this! Just pop it onto your Puffball's head and they'll link to each other on their own. When it wants to warn you, the watch'll heat up."

"How d'you just have all this with ya?" Mammon reaches forward and plucks the circlet from Mephisto's hand, holding it up to the light of chandelier as if checking it for imperfections.

"You never know when you need them," Mephisto says, offering me a smile. "Apart from that, it's just a nice watch. And I wasn't going to wear the watch without letting its partner come along as well, now, was I?"

"Did you use a Puffball as well, then?" I ask as Mammon gives the circlet one more once-over, then drops it carelessly in my hand.

"I used a Little D, actually," He answers, running a hand briefly through his hair. "As long as the circlet fits, it doesn't matter. Come to think of it, maybe that's why Lord Diavolo put the seal on the watch in the first place..."

"Ya don't say..." Mammon mutters, considering for a moment longer. Then he grins and gives Mephisto a hearty clap on the back. "Well, thanks! C'mon, kid, we'd better get goin'."

I go to follow him, then pause and turn to see both Mephisto and Barbatos looking down at me, the former with a smile and the latter with a rather thoughtful sort of expression on his face.

"Thank you," I say, performing quick sort of bow. "Have a nice afternoon."

Barbatos looks surprised, while Mephisto just smiles and gives me a cheerful wave. I turn to follow Mammon out of the R.A.D., carefully tucking the watch and circlet that I've been given into my pocket.

"That was some real weird coincidence back there," Mammon says as we leave the courtyard and start on our way down the path. "Spooky."

I glance up at him. He doesn't look worried in the slightest anymore. Did he really dismiss it that quickly? "It is."

"Well, ya got one part of the plan sorted," He replies. I'm too busy wondering when we start having 'the plan' to respond, so he continues, "Anyway, if ya aren't goin' straight to sleep when we get back, I reckon you should start askin' Levi for that record."

I thought he said that he didn't want anything to do with this whole thing? Then again, I did get the feeling that he was lying, even then... "Won't Mr Leviathan still be at the R.A.D.?"

Mammon grimaces slightly. "You just won't stop with that 'Mr' business, will ya? Just call him Levi."

"He hasn't given me permission to," I say in reply.

"Ya don't need permission to call him by his name, " He counters, crossing his arms as he walks. "Why'd you start doin' that, anyway?"

"Just habit, I guess," I say with a small shrug, fiddling with one of my backpack straps. "Big important guys get the Mr treatment. You know, the ones with authority. That's just how it is back home."

"Authority? What authority does Levi have?" Mammon snorts, shaking his head as if the very idea is incomprehensible. "Anyway, he doesn't go to a lot of his classes at the R.A.D., just takes 'em online. He'll probably just be in his room."

"I didn't know you could do that." If they have the Internet down here, who came up with it? Do they even have all the infrastructure, or is it just a magic thing?

"Well, you can't," Mammon says matter-of-factly. "Diavolo wants ya gettin' the full student routine, so there's no way Lucifer would let ya. Maybe if you got really sick..."

He suddenly seems to remember why we're on our way back to the House so early, and glances down at me with a subtle eyebrow raise. "...are ya sick?"

"I don't think so," I answer with a shake of my head. "Just sleepy. I feel a bit better already, actually..."

"You'd have to be totally shattered to fall asleep in the middle of all that back there," He says. "Well, s'long as you ain't droppin' dead any time soon..."

"I guess..."

By the time we get back to the House of Lamentation, I'm already feeling less bone-tired and less likely to collapse at any given moment. It turns out going for walk actually does keep you awake - it's hard to concentrate on wanting to sleep when you're walking. Especially if your walking buddy is loudly dissing every single one of his brothers with such specificity that it's as if he rehearses it in the mirror every evening.

Mammon follows me to my room and makes himself comfortable in the desk chair again. Meanwhile, I drop my bag by the door and hurry to greet Alatus, who's still perched on my pillow where I left him. (He looks much more refreshed now.)

"You gonna try that thing Mephisto gave ya?" Mammon asks, swinging himself around in the chair with his arms thrown behind his bed like he's sunbathing.

"Sure," I say, carefully lifting the watch and circlet out of my pocket. Alatus sniffs experimentally at the circlet as I hold it out to him, then obediently squishes himself downward in preparation to wear it.

The circlet fits almost suspiciously perfectly onto him. The watch actually manages to slip quite snugly onto my wrist, too - despite the fact that Mephisto's is much larger than mine. 

Normally I don't wear accessories like this, and, when I do, they're typically the pound-shop off-brand type. I feel like a real higher member of society with this thing on.

"Feel anythin' new?" Mammon prompts as I shake my arm out a little.

I glance between the watch and the circlet on Alatus's head - well, his whole body, since he doesn't have any legs. "...I don't think so."

"Well, I guess that makes sense," He mutters, leaning forward and placing his chin in a hand. "Nothin' around to warn ya about... well, anyway what're you planning to do about that record?"

"The record?" I mumble, then slump back on my bed with a quiet huff. "I don't know. Maybe later..."

"Wimp," Mammon comments with a smirk. "You just wanna avoid talkin' to him, don't ya?"

Well, he isn't totally wrong, but agreeing would mean losing. "No! I'm just... uh, still tired. I'll ask him for it tomorrow or something..."

"Ask him?" Mammon repeats, scoffing. "He's not the sorta guy who'll do ya any favours if you just 'ask'. You gotta give him somethin'... or force him."

Not sure I like the sound of that second one. "I don't have really have anything I could give him."

"Then why don't ya ask if he wants somethin'?" He suggests, getting to his feet. "He's probably just upstairs."

"Won't he be in the middle of a lesson?" I ask, following hesitantly. Alatus rolls back into his place on the pillow and goes right back to sleep. I wish I could live like him.

"Ah, he won't care," He dismisses. "Knowing him, I'd bet a couple thousand Grimm he ain't even doin' the lesson. He's probably playin' one of his games again."

I don't like this plan very much - mostly because I'm going to have to do the talking. Could I ask Mammon to do it for me? No, that'd be admitting defeat... and it's not like he'd agree, either.

"If you're sure," I say reluctantly, hoping very hard that he isn't.

He is. Mammon quickly drags me down the corridor and up the stairs to Leviathan's room. I can hear a muffled, upbeat kind of bubblegum pop blasting from behind the door as we approach, loud enough that I'm pretty sure any efforts to catch Leviathan's attention by knocking would go completely unheard.

Mammon doesn't seem to care about that, though, because he immediately kicks the door open and barges inside. The bubblegum pop abruptly cuts off; I peer hesitantly around the edge of the doorway to see Leviathan swinging around in his chair with a furious scowl on his face.

"I told you to knock next time!" He says as Mammon comes to a stop in front of him, hands set on his hips. "The secret phrase is there for a reason!"

"And I told ya that I don't care about any secret phrase," Mammon says breezily, flicking Leviathan in the head with a grin. "If ya didn't want anyone to come in, maybe you should've locked the door."

"I didn't know you'd be back this early, did I?!" Leviathan slaps Mammon's hand away with what sounds almost like a hiss. "Get out!"

"Hold on, hold on," Mammon says, refusing to budge even as Leviathan threatens to roll the wheels of his chair right over his toes. "The exchange kid needs your help."

Leviathan pauses, then glances over to the doorway. I offer him a hesitant wave.

"Then why are you here?" He asks, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms.

"'Cause she's a wuss and didn't wanna ask," Mammon replies, and normally I'd be offended, but he's right.

Leviathan thinks for a moment, then swings around to look at me again. I'm still hovering just beyond the threshold of the doorway, unsure of whether or not I'm allowed to come in.

"What do you want?" He asks finally. 

He doesn't sound super angry, at least. Well, I can't tell what he's thinking at all - his face is completely unreadable - but he doesn't seem like he's going to yell at me. That makes me feel a bit better.

"Well..." I say uncertainly, shuffling slightly on the spot. "...do you have a vinyl record of the TSL soundtrack that I could borrow?"

Now that I'm here, it just feels like I'm asking a classmate to borrow a glue stick or something. Though even that used to terrify me in mere concept, so it doesn't really change much overall.

Leviathan frowns so deeply that his entire face seems to crumple in on itself, but it looks more like one of confusion than of irritation. "Why do you want that?"

"Uh..." I look briefly at Mammon, wondering if I should explain the plan that he's so kindly come up with for me. He just shrugs, so I go with my gut and try to keep it vague. "Because... I like music?"

"I like music as well, but I don't go around asking strangers to borrow theirs," Leviathan counters, folding his arms. I can tell that he knows something's up. "Why would I even give it to you? I bet a human like you wouldn't even know how to use it."

Well, that's just downright rude. I didn't spend three days watching videos about the history of and how to operate gramophones and desperately wanting one when I was eleven to be treated like this. "Not necessarily..."

"Don't ya owe the kid a favour?" Mammon asks with a raised eyebrow, shifting his weight to another leg. "She went along with your plan and helped ya get your money back, didn't she?"

"Well..." Leviathan does seem to think that makes sense. He purses his lips, giving me a thoughtful look. "...I guess..."

But then he changes his mind and goes back on the defence. "...actually, no! I don't owe you anything!"

"Oi!" Mammon leans down and glares directly into his face, hands set firmly on his hips. "Quit bein' such a jerk! Tell him, kid!"

"What?" I recoil slightly at the sudden calling-on, glancing between the two of them in a panic. "I don't know, it's not like he signed an IOU or anything..."

"So I don't have to give you anything," Leviathan says with a satisfied nod, briefly shooting me a thumbs up. "See, Mammon? You could learn a thing or two from this human. Now get out before I summon Lotan on you!"

I skitter backwards as Leviathan unceremoniously shoves a sputtering Mammon out of his room, then slams the door shut. I hear the telltale sound of a key being turned in the lock, followed by the bubblegum pop from earlier blasting at full volume once more.

Mammon lands on the carpet with an undignified 'oof!', then hurriedly scrambles to his feet and fixes his glare on me.

"What the hell was that?!" He asks me irritably, smacking me in the back of the head so hard that he actually does knock me over this time. "Oh, shit—"

He drops to a knee beside me as I peel my face away from the carpet and give him a reproachful look. "You good?"

I look at him in silence for a good moment or two, rubbing absently-mindedly at the now rather sore tip of my nose. "...dandy."

He breathes out a barely-noticeable sigh of relief, then stands up, leaning down to grab me by the forearm and yank me to my feet. I take a moment to find my bearings again, wondering if all this might've done something to my inner ear.

Mammon opens his mouth to say something, then seems to change his mind as he watches me try to blink my vision back into focus. A slight frown pulls at his face.

"...are ya sure you're okay?" He asks after a moment.

I rub my eyes. By all means, this shouldn't be enough to cause any real damage, but I think it's compounded with my fatigue to make me go all dizzy. "Uhh..."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" He catches me by the arm as I go to step forward and almost fall onto my face again. "Seriously... I didn't hit ya that hard, did I?"

"I dunno," I mumble, gripping onto his sleeve for support, probably tighter than is polite. Mammon doesn't say anything about it, though. "Sorry."

"What're you sayin' sorry for?" He asks incredulously, then glances around and drags me over to a chair in the hallway. "Look, just sit down..."

I do as he says. This chair seems to have seen better days - like someone chucked it out of their room and forgotten about it. I think one of the legs is broken, but it seems my weight isn't quite enough to make it collapse.

Mammon crouches down in front of me and peers a little agitatedly up into my face. I blink back at him sluggishly.

"...you ain't gonna pass out on me, are ya?" He asks warily. "D'you need a lie-down or somethin'?"

"I don't think so." Part of me wants to pretend to just to mess with him. "I think I just need a minute..."

He doesn't look completely convinced, but he nods and sits back on his haunches anyway. "...if ya say so."

I shut my eyes and give my head a shake. When I open them again, Mammon's leaning forward and inspecting my face again.

The intensity of his stare's a little unnerving. I clear my throat. "...uh, I think I'm good now."

"You sure?" He eyes me for a moment longer, then sighs and relaxes. "...look, I'm sorry for hittin' ya, alright? I keep forgettin' you're too tiny to handle it."

I shrug. Mammon presses his mouth into a line, then huffs. "Honestly, though. You were supposed to say somethin' to get Levi's attention, not agree with him."

"Sorry," I mutter half-heartedly. "I blanked out."

"Yeah, I could tell." He gets to his feet and holds out a hand. "Well, c'mon. If you're not gonna take a nap, we're oughta start workin' on Plan B."

I let him pull me up from the chair. Instead of taking the same way back to my room, he just leads me a little ways down the corridor and then stops at one of the doors, briefly rummaging about in his pocket before pulling out his keys and unlocking it.

"Where's this?" I ask tentatively as he swings the door open.

"My room," He says, pulling me in and shutting the door behind us. "Don't touch anything, got it?"

"Got it..." I look around as he heads over to a cabinet and starts searching around in it.

Mammon's room is just about as far from the aesthetic of Leviathan's as possible - much brighter and much less ambient, with polished silver walls, a pool table, and what appears to be an entire car just sitting on a raised platform up a flimsy-looking set of stairs. 

There appears to be a door behind it, but where does it lead? Aren't we on the first floor? I didn't even know they had cars in the Devildom.

"You can sit down, ya know," Mammon calls from the cabinet, withdrawing with an enormous box in his hands. "Just don't get the cushions dirty."

I nod and carefully take a seat on the end of one of the squashy-looking black sofas as Mammon pulls what looks like a DVD case out of the box and snaps it open. "...what are we doing?"

"Plan B," He says, as if it's obvious, taking out the DVD and turning on the player to put it in. "If ya wanna get Levi to do you any favours, you'll have to get his respect first..."

He plucks a remote out of nowhere and points it up at the projector hanging precariously from the ceiling. "...so it looks like we're gonna have to turn you into an even bigger TSL fan than him."

I shift slightly on the spot as he reaches up to pull down a white sheet that looks exactly like the boards my teachers use to show us powerpoints. "Isn't TSL kind of massive, though? It'd take ages to get to the level he's at..."

"What, are ya givin' up already?" Mammon pauses in his setting-up to turn around and give me an unimpressed look. "Thought you wanted to get into that attic?"

"I do, but..." I make a vague sort of gesture with my hands and pull an 'eh' face. "Isn't there a less... ambitious Plan B?"

"Nope," He says plainly, then goes back to his work. "So you'd better pay attention. Levi's a force to be reckoned with when it comes to this stuff... hey, d'you wanna go get some popcorn or somethin' from the kitchen?"

"Uh..." I ponder for a moment, then shrug and get up. "Okay."

"Get some of the spicy stuff," He calls as I proceed to the door. "And just pick whatever else ya like, we've got plenty."

I throw him a thumbs up and hurry down the stairs, making a brief stop at my room to change into my pyjamas - deciding on the cat onesie for variety. While I'm there, I pick up Alatus as well - he promptly hops into my hood and goes straight back to sleep.

The kitchen door is already open when I creep in, and Beelzebub is sitting at the table eating what looks like an entire turkey. He freezes briefly when he hears my footsteps, then goes right back to eating.

"Hi," He says after a moment, through a mouthful of meat.

"Hello," I reply hesitantly. "Did... did you leave school early as well?"

"Huh? Oh." He seems to be focusing most of his attention on his turkey, which I can understand. That thing's ginormous. "No. I had the day off today."

Now that I think about it, I don't think he was wearing his uniform this morning, and I didn't see him leaving the house, either. "Ah, right..."

Beelzebub doesn't seem interested in saying anything else - he's a lot more absorbed in his meal. I'm pretty sure he's eating the bones of that turkey as well, if the crunching sounds are anything to go off of...

I glance around awkwardly, then ask, "Where do you keep the popcorn?"

He perks up, turning around to look at me so quickly that he nearly flings the piece of meat in his mouth halfway across the room. "Are you watching a movie?"

"I think so," I say uncertainly. Mammon didn't give me any details, but there's not really much else we could be doing. "Do... do you want to come?"

He nods, getting to his feet and shoving the entire rest of the turkey he was eating into his mouth with such speed that it looks as if the whole thing has just been sucked up into a vacuum. It's... incredibly unsettling. 

"The popcorn's in here..." He moves over to one of the cupboards on the left, swinging it open and pulling out a series of bags. "What flavour do you want?"

"Uh..." I think for a moment. "Just salty is fine. Mammon wanted the spicy kind, by the way..."

"Okay." He pulls out two large brown packets and passes them to me, then leans into the cupboard again and pulls out at least another five. "Come on."

I adjust the two bags in my arms and briefly turn around to check that Alatus hasn't fallen out of my hood while I wasn't looking, then begin leading the way back to Mammon's room. As he walks, Beelzebub balances his popcorn bags in one hand, then takes a single bag in the other and closes his hand around it. 

His palm glows a brief, bright crimson red. The bag abruptly expands with a loud POP!

I reflexively bring my hands up to shield my face at the sound, then pull them down again, only for Beelzebub to do the same to the other four bags. At least I'm expecting them this time, so they don't give me the same inside-wrenching surprise as before,

"That's cool," I compliment tentatively after a moment of silence. Beelzebub is staring down at his bags of popcorn, as if contemplating eating them all right then and there.

He looks up and smiles slightly. "Thanks. It's just a special kind of fire spell. Belphie tau—"

He abruptly cuts himself off and goes quiet again, his expression suddenly troubled. His hands tighten around his popcorn bags until it looks like they're about to pop under the pressure.

Belphie? I want to ask about who that is, but the look on Beelzebub's face is so sad that I'm not sure if I can bring myself to do so. Wait...

I think back to what Satan told me about the seventh brother the other day - which isn't a lot, I do remember is him telling me that the subject was 'forbidden grounds', specifically on 'Lucifer's orders'. It might be a stretch, but is it a coincidence that Lucifer is also the one defending what's in the attic so fiercely? 

...does it have anything to do with the voice I heard calling for help?

Ah, screw it. If there's a chance.. "...is Belphie your other brother?"

Beelzebub stiffens, stopping in place. His face has gone dark. "Who told you about him?"

"Well, uh... Mr Lucifer and Mr Diavolo said there were seven of you..." I stop as well, preparing to make a run for it if he starts getting aggressive. "And I haven't seen him yet. Mr Satan said that I shouldn't talk about him when I asked."

"...Satan's right," Beelzebub says firmly after a moment, starting to walk again. "We're not allowed to say anything about him."

"But—" I start, only to cut off by the look he shoots my way.

Beelzebub looks downtrodden again for a moment, then shakes his head and frowns, looking down at me. "That's just how things are. So don't let Lucifer hear you saying anything about him."

"...alright," I say quietly, turning my gaze to the floor. "Sorry."

He doesn't say anything else. We continue down the corridor in silence.

Chapter Text

Almost a fortnight later, I still don't feel like I'm nearly deep enough into the world of The Seven Lords to challenge a dormouse, let alone Leviathan.

Mammon's been nice enough to continue letting me spend several hours of the evening in his room at a time to carry on watching the movie series (though he does make a point to tell me that he expects reimbursement for the trouble at some point in the future). We don't do it every day, of course, and each instalment's at least two hours long, so we've only gotten about eleven movies in so far. 

And that seems like a lot, but this series is massive, so that's still eleven movies out of about thirty. Which seems like a lot, but considering it's adapting 138 books... I'm just impressed that they managed to finish the whole thing.

I'd have thought that Mammon would be more bothered by me just taking up space in his room for hours at a time in the evenings, but he actually seems to be quite enjoying himself.. It is a nice feeling - to be able to just sit amiably around someone and focus on a film. It's pretty new to me, but I like it.

Alatus is usually there too, either sleeping in my palms, in my lap, or in my hood. And, without fail, every time we sit down to start a movie, Beelzebub will show up before we're even fifteen minutes in, with copious amounts of popcorn and various other snacks piled high in his arms.

He'll eat about 90% of it while Mammon and I are left to divvy up the rest between us - by which I mean Mammon just chucks me a single bag of salted popcorn and keeps the rest for himself. It's a pretty massive amount of popcorn, so it's more than enough for me.

Actually, it's generally too much. Mammon usually eats the rest after I get a quarter through it and start feeling kind of sick.

Beelzebub himself doesn't even seem particularly interested in the movies themselves - as far as I can tell, he's just here because it gives him an excuse to consume as much junk food as physically possible. According to him, Lucifer gets crabby if he eats this much without reason - but as long as Beelzebub has some sort of viable excuse, no matter how trivial, he'll usually let it go.

Speaking of Lucifer - it's kind of weird that he isn't setting up any kind of protest to the constant movie nights. Aside from us staying up much later than is ideal for an early rise for school the next day, I'd have thought that he'd have caught on to what we're trying to do by now - or at least had some suspicions about the odd behaviour. 

Then again, I can't read his mind. As far as I can tell, he could know and just be hiding it.

He hasn't mentioned the attic or anything about catching me trying to get into it twice in a row, either. While it's relieving that he doesn't seem to intend on punishing me, it's also a little unsettling. Does he really care so little about my misbehaviour? 

Lucifer doesn't seem like the type of guy to let something like this go so easily, especially when it had been such an impudent disregard for his warning. If anything, I feel like he might be ignoring it specifically because he doesn't want me even thinking about it any more.

The thing is, though, the more Lucifer tries to subtly prevent me from wanting to get into the attic, the more I want to do so. I haven't been able to wheedle any information out of him, though - mostly because I can't think of a way to do it without provoking him.

The only thing I can do is hope to get enough TSL lore into my head to challenge Leviathan, get that record, and keep him busy for long enough to get up those stairs.

Mammon hasn't told me anything about what - or who - is in the attic, too, but that's mainly because he doesn't actually know. Beelzebub doesn't seem to have a clue, either - when I ask, he just makes a half-hearted suggestion of 'cursed stuff that Lucifer doesn't want anyone to use against him' and goes back to what looks like an enormous bag of Wotsits.

It's actually a pretty sensible guess, but somehow I feel like whatever has given Lucifer a reason to guard the attic so securely has to be of a bigger magnitude of that. And, of course, there's the voice I heard calling out to me that night. 

There's always the possibility that, if Beelzebub's theory is true, the voices come from an object that's meant to lure people to it, Pied Piper style... but it's also equally possible that Lucifer's got some poor sap locked up in that attic who's calling out for help. And, if the other brothers are just pretending not to hear them, they might well be in on the whole thing. 

But, then again, why would Mammon be helping me if that were true? It's all just too confusing...

I can hardly tell the logical conclusions apart from the straight-up fantasy anymore. It doesn't help that I don't know a thing about the rules behind magic down here, so something that I've chalked up as being impossible could very well be perfectly doable.

I'm thinking so much and so hard (which is a first for me) that I'm blanking out on several visual chunks of the movie, but I can actually get a pretty good gist of what's going on from the music alone. I can see why that vinyl appeals to Lucifer now - I feel like listening to the whole soundtrack would tell you the story just as well as watching the film.

There's just been some kind of fight, I think. Probably from an argument between the Lord of Corruption and the Lord of Emptiness - that was their themes making up the main melody of the battle music. Actually, there's a lot of musical themes for a lot of different things in these films. Just how much leitmotif is too much leitmotif?

There's pretty much one for every single major theme within the story - one for war, one for friendship, one for sadness, one for death, and so on. Each of the seven lords has their own theme with has a leitmotif of its own, too. If I hadn't already been pretty much convinced of the lords' connection to the demon brothers, their themes only solidify that thought. 

I don't even know if I'm being extremely clever or extremely delusional. I keep thinking that I'm just reaching for connections where there aren't any, but then I'll notice something like the fact that the leitmotif in the long-coated Lord of Corruption's theme seems to represent pride - because it plays whenever a character is acting all high and mighty, or doing something like refusing help to keep their ego intact. 

Then I'll think, wait, Lucifer's the Avatar of Pride, he's the oldest of his brothers, and he likes wearing big coats too, and decide that I've connected all the dots, even if I haven't really connected anything.

Neither Beelzebub nor Mammon seem to notice any of the parallels between their family and the brothers in the movies we're watching. I suppose it wouldn't cross their mind that there would even be a connection in the first place, and I'm pretty sure that they're not nearly as interested in the musical storytelling going on as I am. If even Leviathan hasn't thought of it, I guess they wouldn't have, either.

But then - about twenty five minutes into one particular movie, after the Lord of Corruption has imprisoned the Lord of Emptiness for daring to lead a rebellion against him - something seems to click. For one of them, anyway.

"Man, this Corruption guy's a joke," Mammon says through a mouthful of death-cap mushrooms, scoffing as a dark-haired man in a billowing peacock feather-patterned coat sweeps down the tower stairs, ignoring the frantic pounding coming from the barred door at the top. "If he wanted to stop Emptiness from rebelling, maybe he shoulda tried somethin' like money ."

"Emptiness doesn't care about money, though," Beelzebub points out. He's already exhausted most of his snack supply, and looks as if he's seriously contemplating stuffing the bags themselves into his mouth as well. "He just wants Corruption to listen to him."

"Good luck with that," Mammon snorts. "His name's Corruption. Fat lotta chance he's gonna be changin' any time soon. That Henry's an idiot if I've ever seen one..."

"Look at Flies, though," I point out as the shot cuts to the gluttonous lord sitting alone in his castle. "Kind of looks like he might turn now."

He's staring at a portrait, holding an apple so tightly in his hand that it's crushed by the sheer force of his grip. I can hear five notes being repeated over and over in the bass line, slow and melancholy.

"Well, fair dos, I reckon," Mammon says, shoving another handful of mushrooms into his mouth. "I mean, Emptiness is their brother. Can't expect him to just sit around while he's gettin' locked up, can ya?"

"Yeah," Beelzebub says abruptly, a frown pulling at his face. The crumpled snack bags are now lying in relative disarray on the floor in front of him, forgotten. "Because brothers are supposed to defend each other."

Mammon pauses. He opens his mouth, then snaps it shut again, wearing a complex sort of expression - like a mixture of regret, grief and anger. 

I shift a little awkwardly on the spot, wondering if I should really be witnessing this moment. Mammon's eyes dart back and forth between Beelzebub's flat expression and the Lord of Flies on the screen, monologuing to himself as the Lord of Emptiness's theme begins to play in mournful, dissonant harmony.

"...the Lords are all scared of Corruption, so it's not like they can say anythin'," He says finally, but he sounds unsure, like he doesn't believe what he's saying. "And Corruption's their brother as well, ya know..."

"Corruption was the oldest," Beelzebub counters almost immediately, and I get the distinct feeling that he isn't talking about the movie any more. "So he had a responsibility to look after his younger brothers - including Emptiness. But he just locked him up without hearing him out. The other lords should've tried to get him to see reason."

"Well...!" Mammon struggles to find words for a moment, then finally settles on, "Emptiness wasn't totally innocent either, y'know! He shouldn't have threatened to destroy the Anypeople in the first place! They weren't doin' any harm, were they? In fact, some of them were pretty nice!"

"But Emptiness didn't know that," Beelzebub fires back, each word sharp and deliberate. "Even if he shouldn't have threatened them, Corruption should've tried to get him to come to terms with them instead of locking him up."

"Look, Beel—" Mammon drags a feverish hand through his hair and sighs. "He's not locked up, he's just away for a bit, alright?"

They're most definitely not talking about the movie any more . Beelzebub's previously slightly sleepy eyes have brightened to an almost frightening glare, and he draws himself to his full height. "But he didn't want to! And you know why he's so—"

Then his gaze lands on me, and he suddenly goes quiet. His frown softens as well, into something more morose than angry, and he turns away.

I glance over at Mammon, who coughs awkwardly into his fist and runs his hand through his hair again. "..so, how're ya likin' the movies so far?"

"Um," I say awkwardly, bouncing Alatus slightly in an attempt to busy my restless hands. "The music's good."

"The music?" He repeats, frowning slightly. "What're ya focusing on the music for?"

"It's interesting," I say defensively, squaring my shoulders. "I like listening for the leitmotifs and repeating themes and stuff."

"Late-mo-what?" He wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. "The hell is that?"

"It's basically just bit of music that represents something," I say, "Could be a person, or an idea... anything, really."

He considers, still frowning deeply. "I don't get it."

"Well, uh..." I think for a moment. "...you know that guitar riff that plays a lot when Flies is on screen?"

"Yeah," Mammon nods shortly, then cocks his head to the side. "What, is that the, uh... the... leitmotif?"

"Kind of," I answer, pondering briefly over how to word my thoughts. "It's part of his theme, but the leitmotif itself isn't specifically the Lord of Flies leitmotif. You know how he loves food? I think it's a leitmotif for..."

I pause in my explanation as the Lord of Flies appears on the screen again, and the very theme that I'm trying to describe starts playing subtly in the background - this time on some tentative and anxious-sounding flutes. It plays whenever anyone on screen is eating excessively, or whenever there's a shot of something like a feast - it definitely makes sense that it's a gluttony or overindulgence themed leitmotif. 

But that's not what I'm interested in. I've just remembered something else.

The Emptiness theme does contain a separate leitmotif of its own for rest or laziness in some fashion, but I've just realised there's also another entirely separate one that it shares with the Flies theme. Those five notes that were playing during the Lord of Flies's moment of melancholy in the aftermath of his brother's imprisonment - it features in both the Flies and Emptiness theme, mostly hidden in the bass line, but both themes bring it into the melody at some point as well.

It's been playing subtly in the background whenever the Lord of Flies and the Lord of Emptiness have a moment of connection - like in the third movie, where Emptiness senses that Flies is in trouble from about two castles away, or that scene about half an hour ago where they teamed up to take down a horde of deadly crows. 

I would assume it's some sort of familial bond leitmotif, but there's already a separate one that I've definitely heard playing whenever the Lords in general have a moment with each other. So the only logical conclusion is that this leitmotif specifically describes the relationship between Emptiness and Flies.

Emptiness's theme's leitmotif is related to idleness and that missing seventh brother's sin is probably sloth, Flies's main leitmotif is gluttony and Mr Beelzebub is the Avatar of Gluttony, the bond between Emptiness and Flies keeps being emphasised in the music and in the plot, Beelzebub's being weirdly resentful about some 'him' who, according to Mammon, is 'away for a bit'...

Corruption's locked Emptiness in the top of a tower. Corruption is the oldest, the most powerful, and doesn't like being told what to do. 

Lucifer's the eldest of the seven, and the Avatar of Pride. Lucifer won't let me up into the attic. Satan says Lucifer forbids talking about the seventh brother.

...TSL's just a story. How is it getting all that right? These books were published years ago - how are they mirroring something happening now? It's supposed to be a human-world series, isn't it? 

Well, if demons and Hell can exist, maybe oracles can, too. But it's kind of odd a human author to prophetise something happening to an entire other race of beings in an entire world. A series of human authors, actually, given how long the series went on for...

Failing that... someone might have based it directly on this weird family. But I'm pretty sure Mr Leviathan would have brought it up if it was one of the brothers themselves, so... Diavolo? Barbatos? They don't really seem the type.

Maybe I'm thinking too deep into this...

"...helloooo?" Mammon waves a hand about in front of my face, looking rather irritated. "Leitmotif for what? The hell're you thinkin' about?"

"Um," I shift and bounce Alatus up and down slightly. "Nothing."

"Liar," He says immediately, now ignoring the dramatics of whatever's going on in the movie in favour of staring directly at me.

"I'm not lying," I say, lying. "Just... got distracted. Anyway, uh - yeah, leitmotifs—"

The bumbling tangent I end up going on seems to derail him from whatever suspicions he had, and he doesn't try to question me further. Good thing, too - all of my mental capacity is going into a valiant attempt at explaining something that I'm really not qualified to be explaining. 

It takes him a good while to wrap his head around the concept, but that might just be because I'm doing an awful job of defining it. He does seem to get it eventually, at least.

He wrinkles his nose, throwing his arms behind his head and glancing over at the screen. There's a bit of a lull in the action - right now it's just a bunch of shots of the Lords brooding moodily in various places. 

"...dunno where you humans even get these ideas," He comments after a moment. "Why d'you know all that, anyway?"

I shrug, picking at the stitches in my blanket - then remembering it isn't mine, and stopping. "I like music, so I've watched lots of videos of people talking about it."

He snorts good-humouredly and leans over, ruffling my hair. I tense slightly at the contact. "Y'know, you might not even need Levi's record now. I bet Lucifer'd let you off for a night if ya told him all that."

"Leitmotifs are pretty basic stuff," I say, shaking my head. "He probably already knows."

"Nah, I'm pretty sure he just listens to the stuff," Mammon says, glancing over at Beelzebub as if for confirmation. (Beelzebub himself is still looking down - he's staring at the screen, but his vacant gaze indicates that he isn't absorbing any of what's happening on it.) "We don't have anyone who studies that sorta stuff down here, so it's not like he has anywhere to hear it. He'd probably be a real nerd if he did, though."

"Well..." I think for a moment, then shake my head. "I'm not good at explaining things, but if you can access the same Internet that I use at home down here, Mr Lucifer could just watch the videos I did..."

"Even if he did want to do that, he'd probably just tell you he didn't need to," Beelzebub puts in. He looks a little less sad now, though that might have something to do with the chocolate bar he's just pulled out of nowhere. "That's just how Lucifer is."

I nod. Beelzebub makes a lot of sense.

After that, under a series of intrigued questions from Mammon and Beelzebub, I end up going on for who-knows-how long about all sorts of things - things that I can never go particularly into depth about because I don't really understand them on a deeper level. 

It's basically just an extended fun fact sharing session, really, but it's just about the smartest I've felt in my entire life. It's not a one-way exchange, either - and it's fun learning about how music works in the Devildom, too.

The Devildom's music system is based almost exclusively on various elements of human world music. Lots of the instruments they have down here are human-world ones, too - but they have their own traditional ones as well. Like a harp-like sort of instrument carved from dragon bone with strings made of woven harpispider web that, from the sample Beelzebub plays us, sounds a lot like a crying baby.

According to Mammon, human world-style music is a pretty niche hobby down here, though it's been getting steadily more popular as of late. The musicians who play traditional Devildom instruments also have an entire different notation system - one that, to be honest, looks way more fun than the one I'm used to.

I can't say it's an efficient one to actually notate with, though, and maybe that's why there's a distinct lack of composers in the Devildom. Sheet music consists of a parade of little masked monsters; their colour determins the note, and the symbol on their mask is essentially the Devildom's equivalent of sharps and flats. They don't seem to have a time or key signature syste, either.

"None of us know how to play anything," Beelzebub says as I inspect a picture of a 'Cesta', which is some kind of wind instrument that appears to function similarly to a clarinet, but with a much longer body. "But we do have a music room..."

"You can go have a play about whenever ya like," Mammon adds, "S'long as ya don't break anything. Actually, do ya play anything?"

"I took piano lessons for a bit," I answer, zooming in on the top of the Cesta. For a mouth piece, it doesn't look very safe to have in your mouth - it looks really sharp. "Never got past Grade 2, though."

"There are grades in music?" Mammon pulls a face. "Don't blame ya for stoppin'."

"Well, I didn't like doing grades very much, but mainly I stopped because it was too expensive," I say mildly, "Plus we didn't have any keyboards at home, so I could only ever practise during lunch or after school - and that was only if the piano room was free."

"Huh. Still, that'll probably get ya some points from Lucifer," Mammon says. "I reckon he wants to learn an instrument, but he doesn't want us to make fun of him if we hear him making any mistakes."

 "You kind of have to make mistakes if you want to learn an instrument. That's just how practice works."

"Lucifer doesn't make sense a lot of the time," He says sagely, shrugging. "Like Beel said - that's just how he is."

"Sometimes he doesn't see sense either," Beelzebub mumbles, bending over the edge of the sofa to pick up his discarded snack packets, and crushing them into a ball in his hands.

Mammon glances at him. That odd, slightly mournful expression slashes across his face again. Then he shakes his head and turns back to the screen.

As it turns out, our exchange about music, while fun, means that I've completely missed a very large section of the movie - a section that also happens to be the most plot-driven part of it, so I'm extremely confused by what's going on for the remaining portion. 

Mammon and Beelzebub, somehow, don't seem thrown off at all, and I can't bring myself to bother them by asking if we can rewatch that section. I guess I'll have to find a different way to catch up with everything.

It's at that point that I remember that TSL originates from a book series, and I just happen to be able to read. I also remember that there are 138 volumes, though - which is a very daunting prospect, because I haven't actually finished any books in recent memory. Anyway, even if I did it, by the time I finished, whoever's in the attic (seventh brother or otherwise) may well have met an unpleasant fate. 

Besides, if I end up not liking the books, I definitely wouldn't have the patience nor the resilience to sit through every single one. But just looking up a synopsis would hardly give me enough information to stand on equal ground with Leviathan.

"There's an abridged version, I'm pretty sure," Solomon says when I bring it up at lunch a few days later. "You'll probably find some copies in the library."

"Would that work, though?" Luke asks. He's been steadily working his way through a slice of cake for nearly the entire lunch time, and I'm a little concerned as to whether that's all he's got in terms of nutrition. "It might be missing stuff from the original."

"Well, the abridged version covers all the major events," Simeon says, offering me some of his little box of fruit. "Of course, a lot of trivialities and smaller plot beats have been missed out, but that's to be expected when you're condensing such a large series into seven books."

"Have you read them?" I ask. Both Simeon and Solomon chuckle slightly, as if they're in on some joke that I don't get.

"I'm familiar with them, yes," Simeon answers after a moment. "Familiar enough that I feel qualified to speak on them, anyway. Now, if I may ask - why the sudden interest?"

"It's kind of complicated..." I pause to take a blueberry from the box he's still pushing at me. "...I need to borrow something from Mr Leviathan, but I have to 'earn his respect' or something, and Mammon said I have to do that by proving that I'm a bigger TSL fan than him. I don't know how, though..."

"That definitely sounds like a challenge," Solomon nods, tearing off a piece from the middle of his sandwich and shoving it into his mouth. (He's got to be doing this on purpose now - yesterday he was taking it apart and eating each component separately.) "Leviathan's been around for millennia - he probably knows the whole series inside out."

"Then how's IK supposed to beat him?" Luke asks incredulously, glancing at me. "She's only, like... a quarter or something of his age!"

"Less than that, actually," Solomon corrects. "Much less. Leviathan's probably been around longer than the psychologically modern human."

"He what?" It's a good thing I hadn't eaten my blueberry right before hearing that, because I'd have choked on it if I had. I knew the demons down here were old, but not that old. I was thinking 'Doctor from Doctor Who' kind of old, not 'pre-human evolution' kind of old.

"Well, I don't know for sure, but it's not an outlandish theory," Solomon explains with a flippant shrug. "Even if it wasn't true, though, I know for a fact that he isn't any younger than ten thousand. Almost certainly far older."

"Goodness, really?" Simeon asks placidly, now mostly occupied by his... pasta? It looks kind of like macaroni cheese, except it's pale blue, and the macaroni's shaped like little apples. "Time really goes by quickly."

I look down at the bowl of soup he'd insisted on giving me at the start of lunch. I still haven't started it, and now I really don't feel like doing so. 

I don't know what's so unsettling about the concept of beings this old even existing, but it just makes me feel... bad. It's the same sort of feeling you get when you really process death for the first time - that hyper-awareness of the triviality of your own existence.

A couple hundred thousand years... I don't know if I even have the brain power to logically quantify that many years. I think I'm going to cry.

"Hey, calm down." Solomon reaches over and gives me a brief but comforting pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry yourself too much about it. The long and short of it is that you'll have some stiff competition, but I'm sure you'll figure something out."

I don't reply. He sighs and pats my head.  "You managed to make a pact with Mammon already, didn't you? Hadn't even been a week. It took me a good few years to get my first pact with a demon. Clearly you're a force to be reckoned with."

I don't think Solomon realises that the look on my face is the result of a sudden deep and foreboding sense of existential dread based on how short and insignificant a human life must be to the beings of this realm - not the prospect of trying to beat Leviathan. Still, the reassurance helps. A little.

"If it helps, I may have some information that could give you an... edge," Simeon puts in carefully, an almost mischievous look beginning to creep onto his face. "About the next volume."

"Next volume?" I repeat. "I thought the series was already done."

"The main one is, but there's an ongoing side series delving into the Lords' backstories," He answers. "I believe the next one is about the Lord of Shadows, and it's slated for release in about seven months."

"What sort of information do you have about it?" Luke asks curiously. "How do you know if it hasn't been published?"

Simeon and Solomon both laugh again, exchanging looks very briefly. They definitely know something that Luke and I don't.

"I have my sources," Simeon answers, tilting his head to the side and winking so smoothly that I'm honestly pretty jealous of the poise. "I'm sure that the knowledge would help push you into the winner's bracket, if you'd like it?"

I think it over for a few moments, then slowly shake my head. "...I feel like that's kind of unfair. And Mr Leviathan seems to really love TSL, so I don't think he'd be very happy if I spoiled it..."

Simeon looks surprised for a moment, but then he beams so brightly that he practically glows. He looks almost proud - like a mother whose child has just helped a little old lady cross a street. "Well, I can't argue with that."

"Truly a human thing to say," Solomon chuckles, finishing off the last of his sandwich and crumpling the tinfoil it was wrapped in into a near-perfect little ball. "You know, it's alright to cheat a little here and there."

"Even if I did take the spoilers, it's not like I'd definitely win," I counter, thinking privately that I'm definitely not smart enough to sufficiently use the information to my advantage. "And then no one would be happy."

"Yeah, that's right! Don't listen to him, IK," Luke says, folding his arms and shaking his head in disapproval, though the sight only seems to amuse Solomon. "Cheating's never okay!"

"Against the word of God, I guess," I sigh, keeping my voice low so as to not offend either angel. 

Somehow, Solomon seems to hear me anyway. He doesn't say anything , though - only offers me a knowing little grin.

The rest of lunch passes by without event - except me accidentally knocking my bowl off the edge of the table, which would have gotten my uniform covered in soup if Solomon hadn't quickly steadied it. Luke offers to accompany me to the R.A.D. library after school to borrow the abridged TSL series that Solomon mentioned earlier, and I take him up on it - knowing I'll probably need the moral support.

He ends up having to do most of the talking to the librarian, because I'm too nervous to do so myself. Which is a little embarrassing, but Luke doesn't seem to mind.

He offers to help me carry the seven books back to the House of Lamentation, and since they each weigh as much as about three bags of flour, I don't really have any choice but to accept. Despite Luke tactfully suggesting that he take them all, since he can use his angelic magic to lighten the load for himself, I insist on at least taking three. 

I end up regretting that immensely - my arms begin feeling like they're about to snap off about halfway there. Still, even if it's very little, I still have some pride to uphold, so I just grit my teeth and bear it, even as Luke starts sending me concerned side-eyes.

I try to pretend that my replies to his amiable conversation aren't getting shorter and more strained. Luke tactfully doesn't make any comment about it, but he does silently take one of the books from my stack.

He's hesitant about stepping over the threshold of the House of Lamentation, but apparently that's outweighed by the fact that I'll probably collapse as soon as I try to take any more of the books, so he helps me carry them to my room. He stops to say hello to Alatus - who is, once again, snoozing on my pillow - then quickly announces his departure. 

I return to my room to change out of my uniform, choosing this time to put on the new clothes Asmodeus gave me the other day. According to him, he wasn't sure what sort of thing I liked wearing, and he didn't want to presume either, so the outfit's basically just the same as the uniform, except with a white shirt instead of teal, and a lovely big jumper (which is definitely my favourite part) instead of the jacket. 

It's not my usual style, per say, but it's surprisingly comfortable, so I think I'm alright with just wearing some variation on it for the next year. Asmodeus's eye for fashion is truly magic - I think this is one of the only times I've genuinely thought I looked kind of nice in an outfit in recent memory.

I'd been planning to just read in my room, but I really can't concentrate. Maybe it's the dead silence - back home, whenever I'd read by myself in the little nook in the living room (that was really just a bit of caved-in wall that Dad painted and added blankets to), there was always some kind of noise in the background. 

Whether it was Dad chopping up vegetables in the kitchen, or cars passing through our road, or that family down the street firing off fireworks again, I was used to hearing something while I read. I guess old habits die hard - even if it's been a really long time since I've been able to commit to reading a proper novel.

It's at that point that I remember that there's a library in this House, and that I'd spotted a fireplace and very fancy mantle piece clock when I first peeked inside. Crackling flames and a quietly ticking antique clock - now that sounds like a good reading atmosphere.

I deliberate between how many of the books to bring with me, then remember the pain of carrying those three books back here from the R.A.D., and decide that I'll take the first. I manage to find the library after only five minutes of puzzled wandering, and, after a moment, heave the incredibly heavy wooden door open.

The first thing I notice is that it's already occupied - Satan is sitting in one of the armchairs by the fire, knees tucked up to his chest and absorbed in an incredibly thick novel. He's holding the pages incredibly close to his face - his nose is barely four inches from the page - and he's squinting, as if he can't quite see the words clearly. 

The lighting in here is pretty dim despite the giant fireplace and multiple candles all over the walls, so that might be why.  From where I am, though, he just looks like he's incredibly short-sighted.

I watch him cautiously from the doorway for a moment or two. When he doesn't show any signs of wanting to kick me out, I hesitantly shuffle over to an unoccupied armchair, then pull myself up into the seat and set Volume One of the TSL: Abridged series in my lap.

Satan doesn't acknowledge my presence at all, so I decide that I'm probably allowed to be here, and flip my book open to start reading. 

About two minutes later, when I'm about halfway into the ridiculously long author's foreword, he glances up, then makes a mildly surprised noise.

"Hello," He says, pushing his legs away from his chest and sitting up straight.

I offer him a little wave. "Hi."

"I didn't know you were back." He glances down at the cover of my book, eyebrows lifting slightly when he sees the title. "What brings you here?"

I don't know why he's asking, because he's clearly just seen the book in my hands. "...reading?"

He blinks, then chuckles slightly and shakes his head. "Well, I don't know what else I was expecting."

His gaze moves back down to his book, and he goes quiet again. He's obviously not looking for conversation, and I have my own story to get stuck in, so I return to my own book as well.

A long while passes in quietude between us, with only the sound of the fire quietly snap-crackle-popping, the clock ticking, and the crinkle of turning pages to accompany us. I manage to get through a sizeable chunk of my book - though a significant part of that chunk is just a bunch of expositional context for TSL's universe.

Apparently the Abridged version apparently skips a lot of the mini-arcs that establish said context in the original. Normally, I'm not a big fan of that - when a story isn't engaging, my attention span usually lasts about two minutes before I decide to go listen to some music or something instead - but the exposition is done in an organic enough way that I don't mind reading through it.

Satan, meanwhile, has managed to actually finish his giant of a book within the same amount of time, and is now about a quarter into another, even bigger one. This one doesn't seem to be nearly as intriguing to him as the other one, though - he's started pausing to look around the room and sigh subtly through his nose every five minutes.

"So," He begins after a while of this, staring blankly down at his book, "How've you found life down here so far? Any problems?"

I have a feeling he's asking more out of courtesy and boredom than any genuine interest, but I still answer. "Not really. Everything's been pretty okay."

"Not missing home or anything?"

"...well, a little bit. I hope my dad's not too sad."

He raises an eyebrow at me, so I elaborate, "He's not good at not panicking."

"I don't think it'd be easy for a father to not be sad that their child's gone missing," Satan quips. "You don't seem very worried, though."

I shrug. To be honest, I'm a little worried by my own apathy about that, but... I really don't feel like talking about it right now.

So I try to change the subject instead. "...I do miss my cat, actually."

He goes quiet for a moment. His eyes subtly flicker up to look at me, then back down. After a moment, he asks evenly, "...you have a cat?"

I look up properly to see that his gaze seems to have gotten incredibly intense. It's a little scary. "Um... kind of. He's actually my Aunt Lisa's next door, but he comes to visit us a lot, so he's basically part of our house as well."

We subside into silence again, but another glance up on my part reveals that Satan seems to have lost his interest in reading for the moment. He's stuck mid-page turn, his arm still hovering in mid air.

"...what's his name?" He asks finally.

The question is casual enough, but he's started very determinedly staring at the bottom of the page he's finally turned to, where I'm pretty sure there isn't anything but a page number. His leg is bouncing up and down as well - though the motion is extremely subtle, I'm so familiar with it that I recognise it immediately.

Deciding to spare him the potential humiliation of calling him out, I move my eyes back to the beginning of the Lord of Corruption's long monologue that's essentially just a literary 'I want' song.

"His name's Hyde."

"Ah - after the doctor in that horror story?"

I shake my head absent-mindedly and turn the page. "It's just Jekyll who has the degree. Anyway, it's short for Formaldehyde, actually."

When a moment passes without response, I look up to see Satan giving me a look over the top of his book. I tip my head to the side slightly. "What?"

"The cat's name is Formaldehyde?" He asks incredulously, his face pulled into an expression of what I can only describe as slightly angry bewilderment. "As in the substance humans use to preserve corpses?"

I shrug. "Aunt Lisa's a mortician."

That doesn't seem to make Satan any happier. "What kind of a..."

"I think it's a cool name," I defend, going to cross my arms and then realising I can't because I need to keep the giant book in my lap supported. "It suits him."

"That..." Satan sighs deeply, as if the weight of the world is upon his shoulders, and reaches up to pinch at his brow. I can't tell if he's being dramatic or if he's just that passionate about cat names. 

After a moment, he takes a breath and asks, sounding as if he's trying very hard not to shout, "...what does he look like, then?"

"Typical tuxedo, really," I say. "Bit tattered. His paws look like he's got socks on, and he's missing half his tail... he's kind of blind, too, so his eyes are a bit grey."

Satan makes an affirming sort of noise. "Do you know why he's blind?"

"Uhh..." I think for a moment. "...Aunt Lisa says he was in a bunch of scrappy fights when he was younger, but I remember her saying that he was just born like that before, too, so I don't know..."

"Does his tail affect his motor functions?" Satan asks. His left hand twitches slightly, as if he's itching to grab a pen and write whatever I say down.

"Well, I've only ever known him without it, so I don't have anything to compare it to..." I think back to the way Hyde likes to climb onto the top of our kitchen cupboards, then spend an hour yelling at me or Dad because he can't get down. "But he's pretty active, especially for an older cat. He's twelve this year."

Satan nods attentively.

I'm not sure what else to say, because he's not saying anything - even though I get the distinct feeling that he wants to. He's looking at me with such anticipation that I can't help but feel like I need to give him something, like a photo or a video. 

Unfortunately, I can't, because the many photos and videos I've taken of Hyde are all saved to my regular phone. As far as I know, that's still sitting in my bag up in the human world, possibly still in the corner of my History classroom.

"...he likes chasing feathers," I offer hesitantly. "But then they get stuck on his face and he starts screaming at us because he doesn't know how to get them off."

I don't know what I'm trying to do, but it seems to work, because Satan's entire face immediately lights up, and he lets out a hearty laugh.

That's a little encouraging. I decide to append something else. "He brings us the feathers afterwards, too, but he gets mad if you actually take it. He just wants you to look at them."

He laughs again. "That's adorable."

"He's not allowed outside without someone watching him," I confide. "So we don't know where he keeps getting feathers, actually. Dad thinks he's been stealing them from Aunt Lisa's pillows."

Satan seems to be about to laugh once more - but then, at last, he seems to catch himself, and abruptly cuts himself off. Instead, he leans forward again, clearing his throat with an embarrassed sort of tinge to his ears. 

"Ahem. Anyway..." He scratches his nose.  "...any reason for the interest in TSL?"

Not a very subtle change in subject. I let him have it, anyway. "I'm supposed to be proving that I'm a bigger fan of it than Mr Leviathan."

He raises an eyebrow, then shakes his head with an ironic sort of grin. "I hate to say it, but I'm pretty sure that's impossible."

I sigh and fiddle with the edge of my page. "I'm aware."

"Did Mammon put you up to this?" He asks. "Seems like the sort of plan he'd come up with."

I nod, and he makes a kind of sound that's somewhere between a sigh and a laugh, shutting his book with a snap and pulling himself forward in his seat. "I thought so. Is this another one of his schemes? Trying to get back at Levi for getting him into a pact, I presume..."

"Actually, he's helping me with something," I correct him, and his eyebrows almost immediately fly up into his hairline. Is the concept really that shocking?

"Are you sure we're talking about the same demon?" He asks incredulously, "What did you promise him?"

"I don't think I promised him anything," I say, thinking. "Actually, he said he didn't want to help me, but then he did, so maybe I did without noticing...."

"I doubt you would be gullible enough for that," Satan shakes his head and swings one leg over the other. "Well, in any case, that's certainly new. Mammon's never been willing to do anything that isn't in his best interests without payment."

Maybe because all of you are really mean to him? Like, ridiculously, unnecessarily mean? I haven't been here for that long, but I've already heard all sorts of insults being hurled his way. I'm well aware that pretty much any siblings most certainly will not be the hold-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya type, but sometimes it's hard to tell if Mammon's brothers are just being sibling-mean, or if they're being genuinely malicious.

I'm way too terrified of being yelled at (or, even worse, having the insults turned against me) to be able to stand up for Mammon like I would in an ideal world. All I've been doing is trying to offer as much silent moral support as possible.

I don't know if it works - heck, I don't know if Mammon even notices - but at least I'm not constantly snubbing him. If I was asked a favour by the same person calling me a 'money-grubbing dirtbag', I'd probably ask for compensation as well.

Of course, Mammon's not totally innocent, but that doesn't mean his brothers are allowed to use him as a verbal punching bag like they do. But-  even if he does reproach some insults, he just sits and takes just as many. Is it just a demon thing? Or is he just too used to it?

I want to bring it up, but for one thing, to Satan, it'd just come out of nowhere, and for another, he'll probably take offence. As far as he's concerned, I'm just a lodger in his house that he's doesn't really know and their family affairs aren't any of my business. 

Then again, it's very much my business if my second theory is correct, because that's just downright messed up... but how am I supposed to intervene? It's not like a speech about kindness and how what you say affects other people would get them to stop just like that. That just isn't how things work.

"Well," I say after a moment of pensive silence, "I think I'm pretty nice to him. Maybe that's why."

Satan snorts. "He's like one of those stray dogs who'll follow anyone who gives them food home."

Okay, not sure I like that comparison. "Uh..."

"That's why cats are much better than dogs," He says with some satisfaction, leaning back in his chair and looking uncannily like a James Bond villain as he steeples his hands together and nods, mostly to himself. "They don't just trust anyone - they're smart."

"...cats are cats and dogs are dogs," I say eventually, not entirely sure where he's going with this. I do like cats more than dogs, but that's more personal preference than anything. "You can't really compare them."

"And Mammon is Mammon, I suppose," He sighs, shaking his head and readjusting his position so that he's back in his reading position from before. "A fool is a fool, no matter what angle you look at it from."

There he goes again. Now that I think about it, the Lord of Fools is always getting the short end of the stick, too...

I glance down at my book and flip back a few pages to check - and, lo and behold, there's a scene where the Lord of Corruption tells Henry that the Lord of Fools is the 'epitome of materialistic idiocy'. And I'm pretty sure that the main leitmotif in Fools's theme was for mockery or ridicule, because it showed up in the scene where the magically-shrunken Henry had to run around retrieving flowers for the Lord of Lechery, as well as the one where the pixie literally died of embarrassment...

A long, hesitant pause later, I finally say, "I think... everyone's just a bit too nasty to him sometimes. So, maybe... it'd be nicer if you... didn't?"

Satan's expression remains unchanging at first, as if he didn't quite understand what I said, but then his eyes widen for a second, and his brows abruptly slope into a deep frown.

"I don't think that's any of your business," He says coldly - a complete contrast to his mild friendliness earlier. "Watch yourself."

"I guess not," I admit. Then, after a pause, using up just about the most confidence I've ever had, I add, "But don't you think it should be your business?"

His lip curls up into a snarl, and he draws back slightly, like a cobra preparing to strike, but then he seems to remember where he is, and he settles back in his chair again, albeit with much tenser shoulders this time. "...I don't know what you mean."

"He's your brother," I say. "And... I don't think you're usually meant to treat your brothers like that."

He scoffs briefly, and folding his arms firmly across his chest. "Brothers aren't meant to do a lot of things. That doesn't stop them from doing it anyway. You should just forget it."

That's a.. really flawed way of looking at things. What about murder? Humans aren't supposed to do murder, but that doesn't stop some people from doing it anyway, so does that mean the law should just forget it? Well, I guess it depends on the murderee, actually. "...but then... shouldn't you at least try to stop them?"

His expression shifts slightly, unreadably. "You don't say...?"

Shaking his head, he turns his head to the side, determinedly avoiding eye contact. "Well, even if you do, sometimes brothers don't listen."

I look at the side of his face for a moment. Something heavy hangs in the air between us - like a thick, choking mist that rolled into the room through the gaps in the door without either of us noticing.

Satan stares blankly at the wall for another moment, then finally heaves a short, resigned sigh, and turns to look back at me. His face is calm again, but something boils deep in his eyes - like a hissing mass of burning scarlet cloaked in the cool green.

"You ask a lot of questions," He says flatly. "Keep asking the wrong ones, and you'll get yourself hurt."

I open my mouth to respond, but the look on his face makes the words completely evaporate. It feels as if we've moved past just talking about Mammon - it's the same kind of buzzing tension as back when I first asked Satan about the seventh brother, or during Beelzebub and Mammon's odd exchange the other day.

Satan gives me one last, searching look, then shakes his head again, and turns back to his book. He hesitates for a moment, then flips it open and promptly sticks his nose right back into its pages - and this time it's an entire inch closer to his face than before.

Despite apparently reading with much more fervour, though, his eyes seem to land on one spot on the page and just... stay there. It might just be my moderate short-sightedness - which I've never gotten a prescription for, so I just have to suffer in silence every time I'm sat at the back of the class and we have to copy something from the board - but even if it's a bit blurry, it's pretty easy to differentiate the dark pupils from the greenish-blue irises. And those pupils aren't moving at all.

It's such a blatant refusal to actually think about it that I can't help but get just a little bit angry. I kind of want to call him a coward or something, but I get the feeling that I might get squished on the spot if I did. In the end, I decide to go back to my book.

But then it turns out that I'm out of time to enjoy my novel, because the door to the library swings open, and Mammon himself strides in, jingling slightly with each step he takes - must be all the keys. Satan very pointedly pretends not to notice his arrival (though I see his eyes flicker up to him more than once), while I wave at him over the top of my book.

He hops over a coffee table and drops gracefully into the armchair next to mine, ignoring Satan just as much as Satan is ignoring him. "Whatcha doin' in here?"

"Reading," I answer, lifting the book with some effort and showing him the cover. "I missed a bunch of the plot in the movies, so I'm just catching up."

He knocks a knuckle against the cover with a scoff. "Look at the size of this thing! C'mon, it'll take ya forever to finish that!"

"I read fast," I say without much confidence. "And this is the Abridged version, too..."

"Look, if ya wanna get this whole thing over with, we can't afford to just be wastin' time on this," Mammon says with a reasonable degree of disgust, apparently offended in one way or another by the concept of reading. "How about this - we'll finish the movies, and then we can look up some of those nerdy trivia sites or somethin'. Then you can just learn whatever it is ya don't know from there."

"What do we even do after that, though?" I ask. "I don't know how I'm supposed to prove I'm the bigger fan... especially if I'm probably not."

"You'll just have to fake it 'til ya make it, then," Mammon says, pushing himself to his feet and plucking the book from my hands. "C'mon, we've still got five movies to get through. Beel's already got all the popcorn."

I hurriedly hop down from my armchair as he starts striding to the door, then abruptly pauses in the middle of the room. I follow his line of vision to see that Satan is looking directly at him.

"Satan," Mammon greets nonchalantly. "Didn't see ya there before."

Satan raises his eyebrows, his unimpressed expression clearly asking 'do you think I'm dumb?' (which is a bit hypocritical, because he was also pretending not to see Mammon before).

He doesn't really answer him, either - just makes a noise. "Hmm."

They look at each other in silence for a moment longer, and I suddenly realise how convenient it was that Mammon only walked in after my sort-of debate with Satan about him had ended. Did he hear us? How much did he hear?

"...is that what you've all been doing these past few days?" Satan asks after a good minute of incredibly awkward staring. "Watching films?"

"...yeah," Mammon responds after an almost even longer silence, folding his arms defensively. "Got a problem with that?"

Satan's brow creases, and he opens his mouth as if to say something, then pauses and shuts it again. Then he silently shakes his head, and returns to his book.

Mammon looks surprised, but he recovers quickly with a kind of 'thought so!' nod, then turns to me, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. I obligingly follow him back over to the door, but pause just in front of it, turning back to Satan.

"Um...do you want to come watch the movie with us?" I ask hesitantly. Mammon pauses.

Satan doesn't respond for a long while. I contemplate turning and legging it down the corridor to get away from the awkward silence - but then he pulls his book way from his face and looks up. 

His eyes bounce between me and Mammon about five times before he finally nods. He gets to his feet, carefully marking his page with a bookmark and slinging his jacket over his shoulder.

"Lead the way," He says after a brief moment of tense eye contact. Mammon doesn't move for second, but then he nods sharply and turns to do just that.

As Mammon said, Beelzebub is sitting in his usual spot when we get to his room, already about halfway through his pile of snacks. It seems to be getting bigger and bigger with every movie night we have - practically as tall as me.

Satan moves into the room without a word, and takes a seat on the end of one of the sofas - precisely where I've taken to sitting every time I'm here. Mammon throws himself onto the other end with his usual relaxed confidence, and retrieves a half-empty bag of his favourite death caps before reaching for the remote.

I hover in distressed confusion just behind the sofa as Mammon turns his projector on and starts setting up the movie. Now that Satan's taken up the spot at the end of sofa where I usually sit, the only free space is right between him and Mammon, since Beelzebub is taking up the entirety of other sofa with himself and his snacks. 

To be fair, Beelzebub's sitting lengthways, so I could probably fit onto the end of that sofa if I asked him to move a bit and shifted some of the snack packets. I'm not sure if I have the bravado to do so, though. I'm pretty sure I used up all my confidence for the month back there in the library.

Mammon glances over at me, then clicks his tongue in mild irritation and raises his hand to beckon to me. "C'mere."

He pats at the spot beside him. After a moment of contemplation, I round the sofa and tentatively settle down there, catching the bag of salted popcorn that Beelzebub tosses my way as I sit down. 

Mammon absent-mindedly ruffles my hair, beginning to fiddle about with the remote. Satan looks between the two of us with an expression of what I can only describe as a mild but profound confusion. He doesn't say anything, but his gaze continues to bounce between the two of us for about three minutes afterwards.

"...say, how long d'you think it'll be before ya actually challenge Levi?" Mammon asks at length as the title credits begin.

I nibble half-heartedly on a piece of popcorn, wondering absently whether they've changed the title theme. It doesn't quite sound the same as before. "Don't know. I don't think I know enough about TSL to do anything yet..."

"Are you under any time constraints?" Satan asks. Mammon jumps slightly on the spot, as if he'd forgotten he was there. "Because I seriously doubt you'll be able to get deep enough into the franchise to beat him within even a year."

"Yeah, I figured," I twiddle my thumbs blankly as the opening sequence fades into the first scene - one of the Lord of Corruption sitting alone in his study, contemplating an apple. "But I don't really know what else to do."

"You don't necessarily have to get through the entire series," Satan points out. "I'm sure we can find some leeway. The fact that you're human should excuse you from having to get through such a massive franchise, so..."

He thinks for a moment, placing his hand on his chin. "...we can have a quiz of some kind, but we'll base the contents purely on the first, let's say... seven movies? You've watched all of those, right? I believe their plots are all covered in Volume One of the Abridged series as well."

"Levi'd never agree to that," Mammon says, arms linked behind his head. "He'd just say that he's automatically the biggest fan since he's actually seen all the movies. Besides, I bet he'd be on our case about basin' it on the movies and not the books, too."

"I don't think Levi would notice if you didn't tell him why you were only covering the first seven movies," Beel puts in through a mouthful of food.

Satan nods. "Precisely. IK, how well would you say you know the plot of the those movies, then? For reference, I believe that covers everything up to the end of Emptiness's rebellion."

"Uh," I think back over the movies we've watched and the minimal chunk of the Abridged book that I've managed to get through. "Kind of well, I guess...?"

"'Kind of well' ain't gonna cut it," Mammon comments.

"Well, are there any specific plot beats that you know more about?" Satan asks. "If we can engineer the quiz in a way that the questions tie into what you know, it might make it easier for you."

"Not really..." I frown a little at him. "Anyway, isn't that kind of cheating?"

"Like it or not, you're probably going to have to cheat if you want to win against Levi," Satan says matter-of-factly. "No one in the Devildom's gotten to where they were because they were honest or righteous."

I consider. Only covering the first seven movies is already kind of cheating, since it's specifically for my sake, and anyway I don't think I even know those plot beats well enough for Satan's idea to give me much of an edge. "...can we just look up an online quiz or something?"

"Are you sure?" Beelzebub asks as Satan pulls his D.D.D. out of his pocket. I notice absently that Mammon has paused the movie on a rather unflattering shot of the Lord of Corruption's face mid-sentence. "Because you're definitely not going to win without some kind of trump card."

"I'm sure," I say, not very surely.

"Well, lucky for you, someone out there's already made a quiz engine for TSL that you can use to specifically tailor the kinds of questions you get," Satan says, tapping and swiping about. "I'll set it up... our media will be the feature film series, specifically the first seven... I'll just highlight all the question categories. There we go."

He turns his D.D.D. around to show us the screen, pressing the 'generate' button in the middle of the page. A brief moment later, a question flashes up onto the screen - 'What is the title given to the Lord of Fools in the Purple Witch's tarot cards?'

"Uhhhhhh," I inhale deeply and squint at the screen, as if it'll help me figure out the answer. "...what arc is that, again...?"

"The one you said didn't make sense 'cause Corruption didn't know the witch existed," Mammon supplies helpfully.

I think for another, long moment. "...Brilliant Marvels, right?"

Satan clicks the 'reveal answer' button and nods. "Good. But you're going to have to be able to answer faster if you want a chance."

"Are we not going to take it in turns?" I ask. "Do we just get buzzers, and whoever answers faster gets the point?"

"Well, the latter opens up more potential for you to rack up points, so long as you know the answers and hit the buzzer before Levi," Satan says thoughtfully. "But it's definitely a double-edged blade. Levi's a video game fanatic, so he's quick with buttons... and there's no guarantee that you'll know all the answers, either."

"I say we take the risk," Mammon says confidently. "Kid's a giant nerd, she'll be fine."

Satan raises an eyebrow at him. "How do you know that?"

"You should've been there when she started spoutin' off all that music nonsense," Mammon replies, turning to look at Beelzebub for affirmation. "Right, Beel?"

Beelzebub nods solemnly. "She knows a lot."

"Not about TSL, though," I say uncertainly. "The quiz isn't going to be about music. I'm not even classically trained or anything... I just know that from a bunch of videos."

"Is that what you learn well from?" Satan asks. "Because I'm sure that there'll be plenty of videos on the web covering TSL's lore. Watch as many of those centring around the arcs of the first seven movies, and you should find yourself in a better spot."

"I thought you were all about books, Satan," Mammon comments. "Weren't ya the one going on about how the internet's never gonna beat paper or or somethin' the other day? Nearly put even Simeon to sleep with all your yappin'."

The tips of Satan's ears flush slightly, and he clears his throat. "Well. There are always exceptions. And I wasn't yapping ."

"I guess that could work," I quickly jump in before Mammon can irritate Satan with the jibe he's undoubtedly about to spout. "But what about after that?"

"Well, every good feud starts with a declaration of war," Satan says, "So you'll need to challenge Levi, of course."

"No problem," Mammon says breezily, holding up his own D.D.D. with a smirk. "Already texted him. I reckon he'll be here any minute now."

What. I stiffen on the spot. "Why would you—?"

"Might as well get the hard part outta the way, right?" He shrugs, giving me a firm pat on the shoulder that makes my entire body wobble, unsteady as I am.

"A little premature, don't you think?" Satan asks, unimpressed. "Look at her. She's terrified."

I shove my hands firmly beneath my legs to disguise the fact that they're beginning to tremble furiously. Stupid muscles. "I'm not."

"It's not that scary," Mammon says with a snort, shaking his head. "C'mon, it's not a big deal, is it?"

Well, the thing is, you can't pick and choose what makes your alarms go off, can you? "...sorry."

"Levi says he's coming," Beelzebub suddenly puts in, pointing at the suddenly lit-up screen of Mammon's D.D.D. "I can hear him, too."

Sure enough, I can hear a rapid-fire series of heavy footsteps approaching Mammon's room. I clench my hands into fists and pull them up into my sleeves, following Mammon's lead as he gets to his feet. Satan watches in mild amusement as I get my feet mixed up and nearly fall face-first onto the coffee table.

A loud knock sounds at the door - not even a second later, it swings open. Leviathan's gaze immediately falls on me, and his eyes narrow into a poisonous glare.

"What the hell's this about?!"

Chapter Text

"Hello," I say nervously. Leviathan's harsh yellow eyes threaten to melt me on the spot. "Nice weather we're having."

He makes an odd sort of motion to the side, as if to look out of a non-existent window, then catches himself and glares at me with fresh vitriol. "Cut the crap! I know what you're trying to do!"

"Uh— heh... ha... " I shuffle backwards nervously, glancing about for an escape route. There doesn't seem to be one, which isn't promising for my chances of survival if things go south. "Is that so...?"

"I know you're up to something," He accuses, creating air quotes with his fingers. "And I'm telling you now that it's hopeless. I showed you TSL in the first place! Do you really think you're gonna beat me?!"

"Hey, don't knock her before ya've even beat her," Mammon comments, and I kind of want to punch him for his overconfidence on my behalf. "How about a quiz, huh? I reckon that's a fair test."

"Quiz?" Leviathan sets his hands on his hips and leans back with the sort of heartily derisive laugh I've only ever seen before in cartoons. "Like I need a quiz to prove what I already know - what's the point?"

"Oh, so you're scared she's gonna beat ya," Mammon goads, crossing his arms with a cocky grin. "Bet that's the real reason you don't wanna do it, huh?"

I take a subtle step backwards as Leviathan flushes with indignity, glancing over to Beelzebub and Satan for help. The former isn't even looking in the direction of the altercation, and the latter is just watching Mammon and Leviathan with intrigued amusement, so it seems that neither parties are willing to help in this situation.

"Don't be stupid!" Leviathan snaps, jamming a finger into Mammon's chest. "There's no way she'd beat me! That's why I'm not taking the challenge - I already know what the outcome's gonna be, don't I?"

"Chicken," Mammon chants, apparently completely unaffected, deftly ducking away from Leviathan's grabbing hands and sticking his tongue out like a cheeky toddler. "Levi's a chicken!"

...is this normal behaviour for them? I take a few more steps backwards, until I'm basically on the other side of the room. Satan's watching Mammon and Leviathan's play-fight with great interest - but Beelzebub, for some reason, is looking solemnly right at me.

I pull an uncomfortable sort of face at him, and he nods in understanding (at least I think that's what it is), then turns around and starts staring at the wall instead. I don't bother questioning what that's suppose to mean; instead, I drop down to a crouch behind the sofa closest to me and try to make myself as small as possible.

"Scaredy-cat!" Mammon choruses, laughing as he dodges each and every jab Leviathan sends his way with a commendable agility that'd probably win him first place in a televised obstacle course shows. "Tiny-brain!"

The first one I've heard plenty of times before, the second one's kind of new. That aside, I'm beginning to feel like what's happening in front of me is a dream. It's almost surreal watching Mammon and Leviathan trade childish insults and punches without any real venom to them (though the former is definitely swinging harder than the latter).

Finally, Leviathan has enough, stomping his foot like a petulant child. "Alright, fine! I'll do your stupid quiz! "

Mammon stops as well, setting his hands on his hips with a triumphant grin. "Took ya long enough!"

"I'll accept your challenge, but don't expect to—" Leviathan turns around with a pointing finger, then stops in his tracks when he realises that I'm not standing where I was before. "—huh?"

"Over there," Satan tells him with a light-hearted, almost sing-song inflection. He sounds like he's just had way too much fun. "Behind the sofa."

Rather than just turn a couple of degrees to the side, Leviathan opts to do a full 360 degree twirl on the spot before finally pinning his gaze on me. "...what are you doing there?"

"I was hoping you'd forget I was here," I reply defeatedly, wobbling slightly on the spot. My legs are not strong enough to handle crouching here for as long as I have. In hindsight, I probably should've just sat down. "So I didn't have to do the quiz."

I glance over at Mammon, who's giving me an exasperated look. "...I don't think it worked."

"Damn right it didn't," He says, striding over and pulling me up by the arms with ease, then setting me down in front of Leviathan, who squints down at me with displeasure. "Right, so you're down, right, Levi?"

He sniffs in clear disapproval and folds his arms, jerking his head forward in a stiff nod. "But - if you forgot - you're not winning."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Mammon dismisses, waving him off. "Anyway, no take-backs and no cheating, on pain of dungeon-dangling, all that?"

Leviathan is silent for a moment, still clearly unhappy about the whole situation. I'm a little caught up on the 'dungeon-dangling' thing. "...yeah."

"Good, good," He says with a great deal of satisfaction. "What about you, kid?"

" ... alright, fine," I relent as both demons turn to look at me expectantly. "But I'm not happy abot it."

"Well, neither am I," Leviathan says, sticking his hand out with a scowl. "But a deal's a deal. You can't go back now!"

"I wasn't going to," I mutter, but shake his hand complacently anyway. You know, if neither of us are happy about this arrangement, couldn't we just not do it?

"I'll beat you fair and square," Leviathan says with confidence, dropping my hand. "You and your stupid shoe laces."

I pause and look down at my feet, a little offended. "...what's wrong with my laces?"

"They look dumb."

I wiggle one of my feet around. My shoe makes a sad sort of squeaking sound.

"Oi, lay off the kid, alright?" Mammon punches him loosely in the arm and gives me a kind of apologetic look. "C'mon, we'd better get ya started on those videos—"

"Where do you think you're going?!" Leviathan interrupts as Mammon begins pulling me out of the room. We both stop in our tracks. "What about the quiz?"

"Well, we're not doing it right now," Mammon says, raising an eyebrow as if it's obvious. "Gotta prepare and all that—"

"Nuh-uh, I don't think so!" Leviathan exclaims, a triumphant grin beginning to climb onto his face. "If you're going to challenge someone, you should be ready to actually fight!"

"Hey, wait a minute!" Mammon objects, now beginning to look a little panicked. "C'mon, now you're just being unreasonable—"

"That's a big word," Satan comments. "Are you sure you know what it means?"

Leviathan and Mammon both turn to look at him with twin glares. "Shut up, Satan!"

He leans back, holding up his hands in surrender. Leviathan turns back to me with a sneer.

"You shouldn't have issued the challenge if you weren't actually ready," He says with a sneer. "If you want that quiz, you're gonna have to do it now, or else the deal's off!"

"U-uh," I look over at Mammon, who's doing that hand-shaking thing in front of his throat that I'm fairly sure means to keep my mouth shut. Unfortunately, I've hit that stage of panicked confusion where the only thing I can do is babble. "I don't think— um—"

"Why don't you set up in the dining room?" suggests Satan, absolutely unhelpfully. "You can use the bells as buzzers."

"Zip it, Satan!" Mammon snaps, stepping in front of me with his hands planted firmly on his hips. "We never agreed to any of that!"

"Well, those are my terms," Leviathan replies, scowling back at him. "Whether you like it or not."

"Kh—" Mammon struggles for words for a moment, then abruptly turns around and yanks me by the arm over to the corner of his room. "—alright, kid, this is up to you."

"What?" I'm still reeling a little from the abrupt movement. I probably should've drank more water today. "Uh..."

"Levi ain't gonna give us any rope," He says, "But if ya don't face him now, he probably ain't gonna take the challenge again. So, unless you've got another idea for getting that record from him... this is our only bet."

"Well, I don't," I mutter, twiddling my fingers slightly. "But I don't know if I'll be able to beat him."

"Oh, ya probably won't," Mammon says plainly, shaking his head. "But ... I reckon it's worth the risk. Worst that can happen is ya just won't get the record, right?"

"What if he wants something for winning, though?"

"Doubt it," Mammon shrugs. "You don't have anythin' he'd want, and he doesn't hate ya enough to make ya do somethin' nasty."

I nod, beginning to idly flap my sleeves in thought. Mammon steps to the side to avoid getting hit in the arm by one. "...o... okay. What do I have to lose, right?"

"That's the spirit," He nods in approval, ruffling my hair. "Just keep that up, and I reckon you'll have a fightin' chance. Alright, c'mon."

He pulls me back over to where Leviathan is watching us with a sort of scornful confusion on his face. Satan raises an eyebrow at me; I nod shortly in reply, and he nods back, lifting his D.D.D. and beginning to tap and swipe about.

"Alright - we'll do the quiz now," Mammon announces. "On one condition. There's something you've gotta give us if we win."

Leviathan frowns. "What?"

"That record of the TSL soundtrack," Mammon replies. "The one the kid was askin' about the other day."

"...you're seriously still hung up on that?" Leviathan asks after a moment, wrinkling his nose. He turns to me. "Why do you want it so bad?"

I shrug helplessly. Leviathan considers for a moment, then sighs in defeat.

"Fine," He says, shaking his head. "It's not like you'll win, anyway."

"To the dining room, then?" supplies Satan with a smile. I'm beginning to think that he just lives to watch me suffer.

Leviathan sighs again. "Yeah, whatever..."

Despite his apparent discontent, though, the closer we get to the dining room, the more excited Leviathan actually seems to become. Try as he might to disguise it, I'm pretty sure that he's riling to prove just how much he knows about TSL.

 It doesn't bode well for my chances at winning in the slightest, but I try not to be disheartened. (It's not working.)

Mammon keeps shooting me slightly concerned looks on our way down, as if he thinks I'm going to turn tail and run as soon as he takes his eyes off of me. I'm not that much of a coward, but to be honest, I'm definitely contemplating it. I wonder if I'd be allowed to go get Alatus real quick - for moral support, of course.

But I don't have the nerve to ask, so I'm left to stand on my own at my end of the dining table instead. Meanwhile, Satan begins listing off the rules of the quiz (of which there aren't many apart from 'no maiming' and 'no cheating'), and slides both me and Leviathan one of those little silver dinner bells. 

It feels oddly nostalgic to have this in front of me - it's the same kind of bell one of my primary teachers would ding to get the class to be quiet, and I remember being desperate to ding it myself. The temptation to just start hitting it as aggressively as I can is just as deep as it was when I was younger.

"Look at him," Mammon says to me in undertone as Satan continues talking about something to do with competitive values. "He's havin' way too much fun."

"He always does with things like this," Beelzebub agrees through a mouthful of some kind of pastry. He's come along to watch as well - though I think it's mostly because the dining room is right next to the kitchen, so it provides easier access to snacks.

"Hey, this isn't fair," Leviathan complains from the other end of the table, interrupting Satan's spiel. "She's got Beel and Mammon on her side!"

"...well, it's not like they're allowed to help," Satan says after a moment of slightly miffed silence, clearly none too happy about being cut off. "Does it really matter?"

"It's still moral support!" Leviathan insists.

"Okay, okay," Satan raises his hands as Leviathan motions as if to punch him or something. "Why don't you both stand in the middle, then? Mammon, Beel, you two sit over here."

Leviathan nods and moves to follow Satan's gesturing hand. I do the same, and Mammon drags a still-eating Beelzebub over to the other side of the table. As Satan begins to say something, the door opens, and two new figures enter - one bouncing, and the other striding.

"Aw, aren't you a sight for sore eyes!" Asmodeus coos, skipping right over to me and chucking me under the chin. "Are those the clothes I got you? Don't you look sweet!"

"Oh— uh, thanks," I mumble, freezing up on the spot as Asmodeus pats some invisible dust from my sleeves. "They're very nice..."

"I knew you'd suit this colour," He says in satisfaction, pinching at the fabric of my jumper. "You've got lovely warm undertones in your skin, see, so the red's just gorgeous!"

"Alright, calm down, Asmo, she ain't a dress-up doll," Mammon interrupts as Asmodeus continues to flit around me like one of those birds that help Cinderella get dressed. "What're you two even doin' here?"

"Beel let us know about the situation," Lucifer answers, drawing one of the chairs beside him on the other side of the table and sitting down. "And I have to ask you the same question. I thought you'd hate wasting time on an event like this?"

Mammon's cheeks darken a little, but he scowls defiantly nevertheless. "Just keepin' an eye on the kid. Isn't that what ya told me to do?"

Lucifer raises an eyebrow. Somehow, he's managing to make surprise look unimpressed. "I suppose."

"Well then," Satan says abruptly, looking none too pleased by the intrusion. "Seems that everyone's here."

Lucifer turns to look at him, and Satan bristles a little immediately. (Just what did Lucifer do to warrant that grudge?)

"Everyone indeed," Lucifer says slowly as Asmodeus rounds the table to join the others in the chairs. "Why don't you do the honours, then?"

Satan's eyes narrow for a moment. Then he shakes his head and turns to face me and Leviathan again.

"Are you both ready, then?" He asks, and though he sounds pleasant once more, I can tell his mood has been dampened. That enthusiasm from before has all but faded in favour of a business-like seriousness.

I nod, and Leviathan makes a sound of affirmation. His hand is already hovering over his bell - after a moment, I lift my own in imitation.

Satan taps his D.D.D., then takes a breath and begins, "Then here's your first question. 'The seven lords are known by titles rather than names. In birth order, what are the titles of the first three lords?'"

My hand hits the bell, and Leviathan lets out a grunt of frustration, his own bell ringing just milliseconds after mine. Satan raises an eyebrow at me, prompting me with a nod, while Mammon shoots me a thumbs up from his chair.

"Corruption, Fools, and Shadow," I say, praying that the words didn't get jumbled on their way out. Leviathan groans again, while Asmodeus cheers.

"Correct," says Satan with a smile, tapping something on his phone. "That's one point for you. Impressive."

"Yeah, that was some crazy fast reaction time," Mammon comments, arms behind his head. "Can't believe ya beat Levi like that."

"You won't do it again!" Leviathan says fiercely, folding his arms and glaring down at me. "I just wasn't prepared - and that was an easy question, anyway! Anyone could have got it!"

"Sorry," I mutter, though I'm not sure what I'm apologising for. Satan sighs and clears his throat.

"Next question," He says. "'The Lord of Shadows was famously infatuated with an imaginary mistress. Name the building that he constructed for her, and, for bonus points, name the year in which he built it.'"

Leviathan smacks his bell with such force that he nearly hits it through the table entirely. Mammon sucks in a breath, and I make an apologetic sort of face at him. I didn't know the answer, anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered, even if I had hit the bell first.

"It was the Blue Palace," He says confidently. "And he built it in the year 693 - of the ancient era, not the new one."

Satan pauses to check the answer on his screen, then nods. "Correct. That's one point for the building, and two for the year."

"Oi, that's not fair!" Mammon interjects, scowling. "Three points for one question?! How's the kid s'posed to keep up at this rate?!"

"Well, if she wanted the points, maybe she should have tried not sucking," Leviathan replies, and I have to hold back a laugh. That's pretty good. Even if he's insulting me.

Satan shakes his head. "It was a pretty specific question. Don't worry about it, IK. There are still plenty left."

I nod uneasily, and he returns to his screen. "Alright, next... 'In relation to the Lord of Emptiness, where exactly can one find his primary weakness?'"

Leviathan's bell rings again, and I sigh subtly under my breath. Mammon shakes his head with a huff, Beelzebub remains completely unbothered, Asmodeus pulls a sympathetic sort of face, and Lucifer just raises an eyebrow.

"In the orchards around his castle!" Leviathan answers. "There's an old box buried under one of the trees with his most precious belonging - an old photograph."

"Correct," Satan says. "Another point for you. Ah, this next question's worth two points - 'At the thirty two minute mark of the second movie, it's revealed that one of the Lords has been impaled to a bridge. Which Lord is this, and who impaled them there?'"

I actually think I know this one - I remember the morbid horror of the scene pretty vividly - but Leviathan's bell goes off almost immediately, far quicker than I'm able to even process my thoughts. My own bell dings pathetically a full second or two later, and Mammon buries his face in his hands with a groan.

"It's the Lord of Fools," Leviathan says triumphantly, shooting me a look as if to say 'watch and weep, fool!'. "And Corruption impaled him as punishment for trying to steal his helmet of darkness. He's totally fine once Flies gets him down, though."

"Aren't these questions a bit too specific?" Asmodeus comments with a frown. "Poor IK's barely getting any room to breath."

"Specific?" Leviathan scoffs. "Please! These questions are so easy, I could answer them in my sleep!"

"Well, here comes the next one," Satan interjects mildly. "'Exactly how many horrors does Emptiness promise to rain upon Corruption's kingdom?'"

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Leviathan continues to get pretty much every single question after that, racking up so many points that there's no way I'm going to be able to catch up. I do get a few points here and there, but they only ever come one at a time for the particularly easy questions - the ones that I'm pretty sure Leviathan is letting me have out of pity. 

It's such a pathetic scene that the four spectators actually seem to have had their moods dampened by the sheer sorriness. Mammon in particular has slid so far down his seat that he's about five centimetres from just lying on the floor.

"...alright, how long are we keeping this up for?" Leviathan asks after question forty-something. He's sitting down now - apparently Mammon's not the only one who was physically bogged down by how depressing my performance has been. "I'm gonna be honest, this is just getting sad."

I let out a defeated sigh and sink into a seat as well. I'd feel worse, but I'd already been resigned to loss about twenty questions ago. "It really is."

"Then we'll end this shortly," Satan says with a nod. He pauses, then suggests, a brow raised, "How about we make this last question more interesting, then?"

Leviathan looks uneasy. "...how?"

"Simple," Satan says with an amiable smile. "Let's make this last question worth sixty points."

I blink. If I've been keeping the tally in my head right, I'm on eleven points, and Leviathan is on sixty two...which means that I'll win if I get this next question. Leviathan has clearly realised this as well.

"I get it," He says, unimpressed. "You're just giving the human a chance to win."

Satan raises his free hand with a small chuckle. "Guilty as charged. Doesn't that add a little excitement?"

Leviathan considers, then shrugs, not looking like he particularly cares. "...whatever. It's not like she'll get it, anyway."

Satan nods, smiling again, and raises his D.D.D. to load up the question. "Then, for a total of sixty points, here is your last question..."

He pauses for a moment, as if for dramatic effect, then says, "'Peugeot was famously very involved in the making of the films, consulting on the soundtrack for all except three instalments. How are the themes of the seven lords linked in battle at the end of the third movie?'"

Leviathan freezes. His hand hovers over his bell, unmoving, and I suddenly realise something.

DING!

Mammon lets out a triumphant laugh - all eyes turn to me. My hand is still resting on top of my bell, dulling the residual sound of its tolling.

Somehow, Satan doesn't look surprised. "Go on, IK."

"U-uh," I tap my fingers restlessly on the table. "How much detail do I need to go into...?"

"Well, the question is only worth two points on the site, so the criteria isn't much," Satan says after a moment of thought. "But, since we're increasing how much it's worth, I say we up the standard a little. Go into as much detail as you can."

I nod. "Okay, well, uh... you'll have to bear with me for a bit to get it. Ahem— so—

"All of the lords' themes have at least one leitmotif in them that's connected to a specific theme, and that theme's usually something to do with their 'worst trait'. Like the main melody in Masks' theme - that's the leitmotif for dishonesty, because you hear the riff from it when characters are lying, and Masks' fake personality is his main flaw. 

"Anyway, the only two lords whose themes are linked at the beginning - leitmotifically, anyway - are Emptiness and Flies, and it plays whenever they have, like, a moment. There's a separate theme for the Lords as a unit, but their themes never play together, 'cause they don't, like... like each other. At that point, anyway. But the end of the third film is where they ally with each other - not 'cause they have to, but because they want to all keep each other alive. So the music's different to represent that.

I can see Mammon hitting Beelzebub's arm in triumph out of the corner of my eye. Meanwhile, Asmodeus' hand has flown to his mouth in astonishment - and Lucifer's eyes have widened. (That one isn't a particularly enthusiastic display of emotion, but I get the feeling that that's about as flabbergasted as I'll ever see him)

"Normally, when the film goes between their themes, the music just switches out - 'cause it's just Emptiness and Flies who'll play together at that point. But this time, instead of taking it in turns, they bring in the Fools theme under Corruption's theme before it takes over. Then same thing happens with Shadows, then Masks - so on, 'til Emptiness. Then the battle theme plays, and the music's basically built completely out of the lords's themes and leitmotifs, and you kind of realise - they all fit perfectly on top of each other.

"Some of them are kinda chopped up - Lechery's is kinda hard to hear unless you pay attention - but they're all still there. So, first, the bleeding-in thing is like how the lords are all reaching out - metaphorically, but also physically, since Corruption has to pull Masks up. And, just like they all think they won't get along, but do when they all try - their themes have been separate until now, when they all fit together. Then there's also a kind of idea that the brothers' flaws kind of links them together, leitmotifically speaking? I don't know, that bit's kind of hard to figure out..."

There's a long, stunned silence.

Finally, Mammon speaks. "Damn. I knew you were a music nerd, but I didn't know you knew that much."

"Well," I say a little uncomfortably, coughing slightly. All that talking's really done a number on my throat. "The symbolism bit wasn't really knowledge... I don't actually know what the composer was going for. I was just kinda... going off what I thought."

"Actually, you're spot on," Satan says, peering at his screen. "They've linked the transcript here of an interview about it with Christopher Peugeot and Matthew Baines, the composer. It's pretty much exactly what you said."

"Well, isn't that a surprise!" exclaims Asmodeus, perking up. "You knew without even reading the interview - and Levi's not even heard of it?"

Mammon laughs again. "Good job, kid!"

"What... what?" Leviathan's face is still slack with shock, but it quickly mars into a livid glare. "How...?!"

"Looks like you lost, Levi," Mammon crows, swinging one leg over the other. Beside him, Lucifer shifts slightly, leaning forward in his seat, eyes narrowing as if in anticipation of something. "Kid beat ya fair and square!"

"No... that isn't...!" Leviathan pushes himself to his feet with such force that his chair shoots halfway across the room. His canines seem to sharpen, glinting an almost luminous white under the candlelight as he growls, "I can't stand for this— no, I won't stand for this!"

"Hey— " Mammon's smirk fades, and he begins to sit up, shoulders tensing. "Calm down— kid, get outta here!"

Leviathan's head lowers for a moment. The yellow of his irises seem to brighten and glow until the light is almost blinding. "You— you stupid human!"

I yelp and fumble out of my seat as a crack sounds through the air. A pair of branch-like horns burst from the sides of Leviathan's head - a broad, scale-covered tail materialises behind him, swishing back and forth aggressively and knocking a series of empty dishes and candlesticks off the table. Porcelain shatters across the floor, and the carpet smokes slightly as the flames extinguish against it.

"Fucking run!" Mammon yells, vaulting over the table as Leviathan draws back with a deep, snarling hiss. I scramble backwards, but I can barely make it five steps away before he's bearing down on me again with a single stride.

"I— I like your new clothes," I attempt to placate, trying to smile, but only achieving a terrified kind of grimace. "U-uh, your horns are cool— "

Mammon rushes up behind Leviathan, reaching forward as if to seize him by the arm, but it's a fruitless effort - he just throws him off with a low yell and suddenly lunges forwards.

CRACK!

Something hits me in the knee with a sound like a gunshot, and I'm sent skidding across the room. For a moment, I feel as if I'm suspended in mid-air, but then everything starts moving again, and I hit the wall with all the force of a small cannonball. A split-second later, I land in a heap on the floor, and oh—

If I could exchange every single good thing in my life to never feel this again, I would. The floor swims in front of my half-closed eyes as I scrunch up my face in an effort to bite back tears. 

It feels like a knife has been stabbed into my knee, then twisted about and pulled out for good measure. The pain is so intense that it's like my senses have been completely overloaded by it. 

Everything around me seems to have suddenly merged together into one mass - no matter how hard I try to focus my eyes, my surroundings remain blurred together into a dizzying sort of muddy grey-brown. I try to sit up, but my leg burns so agonisingly that stars start forming in my vision - all I can do is I collapse back onto the carpet with a pathetic sort of whimper.

"Stop it! " I can hear Mammon and Leviathan struggling from close by - Mammon is grunting with effort, and Leviathan is growling under his breath like a rabid dog. "You fuckin'— agh!"

Through the mist clouding my vision, I make out Leviathan wrenching Mammon off of him and advancing on me again. My leg throbs again, and I think absently through a haze that I should probably be worried about what's about to happen.

Then a dark shadow sweeps over me, and everyone in the room freezes.

"I believe that's enough."

The first thing I register in front of me is wings. Lots of them - well, four, which is technically just two pairs, but to be fair I've never seen even a single pair of such size. They're  a kind of black that I've never seen before - so dark that it feels like I might get swallowed if I just look for too long.

Leviathan blanches. He seems to shrink right there on the spot. "Lucifer..."

Mammon, half-standing and half-crouching a few feet away, stares up at his brother in plain, open-mouthed shock. "What the hell...?"

Lucifer doesn't say a word for a moment, but he doesn't need to. His general aura had already been enough to make him hard to ignore before - now, with the horns curling from his head, the sweeping majesty of his wings, and the almost unearthly nature of the red-lined coat-cape swirling behind him (how is it moving like that without any wind?), his very presence seems to fill the entire room.

It's like there's some kind of suffocating fog rolling off of him, occupying every inch of the space. There's barely enough space for the rest of us.

"You're out of line, Levi," Lucifer says after a long silence - Leviathan draws back with an expression of what I can only describe as pure terror. "You will not take another step forwards."

There's a tense silence, interrupted by the subtle sound of Beelzebub coughing furiously, apparently having choked on something. Asmodeus, still sitting beside him in shock, starts thumping him on the back, but his gaze remains fixed on the two brothers having a stare-off in the middle of the room.

"There's a surprise," Satan comments after a long moment. Contrary to his words, he looks the least fazed by everything that's happening in front of him. He's barely even moved an inch from his spot. "I don't think I've ever seen you leap to someone's rescue like that before."

Lucifer ignores him, keeping his eyes fixed on Leviathan, who seems to be getting smaller and smaller by the second. His tail has wrapped itself around his left leg in a trembly way that reminds me of a scared dog, tucking its tail between its legs - even his horns seem to physically droop.

"Go to your room," Lucifer says finally. "You need to calm down. And I believe that an apology will be in order once you have."

Leviathan stares at him for a moment. His gaze darts to me, and his mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

"Ya heard him, Levi," Mammon says roughly, getting to his feet and folding his arms. It's the first time I've seen him so stern. "Scram."

Leviathan looks almost as if he wants to protest. Under the unwavering glare of both of his older brothers (as well as the rather judgemental ones of his younger ones), though, the only thing he can do is nod meekly and obey.

Lucifer and Mammon watch in silence as he slinks out of the door. Then Mammon looks over at me and seems to remember exactly what Leviathan just did.

"Shit— you okay?!" He asks frantically, hurrying over and crouching down beside me. "No bleedin', right?"

"I don't think so," I mumble hoarsely, breathing shallowly. "But my knee— ow!"

Mammon freezes, pulling his hands away from my right arm as if it's burnt him. "What? What's wrong?"

"I think— my arm— " I grit my teeth and take a deep breath. "It's... ugh..."

I hadn't been fully aware of it before - probably too delirious from the agony going on in my knee - but now that I've fully registered it, the pain in my arm is almost as bad. I can't even get another word out under the weight of both. Instead, biting my tongue to keep my watering eyes from overflowing, I just make a muffled sound of pure misery.

"...alright, hang on." Satan says, and Mammon quickly shuffles sideways as he approaches and crouches down beside me. "Let me..."

I watch through half squeezed-shut eyes as he presses three fingers to my uninjured wrist, as if checking for a pulse. Then he mutters some kind of incantation under his breath, and a faint wave of a greenish-blue energy seems to shoot from his fingertips and into my veins. (I'd make a drug joke, but I'm a bit too woozy to do anything except watch in awe.)

A second or two later, Satan pulls his hand back with a nod. I release a shaky sigh and sag into the carpet a little - whatever Satan did, it's working. Suddenly the pain doesn't feel nearly as bad. If it had been Mount Everest before, it's more of a Mount Snowden now.

"...whoa," I say softly after a long moment. "Thanks."

Satan smiles and inclines his head. "It's a good thing that spell works on humans, too."

"So," Lucifer puts in, now back in his usual big coat. The horns and wings from before have disappeared, and if I hadn't just been bulldozed by Leviathan's very real snake-tail, I'd probably have thought I'd imagined them. "Your arm?"

"My what?" I blink away some of the clouds still peeking at the edges of my vision. "...oh. Right. I think I've dislocated my elbow."

"What?! " Mammon asks incredulously, hands moving about as if he wants to help, but doesn't know how. "Y-you mean— your bones? They're... oh, shit, we've gotta call someone—"

"Actually, it's pretty easy to fix if you know how," I interrupt steadily, shuffling slightly on the spot, still attempting to get my full bearings back. "Except I don't know if any of you do, so..."

One slow look around at the brothers' faces reveals that my suspicion is correct. "...well, since it doesn't hurt as much any more... I think I can do it myself. Can someone hold onto my arm for me?"

"...what?" Satan stands back, looking a little alarmed. "Isn't this the sort of thing a professional should be doing?"

"Well, yeah, but... you guys don't have an A&E down here, do you?" I struggle to prop myself up without aggravating my injuries. "Dad taught me. Just in case there was an emergency..."

I manage to situate myself against the wall, but evidently I didn't keep enough weight off my injuries - my knee throbs with a fresh wave of pain and nearly makes me pass out on the spot. Satan's spell definitely helped, but it didn't eliminate all the pain - I still have nerves, after all. 

Mammon quickly steadies me by the left shoulder (avoiding my right arm, I notice thankfully), and I slump against the wallpaper with a sigh.When I look up, Satan's looking at me as if he's never seen me before.

"Why would your father know how to do that?" He asks with a frown. "He isn't a doctor."

His face is swimming in and out of focus. I take a shaky breath. "Put it like this... at one point, he was getting hurt, but he couldn't necessarily go to the hospital to get it fixed... so he had to teach himself how to take care of them."

Satan only looks as if he has more questions, but they're undoubtedly ones that I'm not ready to answer, especially not in this state. I quickly speak up again before he can ask them. "So, uh... I was saying, if someone could hold my arm for me..."

"Right!" Mammon quickly turns to Beelzebub. "Beel, you've got a good grip! C'mere!"

"Why don't you do it yourself?" Asmodeus asks, raising an eyebrow. "You're the one taking care of her, aren't you?"

"Because my hands are damn shaky right now!" Mammon storms, apparently too panicked to feel embarrassed. "Now get your ass over here, Beel!"

Beelzebub, to give him credit, complies easily, taking Mammon's place on my right side and holding out a pair of cupped hands. His expression is neutral (as it pretty much has always been every time I've looked at him), but I think I can see a faint crease in his brow.

"Alright," He says. "What do I do?"

"Just kind of..." I reach down and grab my right wrist with my uninjured hand. My arm twinges, but just thought of how much lighter it is than before is enough to make me soldier on. "...hold my elbow so that my arm is straight."

He nods. It takes him a moment to figure it out, but once he's got his hands in place, it's pretty much just like how Dad explained it should be. Beelzebub's face remains mostly unchanging, but his brow creases slightly. I feel kind of bad - this probably feels really weird for him.

"Alright," I mutter. "I've got this. Probably."

I steady my grip on my wrist and grit my teeth, preparing myself for the pain. Pull out, twist around, fold over.

Holding my breath, face contorted in concentration, I yank my right wrist forward, essentially pulling my arm taut. The pain nearly makes me drop it again right then and there, but I just blink hard and force myself to carry on.

I twist my wrist to the side so that my hand is facing palm-up, and my arm is aligned. Then, taking another deep breath, I pull up my wrist and fold my forearm over.

With a sharp pop, my bones snap back into place.

Beelzebub blinks, now frowning a little deeper. I don't blame him for the vaguely discomfited look on his face - I don't doubt that feeling a joint pop together in your palms must be weird. A part of me kind of wants to know what it felt like, but it's not like I'm going to have an opportunity to try.

"...did it work?" Satan asks after a slightly tense pause.

Beelzebub pulls his hands away at my nod, and I wave my right hand about experimentally. "...bit sore, but I think the bones are where they're meant to be again. Thanks, Mr Beelzebub. And Mr Satan."

"I didn't do anything," He responds, cocking his head to the side. I shake my head.

"That spell you did," I point out. "I probably wouldn't have been able to fix it if it was still hurting like that. So - thanks."

Satan looks a little surprised. Meanwhile, Mammon lets out a long, tense breath, shaking his head. "...you're crazy sometimes, y'know, kid."

"Can you fix your knee like that as well?" Beelzebub asks, cocking his head to the side. "I can hold it for you if you want."

I shake my head. "The elbow's the easy one. I don't think I'd be able to fix my knee like that... and, actually I don't think it's dislocated. Feels more like it's just broken, actually."

"Don't humans usually require surgery for that nature of injury?" asks Satan with a frown.

"Uh... yeah..." I consider for a moment, blinking a little lethargically. "...not sure what I'm going to do about that."

"You know all the good spells, Satan," Asmodeus says, swinging back and forth on his heels. "So you should know a healing one, right? Come on, look at the poor thing!"

Satan sighs and shakes his head. "All the healing spells we've learnt are specifically geared for a demon body, so I don't know if they'd even do the right thing. Besides, I don't know the degree of the injury, so I wouldn't know nearly how far to go."

"Then what do we do?" Mammon asks. His hand is hovering an inch or two over my knee, as if he's shielding it from some outside force. "We can't just leave the kid like this!"

"Simeon specialises in healing, human or otherwise," Lucifer puts in, and all four of the other brothers jump, as if they'd forgotten he was here. "And I'll wager that Solomon will know something helpful as well. I suggest you take her to the Purgatory Hall."

Mammon looks at him for a moment, them nods rapidly, for once apparently not intimidated or annoyed by his older brother. "Right, good idea...!"

"How do you plan on getting her there?" Satan interjects. "The Purgatory Hall is a fair distance from the House of Lamentation."

"Uh..." I begin uncertainly, "...I could walk?"

There's brief, incredulous sort of pause. Satan gives me an unimpressed look. "Are you suggesting you try to walk on a broken knee?"

"Or hop," I mumble, shrugging. "I don't know. I could probably do it if I tried real hard... plus you numbed it for me, so..."

Over by where he's now sitting comfortably at the table, Lucifer shakes his head and chuckles quietly, folding his arms. "Somehow I find it difficult to believe that would work. Numbing spells are hardly miracle workers."

"Oh, I might have an idea!" Asmodeus perks up. "Wait here!"

He hurries out of the room before any of us can respond, black scarf swishing about aggressively behind him. Mammon turns to watch him go, then looks back to me with a frown. 

A beat passes.

"...you need to run faster." He says finally.

I sigh, rubbing absent-mindedly at my elbow. It's still a little tender - the bruising isn't going to be pretty. "Right..."

"I doubt she'd ever be able to outrun any of us, no matter how fast she may be," Lucifer comments. He's toying with a pen that he's pulled out of nowhere. "Given her... size."

I scrunch up my nose. Mammon groans, dipping his head.

"Smart-ass," He mutters under his breath, then looks up at me again. "Then, if ya can't run - make sure you call me."

He reaches forward and taps my left forearm with his index and middle fingers. "Two fingers, just like this - jab 'em right into that pact mark, got it?"

"How does that work?" I ask slowly, imitating his gesture with my own hand, though I make sure not to actually hit my skin, just in case something happens.

"I'll feel it," He says, as if it's common knowledge. "I move fast, so as long as you call me as quick as ya can, I'll be there."

"You didn't move very fast just now," Satan observes. "And you were barely ten feet away."

Mammon whips around and shoots him a glare. "I still got there in time, didn't I? Besides, Levi was in demon form. Shouldn't've tried grabbin' him when I was still regular..."

"Then perhaps next time you will be more prudent in your course of action," Lucifer interjects, folding his arms with a thin sort of smile. He looks over at the door. "Here comes Asmo."

Here comes Asmodeus indeed - with what looks like an entire functioning wheelchair in tow. He pulls it over to me with a flourish and gives the seat a pat with a proud smile.

"I don't think I want to ask where you got that from," Satan comments. Then, after a pause, he asks, "...but where did you get it from?"

"Oh, well..." Asmodeus gives a coy little giggle, placing a dainty hand over his mouth. "Some of my acquaintances have some... funny interests, you know?"

I pull a face. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You don't need to know," Mammon says hastily as Asmodeus opens his mouth to answer. "Anyway, let's getcha up there..."

He reaches forward. Without needing to be asked, Beelzebub steps in to help, and together, they lift me up without much effort. 

Mammon makes a valiant effort to avoid jostling my knee, but of course, it's kind of hard to pick someone up in this way without their knees bending. Especially if you're moving them from a position where their legs were stretched out flat on the floor to one where their legs are folded over the edge of a chair.

I hold my breath, furiously willing myself not to make a noise as Beelzebub and Mammon set me down in the seat. Blowing out a slightly shaky sigh, I shut my eyes in an effort to dispel the furious burning of my knee, then look up at them with a small thumbs up.

"I'm good." I say. Mammon raises an eyebrow at me, looking a little uneasy. I don't blame him - I probably don't look very 'good' right now.

"You're too light," Beelzebub comments, shaking his head. "You humans don't eat enough. And you don't eat the right stuff, either."

If the 'right stuff' is all those poisonous things I've seen demons eating down here, I doubt that they're going to be giving me any health benefits. Besides, I'm bound to feel light to anyone that much bigger than me... I don't have the energy to argue aloud, so I just nod in defeat.

"I called, and Simeon and Solomon are both home," Asmodeus tells me brightly, tapping the pink case of his inactive D.D.D. with a smile. "So, if you get going now..."

I nod and raise my hands, planting them on the wheels. Mammon immediately slaps them off. "What d'you think you're doing now?"

"Wheeling myself," I say plainly, rubbing at the spot where he hit me on my right wrist with a reproachful look. (He mutters a begrudging apology.) "I don't know if these are the right kind of wheel, but I think I can manage..."

"Don't you think you're already injured enough?" Satan asks, shaking his head. "You probably shouldn't risk crushing your fingers right now."

"Indeed," Lucifer remarks with a nod. Despite the fact that he's agreeing with him, Satan seems none too pleased by his interruption. "Mammon will push you - and Beel, you go with them."

Rather uncharacteristically, Mammon doesn't complain, only nods curtly. Beelzebub, on the other hand, tilts his head to the side.

"Why?" He asks. "Mammon's strong enough to push her on his own."

"Supervision, obviously," Asmodeus says, tucking his hands behind his back and bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. "Who knows what Mammon might do unsupervised."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mammon scowls at him.

Satan comments, "Well, you hate all this baby-sitting, so who's to say you won't just try to get rid of your ward while she's vulnerable? I wouldn't put it past you."

"Oi...!" Mammon struggles for words for a moment, then finally goes quiet. I, on the other hand, feel myself bristle slightly at the injustice.

I mean, it's not like Satan's at all justified here. I'm pretty sure Mammon's been the nicest to me so far out of everyone here - even if he's a bit rough, both with his words and actions. That aside, did Satan just choose not to see everything that just happened? Because I'm pretty sure Mammon has just demonstrated that he probably isn't going to be bumping me off any time soon. 

He tried to stop Leviathan's rampage, after all, and he's the only one out of everyone here who really showed genuine concern about my injuries situation. Everyone else just kind of went 'this might as well be happening'.

To be honest, I don't think I'm really worth the fuss that Mammon's been making. It does make me feel kind of fuzzy inside, though. It's a welcome sort of feeling.

"Mammon's been really nice to me, actually," I say with a small frown. "He won't do anything."

Mammon turns to look at me with a half-bewildered, half-grateful kind of look on his face. Satan raises a mostly disinterested eyebrow (he likes doing that, I've noticed), and Asmodeus shakes his head with a tut.

"Darling, darling, didn't I tell you this before?" He sighs, wagging his finger back and forth like a nagging school teacher. His manner is playful, but kind of infuriating all the same "Thinking like that is what gets cute little humans like you killed down here. You can't afford to be too naive, you know."

"I'm not being naive," I insist, and maybe it's the adrenaline from before still lingering, but I actually feel confident enough to argue. "Sometimes people are just good."

Asmodeus blinks, freezing slightly in place, hand still held mid-air. The surprise on his face is almost palpable in the air. Beside him, Satan sighs, unfazed.

"A demon is never good, no matter how pleasantly he may act," He says flatly, folding his arms. "There's a difference between perceived action and true personality. It'd do you well to make that distinction."

"Is that another line from one of your stupid books?" Mammon sneers suddenly, and I look up at him in surprise. 

The downtrodden expression from earlier has all but disappeared, replaced by his usual brand of abrasive confidence. "If you don't have anythin' good to say, then don't say anything. Shut it."

Satan's eyes flash dangerously. " Excuse me?"

"Didn't hear me?" Mammon moves around to behind my wheelchair, setting his hands firmly on the handles. "I said shut it, Satan."

Satan bridles, drawing back as if to burst into his own horned anger-form (demon form was what Mammon called it, right?). Before he can do or say anything, though, Mammon turns and wheels me out of the room.

I don't hear any porcelain smashing or anyone screaming as we make our exit down the corridor, so I don't think Satan's done anything too bad. At the very least, no more crockery has been shattered.

Mammon heaves out an exasperated as we get further away from the dining room. "...Satan really gets too big for his boots sometimes. Pisses me off."

I make a non-committal sound in reply. Given the slightly unsteady way he's steering me, I'm a little worried that he's going to accidentally push me out a window or something.

"I mean, I'm the older brother," Mammon continues with a huff. "I've been around for way longer than he has, but he still has the nerve to act all high and mighty!"

"He seems pretty... confident." I say carefully. Satan gives me the impression of a self-assurance that means he says every word in full faith that they're right.

Now that I think about it, Lucifer's like that as well. Maybe that's why Satan doesn't like him? I'm pretty sure I've seen it said that people with the same personalities clash, like how putting the same poles of two magnets together will make them repel. Though concept's never really made much sense to me - wouldn't you want to be friends with someone who thinks similarly to you?

Mammon snorts. "Confident ain't the word I'd use..."

He trails off, muttering something under his breath that I'm not sure I want to hear. He's pushing me with a lot more vigour now; it's a good thing the dining room is on the ground floor, because I'm pretty sure he'd send me sailing halfway across the house if he tried to push me down a flight of stairs at this speed.

A set of footsteps approach from behind as Mammon comes to a stop by the front door and pauses to rifle through his pockets in search of his keys. I twist around to see Beelzebub silently come up and stand behind me.

"Beel?" Mammon asks, pulling a face as he turns around and sees his brother. "Look, I don't need supervision, alright? I'm not gonna do anything to the kid."

Beelzebub shrugs. "Lucifer wanted me to come."

"And you're just gonna listen to him?" Mammon shakes his head. "Bet he promised ya something nice to eat, huh? Honestly, Beel, ya need to think for yourself sometimes."

At that, Beelzebub frowns a little, but he doesn't make a rebuttal; only silently follows as Mammon pushes me out of the now-open door and carefully manoeuvres the wheelchair down the front stairs. Neither brother says anything for the first five minutes or so on our way down the path.

Finally, Mammon says at length, "...Levi probably didn't mean to hit ya that hard."

"Hmm?" I'm so concentrated on not bouncing my leg like I usually do that I barely even register what he's just said.

"With his tail, I mean," Mammon continues, and while I can't see his expression, I get the impression from his tone that he's grasping at strings here. "Y'know. In the knee."

After a moment, apparently pitying him, Beelzebub steps in. "I think what he means is... Levi doesn't really have control over what he does when he goes crazy like that. So he doesn't want you to hold it against him."

I would turn around and raise an eyebrow at him or something, but I'm still in a bit of an injury-induced haze, so I just make a non-committal noise in reply. Mammon, on the other hand, starts spluttering indignantly.

"Like— like I care!" He storms, rocking the wheelchair dangerously as we go over a particularly uneven section of the path. "Hate him all ya like, kid, I ain't bothered!"

"Sure," Beelzebub agrees, very clearly not believing him. To be honest, I don't, either.

Mammon coughs. I can't help but wonder why he's so embarrassed about just being a good brother? I think it's quite nice of him to try to make sure I don't hold a grudge against Leviathan. Then again, Mammon's mind works in mysterious ways - I know that much by now.

"Anyway," He says determinedly, "Don't go pissin' anyone off like that again. No tellin' what a demon's do if ya get them really worked up - like Levi back there,"

Beelzebub makes a low humming noise. "She didn't do it on purpose, Mammon."

"I'm just sayin'," Mammon mutters, giving me an extra-hard push. "Wouldn't've gotten Levi to do the quiz if I'd known it'd turn out like this..."

I try not to flinch as the wheelchair jolts. "Well, it could've gone worse, right...?"

"Idiot," He replies flatly, reaching forward and flicking me (albeit gently) in the side of the head with one hand. 

The other one wobbles dangerously on the handle on my wheelchair's back and nearly pushes me straight into a tree. Beelzebub quickly reaches out and steadies it.

"Successful idiot," I correct. "I did technically win."

"Yeah, but you've totally busted your knee as well," He counters quickly. "Did ya forget? You can't even walk right now."

"It'll only be for, like, ten minutes..."

"It'd probably be better it didn't happen in the first place," Beelzebub points out. "And we don't actually know if Solomon and Simeon will be able to help."

"Well, I'll try to stay hopeful," I mumble. "By the way - what was that happened with Mr Leviathan early? He had a whole outfit switch and everything. You called it demon form or something..."

"Yeah," Mammon says nonchalantly. "Demons do that sometimes, especially if ya get 'em real mad. 'Course, we can pull it out whenever we like on our own, but sometimes it just bursts out if you're too mad..."

Now that I think about it, I remember Simeon explaining something about forms back during my first lesson with him and Luke. "Like with angels and their wings?

"Pretty much," Mammon replies. "Demon true forms are way different to angel true forms, though. Y'know how angel true forms are, like, so divine that most humans can't look at them without goin' blind or somethin'? Demon true forms just make humans feel all queasy, mostly."

I nod thoughtfully. "Huh."

I wonder whether this all three forms thing is something demons and angels always had, or if it's an evolution thing. The demons down here seem to live a pretty domestic life with a lot of similar knick-knacks and architectures to the human world, so it follows that they might evolve to be able to get rid of the bits of them that get in the way of all that. 

If I had giant black wings like Lucifer's, I'd probably be knocking stuff off shelves all the time. And shopping would be a nightmare - especially in the Tesco with the really narrow aisles we usually get the groceries from.

"Actually, speakin' of all that," Mammon says suddenly, "What the hell was with Lucifer back there?"

"Yeah, that was weird," Beelzebub comments. "Going into demon form just to rescue some human..."

After a moment, he seems to realise how he's worded that. "Um... no offence, IK."

"None taken," I sigh, drumming my hands restlessly on the chair armrests. "Anyway, he probably just doesn't want the exchange program going wrong."

"Makes sense," Mammon agrees. "Lucifer's obsessed with keepin' Diavolo happy, and I bet old Lordy would get real pissed if Levi killed ya."

"You probably shouldn't call him that," Beelzebub interjects. "Lucifer'll get mad."

"He ain't here, is he?" Mammon's trying his best to sound carefree, but I can definitely hear a faint strain of nervousness beneath it. "Nowhere for him to hide. Hey - is that Simeon?"

I glance back and follow his pointing finger to a familiar figure in white standing in front of the set of gates that we're approaching. Simeon turns and raises a hand in greeting, then freezes in place as he fully takes in the motley crew in front of him.

"IK!" He exclaims, running up to us, cape billowing dramatically behind him. He drops to one knee in front of my wheelchair, hands extended and poised uncertainly in mid-air. "I didn't know you were injured - are you alright?!"

"Didn't Asmo tell ya?" Mammon asks as Simeon hurriedly feels my pulse, as if he thinks I'm actually dying right here and now. "He called, didn't he?"

"All he told Solomon was that IK would be coming by," He replies distractedly, peering into my eyes so intensely that it's making me kind of uncomfortable. "He didn't give us any details... goodness, what happened?"

"We can tell ya inside," Mammon says dismissively. "C'mon, let us in."

"Oh - of course, of course..." Simeon gets to his feet and stands aside as Mammon wheels me in through the open gate. Beelzebub follows silently.

"This is a pretty house," I comment as Simeon hurries ahead of us to get the front door open. "I like the paint job. It's kind of Tudor-y."

"Two-der?" Mammon repeats. "Is that another one of your music things?"

"Never mind..." I raise my hand as he pushes me into the main hall, and a familiar head pokes around the corner. "Hi, Luke."

"IK?!" His eyes grow the size of saucers, and he hurries up to me in a flurried manner not unlike Simeon's. "What—?!"

"Show them to the living room, please, Luke," Simeon says quickly, still looking rather uncharacteristically harried. Am I really worth that much stress? He looks like he might pass out. "I'll go fetch Solomon."

Luke nods furiously, looking as if he's about to cry, and leads the way down the corridor and to a white-painted door. "J-just through here... do you want something to drink, or...?"

"Something to eat would be nice," Beelzebub says solemnly as he follows us into the room and makes himself comfortable on one of the sofas.

"Right..." Luke turns to me as Mammon pushes me to a stop. "Do you want anything, IK?"

I think for a moment. "Uh, just water, I guess."

He nods and hurries out of the room again. Mammon jumps into the armchair beside me and throws his arms behind his head, then turns to look at me.

"How's your knee feelin'?" He asks, leaning forward and waving his hand in the general direction of my leg. "Hasn't gotten worse or anything, right?"

"I don't think so," I say, going to shuffle in place, then changing my mind when the dull throbbing in my knee threatens to start burning again. "But it hasn't really gotten better, either..."

"Wasn't expectin' it to," Mammon shakes his head and reaches over to tousle my hair. "Not like you humans can regenerate or anythin'."

"Of course they can't!" Luke steps in indignantly, trotting in with a tray in his hands. He sets it down on the coffee table, then picks up the glass of water and holds it out to me. "So it's important that you don't get hurt..."

"Hey, it's not like I wanted this to happen," I reply reproachfully, taking the glass. Meanwhile, Beelzebub immediately goes for the cake sitting in the middle of the tray. "It just sort of... did."

"Is it really bad?" He asks worriedly, leaning from side to side as if looking at me from a different angle will help him see me better.

"Well, my elbow was dislocated—" Luke opens his mouth to say something, looking thunderstruck, and I quickly raise a hand to stop him. "—but, I fixed it, so it's fine now. Knee's still a bit beat up, though."

"Your knee?" He repeats. "Wait, how did you fix your elbow—?"

"We're here!" Simeon interrupts, bursting into the room with a slightly ruffled-looking Solomon in tow.

"Afternoon," Solomon greets me with a wave. His hair is all messed up, and his jacket is fastened kind of wonky - it looks as if he's just been wrenched out of bed, and he doesn't seem particularly happy about it. "Feeling alright?"

"Where's the injury?" asks Simeon before I can respond to Solomon, kneeling down in front of me again. "There isn't any bleeding, is there?"

"No, I think it's just..." I point at my left leg. "My knee. Feels pretty broken."

"Broken??" Luke repeats, eyes blown wide. "You didn't say it was that bad—!"

"Nothing I can't fix," Simeon says absently, sitting back on his heels for a moment to think. Then he shakes his head and looks up at me apologetically. "IK, I'm so sorry, but we're going to have to straighten your leg out for this..."

"Allow me," Solomon interjects, coming up to stand beside me with a small side. His usual smile has been replaced by a sort of frown that changes the entire disposition of his face. "Just make sure to breathe for me, okay?"

"What are you—?" I don't even get a chance to finish my sentence before his hand shoots forward and lands on my knee. Simeon's gloved hands fly to his mouth, and he wobbles on the spot. "Ack—! "

On the other side of the room, Beelzebub abruptly shoots to his feet, while Mammon leaps forward, brandishing his fists as if he's about to upper-cut Solomon directly in the chin. "What do ya think you're—!"

"Solomon!" yelps Luke. "You're going to make it worse!"

"Calm down," Solomon replies to the room at large, shaking his head. "Remember to breathe, IK."

I nod silently, not trusting myself to say anything remotely intelligent under the sudden eye-watering pain in my knee. Solomon murmurs something under his breath, and a strange, purplish-blue sort of glow forms around my left leg. 

A moment or so later, the pain suddenly subsides - and this time, unlike when Satan performed that spell back at the House of Lamentation, the pain disappears completely.

Solomon mutters something else, and the glow seems to coalesce beneath my leg, lifting it into the air. I feel like a bit of an idiot sitting here with my leg just sticking out in mid-air, but I can't really do anything about it.

Mammon sits back again with a heavy huff. Solomon pulls back with a nod. "Apologies, IK, but that particular spell's only really effective with direct contact to the injured being..."

"It's fine, I guess..." I shake my head and lean back. "Bit of warning would've been nice."

"Sorry," He sighs sympathetically, patting my head. "Well, Simeon, you can take care of that knee now."

"Right...!" Simeon shakes himself back into action and props himself up again, having apparently been so shocked by Solomon's sudden spell-casting that he overbalanced and fell over. "Just a moment..."

He pulls off his gloves and folds them up neatly, and I don't know why it feels so wrong to see him without them, but it does. I'm so preoccupied by the sheer oddness of a Simeon with this much arm that I almost don't even notice that his palms were already glowing when the gloves were removed.

It's a different kind of glow to Solomon's magic, though - much brighter, almost harsher, and nearly blinding to look directly at. It's like Simeon's wielding two palmfuls of sunlight.

I hear a dull, hissing sort of noise from somewhere to my right and turn to see that both Mammon and Beelzebub have retreated to the other side of the room, both wearing vaguely disgusted looks. Beelzebub has brought his cake with him, but he's stopped eating it, as if the sight has weakened his appetite.

"What?" asks Mammon when he sees my eyes on him. "I ain't stayin' any closer to that holy light than I have to."

"Don't worry about them," Luke says to me as I frown a little, shaking his head. "It isn't dangerous or anything - to humans, anyway."

"Is the glowing always there?" I ask as Simeon gently places both hands over my knee. Thanks to Solomon's spell, I don't feel anything - not even the pressure of his palms, actually, which is a little worrying. Did he just shut off the nerves in that part of my body entirely?

"Well, not indefinitely," Simeon replies. The light in his palms intensifies, and I promptly look away, not particularly wanting to go blind. "But it can flare up every now and then, especially in moments of heightened emotion..."

He closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them again, they look clouded over. "...now, these breaks seem rather complex..."

"How on earth did you manage to get yourself this injured?" asks Solomon curiously, sitting in the armchair that Mammon's abandoned and making himself comfortable. "I doubt you could get that from a fall."

"Long story short..." I pause for a moment to process my thoughts, then continue, "We did a TSL quiz, Levi was winning, I got a bunch of points for the last question and won, and then he got mad and smacked me really hard with his tail."

"Y'know, that's kinda like a double win," Mammon says from the other side of the room. "One of the rules was no maimin', so Levi pretty much got himself disqualified. Wonder what was goin' through his head..."

"Well, he probably wasn't thinking straight. And they do say that rules were made to be broken..."

"Maybe so, but your bones weren't," Solomon counters, shaking his head with a chuckle. "You're lucky you got away alive. Demons don't tend to give you any leeway when they go on rampages..."

"Mr Lucifer helped, actually," I say, and Simeon's hands jerk ever so slightly in what I assume is surprise. I pretend not to notice. "He grew these giant wings and just kinda... told him off."

"Wait, what?! " Luke exclaims, staggered. "Lucifer went into demon form?!"

"Now that's a surprise," Solomon comments, leaning back with a small, almost knowing smile. "Seems he's taken a liking to you."

I shake my head. Is it just me, or is everything suddenly a lot... slower? "Probably not. It'd just ruin the program if I died..."

"Well, you're not wrong," He replies with a chuckle. "But Lucifer is powerful enough even without wings to overpower any of his brothers in demon form. I doubt he would have taken demon form himself if he wasn't genuinely worried about the outcome of the situation..."

"That's weird," I mumble, blinking slowly. I don't know why, but my eyelids suddenly feel really heavy. I stifle a yawn.

"Feeling sleepy?" Simeon pulls his hands away from my knee and tugs his gloves on, then leans back slightly with a soft smile. "Your knee's all fixed up, but you might need a nice long nap to make up for the energy you've lost."

"The hell did you do?" Mammon asks roughly, coming back over from the side of the room now that the light coming from Simeon's hands is gone. "Kid looks like she's about to pass out."

"Angels have a natural sort of vitality that we can draw on to heal," Simeon explains, getting to his feet. "But humans don't have that, and IK doesn't have any magical power we could use, either... unfortunately, that means the only way I could heal her was with her body's... physical energy, so to speak. IK, why don't you have a lie down?"

My head falls forward briefly, but I catch myself before I really drift off and jerk it back up again. "Uhhh... huh."

"Here," Solomon says, hopping up from his armchair. He raises his hands and chants something, and the purple-blue glow still supporting my leg suddenly spreads to the rest of my body. I make a vaguely surprised noise as it lifts me from the wheelchair and sets me softly on the sofa that Beelzebub had been sitting on earlier.

Beelzebub himself is still hovering on the other side of the room. At this new occurrence though, he shuffles over as if to get a good look at me. 

He peers into my face for a moment, then nods and says, "She needs food."

"I think she needs some sleep more than anything else," Simeon chuckles, leaning over and gently patting me on the head.

Beelzebub nods again. "Blankets, then."

"There should be plenty of spare ones in the airing cupboard," Solomon puts in. "Luke, why don't you show him?"

"Huh? Why—" Luke goes to protest, looking almost offended, then pauses as Simeon turns and shoots him a meaningful look. "...alright. This way..."

Beelzebub follows him as he turns and disappears down the hallway. Mammon turns to watch them go, then sighs and throws himself down onto the sofa beside me as I try not to just collapse over the side.

"Beelzebub didn't seem particularly bothered one way or another before," Solomon comments once he's sure that Beelzebub and Luke are gone. "Why the sudden change in attitude?"

"Well, I don't know, but..." Simeon looks contemplative. "...perhaps IK reminds him of someone."

I would ask what they're talking about, but I can't really be bothered to. I yawn into my jumper sleeve again, shifting slightly so that my spine isn't bent at such an awkward angle.

Luke and Beelzebub come back a few moments later, carrying enough blankets to cover a small classroom in their arms. They both appear to take great joy in draping them all over me like I'm a table, and they're some particularly enthusiastic table-setters with a particular passion for tablecloths.

"You're gonna suffocate her," Mammon comments, shaking his head as Luke wraps a fluffy white one that I'm pretty sure is actually a towel around my head. I feel like I'm playing Mother Mary in the Nativity. "Ease off, will ya?"

I go to say something, but all that comes out when I open my mouth is an odd sort of 'hrn' sound. I decide to quit while I'm ahead and go quiet again.

"Shouldn't you be lying down?" Solomon enquires, and while his expression seems serious at first glance, I'm pretty sure he's holding back a massive laugh.

I look him dead in the eye. I'm perfectly comfortable being just sort of propped upright against the back of the sofa, shrouded in as many layers as years I've spent alive, and I am not moving any time soon. I can't be bothered to say all that out loud, though, so I just try to communicate it to him through sheer gaze-power.

It doesn't seem to work, because now Solomon just looks mildly threatened. I blink slowly in an attempt to reassure him that I'm not trying to burn a hole into his face, and he looks a little relieved.

"Just let us know if you get too hot in there," Simeon says with a wide smile.

"Mmmmhm," I agree with a dull nod, then shut my eyes and drift right off.

I don't know how long I spend dozing, but it's some of the best sleep I've ever gotten, possibly in my entire life. No dreams, and no nightmares either - just a sort of void that I drift about in like a single boat in the middle of a vast ocean. 

I can't describe how the darkness feels with any word other than crisp. Like drinking from a bottle of mineral water while on a hike in a mountain range. I've never actually been to a mountain range, let alone drank a bottle of mineral water on one, but this is what I imagine it'd feel like.

To be quite honest, I'd like to just stay here forever. No demons that might break one of my knees, no weird sense of duty to that mysterious voice in the attack, no constant worrying that anything and anyone is out to get me, no tests, no revision, no homework, no angry teachers...

But, of course, that's not how the world works, and it isn't how my body works either. I can't sleep forever - well, I could, but I'm not sure if I want to commit to it. Plus I don't think Lucifer would be very happy if he went to all that trouble to save me from Leviathan, and I just went and died anyway.

So, some time later - minutes or hours, I don't know - the void fades away ,and is replaced by the Purgatory Hall's cosy living room once more.

I blink blearily and glance around. I don't remember what time it was when I went to sleep, so the clock sitting on the mantelpiece doesn't help me determine how long I was conked out for.

I wriggle out of the blankets, then freeze when my arm hits something distinctly flesh-like beneath me. I almost don't want to look up to see what I've hit, but curiosity (and also guilt, since I'm pretty sure I just elbowed someone) makes me.

"Took ya long enough," Mammon says, raising an eyebrow. "You've been asleep for ages."

"I— huh?" I rub at my eyes, then freeze as I realise where I am. Was I sleeping on his legs? Oh god. I think I was. "Was I—?"

"You fell over while you were sleepin'," He says as if it's obvious, adjusting the collar of his jacket. Then he seems to realise exactly why I look so panicked. "...Simeon said I wasn't allowed to wake you up, so I just left ya there. No big deal."

"I'm— I'm sorry," I blabber, furiously scooting myself over to the other side of the couch, taking about half the blankets with me and sending the other half falling pathetically to the floor. "You could've moved me, I wouldn't've minded—"

"Hey, hey!" Mammon raises his hands, as if trying to pacify a small child - and I guess he kind of is. "Like I said, it ain't a big deal, okay? Not like you're heavy enough to hurt me. Calm down."

"Sorry," I repeat, quieter this time, taking in a deep breath and smacking myself in the chest beneath the blankets in an effort to make my heart rate even out.

I think I almost had a heart attack just there. I'm pretty sure this is the most contact I've had with someone for years.

He shakes his head. "Quit apologisin'. Not like ya did it on purpose."

"R-right..." I blow out a slightly trembly sigh. This most certainly was not the most ideal wake-up.  "Where's everyone else gone? And... how long was I asleep for...?"

"Uhh..." Mammon pulls out his D.D.D. and checks the time. "Luke amd Solomon went to make dinner, and Simeon said somethin' about havin' an idea he needed to write out... and Beel wanted to stay, actually, but Lucifer called him. Anyway, it's been, like, three hours—"

" Three hours?!"

"Alright, let's be calm here— " Mammon begins as I jerk back, but I'm too panicked to really register what he's saying.

It's bad enough that I even did that, but the fact that I was there for that long? I think I'm going to pass out again. How many lines did I cross? All of them, probably! I feel like I've committed a crime or something! Imprisoned for an emotional boundary breach... agh, whose emotional boundaries are we even talking about here? Mine? Mammon's? Both?!

"I said calm!" Mammon firmly smacks his hands down onto my shoulders, and I go completely stuff. "I told ya, it isn't a big deal, alright? What's up with you?"

"Uh— uh—" I clap my hands to my face and shut my eyes, turning away. "I don't even know..."

He's silent for a while as I stew silently in mortification, refusing to look at him. Finally, he asks, "You okay?"

"Spiffing," I say through my fingers, still refusing to remove my hands from my face, even though I'm beginning to suffocate a little behind them. "Absolutely dandy."

He heaves a sigh, and I hear fabric rustling, as if he's adjusting his position on the sofa. "...look, kid, I don't know why you're gettin' so worked up about this, but seriously, it's fine. "

"But— but you still got stuck here for ages, right?" I muffle into my palms. Am I crying? I think I'm crying. Goddammit, tear ducts.

"If it was a problem, I woulda just moved ya," Mammon explains, sounding exasperated, as if what he's saying is painstakingly obvious. "No harm done. Promise."

I part my fingers and look up to see him holding out a hand, pinkie extended. "...huh?"

"This is what you humans do, isn't it?" He asks, raising an eyebrow and wiggling his hand about impatiently. "Hurry up, we ain't got all day. Lucifer's expectin' us be back pretty soon."

"O-okay..." I mumble, and link my little finger with his. He gives it a firm shake, then nods and pulls back. "...thank you..."

"No problem," He says breezily, getting to his feet. "Now, c'mon, we need to be gettin' back home."

"Right, yeah." I hurriedly fight my way out of the rest of the blankets and hop up, then pause. "Hang on, let me sort these out first..."

"Seriously?" Mammon folds his arms and shakes his head as I crouch to pick up the fallen blankets, and start folding them neatly on top of each other. "Just leave it. Simeon loves cleaning."

"Simeon most certainly does not," comes a voice from the doorway, and both Mammon and I look up to see Simeon himself standing there. 

He raises an eyebrow at Mammon, then turns to me, expression softening. "Thank you for tidying up, IK. Did you sleep well?"

"Um—" I think back to what's just happened, but decide not to bother Simeon with the story. "Yeah. Like a log."

"That's good," He smiles. "And I see you're up and about as well. Your knee isn't giving you any trouble, is it?"

"Nope," I say, hopping briefly on my left leg to demonstrate. "Feels great. Thank you - for healing it, I mean."

"Of course," He says warmly, coming further into the room to help me straighten the stack of folded blankets I've made on the sofa. "Here, let me..."

He glances over at Mammon, who's making a show out of how impatient he is by aggressively tapping his right foot. "...are you two leaving? You're quite welcome to stay for dinner."

"Can't, sorry," Mammon answers before I can. "I told Lucifer we'd be back before it got too late."

"That's a shame," He comments with a slight pout. "Luke's been dying to get you to try some of his food. How about this - I'll have him package some of biscuits he made the other day. You aren't allergic to anything, are you?"

"I can't have too much pineapple, but that's about it," I say after a moment. "So I should be fine."

He nods. "Well, I'll go let him know. Why don't you two wait in the hall?"

He disappears out the door again. Mammon glances after him, then at me. "Well, ya heard him."

Pausing to adjust the stack of blankets once again (maybe I should have made two or three smaller piles instead of just stacking all of them onto each other like a Jenga tower), I follow Mammon out into the hallway. Then I look around and notice something missing.

 "Wait - what happened to the wheelchair?"

"Beel took it back with him," Mammon says, leaning back against the wall, then hurriedly adjusting his position when his head hits one of the paintings. "Said he didn't want ya to be bothered by it on the way back. Say, what did ya even do to get him feel so bad for you all of a sudden?"

"I don't think I did anything specifically," I say uncertainly. "Maybe we bonded while we were watching the movies."

"That doesn't make any sense," Mammon replies, shaking his head. "He didn't seem too bothered on our way here. He only started gettin' worried after Simeon healed ya, when you got all sleepy—"

He pauses and frowns, looking as if he's realised something. Then he shakes his head. "—never mind."

"Like Simeon said earlier," comes a sudden voice from the other end of the corridor. Solomon emerges from one of the doors along the way, looking oddly charred. "Maybe IK reminds him of someone."

Mammon's eyebrows fly up, and he almost seems to bare his fangs at the sorcerer, who only looks calmly back at him. "How d'you know about—?!"

"I've made my conclusions," Solomon responds with a shrug. "Besides, isn't it common knowledge that Belphegor is up in the human world?"

He glances over at my confused face, and chuckles slightly. "...well, evidently not."

"What are you talking about?" I ask in reply.

Solomon glances over at Mammon, who just makes a 'tch!' sound and turns away, folding his arms. "...well, I don't know all the details myself, but Mammon's brother - the youngest one - was one of the demons sent to the human world as part of the exchange program."

"There are demons in the human world as well?" I tilt my head to the side. "Wonder how everyone up there's gonna take it..."

"Well, they're under cloaking spells," Solomon says matter-of-factly. "So humans don't think anything is out of place when they look at them."

"Oh. So they're in disguise?"

"Essentially, yes."

I frown. Everything I learn about the exchange programme only makes me feel like Mr Diavolo didn't really think it through. If he's trying to improve relations between realms, it'll be pretty hard to do that when one of the realms doesn't even know the other two exist. Maybe his plan's to wait until the end of the year and go, 'Hey, look, our demons had a pretty swell time in your world, and they didn't kill anyone. See, we're really nice!'

...anyway, I guess that makes sense. At the same time, though... the other brothers have been acting like he's dead or something. Why would Lucifer be so weird about mentioning Belphegor if he's just off going to school somewhere else?

I probably shouldn't have been basing all those assumptions off of TSL alone. Still... there's definitely something weird going on here.

"What're ya doin' here, anyway?" Mammon asks. He sniffs. "And why d'you smell so... smoky?"

"Luke remembered that he'd banned me from cooking for a week," Solomon says with a small frown. "A shame, really. I thought the soup I was preparing was turning out quite nicely."

"Do you like cooking?" I ask as Mammon mutters a slightly puzzled 'how'd ya smoke out SOUP?'. Solomon's frown turns into a smile.

"I dabble. How about you?"

"Kind of," I shrug. "It's fun. I can't do anything fancy, though."

"Well, there's always a time to learn," He says, then turns around as Luke and Simeon emerge from the kitchen. "Oh, there you two are."

"Are you feeling better?" Luke asks, skipping forward with a box wrapped in purple cloth. "Here - I picked out the best ones specially for you."

"Thanks," I say with a small smile, taking the box carefully with both hands. "And I'm fine now."

He nods. "That's good. Don't let those mean demons bully you any more, okay? Humans are a lot more delicate than angels and demons."

"There's a 'mean demon' right here," Mammon sneers, folding his arms. "Watch ya mouth, Fido."

"My name's Luke!" Luke storms, soft demeanour gone in an instant. "Not Fido!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Mammon snorts, turning to open the front door. "Well, you've got your biscuits. Let's go, kid."

"Oh— right," I follow him over the threshold, pausing to turn and look at the three Purgatory Hall folk. "See you. Thank you again."

Simeon waves. "Don't mention it! Do come visit again soon - hopefully injury-free, of course."

I nod and give him a final mock-salute as Mammon closes the door. I hear his muffled laugh through the wood, and smile to myself as we start on our way back to the House of Lamentation.

The walk feels like it takes a much shorter time than our journey to the Purgatory Hall earlier, but that's probably because I'm not sitting in a wheelchair any more. Mammon remains largely quiet for most of the journey, looking as if he's deep in thought, and I'm not about to start small talk where doesn't seem to be wanted, so I just focus on not dropping the box of biscuits Luke's given me.

The front door to the House of Lamentation is already half-open when we get there, which I'd normally be alarmed by if it had been my own house - but apparently this is a relatively ordinary occurrence. Mammon doesn't seem fazed at all. 

He strides up and pushes the door open fully - then abruptly pauses with it still only half ajar. I patter up behind him and peer through the gap in the door, wondering why he suddenly seems so alarmed. The reason why immediately becomes apparent.

Leviathan is sitting quietly at the base of the stairs, just in front of the door.

"Is he waiting for us?" Mammon hisses. "Talk about creepy..."

"He looks really sad," I observe, looking at the way his eyes are glued to his feet and the way his shoulders seem to droop. "Is he alright?"

"Probably got the lecture of a lifetime from Lucifer once he calmed down enough to take it," Mammon replies in whisper. "Look, we can go round the back if ya don't want to see him. Should be a window or two open..."

I think for a moment. "...no. I'll be fine. Let's go."

He raises an eyebrow, as if to say 'you sure?'. When I don't show any sign of changing my mind, he sighs and nods. "Alright. Have it your way, then."

He pushes the door open fully and strides in with his usual confidence. I follow with much less swagger, clutching the box of biscuits to myself like a safety line, and keeping my eyes firmly on the ground.

Of course, though, I don't make it past the stairs before Leviathan calls out to me. "Hey, huma— uh, IK."

I freeze. I can't say I hadn't been expecting this since I first saw him sitting there on the stairs, like a child told to go sit on the naughty step. But it's still kind of terrifying to have it actually happen.

Eventually, after an awkward silence, I turn to look at him. "...hi."

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out for a long moment. He seems to be struggling greatly with something. 

Then he coughs and says, "...Mammon, go away."

"Hah?" Mammon's eyes narrow. "Why would I do that?"

"I'm not doing this with you standing right there," Leviathan replies with a marginal amount of disdain. "Shoo."

"Oh, you...!" Mammon shakes his head and curses under his breath, then strides up to Leviathan, jabbing a finger into his chest. "I'm still your older brother, ya know? Show some respect! Besides, d'you really think I'm just gonna leave you alone with the kid now?"

Leviathan stares blankly up at him, still not getting up from the step. "I said go away. I won't do anything."

"And how am I s'posed to believe that?" Mammon refuses to relent, setting his hands on his hips and leaning down to look his brother dead in the eye. "It's not like ya haven't tried anything before."

"Lucifer would kill me," Leviathan says with a miserable kind of look. "Besides... it's not like I have a reason to."

"A reason?" Mammon snorts. "Like ya need a good reason to go on a rampage. Kid won fair and square earlier, and you knew it, didn't ya? Didn't stop ya from whacking her in the knee anyway."

Leviathan's face sours, and I get the feeling that I should probably intervene before this situation gets worse. "...um, Mammon, it's alright."

Mammon pauses and turns to look at me incredulously. "...are you kiddin'? Did ya already forget what happened?"

"Course not," I say a little reproachfully. "I'm not that stupid. I'm just saying that maybe I should hear him out... and didn't you tell me not to hold it against him?"

"Oi— I never said that!" Mammon says hotly, stepping away from Leviathan and folding his arms. "Beel did! Don't go puttin' words in my mouth!"

"Okay, okay," I acquiesce, holding my hands up. "But, look - I'll be careful. I don't wanna get smacked again, either."

He gives me a long look, then sighs.

"Fine," He says. "But, remember, if anythin' happens - you hit that pact mark, got it?"

"Got it," I reply, giving him a thumbs up. He nods and, with one final glance at Leviathan, walks off down the hall.

Leviathan himself doesn't say anything for another long moment. He keeps glancing between me and his feet, as if he can't bear to look at me for longer than two seconds.

Finally, he groans and says, "I can't do this with you just staring at me like that."

"Oh... sorry." I glance around. "Do... do you want me to turn around?"

"No," He sighs. "It'll be even weirder just talking to your back. Just... sit here or something, I guess. Or don't."

I hesitate for a moment, then follow his gesturing hand and carefully sit beside him on the step, setting the box of biscuits on my lap. Leviathan doesn't look at me, but I get the feeling from the way his shoulders tense that he's surprised.

We sit in silence for some time, neither speaking, as if we're both waiting for the other to extend the figurative olive branch. I'm not sure whether I should or not - for one thing, I can't stand this awkward atmosphere, but, for another, it's not like I did anything wrong. Do I really need to be the one to start things off?

Remembering how much my knee and elbow hurt - I decide that I don't. So, picking a spot on the carpet, I stare straight ahead, and wait for Leviathan to say something.

He does eventually - though it's with a great deal of hesitation, and a distinct feeling that he doesn't want to be doing this. "...I'm sorry."

I turn to look at him, only to find that he's already looking down at me. How do I respond? Do I play dumb? "...for what?"

Not that dumb! Leviathan looks incredulous. "For attacking you! Did you actually forget?"

"No, no, I was just, um..." I look away again and cough into a fist. "Just trying to lighten the mood, I guess. Uh... apology accepted, by the way."

I can still see him staring at me out of the corner of my eye. "...Mammon was right. You really are dumb."

"Hey—" I go to protest, then realise that he's kind of right, "—no, that's fair."

He shakes his head with a quiet scoff, but it's more amused than malicious. "Well, it's not like I can criticise you. Getting mad at you for answering right and everything... was dumb of me as well, I guess..."

He huffs out a sigh through his nose. "...well, anyway, you did win, so... here."

I quickly reach out to take the thick purple envelope thing he hands me. It's lighter than it looks, and it feels a lot more delicate than it looks as well. I carefully balance it on both hands. "Is this...?"

"The vinyl copy of the TSL movie soundtrack," He says quietly, rubbing at the back of his neck in an uncomfortable fashion. "I agreed that you could have it if you won, and you did... so..."

"Right," I nod, flipping the envelope over and scanning through the golden letters printed on the front. The Tale of the Seven Lords: Original Soundtrack by Matthew Baines. "Thanks."

"And... there's something else, too," He says after a moment. "Put your left hand out."

"My hand...?" I do as he says. "What do you want my hand for?"

"I..." He turns to me and reaches out, then draws back again, looking uncertain. "...I'm giving you my pact."

"Your— huh?" I blink at him cluelessly. "Was that part of the deal as well?"

"No," He mumbles, eyes looking anywhere but at me. "But— ugh, why is this so hard?"

He raises a hand and gives himself a firm slap on the cheek, eyes squeezed shut, then opens them again. "Okay, listen carefully, because I'm not gonna be able to say this again."

He glances at me from under his fringe. I nod as earnestly as possible. He smiles a little.

"I didn't really want to hurt you," He says morosely, smile fading. "It's just— I got too angry. And I felt... really bad afterwards. Because, I don't know... no one's ever listened to me talk about TSL for as long as you did. And I didn't think it mattered much, but then I really thought about it..."

He goes quiet again, cheeks flushing slightly. "It's like... before they really become friends, the Lord of Shadows accidentally stabs Henry, and at first he doesn't care, but then he remembers how Henry's the only one who hasn't made fun of him for his any imaginary mistresses or friends, and he's really sorry. So in the Volume after that, he gives Henry an enchanted sword that'll keep him safe, however far they are from each other..."

He takes a deep breath. "I don't have an enchanted sword, but... as long as you have my pact, you can call me whenever you need help."

I look at him in silence for a moment, and he seems to lose his nerve under my gaze. Bringing his hands up to cover his face, he shakes his head and turns his entire body away, curling into himself like a hedgehog. 

"But— but that was a stupid idea, wasn't it? You don't even want my pact, do you? It's not like I'm strong enough to do anything..."

"Hey, I didn't say that!" I say hurriedly as Leviathan seems to contemplate just rolling off into the distance to escape the situation. "I was just, uh— surprised. Really. A pact sounds... great!"

"You hesitated," He says miserably, refusing to meet my eyes. "You're just trying to make me feel better..."

"I was just looking for the right word to use," I defend myself, shaking my head, even though he can't see me doing it. "I'm not good with this sort of thing."

He doesn't respond for a good fifteen seconds. Finally, pulling his hands away from his face, he turns to look at me again. "Me neither."

I smile awkwardly up at him. Then, carefully setting the box of biscuits and record on the step below me, I roll my left sleeve up and hold my arm out to him - wrist up, just like when I made the pact with Mammon. "Here."

He stares at my outstretched arm wonderingly, then gives an abrupt nod. "Right!"

Shaking out his right hand, he hovers above my arm for a moment, then sets two fingers down above Mammon's pact mark and closes his eyes, beginning to mutter. He's speaking so quietly that I can barely tell what he's saying, but it's not like I'd have understood, even if his words were clearer.

When he lifts his hand, there's another mark set into my arm - this one in the form of a curling snake, or maybe a fish hook. Like Mammon's pact mark, the main body of the mark is black edged with red. Rather than the diamonds, though, there's a teardrop in its curve.

It's a warm shade of amber. As I look at it, it glows softly - it's the kind of effect you might get if you shone a torch through the bottom of a glass jar of honey.

"This is going to itch for ages, isn't it?" I mutter absently, going to poke the mark, then remembering that the demons you make the pact with can feel that and changing my mind.

"Maybe it'll be better now that you're used to it," Leviathan offers. He glances down at the record, then back at me. "...so, you're good at music-y stuff, right?"

"I guess..." I contemplate his words for a moment, then shrug. "My old piano teacher said I'm good at listening to music. But I'm not sure if that was really a compliment, or if he just couldn't find anything else I was good at."

"Well, you've got to know at least some stuff," He says, pursing his lips. "I mean, the only reason you beat me was 'cause you did so well on the music question. Anyway - have you ever played a rhythm game before?"

"I've tried a few..." I shake my head. "But I'm awful at all of them. I just get all the arrows mixed up."

"So you've only played the kind where you have to press arrows?" Leviathan, who'd looked a little downtrodden by my initial admission, suddenly perks up again. "What about the kind where you just have to press buttons on the screen?"

"Like Osu?" I repeat, bringing a thoughtful hand up to my chin. "I mean, I've seen people playing it... but I've never tried it."

"Then there's still hope!" He exclaims, leaping to his feet. "C'mon, to my room!"

I hurriedly scoop up the box of biscuits and record as he grabs me by the forearm and starts dragging me up the stairs. "Hey, wait, where are we—"

"There's this level I've been stuck on for ages, " He continues, previous awkwardness apparently completely forgotten. "And it's recommended that you ask a friend to help you beat it, but none of my brothers are any good at rhythm games... and even if they were, I wouldn't ask them. You can help me with it!"

"But— I said I've never played that kind of game, didn't I?" I nearly trip on the edge of the carpet, but luckily Leviathan's steel grip on my arm prevents me from falling on my face.

"That's what practice mode's for—!" He begins, then abruptly cuts himself off, pausing in the middle of the hall. "Oh, wait... do you not want to? I guess a pact doesn't make us friends, does it...?"

He's looking dangerously close to getting sad again, so I hurry to correct him. "No, no, it's just— I don't know if I'll be any help. We can be friends if you want to be."

Leviathan blinks, then abruptly brightens - like a lamp that's just been turned on. "Really?"

I nod with a smile, and a grin bursts across his face, as if he just can't help it. "Al-alright! Yeah! Friends. And—and friends play games together, so come on!"

He sets off back down the corridor, now considerably faster and more enthusiastically than before. I pause to adjust the things in my arms, then scurry after him.

I've got the record now, but it's not like I can just give it to Mr Lucifer now and set off for the attic immediately. I need to time this right...

Anyway, that's not important right now. I've got a cool new friend to hang out with!

Chapter Text

Knock knock...

"Yes?"

I adjust the record in my hands and take a deep breath, then reach forward and give the door in front of me a hesitant push. It swings open without much effort, but I pause before it can open fully - instead peering through the tiny crack between the door and its frame.

Through the crack, I see Lucifer look up from a very shiny sofa, then fold over the paper in his hands. "...IK, is that you?"

I push the door in a little further so that he can actually see my face, and offer a small wave. He nods.

"I thought it might be." He sets the paper aside. "Come in."

I pause for a moment longer, then open the door properly and pad inside. "...hello."

"It's rather late for a visit, isn't it?" He observes, crossing one leg over the other.

"I was going to come last week, actually, but, uh..." I fiddle nervously with the edge of the envelope, still hovering about three feet in front of the door. "...I was playing this rhythm game with Levi, and we stayed up too late... and then I woke up and kind of forgot about it."

"You don't need to look so afraid," He says with a small smile, shaking his head. "It isn't like I told you to come see me. I see you've dropped the formalities with Levi as well."

"He said it was okay..." I mumble. Lucifer shakes his head.

"I never said you weren't allowed to," He says with a chuckle. "Do as you like. Now, is there a reason for this visit?"

"Oh, right, about that..." I approach him, offering the envelope with both hands. "I wanted to give you this."

He raises an eyebrow and reaches out to take it. Taking his time to read the golden print - first on the front, then on the back - he says after a moment, "This is rather unexpected."

There's a small smile curling at his lips - I get the impression that he's trying his very hardest to keep it from getting too big. I go to reply, but he continues before I can.

"I suppose this is the reason you challenged Levi like that" He asks, tilting the envelope from side to side as if he thinks a secret message will be revealed if he looks at it from the right angle. "Was this your prize?"

"Um..." I don't think I can lie to his face and get away with it, so I just decide to tell the truth. "...yeah."

Apparently tired of fiddling with it, he lays the envelope neatly in his lap. He's still smiling faintly. "I see. Have you listened to it, by any chance?"

To be honest, I'd have quite liked to, but I don't have a gramophone - so I haven't done much except look at and hold it. Plus I kind of forgot it existed, and accidentally left it in the corner of Levi's room for a couple of days until he found it again and gave it back. Which was nice of him. 

"...was I meant to?"

He shakes his head. "No. I just presumed you might want to - you seem rather interested in music, that's all. Sit down."

"Uh, right..." I sit myself down on the opposite end of the sofa. In contrast to how shiny and smooth it looks, it's actually really soft. I look around myself curiously, then pause.

Lucifer is beginning to say something, but I'm not really listening to him properly. I'm too busy staring at the skeleton that I've just seen sitting there in the corner of the room.

What's it doing? Holding up the ceiling? Actually, who cares - that rules. I want a skeleton to put in my room as well. It probably wouldn't fit, though... I wonder where he got it from. Hey, does he just sleep with it staring at him from over there? That's dedication to the aesthetic. Though he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd be bothered by the macabre. And, then again, he is a demon...

...actually, speaking of sleep, why's his bed so WIDE? And flat? I can't tell where the bed frame ends and the mattress begins. Is there even a mattress? It doesn't look like there is. Is the entire bed just made of mattress? Or does he sleep on hard wood? Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he does...

"...IK?" Lucifer briefly lifts a gloved hand and waves it about in front of my face, chuckling slightly. "Daydreaming, are you?"

"Huh?" I shake my head and snap back into listening mode. "No, sorry, I was just... looking at your skeleton. It's cool."

He looks over at where I'm pointing, looking surprised for a split second, as if he'd forgotten it was there. "...ah. Thank you."

We both stare solemnly at the skeleton for a moment, as if it's going to come to life and do a little dance. Then Lucifer suddenly stands up and moves over the fireplace. 

I can hear rustling and things being shuffled about, but his shoulders are so big that I can't even see what he's doing. I feel like it'd be kind of nosy to crane my neck to look, so I just wait until he's done.

Finally, Lucifer steps away from the mantelpiece, and a rousing string-led theme begins to play from the fancy golden gramophone that he's set up. He pauses, eyes closing briefly as if to enjoy the music, then turns to me.

"Do you recognise this?" He asks expectantly. I blink in surprise for a moment, then nod.

"That's the start of the main TSL title theme," I say, then frown. "...but I think they changed it for the last few movies, because it started sounding different then."

Lucifer reaches into the envelope and pulls out a delicate-looking slip of paper. It looks like a tracklist, but I'm too far away to actually read the tiny font. "...that's right. There are two title themes listed here."

He lifts the needle, stopping the music, and sits back down on the other end of the sofa, setting the empty envelope on the coffee table in front of it. "IK - you've been here long enough. How well do you think you understand a demon's nature?"

...eh? That came out of nowhere. "Not really..."

"Demons are creatures of temptation," Lucifer explains, folding his arms and leaning back slightly. "I'm sure you've heard of the story of Adam, Eve and the forbidden fruit?"

I'm not sure whether I like where this is going. "Right, and the Devil's meant to have become a snake to get Eve to take the first bite or something... wait, are you saying all that stuff in the Bible actually happened?"

"Not exactly," Lucifer shakes his head with an amused smile. "For one thing, no demon has never interfered with humanly affairs in such a way. The consequences would be unthinkable."

That's good. I really don't want the Bible to have been right about God this whole time. "Actually, I've been wondering about that - where did the stuff in the Bible come from? Does Jesus exist?"

"I wouldn't know." Lucifer lifts his shoulders in a half-shrug. "Even if he did, though, it wouldn't be... no being from the Celestial Realm would be foolish enough to dally around in the human world like that - performing magic and pretending to do miracles. It'd be enough to set the entire realm alight."

Wonder how we managed to come up with all that, then... I think it over, tugging restlessly at the hem of my jumper. Then, realising we're getting off track, I enquire, "...so, um, you were saying... temptation?"

"Temptation indeed," He says with a small smile. "Think of it this way. If a demon were to ever be presented with that apple, he would never be able to refuse. No amount of righteousness can stop a demon from claiming something he wants, especially when it is staring him right in the face."

Where's he going with this? "...right."

"You don't appear to know what I mean," Lucifer says, raising an eyebrow. "I've been looking for this record for a while - in fact, I'll probably put it on as soon as you leave. And this score is a long one - in fact, it would take me nearly the whole night to finish it in one sitting."

I stare at him cluelessly. I'm pretty sure he's trying to tell me something, but what Lucifer doesn't know is that if you try really hard to convey something to me, chances are that I'm absolutely not going to get it. As a general rule of thumb, the only subtle messages I can understand are the ones that no one actually wants me to know.

"...what I'm saying is that I won't be able to bring myself to leave my room tonight," Lucifer says finally, looking a little exasperated that I still don't get it. "Even if someone were to... break a rule."

Huh. Huh? OH.

Everything finally clicks into place. What he means is, "I really want to listen to this record, so I'm going to do that because I'm a demon and demons do whatever they want because temptation or something, which means that you could break a rule tonight and I wouldn't be bothered punishing you."

So does Lucifer already know exactly what my plan is? He definitely makes it sound like he does. And that brings up something else - is this him giving me permission to go ahead? Because he's definitely making it sound like that, too.

"Of course," Lucifer says suddenly, eyes suddenly narrowing, "That doesn't mean you should break a rule. And this doesn't mean that you can use the opportunity to enter the attic."

I blink at him for a moment. "...uh huh..."

The way he's talking and frowning would indicate that he's giving me express instructions to not go up into the attic, but I can't help but think that there's something almost... playful about his expression. His eyes are crinkled up slightly at the corners, as if he's trying to disguise a laugh.

It's not friendly by any means. Actually, it feels more he's a cat toying with its food vibes. But it's definitely not the rock-hard denial I'd have expected to be met with.

What he's saying is 'don't do the thing' , but everything else he's done so far says 'but, even if you do the thing, I either won't notice or won't bother punishing you.' And, coming from Lucifer, I doubt it's unintentional.

Honestly, it sounds like everything's going perfectly according to plan, but I can't help but be cautious at the same time. He's practically had a complete 360 degree shift in attitude.

When I came across the attic for the first time, he was adamant about not allowing me up - and after that, he refused to talk about it at all, as if even mentioning it might give me more ideas. But here he is now, almost actively encouraging me to do it. That's suspicious, isn't it?

Why is he suddenly so flippant about it? Did he move whatever was in the attic somewhere else, so that there won't be anything for me to find? Or did he do something so that I won't be able to get up the stairs anyway? 

Whatever it is, he must be confident that it's going to work if he's saying all this now. I'm not sure what this all means for me, though.

"Got it," I say, nodding. "No going into the attic."

Lucifer smiles. Even though his face is as carefully arranged as usual, I can't help but feel like he's giving me a giant metaphorical wink. (Now that I think about it, I think I'd be pretty terrified if I ever actually saw Lucifer wink.)

"Good," He says, then gets to his feet. "Well, it's getting late. You should get to bed."

"Bed," I repeat, standing up as well. "Right, I'll, uh— do that, definitely."

He walks with me to the door. I turn to give him one last look before I step out, and he smiles again.

"Thank you for bringing me the record," He says. "Ulterior motive or not, I appreciate the gesture. I suppose I can consider this compensation for saving you."

I suddenly realise that I still haven't actually thanked him for that. "Oh, yeah— thank you for that, by the way."

"You're quite welcome," He says, inclining his head and beginning to close the door as I step out into the hall. "Try not to get attacked by any more demons. There might not be anyone to save you next time."

And, with those mildly threatening words, he withdraws into his room and shuts the door.

I linger for a moment, processing everything that's just happened. As I turn to walk back to my room, I hear music begin to play from his room.

My first order of business is digging the watch and circlet Mephisto gave me out of the bottom of the drawer where I've been hiding them, beneath a heap of all the unused things Diavolo gave me. I doubt any of the brothers would be looking through through my stuff, but it's a precaution that I felt like I had to take. 

Lucifer's scarily sharp-witted, after all - there's no telling how much he knows. And I wouldn't put it past him to conduct an impromptu search if he deemed it necessary.

Alatus, who's been spending every day that he isn't coming to school with me either sleeping or chewing on the corner of a blanket, seems to be prepared for the circlet as soon as I pull it out. He presses himself down into the mattress of my bed and launches himself halfway across the room to land on my desk, then squishes himself down again to receive it.

"You're smarter than you let on, aren't you?" I mumble as I set the circlet down on his head. 

Alatus squeaks quietly in reply. He's bouncing slightly, preening as if the circlet makes him feel particularly fancy.

He seems ready to go already, but it'd probably be better to wait for a while first. Once he realises I'm not going to get going any time soon, he decides to take his repose in my lap.

Meanwhile, I occupy myself by messing about on my D.D.D.. There's not much to do - I end up attempting to contact my dad for the first time since I got down here.

I can't access any human-world websites from down here, though, let alone connect to any human-world phone numbers. I suppose there's a chance that I'm just putting Dad's number in completely wrong, but I've been able to remember it verbatim before now...

Well, it was incredibly unlikely that I could place a call across realms in the first place. I probably should've seen this coming.

I pause and drop my D.D.D, raising my head to stare blankly at the ceiling. I'm not entirely sure if I should feel sad or not. 

I do miss my dad. But we've been seeing each other so sparingly in recent years that this whole situation almost doesn't feel any different. That's not his fault. There are bills to pay and groceries and school supplies to buy, after all. 

Still, I wonder if I'd be more upset now if we'd spent more time together. Like a proper family does.

I hope the police haven't arrested him. I'm not sure he'd be able to manage under the pressure, especially since they'd almost certainly end up questioning him about what he was doing before we moved to Britain. And, if he does crack - they're definitely going to get suspicious.

Then again, if I did just disappear in broad daylight, it would have been in school. I doubt that they could find a way to link that back to him.

But there's no telling what the police would do in the face of something like this. When you've got a supernatural mystery on your hands, sometimes you've just got to stop people from getting antsy by arresting someone. And it's not like the police need any degree of certainty of guilt before they decide to exercise their authority.

I pick my D.D.D. back up and swipe absently about on the home screen. I shouldn't think too hard about all this. Dad'll be fine, he's smart...

I end up discovering the D.D.D.'s app store and amusing myself with all the various bootleg versions of games I already know. I wouldn't be much into them normally, but having a vaguely devilish skin slapped on top makes them all the more engaging, somehow... 

Eventually, it seems safe to venture out. All activity in the House has long settled into silence, and it's late enough that I don't think anyone will be wandering around to catch me.

I put on my shoes this time - if I need to make a get-away, I run faster in shoes than without - and scoop Alatus up. Then I pause - do I need to brief him on what he needs to do? 

Mephisto said that all I needed to do was put the circlet on him and then put the watch on myself... but I don't see how Alatus is going to warn me about anything if he doesn't even know he's supposed to be doing that. Now that I think about it, Barbatos did tell me to give him instructions, didn't he?

I sink into my chair, thinking, then pull a piece of paper out of the stack sitting on the corner of my desk, and pick a few pens from my stationery drawer. After a moment of deliberation, I draw a circle in peach and add two red dots to it. Then, picking out a black, I add some wavy lines in vaguely the sort of pattern Lucifer's hair falls in.

I'm no artist, but now that I've drawn in a couple darker red lines and beige squiggles to represent his waistcoat and the fur lining his coat... yeah, I reckon I've got a pretty decent depiction of the Avatar of Pride. If I were to show this drawing to a random person, I reckon they'd be able to match it to Lucifer out of a line-up.

I drop the pens back into the drawer and flip the paper around so Alatus can see. He blinks at it, then looks up at me, and I'm suddenly fully aware of just how dumb this whole little charade is.

"This is Mr Lucifer," I say, determinedly ignoring how judgemental Alatus's eyes look, "You need to watch out for him. If you see him, then, uh..."

I glance at the circlet on his head, then down at the watch. I don't actually know what Alatus is supposed to do to warn me. Will it just automatically happen if he sees Lucifer? Or does he need to do a spell?

"...let me know, I guess." I say finally. Alatus gives a half-wheeze, half-sneeze in reply, and rolls over onto his back.

I sigh and scoop him up again, making sure my D.D.D. is set to silent and stuffing my poor drawing of Lucifer into my pocket. "Be quiet, okay?"

He snuffles in understanding, settling down as I tiptoe out into the hall. I keep him cupped in my left hand and hold my D.D.D. up in the other, flashing the torch on and off to make sure I'm still going the right way. 

The first time I'd snuck to the attic, there was a voice for me to follow - now all I have to rely on is my poor memory of the way there. Before I head for the attic stairs, though, I make sure to make a detour to Lucifer's room first.

I pause a good few feet away from it - just in case he suddenly decides to fling it open - and dim my D.D.D.'s torch to its lowest setting. The silence seems to buzz as I shine it around the corridor.

All the candles along the walls as well as the ones on the chandelier on the ceiling have been blown out. That means that there are plenty of dark little nooks and crannies for me to set Alatus in, but I can't just dump him anywhere. Wherever I put him needs to be at least relatively comfortable, or he might just decide to roll off to find somewhere else to sit.

There's no guarantee he'll actually do as he's told, either. Still, I don't have anything to lose... unless Alatus decides to roll right up to Lucifer's door and sneeze loud enough to catch his attention.

After a moment's deliberation, I set Alatus down under that broken chair Mammon perched me on the other day. The carpet's thick enough that he shouldn't be too uncomfortable, and if I put him right at the back, the shadows should keep him hidden... Lucifer's way taller than me, so I doubt he'd even be able to see under the chair while standing.

I nod to myself. Then I pull out my drawing, and set it beside Alatus so that he can refresh himself on what he's looking out for if he needs to.

There might be another disadvantage here, though... - Alatus might not be able to see far up enough to even spot Lucifer's face if he does come out of his room. Alright, I'm going to have to do something about that...

The music's loud enough... he shouldn't be able to hear me if I whisper. I kneel beside the chair and duck down.

"Okay, listen," I whisper. "See that there? You might not be able to see Mr Lucifer's face if he does come out, but if the door opens at all, I want you to warn me. And—"

Before I can carry on, I hear fabric shifting and Lucifer coughing inside his room, and I freeze. Alatus goes stock-still under the chair; I get the impression that he's holding his breath along with me as I wait for Lucifer to settle. 

After a moment or two, he goes quiet again. The soundtrack continues with the Lord of Corruption's theme on some anxious-sounding flutes.

"...and you have to stay completely quiet," I resume my instructions, turning back to Alatus. "And, if the door does open, wait until the coast is clear afterwards, and hide. Or get back to our room. Okay?"

Alatus stares unblinkingly at me. He doesn't move or make a sound, but I get the feeling that he understand.

"...well, good luck," I murmur finally, getting to my feet and adjusting my D.D.D. in my hands. "See you later."

Giving him one last look, I turn around and continue on my way down the corridor.

The sound of Lucifer's music quickly fades once I've tiptoed away, and I don't hear anything from any of the doors that I pass. Hopefully that means everyone else is either asleep or in a room downstairs. I don't think I want to know what'll happen if I get caught - especially if the one who catches me is Satan. 

He's already made it clear that he doesn't like me sticking my nose in his family's business. I don't think he'd appreciate finding me creeping around his house like a burglar, either.

It takes me a good five minutes longer than it probably should have to find the attic stairs again. By the time I finally come to the dusty alcove with the strangely mossy walls, I'm half-convinced that I've woken someone up already.

The house remains silent, though, so I decide it's safe to approach. There's that chilliness again - as if I'm stepping into a whole other dimension when I cross the line between the stone floor and the carpet. I don't know if I'm imagining it, but it feels even colder than last time.

The voice hasn't said anything since that night, but I still half-expect to hear it as I hesitantly take the first step. Nothing. I'm beginning to think there really isn't anything there at all. Anymore, at least.

Still, I can't be sure until I've checked. I place a hand on the banister, half-expecting to burst into flames as soon as my palm comes into contact with the wood, then take a single, hesitant step upwards.

I remain in one piece. I breathe a silent sigh of relief and continue.

Despite how old the stairs seem, they don't creak at all. They seem to go on forever, even though I feel like the attic definitely shouldn't be nearly as high up as it feels like it is. By the time I get to the top, I'm supremely out of breath.

The hallway I've stepped into isn't as ornate as the ones I've been trawling thus far - but it's certainly a lot cleaner and lived-in than the staircase that leads to it. The wallpaper is still a fresh shade of blue, with expensive-looking gold ornamentation and flickering candles lighting the way. 

There's only one door in this hallway. Actually, it's more like a gate than a door - it isn't solid, and it looks metallic.

I take a moment to catch my breath (and steel my nerves), then slowly approach. Stopping a healthy distance away from the door itself, I lean around in an attempt to see through the gaps in the door, already resigned to the fact that the room behind it might be empty.

But it isn't. Sitting hunched on a bed in the centre of the room, flipping idly through a book, is a dark-haired figure I've never seen before.

I hesitate for a moment longer, then call quietly, "Excuse me?"

The figure freezes. Then - slowly, as if afraid of what they might see - they turn around.

It's a man with a sallow sort of complexion, dressed in a large cardigan, and his hair isn't completely dark as I'd initially thought - it's white at the ends. He stares at me for a long moment, and I can't help but feel like those eyes are familiar.

Then the book in his hands falls to the mattress with a dull thud, and he scrambles to the door, elation clear on his face. "You're here!"

I look up at him cautiously. He's almost certainly too tall to human. Another demon? Or an angel like Simeon or Luke?

"Hello," I say carefully. The man reaches out, as if to grab me through the gaps in the door - but something seems to sting him as soon as his fingers go near the metal. He draws back again.

"Hello," He repeats back to me, smiling almost giddily. "How did you get up here? I thought the enchantments would block you out for sure..."

"I'm don't really know, either." I wonder if I should take a step back. "So, um - were you the one calling for help?"

He nods, sinking to sit in front of the door with a sigh as if just standing is too much for him. After a moment, I follow, kneeling a safe half a meter or so from him - just in case.

"I knew there was a human in the House of Lamentation," He explains, biting absently at the nail of his right thumb. "You were the only one here who could have found me, so that's why I called out for you... it's been ages now. I thought you weren't coming at all."

"Yeah, it took a while to get everything together," I murmur, drumming my hands idly on my knees. "Sorry. But— it didn't seem like anyone else could hear you."

"There are enchantments on this attic," He explains, shaking his head with a scowl. "A lot of them. And one of them stops any of m— anyone living here from hearing me. But I knew that enchantment only worked on demons, so..."

He perks up suddenly. "Actually, that must be why you were able to get in even after all the new spells. They're supposed to make it look like the room isn't here... they mustn't work on humans, either."

"So you're a demon, too, right?" I ask. After all, if Diavolo's going for friendly relations between realms, I doubt Lucifer locking an angel up in his attic would help with that...

He hesitates for a moment, then nods. "Yeah."

"Ah." He doesn't seem interested in saying anything further. "It's nice to meet you."

I raise my hand to offer a handshake, but the demon abruptly straightens up, opening his mouth as if to warn me, and I remember too late what had happened when his own hand got too close to the door earlier. Before I can think to pull away, though, my hand hits an invisible barrier, just inches from the door.

"Safety net," The demon observes as I pull my hand back to myself, shaking it out. Just because I wasn't electrocuted doesn't mean it didn't hurt smacking my fingers into a hard surface like that. "Figures. Lucifer wouldn't want to hurt himself with his own curse, after all."

"...so it was him who put you in here?" It's not like I wasn't prepared for the possibility, but still...

The demon's eyes seem to flare. Again, I feel like I've seen them somewhere before - but where?

"What do you think?" He hisses, his entire mood seeming to freeze over. "The bastard shut me in here ages ago, then locked up the place with as many spells as he could think of - just to stop me from escaping."

Doesn't seem the way you'd talk about someone you know. Just who are you, mister? "Oh."

"I'm basically a prisoner in here," He sighs, hunching in on himself. "I... I need to get out."

He looks so worn down, as if the weight of all three realms has been set on his shoulders and he has to hold them up like Atlas bearing the skies. I can't help but feel bad for him. I can understand it - the claustrophobia, both physical and mental.

"I could help you." I'm making the offer before I even properly realise what I'm doing.  The demon brightens immediately.

He straightens up and starts forwards slightly, smiling, then remembers the door and pulls back again. "Really?"

"I'm not sure what I can do..." I shift slightly - my knees are starting to ache. Maybe I shouldn't have knelt. "But I can try."

"Trying's more than enough." His smile widens slightly, and he looks almost more triumphant than relieved. "You're the only hope I've got. Alright, okay, then... here's the plan."

I lean forward slightly as he huddles just an inch or so closer to the door and lowers his voice, as if someone's listening in on us. "Apart from the other security spells, there's this specific kind of magic sealing this attic shut, and it's stopping me from doing any counter-spells. If that was gone, I could break the other enchantments and get out."

"How do we get rid of it, then?" I ask, almost wanting to reach out to try to touch the door again.

The demon looks incredibly serious. "Well, that's where you come in. The magic seal is made up of six locks, one after another... and you need Lucifer and each of his five brothers to unlock each one."

...five? Does he not know Lucifer has six brothers?

I'd been under the impression they were fairly high-up, so I'd have thought their identities would be common knowledge among their fellow demons. Was I wrong? But, wait... if he didn't know who they were, how does he know Lucifer has any brothers at all?

Unless they're all in on it. Maybe the demon only thinks there's six because the seventh one had already left by the time he got locked up. To the human world, right? That's what Solomon said.

But that still doesn't make sense. Beelzebub was just there for the popcorn, but Mammon knew that I wanted to get into the attic, and he was helping me find a way to do it. Why would he help me if he was part of the whole scheme? Could it have all been one massive double-cross?

I don't want to doubt them, especially now I've only just made friends with Levi. But, if Lucifer's capable of it, it stands to reason they would be, too. Even as infallible as he is, even Lucifer would have trouble hiding this sort of thing when he lives with five other people. I think.

Maybe I shouldn't jump to conclusions... innocent until proven guilty and all. The demon's only named one brother so far. I should give everyone else the benefit of the doubt.

Still thinking, I feel my face pull into a slight frown. The demon seems to take that as confusion, though, and he continues to explain.

"What you need to do is get all of their pacts," He says. "They aren't going to listen to you if you just ask them nicely, especially not Lucifer. But, if you had their pacts, they wouldn't have any choice but to listen."

I shake myself from my reverie and nod, still a little conflicted. "...I do have Levi and Mammon's already, actually."

The demon pauses in surprise as I pull up my left sleeve and show him the two brands. Levi's is still a little sensitive, but the itching is much more bearable than it had been with Mammon's mark.

"...then you know how they work, right?" The demon asks after a moment, recovering quickly, and I nod. "Okay, good. Then I don't need to explain it. You just need to do it again for everyone else."

He pauses, looking thoughtful, then continues, "It's up to you how you decide to do it, but you absolutely can't tell anyone why you want their pacts. You can't even tell them you've met me - actually, it'd be best if you didn't tell anyone you came up here at all."

Oops. Part one failed already. "Uh, actually... Mammon already knows that I wanted to come up here, so he's probably going to ask about it."

The demon frowns and thinks for a moment, then nods. "No, that should be fine. Just tell anyone who asks that you just found an empty corridor. That's what the enchantments are supposed to do, anyway."

"Okay..." I have half a mind to pull out my D.D.D. and start typing up some notes. "So should I just wing it, or...?"

"Lucifer'll definitely be the hardest to convince," The demon says contemplatively. "So you should probably leave him for last. You've already got the second and third brothers... so I say you go for the sixth. Beel should be easy to convince."

"Right..." I say, then pause. How does this guy know Beelzebub's nickname if he didn't even know Lucifer has six brothers, not five?

There's just something odd about all of this. The demon still hasn't said a thing about himself - just immediately jumped to making a plan. It feels almost choreographed.

"...what's your name, by the way?" I ask after a moment, trying to sound as natural as possible. The demon looks surprised for a moment.

"U-uh," He begins, stuttering for the first time since we started talking. "I'm... Astaroth."

"Astaroth," I repeat. I could've sworn that I've heard that somewhere before. Is it just me, or does 'Astaroth' seem kind of unsure of his own name? "Nice to meet you. I'm IK."

"It's great to meet you as well, IK." He smiles then, and it's so genuine that I can't help but feel bad for doubting him. "You're my last hope, so I'm glad you're here to help."

Can't say it doesn't feel kind of nice to be needed. "I'll try my best. So, uh - should I come back and update you? Because I don't think I'll be able to keep distracting Mr Lucifer the same way forever."

He nods, tapping his fingers restlessly against the floorboards beneath him. "Good idea. If things start changing..."

He thinks for a long while, still tapping. It's a very regular rhythm - tap-tap, tap, tap-tap, tap, over and over again like one of those free beat loops you get in music software. 

"...there's a spell that could help," He says at last. "But I can't do any magic in here, so either you'll have to learn it, or find someone else to do it for you."

"What's the spell?" I ask. Astaroth draws an invisible pattern into the floorboards with the tip of his finger, in the sort of way you might trace a word into your palm with your finger.

"It's a concealment charm," He says slowly, sounding as if he's trying incredibly hard to recall. "You cast it on something - could be anything - and as long as you have it on you, it stops any living being from noticing you. It basically forces them to ignore you."

...isn't that a Doctor Who thing? That's definitely a Doctor Who thing. "Ah."

"There's a problem, though," He continues, "Because Lucifer's one of those demons who's always got his guard up, and the concealment charm uses a lot of magical energy, so he'd probably sense it on you before you even have a chance to use it. If you want to use the spell, you need a way to hide it somehow."

"Concealing a concealment charm," I say thoughtfully. "Is that even possible?"

"Probably," He replies, beginning to get to his feet. "I don't know who you can ask to do it, but it can't be the brothers. Or Lord Diavolo, or his butler, actually..."

I hum pensively, shifting and glancing around the hallway as I think. If not any of them... what about the other exchange students? I'm not too sure about the angels, but Solomon would almost certainly know what spell he's talking about. I think he'd keep quiet about the whole thing if I asked him to, as well.

"I might have an idea," I say with a nod. "I'll see what I can do."

Astaroth smiles. "That's great."

He leans forward slightly, craning his neck in an attempt to look down the corridor from a safe distance away from the door, then pulls back and sighs. "You've been up here for a while. You should probably get back to bed."

"Ah, right..." I start to get up, checking the time as I do. I've been up here for about forty minutes now...

That doesn't seem like too long, but to be fair, if I don't want to be caught, I should try to spend as little time in the place where I'm not meant to be as possible. I turn to the staircase, then pause and look back at Astaroth again.

"...will you be okay up here?"

He blinks in surprise, pausing in the middle of standing up as well. His right eye twitches ever so slightly, and he smiles again, but it looks a little strained this time. "...I've held out for a while already. I can wait a little longer."

I look him over uncertainly. I can't tell because his cardigan sleeves keep them mostly covered, but it looks like his hands have clenched into fists.

"Okay," I say hesitantly, taking a step backwards. "Then - I'll come back when I've... made some progress, I guess."

"Feel free," He says dryly, turning to go sit on the bed again. "It'd be nice to have someone to talk to now and then."

He picks up the book he'd been flipping through when I first arrived, and goes back to reading. I stay on the spot for a moment longer, watching him, then turn and hurry back down the stairs.

The corridors are just as quiet as when I came through the first time - no disturbances, not a single painting or piece of furniture out of place. I look back at the stairs one final time.

There's another mystery going on here, one that I hadn't anticipated. Now that I think about it, I forgot to ask why Astaroth had even been locked up in the attic in the first place. Why did I just immediately assume Lucifer was imprisoning some random innocent demon? He wasn't behaving completely un-suspiciously, either.

I shake my head and start walking again. Again, innocent until proven guilty... but I should really try to find out more about Astaroth before I carry on. I can't ask any of the brothers, but there might be student records or something in the R.A.D. library. If I pay attention, maybe one of the brothers will slip up and mention something related to him in passing.

Alatus is still safe and sound under the chair where I left him - and sound asleep, too. I huff and carefully retrieve, tiptoeing past all the closed bedroom doors, then hurrying back to my room.

No one comes to arrest me once I've dropped on my bed, nor do any hidden traps suddenly activate to impale or squash me, so I assume I've gotten away with my misbehaviour for the night. I stay there for a good twenty minutes or so, still not quite finished processing everything that's happened tonight, and come to a sudden realisation.

That the drawing I did of Lucifer - it wasn't with Alatus when I went back to get him like it should've been.

He didn't find it, right? He said he wasn't going to leave his room tonight. Was he just lying? Or was it a bathroom break? ...maybe Alatus just ate it?

I flop back on my bed and stare up at the ceiling. Would Lucifer be offended if he did find it? What if he takes it as a threat? I don't know how war declarations work in demon society, but some of the stuff I've learnt in Devildom History is so ridiculous that I honestly can't dismiss it as a possibility.

I stare blankly at the floor for a full minute, then sigh and stand up to get ready for bed. It's late enough now that I'll almost certainly be absolutely exhausted tomorrow, but I should at least try to get some sleep. I can worry about drawings (and possible war declarations) later.

I could've slept in, but my internal clock fails to read the room and decides to wake me up at almost eight o'clock sharp instead.  I guess four hours is better than the hour-and-a-half that I got that night when I first heard Astaroth's voice, and that had been on a school day. Statistically, I'm doing much better.

Half of House of Lamentation's other residents are already sitting around the table when I peek into the dining room. Lucifer, Levi and Mammon are all absent, though by the looks of those sunglasses on the table, Mammon's probably just gone to get something.

"Morning," Satan greets as I shuffle in and haul myself into an unoccupied chair. He's stirring what looks like scrambled eggs (but could be any manner of offal) around his plate. 

I make an indistinct noise at him and support myself on the armrest with some effort. He sets his fork down and looks at me for a moment.

Then he comments, "You look tired."

"Rough night," I mumble. He clicks his tongue sympathetically.

"Couldn't sleep?" He asks. "Now that I think about it, I did hear you moving around last night."

I freeze for the briefest of seconds, but quickly shut down my thoughts down before I can start panicking. There's no way he knows, right? Right? "Oh. Uh, did I disturb you? Sorry..."

He shakes his head, reaching for his glass of what-I-think-is-orange-juice. "I was already awake. I could hear Lucifer's music from my room, so I headed down to the library to do some reading in peace."

"He plays music that loud?" I wonder, shifting slightly in my chair so that my legs aren't dangling so awkwardly off the edge. "I couldn't hear anything."

Which is a lie. Satan doesn't seem to hear any discrepancy in my voice (which is a miracle unto itself). He shrugs.

"Well, your room is the only one on this floor," He says, then scowls briefly. "Unfortunately for me, our rooms are only down the hall from each other. You'd be surprised how easily sound travels upstairs."

"Oh. Well—"

"Here," Mammon interrupts out of nowhere, setting a mug in front of me with a harsh clank. I look up at him in surprise. "What? Ya said you usually have coffee on school mornings, didn't ya?"

"No, it's just..." I trail off, still a little confused, then explain, "I didn't think you were listening when I said that. Or that you'd remember, I guess."

Mammon scoffs, pulling out the chair beside mine and flinging himself down onto it with comfortable ease. "Why wouldn't I? Satan remembered, didn't he?"

Satan and I both exchange looks. After a moment, Satan asks slowly, "How do you know that? I did that weeks ago."

Mammon goes quiet. His eyes dart back and forth across the dining table, and he abruptly reaches forward and snatches a shaker full of purple powder. I'm not sure what he's intending on doing with it, but he seems happy with aggressively toying with it as he continues to try to avoid giving an answer.

Finally, he grumbles, "Lucifer said."

"Why was he telling you?" Asmodeus butts in, leaning his chin in one hand and looking at the three of us as if we're at some kind of gossip gathering. "Did you ask, hmm? Or did he just think you needed to know?"

Mammon refuses to speak for a good few moments. Under the scrutinising eyes of everyone at the table, however (even Beelzebub, though still mostly occupied with his breakfast, has fixed his gaze on him), he quickly cracks.

"Kid never eats anything for breakfast," he mutters. "So I asked Lucifer if she liked anythin', and he told me she liked the coffee Satan made her.  That a crime?"

He doesn't get an answer. He waits for a moment, then looks around the table with a frown. "What're you guys so quiet for, huh?"

"We're re-evaluating you." Asmodeus says matter-of-factly.

"We didn't know you had the emotional capacity to actually be worried about someone." Satan adds.

"Uh, anyway," I interject in an attempt to stop Mammon, who looks rather indignant, from starting a scrap at the table. "Thanks, Mammon."

He pauses and glances at me. A grin tugs at the corner of his mouth, and he pushes the mug closer. "You're welcome, kiddo."

I offer him a small smile and reach out to pick up the mug, then raise it to my mouth. A split second later, I cough and set it down again, swallowing the sip I took with enormous difficulty. "...what did you put in this?"

"Is there somethin' wrong with it?" He asks, leaning over and scrutinising the mug as if it's the porcelain's fault. "I didn't poison it, if that's what you're sayin'."

"No, it's just that..." I hold the mug up to my eyes and inspect its contents carefully. As far as I can tell, it doesn't look any different to normal. Doesn't smell any different, either. "It's really bitter."

"What? How?" Mammon leans forward, and I hold the mug out for him to look at. He sniffs it, then draws back again, pulling a face. "Smells normal. I put the same stuff in and everythin'. Ya must be hallucinating."

"You can't hallucinate tastes, i—" Satan suddenly cuts himself off mid-insult, a look of realisation dawning on his face. "Wait a minute... Mammon, which coffee grounds did you use?"

Mammon tosses him a dismissive look and leans back in his chair. "The ones Lucifer ordered last week, Equinox Gold or whatever. Why, what'd you use?"

Asmodeus and Satan exchange knowing looks. Satan turns back to Mammon and begins, an amused grin beginning to climb up his face, "I used the Roasted Bronze, but that's besides the point. Mammon, do you know why Lucifer decided to get Equinox Gold when our usual grounds work just fine?"

"Nope," Mammon shoots back without even a pause, unfazed. "Why would I? It ain't important."

"Maybe not, but you'll want to know," Satan answers. "Coffee brewed from Equinox Gold is special. It's a particular magical property of the beans - the coffee tastes more bitter the fonder the brewer is of the person drinking it."

The table goes silent.

I blink rapidly at Satan, then turn to stare down into my cup. It takes me a good few moments to connect the dots of what he's saying - in any case, Asmodeus realises long before I do.

"That's so sweet!" He coos, cupping both cheeks in his hands, squishing his entire face upwards with his smile. "Oh, Mammon, I didn't think you had it in you! You really do care!"

"No way!" Mammon shakes his head furiously, flinging himself into the back of his chair with such force that it almost tips him backwards onto the carpet. "You're crazy if ya think I give a damn about that kid!"

"Now, now, Mammon, it isn't good to lie," Satan scolds him with faux reproachfulness, leaning back in his own chair with a smug grin. "You might hurt her feelings."

Mammon's eyes dart to me for a moment before shooting down to the floor. He jerks his entire body to the side in an effort to avoid looking at me, as if the very sight of me burns him. "D-don't be stupid. Like I care."

"Even I can tell that's a lie, Mammon," Beelzebub says in a no-nonsense kind of fashion through a mouthful of meat. "You almost lost your mind when Levi attacked her, remember?"

I can't see Mammon's face, so I don't know how he reacts to this, but I do see his shoulders tense slightly. He doesn't reply.

"Yeah, I thought you were going to have a heart attack right then and there," Asmodeus chimes in. "It was so sweet! Like a mama dragon protecting her nest!"

"Don't call me a m—" That gets Mammon to stop pretending to be a hermit crab. He jerks upright and shoots Asmodeus a reproachful glare. "—what hell kinda—?!"

Asmodeus doesn't seem affected in the slightest. He carries on, blissfully (or possibly selectively) unaware of the Avatar of Greed glowering at him from across the table.

"It was such a little show-stopper! And when Lucifer swooped in, all heroic— ooh, I really should've gotten a picture, I'm sure it'd go viral—"

"What would?" comes a very distinctive voice from behind me. I jolt and straighten in my seat as Lucifer himself sweeps in and settles into the chair on my other side.

"Lucifer!" Asmodeus cheers happily - pointedly not answering the question. "Good morning!"

"Elbows off the table," is Lucifer's flat response. He gives me a brief, unreadable look, then turns to start putting food on his plate.

Asmodeus rolls his eyes subtly and shoots me a meaningful look before obeying Lucifer's orders - lifting his apparently audacious elbows from the table and setting his hands in his lap instead. Lucifer, meanwhile, picks up the sharpest of the knives by his plate and starts carving his meat into bite-sized chunks.

I can only assume it's for efficiency, but the sight still amuses me more than it should. Mostly because bite-sized here is my by standards, and to Lucifer those pieces are probably more pea-sized by proportion.

He hasn't mentioned anything about the attic, nor has he addressed what I was doing last night - so I can only assume that he either doesn't know, or doesn't care. And he doesn't show any indication of knowing about that stupid drawing I did, so maybe Alatus really did eat it...

Speaking of eating, Lucifer's finished his chopping and is now putting some kind of leafy purple vegetable on his plate as well. Satan's started giving him a weird look; I haven't seen Lucifer eat breakfast enough times to know if this procedure is normal for him, but looking at Satan, it doesn't seem it is.

A moment later, the reason behind Lucifer's strange little routine is revealed. Without so much as a pause, he picks up his plate, then neatly sweeps all the food on it onto mine.

I stare at the food for a long time, befuddled, then turn to look at Lucifer. He's poured himself a glass of the same orange stuff Satan is drinking with complete nonchalance, as if what he's just done is perfectly normal.

"What ?" I mouth across the table at Satan. He looks equally as dumbfounded by Lucifer's actions - his gaze is switching back and forth between us like he's watching a ping-pong game.

"Eat your breakfast," Lucifer says after a moment of stunned silence across the entire table. He isn't even looking at me. "It isn't going to poison you."

Well, that's suspicious. Do I trust him? Maybe he really does know that I got up into the attic and talked to Astaroth and he's trying to bump me off before I tell anyone or do anything about it. "Uh..."

He glances at me, then reaches for a slice of toast and a butter knife. "It's come to my attention that you rarely eat a solid breakfast. If I'm not mistaken, isn't it said in the human world that it is the most important meal of the day?"

How recently was Mammon talking to him about that? Last night? "Well, I guess..."

I glance over at Mammon himself, who looks dumbfounded. Asmodeus and Beelzebub are still staring at him blankly, and Satan's gone completely motionless. I don't think he's even breathing.

Lucifer finishes buttering his piece of toast - then sets it on my plate, and casts an unimpressed glance over his brothers. "...what?"

Almost in unison, all four start and immediately look away. Lucifer shakes his head with a sigh, then looks at me.

"I have to thank you for bringing me the record again," He says with a small smile. "I'd say it was well worth the sleepless night to hear the score with such clarity."

"Oh, uh..." His words sound amicable enough, but it feels like they're charged with something else - something more threatening. "Right... no problem."

"You don't look like you got much sleep, either," Lucifer says, raising an eyebrow. "I take it that you didn't listen to my warning."

...uh oh. "Uh. Sorry?"

"Since you brought me the record, I won't punish you for disobeying this once," He says, reaching for another slice of toast for himself. "But it'd be remiss of me not to warn you - you will not get another chance to misbehave like this."

I stare at him in silence, feeling too cowed to make a reply. Lucifer shakes his head and takes a bite of his toast without bothering with butter.

"I allowed you to satisfy your curiosity," He continues, "And, as you will now know, there isn't anything to see up there. I trust you'll stop trying to climb those stairs."

... oh, I think I get it. I'm finally starting to see Lucifer's strategy here. It's like opening the wardrobe to get your kid to stop being scared of the monsters they think are in there. This must be why he was being so weird about the whole matter last night. 

Astaroth said something about new enchantments being added. Lucifer must have done that since the first time I tried going up there. What he thinks he's done is convinced me to drop the matter, by making it seem like there was never anything up there in the first place.

...does he think I'm stupid? Even if the enchantments had worked, he's still behaving too oddly for me to just drop it. And there's no erasing the fact that I did hear a voice coming form the attic. Anyway, if there really wasn't anything of note up there, wouldn't there be no reason to stop me from going up in the future?

Apparently the spell is supposed to make it look like the hallway at the top of the stairs is empty, too. Does Lucifer not realise that that's almost equally as suspicious as the actual demon locked up in there? 

Maybe it's different for demons, but personally, finding that the only thing at the top of a staircase is an empty corridor would've just made me think there was a secret door somewhere along it. Especially since I'd been told there was something dangerous up there.

I glance over everyone else at the table. Mammon's still looking firmly at his plate, avoiding eye contact with his brother, and Beelzebub has gone back to eating, but both Asmodeus and Satan look rather intrigued by Lucifer's words.

Lucifer himself is still watching me expectantly. I nod hurriedly. "Right."

I sound about as honest as a pickpocket, but somehow Lucifer doesn't seem to pick up uncertain wavering of my voice - he just nods and goes back to his toast. I blow out a subtle sigh of relief and turn to my own plate, poking at one of the pieces of meat with my fork.

A minute or so later, the dining room door opens, and Levi drags himself in, looking rather worse for wear. He mutters a half-hearted morning greeting and drops into one of the chairs on the side of the table, dumping a random selection of food onto his plate.

"Did ya wake up on the wrong side of the bed or somethin'?" Mammon asks, finally tearing his eyes away from his plate now that he's deemed it safe to do so.

Levi scowls. "Shut up."

"Alright, alright, don't need to get all pissy now," Mammon holds up his hands in defence as Levi starts moodily stabbing at his breakfast. "Did ya stay up late gamin' again?"

Levi sighs moodily, shoving a forkful of food into his mouth. "There's this stupid boss that keeps killing all of my characters before I can even get a hit in. I was grinding to level them up..."

He chews aggressively for a moment, then continues, "...but the RNG for good equipment is so bad that it took hours to get even one build right."

"Too bad," says Mammon, absent-mindedly twirling his spoon around his fingers. I'm pretty sure he stopped actually listening to Levi about three words in.

"Actually, Levi, now that you're here," Lucifer interjects, still somehow only about a quarter into his toast, "I have a message for you from Diavolo."

Mr Diavolo? I don't think I've even seen him for at least a week. Wonder what he's been up to.

Levi freezes, nearly dropping his fork. Face rapidly draining of colour, he asks slowly, "...what is it?"

"Well, first of all, he'd like to tell you to refrain from attacking our exchange student in future," Lucifer says, giving Levi a meaningful look. "He seemed rather angry when I told him what happened."

Levi shrinks in on himself, looking even more terrified. I want to give him a pat on the arm or something in solidarity, but I can't reach far enough across the table to do so, so all I can do is offer an encouraging smile when he glances at me with wide eyes.

"Luckily for you, he's decided not to issue any of the punishments I recommended," Lucifer continues with a small smirk, "But he does want you to do something to make up for the transgression. Thus, you'll be helping IK with her first task."

Task? I'd kind of forgotten that I had to do those. Levi looks a little relieved for a moment, then frowns in confusion. "What?"

"There are only seven of them scattered throughout your year," Lucifer says to me. "So you need to make them count. One of us is to help you for each one, so Diavolo's decided that it'll be Levi this time."

So that's seven tasks, presumably for seven brothers - makes sense at first, but there's a bit of an issue here. There's no seventh brother around for the seventh task, so how does that work? I suppose one of them could go twice, but it feels like a bit of an oversight.

I don't know whether bringing up that problem would be a good idea, though. Both Beelzebub and Satan have told me that Lucifer is the one who's forbidden mention of the seventh brother, and I don't think he'd take too kindly to me bringing him up at the breakfast table.

"Your first task is a relatively simple one," Lucifer says, setting down his still only half-eaten slice of toast and folding his arms. "There's a forest close by that houses a multitude of woodland spirits. Your task is to navigate to a certain checkpoint within a given time limit."

So an orienteering activity, basically... and I'm awful at those, so that's not a good sign. "Ah. Is that today, or...?"

"Tomorrow," Lucifer clarifies. "Diavolo will pick you up when the time comes... and, by the way, the task won't be as simple as following a map. The woodland spirits in this particular forest are rather restless, and they have a habit of dragging beings back to their abodes."

"...what do they do with them once they get there?" I ask nervously, not particularly sure if I want to know the answer. Lucifer smiles.

"No one knows," He says. I feel like he's rather enjoying the drama of this whole thing. "And they aren't the only thing you'll need to take into account. One of the other students at R.A.D. will have the same objective, with a different destination - and you need to reach yours before they reach theirs."

"Hang on, hang on," Mammon butts in, beginning to look a little nervous. "What's even the point of all that?"

Lucifer glances at him. "Testing the strength of a human soul and polishing it in the process. I believe you should know that already."

"Yeah, but how's walkin' through a haunted forest supposed to help with that?" Mammon leans forward on the table to look his brother dead in the eye, a frown beginning to form on his face.

"Well, first of all, it isn't just about the forest." Lucifer shakes his head. "These tasks are meant to be a kind of experiment, after all. The idea is that both candidates face the same obstacles along the way - Diavolo wants to see how they deal with them differently. Particularly when it comes to the spirits."

"So what am I supposed to do?" Levi asks uncertainly. "Do I just... follow IK?"

"I suppose so..." Lucifer thinks for a moment. "...Diavolo didn't include any specific instructions for you - apart from that you can only do what IK tells you to."

Levi nods, looking thoughtful. Mammon, meanwhile, looks even more uneasy.

"There's, like, a lifeline, right?" He asks, glancing at me. "If the spirits do start draggin' her off - someone'll get her, right?"

"Barbatos will be watching," Lucifer says, not answering Mammon's question. "Anything that isn't meant to happen won't under his eye."

"Um," I venture, and both Mammon and Lucifer immediately look at me. It's kind of scary how simultaneously they do it. "Sorry, I was just wondering - who's the other demon? The one I'm working against?"

"I believe it's Mephistopheles," Lucifer replies. "Strangely enough, he seemed rather eager to volunteer for the role."

"Mephisto?" repeats Mammon, looking dumbstruck. "Seriously? How's the kid supposed to beat him?"

I look up at him uncertainly. "Is he really good at maps?"

"Mephistopheles is notoriously one of the most cunning students at R.A.D.," Satan answers, apparently tiring of just sitting and watching the conversation happen. "He's far from a harmless eccentric. I've heard he can be quite ruthless when he gets his eyes on a particular prize."

"Oh." That's not really the impression I've been getting from him thus far - he's just kind of been giving me 'weird cousin' vibes - but at the same time, I'm not surprised by what I've learnt either.

"At any rate, you should probably begin considering your plan of action," Lucifer says, returning to his piece of toast. "Levi can only help you effectively if you know how to use his strengths to your benefit. Take that into account."

"Right..." I glance across the table at Levi, who's looking rather pensive. "I will."

The rest of breakfast passes in mostly awkward silence. Mammon doesn't raise any more objections, but he keeps glancing at me, as if worried that the pressure of my upcoming task is just going to crush me right here and now.

Asmodeus and Beelzebub, meanwhile, seem decidedly uninterested in what's going on at all - though I do catch Beelzebub watching me with a small frown for a moment or two. And Levi's gone worryingly still and quiet.

He doesn't say a word for a long while, just staring blankly at his untouched plate as the others start finishing. Beelzebub actually pauses and hovers behind Levi for a moment before he leaves, as if he wants to ask him if he can have his uneaten food - then seems to decide that that's a bad idea and shuffles out.

Lucifer takes his leave, shortly after taking an absolute eternity to finish another slice of toast, and Asmodeus and Satan both wander off without much ceremony on either part. Soon enough, only Mammon, Levi and I remain at the table.

I've eaten about a third of the food Lucifer gave me, but despite being cut up into bite-sized pieces, the meat's so tough that I'm getting tired chewing it, so I've mostly just been eating the purple leaves. They're not awful, but they're also not great - just tasteless. The toast is probably the best part; the butter goes quite well with the sweet potato-like flavour.

Through sheer willpower alone, I've also managed to down most of the coffee Mammon made me. The bitterness got a little easier to stomach after the first few sips, and I guess the incredibly strong flavour cancels out the complete lack of it in the purple leaves.

Mammon, having finished his own breakfast, starts tapping his fork agitatedly against his empty plate. The sound of the metal hitting the porcelain seems to break Levi out of his trance - he suddenly jolts on the spot.

He still doesn't say anything, though. Mammon hits his plate a few more times, then sighs heavily, throwing his fork down on the table and leaning back against his chair.

"I don't like this," He grumbles after a moment. "Don't know what the hell's goin' through Diavolo's head."

I nibble half-heartedly on the end of another leaf. "Is it really that bad?"

"Well, it depends on what spirit ya get," Mammon says, shaking his head. "But it's better not to get involved with 'em at all. They can get real nasty sometimes."

"Well..." I put the still half-eaten leaf back down on my plate and sigh. "It's not like I have a choice. I'm pretty sure the tasks are mandatory."

"Yeah, but why'd Diavolo give ya this one?" He asks, throwing his hands in the air. "Ya can't even do magic!"

I glance over at Levi, who, while no longer looking completely absent, still seems a bit terrified. "...I guess that's why Levi's supposed to help me."

He starts again at his name and raises his head to look at me so quickly that I wouldn't be surprised if he gave himself whiplash. "What?"

"Get ya head out the clouds already," Mammon comments dispassionately, swinging one leg over the other. "You've got a job to do, y'know."

Rather than shoot back a snarky reply like I'd have expected him to, Levi just nods, looking kind of defeated. He leans forward on the table, staring at his plate for a moment, then begins, "I don't even know what I'm supposed to do, though."

"Sure you do," Mammon replies, cocking his head to the side. "You just listen to what the kid tells ya. And make sure the spirits don't drag her off, understand?"

Levi shakes his head, still looking distressed. "No, I mean... even if IK tells me what to do, how am I supposed to fight woodland spirits? You can't even touch them!"

"We could try talking to them," I offer. Mammon and Levi both give me incredulous looks.

"Talk to those guys" Mammon scoffs. "You'd be better off talkin' to a brick wall. Buggers don't listen to anyone."

I nod, a little crestfallen. Levi taps his fingers agitatedly on the table, then shakes his head and plants his forehead firmly against it. His plate rattles.

"I'm not even that strong," He mumbles into the tablecloth. "Why did this have to happen?"

"You're third, though," I point out as he sighs miserably. "Doesn't that mean you're third most powerful?"

He pauses for a moment, then somehow manages to shake his head against the table. The tablecloth bunches around his head. "I shouldn't be. I'm only really powerful at sea..."

"Hey, that's just a lie," Mammon says, reaching over and flicking Levi roughly in the head. "You're always summonin' Lotan right here at the House. It's not like ya need water to do your thing."

"Lotan?" I repeat. "What's that?"

Levi doesn't seem to be interested in answering, so Mammon does instead. "He's, like, this giant sea beast thing with these crazy water powers. Levi can summon him whenever he likes - he always listens to him."

I blink and look over at Levi, who's still got his face smushed against the table. "Really? Levi, you know that's really cool, right?"

He slowly lifts his head and looks at me. There's a giant red mark in the middle of his forehead. "...huh?"

"I don't think even Godzilla could do that," I say. Though he did have atomic breath and stuff. Plus he was absolutely massive. "Is it a demon thing?"

"Nah, it's just a Levi thing," Mammon answers. "Diavolo made him the Grand Admiral of the Devildom navy a while back, actually."

"Fat lot of use that is when the navy doesn't do anything," Levi sighs, still downtrodden. "It's just a title."

"Isn't the reason you got the title still valid, though?" I ask, attempting to comfort him. "A knife's still sharp even if you're not using it to chop anything."

Mammon frowns, scratching absent-mindedly behind his ear. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It was meant to be a metaphor," I mumble, looking down for a moment. "I guess it didn't work—"

"No, I think got it," Levi interrupts, suddenly perking up. Mammon looks at him surprise as he sits up straight, pressing his hands together. "Actually, it reminds me this of this thing - it's about a warlord living in a time of peace, and it's all about how he feels like he's totally useless now that there isn't a war for him to be a lord in, and they make a huge deal about how his sworn brother helps him see that all his skills are still just as valuable without the need to put them to battle..."

He trails off, staring off into the distance with much brighter eyes. Mammon watches him for a moment, then turns to me and mutters in an undertone, "Did ya get any of that?"

"I think so," I mumble back.

He shakes his head. "Seriously? I lost track as soon as he started talkin'."

"Shut up, Mammon," Levi abruptly snaps, standing up so quickly that he nearly knocks his plate off the table. "IK, c'mon!"

"Oi!" Mammon barks as Levi rounds the table and basically hoists me out of my chair by the arms. "What're ya doing?!"

"Going to plan for the task, obviously," Levi shoots back, pausing on the spot. I attempt to get my feet back on solid ground, but he's holding me so high that they can't reach. Just how light am I to the demons down here? "We've got less than twenty four hours."

Mammon glances at me. I pull a helpless face at him. "Can't ya just plan here?"

I hear rustling, which I assume is Levi shaking his head, since I can't actually see him. "No. We need to think quick, and just being around you is probably making us dumber."

"You—" Mammon jumps to his feet, eyes narrowing into a glare. "What's that supposed to mean?!"

"It means I'm calling you dumb," Levi replies sarcastically. "Or are you too stupid to realise that as well?"

"Uh," I intervene before Mammon can retaliate, attempting to turn around to look at Levi, "Can we not do that?"

Rather than put me down, Levi decides to lean forward and crane his neck to the side to meet my gaze. "Not do what?"

"Being really mean to Mammon," I say, getting quieter by the moment under Levi's frown. I don't know how to express myself without sounding patronising, like a nursery teacher trying to get the toddlers to stop fighting. "It's not very nice."

He stares at me for a moment, then glances over at Mammon, who's now hovering uncertainly on the spot. Finally, he shakes his head. "Whatever."

Without so much as a goodbye, he turns around and starts walking out of the dining room, still carrying me along with such ease that I might as well just be a little bag of flour. I attempt to glance back at Mammon, who sets up a protest at Levi's sudden retreat, but finally seems to give up as he realises that his brother isn't budging - he just mouths at me to remember to activate the pact mark if something goes wrong.

Levi takes a right-turn to the library, where he finally lets me stand on my own two feet again. After some initial awkward back-and-forth about what the best plan of action would be, he pulls a giant encyclopaedia off one of the shelves and sits down on one of the sofas, then beckons me over.

"I don't know a whole lot about woodland spirits," He says, flipping through the book until he finds the right page, and shifting it sideways so that I can get a good look at it as well. "But this should help, right?"

"Right," I nod, perching beside him. The section on woodland spirits is just one double-page spread, but the font is so small that it looks like it probably fits a novella's worth of writing. "Is there anything we could use to ward them off? Like a charm, or a talisman...?"

"Well, an angel's blessing might work," Levi says thoughtfully. "Since that just repels evil in general. But I don't know if you're allowed to get help from the other exchange students, so..."

"That makes sense," I mumble, leaning over to read the words more clearly. "...this is all really vague."

"Yeah, no one knows much about spirits in general." He pushes the book a little closer to me as I almost fall off the edge of the sofa trying to read it. "Apparently there are denominations and rankings and everything, but that's for nerds. And no demon's been able to get close enough for long enough to really find out anything."

I huff. My chances for succeeding in my task - or getting out of the forest alive at all - are beginning to look rather slim.

I scan through the rest of the double page spread. Among other things, they have invulnerability to all corporeal attacks, the ability to drift between one dimension and the next at will, some kind of soul-sucking magic that they use to drag beings off into the nether world, and can probably hypnotise anything that can hear them whispering.

I, on the other hand, have a demon who can summon a sea monster, and my own supremely unimpressive judgement.

"What exactly can Lotan do?" I ask, looking up at Levi. He thinks for a moment.

"Well, it depends on how he's feeling," He begins, counting on his fingers, "But he can spit water really hard, he can bash things with his heads, and he can make giant whirlpools... but they're not super effective on land."

All attacks that would require actually hitting the target for them to work... and woodland spirits are completely incorporeal. I'm beginning to think that Diavolo just wants me dead.

Levi and I continue to attempt to strategise with what time we have left, but neither of us are exactly masterminds, so our plan mostly just involves running away and covering our ears if we start hearing voices. It's rudimentary, but I'm pretty sure that's how the coalition ended up beating Napoleon, and if it worked against him, surely it'll work against some woodland spirits?

Then again, Napoleon was still human. Smacking him over the head with a hammer would still kill him. The spirits, on the other hand...

By the time the next day comes and the doorbell rings, signalling that it's time to go, I've already silently gone through the 'oh no' and 'oh fuck' level of panic, which means I've gone all the way down to 'fuck it'. I'm mostly past caring by now, so all I feel is a sort of distant serenity.

Levi, on the other hand, having somehow been motivated by my attempt at a pep talk though convoluted metaphor, is beginning to approach 'oh no' - and appears to lose his nerve as soon as we open the door to see Diavolo waiting on the front step.

"Morning, IK," He says cheerfully. I can't tell if he's ignoring Levi, or if he genuinely hasn't spotted him standing behind me. "No long time, no see, eh?"

He looks me over for a moment, then smiles. "You seem unharmed."

I attempt a smile and spread my arms briefly, shaking them about to demonstrate my lack of wounds. "Yep."

"I'm glad," He nods, smile widening as he stands back so that Levi and I can exit the House of Lamentation. "I don't know what I'd do if you'd gotten hurt so early in the year."

I glance up at Levi, who's gone bone-white, and give him a subtle little pat on the arm. "...right."

"I must say, there's a certain degree of impressiveness to it," Diavolo says as we begin to walk, this time addressing Levi, who looks up at him like a deer in headlights. "You must have unconsciously restrained yourself if you managed to lose control without maiming. Well, I'd still prefer you didn't attack at all, but..."

Levi blinks at him, then glances at me with a bewildered look on his face. I shrug back at him; I can only assume that Lucifer didn't tell Diavolo that I was indeed quite maimed, in an effort to spare Levi a little of his wrath. After all, there aren't any injuries left to prove him wrong.

"...in any case, I'm willing to let it go," Diavolo continues, folding his arms and regarding Levi with a stern look on his face. "But just this once. Don't let it happen again in future."

Levi nods rapidly, apparently too intimidated to speak, which I can sympathise with. I go to say something, then pause as I hear a dull thud from somewhere behind me.

Levi and Diavolo stop walking as well. I turn around to follow the source of the sound - it takes me a moment, but then I spot it. There are two vague white and yellowish blurs moving about in one of the first floor windows.

I take a step closer, squinting, and the blurs sharpens into two things that are distinctly Mammon- and Satan-shaped. Mammon is sending me an enthusiastic thumbs up, mouth moving as if he's saying something, while Satan is simply watching me with an expression that I can barely even see from this distance.

Raising my hand, I wave back at them. Mammon returns it with twice as much fervour, while Satan simply raises a single hand in response.

"Does that window not open?" Diavolo asks as I turn back around and we start making our way down the path in earnest.

"Lucifer locked all the windows upstairs last week," Levi says after a moment, seeing as someone has to answer the question and I wouldn't know the answer. "It's supposed to be a precaution or something."

It takes me a hot second to realise what he means. "...does he think I'm going to fall out one if he doesn't?"

Levi shrugs. "Maybe. I don't have any windows, so I don't care, but Asmo's been complaining that he isn't getting enough fresh air."

I've never even been in Asmodeus's room, so I don't see why Lucifer seems to think I'm going to find a way to lob myself out the window in it. Does my room even have windows? I don't think it does. Well, I guess there's no daylight to let in...

"Well, it's good to hear that he's taking measures to ensure our exchange student's safety," Diavolo chuckles, clapping me on the shoulder. I stumble slightly, but manage to keep my balance. "Do remember to thank him, IK."

"I will," I mumble. He smiles, looking pleased.

Diavolo and I have a relatively cordial conversation for the remainder of our walk to the forest that may well be my doom. Levi chimes into every now and then, but he spends the majority of the journey staring at his feet. 

Diavolo seems to be in a good mood this morning - then again, I don't think I've ever seen him not in a good mood - and he seems to take great joy in pointing out the many winged creatures coasting about above us. To be honest, I'm just as enthralled as he seems to be. It really is beautiful.

The Devildom's sky is a shade of deep, inky blue, studded with a blanket of multi-coloured stars and overlooked by a single, massive moon. They provide enough light that the lack of sun doesn't really matter, but it does still mean that I have trouble making out the animals Diavolo's pointing out to me, unless they're flying right in front of the moon.

He seems to find my squinting extremely funny - and, if I didn't know better, I'd think he was deliberately selecting the most darkness-shrouded creatures on purpose. Every time I scrunch up my face and crane my neck up to get a better look, he looks positively delighted. I don't think it's malicious, but even so, it feels a little like he's pointing and laughing.

Apparently, on some days, you can spot a dragon up there if you're lucky. As soon as he tells me that, I focus my eyes firmly on the sky - which, unfortunately, does not increase my luck by any fraction. It does increase my tripping rate by a large factor, though, so Diavolo has to keep steadying me.

I'd apologise, but I'm too busy looking out for dragons. He doesn't seem to mind; in fact, he seems to find it even more amusing than the squinting. He seems even more ecstatic when I very nearly fall on my face and audibly mutter 'whoops-a-daisy' to myself. 

I don't even know why I did that - it's not like it's a usual part of my vocabulary - I think being around Diavolo just puts me in an oddly whimsical frame of mind. Either way, Diavolo's so charmed by the phrase that he keeps repeating it to himself for about five minutes afterwards.

Throughout it all, Levi stays quiet and doesn't react in the slightest. To be fair, I think that might be because he looks like he's in the middle of ascending to a different plane out of stress.

We get to the forest in what feels like very little time at all. And it looks pretty much exactly like what I was expecting - mysterious mist with deep green undertones, unnaturally tall and thin trees with no leaves that look like clawed hands reaching up to the sky, and a very distinct feeling of being watched.

I half-expect to see a sinister vine-creature of some kind come lumbering out of the fog. I don't think I'd even be surprised if the trees started clawing at me.

"Are the, uh.... spirits... further in?" I ask. Levi edges a little closer to me, trembling slightly.

"Of course not," Diavolo says with a jovial chuckle, raising his hand to point. "That's them there."

I follow his finger, only to see nothing. A split second later, I realise what he means, and a heavy sense of doom immediately descends on me like a vulture on a carcass. "...you mean all that mist?"

"Indeed," He replies with a proud sort of nod, still somehow completely chipper - then again, he's not the one getting sent into the murder forest. 

He fumbles in his pocket for a moment, then passes me a folded-up piece of paper marked with a number one. "Oh - and here's your map."

I have to physically force myself to close my fingers around the paper. So the spirits I'm going to be dealing with aren't so much individual spectres as they are one giant mass that spreads throughout the entire forest... in conclusion, I am absolutely dead.

"But— but that can't be right!" Levi splutters, somehow going even paler. At this rate he looks as if he's running out of blood entirely. Do demons even have blood? "Woodland spirits are supposed to be, like... ghost deer or something!"

"Only truly powerful woodland spirits actually take a recognisable form," Diavolo says, shaking his head. "You could call the mist a 'soup' of the weaker ones. They won't pose much of a threat - especially not to you, Leviathan. So don't worry."

"What do they do?" I ask nervously, now shuffling a little closer to Levi myself. At the rate the two of us are going, we're going to end up smushed against each other within three more scary-sounding sentences.

"Nothing in particular," Diavolo says nonchalantly. "Woodland spirits feed off of spiritual energy, much like Puffballs do off magical energy, but those over there aren't strong enough to take much at all. Just think of it as... building up your soul's immunity."

Somehow I doubt that this process has been nearly as rigorously tested as vaccines are. Besides, what's all this about spirit energy? That sounds like another kettle of fish entirely. "...what if we meet one of the really strong ones?"

"That's what we're planning to see," He replies, setting his hands on his hips with a smile. "I'm quite interested in observing the differences between how you and your rival demon choose to deal with them."

"Didn't you just say that you 'wouldn't know what to do' if IK got hurt?!" Levi bursts, his voice echoing around us. "Isn't sending her into a forest full of spirits trying to eat her soul risking getting her hurt?"

Diavolo raises his eyebrows and cocks his head to the side almost innocently. "Well, that's what you're here for, isn't it?"

"Wh—" Levi throws his hands in the air, now beginning to look more angry than scared, "What am I supposed to do?! Woodland spirits can't even be touched! The only thing I could do is use my body as a shield or something!"

"Actually, the woodland spirit would just pass through you if you—" Diavolo begins, then stops as Levi lets out an incoherent, distressed sort of yell.

I understand the feeling. If I wasn't the way I was, I'd probably do the same. Aside from generally being scared of what's going to happen in that mist, I'm also failing to see any logic in Diavolo's plan here. Here I thought he was just a really nice guy, but his constant happiness is beginning to feel rather sinister in hindsight.

And between the 'peace between realms' plan and the 'demons versus humans experiment' plan, I don't think he realises that he can't really combine the two at the same time. They're just not very compatible - how are you supposed to create a friendly relationship with a realm when you're sending that realm's people into murder forests for the heck of it?

Well, I guess it isn't just for the heck of it, but still. Come on, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

"Hey, hey, what's going on?" comes a do-no-good voice, and I turn to see Mephisto approaching with his usual lopsided grin. It takes me a moment to recognise him - he's dressed like a glamorous internet celebrity.

He's also wearing a pair of Elton John-esque pink sunglasses that he lowers as he comments, "Aren't we quiet. Some poor sap die over here?"

"Ah, Mephistopheles," Diavolo acknowledges, though he seems none too pleased to see him. "Do you have your map on you?"

He perches his sunglasses on his head and pats down his clothes, then shrugs. "No pockets. Whoops."

Diavolo sighs, but seems unsurprised. He reaches into his own pocket and pulls out another folded-up piece of paper marked with the number two, then passes it to Mephisto, who immediately stuffs it down the front of his shirt.

"...well," Diavolo says after a long moment of slightly perplexed silence, "Since you're all here, you can start the task whenever you like."

"Right..." Mephisto nods dismissively. He's about ten times as weird out of school as he is in it, and he was already kind of an oddball to begin with.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't admire his style, though. He pulls his sunglasses back down. "So I just follow the map and deal with the spirits how I like, yeah?"

"Correct," Diavolo says, watching Mephisto cautiously as he shakes his hair out of his eyes, camera rattling noisily as he does so.

"Great," He replies, turning and flipping up the lenses of his sunglasses to give me a wink. I didn't realise they did that, and the sight is so unexpected that I nearly burst into hysterical laughter on the spot.

One glance at the trees in front of me is enough to sober me up again, though. Mephisto folds the lenses back down with a click and seems to think for a moment. Then, without so much as a goodbye, he turns and starts walking off in a random direction into the trees. 

He doesn't even bother with checking the map. Just before his figure disappears into the mist entirely, I hear him call out, "Good luck, tiny!"

Diavolo  heaves a sigh from behind me. I turn to exchange mildly terrified looks with Levi.

I have a bad feeling about this.

Chapter Text

"I think I'm going to be sick," Levi mutters miserably.

I pull the map away from my face and squint up at him. He does indeed look rather greener around the gills than usual.

"There's a pressure point in your wrist that might help," I offer. His eyes are almost glowing through the fog, which is a little unsettling. "Well, humans do. I don't know if demons do as well."

He shakes his head and pulls the collar of his shirt over his mouth to take a deep breath, as if he might inhale a woodland spirit from the open air. "Probably not. Thanks, though, I guess..."

I nod and turn back to the map again. The fog is so thick that I have to hold it about two inches away from my face to see it clearly.

We've been in the murder forest for what feels like hours already (though it's probably only been about twenty minutes), and I'm just about at my wit's end. Every tree we pass looks the same, and the fog is about as helpful as a hedgehog trying to make balloon animals. No matter how much progress we seem to be making according to the map, it still doesn't feel like we've gone anywhere.

It isn't really the navigation that's the problem. The path itself is paved with some colourful pebbles and lined with luminescent blue flowers - it's so easy to follow that it doesn't really feel like an orienteering activity at all. It's more just a really long walk. 

The main problem is really the fog. And the general everything about the forest around us.

Even ignoring that it's made up of spirits that are gradually leeching off the energy of my soul or something - though the path's direction is easy to follow, there are still trees in the way, so I have to take every step as cautiously as possible. It's like walking through a corridor with enormous telephone poles sticking up here and there along it - plus it's pitch black, and I don't know where any of those telephone poles are.

Levi's been getting steadily antsier the further we trek into the forest, and going by his constant fearful comments every forty seconds or so, he's about one scare from turning and running for the hills. No hideous monsters have leapt out from the undergrowth to maul us, but the constant dread is almost as bad. And, even though the area around us is as silent as a graveyard, it still feels like someone's watching us.

Lucifer did say earlier that Barbatos would be presiding over the whole task in case anything went wrong, but this doesn't feel like the eye of a supervisor. It feels more like the eye of a tiger on the prowl - of a hunter who's securing his target. 

Well, it's probably something closer to a couple thousand eyes, depending on how many spirits there are making up this fog. And those eyes are hungry.

Diavolo said that they were too weak to really eat up enough energy to be a threat, and maybe that's how it is for demons (though the fact that Levi looks so ill makes me question that), but I'm pretty sure that I only have about a third of the energy that I first entered the forest with. Judging by the map, we still have at least half of the path left to follow. What happens if I just pass out on our way there?

I don't know what sort of kick Diavolo gets out of putting us through this, and I don't see how this is going to polish my soul in the long run, either. Does same logic that we apply to strengthening muscles apply to souls? 

Something about creating tears in your muscles when you work out that then heal into stronger muscle - is that how souls get stronger too? Because there's also a whole bunch of stuff about being sure to take care of your body when you exercise intensively, and we didn't exactly do any soul warm-ups.

I heave a sigh and pause to stretch out my rapidly cramping legs. Levi stops as well, picking nervously at his nails as he looks back and forth, clearly half-expecting some kind of Eldritch horror to start running at us through the trees at any moment.

"I hate this," He mutters for about the tenth time since we entered the forest. "I wanna go home..."

I sigh and nod. "Yeah, I feel you."

He reaches up to scratch rapidly at the back of his neck. Through the fog, I see his eyes narrow. "It's your fault that I have to be here in the first place. Don't start pitying me now."

"Oh... right." I quickly avert my eyes back to the map. "Sorry."

We both go silent as we start walking again, with Levi slowing down slightly, so that I'm walking a few paces ahead of him. My gaze stays focused firmly on the map as well, so I can't see what he's doing at all, but I can hear a bunch of rustling, as if he's just constantly fidgeting.

"...no, it's okay," He mumbles at last, and I turn to look back up at him. He's shaking his head. "Sorry. I'm just kind of stressed here... you don't need to look so sad."

Do I look sad? I smile at him, but I don't know if he can see it through the fog from up there. "It's alright."

He nods and falls into step beside me again, still fiddling with his fingers and looking back and forth. A few moments later, he bursts, "Why isn't anything happening?!"

I pause again. He's dragging his fingers through his hair restlessly, practically hopping on the spot out of fearful frustration. "It's too quiet! I thought there were meant to be actual challenges or something! Not... this!"

His voice echoes around us too many times before finally fading into the trees. I pull uneasily on the ends of my sleeves. "Well, if nothing actually dangerous show up, isn't that better for us?"

"I guess..." He doesn't look any more relaxed. "...but there's no way Lord Diavolo's gonna let us get off that easy. There has to be something bigger hiding in this forest..."

"If you're looking for something bigger, there's something just ahead," calls a voice from above.

Levi starts and nearly throws himself headfirst into a tree - but, to be honest, I'd been anticipating this voice ever since we stepped foot into the forest. If there's one thing that I've picked up about Mephisto throughout our now-numerous scattered interactions, it's that he loves being places.

I look up in the direction of his voice, assuming that I'm going to be seeing him hanging upside from one of the branches as he likes to do -then reel back, stunned. He is hanging from a tree a couple of metres away, but he appears to have been... hammered to it. 

Literally. What looks like a wooden stake of some kind is sticking out of his upper left chest, and it's keeping him firmly anchored to the trunk.

"Are... are you alright?"

There isn't any blood (which is weird in and of itself, but whatever, demons, I guess) but the stake is just so clearly in a place where it shouldn't be that I can't help but feel queasy. At the same time, though, I can't pull my eyes away from the scene.

Mephisto hums and folds his arms. He doesn't look pained or even bothered in the slightest. "Yeah. Could be better, though."

Levi, finally recovering, follows me and squints up at Mephisto, then immediately leaps back in shock again. "W-what the—?!"

"Hey, do I really look that bad?" Mephisto jokes. His pink sunglasses fall onto his face, and he attempts to reach up to adjust them, but the stake gets in the way of his arm, so he just leaves them there.

"Are you really sure you're alright?" I ask again, still rather concerned.

"Well, no, but if I say so I won't look as cool," He sighs, attempting to get his sunglasses out of his face by flicking his head up and down. The motion jostles them off his face entirely, and they land by my feet with a sad little thump. "Pick those up for me, will you? They're designer."

They just feel like cheap plastic when I do as he says, but I'll take his word for it. "How do we get you down from there?"

Mephisto snickers. "Well, you don't if you're smart. Isn't the whole point of the task that you're supposed to beat me? That'll be a lot easier if I'm out of the competition entirely."

"I don't think the victory would count if you died."

He gives a full on guffaw at that, throwing his head back with a loud 'HA!'. The movement seems to disturb the stake still sticking out of his chest, and he abruptly pauses, wincing.

"I won't die, " He says after taking a deep breath or two. "Hurts like hell, but it's not nearly enough to kill me. Just go ahead and take the easy victory, eh? That's the demon way of doing things."

It takes me about half a second to reach my decision in regards to that. "And what if... I don't want to do it the demon way?"

"Well - you do know that you'll probably lose if you let me down, right?"

"Eh. It's not like I wasn't going to lose anyway." I approach the tree that he's pinned to and inspecting the trunk for any foot and hand-holds. "So just think of it as if you weren't stuck up there in the first place."

"That's an odd way to do things," He says with a chuckle. Then he cranes his neck to to get a better look at me, and his smile fades. "Hey, hey, what're you doing?"

"IK, that's a really bad idea," Levi interrupts, setting a hand on my shoulder as I go to hoist myself up onto the trunk. "He's way too high up. You could die if you fell from all the way up there."

I look up at Mephisto's dangling feet. He does indeed look a lot higher up now that I'm directly beneath him, but I wouldn't say that he's at a fatal height. I'm pretty sure I've seen playground monkey bars higher up than that - although I've never been able to complete a set of monkey bars before, high or not. 

Nor have I ever climbed a tree, actually. But I've relied on adrenaline to get through plenty of things before, so why not now?

"I can make it," I say uncertainly. "I'm pretty sure I'd only break a bone if I fell from that high."

Levi's hand immediately lands on my shoulder again, and keeps me firmly on the ground as I reach forward again. "Are you stupid? Stop trying to climb the tree!"

"Well, how else are we supposed to get him down?"

"At least tell me to go up there!" Levi exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air. "I'm totally dead if you get hurt on my watch!"

He pauses to take a breath, then abruptly adds, "But, uh - don't tell me to do that. I don't know how to climb trees."

"You could just leave me here," Mephisto calls down. "Like I said, you're much more likely to win if you do."

Levi wrinkles his nose and looks up at him. "What's up with you? You're always super competitive."

"It's hard to stay competitive when you've got a spike sticking out of you. Or is it really so hard to believe that I want my little friend to do well in her task?"

"Stop calling me little," I mutter mutinously, but Levi shakes his head with a sneer.

"You don't care about anyone," He replies, pulling me away from the trunk of the tree and half-shielding me, as if Mephisto's going to start throwing poison darts down at us. "If you actually want IK to win, then you've probably got some other reason for it."

Mephisto just laughs in response, neither in confirmation nor denial. "Well, it's true that I can't eat a human who's already gotten herself eaten up by woodland spirits..."

He cocks his head to the side and grins his usual lopsided grin. "...but our friend here could still lose without doing that. Believe it or not, I do care."

Levi stares up at him for a moment, looking as if he's on the cusp of relenting, then abruptly shakes his head. "Doubt it. How do we know you're not planning on, like, sacrificing us to whatever stuck you up there so that you can get away?"

"Well, I can't exactly move right now," Mephisto says dryly. "So it wouldn't be much of a getaway."

"Levi," I whisper, tugging on his sleeve as he opens his mouth to make a rebuttal. He pauses and leans sideways a little so that he can hear me more clearly. "Come on, can we just help him? Please?"

He starts to pull away, already frowning, but then he pauses and looks down at me. I try to look as earnest as possible, but I'm pretty sure I just look like I'm about to cry - which I might be, because I'm beginning to get a little stressed.

"...how are we supposed to do that?" He asks finally. That's not a 'no', so I breathe a sigh of relief.

"Well, if we can't climb up there..." I look up at Mephisto again. He's fiddling about with the camera still somehow hung intact around his neck, and he appears to be lining it up to take a selfie. "Are there any spells that might help?"

Levi thinks half-heartedly for a moment, then shakes his head. "I'm not good with spells. That's Satan's thing."

"It's my thing too, you know," Mephisto calls, grinning. Something black and almost tar-like is beginning to drip out of his mouth, which doesn't seem like a good sign. He coughs, and a glob of it splatters a few inches away from Levi's foot.

I take a few steps back and eye it warily as it seems to melt into the ground beneath it, hissing aggressively. "Is... is that your blood?"

"Demon version of it, I guess," Mephisto replies, attempting a very small shrug, completely unfazed by the internal injuries he probably has. "We don't need it to survive like you humans need blood, though. It's just kind of there. Don't mind it."

"That's gross ," Levi comments, placing a healthy distance between himself and the still hissing glob of black blood. "Why's it so thick ?"

"Probably because I haven't been eating my veg or something," Mephisto says dismissively. "Indigestion or whatever. Anyway, about spells?"

...I don't think that's what indigestion is. "Right, uh, spells... do you know one that might help?"

"Well, I know a whole bunch, but who knows if either of you'll be able to cast them?" Mephisto shakes his head. "You don't have any magic at all, and Leviathan here doesn't show up to class nearly enough to know his stuff."

"I take the lessons online!" Levi protests, folding his arms. "I know the material! And you're one to talk - didn't you miss a whole month once?"

"That wasn't though any choice of my own," Mephisto says reproachfully. "They don't let you out of jail to go to school."

I stare at him. "You went to jail?"

"Yeah, it turns out that not some rich old demons don't like it when you break into their houses."

"You're making me want to get you down from there even less every time you speak," Levi says flatly. "And I didn't want to get you down in the first place, so keep your mouth shut."

Mephisto doesn't listen to him. "Hey, it's not like I asked you to get me down. I'd much rather you left me up here, actually."

"That's not an option," I say, incredulous, pointing over at the black blood he coughed up earlier. It's still hissing, but less violently now. "I'm pretty sure you've got internal bleeding or something."

"And I'm pretty sure I told you that blood isn't important to us demons," Mephisto sighs, "But I suppose there isn't any getting you to back down. Go on, then, do you have any brilliant ideas?"

I glance around at the trees around us, thinking hard. Unfortunately, the more I try to think, the blanker my mind becomes. I sigh and rake a hand through my hair, feeling frustration begin to bubble at the pit of my stomach.

"Let's just leave him, IK," Levi groans, folding his arms. "He's even worse than Mammon. He isn't worth helping."

I feel a spark of irritation.He's insulting Mammon for quite literally no reason at all (he isn't even here). Not to mention he's being mostly unhelpful. "It'd be pretty nice to have around right now, actually. He says he can fly in demon form."

Levi pulls back slightly, and I suddenly remember who I'm talking to. I hurry to clarify, "I'm not saying that you're bad. I just meant, uh... that his flying would be very convenient. If he was here. Which he isn't, but that's fine! You'll be, um, good. As well."

Silence. Levi stares at me for a long moment, and I'm just beginning to think that I've undone all the progress I've made with him when he snorts and shakes his head.

"I'm not that fragile," He mumbles, giving me an awkward sort of half-pat, half-punch on the shoulder. "You don't need to be all careful like that."

"Hey," Mephisto interrupts a little plaintively before I can answer. "If you are going to get me down, can you do it a little sooner than later? This whole thing's kind of ruining my day."

"You were the one who said not to," Levi shoots back with a disdainful sort of expression, but he takes a step backwards to take the scene in fully nevertheless. "Well, if you're so desperate, do you have any ideas?"

Mephisto makes a show out of thinking, making a long and exaggerated sound of contemplation. Then he says meditatively, "No."

Levi groans and mutters something under his breath - then I abruptly clap my hands together with a sound that echoes like a whip-crack across the stretch of forest around us. Mephisto and Levi both wince, one a lot more dramatically than the other.

"Sorry," I say, lowering my voice as if that'll help. "But, uh, I just had this idea - Levi, you know your tail? Do you think it's strong enough to chop the tree down?"

"Hold on," Mephisto says, fear beginning to creep into his voice for the first time since we came across him. "What are you—?"

"Maybe," Levi cuts him off, ignoring him entirely. "But I don't know how strong this tree is. And we might end up pissing off the tree spirits or something."

"Oh, good point..." I don't like the idea of just destroying nature like that, either, come to think of it. I turn and look up at Mephisto. "Do you know any spells we could use to fix it afterwards?"

"I guess..." He's beginning to sound genuinely apprehensive now. "Is that your plan? Knock down the tree? Did you meet Alecto while I wasn't looking?"

"Well, we can't get up to you, so you're just going to have to come down to us," I say matter-of-factly. "So unless the tree's bendy enough that we can pull you down without snapping it, the only way to get you down is to just break it."

"Nothing to lose, I guess," says Levi, shaking out his limbs. His transformation is so seamless that it's almost as if he was just like that the whole time - one blink and there are horns sticking out from his head and a scaly tail spiraling from his back. "If I wrap it around the thinner bit here..."

"Why do your clothes change when you go demon form?" I ask as he curls his tail around the trunk. The wood creaks ever so quietly as he tightens its grip. It gets louder as he squeezes harder, and his face is getting a lot redder as well.

"Dunno," He says, sounding incredibly strained. "It's just... a thing that happens..."

He goes quiet, eyes screwing shut in concentration. His entire tail trembles with effort, and the trunk gives one last, enormous creak before splintering in on itself. The top part of the trunk, having been severed from the bottom, teeters back and forth for a moment, and I'm hit by the sudden realisation that, if it falls forward, it's going to crush all three of us.

My hand shoots out on instinct, and I give the trunk an enormous push. It topples backwards and lands with an unexpectedly muted crash.

Levi's tail, having swiftly unwrapped itself from around the trunk as soon as the tree began falling, wavers about for a moment, then disappears along with his horns. His new clothes are replaced with the ones from before again as well, and, with a quick sweep of his hand through his hair, he looks as if he never transformed in the first place.

"Huh," comes Mephisto's voice from over by the top of the fallen tree trunk. "I guess it worked."

I quickly pick my way over to him. He doesn't seem to have gotten any further injuries, at least. "Are you okay?"

"Like I said before, could be better," He says, then jerks his head down at the stake in his chest. "Could you get this out for me?"

"Oh... right..." I glance over at Levi for help, but he just shrugs and motions at me to do it myself. I guess he did just do all of the hard work getting the tree down, but I still don't really want to do this bit. "Is it really going to hurt?"

"Nah, I'll be fine," He wheezes as I set my hands on the stake. Even that seems to be putting him in pain, so I'm not sure I believe him, but the stake does need to come out... so I guess I don't have much choice.

I secure my grip. Whispering a silent prayer to no one in particular - though probably not to God - I screw my eyes shut, then pull as hard as I can.

The stake comes out of Mephisto's chest smoothly, accompanied by an awful squelching sound that makes my entire body go stiff. I hesitantly open my eyes - and almost keel over right then and there.

"Oh, gross!" Levi dry-retches from somewhere behind me. I understand why, too.

There's a horrifically large hole gaping in the upper left of Mephisto's chest, weakly spurting the same gloopy black blood he coughed up earlier. Far from dying of blood loss on the spot, though, Mephisto just blows out a long, heavy sigh.

"Whoo," He murmurs with a half-hearted raise of his hand. "At least it's out. That's a mess and a half, though."

I wave my hands about uselessly above his wound, wondering if there's some way I can close it up. All I'm doing is wafting air at it, really, though. "Wh-what do we do? Isn't Mr Barbatos supposed to be watching us? We should call him, this looks really bad..."

"Hey, calm down, squirt," Mephisto chuckles, reaching up and flicking me in the arm. "You're acting like I'm dying."

I fling my hands about in an effort to convey to him just how bad he looks right now. "You might be!"

"I'm not," He says, raising a hand to his wound. The palm is glowing like Simeon's were back when he healed my knee, except the glow is a deep purple. "Seriously. Look, it's already closing up."

"What?" I watch with bated breath as he lifts his hand for a second. The hole isn't completely gone, but it looks much smaller now - it looks more like Mephisto's just been stabbed with a knife, rather than blasted through with a cannon ball. "Oh..."

Now that the wound is a little less nauseating to look at, Levi comes closer. "What even nailed you up there in the first place?"

"Woodland spirit, obviously," Mephisto replies in a 'duh' sort of tone. "About so big."

Neither of his hands move. I wait for him to do or say something else, but he doesn't.

"...you didn't actually show us how big," I say carefully.

"Yeah, my hand's kind of busy right now," He sighs. "Plus it's way too big for me to show you with just my arms. See that tree over there?"

Again, his hands remain stationary, and neither his eyes nor his head moves at all to indicate what he's talking about. Levi looks around, then, seemingly at random, points at a particularly thick one that reaches so high into the sky that I can't even see where it ends.

"That one?" He asks.

"Precisely," Mephisto says, nodding sagely. He isn't even looking in that direction. "The spirit's at least twice the size of that."

I glance over at the tree Levi chose. "...as in height or width?"

"Yes," He replies firmly, then pauses. "...hmm. Maybe I'm concussed."

"No, you're not." Levi says flatly.

"Aren't I? More fool you." Mephisto waves his free hand about vaguely in Levi's direction. "Didn't you just see the massive tree fall down with me still on it? Shockwaves, they do things. You trying to tell me what I'm feeling? IK, IK, listen to this nutcase. I'm being oppressed here."

"You're the real nutcase," Levi shoots back, looking annoyed. "You were fine just a minute ago. And you didn't even hit your head."

"Ooh, look at Mr Clever over here!" Mephisto whistles, shifting slightly and sticking his right leg out. 

As I watch in half-disbelief, he hooks his right foot around one of Levi's ankle and deftly knocks it out from beneath him. Levi starts toppling for a split second, then catches himself, fixing Mephisto with the kind of poisonous glare that could melt diamond.

"Quit it!" He growls, looking dangerously close to bursting into demon form again - except this time it'd be a lot more uncontrolled. "I'm done with your stupid games, you—!"

"Mephisto, are you really sure you're concussed?" I ask, cutting off the host of colourful language that Levi was undoubtedly about to deploy. He glares at me for a split second, then seems to calm down, shaking his head to himself, "I've never heard of an, uh.... self-aware concussion patient before."

"I feel it," Mephisto says with some satisfaction. "On the horizon. And the horizon... it's deep. Like a soup bowl."

I really don't think either of those things are true. "....right."

"Deep," He mumbles, his words suddenly beginning to quieten and slur together. "And dark. Like..."

He trails off, beckoning to me about twenty times in quick succession. I lean forward slightly, wondering exactly what he's going to say; almost as soon as I start making the motion, his eyes flash up to meet mine, and I suddenly feel like I've just made an enormous mistake.

"...like blood," He says finally, his voice low. I stare at him in rapidly-growing unease.

Levi, now a good few feet away again, shifts his weight to one foot and cocks his head to the side. "What?"

Mephisto doesn't pay him any mind. He meets my gaze with unblinking eyes, and, in an instant, his pupils dilate against his pale violet irises, like a cat zeroing in on its target.

I jerk back, but it's too late. He sits up in a smooth arc, snatching the stake that I hadn't realised I was still holding out of my grasp - an abrupt, deep hissing starts up behind me, but I'm a little too preoccupied by the fact that I'm now being actively stabbed at to turn around to see what's going on.

Something thick and vaguely scaly suddenly wraps around my right arm and pulls me sideways, but Mephisto almost immediately changes course, as if he'd been expecting it to happen. A high-pitched shriek echoes around the forest, and quite suddenly a large mass barrels into both Mephisto and me, and sends all three of us flying into the air.

I land relatively unharmed in a heap on the leaf-covered dirt, but Mephisto isn't so lucky. He hits another tree back-first, then immediately flops face-first onto the ground. The stake he'd been using to attempt to do me in rolls away, having been knocked out of his hand when he was hit, and soon enough I can't see it at all.

I blink after it as it disappears into the darkness, then suddenly realise exactly what's just happened. Shooting up, I hesitantly shake myself out. I don't feel anything, so I don't think he managed to actually stick the stake in me at any point, but still...

A hand pats my shoulder, and I very nearly turn to bite it or something. Then I realise that, given that Mephisto is still lying completely still a few metres away, he probably isn't the hand's owner. I turn to see Levi offering it, his face tense.

"He didn't get you, right?" He asks as I reach up and take his hand.

He pulls me to my feet, and I shake my head, giving myself a short thump on the chest. "I don't think so. Thanks, Levi."

He nods agitatedly, dislodging a few loose leaves from the crevices in his horns. He reaches forward hesitantly, then brushes a bit of dirt from the sleeves of my jumper. "Good."

Over by the tree he hit, Mephisto begins to laugh almost giddily into the soil, and Levi immediately goes stiff. His tail starts lashing behind him.

"What are you laughing about?" He asks warily, taking a half-step forward and gesturing for me to move behind him. Mephisto chuckles again, then begins to sit up; I quickly listen to Levi and dart behind him, then peer cautiously around him.

Mephisto's face is covered with dirt, but he makes no move to clean it off, nor to pick out the large stick tangled in his hair. There's now a rather aggressive red mark bang in the middle of his forehead, and now that I take a look, I realise that Levi has one as well. ...did he head-butt him?

"Before you ask, I'm not planning anything," He explains, adjusting himself so that he's sitting with his back against the tree and crossing one leg comfortably over the other. "So you don't need to look all ticked off."

"It's not really what you're planning that's ticking me off," I reply, narrowing my eyes at him around Levi's arm. "It's kind of what you already planned."

He has the nerve to actually look rather surprised. "Whatever do you mean?"

"What do you think, you psycho?!" Levi snaps, taking several long strides forward to poke his fingers directly into the mark in Mephisto's forehead. I follow quickly, staying behind him, not wanting to be left alone. "Are you dumb?!"

Mephisto silently reaches up and pulls Levi's still-prodding finger away from his forehead. Finally, he says, "You mean the stake?"

"Of course it was the stake," I reply a little snarkily from behind Levi's back. "What else would it be?"

"It was just a prank," He says innocently, and I immediately feel my face contort into an unimpressed scowl. "I was going to stop before the stake hit you."

"How are we supposed to believe that?" Levi shoots back.

"Why would you pull a prank now? " I ask incredulously, hurriedly grasping the back of Levi's jacket for security when Mephisto moves forward slightly. "We're kind of in the middle of a murder forest, you know."

Mephisto shrugs and jerks a thumb up at Levi, who immediately growls lowly at him. "Needed him in demon form."

"You could have just asked, you... melodramatic... dipshit!" I shoot back, throwing my hands in the air. "You didn't have to try to kill me!"

"'Kill' is such a strong word," He grimaces, ignoring the insult entirely. "Besides, like I said, I wasn't actually going to stab you. It was just to get Leviathan here worked up enough to burst into demon form."

"And, like I said, you could have asked him ," I counter with a healthy amount of resentment, shaking my head in disbelief. "It would've been way easier than... attempting a knife crime."

"When have I ever done things the easy way?" Mephisto asks, holding up his hands in an exaggerated shrug. "I'll let you in on a secret. We're always more powerful  when we're forced to switch by instinct - like how you humans suddenly get way stronger and faster when you're in danger. I just thought pretending to stab you would be the fastest way to scare Leviathan into transforming. Nothing personal."

"I knew we shouldn't have helped you down," Levi growls, crouching slightly into what looks like the beginnings of a fighting stance. "You're still a total garbage fire of a demon."

"Well, I can't say that isn't a flattering title to possess," Mephisto hums. He gets to his feet, and while I take a step back, Levi immediately takes one forwards, dropping even further into his battle stance, as if daring Mephisto to try to attack him.

I don't know know exactly what it is that's changed about him, but he almost looks like a different demon entirely right now. The way that his eyes narrow and flash like sparks from a fire and the corner of his lip curls into a snarl gives him the air of a real predator - and this predator has his prey exactly where he wants him. 

Thinking of the guy that I've been playing games with on and off throughout the last week, I wouldn't have thought it possible... or, at least, I wouldn't if this wasn't so close to how he'd looked when he was about to attack me. Now that I'm not the one it's directed at, though, it isn't nearly as scary. It's more.. cool. Like, really cool.

"Don't try it," He hisses. "I know your tricks now."

"Huh! You haven't even seen my best turns yet. I'll put on as many shows as you like once we're out of here..."

He gets to his feet, then turns to me. "Well, tiny - if you wouldn't mind?"

I shrink further behind Levi, tightening my grip on the back of his jacket as he moves closer hand outstretched. Levi stands his ground, keeping his hands wound up, as if to aim a punch at him as soon as he makes a single wrong move.

"My sunglasses," Mephisto says with a crooked smile. "I believe you still have them."

I stare up at him. His eyes look normal again - they almost glow a warm violet under the moonlight. Keeping my eyes fixed on his face, I slowly let go of Levi's jacket, then reach up and unclip the sunglasses from the collar of my jumper.

As I move to hold them out, Mephisto suddenly bends down, his face coming a whole lot closer to me. Levi throws out an arm in front of his chest, quick to bite at him with a warning, but Mephisto only glances up at him before looking back to me.

"Go on," He says, his voice oddly soft. "You can put them on. Or slap me, if you like. I kinda deserve it, don't I?"

"You do," I mumble, looking down briefly at the sunglasses I'm holding. When I look up again, Mephisto's eyes are closed.

I hesitate, then carefully reach up to slide the glasses onto Mephisto's face. Through the dark shades, I see the movement of his eyes flying open, and as he straightens up, expression unreadable, I get the impression that he's quite surprised.

Then he smiles again. "Thanks."

"...no problem," I answer after a moment. Levi glances between me and Mephisto for a moment, half-bewildered and half-disbelieving, then shakes his head.

"You should've just hit him," He tells me, raising his hand as if volunteering to do it for me. "He really does deserve it."

"I know that," I mumble. "I'd just feel bad if I did."

"Seriously?" He drops his hand and folds his arms, clearly disapproving. "You don't need to be nice to the demon that just tried to kill you."

I reach up and scratch awkwardly at my cheek. "...uh, to be fair... you did do that as well."

He goes quiet. I go to apologise, feeling a little bad for bringing it up again, but then he sighs and ducks his head. "...yeah, I guess you're right."

Clearing his throat, he turns back to Mephisto with a frown. "Go on, then. Why'd you needed me in demon form?"

Mephisto stares at him for a moment or two, seeming even more surprised, then replies with all his usual ease, "Well - I thought it might make it easier to deal with the giant woodland spirit up ahead."

"Is that what pinned you to the tree?" I ask. "You mentioned something really big when we found you..."

"Yup," He sighs, pushing up his sunglasses and leaving them perched on his head. "It's some kind of giant dog. I did distract it for a second, but then it got mad and launched me... sent me flying halfway across the forest."

"Where did it even get the stake?" I glance around to try and spot it, but it's already long since disappeared. "I don't think those grow in the wild."

"I think it was just a really thick, really sharp stick," Mephisto says with a shrug. "Anyway, Leviathan, this is where you come in - dogs hate water."

I frown. "Do they? I'm pretty sure that's cats."

"Any animal hates water if you annoy them with it enough," He replies wisely. "Leviathan's Lotan can shoot water, right? We can use that to our advantage. Who knows, if it's powerful enough, it might just blow the spirit away."

"Well, first of all, I never said I was actually going to go with your plan," Levi grumbles. "Second, it's a spirit, remember? You can't touch them, not even with water."

"Woodland spirits of a high enough power can make themselves relatively corporeal, actually," Mephisto says, pointing at the hole in his jumper. "How else do you think it threw the stake? Anyway, even if it does go untouchable on us, I'm pretty sure it'll just stay away from the water by instinct."

"How do you know?" I ask.

He taps a finger to his chin. "See, I was trying to distract it so that I could get away, so I chucked a bunch of pebbles and dirt at its eyes. Went right through its face, of course, it didn't notice at first - it started scratching at its eyes. So what I'm thinking is that it thinks like a dog, even if it isn't."

Do they have dogs in the Devildom? Like, regular dogs? I haven't seen any around, but to be fair, I've only been in about three buildings down here. Who knows, maybe there are demons walking around town with little pugs on leashes.

"I guess that's what Lord Diavolo wants to see us handling," Levi mumbles. "Is he insane? Corporeal spirits are, like, crazy dangerous."

"Was it on your path, Mephisto?" I ask, lifting my map. "We've got different destinations, so maybe our route doesn't even cross it.."

"Well, I don't know what my path is," He shrugs, leaning against a tree, hands deep in his pockets. "Haven't checked my map. But the spirit's guarding some kind of clearing up ahead..."

I inspect my own map. All that kerfuffle's completely interrupted the part of my brain that was concentrating on making sure I knew where on the map, so it takes me a good while to figure out where we were. Eventually, I manage to pinpoint the general area, and I realise that our path leads right through a small clearing just ahead.

"Oh, that's typical," I grumble, shaking out the map with an irritated frown. "We're going to have to go through that clearing to get to the path..."

"What if we go around it?" Levi suggests, peering at the map over my shoulder. His tail is beginning to lash about agitatedly again. "Just circle around, like this... then we could just turn back onto the path once we're past it."

"We might lose our way, though." I follow the rest of my path with my finger. The finish flag won't be far once we pass the clearing. "It'll be really dark if we just go into the trees. We might not be able to get back on the path."

"Besides, I reckon Lord Diavolo's going for a direct confrontation," Mephisto says. "I'm guessing that my path was supposed to lead to a different big woodland spirit, and he was going to see each of us dealt with our spirit. Kind of screwed that up, didn't I?"

He thinks for a moment. "Actually, I'm pretty sure I've already failed. I would've been totally out of commission if the tree I hit didn't happen to be along your path."

"The only objective of the task is to get to the finish, though," I point out. "And Mr Lucifer said that Mr Barbatos would be watching, so I think he would've stepped in if you'd already failed. If you just follow your map now, you could probably get back on track..."

"I could, but..." He pulls an exaggerated 'thinking' face, then shrugs. "I don't really want to. I think it'd be way more fun if we worked together, wouldn't it?"

"Hey, whoa, whoa ," Levi holds up his hands, tail tensing behind him, "We never said anything about that! You aren't invited!"

Mephisto raises an eyebrow. "I know. I'm inviting myself."

"You...!" Levi stamps his foot and points at him accusingly. "What makes you think you can do that? You just tried to kill IK!"

"No, I just pretended to try to kill IK," He corrects, wagging his finger back and forth like a condescending teacher. "To get you into demon form, remember? Come on, let's hurry it up, while you're still nice and tense. We need as much power as possible."

"Why are you trying to boss us around?" Levi blazes, slapping Mephisto's hand down so hard that I actually hear a crack. "Do you really think you can just get away with something like that?"

"Didn't you get away with something like that?" asks Mephisto with a rather self-satisfied grin. "And you got away practically scot-free.

Levi opens his mouth, then shuts it, going red, then green, then a pale white. It's like he's going through the five stages of grief, but for pure outrage rather than sorrow. His tail looks threateningly close to execute another kneecap-shattering sweep, this time aimed at Mephisto, and I really don't want a brawl to break out right now, so I decide to step in.

"That's not really fair," I say defensively. "Levi was in, like, envy mode or something, and Mr Beelzebub said that he can't control what he does when he's like that. Anyway, I'm letting both of you 'get away with it', so I don't see why you're complaining."

Levi whips around to look at me, mouth turning up into a slightly trembly smile. Mephisto pauses for a moment, expression inscrutable, then chuckles.

"Sure," He says, waving a hand about dismissively. "I was just saying. Anyway, are we going to do anything about that woodland spirit?"

"We are," Levi growls suddenly, grabbing me by the arm and beginning to proceed down the path again. "And we're going to do it without you."

"Oh, is this what we're doing now?" I stumble slightly, then adjust myself to match Levi's pace. Mephisto stays on the spot for a moment, looking surprised, then starts jogging over to catch up.

"You do know you can't really stop me from following you, right?" He asks, throwing his arms behind his head. Levi practically hisses at him. "Come on, we're all friends, aren't we?"

"Piss off," Levi grunts. "You aren't my friend. Never have been."

I glance between them, now feeling a little lost. ...did I miss something? Is there something here I don't know about?

First Solomon, now Levi...

I hadn't really thought too hard about it since that demoness told us about the apparent tension. I suppose I still don't know all the details - whether she was telling the truth, or whether she actually knew what happened to begin with - but... still. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Maybe I've been being a bad friend. Sure, I don't ever really explicitly invite Mephisto over - he just kind of shows up - but I don't ignore or tell him to go away, either. Solomon's never raised any complaints, but maybe he shouldn't need to. We've been told that Mephisto hurt him somehow, haven't we? Shouldn't that be enough?

I look back at Mephisto himself, who's still jogging along behind us, looking for all the world as if he's just out for an afternoon run. Just looking at him doesn't give me the impression that that demoness did - but, then again, he doesn't give the impression of someone who'd aim a stake at your heart, either.

I've just been thinking of Mephisto as some eccentric newspaper guy who might be a little bit insane, but it's becoming a very real prospect that he's genuinely a nasty guy. Levi's definitely acting as if he is.

...he didn't need to pretend to stab me. I don't care what he says - there's no way there weren't other options. Maybe that was the easiest one, but it certainly wasn't the kindest. And maybe there's a good reason that two of my friends have grievances with him.

At that moment, Mephisto catches my eyes on him, he smiles. "What're you looking at?"

I look at him for a moment longer, then shake my head and turn away, unsure of what I can say. It's not like I can say any of that aloud. Anyway, it isn't really the time for them. I can think about that once the giant woodland spirit is dealt with.

"The clearing's up ahead," Levi says to me in whisper as the trees around us begin to thin out. Apparently his plan for dealing with Mephisto is just to pretend he isn't there. "What do we do?"

I pick anxiously at my nails, still half-caught up on my thoughts about Mephisto. "I don't know... will firing water at it really work?"

"Engaging in direct combat straight away is usually a bad idea with bosses like this," Levi says thoughtfully. "Especially when you don't know what attacks it has. Besides, there's no way I'm doing what he told us to. I still think we should try sneaking around it..."

"Going into the trees would probably get us lost, though," I mutter. "If we're careful enough, do you think we could just sneak through the clearing?"

"Wouldn't recommend that," Mephisto chimes in. Levi steadfastly pretends not to hear him, but I turn to look at him. "That's what got me staked in the first place."

He seems to be waiting for a reply, but I can't quite bring myself to give him one. He watches me in anticipation for a moment before realising that I'm not going to say anything, and his smile fades a little. "...something wrong?"

I shake my head and look away. "No. Sorry."

I can tell that he knows that something's off. Levi, meanwhile, still acting as if he doesn't exist, suddenly hurries forward a few metres, then comes to a stop behind a thick tree.

"I can see something," He whispers, gesturing for me follow him. I tip-toe after him, ducking behind the trunk as well. "Look."

I do as he says and lean around the tree. The clearing is directly ahead, and though there are still enough trees in between that I can't see it completely clearly, there's a distinct and intense pale green glow through there.

"That'll be the dog," Mephisto says loudly from behind us, and we both whip around to glare at him. Uncharacteristically, he glares right back at us, his expression suddenly less mischievous and more defiant. "What? I'm not working with you, am I? I'm acting independently. I don't need to go along with your plan."

"The dog's going to know we're here," I whisper, pointing over at the pulsing glow. "We're trying to avoid it."

"Yeah, you're trying to avoid it," He replies, still just as loud. From the clearing up ahead, I hear a low growl start, rumbling through the ground like an earthquake. "And I'm trying out my own plan. It isn't any of your business."

"Quiet! " Levi hisses, dragging his fingers across his lips in a zipper motion. "You're gonna expose us!"

"Who cares? The dog already knows we're here," Mephisto says, his lips curling. The growling gets louder, and I can only watch in horror as he cups his hands around his mouth and calls at the top of his voice, "Hey! Over here, Fluffy!"

"Shut up!" Levi forgoes all pretences and full-on body-tackles him, clapping a hand over his mouth, but it comes too late. The echoes of Mephisto's shout fades around us for a split second, and then something comes barrelling towards us at the velocity of a bullet train.

I throw myself behind a tree, just barely avoiding getting my entire arm pulled off. Somewhere to the right, I see Levi careening backward with a yell as Mephisto shoves him off himself and darts behind a tree of his own.

"I'm going to kill you!" I hear Levi screech, his tail sweeping around him with such force that several smaller trees are immediately knocked down by the impact. He looks up, then suddenly shrinks in on himself, dropping into a defensive stance with his tail brandished high behind him.

A colossal terrier is bearing down on him, lips drawn back in a snarl that displays each and every one of its dagger-sharp fangs in full, terrifying detail. A greenish fog rolls off it in suffocating waves, and the dog itself doesn't seem to be made of anything but smoke and haze. Even so, though, its mere presence is so heavy that it might as well be sitting on me - it feels as if it might crush me where I stand.

It's panting just like an ordinary dog would, but there's something off about it. With each inhale, it seems to draw an translucent kind of mist from the air around it. Before I can even stop to ponder what it could be, though, that crushing feeling suddenly intensifies, hitting me like a train, and my legs give out beneath me.

The dog snarls, turning away from Levi as I collapse onto the floor entirely, unable to even hold up my own weight. It takes a single step forward, and I feel the air pressing me into the ground even heavier, crushing all the breath out of my lungs - is it sucking my soul out?

"IK!" Levi shouts. A strange, deep blue kind of glow surrounds his hands as he charges forward, tail brandished like a whip behind him, but then he stops in his tracks.

Something seizes me by the arms and yanks me up so forcefully that I feel a burst of air hit me in the face. I focus my eyes with a tremendous amount of effort as Mephisto pulls me into himself and dives to the left, putting as much distance between us and the dog as quickly as possible.

The further away we get, the lighter the weight gets, and suddenly I'm able to breathe again. Finally, Mephisto comes to a stop behind a tree deeper within the forest, setting me down against the trunk as I gasp for air.

"What the fuck is Diavolo thinking?" He growls, setting two fingers against my neck to check my pulse. "I knew it, there's no way a human's gonna survive around that thing— hey, breathe with me, alright? You'll be fine, we got away before it could get too greedy."

I nod, still struggling for breath. "What— what about Levi? He... he's still over there..."

"He's a demon, he'll be fine," Mephisto says distractedly, reaching up for the sunglasses still set on his head. I watch in half-absent interest as he passes a hand over it, muttering something to himself, then slides them firmly onto my face.

"What's this for?" I ask, still a little breathless, reaching up and readjusting them as they threaten to just slide right off again. Mephisto smiles a little, reaching forward and flicking one of the lenses.

"I've put an enchantment on it," he explains, sitting back on his haunches and tossing his fringe out of his face. "It'll act like a sort of shield. It won't hold up forever, and there are cracks, but it should stop the dog from eating you entirely. How do you feel?"

"Better, I guess," I mumble, taking one final deep breath before starting to get to my feet. "But I need to get to Levi—"

"Hey, whoa!" He steadies me as I wobble and nearly collapse again. "You need to rest first."

"I don't have time to rest," I insist, pointing over in the direction that we just came from. "There's a rule, Levi's not supposed to do anything unless I tell him to - what if it attacks him?"

"Woodland spirits don't like to go after demons directly," Mephisto says exasperatedly. "Especially not ones with powerful souls like Levi's. It'd take them an eternity to drag him off. You need to be careful, because it'd snap you up in an second."

"Don't woodland spirits... whisper or something?" I ask, beginning to stumble my way back towards where the glow of the dog-spirit is moving about frenetically. "That's how they get you to come with them."

"That's mostly a myth," Mephisto says, following cautiously, hands braced in case I fall again. "The only spirits that do any whispering are the ones that aren't strong enough to just go straight for the soul."

I stop behind a particularly chunky tree and peer cautiously around. At first I don't see anything apart from the dog-spirit growling quietly to itself, but then I spot movement somewhere in the darkness.

Levi is waving at me from behind a large bush. I glance back and forth, then hurriedly dart my way over. Mephisto stays behind the tree, watching me as I crouch beside Levi with a thoughtful frown on his face.

"You okay?" Levi whispers. I nod. He looks at me more closely, then pulls a face. "What're you wearing those for?"

"Mephisto put a shielding spell or something on them," I explain, adjusting the sunglasses and leaning sideways to peer at the dog through the thinner leaves at the sides of the bush. "What are we doing about the dog?"

"I was trying to sneak past, but it's blocking the opening into the clearing," Levi says glumly. "And I don't want to get staked, either... I don't see how we're supposed to fight it if we can't touch it, but we can't carry on if we don't go through."

"We could try Mephisto's plan," I suggest. "With the water and stuff. Just try to ward it off and then leg it once there's an opening."

Levi's face crumples into an expression of very clear disgust. "Why would you want to go with his plan?"

"Well, it's kind of the only plan we've got," I mumble, pushing the sunglasses back onto my face as they start sliding off the bridge of my nose. "I don't have any other ideas."

He opens and shuts his mouth, looking conflicted, then shakes his head with a low sort of growl. "I don't, either, but there's no way I'm doing what he wants us to."

I glance over at where I can faintly see Mephisto behind the tree. He's watching the dog now, crouched down in a ready stance just in case he needs to run. "...what did Mephisto do to you?"

Levi immediately goes even tenser than before. His tail curls and swipes about on the ground behind him agitatedly, stirring up the dead leaves covering it like a blanket. "Nothing."

"Come on, I'm not that stupid," I whisper, giving him a reproachful look. "Something obviously happened."

He bounces restlessly on his hees, his eyes darting around and looking at everything but me. "I don't..."

"Look, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to," I hurry to reassure him as his face crumples, giving him a consolatory pat on the arm. "It's just that— I think it'd be easier to get out of this whole situation if we could work with him. We're running out of time."

"I— I guess," He says uncertainly, beginning to tug at the ends of of his sleeves. "But..."

He looks up, pauses, then frowns. "...what's it doing?"

I raise my head and follow his line of vision. The dog-spirit is scrabbling restlessly at the ground as if trying to dig a hole, but its paws just keep passing through the dirt. It seems to be completely occupied by its work - it isn't even growling anymore.

"I threw it a stick," comes a voice from behind us, and I turn to see Mephisto now crouched behind another tree several feet away. "It's trying to bury it."

"So it does act like an actual dog," I mutter. "That's good to know."

Levi's head swivels between Mephisto and the dog, hesitation clear on his face. Finally staring at the ground, he asks, "...will the water plan work, then?"

Mephisto doesn't move for a moment, staring at him in surprise. Finally, he begins, "Well, we don't know for sure, but—"

"I wasn't talking to you!" Levi snaps, and Mephisto immediately falls silent, drawing back slightly into the shadow of the tree. Levi raises his head and continues, each word strained as if weighed down with dumbbells, "IK, I'm supposed to be following your orders. Do... do you want me to summon Lotan?"

"Um..." I glance over at where the dog-spirit is circling around the spot it was digging at earlier, starting to growl again. "I-if it isn't too much trouble, I guess?"

Levi's eyes dart to the side for a brief moment, but then he quickly forces his gaze back in front of him. By the tree, Mephisto silently sits down, leaning back against the trunk and staring pointedly off into the darkness.

"A-alright," He says, now sounding a little more confident. "Just— you might want to cover your ears. It gets kind of loud when he appears."

He stands up and adjusts his gloves. The dog doesn't seem to sense his movement; it circles one final time around the spot where it was trying to dig, then sits down, tail wagging furiously behind it.

It looks as if it's completely forgotten about the two demons and one human still hiding in the trees around it. Is object permanence a problem for woodland spirits? It seems that, as far as the dog's concerned, if it can't see us, we're not here.

"Here I go, then," Levi says uncertainly, then raises his hands before him. I press my own hands to my ears.

Levi's eyes fall shut, and his mouth moves in a short incantation. For a split second, nothing happens, but then a brilliant blue-white light flashes around his extended hands, and the entire sky seems to split apart.

Even with my hands pressed firmly to my ears, the sound of Lotan's entrance hits me like a physical blow to the head, and I shrink in on myself, squeezing my eyes shut. It's the sort of sound that you might expect from dropping a grand piano from the top of the tallest skyscraper in the world, or pushing a giant ship from the peak of Everest - or, indeed, from an enormous seven-headed sea serpent landing in the middle of a forest and crushing at least fifty trees.

The dog freezes and slowly turns around to stare at the new arrival. Lotan's heads draw back, opening wide, and all seven hiss so loudly that a particularly frail-looking tree quivers and falls over.

"Whoa," I whisper in awe. Levi drops his hands, panting slightly, and sends me a quick thumbs up before turning back to the scene.

"Lotan!" He calls, his voice ringing clear as a bell around us, "Your master commands you! Uh... right, we're gonna blast that dog!"

The middle head turns to him and seems to nod, hissing softly. The heads on the far left and right begin drawing themselves back, cheeks expanding like a water balloon being filled.

Levi watches their movements closely. The unoccupied middle three heads are looking at him, as if awaiting instruction, and sure enough, a moment later, he calls, "Now!"

The effect is immediate. Two twin columns of water shoot out of their mouths at such velocity that they create a forceful breeze that threatens to knock the sunglasses off my face - and both barrages head straight for the dog's head. Sure enough, it ducks to avoid them, whimpering, seemingly not realising that the water would just pass through it if it did reach it.

I wince as the two water columns hit and knock down another few trees. I hope someone knows how to fix that.

The spirit-dog, deeming it safe to stand at its full height once more, gets to its feet, head swivelling around to stare at Lotan once more. Six of the seven heads stay focused on it, hissing quietly, while the middle one turns to Levi to await orders again.

"Just keep firing," He calls, pointing at the dog. "Doesn't matter how hard you hit, just keep the water going. We're trying to get it away from gap in the trees where the path goes, see?"

The middle head follows his finger, then turns back to us and nods. This time, each head begins swelling on its own, but they do so for a much shorter time; zeroing in on the dog, each head spits out a ball of water in rapid succession, driving it back several paces as it whines and dodges the splashes.

"Lotan's okay on land, right?" I ask, watching as Lotan continues to fire like a water machine gun. The dog also continues to keep dancing back and forth to avoid the shots, apparently till that realising that they can't hit it.

"Of course," Levi says, grabbing my arm and pulling me to my feet. "He's Lotan. Come on, it's far enough away now!"

"Right— oh, hang on," I tap at his arm to stop him as he begins to hurry off, turning to look at the tree where Mephisto is still sitting, staunchly refusing to look at either me, Levi, or the honestly rather amusing scene going on behind him. "Um— Mephisto, are you coming?"

He doesn't respond for a moment, and Levi begins tugging on my arm, clearly wanting to are a run for it while we still can. Then he raises his head. "...yeah."

He takes his time getting up and ambling over, hands deep in his pockets. "Let's go, then."

Levi glares at him, but quickly deems it useless to complain or insult him right now, and turns away again. His left hand hovers in the air for a moment, then reaches down and grabs mine, and he suddenly begins running so quickly that I practically get swept right off my feet.

Lotan continues to fire its balls of water at the dog as we run, driving it further and further away into the forest, and the dog continues to dodge as if its life depends on it. It seems like everything's going perfectly to plan for a single, shining moment - and then, of course, everything goes wrong.

The dog-spirit mistimes its step and stumbles over its paws, and a water-ball catches it directly in the left leg - except, of course, the water just passes right through it and splashes to the ground, rapidly beginning to sink into the dirt. The dog pauses.

Lotan's middle head immediately lets out a warning hiss, and Levi reacts immediately, ducking behind a tree and pulling me with him. But it turns out that Lotan should really have been warning himself - because the dog immediately charges for him.

"AHH, LOTAN!" Levi screeches in distress as the dog snaps its jaws around the far-left head. The other heads hiss in alarm, spitting more water at it, but they're completely ineffective; now that the dog has realised that the water can't touch it, it isn't afraid of it anymore.

"What do we do?!" I shout frantically over the sound of the dog's growls and Lotan's distressed and rapidly loudening hissing.

"I don't know!" Levi wails, practically hopping about on the spot out of sheer fearful frustration. "That stupid mutt - it can bite, but Lotan can't?! This isn't fair! Lotan!"

The sea serpent yowls back, swaying back and forth in great, sweeping motions in an attempt to dislodge the dog-spirit still firmly clamped around one of his heads. Luckily, the dog's teeth are either not sharp enough or not corporeal enough to sever the sinew, but I still can't imagine that having a canine latched to your neck is particularly comfortable.

I glance back and forth frantically, looking for something that I might be able to use to distract the dog. I'm very nearly about to just run at it myself when a blinding white light flashes around us.

"Oh, puppy! Smile!" Mephisto sings, camera poised in front of his eye, charging forward with reckless abandon. The dog reels backwards, releasing Lotan's head from its jaws, and the serpent quickly takes the opportunity to slither backwards.

Mephisto aims the lense directly at the dog's face and snaps again, and the white light that floods from it is so bright my entire field of vision vanishes for a good few seconds. The dog seems equally - if not more - affected, beginning to whimper once more and shrinking in on itself.

Levi sprints for Lotan, ignoring the clearing just behind us, and I quickly follow. We come to a stop beside the serpent, who's contorted himself in an S-shape to fit himself around the trees, and the middle head dips down as if to confer with Levi.

The other six, meanwhile, continue to watch the dog in almost sadistic triumph as Mephisto practically chases it in circles, constantly snapping his camera at it. Could it always do that? Did he enchant it while we weren't looking?

"Lotan's fine," Levi says to me after a minute or so of indistinct hissing and muttering, patting the middle head's snout. The head that had been bitten earlier (the one on the far left) dips down to his face-level with a low whine, and he quickly starts rubbing its snout as well. "Just a bit shaken up."

I smile a little nervously as six pairs of pitch-black eyes look at me. The far-left head is still too occupied with receiving its snout pats to do the same. "That's good."

The middle head begins slowly inching forward, keeping its eyes fixed on me. At first I think it might sizing me up for eating or something, but it seems like it's more curious than anything - it sniffs at my hair for a moment, then pulls back again and stares directly into my eyes. I don't really know how to respond, so I do what I would do with Hyde - blink slowly back at it.

It makes a quiet trilling noise in reply, moving forward once more, this time setting its snout firmly on top of my head. I freeze on the spot.

"Hold still," Levi says encouragingly, still petting the far-left head, which looks about two minutes away from falling asleep under his touch. "He likes you, so he's bonding."

"Bonding?" I repeat.

"Yeah. Just getting to know you - how you smell and stuff. Try rubbing his cheek if you can reach, he likes that."

"Ah, okay..." I do as he says. It takes me a moment to figure out where to put my hands, but I get the hang of it relatively quickly. Lotan makes a deep, rumbling sort of purr as I run my hand along the ridged scales of his cheeks.

"Do all the heads think on their own?" I ask as the middle head drops from the top of my head to my shoulder and continues making that strange purring noise. It doesn't really fit there - it's way too big - but he seems happy, so I don't bother trying to move him. "Or are they all just... Lotan?"

"Well, they're all linked," Levi says after a moment of thoughtful silence. "But they can do stuff on their own. There's proper classifications for all that but, uh... boring stuff short, it's a bit of both."

I nod and open my mouth to say something else. Then a loud crash from behind me reminds me that there's still a spirit-dog being chased about by a laughing demon with a really flashy camera behind us.

Well, there was a spirit-dog being chased about by a laughing demon with a really flashy camera. Now there's just a spirit dog with a yelling demon in its mouth.

"Uh oh," is the only thing I can think to say for a moment. Then I realise exactly what's going on, and start forward. "Hey, let him go!"

Lotan's middle head, still resting on my shoulder, abruptly seizes me by the left sleeve jumper and yanks me back. At the same time, Levi's tail wraps itself firmly around my ankle.

"Just leave him," He insists, grabbing my right arm and beginning to pull as well. "He'll be fine - he's the one who called the dog over in the first place, anyway. Come on, the coast's clear, we need run for it!"

"Hey—" I dig my heels firmly into the ground and pull away with as much strength as I can manage, but between Lotan's seven heads (because now all of them are attempting to grab onto some part of me and drag me back as well) and Levi, there's really not much I can do. "What are you doing?!"

"It's too dangerous!" Levi insists. "The spell on those sunglasses isn't going to work forever! It'll probably break as soon as you get too close!"

"But Mephisto's in trouble!" I attempt to yank my arm out of his grip, but he holds fast. "Come on— let go!"

A sudden shock runs through my body, like someone's just stuck an electric wire into my back, and Levi's hands fly away from me, as if they've been burnt. At the same time, Lotan's seven heads rear back as well, hissing in alarm. I stay on the spot for a moment, surprised, then quickly decide to take the opportunity and dash off - right at the dog.

"Hey!" Levi yells after me as I yank up my sleeve to check my left forearm. Sure enough, Levi's pact mark is glowing a soft red. The command's in action. "Lotan, get her!"

"I'm ordering you not to stop me!" I shout over my shoulder in reply, and Lotan, who had begun charging forward, abruptly stops in his tracks.

At this, Levi attempts to run for me himself, but something invisible seems to catch him by the ankles and hold in place. His tail thrashes about wildly as he tries to free himself, growling in frustration. Lotan doesn't seem to be having any easier of a time - all seven heads are getting tangled up with each other as they snap at nothing in particular, discombobulated by their sudden inability to move from the spot.

"What are you doing?!" Mephisto yells, dangling upside down from the dog's mouth. "Back, get back!"

"No!" I yell back, shoving the sunglasses back onto my face as they almost fall off.

Mephisto doesn't reply - he's a little busy getting thrashed around like a maraca by the dog-spirit, which appears to be having the time of its life.

"IK, I swear, if you don't get back here—!" Levi, still struggling to move over by the clearing's opening, looks about two seconds away from having an aneurysm out of pure stress. "You can't fight that thing!"

"I know that!" I reply, pausing a few feet from the dog and making an attempt at a defensive stance. From what I can see of his face, he's beginning to look pretty ill.

"Then what the hell are you trying to do?!" He shrieks. "You're gonna die!"

"Do I look like I know?!" 

The spirit is still too occupied with its new plaything to be interested in me. It's acting like a regular dog with its favourite toy - its tail is even wagging about enthusiastically. It'd be cute if Mephisto wasn't getting tossed about like a pancake.

I hop agitatedly on the spot, then pause. I've had an idea. Yes, it's absolutely a dumb idea, but I'm pretty sure that it's historically worked in stories before - and it's just about all I can come up with at the moment. What do I have to lose, right?

Taking a deep breath, I cup my hands around my mouth and holler as loudly as I can, "BAD DOG!"

A brief moment of silence follows as my voice echoes around the forest. I pause for the jeers and mockery from the figurative lords - but then something miraculous happens. The dog-spirit looks at me, whimpers, then sits down.

...it actually worked? It actually worked. I'm a genius. I breathe out a shaky sigh of relief, readjusting the sunglasses as the dog whines lowly, ears pinned back against his head.

Mephisto, still hanging loosely from his mouth, gives me a half unimpressed and half incredulous look. "You've got to be kidding me. That's what gets it to settle?"

"Well, it gets dogs in the human world to settle," I reply a little breathlessly. Is it just me, or is the air getting heavier? "Sometimes."

The dog goes to move, and I quickly level a warning finger at it. "Hey! No! Bad dog! Stay!"

It stills and sits down again. Staring at me, it ducks its head as if in shame, and whimpers once more.

"Okay, progress," I mutter to myself, scratching restlessly at the side of my head. Then I raise my voice again and call, "What do you have in your mouth?"

I point up at Mephisto, who's crossed his arms and started muttering a little bitterly to himself. The dog looks surprised, as if he'd forgotten that he'd been flinging Mephisto about for the better part of five minutes, and leans forward slightly to show me his prize.

"That's right, you've got my friend in your mouth," I state, trying to make it as clear as possible that I'm not happy with it. "Let him go."

The dog doesn't move. Mephisto has gone still, too. I take another, shuddery breath. "I mean it. Drop him. Now."

It stares at me motionlessly for a moment longer, then lets out a low whine and opens its jaw. Mephisto drops to the ground with a dull thump and a groan.

"Right," I say, trying to sound more cheerful now. "That's it. Good dog."

At that, it barks, then starts leaning down as if to pick up Mephisto again. I immediately point at it once more. "Ah! No! Bad dog! Not yours! Sit!"

It huffs moodily and sits back on its haunches, hanging its head like a child that's just been scolded. I creep forward, then grab a still-groaning Mephisto by the arm and start dragging him backwards. It feels like a gargantuan task, even given how much bigger he is.

The dog watches us go. Mephisto finally seems to register what's going on and begins to get to his feet, though I'm still doing most of the work in terms of getting him to move.

"Stay," I tell the dog-spirit firmly. It barks, then stands up, circles on the spot once, and lies down, head resting obediently on its paws. I smile. "Good dog."

I continue dragging Mephisto over to where Levi and Lotan are still frozen by the tree.  Lotan's middle head appears to have passed out - the other six are fussing around it like a group of disorderly nurses.

"You're an absolute idiot," is the first thing Levi says as soon as I'm within earshot. "You could've died! What's wrong with you?!"

"A lot of things, probably," I huff, loosening my grip on Mephisto's arm for a moment. Maybe I should start weightlifting while I'm down here. I feel like I'm made of jelly. "Uh - you can move again now."

The invisible restraints keeping Levi locked in place seem to disappear, and he almost immediately falls on his face. He steadies himself, though, and then decides that the first thing he's going to do with his new freedom is march forward and backhand a still disoriented Mephisto directly in the face.

"What the—" I attempt to catch him as he tumbles backwards, but my reflexes are so sluggish that I only manage to move my hands up a little. I turn to look at Levi with a frown. "Hey, what was that for?"

"Stop acting all weak," Levi says, ignoring me entirely and glaring down at Mephisto, who looks back up at him with alarmingly empty eyes. "I know you're fine."

"...fine?" He repeats after a long moment, then smirks. His eyes suddenly seem to regain their glow. "Oh, yeah. I'm fine as hell."

Levi immediately hits him again. Mephisto coughs, waving off my concern with another, smaller smile. "I deserved that."

"You deserve a lot more than that," Levi spits back, folding his arms and narrowing his eyes in a venomous flare. "You were the one who got that dog's attention in the first place. We wouldn't have had to deal with any of that if it wasn't for you."

"In my defence, we would've had to deal with it eventually. I was just speeding up the process, " Mephisto replies, holding his hands up in surrender. As Levi's glare intensifies, he chuckles a little sheepishly and drops them again. "Sorry."

"Y— huh?"

"Sorry," Mephisto repeats, getting to his head. Levi stares at him, apparently bewildered. "Shouldn't have called the dog over. I did get tossed about a fair bit, though, so I guess that was my punishment..."

He looks over at me, and his smile immediately disappears. "...hey, are you alright?"

"Huh?" I stare at him blankly for a moment, then nod. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," He says, tilting his head from side to side as if to look at my face from a better angle. "You look like you're about to pass out."

"Ah," I say, still not entirely sure what's going on. My vision is going dark at the corners at an almost alarming rate. "I do kind of feel like I might."

"What?" Levi steadies me by the arm as I suddenly lose my footing and almost fall over. "Oh, come on! I told you the shielding spell wouldn't work properly so close to the spirit!"

"Yeah, I didn't really think that whole thing through," I mumble, "How far are we from the end of the path?"

"I don't know, you've got the map..." Levi sets his hands on my shoulders as I start wobbling again, keeping me anchored to the ground. "Hey, hey, stay with me. "

"We should probably get moving," Mephisto interjects. "The dog's still just over there. That's close enough for it to still be leeching off some energy."

Levi turns to glare at him again, opening his mouth to no doubt say something cutting, but Mephisto interrupts him before he can. "I know, this wouldn't have happened in the first place if I wasn't being an asshat, got it. But, seriously - it looks like that shielding spell's becoming ineffective. You can yell at me all you like once we're further away."

"You— I—" Levi struggles for words, hands moving about in front of him. Finally, he seems to concede, turning away from Mephisto with irritated frown. "...whatever. Lotan, come here."

The seven-headed serpent turns to him and slithers over. The middle head seems to have woken up now, but it still looks a little feeble.

"You okay, Four?" He asks. The middle head huffs and nods. "Alright. Come on, bend down a little..."

Lotan does so, all seven heads dipping to the ground. Levi nods in approval, then reaches over and hoists me up.

"One, you're on care duty," He says, going up on tip-toe and setting me at the base of Lotan's necks. His scales are oddly warm to the touch. "Make sure she doesn't fall off."

The head on one of the far ends grunts in affirmation and turns towards me. The middle head growls, and Levi raises an eyebrow at it.

"Are you sure?" He asks. "You don't look too good."

It nods, and Levi sighs. "Alright, then. One, let Four do it."

One grunts again and returns to facing the front with the rest of the heads, who are now hissing among each other (I get the feeling they're gossiping, somehow). Four trills happily and turns towards me like One did, curling his neck around me and setting his head beside my arm.

"You alright, IK?" Levi calls as Lotan raises his other six heads again.

I pat Four's snout absently and peer down at him. "I feel really tall."

He grins. "Cool, isn't it? Pass the map, I'll get us to the finish line."

I fumble about in my pocket, then drop the folded-up square of paper into his waiting hand. Mephisto looks between us with a raised eyebrow as Levi straightens out the paper and inspects it.

"Alright, come on," He says after a moment, beginning to lead the way along the path. Lotan follows, rumbling softly, while Mephisto hovers on the spot briefly before doing the same.

It's a good thing that the path is so wide, because otherwise Lotan would be steamrolling every single tree in his way as he slithers along. Four is puffing out comforting little steam rings as we go, while the rest of the heads continue to hiss among themselves, occasionally turning to look at me before returning to their conversation.

"Hey, IK," Mephisto calls from Lotan's flank. Four immediately turns and hisses threateningly at him, and he obediently places a little distance between them, though he keeps his gaze focused on me. "Thanks for saving me back there."

I prop myself up on Four's neck and look down at him with a tired smile. "No problem. Just repayment for when you helped me earlier. You're okay, right?"

"Pretty chipper," He says with a grin, patting down his jumper. "Like I said, it takes forever for woodland spirits to drag a demon off. It was just the shaking that was the problem, really."

I nod. "That's good."

Four stares at Mephisto for a moment longer, then turns and sets his head directly between us, blocking me from his view. Mephisto laughs, clapping his hands together with a sound so loud that it immediately makes Four go stiff.

"Really, Leviathan," He says, and Levi, still leading the procession, pauses for a moment before continuing. "I know you don't like me, but I'm not up to anything. You don't need to be so uptight."

Levi doesn't respond for a long while. Finally, he replies, strained, "If Four doesn't trust you, then he'll go on the defence. I'm not doing anything."

"Yes, but Lotan has a soul link with you, if I'm not wrong," Mephisto says to his back, folding his arms and cocking his head to the side. "All of his emotions are influenced by yours. I'm just saying - you can calm down. IK helped me out, so why would I have any reason to do anything?"

"I don't get why she helped you," Levi says under his breath, though he's still talking loud enough that both Mephisto and I can hear him perfectly clearly.

I'm expecting Mephisto to reply with something witty as usual, but instead he only chuckles. "I don't, either."

I straighten up slightly, having to lean on Four to keep my balance. He huffs and nudges his snout under one of my arms to support it as I lean over to look at Mephisto.

His hands are deep in his pockets, and he's staring vacantly at the ground. He doesn't even look like he's blinking. I go to say something, but hesitate. What can I say? I can't tell remotely what he's thinking, and I don't think he'd tell me if I asked.

I don't know how long we spend walking - well, Levi and Mephisto are walking, I'm just curled up on Lotan's back - but eventually the trees around us peter out, and the path widens. We come to a much larger clearing than the one that we've left behind. A large flag has been set in the middle of it, and standing beneath it are two familiar figures.

"Bravo!" Diavolo calls with an enthusiastic grin, while Barbatos claps politely besides him. "You've made it!"

Chapter Text

A memory resurfaces.

Keep your distance from the fire, but don't stray too far from the hearth. An ember dies out as soon as it hits the ground. No spark is bright enough to deceive the darkness.

Oh, the fire - it sings that you're home. It leaps from rock to rock like beams of drunken sunlight, curling cuffs around your wrists and ankles. Aren't you happy? Didn't you come here to be bound again?

It's so loud. It's so quiet. Your wings used to be beautiful.

Traitor. Do you feel the memories decaying? Pale echoes without names - words, faces, sounds, you. Where have you been? Where did you run? Whose face are you trying to hold?

But there are stars. Not your stars, not the stars you're used to, but stars nonetheless, and the stars bring hope. Breathe. Light. Distant, but reachable.

Home is not far from here. You could make it.

Could you?

Fool. Your wings won't be able to hold your weight. You can drag yourself every godforsaken inch that you like, even if you have to hold your own guts in with every step, but you'll never fly again.

You are dead. We are dead. We are all dust. We all become the ground we once walked on.

Is this what they call retribution?

You're disappearing already. Ah... this story is familiar.

The air is dry and filled with ash. The flames will converge, and you will disappear faster than you can escape.

But the stars haven't disappeared just yet. There is still a tiny sliver of hope. And that's all you need, really.

So scream. Scream it to the stars, to the fire, to fate, to any damned being that might be listening—

I will not fade away!

"Are you feeling alright?"

I lift my head from Lotan's scales. Barbatos is looking at me earnestly over one of his heads.

"Fine," I say after a moment's thought. "I think. Sorry, did I fall asleep or something?"

We're still where we were when I last opened my eyes, just on the border of the forest - Diavolo is still wandering around the undergrowth looking for something. It can't have been more than five minutes since the last thing I remember happening, but it feels like it's been longer, for some reason.

"Have you seen something?" Barbatos asks carefully.

I frown. "...I dunno. I feel like I just had a weird dream."

"I see... well, you had some unusual company. You may still be feeling the effects..." He coughs delicately into a glove. "There was an unexpected development... the spirit you encountered grew substantially while you were still navigating. I planned to intervene, but it appeared that you had the situation under control."

So he WAS watching. Does that mean he saw Mephisto get staked and just ignored it?

"Mephisto realised this early in his own task," Barbatos answers, apparently predicting the question. "But as long as no one was in mortal danger, I opted to let it play out. I must say, though - it got rather close."

"Tell me about it."

"...well, that should about it," Diavolo says brightly, straightening up with a clap. "Barbatos, I'll leave the rest of the inspection to you. As for the three of you - allow me to escort you home."

Barbatos nods, then turns and inclines his head to me as well. "You must make sure you rest plenty when you get home. Well done, IK."

He bows to Diavolo and steps back into the forest. Seeing this, Levi gets up from the grass with a huff and gives Lotan a firm pat on the flank. He's back in regular form, and he looks oddly small without his horns and tail now.

No one tells me to get down from Lotan's back, so I opt to stay there. As we trundle along the path home, my phone buzzes in my pocket.

terrific transfers

monSOLO:
Congratulations on finishing your task, IK!

bread man:
thank you :>

wait how did you know??

monSOLO:
I asked Barbatos to let me know when you were done.

bread man:
ohh okay

have you done yours?

monSOLO:
Yeah, this morning. I had to collect cursed keys to open a safe.

bread man:
was it hard?

monSOLO:
Eh, not really. Uneventful.

What about you, though? I hear you were up against Mephisto.

bread man:
we ended up working together and he was pretty nice

monSOLO:
[...]

I see.

Well, anyway, Luke and Simeon have theirs later this week.

DDSimeon:
HELLO

bread man:
hi simeon

DDSimeon:
WELL DONE ON YOUR TAKS

BY THE WYA LUKE AND I ARE OUT IN TOWBN DO YOU NEED ANYTHIGN

bread man:
are you stuck in caps lock again

DDSimeon:
I THIBK SO

HWO DO I TURN IT OFF! I FROGOT

bread man:
double tap the little arrow on the left of the keyboard

DDSimeon:
Tank you

*Tank

*Tank

*Tank

bread man:
take your time

DDSimeon:
*Tanbk

*Thank

monSOLO:
Got there eventually.

And while you're out, could you get another frying pan?

DDSimeon:
Why?

monSOLO:
I broke one.

bread man:
again???

what did you do this time

monSOLO:
I was trying to flip pancakes, but I accidentally threw the entire pan into the ceiling.

bread man:
i'm sorry how did you manage that

monSOLO:
The human body works in mysterious ways.

DDSimeon:



Did yuo at least clean up?

*yuo

*yo

monSOLO:
Just leave it, Simeon.

And yes, I cleaned up.

DDSimeon:
Okay good

We'll get anonther pan then :)

IK would you liek anything?

bread man:
stain remover please

mammon spilt some juice on my dragon onesie the other day and it won't come out

there's this great big purple splotch right on the face and it's making me sad

monSOLO:
Well, we can't have that.

DDSimeon:
Absolutely not >:(

We will get you stan remover :)

bread man:
poor stan

monSOLO:
By the way, IK, are you on your way home now?

bread man:
yeah mr diavolo's walking us

actually i should probably be listening to him

i'll get back to you

monSOLO:

DDSimeon:

"...destroyed a large number of trees, which is going to prove difficult to clean up," Diavolo is saying as I turn off my D.D.D. and shove it back into my pocket. "I suppose it couldn't be helped, though."

Levi scratches awkwardly at the inside of his wrist, looking a little cowed. "Yeah..."

"But I really must commend you," Diavolo continues with a smile. "From what Barbatos told me, you were very impressive back there."

"Not really..." Levi glances up at me, and, not knowing how else to respond, I just give him a thumbs up from Lotan's back. Four makes a snorting sound, as if he's laughing at my awkwardness. "I mean, IK did most of the thinking. I just did what I was told."

"And you did what you were told most excellently!" Diavolo exclaims, making no effort at all to contest Levi's words (he visibly deflates). "Though I suppose that wouldn't be possible without excellent instructions in the first place, haha!"

"What am I, chopped liver?" Mephisto mutters, shaking his fringe out of his face. He glances up at me, then points at the sunglasses still sitting on the top of my head. "Hey, are you gonna give those back anytime soon?"

Four growls lowly in warning as Mephisto shifts a little closer to his flank, grinning at me. "They're not expensive or anything, but they're very dear to my heart."

I lean over Four's head and look down at him. "I thought you said they were designer?"

"I was lying," He says, shrugging. "I'm pretty broke."

"Right..." I pluck the sunglasses off my head, folding the legs. "Here— oh, wait a second..."

He withdraws the hand that he'd been reaching out with, cocking his head to the side. "What? Is something wrong?"

I look down at the sunglasses, frowning slightly. "No, it's just... I've just had an idea."

"You enchant an object, any object, and as long as you have it on you, it stops any living being noticing you..."

"...if you want to use the spell, you need a way to hide it somehow."

I'd been intending on asking Solomon about it sometime, but he is still part of the exchange programme, with extended time spent in the brothers' -plus Diavolo and Barbatos's - company. Mephisto, on the other hand... Diavolo doesn't seem to like him much, and I've never seen him around any of the brothers of his own volition before. He might be the safer bet.

Astaroth said that Lucifer would be able to sense the enchanted object on me before I'd even get a chance to use it, so I'd need to disguise it somehow. I don't know if my plan is so stupid it's smart, or if it's just stupid - but, since it's already got the shield spell on it, I can just say that the magical energy he's sensing is coming from that. I've got Levi as a witness to say that there really was a shield spell put on the sunglasses if he doesn't believe me, too.

Maybe I'm getting false confidence from the dog encounter, but I think it's a pretty clever plan. I glance around at the others.

Levi is staring at the ground, seemingly deep in thought. Diavolo has started talking to someone on his D.D.D. - Barbatos, I assume - and isn't paying the rest of us much attention.

Even if neither of those two are listening in on us, though, all seven of Lotan's heads definitely could. And if Levi really is part of the whole attic prisoner thing, they might end up warning him.

Mephisto waves a single hand at me, raising an eyebrow. "Hellooo? What was that about an idea?"

"Well, it's kind of..." I glance over Lotan's heads, but they don't seem to be paying much attention. Levi and Diavolo have both walked ahead of us, and, fortunately enough, neither seems to think anything's up, either. "...uh..."

He follows my gaze, frowns for a moment, then nods in understanding and lowers his voice. "I see. Don't want anyone hearing?"

"Ideally, yeah," I say quietly, fiddling with my fingers. "Should I ask them if we can go talk somewhere private?"

"I'll handle it," He whispers, waving a hand about dismissively. Then, clearing his throat, he takes a few steps away from Lotan, looking about casually as if we hadn't been talking at all.

Four rumbles curiously. Seven turns and regards Mephisto with a look that I can only describe as caution. He seems to prepare to alert Levi - but, before he can, One abruptly darts around to nip him right on the snout, and he turns to ward him off with a snap. The two heads quickly begin engaging in a tussle that Five joins in with all too enthusiastically, and, luckily, it seems to wipe the matter from Seven's mind.

I try to watch Mephisto without making it seem too obvious as he throws his arms behind his head, humming nonchalantly. On anyone else, it'd be so exaggerated as to be suspicious, but on him it just looks normal.

A good few minutes or so later, as the House of Lamentation begins to loom up from the misty darkness ahead, Mephisto abruptly drops his arms and sets his hands on his hips.

"Say, IK," He says loudly, giving me a meaningful look, "There was that thing we needed to do, right? We might as well get it over with now."

"Huh?" I fumble for a moment, then hurriedly attempt to play along. "Oh, right! That, uh... thing."

Diavolo and Levi both turn around to look at us. Seven is still busy with his little fight with One and Five, so he can't expose our charade to his master, and I don't think any of the other heads have picked up on it yet. If they have, either they don't think it matters that much, or they don't care.

Diavolo frowns a little. "What are you two talking about?"

"Oh, just some stuff," Mephisto says casually with a shrug. "Leviathan, would you mind terribly letting IK down? It's better if we go somewhere private. Don't want anyone listening in on our business."

Levi has stopped walking now. His hands are still deep in his pockets, and he looks as if he's two seconds away from pulling out a pocket knife or something.

"What are you planning?" He asks with a scowl. "There's no way I'm leaving you two alone."

"Come on, it's nothing!" Mephisto lifts his hands with a great deal of exaggerated exasperation. "We'll be done in no time!"

"Do you really think I'd believe that after what happened in the forest?" Levi retorts, walking right up to him until they're practically nose-to-nose. "You've never been honest before. Why would you start now?"

He spits the last question with such venom that I wouldn't be surprised if Mephisto started melting. I'm expecting him to reply smartly, but all he does is stare, expressionless.

Neither demon makes any move to step away from the other. Mephisto looks at Levi for a moment longer, then says, "I don't think this has anything to do with the forest, does it?"

Levi goes stock-still. Finally, Mephisto gently pushes him in the arm, and he takes a few absent, stumbling steps away from him, eyes concerningly dull.

Diavolo watches both of them with an odd look on his face. He doesn't seem confused in the slightest - in fact, he looks more regretful. It looks like I'm the only one here who doesn't know what's going on.

Four makes a sad sort of 'brrp' noise. One, Seven and Five quickly quell their fighting, and all seven of Lotan's heads turn to watch their master as he stares at the ground, expression in shadow.

"It's been a long time since then," Mephisto says eventually. "I didn't realise it still mattered to you so much."

Wrong thing to say. Levi's face snaps into a glare, his canines seeming to lengthen as he snarls, "A long time, huh? Then why haven't you changed at all?"

Diavolo looks almost stricken, but Mephisto doesn't react at all. He only averts his gaze. Levi's hands ball into fists, and he takes a deep breath.

He turns abruptly. "Lotan, come here."

The serpent obeys, sinking complacently to the ground when Levi pats his side. He raises his arms and nods to me.

I shuffle over to the edge of Lotan's back, supported by Four's helpful snout; Levi quickly catches me as I start slipping down, then sets me down on the ground. Two makes a curious sound, but Levi doesn't show any indication of hearing him.

"I'll wait by the gate," He says to me after a moment. "If there's trouble, just use your pact mark. And... call Mammon as well, if you have to."

Diavolo gives him a surprised look. I nod, offering a reassuring smile. "Thanks, Levi."

His lips curl up slightly. "No problem."

Mephisto doesn't move for a split second as I hurry up to him, looking a little stunned, but he recovers quickly and begins to lead the way over to the side of the path. Lotan rumbles from behind us, and I hear Diavolo say something indistinct to Levi. He doesn't respond.

I can feel both their eyes on us as we walk a little distance longer, then come to a stop at the base of a tree. Mephisto dusts down his front and sits down on one of its enormous straggling roots, beckoning for me to do the same. I loiter on the spot for a second, then perch myself on one of the sturdier-looking ones.

He opens his mouth to say something, already looking as if he's forgotten about what just happened back there. Before any words can come out, though, I ask, "What happened with you and Levi?"

"Huh?" Mephisto's still smiling, but it's completely frozen on his face. "What are you talking about?"

"I didn't realise it at first, 'cause Levi was hiding it - but he really seems to hate you for some reason." I lean forward on my knees. "And you just said so - it definitely didn't just start back in the forest. I think you both know, but you don't want to say."

"Hey..." Mephisto's smile is fading quickly. "Why are you asking? Is this what you wanted to talk about?"

I shake my head. "Well, no, but I... I want to know now. Levi seems... I don't know. Hurt. Sad?"

Silence. Mephisto's gaze falls to his shoes, leg bouncing in agitation. I avert my own eyes a little uncomfortably. A gulf seems to open up between us.

Finally, Mephisto says, "...I betrayed him, in a way."

I look up at him. He continues, "It's a pretty long story, but I suppose you won't understand if I don't tell it properly. Do you know what the seven circles are?"

The term does sound familiar. I raise my hands to count off on my fingers. "Um, yeah. Solomon explained them to me... shield, space, nursery, sky, kingdom, hell, and pit, right?"

He nods, smiling slightly. "You know your stuff. And do you know the rules about moving between them?"

"Only three demons are allowed to open portals between them," I recount, thinking back to that particular class. Solomon had to hastily whisper everything the teacher was saying back to me as I made my notes, because I couldn't write nearly as fast as she talked. "Misters Diavolo, Barbatos, and Lucifer. So if you want to use a portal to get to another circle, you need official permission."

"That's right," He says, "But there's something that a lot of demons don't realise. It's perfectly possible for any of us to open a portal to another circle if we have the power and the know-how - it's just that there are charms around the whole Devildom that would alert the authorities if you did."

He trails off, eyes unfocusing for a moment. I hesitate, not wanting to come off as rude, then ask, "What does this have to do with Levi?"

At that, he laughs a little. "I'll get there in a moment. You're a curious kid - I thought you'd want the whole story. Well, anyway, what all that means is that, as long as it's not on the fifth layer, you can open a portal to another circle all you like, and Princey can't do a thing about it - if you're not in the Devildom, you're not under his jurisdiction, and the charm can't detect you, can it?"

I mull over his words, trying to string them together. "...are you saying that Levi did that?"

"Not at all," He says. "I did."

He lets the revelation hang in the air between us for a while, but if I'm completely honest, I'm not too surprised. Mephisto does seem to be the type to exploit loopholes like that. But...

"Why?" I ask as he leans forward, mimicking my posture. "Is there something worth getting in a different circle?"

He raises an eyebrow. "There's plenty. More specifically, though, I wanted to get to the seventh one."

I go over the circles in my head again. Shield, space, nursery, sky, kingdom, hell... wait a second. Uh oh. "So - the Archaic Pit?"

Mephisto smiles, but it's more a forlorn expression than a joyful one. "That's it. Clever girl."

I shake my head, bringing my clasped hands up to my face. The Archaic Pit... Solomon explained it to me in detail in that same class about the seven circles. As mild as the name sounds, the pit itself most certainly is not.

"Diavolo's father is currently asleep at the bottom of it," He'd said, laughing as I furiously scribbled down what he was saying word-for-word. "Diavolo himself had to announce that a while back, actually, since no one knew where the king disappeared off to, and there were rumours that he bumped him off to get the throne."

Then he'd leaned over to read what I'd written so far. "You should probably get this down - that Pit is an extremely dangerous thing. There's a curse around it to protect the king, and if you die in there, you disappear from existence completely. Any memory of you vanishes, and it's like you were never born in the first place. No one knows if anyone's ever actually got down and died in there - and if they have, no one knows how many. Someone could be dying down there every day, and we'd be none the wiser. Their existence has been completely erased.  Nothing and no one remembers them."

I look at Mephisto. The shadows that the tree's branches cast over his face suddenly seem to make him look centuries older. "Was it the kind you were after?"

He chuckles. "In a way."

I shake my head again, more absently this time, beginning to tap my feet at an even faster pace. "...so Levi... stopped you?"

"Hmm. Close, but not quite." He twirls a strand of hair around a finger, and the faint smile still lingering on his lips quickly begins to disappear. "I wasn't going to take the years to go on foot. I'd need a portal. But I wouldn't be able to make one in the Devildom without being caught... of course, there are established gateways to other circles already active, but none of them go to the seventh one. Which means my only option would be to somehow sneak through one of these gateways to a different circle, outside of the security charm - and then open a portal there."

He hesitates for a moment, pursing his lips and looking as if he having difficulty stringing together the right words. Then he continues, "I heard that there was a door in the House of Lamentation that led to somewhere in the sixth layer. Something precious that needed a hiding place, something that'd safer on a circle away from the Devildom. That was my best option, and I needed a way to get to it."

A secret door in the House of Lamentation... after all that business with the attic, I can't say that that's particularly surprising...

...wait. Okay. I think... that demon in the attic... his name...

I knew it had sounded familiar in one way or another back when he first told me it, but I hadn't been able to put my finger on why. I'd just dismissed it as being a demon name I'd heard during RE or read on the Internet at some point, but I'm starting to realise that it was familiar in a different way. I've heard someone saying that name down here - and I'm only remembering now because he's sitting in front of me.

But Mephisto's still talking. I keep hold of the idea and keep listening.

"I befriended Leviathan to get to the door," He says plainly. "I'd done my research, so I knew how to earn his trust quickly. It helped that they were still all so new down here - he was eager to make friends, once I got through to him. I found out the door wasn't alarmed at all, so it wouldn't alert anyone if I went through it. After that, it was just a business of finding the door itself."

He closes his eyes for a moment, and his words come with a kind of irrevocable finality. "I think he suspected for a long while that I was up to something. But he refused to believe it... even when the truth was staring him right in the face."

My breath catches slightly. It's so quiet, all of a sudden.

Mephisto opens his eyes again. "I found the door. I got through it - to the sixth layer. And, just before I could open the portal... Levi found me."

...he's using his nickname. "...so what happened?"

"I could tell from his face that he'd realised what was going on," Mephisto says. "But he was still in denial, I suppose. He didn't get angry. He tried to joke around with me... and, when I did open the portal, he just stood there and watched."

We both fall into silence. Mephisto looks as if he's miles and miles away, staring blankly down at his shoes, but I'm still a little puzzled.

I just can't fathom what Mephisto would want with Diavolo's dad in the first place. I already knew that Diavolo himself didn't particularly like Mephisto, but it's beginning to look increasingly likely that Mephisto goes further back with him as well... or, if not him, his father.

So, Levi... I can understand his hatred now, a lot better than I could have before. Demon or human, it doesn't matter - having your trust broken like that would hurt anyone. Honestly, it's commendable that he managed to keep civil with Mephisto at first. It was only when Mephisto provoked him that he started slipping up, and it was only then that I realised there was some kind of history there.

And that makes it much more likely that he did something similar to Solomon, too. Before or after, it doesn't matter - that's two of my friends that Mephisto's hurt. I don't know what to do about that.

Doing it once is bad enough - doing it twice just goes to show that you learnt nothing from the first time. Or, worse, that you just didn't care about what happened the first time. I wonder if what happened with Solomon is linked with what happened with Levi? Do either of them know what happened with the other?

Apparently everyone knows that he did something to Solomon. But no one else seems to know what happened with Levi - no one said anything about it when Lucifer said that Mephisto would be competing against us in the task. That means that either Levi never told them, or they've just been acting like they didn't know.

The silence between us makes it sound like my breaths are about five times louder than usual. Eventually, I ask, "Have you ever talked to him about it?"

It takes a moment for Mephisto to realise that I've asked him a question. He looks at me with a frown, then shakes his head. "I don't see how I could. Even if he didn't at first, there's no way he wouldn't hate me after all that blew over - and he's made it clear that he does. Besides, my..."

He swallows, looking as he's fighting back a whole lot more words than he's saying. After a second of tense silence, he shakes his head. "...never mind."

I fight the urge to start tapping my foot again, not wanting to break the tension that I can practically feel weighing down the air around us. There are a lot of things I want to say, but one of them stands out in particular.

"I... I don't know how long ago this all happened," I say, trying to keep my voice strong. "Or how long it'll take you to, but... one day, you should explain everything to Levi. I don't think he knows why you did what you did."

Mephisto doesn't respond. I fidget with the ends of my sleeves, twisting the fabric in my hands. "I don't, either, but you don't have to tell me. I just think Levi deserves the closure."

At that, he snorts slightly, dipping his head so that I can't see his expression properly. "It was too late for that a long time ago."

He looks so defeated and small that I can't help but feel sorry for him. But what kind of sympathy am I supposed to offer? I'm not a trained therapist - I can't look past my own personal biases to offer unconditional support. Especially when what he did is exactly the sort of thing that I've always thought was unforgivable.

Then again, Mephisto doesn't look like he wants support. In fact, he seems painfully aware of the nature of what he did. Maybe that makes it a bit better.

I glance away for a moment, staring at a crop of grass without really seeing it, trying to sort through everything. I feel like I should hate him just as much as Levi and Solomon do now, and I can't help but feel guilty that I don't. I guess it's just hard to attribute the story to when I've already started considering him a friend.

And I could be completely wrong, but the way that Mephisto told the story makes it sound like it happened a long time ago. Is it too hopeful of me to think that he's changed since then? The demon in front of me seems to genuinely regret what he did, but is either unable or unwilling to confront it - probably both.

There's still a lot I don't know about Mephisto, and an almost ridiculous portion of what I do know is screaming at me that he's bad news. I'd like to say that no one is all good or all bad, and that that applies to him just as much as anyone... but, honestly, when eighty percent of your lasagna is just the sauce, you still send it back to the kitchen, don't you? Sometimes the twenty percent just isn't enough.

But how much is enough? How far do you have to go before you stop being a good person? How do you even judge those percentages? It's almost entirely subjective. I'm pretty sure I already know what Levi's view would be, and mine isn't the same. But maybe it should be.

I shake my head and rub at the bridge of my nose. I wasn't expecting to get philosophical after all that.

"Well," Mephisto says suddenly, clapping his hands together so loudly that I nearly fall of my tree root at the sound, "Can't mope around all day. What was the thing you actually wanted to talk about earlier?"

"Huh? Oh..." The sudden shift in attitude is jarring, but, in a way, unsurprising, as well. Mephisto shifts demeanours so easily and believably that whoever hires for West End would be frothing at the mouth. "Right, uh..."

I mentally shove all of my musings from before into a box and stow it away to think about later, trying to remember exactly what it is I'm supposed to be asking from him. "...there's this spell."

He raises an eyebrow and smiles a little. "You're going to have to be more specific than that."

"A concealment one," I say, trying to remember what Astaroth said. "It's supposed to, uhh... stop people from noticing you or something."

"Hmm." He thinks for a moment, leaning back and making a show out of placing his hand to his chin. "Yes, I think I know what you're talking about. Any reason you want me to do it?"

"It's... private," I reply after a moment. "...if that's okay."

"A secret, huh?" His smile becomes a little more wry. "You can't tell me? Even after all... that?"

"That's—"

He waves me off before I can counter. "It's fine. You probably don't think the best of me right now."

Despite his words, I can tell from his expression that he's troubled. "No, it's not that. I really can't tell you— "

"Sure, sure, you can't," He says airily, his face carefully neutral. "So you want me to put the spell on the sunglasses, is that it? Pass them here."

I don't make any move to do as he says. "I don't think you're listening to me—"

"I heard you just fine," He snaps, and I draw back slightly. He stares at me for a moment, then jerks his head to the side with a rough sigh. "Just give me the sunglasses. I'll enchant them for you."

He refuses to look at me again. After a moment, feeling as if I don't really have any other choice, I hold them out.

"Um... is the shield spell still working?" I ask as Mephisto abruptly snatches them from me, still not meeting my eyes.

"Yeah," He mumbles, passing his hand over the sunglasses. They take on a blue-ish sheen for a moment, then go back to looking perfectly normal again. "Why?"

"Uh..." I lean back a little and take a breath. "It's..."

"A secret," He finishes for me, holding the sunglasses out again. "Yeah, I get it. We've all got plenty of those."

I want to say something, but none of the words that I need seem to come to mind. I take the sunglasses and clip them to the collar of my jumper again, then look back up at Mephisto. He's on his feet now, rubbing frustratedly at the back of his neck and avoiding my gaze at all costs.

"There's something else I wanted to ask," I say after a moment. "If... if that's alright."

"Hit me," He says absently, staring at a twig on the floor. His right hand is making flicking motions, as if shaking off water, but he doesn't seem to register it.

"Do you..." I begin, then trail off. "...um..."

Am I about to make a mistake? Astaroth told me not to tell anyone I'd met him, but as long as I just do it indirectly, I can still ask about him, right? As far as I know, Mephisto has nothing to do with his imprisonment... and, anyway, I still want to know who really is. I have a feeling that he wasn't completely honest with me back in the attic.

I take a deep breath and decide to just go for it. "Do you know anyone called Astaroth?"

Mephisto freezes.

Hands suddenly curled into fists, he turns and looks me dead in the eye. "Why are you asking?"

...uh oh. "I just... wanted to know."

"Is that it, huh?" He chuckles humourlessly, raking a hand through his hair. "All these questions... how many secrets are you going to make me tell you before you tell me any of yours?"

"What? No, I—" I take a step forward as he begins to turn away. "Do— do you know him?"

"Know him?" He repeats, then scoffs again. "What do you think—"

He turns around to look at me once more, then abruptly pauses. He frowns a little. "...you don't know who he is? At all?"

"No," I answer. "I just... heard the name somewhere. I thought it sounded familiar."

Mephisto blinks. His face begins to relax. "Right. I might have mentioned him..."

He blows out a long sigh, hands falling loose at his sides again. "He's Vice President of the Newspaper Club. Only because Wiz didn't want to be, but that's what the paperwork says."

'He's'... that's present tense. "So, uh... have you seen him recently?"

"Recently? I have to see him every other day," Mephisto snorts, suddenly looking in much better humour than before. He looks almost relieved. "I'm surprised you haven't met him yet, actually. He tends to stand out in crowds."

Vice President of the R.A.D Newspaper Club who Mephisto has to see every other day... that description doesn't exactly fit with a guy who's been stuck in an attic for at least a month and a bit, probably more. And I remember Solomon telling me that a demon's name is essential to their identity - it's what calls them forth when you perform a summoning ritual, after all. That rules out them having the same name.

I was already kind of sceptical, but it looks like 'Astaroth' really is a right old fibster.

Which begs the question - who really is he?

"I see," I say, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. I get to my feet, dusting off some dirt from my clothes. "Then, um... I'll get going."

Mephisto doesn't move for a moment. Then he asks, somewhat stiffly, "Need me to walk you?"

"No, it's fine." I point over to where I can see one of the windows on the House of Lamentation's first floor. "It's just two minutes away. You can... uh, you can go home now."

"Right..." His expression is unreadable once more. "I'll see you at school, then."

He turns around, stops for a moment, then slowly starts walking away. His hands are curled into fists.

I stare after his retreating back, conflicted. I almost want to call out to him, but I can't bring myself to actually do so.

I don't understand. Sure, I'm hiding something from him, but after what he told me - did he not expect that I'd be cautious? He looked as if he had, so why does he seem almost... hurt, regardless?

I've never seen him talking to any of the other students. I know there are other members of the Newspaper Club, but I haven't met any of them yet. Mephisto doesn't seem to approach anyone who isn't in it - everyone knows him, but most of them aren't friends with him. From what I hear, the fact that he came up to me on my first day at the R.A.D. was almost a fluke.

...I wasn't lying. I really can't tell Mephisto why I need the sunglasses enchanted. To be honest, it was already risky asking him to do it in the first place. And asking him about Astaroth was even more of a gamble - that could've gone awfully. I'm just doing what I have to. And he's hurt two of my friends. I keep going back to that.

If I think rationally, all that is true... I raise a hand and thump myself in the back of the head as I turn to start trudging back to the House of Lamentation.

...so why do I still feel bad?

Levi raises his head as he hears my footsteps approaching. He's sitting on the front step with his head hunched as if asleep, but he's just playing around with his D.D.D.. He gives me a quick once-over - I note that Lotan is nowhere to be seen. He must've gone back to wherever he hangs out when Levi doesn't have him out.

"You okay?" He asks.

I nod. "Dandy."

He gets to his feet, but doesn't open the door. Instead, he continues to look at me, squinting, as if he thinks there's some tiny wound or something on me that he just can't see. "You were over there for a while. What were you even doing?"

"I, um..." I reach up and fiddle with the sunglasses on my jumper. "I needed Mephisto's help with something."

"His help?" He asks, then frowns. "With what?"

"Oh, just..." Levi's face is beginning to look dangerously close to Mephisto's when I wouldn't tell him why I wanted him to enchant the sunglasses. "...just stuff."

"Stuff," He echoes, inspecting my expression carefully. I quickly try to school it into something more neutral, but he spots a discrepancy before I can. "You're hiding something."

"Uh," is all I can say in response. Levi's frown deepens, and he leans down, glaring directly into my eyes. A single, tense moment passes, and his countenance abruptly shifts.

"He told you, didn't he?" He asks slowly.

"Told me what?" I squeak, then immediately clap my hands over my mouth. If the look on my face didn't tell him everything just now, the way my voice cracked definitely did. Idiot!

Levi draws back again, a shadow beginning to develop across his face, like a cloud before a storm. "About what he did. He told you - and you still asked for his help?"

"W-well, I asked for his help before he told me..." I flounder, my voice getting even more high-pitched with every word. "And, um, he—"

"He what?" He asks threateningly. "What did he tell that made you think it was okay?"

"I don't think it's okay!" I fight the urge to make a run for it, trying to stand my ground as best as possible. "I just— I don't know, I think he's—"

"Changed?" He cuts me off again. "You're being stupid again. He hasn't changed at all."

His left hand is slowly but surely beginning to lift and draw back, and I steel myself, anticipating a possible blow. Levi looks close to genuinely executing one - that or bursting into demon form to break another one of my joints - but, just as his fist reaches shoulder-level, he stops. His tense shoulders abruptly relax again, and his hand falls back to his side.

I can hear his laboured breathing as loud as a drum. He swallows, then turns away.

"Do what you want," He says dully, pushing the front door open. "I'm going to my room."

He sweeps inside without so much as a backward glance, and the door very nearly hits me in the face as it begins to swing closed again. He pauses just before the staircase as I catch it with a quiet 'oof' and hurriedly slip inside, but doesn't turn back to look at me.

I hear him take in a breath, but no words come. Several long moments later, he mutters, "Don't forget to close the door."

He hurries up the stairs so quickly that I feel actually feel a breeze in his wake, disappearing down the upstairs hallway before I even have time to take three full breaths. The silence that fills the entrance hall in his place is unbearable.

After a moment, I do as he says, shutting the door behind me, then turn back around to gaze blankly at the carpet. I stay there for a minute or so, then abruptly smack a hand to my face.

"Now two people are mad at me," I lament, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling in distress.

The light coming from the chandelier is immediately blinding, and I duck my head again. Rubbing at my eyes with a quiet huff, I start trudging further into the House of Lamentation, going nowhere in particular.

I probably shouldn't be surprised. I don't even know how he managed to figure out what Mephisto told me - maybe I looked sorry for him.

...well, this is what I get for being indecisive. Pick a side and at least you'll have one ally - refuse to choose, and you either get left alone, or end up being everyone's enemy. And it's definitely the latter in this situation.

I sigh and pick at a loose thread on my sleeve, surveying up at the little gallery of paintings on the hallway wall. I'm awful with confrontations, but maybe I should go knock on his door now? I don't know, different things work with different people, and I could risk setting him off even more. Sometimes apologies are just a matter of timing, and while I've had more time to get to know Levi in the last week or two, it's still not enough for me to know what the right timing for him would be.

And then there's Mephisto as well - how do I apologise to him? Should I even apologise to him? Part of me's saying no, but an even bigger part of me is saying yes...

...wait.

I stop on the spot, then take a few steps backwards, looking back up at one of the paintings I just passed. I hear myself speak aloud in my surprise. "Is that—"

I haven't noticed this before, but now that I look closer... it's a family photograph. And there are seven figures in it.

I don't know where it's been taken, but I assume that it was at the R.A.D. - all the occupants of the photograph are dressed in the same grey blazers, though it looks like an older design, with the red shoulder-cape and golden medal missing. Though the uniforms aren't what I'm interested in, of course. It's the demons wearing them.

Lucifer is at the forefront of the photograph, sitting on bench with a stack of papers, and Satan is sat on the other end, about as far away from Lucifer as he can get. He's holding a book up to his face, but closer inspection reveals that he appears to be aiming a side-eye at his older brother's papers. Lucifer himself doesn't seem to be noticing; he looks deep in concentration. Almost too deep in concentration, but that's neither here nor there.

Behind the two on the bench, Mammon and Levi appear to be arguing over something or another, with Mammon's face curved into a smug grin and Levi pointing at him like an accusatory lawyer. Asmodeus stands just a few feet away, filming them with an amused smile on his face - well, I assume that he's filming them, but with the angle he's holding his D.D.D. at, he could just be taking a selfie.

That's all well and good - perfectly normal, nothing wrong with that. One look at the left of the background, however, and I feel like I've just been struck by lightning

Beelzebub is throwing the camera a half-hearted peace sign, though he's mostly occupied by the sandwich in his hands. And, standing beside him, half-turned around and giving the camera a curious look, as if he's just noticed it...

...is the demon from the attic. No doubt about it.

It doesn't take a detective to piece it all together. It hasn't even been a full 48 hours since I met him, and less than half an hour since I found out he was lying, but I severely doubt that is is just some random demon being framed in a picture with six out of the seven demon brothers. The only logical conclusion I can make here is that my original theory was completely correct.

The demon in the photograph must be the seventh brother. Which means that I've met Belphegor.

I look closer at it again. Looking at them side by side, I suddenly realise his eyes had seemed so familiar, even when I still had no idea who he was - they're the same colour as Beelzebub's. And it'd explain why he knew his nickname. After all, they're brothers. Twins.

Wasn't this an entire plot line in TSL? It definitely was. Emptiness and Flies were particularly close out of all the lords, and Emptiness got locked up in a tower. Is Christopher Peugeot some kind of a prophet?

...oh. Corruption was the one who locked Emptiness up in the first place, and Belphegor said it himself when I met him. This means Lucifer really did imprison his youngest brother in the attic.

I bring a hand up to rub at my temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache starting to come on. This answers a lot of questions, but it also raises quite a few more. Why did Belphegor lie to me about who he was? Why did Lucifer lock him in the attic in the first place?

Solomon told me that Belphegor had been sent up to the human world as part of the transfer programme, and the way Satan, Beelzebub and Mammon acted when he was brought up seems to indicate that that's what they think has happened to him as well. I don't get the feeling that any of them are faking their feelings about the whole thing - Beelzebub's in particular feel so genuine that it's almost raw - and that means that Lucifer must be lying to them.

Every time I think I've seen the extent that this family's drama goes to, it gets worse. Like some kind of drawn-out TV show... but, of course, no one's profiting from this.

I sigh. Why am I even digging this deep? It's not like there's a treasure chest to find - and, in fact, I'm almost completely sure that the only thing that's going to come out of this is a supreme scolding. And that's only if I'm lucky - knowing how the principles of the demons down here work, it might well be something a whole lot worse.

...still, I've gotten this far. Can't stop now. I already said that I'd help Belphegor. I definitely need to go talk to him again, but I'm not going to abandon him just yet.

Before that, there's someone else I want to talk to first. Beelzebub's the one next to Belphegor in the picture, and he's the one who looks saddest whenever he's brought up.

He definitely knows the answers to some of my questions, but would he be willing to give them to me? Last time I tried to ask him directly, he got pretty mad. And I can't tell him I've met him, either. I have a feeling that it could only go awfully wrong if I tried to confront him now.

Plus I've already pissed off two demons in the last thirty minutes or so. Do I really want to make that three before the hour's out?

I think for a long while, then finally shake my head to myself. ...no. Not now. I'm beat... emotionally, mostly, but still beat.

I contemplate going back to my room, but the quietude in there would probably only make me start thinking even harder about this entire mess. And my room's right next to the kitchen, too, which Beelzebub visits on the regular, and I don't think I'd be able to stop myself from starting to ask questions if I ran into him.

After some more thought, I decide to go to the library instead. I never did finish reading those TSL Abridged books. And, I don't know... maybe some part of me hopes that it'll give me something to talk to Levi about. Maybe he'd be willing to let go of his anger to chat about something he loves.

Of course, though, because fate loves to ruin my day, I walk out of a mental conflict and right into a physical one.

I hear raised voices coming from the library as soon as I start approaching it, which is already a red flag. But, like an idiot, I proceed anyway, opening the door cautiously... and promptly get hit in the face with a large leather-bound book.

I reel backwards with a muffled sound of half pain and half surprise, clapping my hands to my face as my nose begins to burn. The book lands a few inches away from my right foot, and I almost trip over it as I stumble to find my footing again. A sharp intake of breath comes from somewhere in front of me; I slowly raise my head.

Satan and Lucifer gape at me in stunned shock from inside the library. Satan's hand is still in the middle of coming down from his throw - he's frozen in place like a kid playing musical statues.

We stare at each other in equally dumbfounded silence. Blood begins to trickle from beneath my fingers.

I turn and leg it down the corridor.

A set of footsteps start following me almost immediately, which only spurs me to go faster. I'm risking being unable to turn to avoid smashing face-first into a wall in the process, but it's a sacrifice I'm going to have to make.

"Where are you going?!" Lucifer calls from behind me. I have no idea how he hasn't caught up to me yet, given how much longer his legs are than mine, but I guess being that much taller slows you down. Air resistance or something.

"To deal with the blood!" I holler back. I'm pinching at my nose in an effort to stop the bleeding, and it's making me sound kind of gross.

"Then why are you running?!" He asks incredulously. "You're only going to hurt yourself!"

"Because you're running!"

"You started running first!" Satan shouts, apparently also having joined the chase. "Slow down!"

I nearly trip over a bump in the carpet, but catch myself back on time. "You're scary!"

Despite only having run for about thirty seconds, I can already feel myself beginning to tire out, though that isn't exactly surprising. I have about as much stamina as a baby cow.

Actually, now that I think about it, deciding to do something that makes you breathe faster probably wasn't the smartest choice in the middle of a nosebleed. I feel like I'm losing an extra teaspoon of blood with every exhale.

I skid on the carpet as I turn another corner, then realise that there's something in my path that isn't usually there. Unfortunately, I'm a split-second too late to realise this, which means I don't have time to change my course, or even slow down in the slightest. Thus, I crash into the something at full velocity.

"Hey, what's going on?" Mammon asks, somehow so unfazed by the force I've hit him with that he doesn't even take a step backwards. "Kid? Ya didn't tell me you were ba— oi, are you bleedin'?!"

I stumble backwards as his hands fall onto my shoulders, still pinching at my nose with one hand and cupping it with the other. "Uh... a little."

Lucifer and Satan round the corner and come to a stop, both huffing. Mammon looks up at them with bewildered eyes, then back down at me. It doesn't take long for him to put two and two together.

"What the hell is up with you two?!" He storms, taking two long strides forward and throwing his arm out as if to shield me. "What did you do?!"

"It— it was an accident," Satan quickly explains, still looking a little stunned by the whole situation. "I didn't hit her on purpose—"

"You hit her?!" Mammon roars, rearing back a hand as if to return the favour. Lucifer, however, quickly slaps it off-course.

"That's quite enough of that," He says frostily, and while he doesn't quite back down, Mammon does begrudgingly lower his hand again. "There was a disagreement. IK simply had the misfortune to walk in at the wrong time."

"Misfortune isn't the word I'd use," I mutter, "That was sitcom timing. You could put that on TV."

Lucifer glances over at me, eyebrows creasing slightly. "...do we need to take you to Simeon?"

"Uh," I pinch a little harder at my nose as I feel the blood beginning to run down my wrist - gross. "I don't think it's broken, so probably not."

"Probably?" He repeats, sweeping past Mammon, who scowls a little at him as he stands aside. "Let me have a look."

"I don't think that's a good idea—" Lucifer completely ignores me and pulls my hands away from my face, bending down to inspect my face more closely. " —okay, we don't like that—"

"Hold still," He interrupts, pulling a large black handkerchief out of seemingly nowhere. "How much blood have you lost?"

"How am I supposed to know that?" I mumble as he begins mopping up some of the blood on my face. The handkerchief smells vaguely like some kind of woody cologne. "Not a lot, probably. Nosebleeds aren't supposed dangerous."

"What even happened?" Mammon asks, coming up behind Lucifer's shoulder and wincing slightly as he sees the the state of my face.

"Satan threw a book at me," Lucifer answers factually. "I dodged it, so it carried on flying in the direction of the door... and then IK opened it."

Mammon turns around to look at Satan, who's still standing on the spot, a deep frown forming on his face. "Why would ya do that? What were you two even arguin' about?"

"None of your business," Satan shoots back, folding his arms in a defensive motion. He glances quickly at the back of Lucifer's head, then at me. I blink back at him, and his expression falters slightly. "...sorry, IK."

"Don't worry about it," I reply, my voice a little muffled behind the handkerchief that Lucifer is still aggressively rubbing at my face with.

"Man..." Mammon shakes his head with an amused huff and leans back against the wall. "You just can't catch a break, can ya?"

"It's like I'm allergic to them," I say solemnly, and he snorts.

In all seriousness, he isn't wrong. Three heavy things have hit me today alone - one backstory that's created a whole lot of conflict, one damning realisation about the identity of the demon in the attic, and one really hard book.

Lucifer, meanwhile, has finished up his work, and gestures for me to keep holding the handkerchief to my nose. Somehow, it still feels completely dry and clean - magic, probably.

"Any damage?" Mammon asks as Lucifer dusts off his hands. He shakes his head.

"You'll be fine," He says to me. "I didn't find any wounds, and it doesn't appear that you've broken any bones, either."

"Right..." I wrinkle my nose slightly beneath the handkerchief. The cologne smell from before is even stronger, and it's beginning to feel a little suffocating. "Thank you, sir."

He quirks a brow, then offers a small smile. "You're welcome."

Now looking more relaxed, Mammon throws his arms behind his head with a yawn and glances over at a clock hanging a little ways down the hallway. "Oi, Satan, aren't you on dinner duty today? You've only got, like, an hour left, tops."

Satan follows his gaze, then shakes his head. "No. I swapped with Asmo yesterday, so it's his turn today instead."

"Oh," I mutter, feeling myself blanche a little. Dinner means that everyone'll be around the table - which, of course, means Levi as well. "Dinner..."

Mammon raises an eyebrow at me. "Somethin' wrong?"

"Well, it's just..." I shuffle my feet uncomfortably. "I, uh... had a bit of a fight with Levi. Just after we got back."

"It seems it's a day for disagreements," Lucifer says lightly, shaking his head. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Satan roll his eyes right up to the ceiling. "Don't worry yourself. Levi's always been temperamental."

"It's not like that," I say emphatically, though I feel like the effect of my words is reduced a little by the black cloth that I'm still clamping to my face. "I think I really did hurt his feelings."

"I doubt you could do anything too awful," He shakes his head, briefly patting me on the head. I tense slightly - that's new for him. "Just wait it out. It'll resolve itself in a few days."

"Just because you always ignore these things doesn't mean IK has to," Satan abruptly interjects. Lucifer pulls back, turning to look at him. "IK, do whatever you think is right. You don't have to listen to Lucifer."

"Come to think of it, I did hear a door slam real loud before," Mammon comments, mostly to himself. "That must've been him."

"...you should go cool down, Satan," Lucifer says after a moment, ignoring Mammon's remark. "You're clearly still angry."

Satan's lip curls. "That's what you say every time. You're always so—"

"Always so what, Satan?" Lucifer asks, voice suddenly falling at least two octaves. His face remains unchanged, but the way his eyes subtly narrow is incredibly threatening all the same.

Satan goes quiet. His gaze darts to me briefly. Then, with a scoff and a flick of his jacket, he turns and disappears back around the corner of the hall.

Mammon and I exchange glances. Lucifer rubs at the bridge of his nose, then shakes his head with a sigh.

"I'll be in my room," He says to me. "Let me know if you start getting lightheaded or dizzy."

"I will..." I trail off as he starts walking off in the opposite direction, then turn to exchange looks with Mammon again.

He looks mostly resigned, as if this sort of dispute between Satan and Lucifer happens a lot - and, now that I've been here for a while now, I can confidently say that it does. Though it's never led to full-blown physical violence before.

Great. So now I've got this pseudo-rivalry between Satan and Lucifer to think about as well. Or, well— I don't have to, but I'm stuck living with them for a year, so I've got stakes in this, too. I don't want to get smacked by any more heavy objects. It's a little worrying that that's normal enough that Lucifer didn't actually tell Satan off for throwing a book at him in the first place.

And it hasn't escaped my notice that, in all of their little disagreements, Satan has nearly always been the aggressor. Lucifer just kind of stands there and dismisses him - which generally just makes him even angrier.

None of the other brothers really acknowledge when these spats happen, either, unless they threaten to start getting furniture-breaking levels of aggressive. They note that it's happening, and then move on. Apparently this feud has been going on for long enough that it's already routine.

To be honest, I'm kind of impressed. I feel like I'd never be able to maintain a rivalry with anyone for longer than a week - I'd just get tired of being mad at things.

"...how're ya feeling?" Mammon asks after a while.

"Tickety-boo," I respond, pulling the handkerchief away from my nose a little. No blood immediately goes pouring down my face, so I assume the majority of the bleeding's stopped.

He pulls a face. "You don't look tickety-boo. C'mon, let's get ya cleaned up..."

I reach up and poke experimentally at my face as he starts leading me down the hallway. It feels like there's a lot of dried blood crusted across my cheeks, which I don't doubt that there is, despite Lucifer's best efforts earlier.

We stop in front of a door, which Mammon gives a brief knock before pushing open. He leads me over to the sink and turns it on, then moves over to sit on the edge of the bathtub as I start soaking Lucifer's handkerchief under the stream of water.

I look up briefly at myself in the mirror. As usual, I can only see the very top half of my face, but something else in the reflection catches my eye: a goldfish towel hanging from the rack at the back of the room.

Mammon glances over as I go still, staring blankly down at the water running over my hands. He leans over to peek into the mirror as well, then turns around to look at the towel.

"Are ya still mopin' about Levi?" He asks after a moment. "He'll come round soon enough. He's just the moody type. Cheer up."

I sigh and wring out the handkerchief, then slowly begin rubbing at the dried blood on my left cheek. "It's my fault he's angry, though. I was being pretty mean to him..."

"You were mean to Levi?" Mammon snorts, beginning to laugh, but quickly stops when I level a slightly irritated look at him through the mirror. "Okay, okay, sorry... it's just kinda funny. I don't reckon you could even say boo to a goose."

"Geese are scary," I mumble, a little reproachful. "They've got beak-teeth. Anyway, it's not that kind of mean..."

Mammon adjusts himself on the edge of the bathtub and swings one leg over the other. "Well, d'you wanna talk about it?"

"I don't think I can." What happened with Levi directly relates to what happened with Mephisto, and I'm pretty sure that neither of them would appreciate me tattling about our conversations.

Mammon shrugs in understanding. "Fine. What are ya gonna do, then?"

I re-soak and wring out the handkerchief, then move onto my right cheek. "I'm not good with apologies. I guess I'll try making him something nice, then talk to him."

"Well, he probably won't take long to forgive ya if you do that," Mammon says with a grin. "Seriously, the way you're actin' - Levi'd be pretty heartless if he stayed mad at you."

"You don't even know what I said to him," I mumble, wringing the handkerchief out a final time, then stuffing it into my pocket. "What if I was really awful?"

He laughs. "I don't think you're even capable of that, kid. Besides, even if you were, ya probably didn't mean it."

Despite his words, I don't feel any better, and Mammon seems to notice. He thinks for a moment, then offers, "...tell ya what, if ya really don't wanna see him at dinner, you can come eat in my room."

I pause in surprise. A drop of water falls from my chin, and I absently begin patting down my still-damp cheeks with one of the hand-towels hanging beside the sink. "Huh?"

"I've got a ton more instant noodles stocked up," He explains, "Bunch of flavours, too. There oughta be something you'll like."

He stands up from the bathtub, brushing off the legs of his jeans, and gives me a cheerful pat on the shoulder. "We'll make a movie night of it, how about that? Then you can start thinkin' about your apology tomorrow."

"...that sounds nice," I reply quietly after a long moment. Mammon smiles.

"C'mon, then," He says, swiping at a wet patch that I missed with the cuff of his sleeve, then beginning to lead me out of the bathroom. "What do ya wanna watch?"

"Anything's fine," I mumble. Mammon nods, and starts going off on a long-winded description of all the unwatched films he's got sitting around in his room.

I don't really know if I deserve him being this nice to me after all that. In fact, shouldn't he be on his brother's side?

...I don't want to think too hard about that right now. I need a break after all that, and I don't need to think about whether I deserve one. A movie night it is.

Chapter Text

"Penny for your thoughts?"

I look up from my worksheet. The top half of Professor Kaz's face peers at me over the side of the desk, eyes narrowed with concern - Alatus hurriedly scurries under my hair and rolls himself to my other shoulder, unimpressed with the professor's crouching attempt to look small and unthreatening.

"You've been off on another planet for half the lesson," Professor Kaz says after a moment, leaning over with a precarious wobble and pointing a large finger at one of my answers. "Look, all you've written here is 'run'."

I glance back down at my sheet. "...it's the only thing I can think of."

"We covered it earlier this lesson, sweet," He sighs, sitting back slightly on his heels and shaking his head. "Biting teapot falls under an animation curse. We were just learning the counter-incantation a few minutes ago."

"We all said it together, remember?" Luke sets his quill aside to shoot me a concerned look around Simeon's side. "Did you already forget?"

"Guess so." I put my pen down and reach up to rub tiredly at my left eye. "I'm just kinda out of it..."

"Hey, hey!" Simeon quickly catches my hand and pushes it back down. "Careful. You're going to get ink in your eye..."

He scrubs at the large dark patch staining my left palm with the side of his glove for a moment, but only succeeds in spreading it further. Alatus sniffs curiously, then decides that none of this is worth his time, and goes back to chewing contentedly on the edge of my shoulder-cape.

"Oh dear. How have you managed that?" Professor Kaz clicks his tongue and gestures for me to hold my hand out. After a moment, I do so, and he taps a single finger to the ink-stain; it begins fading, as if he's siphoning it out. "Didn't get enough sleep again?"

I don't think I ever get enough sleep, but... "Uh... sure."

"'Sure'?" He repeats, allowing me to pull my hand back. "It doesn't sound like you're sure."

I sigh, beginning to tap at the desk now that I have nothing to do with my hands. "Well, I... no, sleep isn't really the problem."

"I see... and would you like to tell me what the problem is?

I glance around the classroom. None of the other students are looking our way, but that doesn't meant that none of them could be listening. "Uh..."

"Is this about your fight with Leviathan?" Simeon asks, far too loudly. Several demons around the room pause slightly, then go back to their work.

I sink down in my seat, suddenly feeling as if every eye in the classroom is focused on me, even though they're clearly not. "...how do you know about that?"

"Diavolo has been expressing his concerns about it to just about everyone he talks to," Professor Kaz is the one to answer. "He even brought it up at our staff meeting this morning. He heard it from Lucifer, apparently."

Oh, great. I fight the urge to hide my face in my hands. That means that the entire faculty knows... and a good chunk of the students too, probably. Though it doesn't seem like anyone knows about what happened with Mephisto, at least.

It's been more than a week since I managed to tick off both Levi and Mephisto in quick succession. I'd hoped things would magically resolve themselves, clearly they're both still stinging from the whole thing. Levi's been refused to look at me for longer than ten seconds, and even just me walking into a room is enough to make him stand up and leave.

That includes the dining room during meals, so I've taken to just eating in my room. That way Levi doesn't miss out on meals just because he doesn't want to be around me. It's not as bad as it sounds, to be honest; Mammon's been coming to eat with me a lot of the time, and I have Alatus, so it isn't like I'm lonely or anything.

Speaking of Mammon, he did help me brainstorm a few ideas to apologise - but I still won't tell him exactly what I did to get him so upset in the first place. so there's only so much he can offer. I'm just grateful that he isn't getting angry that I'm not co-operating. In my experience, these things can snowball into an avalanche at very short notice.

I haven't managed to say much to him, and it probably is somewhat due to lack of trying. And Mephisto's basically dropped off the face of the Devildom - I haven't seen hide or tail of him since it happened. The R.A.D. Newspaper Club is still posting regularly on Devilgram, with no indication that anything bad has happened to their leader, so I have a feeling that I'm the only one for whom Mephisto has disappeared. It isn't like he isn't cunning enough to make it happen.

And there's still the issue of Belphegor. It's been hanging over me like a giant thundercloud, but with the two-angry-demons problem has been a lot more in my face, I haven't been focusing on it all. It just doesn't stick, even though I know it's probably the more urgent issue.

I haven't even gone up to the attic to confront its deceptive occupant. That's partially because I still haven't figured out how to get the enchantment on the sunglasses to actually activate, but it's also mostly because I'm afraid to. Who's to say that he didn't tell me any other lies that night?

The thing that still sticks out most is that he never told me why he got locked up in the first place. It feels relevant, doesn't it? If you can lie with words, you can lie with a lack of them as well.

I've been living around Lucifer for a good while now, during which time he's saved my life once and just generally been quite nice to me. On the other hand, I've only met Belphegor once, and he's given me a dazzling first impression by lying about his identity and roping me into a jail-break plan. I just can't fathom why the former would lock away the latter, and why the latter won't tell me.

But... Belphegor seemed so relieved when I first arrived at the attic. If anything, his desperation to escape felt real. And I really do feel bad for him.

Is Lucifer right, or is Belphegor being wronged? I don't know. Heck, it could be both, but it's not like I'll know for sure until someone spells it out for me. It seems that I just can't make a choice between anything. 

All I can do is ask myself questions - who do I side with? What will it take for me to grow a spine and make a choice with conviction?

I still don't have any of the answers that I'm looking for. The only thing I've gained from all this thinking is a lack of sleep and a couple of headaches.

"I'm sure he'll come to see reason soon enough," Simeon says bracingly, giving me a comforting pat on the shoulder. "Cheer up."

I heave out a deep sigh, sinking even further into my seat. "Why does everyone keep telling me that?"

"We don't want you to be sad," Luke says with a small pout.

"Levi's sad as well," I mumble, scowling a little at the wood grain. And so's Mephisto. "No one's tried to cheer him up."

"Well..." Professor Kaz scratches at his beard awkwardly. "Leviathan's had plenty of these moods before, over much lesser things. And they've always blown over in the end."

It's like the boy who cried wolf. But the boy really did get killed by a wolf in the end. And Levi really is genuinely upset now.

"It's not a lesser thing this time," I say. Alatus sneezes into my ear in what I'd like to think is solidarity. "And I don't get why no one thinks I did anything bad. The whole thing's my fault."

"I'm sure that's not true—"

"It is," I snap before Simeon can finish, and he freezes in surprise, eyes widening. "He's not just throwing a tantrum for the heck of it. I was a bad friend."

Several students around the classroom have stopped writing, and I can see a few heads turning subtly my way. I blink at my paper, feeling my heart sink as I realise that my vision is rapidly beginning to blur.

I refuse to say anything else for the rest of the lesson, despite Professor Kaz and Simeon's gentle prodding and the plaintive, wide-eyed look on Luke's face. Soon enough, Professor Kaz has to retreated to his desk, and the angels reluctantly go back to their worksheets. 

Meanwhile, I try furiously to unblur mine. It doesn't work, so all I can do is wipe at my eyes every now and then and hope that no one's looking.

The bell goes, but neither Simeon nor Luke make any move to set off for their next class. I pack up my things quickly and leave with a quiet goodbye, and while they don't try to stop me, they practically stare me right out of the classroom. The last thing I see of them before the door swings shut is Simeon getting up and approaching Professor Kaz at the front desk.

We don't share the next class, anyway, so I decide not to wait to walk with them. The corridors are a downright hellscape to navigate alone, but with Alatus cupped in my hands for security and the occasional encouraging cough-sneeze he releases, it's a little easier to stand the constant throng of demons who seem to have made it their life's mission to shove me down the stairs.

Solomon, as usual, is already there, looking supremely bored as he doodles indecipherable patterns all over his left arm with a quill. He looks over as I sit down beside him, then frowns slightly. 

"Are you alright?"

"Fine," I mumble, setting Alatus down on the desk and beginning to unpack my things.

"You've been crying," He says. It isn't a question. Do I really make it that obvious? "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I say as firmly as I can, sitting down and immediately picking Alatus up once more, if only just to have something to do with my hands. He sneezes again.

"Do I need to talk to someone?" He asks almost threateningly, hand curling so tightly around his quill that I'm pretty sure I hear it snap in his hand. "Just say the word."

If there's anyone who needs a talking-to, it's probably me. "No."

He frowns at me for a moment longer, then points the sharp end of his quill directly at Alatus, who just blinks at it in an unimpressed fashion. "Tell me or the Puffball gets it."

The dramatic effect of the moment is a little ruined by gravity fully snapping Solomon's quill in half. The sharp end drops onto the table with a loud clack, and a puddle of black ink rapidly develops around it.

After a moment of slightly embarrassed silence, Solomon sighs, waving his hand in a smooth, circular motion. Both halves of the broken quill - as well as the ink puddle - promptly dissolve into dust-like specks that fly about briefly like agitated moths, then vanish into thin air.

I watch them go. Solomon leans forward on the table, looking around at the other demons in the classroom, then finally asks, "Was it Simeon?"

I shake my head. He thinks for a moment, then asks again, "What about Luke?"

"No."

A pause. "Lucifer?"

Beginning to catch onto what he's trying to accomplish, I manage a small laugh. "Are you just going to keep saying names until you get it right?"

"Well, it's the only option I've got if you aren't going to say," He says with some semblance of a pout, then suddenly pauses. A frown climbs onto his face. "Wait - it isn't me, is it?"

"No," I mumble, and his entire frame visibly slackens with exaggerated relief. I look up at the clock on the wall, wondering vaguely why our teacher still hasn't shown up. "...I thought Mr Diavolo already told everyone."

"Diavolo? I haven't seen him all week," Solomon taps his fingers against the desk. "Simeon seemed worried about you last night - so I suppose he knows. Come on, now, just tell me."

"I had a kind of argument with Levi," I say gloomily. "Now he hates me."

"Oh, so it was him, was it?" His hand clenches into a fist again, and I hurriedly shake my head before he can punch the desk in half or something.

"I keep saying," I begin with a very distinct sense of resignation, "It was my fault, and it's normal that he's mad at me."

I'm half expecting Solomon to react the same way that everyone else has - dismissive and amused, maybe a little reassuring - but instead his fist relaxes, and he leans back slightly, nodding in understanding. 

"I see..." He raises an eyebrow at me. "I assume that you don't want to share the details?"

Solomon would probably understand Levi a lot better than me in this situation, but... I don't think Levi himself would appreciate it. I shake my head.

"Fair enough," Solomon sighs, reaching into his spray-painted Nike bag to retrieve a fresh quill. He moves to stick the tip of the feather into his mouth, then catches himself and pulls it away again. "Then I won't prod. But, I have to ask - do you feel like he might attack you?"

"Attack me?" I shake my head firmly. "I don't think so at all. He's just ignoring me."

"Well, that's something," He mutters. "Of course, I don't know what's going on... but maybe saying sorry would be an easy fix?"

"I don't know if I can..." I wrestle my left ring finger out of Alatus's mouth as he makes a valiant attempt at eating it. It doesn't take much effort - his fluffy little jaw is about as strong as a small marshmallow. "...because the thing he got mad at me for - I haven't really changed my mind about it."

Alatus, having been deprived of the joy of eating one of my fingers, decides to start chewing unhappily on the end of my sleeve instead. Pre-occupied, I don't bother stopping him. "Does that make me a bad person?"

"A bad person?" Solomon repeats, then snorts, poking my cheek with the end of his quill. I rear back slightly - it tickles. "I can't even convince you to skip queues. I don't think there's a force in any of the three realms that could make you a bad person."

He puts his quill down and leans forward on the table. "Besides, can you say that truly 'bad' people even exist? Leave the thinking to the philosophers - just worry about yourself. Give it some time, and everything should clear up."

"Are you saying that there's no such thing as a bad person'?" I ask a little incredulously. "Solomon, I don't know if you've heard of him, but there was this guy called Hi—"

"Alright, Little Miss Pedantic!" He jabs at me with his quill. "I didn't mean it literally. I was just waxing philosophical - there are plenty of bad people around."

Isn't the phrase 'waxing lyrical'?  He thinks hard for a moment, then makes the brilliant addition of, "Like Henry VIII. Or Jack the Ripper."

"I don't think either of them are really around anymore— " Solomon aims another jab at my cheek. I didge.

"Fine then, how about Dr Jekyll's Mr Hyde?" He says, raising his hands in an apparent gesture of surrender. "Or Sweeney Todd? That good enough for you?"

"Mr Hyde doesn't exist," I reply, scrunching up my face. How out of touch is he? To be fair, he didn't even know who Freddie Mercury was, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised... "Neither does Sweeney Todd. Hyde's from a novel, and Todd's from a penny dreadful."

"That's what they want you to think," Solomon says mysteriously, shaking his head and wagging his finger back and forth theatrically. "You don't know for sure that they didn't exist."

"No one knows anything for sure," I say, shaking my head. "Plenty of people think that the Queen's secretly a lizard woman. Just because it's a possibility doesn't mean that it's right , though."

"You're awfully particular when you want to be," He sighs. "Then what about the Zodiac Killer? He could still be around as far as we know."

I consider for a moment, then nod. "Ted Cruz was still alive last time I checked."

Solomon laughs. "There we go, then!"

Our Devildom History teacher shows up shortly after that, and it isn't until the lesson is coming to a close that I finally realise that Solomon was probably trying to distract me with the whole 'bad people' back and forth. There's no way that he didn't know that Mr Hyde and Sweeney Todd didn't exist - I'm guessing he just saw an opportunity to start up some banter.

I can't really get mad at him, though. The distraction's done its job; I don't think I feel nearly as heavy-hearted as I did when I first walked into the lesson. At the very least, I'm a lot more relaxed by the time the lesson ends than I've been for most of the day.

Solomon gets his things packed up with a quick wave of his hand, and while he offers to do the same for me, I opt to do it by hand - the one time I let Solomon magically pack my things, he managed to send Alatus flying out of the nearest window, and we had to spend nearly an hour after school trying to find him in the R.A.D. gardens. He waits by the desk as the other students start filing out, since we usually walk home together with Simeon and Luke.

I finish packing up and follow behind him as he leads the way over to the door. Before we can leave, however, Professor Magdalene calls out, "Wait, child."

I can only assume that she's talking to me. Solomon pauses by the door as I turn to look at her. "Yes, Professor?"

"Come here," She instructs, lifting her pince-nez glasses from her face and balancing them atop her head. 

Without the inch-thick lenses blowing her eyes up to magnificent proportions, she looks a lot younger - in fact, with her crimson lipstick and perfectly-curled blonde hair, she almost resembles Marilyn Monroe.

Her grey eyes move over to Solomon, who's still hovering by the door. "Warlock, you may go."

"Hey," He immediately objects, looking a little offended. "I'm not a warlock, I'm a sorcerer. And what do you need to talk to IK about?"

"Ah, warlock, sorcerer, magician, they're all the same," sighs Professor Magdalene. "It isn't for your ears to hear. Shoo."

As great a sorcerer as he is, Solomon is still a student here, and being able to transform chairs into a bunch of marbles with a click of his fingers (a cool party trick, but not nearly as fun if you're still sitting in the chair when he does it) doesn't make him exempt from detention. Thus, he has no choice but to obey.

"We'll be waiting for you by the gate, then," He says to me, then shuffles out, shooting a slightly resentful look back at Professor Magdalene as he goes.

I, meanwhile, slowly approach her desk. She looks at me for a moment, then says, "Kazakiel has a message for you."

"Professor Kaz?" Is that why she was late for the lesson? She was talking to him? "...what is it?"

"He would like you to know that he is sorry for not taking your disagreement with Levi seriously," She relays. Contrary to how she teaches her lessons at a rate of about five words per second, she's speaking very steadily now, enunciating each word as clearly as possible. "He would have told you himself, but he has a tutoring session right now. He'd also like to let you know that he is willing to give you any advice that you may want."

"Oh." That's nice of him. I smile a little. "I'll thank him next time I see him."

She nods, but doesn't respond. Something odd is going on with her eyes - instead of focusing on any one place, they're darting this way and that, as if following a fly. I turn around for a moment to see if there's anything around the classroom that might be catching her attention, but find nothing. It looks just as it always does.

Then, abruptly, Professor Magdalene says, "I have a message of my own for you as well."

I blink at her, and she continues, "Mephistopheles is being unreasonable. You shouldn't feel too guilty about your disagreement."

...what?

My smile vanishes, and I take a small step backwards. My mouth is suddenly bone-dry. "...how do you know about that?"

"Barbatos is not the only demon gifted with the ability of precognition," She says, and her eyes seem to glint. Vaguely, I think, Barbatos has that? "Though I am far less powerful than him... and I suppose that, in my case, it is more a case of past-cognition."

She pauses briefly to have a little chuckle at her pun, then carries on. "I am merely able to see that which has already transpired around the subject standing before me. It's a useful skill to have in my field of work... and I saw, just now, what happened with both Mephistopheles and Leviathan."

It's not really precognition if you only see what's already happened, not what's about to happen - that's kind of the definition of the word. Also, that's definitely an invasion of privacy. "...oh."

She regards me over her steepled fingers for a long moment, then finally says, "Mephistopheles and Leviathan share a history that both would rather forget. It seems that you have taken up an unfortunate position in the no man's land between them."

I feel myself droop a little. "...yeah, that's about right."

A tense silence falls across the room. Eventually, Professor Magdalene begins, "I have seen a glimpse of Mephistopheles's past once before. We share... certain things in common, but I do not know him well, nor do I wish to. But I know enough to say this: you were right to feel cautious. He is responsible for a great deal of things in his time."

She frowns a little, pausing, then resumes, "But he has suffered his fair share, as well. Perhaps even enough. But someone else will have to be the judge of that... eventually."

"What does that mean?"

"You will find out one day," She says mysteriously. "One day soon, I'll wager. These things don't tend to like waiting to be found out. And, when the time comes, you will understand. Mephistopheles, Leviathan - and your warlock friend, as well."

"Sorcerer," I remind her instinctively. "And his name's Solomon."

"Solomon," She repeats with a nod. "There is a great deal of resentment harboured between those two in particular. If the wrong cards are played, you may find Solomon on your battlefield as well."

Having two friends mad at me is bad enough. Another one might kill me. "...why are you telling me all this?"

Professor Magdalene is silent for a moment. She reaches up and slides her glasses back down over her eyes, and she seems to age an eternity almost immediately.

"I have been alive for a long, long time," She says. "And so has Mephistopheles. We have lived very different lives, taken very different paths, and ended up in very different places... but we aren't more than two millennia apart in age, and beings as ancient as us simply can't live as long as we have without suffering a certain degree of despair. I suppose I am sympathetic to him, in a way."

She smiles at me. "Mephistopheles's past is not entirely his own, and there are pieces of it in unexpected places. But there is closure to be found - and not just for him, either. It's all part of the same tapestry, in the end.

Closure. That's what this is about in the end. Levi still hates Mephisto because he never received closure for what he did to him. I found it hard to look upon Mephisto in a favourable light - partially because of what he did in the first place, yes, but also because of the fact that he never gave Levi that small mercy.

Professor Magdalene leans back a little in her seat and gives me a pleasant smile, as if we're just having a chat between friends in some cafe - as if she hasn't just dropped what's basically a prophecy in so many words on me, and is expecting me to know what to do about it. I open my mouth to give her an equally cryptic reply, or maybe a heroic promise to reconcile Mephisto and Levi - and Mephisto and Solomon, while I'm at it - but nothing comes.

"I didn't sign up for that," is what I end up saying. She laughs at that, and the smile on her face seems to cancel out the ageing effect of her glasses - suddenly she looks young again.

"I suppose you didn't," She says. "But don't fret. From what I've seen, things just seem to happen to you, don't they? Perhaps the same will come of this particular mission."

"Right..." I step back. If I think about it too hard, I start getting annoyed. "...so can I go now, then?"

I don't feel like I've gained much from this chat at all. I'd be over the moon if Professor Magdalene could just tell me how to solve the problem so that everyone's happy, but instead I've basically been tasked with some kind of grand quest in a video game, and I don't even have any objectives to tell me how to get started.

Professor Magdalene, either unnoticing of or unbothered, simply replies, "Of course. Run along now."

She waves me out of the door. I stop briefly to pull Alatus away from my shirt collar, where he's managed to get a bit of his fluff snagged to my top button, then suddenly pause.

The corridor is void of any demons, and the post-school rush has already faded away. The quiet is so absolute that the sound of the footsteps moving rapidly away is so loud and obvious that they might as well be hammer-blows. And, if I listen carefully... I can hear the tell-tale sound of a camera on a lanyard, rattling with every step taken.

It doesn't take long for me to figure out who's running. Mephisto.

He must have been listening to my conversation with Professor Magdalene. I don't know why, and I don't how he knew to come here, but, in this moment, I find that I don't particularly care about the answers to those questions. Seized by a sudden, intense determination, I start speed-walking in the direction of the disappearing footsteps.

They seem to fade into the distance all the more quickly no matter how fast I walk, but the 'no running in the school halls' rule that has practically been carved into my brain ever since nursery stops me from breaking into a full-on sprint. Mephisto, of course, has no such qualms, and soon enough I've lost the sound of his retreat completely.

I try fruitlessly to regain his trail for about five minutes, but I only succeed in walking myself in several circles and getting myself all dizzy. No doubt that, by now, Mephisto will have left the building entirely.

I stop for a moment to catch my breath in front of a painting. To be honest, I'm a little relieved that I didn't catch up. I don't know what I could've said to him if I did. Would I have confronted him about his eavesdropping? Attempted to apologise? Told him off?

It doesn't bear thinking about all the things that could go wrong if I'd just gone into it. This is probably for the better. ...I might as well go home.

The corridors are mostly quiet, with the occasional demon who's stayed behind for extra-curriculars or after-school detention passing by, none of whom pay me any mind. I mostly try to keep my head down, observing the increasingly odd choices of carpet colour as I try to figure out whether the exit at the end of the brewing-and-alchemy corridor is closer than the main entrance or not.

Deciding that the main entrance is probably my best bet, I speed up a little, round a corner - and walk straight into Levi.

What the HELL.

We stare at each other in equally nonplussed silence for a minute. There's a smear of paint on his right cheek and a tray of art supplies in his arms.

A door slams somewhere along the corridor, and the sound snaps Levi out of his trance. He adjusts the tray in his hands, raises his gaze to focus firmly on something in the distance, and starts marching off.

Unfortunately - and I'd guess that this is owing to the suddenly rather preoccupied look on this face - he misjudges his direction, and walks straight into the wall.

The tray clatters as his nose hits the wallpaper, and he reels backwards so abruptly that he loses his balance, beginning to teeter on the brink of what promises to be an embarrassing fall. And, against all rational thought - you're not strong enough for this, stupid - I attempt to catch him.

This is, of course, a supremely bad idea. Levi topples over anyway, because of course he does, dropping his tray and its contents as he goes - and I just end up squashed firmly beneath his back.

If you have ever had a demon fall on top of you with their entire body weight (well, maybe not entire - I'm not big enough to have caught all of it), you will know that it is not a pleasant experience. It feels like the Norse God Thor has ever-so-gently placed Mjolnir directly on top of you, and with each passing second, is adding more and more dumbbells on top for good measure.

What makes it worse is that I still have my backpack on, so my spine is being pressed into a dangerous-feeling curve around it. I'm pretty sure it's just going to give way and snap if I leave it like this for too long - and, rather worryingly, Levi doesn't seem to be showing any signs of getting off me.

"Levi," I manage to wheeze, "I know that you're mad at me right now, but please get off me."

He doesn't respond for a good while. I'm beginning to think through the oxygen deprivation that he's intending to just let me suffocate, but then he finally sits up.

"Sorry," He mutters. Refusing to look at me (as has become custom for the past few days), he begins quickly packing all of the spilled art supplies back into the tray he was carrying earlier.

I take a few seconds to catch my breath, then check in on Alatus. He seems unharmed - in fact, he looks as if he's gone to sleep, so I guess I don't need to be very worried about him. I turn to look back at Levi as he straightens out a little stack of acrylic paper.

Something goes off at the back of my mind as I stare at the paper. An idea begins to resurface - an idea that I'd only entertained very briefly during the brainstorming with Mammon, but is now seeming like a very promising option for an apology. In fact, it seems rather brilliant.

"Um," I begin, my voice barely above a whisper, "Levi?"

He pauses, but doesn't look my way. "...what?"

"What's your favourite animal?"

A long silence.

Apparently forgetting that he's not supposed to be looking or talking to me, Levi turns to shoot me a kind of incredulously confused look. "Huh?"

"Um..." I look down awkwardly and pick up a handful of crayons to avoid meeting his gaze. "Just a question. You, uh, don't have to answer if you don't want to."

He absently holds out a tin that's already half-filled with other crayons of the same brand, and I drop my handful into it with a quiet clatter. "Why do you want to know that?"

I don't want to give the whole thing away, but as I go to say something along the lines of 'it's private', I remember how Mephisto responded when I said something similar to him. The subject matter here is different, sure, but I don't want to risk making the gap between me and Levi any bigger than it already is.

"It's..." I begin finally. "... a surprise."

"A surprise?" Levi repeats, then frowns. "I don't like surprises."

Neither do I, actually, but my idea's simple enough that I don't think it could cause much conflict. Those may be famous last words, but it's a risk I'm going to have to take - my plan's unglamorous enough as is, and I'm pretty sure it'd only reduce my chances of success if I told Levi ahead of time.

"...it's not a very big one," I offer, hoping that that's enough to appease him.

Levi looks back at me with an unreadable expression, and doesn't reply. A moment later, he ducks his head, dropping the last paint tin back into the tray, then begins to get to his feet.

I disguise a sigh. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't anticipating a less than welcome response, but I was a hopeful that he'd at least talk to me for longer than five minutes.

However, unexpectedly - instead of turning and disappearing down the corridor without another word like I thought he would, Levi stays still on the spot for a minute longer.

"You're smart," He says finally. "Figure it out yourself."

And then he really does turn and disappear down the corridor.

Still sitting on the floor, a little dumbstruck, I stare after him. Rather than plummeting to the pit of my stomach again, my heart seems to be doing a hopeful little jig.

It wasn't exactly a big smile and a cheery 'Of COURSE I'm not mad at you anymore!', but it's about the best I could have expected. Not only did Levi not get up and run away immediately, abandoning the tray like he abandons his meals when I walk into the dining room, he actually listened to and talked to me.

Now that I think about it, Levi even being here at the R.A.D. at all is pretty major. He'd already been taking the majority of his lessons online before, but after the whole argument, he stopped attending his classes in person entirely. And, the other day, Asmodeus helpfully told me that he was opting to do that specifically because it meant he wouldn't have to see - or, heaven forbid, talk to me - around school.

So maybe the fact that I ran into him in the first place is something to be happy about.

I'm so absorbed in my thoughts that I don't realise that I've been sitting on the floor for the better part of five minutes until a particularly lanky demon with the wildest red hair I've ever seen decides to quite literally step over me, instead of opting for the much less theatrical alternative of just going around. He glances over his shoulder at me, turning up his nose, then continues down the corridor with a scoff.

I decide at that point that I should really be getting out of the building, and pull out my D.D.D. to shoot the Purgatory Hall folk a quick apology for keeping them waiting so long - that is, if they even are still waiting out there. I wouldn't blame them if they'd just decided to go without me by now.

Though it turns out that they haven't; when I turn my D.D.D. on, I discover that I've received fifteen notifications from our group-chat. A series of increasingly incomprehensible texts from Simeon make up nine of them; the other six are compromised of one very imaginative question from Luke enquiring as to whether I need saving from a demon-bully, and five laughing crow stickers from Solomon.

I let them know that I'm on my way and stow my D.D.D. back in my jacket pocket, wondering vaguely why Simeon's D.D.D. never seems to auto-correct his multitude of misspellings. Is he just so bad at typing that even the OS has given up on him?

Neither Simeon nor Luke bring up my bad mood in our Curse-Breaking lesson earlier, and Solomon doesn't try to ask what Professor Magdalene wanted to talk to me about, either. I suspect that this isn't out of a lack of goodwill or curiosity, since all three of them keep shooting me side-glances when they think I'm not looking, but I can't be bothered to say anything about it.

Luke is clearly determined to not let the conversation stop for even a split second - whenever the current topic begins to dwindle, he brings up a fresh one, ignoring all tact and subtlety as he wards off the silence with a new question. As time goes on, it becomes clear that he's running out of things to talk about, but neither Simeon nor I call him out on it. Technically Solomon doesn't, either, but he's sniggering so obviously into his sleeve that he might as well be doing so.

We part ways at the usual place - the split in the path where one branch leads to the Purgatory Hall and the other to the House of Lamentation. Simeon offers to walk all the way to the House with me, but I decline the offer almost immediately... and then feel really bad when he starts drooping his way down the path to the Hall.

"He's being dramatic," Solomon reassures me as I stare after the gloomy-looking angel in concern. "He's not actually upset."

I turn to look back at Simeon. Almost as soon as my gaze lands on him, his shoulders seem to drop even further, and his dejected shuffle slows to a snail's crawl.

Luke, walking beside him, begins pulling on his arm in an effort to speed him up. In retaliation, Simeon slows down even more, to the point where Luke is dragging his entire body weight along the stone-lined path, and the two look so much like an exasperated son dealing with an eccentric old dad whose 'legs aren't quite what they used to be' that I can't help but hide a laugh behind my hand.

Solomon soon follows after his housemates, and I wave all three of them off with a smile. Funnily enough, almost as soon as Simeon turns to look at me, he stops acting like a lethargic sloth, and starts walking normally again.

The House of Lamentation is quiet when I slowly push open the already-unlocked front door and tip-toe in. I tap some dirt from my shoes on the welcome mat, then head to the library - being sure to open the door as cautiously as possible, just in case of any projectile-books that might be flying about.

The library is empty, though - which is actually a little odd, since Satan is almost always in here when I look. Nevertheless, I browse the shelves for about five minutes before coming upon the kind of book that I'm looking for, spend another five minutes debating which ones to take, then finally opt for three. And I don't encounter anyone on my way to my room, either, which is just as well, because I don't want anyone asking questions about why I'm reading books about origami.

Figure it out yourself, Levi had told me. Well, there are only two options I can think of that might be Levi's favourite animal: a snake, or a goldfish.

I wonder absently where Levi actually got Henry 2.0 from (are they a common species in the Devildom?) as I scan over an origami dragon and dinosaur. Both are actually very cool, and I make a mental note to come back to them another time.

There's no design in any of the books for a seven-headed serpent like I'd initially hoped for, but both the first and second books have regular snakes (the second one actually has multiple species), and all three have designs for goldfish. A look at the publishing logos on the backs of the books tells me that they've been written and published in the Devildom, so I guess goldfish really are common down here.

I mark out the snake design that most closely resembles the general shape of Lotan's heads in the second book, then spend several agonising minutes trying to decide which of the three goldfish designs looks more like Henry 2.0. Finding a Lotan look-alike is easy - it's kind of hard to forget what a seven-headed sea serpent looks like once you've ridden on its back - but I've never exactly taken the time to observe Levi's goldfish up close. 

All of the time I've spent in his room thus far has mostly been compromised of him laughing hysterically at me as my character runs straight off the platform of some fighting game for the twenty-first time in a row. And I haven't been in his room at all for the last week. Eeny-meeny-miny-mo is probably my only option now.

I've never been particularly gifted at arts and crafts. Or art in general, really. I like colours, and I like looking at pretty paintings, but I've never gotten the hang of combining colours into those pretty paintings, and my observational drawing skills leave... a lot to be desired. I was the bane of my art teacher's life, but he was awful enough that that felt more like an accolade than an insult.

Origami is one of those things that I've wanted to be good at for a long time - it's somewhere up there amongst piano-playing, cake decorating, acting, skating, composing, coding, writing, and generally being funny. I can only say that I'm even average at about two of these things, and origami isn't one of them.

Most of the time I end up with something disfigured, and a good few paper cuts for my trouble. To this day, the only thing I can consistently make well is a very basic paper crane and an impressively aerodynamic aeroplane.

(I don't know if the second one even counts as origami, but I'm probably prouder of it than the first one.)

Now that I'm actually about to commit to it, I'm beginning to think my brilliant idea isn't as brilliant as I initially thought it would be. I'd had the thousand cranes in mind, but making even one nice-looking snake or goldfish already seems like a gargantuan task - let alone a thousand of them.

Actually, a thousand would probably be a little excessive... maybe seven snakes, for Lotan's seven heads, and just the one goldfish, since there's only one of Henry 2.0. I'd be lying if I said that the idea of assembling Levi an entire army of paper animals doesn't sound tempting, but I feel like a gesture that grand would make him feel like he's obligated to forgive me... plus I do actually want to have fingers once this is all over.

I still haven't quite sorted out my feelings on the whole Mephisto-Levi situation, and I can't exactly tell him that I do hate Mephisto now, and that I'll unconditionally be on his side, because that's just not true. It'd all be so much easier if things worked like they did between the ages of five and eleven, when the worst thing you could do in retaliation to an argument with someone was uninvite them to your birthday party. 

Most of the time, all the un-invitee needed to do to get re-invited again was give the future birthday kid a cool rock - or, even better, a shiny pound coin. The latter was usually a lot more effective than the former. But I don't have any cool rocks to offer either Mephisto or Levi, and I have a feeling that they'd just take apology money as an insult.

So eight origami animals for Levi it is, I think, rubbing at my eyes. My fingers are already beginning to sting in anticipation. And I'll have to think up something different for Mephisto, I don't want to just be re-using gimmicks... once he actually lets me look at him without doing a runner.

Mammon barges into my room about two or three hours later, a pot of freshly-made instant noodles steaming in each hand, while I'm in the middle of trying to fold a little goldfish fin into place. The crumpled remains of its predecessors sit around me like tiny, snowy-white corpses, and Mammon, understandably, immediately assumes I've gone insane.

Luckily I manage I stop him before he calls Lucifer on me, and quickly explain the whole situation to him. To give credit where credit's due, he doesn't call me out on how clearly my plan isn't working out. Instead, he comes over, setting down the noodles, and inspects the page that I'm working from carefully.

"You're makin' this too complicated," He says after watching me set aside another failure and start on another one. "How long've you been going? Your fingers look like they're gonna fall off."

"Probably too long," I mumble tiredly, leaning back and blinking hard. Staring at something so close to your face for so long kind of does a number on your eyes. "What am I doing wrong?"

Mammon picks up one of the instant noodle pots and settles himself on the side of my bed. Alatus, napping on my pillow as usual, opens a single eye to look at him, then goes back to sleep. "Hell if I know. Paper ain't my thing... c'mon, eat your noodles."

I push the book and failed origami attempts to the side and pull the pot over to me. For a few minutes, neither Mammon nor I talk, focusing instead on our food.

"I reckon Levi's startin' to warm up again," He says eventually, twirling his chopsticks in his hands. "He asked when you were havin' dinner when I went to get the hot water."

I pause in the middle of taking a sip of the broth. "Really?"

Mammon nods, sticking his chopsticks back into his pot and giving it an absent-minded stir. "Said he'd noticed that you hadn't been showing up to eat. Actually, did ya have breakfast today?"

"Don't remember," I say, knowing full well that I did not. Breakfast is never at the forefront of my mind when I wake up, and even when it does make it there, I usually dismiss it.

And, since I haven't been sitting at the dining table every morning with Lucifer staring me down like a particularly stern dinner lady as of late, there's no one to silently peer pressure me into eating. Satan's made me some coffee on the two or three days that I've gotten up early enough to run into him alone in the kitchen, and Asmodeus gave me an enormous muffin studded with some kind of berry on Tuesday (because he didn't like berries in his desserts), but that's about it.

Mammon shakes his head a little in disapproval, clicking his tongue. "Typical. You're like a little baby, I have to do everything..."

"That's not true," I object, feeling a little offended, because it isn't like he's having to teach me how to tie my laces or anything. "I just don't really get hungry in the mornings."

"Still, you should be havin' something," He says, shaking his head in disapproval. "Hey, since Levi's stopped bein' so mad, you could probably eat at the table with the rest of us tomorrow."

"Maybe," I say without much commitment. I don't know if I should try my chances with sitting close by to him for an extended period of time.

I look down into my pot. Mammon's already downed most of his noodles, but the portion sizes are for demons (and I wasn't that hungry in the first place), so I've only eaten about a third of mine, and I already feel full. Food waste is an absolute no-no in my household, so we usually put any leftovers in a tupperware and leave it in the fridge, but you can't really do that with instant noodles. When you make yourself a pot (or package) instant noodles, you finish those noodles. There aren't usually left-overs.

Mammon seems to notice my dilemma. "...you full already?"

I nod silently, giving my pot an awkward little swirl in my hands. Clicking his tongue, Mammon holds out his own pot, which is mostly empty. "Here, pour 'em in."

"...is that, like... hygienic?"

He wrinkles his nose at that. "Beel's always eatin' everyone's left-overs, and he's fine, so probably. Unless ya spat in yours or somethin'."

"I didn't," I say quickly, shivering at the thought. "But, uh, are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. Anyway, I'm still hungry. C'mon."

On that last word, he gives his empty pot an impatient little shake. I pause for a moment longer, then roll over in my chair and carefully tip the rest of my noodles into it.

Mammon immediately sets about eating them, while I wheel myself back over to my desk. Both desk and chair are human-sized, but they're the only things in my room that are (apart from my clothes, backpack, and myself), so they kind of look like doll furniture amongst everything else.

I debate whether or not to get straight back to trying to figure out the origami goldfish for a moment, then decide that it's probably not worth it. I've already got one very long paper cut on the back of my left hand (I don't even know how I managed that one), and several smaller ones littered across my palms and fingers. I'm going to end up with mincemeat for hands at this rate.

I'll start on it again tomorrow, I think a little gloomily, beginning to sweep all the failed goldfish into one of my drawers so that I can unfold and use them as scrap paper or something later. It's not like I have a deadline...

I lean back in my chair and spin myself around a little, then stop when I start getting dizzy. The rather worrying thing is that the dizziness takes a good minute or so longer than it should to wear off, and I suddenly remember that the only thing I've drunk all day is that little juice pouch Simeon gave me at lunch.

Mammon is still occupied with finishing off my left-over noodles, so he just nods when I announce that I'm going to get something to drink from the kitchen. I'm pretty sure that the tap-water down here isn't safe enough to drink without boiling it first... and I don't really like the taste of cold tap water, either. There's always that slight hint of swimming pool in it. Subtle, but enough to make it that much more unappetising...

Beelzebub is already rummaging around for something in the fridge when I walk in, which isn't particularly surprising. He pulls back when he hears the door open and offers me an unenthusiastic greeting, then goes right back to rooting about.

I watch him for a moment - all of the drinks are kept on a lower shelf in the fridge - then ask, "Are you looking for something?"

He huffs. A moment later, giving up, he draws back again and says petulantly, "I can't find my custard."

"Your custard?" I repeat, going to look around his side. I scan the shelves for a moment, then point at a little yellow pot sitting on top of something wrapped in parchment paper. "Is that it?"

Beelzebub follows my pointing finger. His eyes light up. "Oh, yeah!"

Suddenly a lot more animated than before, he reaches forward and grabs the pot so enthusiastically that it looks like it might burst right in his fist right then and there. Mercifully, it doesn't, and Beelzebub promptly opens and tips its entire contents into his mouth. I don't think he even tastes it - it just disappears down his throat like a pebble into a gorge.

He seems pleased, though, and takes a step back from the fridge to allow me access with a small smile. "Thank you."

"No problem," I say. "Is it special custard or something?"

"Not really." He looks down at his empty pot as if contemplating whether or not to eat that as well. "I just really wanted some custard."

"Ah." I've never actually had custard before, but I've seen recipes, and it doesn't sound very appetising - but to each their own. I reach for one of the bottles of water on the third shelf down.

Beelzebub goes back to searching almost as soon as I step back, and I hang around for a moment, wondering if he might need help locating something else. He seems to find what he's looking for relatively quickly this time, though, and pulls back with a look of triumph on his face.

It's just a sandwich - a slightly squashed looking sandwich at that, with virtually no exceptional qualities, apart from maybe the sheer amount of things that have been squeezed beneath the two slices of bread. But, for some reason, looking at it sets off some kind of lightbulb in my head.

I watch absently as Beelzebub shuts the fridge door and sits down at the table in the middle of the room to eat, trying to figure out where I might have seen that particular sandwich before. Then I realise that it isn't a matter of the sandwich - it's a matter of the fact that Beelzebub's the one holding it.

He was holding a sandwich in that photo I found the other day as well - the one where he was standing next to Belphegor. And didn't I think to myself that I was going to ask him about the whole situation some time?

Now feels like as good a time as any to do so. Beelzebub seems to be in a fairly good mood, and I did just find his custard for him, so maybe he'll be more lenient. And I'm feeling more hopeful now.

I set my water bottle on the end of the table and hesitate for a moment, then ask, "Um, Mr Beelzebub?"

He glances up at me and says through a mouthful of sandwich, "You can just call me Beel."

"Beel," I repeat. This might backfire horribly."Can I... ask you something about Belphegor?"

He freezes. The sandwich almost slips right out of his hands. "...why?"

"Uh..." It takes me a long while to figure out what to say. I can't very well go 'Well, it turns out that Lucifer's got him locked up in the attic and I've kind of agreed to help bust him out, and also he lied to me about who he was and I'm a little worried about what implications that might have on his actual intentions...'

In the end, I decide on, "I found a picture. He was in it."

Not quite the full truth, but not exactly a lie, either.

Beelzebub is looking really quite thunderous, but he does seem to calm down a little at that. "A picture?"

"In the hall," I clarify a little nervously. "You're next to him in it, so I thought I'd ask you..."

He sets down his sandwich, which is just about the most terrifying thing he could have done, because, having lived around him for a good while now, I know that Beelzebub does not just put his food down for anything. I take a small step backwards.

"You're not supposed to talk about him," He says bleakly. "I thought I already told you that."

"You did." I fidget a little on the spot. "But, uh..."

I trail off, finding that I don't actually know what to say after the 'but'. Beelzebub stares at me for a long, agonising second, brow furrowed so hard that it looks like there's a giant crack in the middle of his forehead.

Then it smooths out, and he asks quietly, "What do you want to know?"

I blink in surprise - I'd rather been expecting him to fly off the handle - then quickly school my expression into something more neutral. On the solemn-er side, maybe. "Well... Solomon said a while ago that he was in the human world. As part of the exchange programme."

...and I was wondering if that was the truth, I add silently. Except I already know that it isn't - but I want to know if you do as well.

Beelzebub's brow furrows again, and his shoulders tense. "Yeah. He didn't want to, though. Lucifer forced him."

"Why would he do that?" I ask, trying to sound casual - well, not casual, the whole situation calls more for seriousness. Maybe the word I'm looking for is un-suspicious. "Doesn't seem very nice."

Beelzebub's hands abruptly clench into fists. If he'd still been holding the sandwich, it would have just gone everywhere. "Of course it isn't. Who would do that to their own brother?"

Then his fists loosen again, and now he just looks sad. "Lucifer wouldn't normally. But they had a kind of... falling-out."

Must've been a hell of a falling-out if he locked him up for it, I think to myself. Out loud, though, I ask, "What do you mean?"

Beelzebub looks a little evasive at that. I can tell that he knows the answer - he just doesn't want to want to tell me. "Just an argument."

That's a synonym, not an explanation. "...right."

I can tell that he aware that I know that he's not telling me the whole truth. A moment of awkward silence passes, and then he suddenly says, "Lucifer's not a bad brother."

He sounds more like he's trying to convince himself than me. "He's just... got a temper. And Belphie should have known better than to set him off..."

His hands begin to curl up again, and I get the feeling that I should start backing away. That would look kind of rude, though, especially since he isn't doing anything actively threatening just yet. "...but Lucifer shouldn't have punished him like that. Belphie was begging not to go. But he just wouldn't budge...!"

I definitely spoke too soon about the 'nothing actively threatening' thing, because on that last word, Beelzebub suddenly bursts into demon form.

It isn't nearly as aggressive as when Levi did it, back during the TSL quiz. And, rather than the loud crack that he transformed with, Beelzebub just kind of goes... pop. Like a balloon bursting.

Why's he got belts on his SLEEVES? Is that another open belt hanging from his collar—

"Lucifer just never listens to us." Beelzebub's voice drops to a growl. He sounds like he's smoked about a thousand cigarettes while I wasn't looking. "He always has to be right, and he always has to do what Diavolo wants..."

"Um," I say, because there isn't really anything else I can say. How am I supposed to respond to that?

"Sometimes it's like he isn't our brother at all," Beelzebub says, the anger dissipating briefly from his voice - only to suddenly return with about twice the fervour. "He doesn't act like a brother's supposed to! Brothers are supposed to stand together... brothers are supposed to be kind to each other..."

He suddenly stands up, and I skitter backwards, not wanting to end up on the wrong side of his fists. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I note that, as if the collar and arm belts weren't enough, he's got about three actual belts all layered on each other around his waist. How seriously did he take the term 'chastity belt'? I doubt even a crocodile could get through.

Then Beelzebub's fly-wings flare, and I remember that this isn't really the moment to be focusing on that. "But we're not just brothers. We're demons. Demons punish you when you disrespect them. Demons... aren't kind. Angels are."

His voice quietens with each word, but his tone becomes more and more feverish as well. He sounds maddened. Like his own head is filled with a swarm of flies. He reaches up as if to rake his hand through his hair, but his inward-curling horns get in the way.

"I don't think that's true," I say hesitantly when Beelzebub doesn't continue. "I think you're all quite nice to each other."

Apart from when you're all bullying Mammon, I add silently, not wanting to spoil the moment by saying it aloud. And when Satan's throwing books at Lucifer. And also when Lucifer's locking Belphegor up in attics...

Beelzebub doesn't seem appeased. "But are we nice when it counts? Are we kind when it counts?"

He's breathing heavily. I don't know him that well, but even I know that Beelzebub doesn't get worked up like this very often.

And the honest answer is 'I don't know, I haven't been down here long enough' , but somehow I feel like that's a little tactless. So instead I say, "Um... I think so."

Beelzebub seems to calm down a little at that, at least. His wings settle back by his sides, and he mutters despondently, "Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's alright." I wonder if I should pat him on the arm or something, then decide against it when I realise how many spikes there are on his sleeve.

At least I can say for sure that Beelzebub doesn't have anything to do with Belphegor being locked up. Unless that was just a brilliant performance on his part (which I doubt), he really does think that his brother's in the human world. And he isn't exactly tickled pink about it.

I look at Beelzebub for a moment. Guilt begins to bubble like acid in my chest.

He's clearly hurting, but I can't even give him the small mercy of telling him where his brother really is. Belphegor isn't even that far away - I could probably lead Beelzebub to where he is in less than five minutes. And, really, I could, and that's what makes it so bad. I could... but I won't.

When I first met him, Belphegor told me that I couldn't tell anyone that I'd met him. I don't know why, but I don't want to find out what might happen if I do - even if that means keeping his true status a secret from the demon who probably would want to know the most.

But, perhaps selfishly... part of me thinks this is kinder. This way, Beelzebub still has some hope. If he thinks he's in the human world - somewhere he didn't want to be, perhaps, but free - he can console himself with the thought that maybe his brother is having fun up there.

Even if I did tell him where Belphegor really was, I don't even know if he'd be able to get past whatever enchantments there are on the stairs, or if he'd even be able to see the door to the room he's in. And, even if he could do all that, he wouldn't be able to open the door. The seal requires the power of all six unimprisoned brothers to break it - including Lucifer's, and I doubt that he'd be willing to give it when he was probably the one who put the seal there in the first place.

Speaking of Lucifer... I'm not exactly impressed by the fact that an argument is apparently all it takes to justify an impromptu prison sentence to him.

I guess I still don't know what the argument was about, I can't fully judge him for it just yet. And the fact that Beelzebub doesn't want to tell me, either... it's a little suspicious, too. But Lucifer's 'punishment' still isn't exactly elder brother behaviour. I'd go so far as to sat that that's more Henry VIII behaviour. Though at least Lucifer isn't beheading anyone.

I look back up just as Beelzebub takes another deep breath and swipes aggressively at his forehead. Then, out of nowhere, he turns around and drives his fist into the wall. And he must have one hell of a right arm, because his fist goes right through the wall and busts a giant hole in it.

Unfortunately, that wall also happens to be the one wall of the kitchen that's connected to my room.

A shriek comes from amid the wreckage as I throw my arms over my face, ducking beneath the table as if it'll shield me from the debris that's gone flying everywhere. That single blow seems to have cut through the wall like a fault-line - the whole thing's done a London bridge and come falling down.

I slowly lower my arms and survey the damage. Mammon, still sitting on my bed (which, fortunately, is on the other side of the room), looks absolutely flummoxed by everything that's just happened. Alatus has been flung to the wall, and stuck to it like Velcro. 

There isn't any silence to be stunned, because the dust is still audibly settling. Nevertheless, I pick my way over the various bits of broken brick littering the kitchen floor, and climb over the remains of the wall to take a look at the damage done to my room. 

Thankfully, this also happens to be the wall without anything super important against it - just a cabinet that I haven't put anything in, and a bookshelf that appears to have been disassembled by the sheer force that Beelzebub destroyed the wall with. I glance down and lift my foot to avoid stepping on a nail.

No one seems to be injured, but my entire room is now lightly covered with a thin layer of dust, and there's a substantial amount of crumbled bricks and stone all over my floor. There also appears to be a large and sharp bit of stone lodged into the back of my chair. I don't even know how that happened .

I stare around my room one last time, then turn to give Beelzebub a slightly injured look. "What was that for?"

He's still standing where he was when he threw the punch, wide-eyed. He doesn't say a word - he seems to have been rendered speechless by the destruction that his fist has managed to wreak.

Mammon, finally coming to his senses, abruptly leaps to his feet, and two patches of his hair on either side of his head seem to twitch, as if he's about to grow a pair of horns as well. "What the hell is goin' on here?!"

Beelzebub still doesn't respond. His right hand reaches up, points shakily at the sad (and slightly smoking, which is concerning) remains of the wall he's just destroyed, then at himself.

Meanwhile, Mammon has gotten up from my bed and is striding towards him, pointing his own finger directly at his chest. "What were ya even doing?"

Beelzebub opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. He looks bewildered, shrinking under the force of Mammon's glare, and I feel a little bad. After all, I was the one who set him off in the first place, so I guess this is kind of my fault. Though he didn't have to bust down my wall like that...

"Uh..." I look around for something to use an excuse. My eyes land on Beelzebub's half-eaten sandwich, still sitting on the table. "...I made fun of his sandwich."

"You what?" Mammon gives me an incredulous look. "What did ya even say?"

"I said that it was..." I look back at the sandwich, which is beginning to slowly fall apart. "...structurally unsound. And unappetising."

Mammon stares at me for a moment longer. "You're the worst liar in the whole Devildom. C'mon, what really happened?"

I open my mouth, then stop as I register the sound of footsteps rapidly approaching. For a moment I'm relieved, but then I remember that trying to lie to multiple brothers about why Beelzebub decided to bust the wall down would probably be harder than it'd be to lie to just Mammon.

Just as I'm trying to come up with a better sandwich-related insult, I realise who the owner of those footsteps probably is. And, considering the situation that led up to Beelzebub throwing that punch at the wall in the first place, he's just about the last demon that I'd want to show up right now.

Lucifer rounds the corner and immediately stops dead in his tracks. He scans the scene before him, expression darkening with every detail he takes, then finally draws himself up to his full, outraged height.

"What is the meaning of this?"

Chapter Text

For a brief moment, Beelzebub's eyes flare, and I think, wildly, that he's about to actually aim a punch at Lucifer. But then they cool again, and he shrinks backwards.

Lucifer doesn't bother asking the question again. The deep frown on his face says it all for him - "Answer me. I'm waiting."

Under his gaze, Beelzebub's great height is reduced to little more than a child's, and he looks more like a kicked puppy than a muscular demon. His wings flutter agitatedly behind his back before finally fading away, and both his horns and the thousand-belts-of-doom jacket disappear as well.

"Uh," I cut in, trying to mitigate the tension between the two a little. "I made fun of his sandwich."

Mammon immediately shoots me an 'are you kidding' look, but I hold steady. Lucifer narrows his eyes at me. He doesn't look convinced.

"You made fun of his sandwich..." He repeats slowly, looking as if he doesn't know whether to laugh or be offended that I think he'll be so easily fooled. "...so he broke down the wall."

I nod emphatically. "Exactly."

A long pause. "I have difficulty believing that."

"Some people have difficulty believing the Earth's round," I say, hoping that I sound factual and not stupid. "But that doesn't make it not round."

He sighs and shakes his head, apparently deciding not to get offended. If I squint hard enough, I think I might even see a faint smile curling at the corners of his mouth. "Alright. What did you say about his sandwich, then?"

"I said it was..." I probably shouldn't re-use the two insults I already tried to convince Mammon with, so I debate for a split second, then come up something else. "...very ugly. In fact, I told him a raccoon would do a better job putting it together."

Lucifer doesn't seem impressed. I quickly explain, "It's offensive because raccoons are very evil creatures, and also eat trash, so it's rude to compare someone to them."

"Aren't raccoons those fluffy grey things?" asks Mammon, scratching at his ear and also looking completely underwhelmed by my insult. "How're they evil?"

"I've never met a raccoon that didn't look like it was holding evil in its soul," I say seriously. Please forgive me, sweet prince... this is for the greater good.

"How many raccoons have you met?"

"None."

Silence. Beelzebub furrows his brow, looking vaguely confused. "...huh?"

"You heard me."

Lucifer raises an eyebrow. "So you haven't met a raccoon that wasn't evil. But wouldn't that means you haven't met an evil one, either?"

"Uh..." I search for a smart answer, but find none. "...that's just a technicality..."

More silence. Neither Lucifer nor Mammon seem to even be entertaining the possibility that I'm being honest, but I do seem to have confused Lucifer enough to make him forget about being angry. I can probably call that a win.

Finally, Lucifer shakes his head, then turns to Beelzebub and says, "Beel, do you have anything to say for yourself?"

Beelzebub immediately shrinks back in on himself. Sure, Lucifer doesn't look mad anymore, but I guess Beelzebub must have his own non-visual Lucifer-anger meter, because he looks even more cowed as soon he meets his brother's eyes. (Though eye contact has always made me nervous as well, so it might just be that.)

"Uh," He manages after a long moment. "I broke... the wall."

"I can see that," Lucifer says, waving a dispassionate hand in the general direction of all the destruction lying across my room. "Why did you break it?"

Beelzebub doesn't respond. Lucifer sighs and performs a motion that might have been him rolling his eyes if he was anyone else. "Just tell me."

Half a minute passes. Beelzebub slowly lowers his gaze to his feet and doesn't say a word.

Lucifer gets tired of waiting for an answer quickly. Rather than attempt to interrogate Beelzebub further, he turns his stern gaze to Mammon, who immediately throws his hands into the air.

"This ain't anythin' to do with me!" He exclaims indignantly. "I'm totally innocent!"

"Innocent?" Lucifer repeats. He cocks his head slightly to the side, and his voice abruptly drops in pitch - so drastically that it's if there's a dial he can spin back on a whim. "Then you won't mind telling me exactly what happened?"

To give Mammon credit, he doesn't let Lucifer's attempt at intimidation get to him at all - though I guess it's easier to maintain your innocence when you know that you actually are innocent. "I was just sittin' on the bed, and then Beel busted the wall in! That's all!"

Lucifer looks at him for a moment, and then turns his gaze to me. I nod hurriedly to corroborate Mammon's story, but that doesn't seem to be enough for Lucifer - which is fair, because I spent my own portion of the interrogation lying my head off.

"Very well," He says after a moment, and returns to fixing his eyes on Mammon. I don't think he's even blinking. "And what were you doing in IK's room?"

"Eatin' dinner," Mammon says in a 'duh' sort of tone, pointing over at where my empty noodle pot is still sitting on my desk. It's covered in a thin layer of dust.

Lucifer follows his pointing finger. Rather than looking satisfied by the evidence in front of him, though, it only makes his frown deepen. "...is that what you've been feeding her?"

"Uh, yeah." Mammon folds his arms and shifts his weight onto his right leg. "You got a problem with that?"

"Of course it's a problem," Lucifer says with a slightly derisive curl of his lips. Trust him to be above wrinkling his nose like the rest of us. "Instant noodles hardly constitute a meal. I was under the impression that you were actually cooking..."

He pauses to think, glancing at me, and his expression clears into more of a smirk. "Though I suppose IK should count it as a blessing that she didn't have to eat your cooking."

"Oi - what's that supposed to mean?!" asks Mammon hotly, making as if to stride forward, then thinking better of it and settling for a glare.

"Your cooking is awful," Lucifer says plainly. Then he seems to realise something, and suddenly frowns again. "...have you been giving her noodles for breakfast as well?"

"Breakfast? Nah." At this, Mammon shoots me a meaningful look. "I figured she'd be smart enough to grab somethin' by herself, but..."

He trails off. He doesn't tell Lucifer outright, but I can tell from the mildly disappointed look on the latter's face that he's already figured out that I haven't been doing that. 

Lucifer sighs, reaches up to pinch at the bridge of his nose, then turns to look at me. I silently raise my hands in surrender and try to look as repentant as possible.

"...I trust you already know what I'm going to say," He says finally. "So I'll keep it short. Stop skipping breakfast."

"Yes, sir - sorry, sir," I mumble under my breath, dipping forward into a half-joking, but fully apologetic, bow. "Won't happen again, sir."

At that, the corner of Lucifer's mouth quirks up a little. "There's no need for that. I'm not your general."

"Right you are, sir," I say, unable to stop myself - though I do at least manage to refrain from saluting. He actually laughs a little then, folding his arms with a shake of his head.

But then his eyes wander back over to the wreckage that once was my bedroom, and his expression rapidly darkens again. I follow his gaze and suddenly realise that Alatus is still stuck to the wall by the bed.

"Aw, shoot," I mutter, mostly to myself, picking my way over a few lumps of rock to retrieve him. "You okay, buddy?"

Alatus doesn't respond, of course, but nuzzles gratefully into my thumb once I've peeled him away from the wallpaper. He hasn't managed to evade the dust, so he's in need of a bath, but he doesn't seem to be injured. Though he is wheezing rather more aggressively than usual, which is worrying...

"Is that your Puffball?" asks Lucifer as I turn around to face the three demons again. Beelzebub, taking advantage of the lapse in Lucifer's attention, has shuffled so far back into the wall that he looks like he's about to phase right through it to the other side.

I nod and give Alatus a little pat on the head. He coughs in response and droops, looking particularly pathetic. "I think all the dust in the air's setting off his asthma..."

I wave my hand about in front of him, trying to waft away the dust. It doesn't seem to help. "...would you mind if he stayed in the common room or something? Until all this is all cleaned up."

Mammon frowns. "Forget about the Puffball - where're you gonna stay?"

I look back into my room. "Well, the bed's still... usable. Or I could put some blankets in the bathtub..."

"You are not sleeping in a room without a wall," Lucifer says flatly. I open my mouth. "Or in a bathtub. And you're not sleeping in the common room, either."

He turns to Beelzebub, who tenses and recoils, executing what looks like a genuine attempt to blend in with the wallpaper. "Beel, IK will be staying with you until we get the wall repaired."

Now hang on, don't I get a choice in this? What if I WANT to sleep in a bathtub? Levi gets to, why can't I?

"Beel?" Mammon repeats, frowning almost cautiously. His eyes dart back over to the wall, which, unsurprisingly, hasn't repaired itself since he looked at it last. "...are ya sure that's a good idea? I've got space in my room..."

"Beel's room is the only one with two beds," Lucifer says, shaking his head. "Besides, he still needs a punishment for breaking down the wall in the first place."

...is he saying that having to stay in the same room as me is a punishment? Should I be offended by that? I hesitate for a moment, then interject, "Uh, I don't mind just sleeping here..."

Lucifer turns to look at me impassively. He takes in a short breath, then, looking as if he already knows the answer, asks, "Are you sure?"

I look back at the hole in my wall. Now that I think about it, the fact that anyone who enters the kitchen would be able to see whatever I'm doing in here doesn't sound very appealing. 

"...not really," I admit, voice low.

"Then that's that," He says briskly. He looks at Beelzebub again. "This isn't a request, Beel. Do you understand?"

Beelzebub blinks, looking a little surprised, then dips his head in silent obedience. Lucifer nods in satisfaction, and I'm expecting him to start lecturing us now that all that's done with - but he just pats down the front of his clothes and turns to leave.

"You still have school tomorrow," He says over his shoulder, not bothering to turn around to look at any of us. "Get to bed early."

Then he rounds the corner and disappears.

Mammon waits for a good minute or two before finally slumping against the wall with a heavy sigh. "...man, I thought we were toast for sure."

"That went better than I thought it would," I agree, setting Alatus on my shoulder to free up my hands. "He seemed really angry when he showed up."

"I reckon he felt sorry for ya," Mammon says, rubbing at his nose. "Your lying was so bad."

He pauses, then shakes his head. "Actually, never mind that. Lucifer never feels sorry for anyone. He's probably just tired or somethin'."

"He's going to ask about it again," Beelzebub says suddenly, speaking aloud for the first time in a good while. "And he won't let us go without an honest answer next time."

Mammon yawns into his right hand and shrugs, looking unbothered. "Well, you can cross that bridge when ya get to it. He could always forget, ya know."

"Lucifer never forgets anything," Beelzebub says morosely, and sits heavily down on the carpet.

"You could lie," I suggest. I feel a little bad for suggesting it, but, to be fair, Lucifer's also lying to all of his brothers, so it's eye for an eye, really.

"Don't be stupid," Mammon scoffs. "Beel's a useless liar - and you just proved that you are, too, so it's not like you could do the talkin' for him."

"I'm not good with improv," I mumble a little defensively, but mostly resignedly, because Mammon is absolutely right. "It's hard to come up with good ideas on the spot. If we had a script, though..."

"That wouldn't work, either," Beelzebub immediately shoots my idea down. "He'd notice straight away."

Mammon nods sagely. "Yeah, he's like a walkin' lie detector. Probably picked it up from Diavolo."

"Is he a lie detector?" I ask, imagining Diavolo with a polygraph for a head. Mammon shrugs, sniggering a little. I wonder if he has a similar picture in mind, even if it's unlikely.

"Kinda," He says. "Dunno if it's magic or if he's just, like, really good at reading ya, but he's always right when he calls someone out'."

I go quiet for a moment, thinking hard. "...we could plead the fifth."

"The fifth?" Beelzebub repeats. "What's that?"

"It's short for Fifth Amendment, I think," I say vaguely. I'm not actually entirely sure of what it is myself - I just remember bits and pieces from looking it up. "It's, uh... something like your right to remain silent when the police ask you stuff. You know, so that you don't accidentally say anything incriminating."

"Why would they let ya do that?" asks Mammon, furrowing his brow. "Don't they want ya to say somethin' incriminatin' so they can lock you up?"

"I don't know, I'm not a lawyer," I mumble with a half-shrug. "Probably so that you don't give them any reasons to go after you if you are innocent. Some people say some pretty wild stuff when they're under pressure... and yeah, cops do, cause they're evil. Pleading the fifth just means you don't have to answer them."

Mammon nods in understanding, while Beelzebub just keeps staring at the carpet. I pause for a moment. "...I'm pretty sure the Fifth Amendment's an American thing... but if we don't tell him that..."

"He'd look it up," Beelzebub says glumly. "Or he just wouldn't believe you. I'm pretty sure he's memorised all of the Devildom's laws."

Does he want to get out of being in trouble with Lucifer or not? "Uh... well, we had a guy on our street lie so hard to his wife that she died, so maybe we could do something with that..."

"You what?" Mammon scrunches his nose up. "You're tryin' to kill him?"

"No!" I object quickly, raising my hands. "I was thinking that, if I told him that, then he'd stop asking. Since we could just lie so hard that he'd... you know, snuff it."

A long silence follows. Then Mammon lets out a peal of laughter that manages to shake some dust from the ceiling.

"You're crazy, kid!" He cackles, bending over double and slapping his own knee so hard that I'm pretty sure I hear a bone crack. "There's no way that'd work!"

Beelzebub, meanwhile, looks completely bewildered. "How do you lie someone to death?"

"Well, I don't really know the details," I mumble, beginning to feel a little embarrassed by Mammon's continued laughing fit. I was fully aware of the ridiculousness of the idea when I brought it up, but still... "But apparently the guy was lying really hard about having an affair or something, and then his wife caught the flu and died."

Beelzebub opens his mouth, then shuts it again. He doesn't look any more enlightened than he did a minute ago - if anything, he looks even more confused. "...then didn't that kill her?"

"Well, I guess," I fiddle with the ends of my sleeves. "But Dad always said that it was the shock of finding out about the lying that made her weak enough to die from it in the first place. Flu isn't usually fatal these days."

Mammon, laughter beginning to peter out, wipes a tear from the corner of his eye and points at me, still grinning almost uncontrollably. He goes to say something, but instead just explodes into another fit of giggles, this time so violent that he starts choking.

I shuffle over and helpfully thump him on the back. He recovers quickly, giving himself a good few slaps to the chest for good measure, then clears his throat.

"Lucifer never gets sick," He finally manages to say, still sounding rather out-of-breath. "Plus he wouldn't get shocked, he'd just get mad. I'd love to see his face if ya tried it, though..."

"Now I'm starting to think that I shouldn't," I mumble as he sniggers again, punching me playfully in the shoulder. That'd be fine if it wasn't for the fact that a 'playful' punch from Mammon feels more like a whip-crack to me. "Ow..."

"Sorry," He says off-handedly and not very apologetically, patting the spot where he hit me. "Good call, though. Lucifer could kill ya if he thought you were actually threatening him..."

"So we're back at square one," mutters Beelzebub, completely and utterly deflated, like one of those birthday helium balloons a week after the party. "I don't have any ideas..."

"Just sleep on it," Mammon suggests. "He's probably gonna wait till tomorrow to start interrogatin' ya."

Beelzebub doesn't look reassured, but he nods anyway. He hesitates for a moment, then turns to me. "Do you want to bring anything?"

"Huh? Oh, right..." I re-balance Alatus as he gets close to falling off my shoulder. "Give me a second..."

I debate between the cat and dragon onesie for a moment (the football one has been sitting in my wardrobe since I got it, and to be honest it's probably going to stay there), then settle on the cat. After a moment's thought, I decide to bring a fresh uniform shirt and some undergarments as well (Mammon and Beelzebub both politely look away when I ask them to, which is nice). I can't be bothered to fold them all up nicely, so I just stuff the shirt and undergarments into the onesie, roll it up, and call it a day.

Once I've given them the okay, both Beelzebub and Mammon turn back around just in time to see me attempt to lift the stack of origami books with one hand and then promptly drop them on my foot. Mammon does have the grace to look a little concerned at first, but then he starts calling me a klutz as soon as I let him know that I'm not injured; Beelzebub, on the other hand, just kind of stands there for a moment, then offers to carry the books for me.

Normally I wouldn't want to bother him with something like that, but, being realistic, I'm not going to be able to carry three large hardback books (and a small stack of paper) with only one hand. I nod and let him take them.

Mammon follows me into the bathroom when I go in to get my toothbrush and some other bits and bobs, leaving Beelzebub waiting in the corridor on his own. He doesn't say anything for a moment - just stands there staring at various things in the room as if he's never seen them before - then finally clears his throat.

"Hey," He says, voice low, "You're okay with this, right?"

I pause in the middle of trying to figure out whether I should bring my own soap. "...I think so."

"You think?" I look up at the mirror just in time to see him pull a face in the reflection. "Listen, you don't have to if ya don't want to. You can stay in my room, if ya like."

I turn to look at him. He's staring hard at the floor. "You only have one bed, though."

"I could just take the couch," He says, waving his hand about dismissively, though he still doesn't look at me. I get the impression that he's a little embarrassed. "No big deal. I sleep there all the time."

That's not where you're supposed to sleep, I think, but smile nevertheless, feeling rather touched. "Thanks, but... it's your bed, so you should sleep in it. Plus Mr Lucifer would get mad if we didn't do what he said."

"Lucifer doesn't have to know," Mammon mumbles, but that does seem to persuade him a little. I go back to staring intently at my soap bottle, and he asks, "Whatever ya did  - is Beel still gonna be mad about it, d'you think?"

"Mad?" I repeat, finally deciding that I should bring my soap after all, and stuffing the bottle into the cup along with my toothbrush. "...probably not. Hopefully."

"That's reassurin'," He says sarcastically, shaking his head. "Well, ya know what to do if he tries anythin'."

I make an affirmative noise, pulling away from the sink once I've deemed all my necessities packed. "Yup. Two fingers on the pact mark..."

He nods in approval and follows me out. "Just remember that."

Beelzebub is still standing where we left him, though he's closed his eyes and is leaning back against the wall again. He looks as if he's fallen asleep standing up, but then he wakes up as soon as we approach. He blinks down at me for a moment, eyes strangely clear, and I suddenly feel as if he somehow heard every word that Mammon and I said.

Mammon doesn't seem to notice the odd energy that's suddenly fizzled into the air. He just slaps Beelzebub on the back as if he's a horse and tells him to start leading the way.

After a moment's pause, Beelzebub does so, commenting as he goes that Mammon knows where his room is as well, so why doesn't he lead the way? Mammon doesn't deign him with a response, which is just as well, because I don't think I have the energy to listen to a squabble.

Beelzebub's room is on the part of the first floor that I haven't really been in yet - to the right of the staircase. There's another door just along the corridor from it as well, which I'm pretty sure is Asmodeus's, judging by the large flower garland hanging from it.

Beelzebub's door has a sun either rising or setting carved into the top half, and there's a large piece of paper obscuring most of the bottom half. It looks completely out of place - I can't help but think that it must be hiding something. Neither Mammon nor Beelzebub say anything about it, though, so I decide not to, either.

The room itself... well, the first thing I think is that it's extremely clear that it's meant for two people. It's quite literally split down the middle - the left side has red wallpaper, a bed with red quilts and a red chair by the table that marks the mirror line. The right side, meanwhile, is a perfect reflection of the left (even the way that the bed's made is the same), except all the red is purple.

The same sun mural I saw carved into the door is embellished in gold at the head of the red bed. At the head of the purple bed, however, instead of an identical pattern, there's a moon and a few stars. Looking between the two, I can make a pretty good guess at what's behind that piece of paper stuck to the door.

There's also one particularly prominent thing in here. It's not the spiral staircase behind the table, which seems to lead up onto an in-room balcony with nothing on it, but rather the... is it a light fixture? It doesn't look like it's illuminating anything.

It's four umbrellas. Just hanging from the ceiling. There's some grey fluff bunched up on the patch of ceiling they're hanging from, to mimic clouds, and strips of transparent, sparkly paper to mimic rain. The two umbrellas hanging at the bottom are close enough to the ground that I'm pretty sure the handles would smack Beelzebub in the face if he tried to walk underneath them.

Is this a theme with the brothers' bedrooms? Having that one odd element of it that just doesn't really make a lot of sense? Mammon's got that car that can't even go out of the house (and I'm pretty sure he doesn't know how to drive it, either), Levi's got the bathtub-bed, Lucifer's got that skeleton that broods in the corner, and now Beelzebub has this very elaborate umbrella stand. I haven't been in Asmodeus or Satan's rooms, but that's already a pattern of four out of six.

"You can put your things there," Beelzebub says, breaking my train of thought. He's gesturing at the red chair by the table, where's he's already put the books and paper.

I shuffle over and deposit my things as directed. Now that I'm further into the room, I'm pretty sure I can see a thin layer of dust coating nearly everything on the purple half. Belphegor's half, presumably. 

Has no one touched it since he 'left'? I feel like I'd be offended if I came back from being away and then found out my brothers had let my bed get all dusty while I was gone... then again, I don't have brothers, so I guess I shouldn't assume.

"The big bathroom's on the other end of the floor," Beelzebub says as I sort through my stuff. "But there's another little one just down the stairs on our side. It's closer than your bathroom, so you can use that one while you're staying here."

"You all share a bathroom?" I ask, a little surprised. I'd been under the impression that everyone had their own as well - though, now that I think about it, neither Mammon nor Levi's rooms had the extra door that mine does.

"All of us except Asmo," says Mammon, who's still hanging about by the door. "He hogs the bathrooms for ages, so we just gave him the room with a private one."

"Technically we all share two," Beelzebub explains. "But Bel—"

He cuts himself off, suddenly going silent. Then he swallows and says, voice suddenly a lot more quiet, "But I'm the only one who really uses that downstairs one at night, so you don't need to worry about sharing then."

"It's the one we used to clean your nose up," Mammon tells me, a little louder than normal to cover for the drop in mood. "Last week."

I nod. "Yeah, I remember."

He nods as well, hovering awkwardly on the spot, apparently reluctant to leave. He glances at Beelzebub a good few times, but the latter seems too preoccupied with staring at the dusty purple-quilted bed to notice.

Finally, he says, "Well, see ya in the morning."

"Night..." I mumble as he leaves, shutting the door behind him. In his absence, the room falls into an uncomfortable hush.

"You can use my bed," Beelzebub mumbles, pointing over at the red-quilted one. "I'll take the couch."

I look around the room. "What couch?"

He points up at the in-room balcony that I'd thought was empty. "Up the stairs. You can't see it, but it's there..."

Wasn't the whole point of Lucifer putting me in this room that it had two beds? "Um... no, it's fine, I'll sleep on the couch."

He frowns at that. "But..."

"It's your room," I say, gathering my things in my arms and shuffling over to the stairs. I'll have to make another trip for the books and paper, since they're so heavy. "So you should sleep in your own bed."

The balcony is relatively narrow. Just as Beelzebub said, there's a single sofa - decently large and squashy-looking, but definitely still not big enough for someone of his size to sleep on comfortably. I, on the other hand, should fit pretty snugly on it.

Apart from the sofa, there's also a coffee table, a large cabinet that's almost completely empty save for a biscuit tin, and a small bookshelf with exactly five books. Nothing up here looks as if it's been touched for a good while - like a room in one of those fancy mansions that used to be owned by some Lord or Baron, the ones that you can pay to wander about in for half an hour before getting bored and heading for the gift shop instead.

Alatus, who's managed to stay perfectly balanced on my shoulder this entire time, looks around, then sneezes miserably. It's so dusty up here that we might as well have stayed in my room.

I peer over the side of the balcony, through the gaps in the sort-of fence along the edge. Beelzebub stares solemnly up at me - it feels really weird to be above him.

"Do you have any spare blankets?" I ask. He doesn't respond for a moment, seeming not to hear me, then suddenly nods.

"I'll go get some," He says, and sidles out of the room. I watch the door shut behind him, then descend the stairs again to retrieve the origami books and paper.

Dust aside, the entire room just looks like it could do with a good cleaning. I can see crumbs littering Beelzebub's half of the room, and there's a way-too-small bin overflowing with various empty snack packets just beside the bed. I wonder vaguely if I should do something about that, then decide that it's probably best to just leave it be. It isn't my room, after all.

I start picking my way up the stairs again with a sigh. Once I've blown most of the dust off the coffee table (Alatus attempts to help, but the dust just keeps setting off his asthma), I arrange all the things I've brought with me on it, then turn my attention to the sofa.

It looks clean enough. I raise an experimental hand and smack it down onto one of the cushions. There's no cloud of dust like in cartoons, but then I swipe my sleeve across it, and the fabric comes away coated in a thin layer of grey. I pat it off and stand back, beginning to feel like I should have taken Beelzebub up on his initial offer. Though I don't think he'd be thrilled about sleeping here, either.

Some minutes later, Beelzebub comes back into the room with an armful of blankets, bringing with him the welcome smell of laundry powder. I, meanwhile, am busy crouching on the balcony and coughing my lungs out, having accidentally inhaled a substantial amount of dust while trying to basically beat it out of the sofa with one of the origami books.

"Are you alright?" He asks, coming to a stop before the balcony fence and peering up at me. "Should I get some water?"

"I'm fine," I manage to get out, attempting to even out my breathing again. Is this how Alatus feels all the time? "It's a bit dusty up here..."

His face falls a little, and he adjusts the blankets in his arms. "Are you sure you don't want to sleep in my bed?"

"Quite sure, yeah," I say a little breathlessly. "But it'd be nice if you had a hoover or something I could use..."

"A what?" Beelzebub pauses to mouth the word to himself, looking perplexed. "I don't think so..."

"It's like a sort of... thing," I explain unhelpfully, mimicking holding one. "You use it to clean up stuff - it goes whooooooo and sucks them up."

Beelzebub thinks for a moment longer, then perks up a little. "Oh, I think I know what you're talking about. Hold on..."

He dumps the armful of blankets on his bed and hurries out of the room again. I stand up to descend the stairs, then realise with some dismay that there's a large grey streak across my skirt. Most of it comes out once I pat it down, but there's definitely still a very faint mark... I should probably wash it later.

Beelzebub soon returns again, holding not a vacuum cleaner, but a very large and shiny black kind of disc with a pair of cartoonish devil horns and a little spiked tail. He goes to pass it to me, then seems to think better of it when he realises that it's big enough that I could sit on it comfortably, and that I'd probably break my arms trying to carry it.

I look at it in confusion for a moment, then realise that it appears to be. "...is that a roomba?"

"A roomba?" Beelzebub repeats, then shakes his head. "I don't think so. Well, that's not what it said on its box... it sucks things up, like you said."

He puts it on the floor and presses one of the little eye-like buttons on the side.The roomba (because that's obviously what it is - or the Devildom equivalent, anyway, since it's massive) whirs into life, then begins its determined progress across the carpet with a soft putt-putt-putt-putt.

Beelzebub and I watch as it chugs over a patch of crumbs on the carpet. It pauses for a moment, whirring furiously, then suddenly sucks up the crumbs (and probably a substantial amount of carpet fibre) in one single schWOP!

"Where did you even get that from?" I ask as the roomba chugs a little to the side to get some of the crumbs that it missed in the initial suck.

"Lord Diavolo gave it to us ages ago," Beelzebub says over the sound of another aggressive schWOP. "We were meant to test it out for someone. It's a pro... uh, proto..."

"A prototype?" I finish, and he nods. "Right. Does it have a name?"

Beelzebub gives me an odd look. He shakes his head. "No."

"That's a shame." I pause as the roomba bumps into a bed post and responds with a furious electronic trill, as if it's swearing at its misfortune. "...can I give it a name?"

"Uh..." Beelzebub still looks baffled.. "...sure?"

I watch the roomba finish sucking up the last of the crumbs on Beelzebub's side of the room, then beeps quietly in what I'd almost say is satisfaction. Crumbs... you can get crumbs from toast... and you make toast with...

"Toaster," I decide firmly, nodding to myself. "I'm calling him Toaster."

Toaster chooses that moment to start putt-putt-ing his way over to the purple half of the room, but Beelzebub quickly steps forward to turn him off, apparently unwilling to let even the dust there be disturbed. He stays there for a moment, crouching over the inactive robot like Frankenstein over his monster, then slowly picks him up.

"I'll go put it upstairs," He says a little distantly, and starts climbing the staircase. I go to follow him, then pause, noticing something on the purple side of the room that I didn't before.

"Hey, Mr Beelzebub," I call up. "What happened here?"

"I said you could call me Beel," He reminds me, then squints over the edge of the balcony to follow my pointing finger. He doesn't seem to see what I'm indicating, which isn't surprising from his angle.

"Right, sorry, Beel..." I clear my throat a little awkwardly, lowering my hand. "It's just, uh... there's a crack in the wall. Just above the purple bed."

He's silent for a moment. From what I can see of his face through the fence along the balcony, he doesn't seem to be surprised. "...oh."

I look back at the crack. It doesn't look like anything natural - it's clearly not a structural problem. It looks more like someone's taken a hammer to the wall. Or a fist, maybe...

And, if I look a little closer... it looks like there's a rectangular imprint around the epicentre of the crack. It looks like there used to be a picture here.

"Stop looking at it," comes Beelzebub's stern voice from directly behind me, and I jump about a foot in air, having not heard him come back down the stairs.

I blink, then quickly nod apologetically. "Right, sorry..."

He shifts slightly as I start subtly backing in the direction of the stairs. I don't miss the fact that he's deliberately placing himself between me and the crack in the wall.

He doesn't say anything else for a good few minutes, just stares down at me like I'm some kind of puzzle that he can't figure out. Finally, he sighs, and his tensed shoulders abruptly fall again. He moves over to sit on the side of his bed, resting his elbows on his knees, and now he doesn't look even remotely angry anymore. He just looks sad .

"That half of the room is Belphie's," He says, looking up at me again. "You figured that out already, though, didn't you?"

"...yeah," I mumble after a moment. "Everything in here's in twos."

He nods, smiling a little. "Because we come in a two. We're twins."

Somehow, that doesn't surprise me. It's not that they look particularly alike in the general sense - they have completely different builds, and from what I remember of him, Belphegor was a lot paler - but they do have the exact same eyes.

"That's nice," I say after a moment, unsure of what the proper response is. Then I remember something that Satan said back when we first met in the R.A.D. assembly hall. "...so that means you're the same power level, or...?"

Beelzebub pauses for a moment, then slowly shakes his head. "No. We were twins before we were demons. I get called older because I'm a bit stronger, but we were made at the exact same time."

He's watching me carefully as he speaks, as if trying to gauge my reaction to something. It takes me a moment to realise that I'm supposed to be paying attention to a certain part of what he's saying.

'Before we were demons' - I'm pretty sure I already know what he's getting at. After all, the Bible is public domain - and I already know from Devildom History that angels falling and becoming demons is something that can and does happen.

Beelzebub continues to observe me intently, and I'm must be keeping up a pretty good poker face, because he doesn't seem to know if I've figured it out. Should I pretend that I haven't? No, it should be fine - he wouldn't imply it in the first place if he didn't want me to know.

"...right," I say at last. "Before you were demons..."

I don't know if there even was a right way to respond, but apparently that was somewhat close, because Beelzebub almost brightens. He opens his mouth, but then his eyes land on something behind me, and his expression sours again.

"Never mind," He says suddenly, face dark. "You should go to bed."

Getting mixed signals here, buddy. "...uh, it's kind of early for that..."

He's silent for a moment. "Just... stop talking."

Okay, ouch. "...alright."

I quickly skitter back upstairs, but not before having a quick glance around Belphegor's half of the room again, trying to figure out what it was that gave Beelzebub that abrupt change of heart. It felt like he was about to tell me something important, and something stopped him...

No luck, though. Nothing in particular stands out, not even the pictures - they're mostly just indifferent shots of landscapes, so generic that I wouldn't be surprised if they were stock. No other family photos, no selfies, no... personality. It's like everything that might have made Belphegor's half of the room his has been sucked out of it with a hoover. Or a roomba.

Beelzebub doesn't say a word for the rest of the evening - just looks at me briefly and nods when I leave and then re-enter the room to wash up in the bathroom. I busy myself first with cleaning up and sorting out my sleeping area, then with trying to figure out the origami once more. Some hours later, the lights go out, and that's that.

The next day passes without any particular event - unless you count me finally going to eat breakfast with everyone else at the dining table again. Levi doesn't get up and leave immediately, and while he doesn't say a word to me, he does silently push the bread plate over to me when he notices that I can't reach it.

Lucifer gives me a nod of approval and doesn't mention last night's incident, nor does he attempt to ask either me or Beelzebub about what incited it in the first place. I can't help but think he's biding his time and waiting for the right moment to strike... or maybe he really just doesn't care anymore.

The wall in my room is still very much broken, so I'll likely be staying in Beelzebub's room again tonight. Part of me wonders why they can't just use magic to fix the wall, but according to Satan, the House of Lamentation is a 'special' kind of building, so it isn't that easy. He doesn't elaborate much on it, though, since Mammon chooses that moment to arrive, and promptly causes a mini-brawl by accidentally knocking Asmodeus's black coffee all over his uniform.

I don't see Mephisto at all during school, though not for lack of trying. Keeping a constant vigil over my shoulder proves to be useless - either Mephisto's avoiding me entirely now, or is just so proficient at hiding that I'm completely unable to spot him.

Solomon asserts himself my partner for the project we're undertaking in Creature Studies, and it soon becomes clear why: almost as soon as we're out of earshot of most of the class, he asks me what Professor Magdalene had wanted to talk to me about yesterday. Simeon and Luke loiter nearby, trying to look as innocent as possible as they pretend to be totally absorbed in observing their baby cockatrices.

I try my best to dismiss it, and I'm pretty sure that Solomon can tell. He attempts to gently pry further, but then Professor Elderflower comes over to ask us how we're progressing, and the subject is dropped.

Beelzebub doesn't say a word about my continued stay in his room, but he does raise an eyebrow when he notices that I'm keeping Toaster upstairs with me, rather than putting him back wherever he came from. He doesn't say much that evening, either, but he does deign me with a gruff 'Goodnight' before he turns off the lights.

Then, on the third evening, he actually comes up the stairs.

I've managed to produce five or six misshapen goldfish at this point, deciding to set them aside in hopes that the snakes will be easier to manage. It turns out that they aren't, and I'm just pausing to lament the particularly deep paper cut I've just given myself when Beelzebub suddenly asks, "What are you doing?"

I nearly give myself another paper cut with the way I jump in surprise. Beelzebub is standing over me, and his shadow practically throws me into two square metres of darkness.

"Uh," I say, pointing awkwardly at the page that the origami book is open to. "I'm... folding paper animals. To say sorry to Levi."

Beelzebub peers down at the book for a moment, squinting to see on the floor from his height, then decides to crouch down next to me. I feel like a nursery tot at arts-and-craft time, with the teacher stooping to my level to help me with the glue.

"You're doing it wrong," He says after a moment, pointing at the step that I'm on. "You're supposed to fold it back. You've folded it forwards."

I look down at my work in progress, then back at the page. "...ah, you're right."

He watches me unfold it and go to correct the mistake, then holds up a hand. "Hang on. You've done something else wrong as well."

That same little nursery tot wants to stamp her feet at the correction. I lower the half-folded paper in my hands. "What is it?"

For some reason, Beelzebub looks a little uncomfortable. He starts to say something, then cuts himself off and shakes his head. Finally, he mumbles, "I don't know, exactly. I can just tell that you did."

"Guess I should start again, then," I say half-jokingly, setting the incomplete snake down on a pile of rejects. Beelzebub follows the movement of my hands as I take a fresh sheet of paper like a cat watching a bird. I pause. "...do you want one?"

He nods. I pass mine and get myself another one.

His hands are moving before I've even started re-reading the first instruction, eyes darting back and forth between the book and his paper so quickly that the pinks and purples of his irises seem to blur together into one colour. I can't even get started on my own paper - I just sit there watching Beelzebub fold his own in profound awe.

Not even five minutes have passed by the time Beelzebub is holding a perfect origami snake. It's missing a few of the final details, but he's done all the folding - and he's done it beautifully as well.

I stare at the snake, then look back up at him. He doesn't even look particularly proud - his expression says something more like, "Yeah, that went about as expected."

He holds it out to me in silence. I blink at it for a moment, then reach forward to take it, half-expecting it to pass right through my fingers or something. Of course, that doesn't happen.

"How did you do that?" I ask finally, holding the snake right up to my face to get a closer look. It's practically perfect - every fold has been done at exactly the right point with exactly the right amount of force.

Beelzebub leans back a little and thinks for a moment, then shrugs. "I don't know. I followed the instructions."

"I've been following the instructions this entire time," I say, a little stung, pointing over at the various slightly misshapen goldfish that I've set aside as candidates for the final origami Henry. "And I still haven't been able to make a proper one."

"You make things too complicated," Beelzebub says, picking up one of the goldfish and squinting at it. "Just do what the words say."

As opposed to doing what the punctuation says? How else am I supposed to follow the instructions? "...what do you mean?"

"I'm not smart, so I don't think about it that hard," He explains, "But you do, so I think that's why you keep messing up. You think too hard and then you mix yourself up."

Despite his assertion of not being smart, Beelzebub sounds really quite worldly-wise. And he sounds right, too. I did keep second-guessing myself whenever I made a fold - wondering if I'd interpreted the written instructions wrong or understood the diagram incorrectly. Because of that, I was constantly undoing and then re-doing previous folds, and I'm just now beginning to realise that that was probably why the final product still looked so warped in every case.

Occam's razor, I guess. No more assumptions should be made than necessary; the correct answer is usually the simplest one... hey, wait a minute!

I nearly slap myself in the face right then and there. The correct answer is usually the simplest one - oh, I am an absolute IDIOT.

One of the main reasons that I've held back from re-visiting the attic is the fact that I still haven't figured out how to activate the concealing enchantment on Mephisto's sunglasses. I've tried bending back the legs (one at a time and also both at once), tapping on and popping out the lenses, even pressing at the little bolts at the sides holding the whole thing together - but never once did I think of just putting them on first.

It's been nearly a fortnight at this point. How the hell did I not think to try that sooner?!

What had Belphegor's exact words been? "You enchant an object, any object, and as long as you have it on you..."

The sunglasses hadn't worked when I'd just been holding them, nor when they were clipped to the collar of my jumper, so I formed the conclusion that the enchantment needed to be activated before it started working. I hadn't even considered that maybe the sunglasses just needed to be worn to do their thing.

I don't deserve to keep my place on the exchange programme at this point. Scratch that, I don't deserve to call myself a student anymore. How did I manage to pass my SATs, again?

"...lo?" Beelzebub's hand waves about in front of my face, and I suddenly blink back to reality. "Are you okay?"

I've just realised that I may be about as smart as a piece of gravel, I don't say. Instead, I mumble, "Yeah, fine."

"Alright..." He drops his hand, frowning a little. "You just went... stiff."

"It happens sometimes," I say absently, still mentally kicking myself into next year. "Sorry."

Beelzebub nods and, mercifully, doesn't try to pry further. He sits with me for about another ten minutes, watching me half-heartedly get started on another origami snake, but my mind is so many miles away that I end up just putting it down and announcing that I'm going to get something to drink.

Of course, I don't get something to drink. I head straight to my room (where the wall still remains unrepaired, and I'm beginning to think that it's just been forgotten about) and retrieve the enchanted sunglasses from their hiding place. After a moment's thought, I dig the circlet and watch out and shove them into my pocket as well.

It occurs to me as I start hurrying back that all three of the gadgets I'm using are Mephisto's work. If it weren't for him, I might never have gotten into the attic in the first place... I really need to start thinking of apology ideas for him as well. 

Then I can thank him properly - even if I can't tell him exactly why I needed any of those three things in the first place. That's the whole reason that he got mad at me in the first place, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that.

I pause just in front of Beelzebub's door and slide the sunglasses onto my face. I don't feel any immediate change, but that doesn't mean they're not working...

Beelzebub, now sitting on his own bed and fiddling about with the snake he made earlier, doesn't look up when I enter the room. I walk right up to him and wave a hand in front of his face; he doesn't move a muscle, or even so much as glance in my direction.

I clear my throat as loudly as I can. He shows no indication of hearing me. He doesn't even move when I poke him in the arm.

Either he's flat-out ignoring me or this enchantment is REALLY effective. I pull back for a moment, contemplating what to do next. Then I pull the sunglasses off of my face again, stuffing them back into my pocket, and say, "Hello."

Beelzebub jerks back in such aggressive surprise that he smacks his head onto the wall behind him with a thonk. "Ah—?!"

He reaches up to rub at the sore spot on the back of his head, squinting at me in slightly embarrassed confusion. "When did you get back...?"

"Just now," I lie, shifting slightly on the spot and trying to quell the smile beginning to creep onto my face. "I was sneaking."

Beelzebub's eyes are still wide. He looks like he wants to clutch his chest like a shocked grandmother. "You're... very good at sneaking."

"So I'm told," I say breezily, then quickly scamper back up the stairs. The sunglasses work a lot better than I thought they would.

It probably won't be for another few hours or so that Beelzebub turns off the lights. I'm completely unable to concentrate on origami, and my fingers probably need a break anyway, so I opt to take a little nap. Instructing Toaster (who, apart from his default roomba mode, also has alarm clock and intruder sensor modes) to wake me up in about five hours time, I curl up on the sofa and manage to drift off in record time.

When Toaster does wake me up by whirring up onto the sofa and threatening to schWOP my fingers off, the room is dark, and I can hear Beelzebub snoring. I check the time. It's late enough that everyone else in the house should be asleep as well - or retired to their rooms at the very least - and, if I do run into anyone, I have the sunglasses.

I pull on my shoes, strap the watch to my wrist, and place the circlet on Alatus's head, all as quietly as possible. Then, leaving Alatus to watch in case Beelzebub wakes up while I'm gone, I put the sunglasses back on and set off.

Now that I'm more familiar with what's where in the House of Lamentation, it doesn't take much to get back to the stairs to the attic. I don't run into anyone on the way there, and I arrive at the top of the staircase without a hitch.

The attic room is silent when I approach, lit only by a dim oil lamp. I can see a lump beneath the blankets on the bed, rising and falling softly.

I take off the sunglasses as I approach the door, taking care not to get too close. Then I announce, as loudly as I dare, "I'm here."

No response. I try again. "Hello?"

The lump seems to rustle slightly, but doesn't reply. It starts snoring.

I sigh, then call firmly, "Mr Belphegor!"

This time the lump gives a definite shift. An arm sticks out from beneath the blankets, swats absently at mid-air, and a gruff voice replies, "What...?"

A split second later, Belphegor realises his mistake. He sits up abruptly, blankets falling away from him like a caterpillar emerging from a cocoon, and fixes his eyes on me.

"Hello," I say, schooling my face into faux-sternness. "You lied to me."

He doesn't move for a moment - just stares at me like he's seen a ghost. Then, finally, his shock-slackened expression pulls back into one of neutrality, and he mumbles something, waving his hand. The oil lamp brightens until I can see him in full clarity, and he pulls himself out of bed, approaching the door.

"I did," He says finally, sitting down in front of the door - in the same place he did last time we met. I stay standing this time, though. "So you know, then?"

I nod silently, and he sighs. "Well, I guess I couldn't have kept it a secret forever..."

He attempts to push his hair out of his eyes, but his fringe just keeps swinging back down every time he tries to brush it back. I watch him for a moment, then ask, "Why did you tell me your name was Astaroth?"

"You mean why I picked it?" He asks in lieu of a reply, then shrugs. "Nothing special. It's just the first one I thought of."

I narrow my eyes at him. "No. I'm asking why you lied to me about who you were."

That seems to give him pause. Apparently he wasn't expecting to be directly confronted with his own deceit. "...well..."

He trails off, and I take the opportunity to speak up again. "I wouldn't have been suspicious if you'd just told me who you actually were. So, I'm thinking that there's something about being Belphegor that might make me not want to help you."

He blinks at me through the bars of the door. His brows begins to pull into what looks to be the beginnings of a glare, but then they slacken again, and his expression falls into something more resembling disappointment.

"That's not it," He says finally.

I wait for him to continue. At first he doesn't seem to intend to, but my silent gaze seems to unnerve him enough to make him. "...I was worried that you'd give it away. If you started asking my brothers about an Astaroth, they wouldn't care. If you started asking them about me, though..."

"I asked them about you before I even came up here in the first place," I say, frowning.

"I didn't know that," He says defensively, holding up his hands. "I thought you might ask too many questions and get them suspicious. I gave you a fake name so you wouldn't get into trouble asking about my real one. That's the truth."

I stare at him cautiously. His face is open and earnest, but somehow I still can't bring myself to believe him. It can't be as simple as that, can it?

"How do I know you're not lying again?" I ask. Something unreadable flashes across Belphegor's face, but then he smiles, and it disappears.

"You don't," He says matter-of-factly. "You just have to trust me."

A beat. I duck my head, feeling weirdly small under his unblinking eyes. When I look back up, he's still looking at me, a faint smile lingering on his face.

I take a breath and steel my nerves. "Then give me a reason to."

He opens his mouth, then pauses. I maintain eye contact as steadily as I can, even though I can feel my eyes beginning to water. Belphegor's gaze is oddly... hypnotic. "...what do you mean?"

"...there's a saying in the human world," I say after a moment of thought. "'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.' I've already been too much of an idiot - so give me a reason to believe you, and then I can do it without feeling stupid."

Belphegor doesn't reply for a long while, and I rather get the impression that he hadn't banked on this happening. He adjusts himself on the spot, pulling his knees to his chest and biting restlessly at the thumb-nail of his left hand. All the light blue nail polish is chipped on that one, but the other hand's polish is almost completely intact.

"If you don't help me," He mumbles finally, eyes darting about distractedly, "No one else will."

"You told me that last time," I counter, leaning forward a little. "When you lied. Tell me something new."

He goes silent again. "...there isn't anything I can say."

Your pants are so on fire right now. I squint slightly at him. "Are you sure about that?"

He shifts uncomfortably. I watch him for a long while, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn't.

Finally, I sigh. "Alright. Then, tell me - why did Mr Lucifer lock you up here in the first place? What sort of argument did you have with him?"

"Argument?" He repeats, tensing. "Who told you that that's what happened?"

"Mr— I mean, Beel did." I inspect his expression carefully. The eye not hidden behind his fringe has narrowed. "He wouldn't tell me what the argument was about, but I'm pretty sure he knows. So tell me that, and I'll help you."

Now it's Belphegor's turn to duck his head. He traces the wood grain of the planks beneath him with a single, long finger, then sighs. "...you'll want to help me even less if I do."

"You don't know that," I say. "If I didn't want to help you in the first place, I wouldn't have asked you to give me a reason - I would've just said no. So tell me."

He chuckles dryly. "Really? Well, if that's what it takes... fine. I'll tell you."

I sit up a little straighter as he raises his head to meet my gaze. Now that I've seen both in such a small space of time, I'm realising that Beelzebub and Belphegor's eyes aren't completely identical after all. The colour's the same, but the shape is different - Beelzebub's eyes turn upwards, but Belphegor's slope downwards. It's enough to completely change their dispositions.

"I didn't like the idea of the exchange program," Belphegor says plainly. "I didn't like the idea of angels and humans just coming down here and wandering about wherever they liked. I still don't, to be honest."

"Why?" I ask. He pauses, and his mouth twists for a moment before straightening out again.

"Before we were demons..." He begins, then hesitates. 

I think back to when Beelzebub said the same thing - he cut himself off before he could finish what he wanted to say. But where he'd soured and gone silent, Belphegor just tugs restlessly at the ends of his sleeves and continues.

"We were angels. First we were angels in the Celestial Realm - then we were demons in the Devildom."

A brief moment of silence. He glances at me through his fringe. "...you don't look very surprised."

"I kind of figured," I say awkwardly. "Implications and stuff."

"Implications," He repeats, and frowns slightly. "Did you see the photo?"

The photo? "Which one?"

"The one on my wall," He says, watching me for a reaction. I think for a moment, then realise what he's talking about.

"I don't remember seeing one that stood out at all," I say carefully. "But there was a crack in the wall, where I think there used to be one."

Belphegor's expression shifts, and an endless amount of emotions pass over his face all at once, none of which I can read. His left hand creeps up to his mouth again, but he doesn't start biting his nails again - instead, he sits there in silent repose, thinking a million thoughts that I'd probably never be able to understand.

Eventually, he says quietly, "It wasn't that special. Just a photo of the Celestial Realm - no one's even in it."

I wait for him to continue, but he doesn't. "...ah."

Belphegor stays quiet and contemplative for another two or so minutes, and I'm starting to get restless, but I can't bring myself to interrupt his train of thought. I adjust myself into a more comfortable sitting position and wait as patiently as I can.

When he finally speaks again, his voice is steeled and careful in tone. "That's why I didn't like the idea of the exchange programme. The Celestial Realm kicked us out. There's no way I'd put up with its angels coming down here."

"It was the angels?" I ask. He pauses, one of his brows quirking, then nods.

"The angels," He repeats. "It isn't anything to do with you humans. I didn't like the idea of angels being in the Devildom. Still don't."

I nod absently. I can understand his reasoning - though I can't help but wonder why the brothers got 'kicked out' of the Celestial Realm in the first place. I want to ask, but I already know that that'd be going a bit too far, especially considering that this is still only our second proper meeting.

There's an odd sense of relief in my chest. I'd resolved myself to be as cautious as possible before I took the final step into the attic, but to be honest, I think I've been willing to help Belphegor this entire time, anyway - for his brothers, if not for Belphegor himself. Beelzebub looks so downtrodden when he glances over at the other side of his room, only to remember that its occupant isn't there.

The explanation that Belphegor's given me is exactly what I needed to justify myself. Maybe he's being economical with the truth, maybe he's just outright lying to my face, but as long as I can tell myself that I'm doing the right thing... I can help him without feeling guilty.

Does that make me selfish? Maybe. But I've made my decision already.

"So," I begin, and Belphegor starts slightly. "That's why Mr Lucifer locked you in here?"

This time there isn't any hesitation. Belphegor's shoulders square, and his voice drops - just like it did when I first asked him about Lucifer.

"He's obsessed with following Diavolo's orders," He says, and while his expression remains calm, his fingers dig so aggressively into the floorboards that I hear them creak feebly in protest. "He doesn't care who it is - so long as they're in the precious prince's way, he'll knock them down."

"Like a lawnmower," I mumble, forgetting to keep quiet, and Belphegor pauses, shooting me an odd look.

"A what?"

"It's this machine sort of thing that you're meant to push around," I say awkwardly. "You push it over your grass and it cuts it for you - but it doesn't just cut the grass. If there's a flower in the way, it'll cut that down as well. That's, uh... where I was going with that..."

Belphegor doesn't say anything for a moment. I go to apologise, feeling a little bad for interrupting the momentum of his monologue, but then he nods. "That sounds about right."

He fiddles with one of the buttons on his cardigan for a moment, then says, "So Lucifer knocked me down. Locked me up with all the spells he could think of, then left. That's it."

"That's it," I repeat uncertainly. "You said you didn't think the exchange programme was a good idea, and he just decided to go Alcatraz on you."

At that, he frowns in confusion again. Then he blinks, and his expression brightens just a little. "Oh, I know that one. The prison island, right?"

"That's what it's famous for, yeah. But I think it's just an island now, they got rid of the prison... so is that what really happened?"

"Yeah," Belphegor says firmly. "He hasn't even spoken properly to me since he locked me in here. I don't know what goes on in his head for him to think that this is the right thing for him to do, but I'd like to."

I hum thoughtfully. "...do you think he might listen if you did talk to him?"

He nods. "That's exactly what I've been trying to do. I wasn't totally calm when we had that argument. Both of us said things that we'd regret later - but Lucifer isn't even giving me a chance to make things right. So, if you help me get out of the attic, I can make him - force him to listen to me, whether he likes it or not. And maybe then he'll see sense."

Belphegor's words seem to linger in the air for a moment before fading. I mull them over, rubbing absently at the watch on my right wrist.

"...alright," I say finally, though my decision has pretty much been a foregone conclusion for a while. "I'll believe you. So what comes next?"

"Next?" He repeats, then realises what I mean. "Oh. Well, I wasn't lying when I said you'd need my brothers' pacts, so I guess you just need to keep going with that. Do you think Beel trusts you yet?"

"I can't really say..." I mull it over for a moment. "...but I don't think he hates me. He was helping me with some origami earlier."

"Beel's always been pretty good with that sort of thing," Belphegor says fondly, smiling a little, and it's probably the most genuine-looking smile that I've seen from him yet. "So do you think he'd be willing to give you his pact, then?"

"I haven't exactly asked yet," I reply, shaking my head. "How would I even bring it up? He'd get suspicious if I started just asking about that out of nowhere."

He frowns a little. "Good point."

His head dips as he thinks to himself, mumbling something unintelligible under his breath. Then, brows still slightly knitted, he raises his head again and suggests, "Do him a favour. A really big one. Maybe then he'll give it to you on his own."

Then he pauses, and adds, "Or you could come up with an excuse for why you want it. If you find a good one, he might just do it, no questions asked."

"I'm not good with excuses," I mumble, thinking back to the evening a few days ago when Beelzebub first knocked my wall down. "Are you sure we can't just tell them about you?"

"Of course not," Belphegor says incredulously, looking scandalised that I'd even suggest it. "Do you have any idea what might happen if you do that? Everyone's convinced that I'm in the human world. If they know the truth, they might— no, they would start a fight. It could cause a full-blown war if Diavolo gets involved."

War. He spits the word out like it's poison, face twisting into something so bitter that it adds centuries to his age for the briefest of moments. I stare at him, and it suddenly hits me how old Belphegor and his brothers really must be.

Professor Magdalene's words float back to me as if from far away. "Beings as ancient as us simply can't live as long as we have without suffering a certain degree of despair."

I knew a war veteran once, when I was young. He lived just down the street from us, and his name was Samuel Green. I was still a dumb kid with no sense of tact at the time, so when I heard that he'd fought in the Second World War as a young man, I'd actually gotten excited. As if it was some glamorous, cool thing - but, when I asked him about it, he made it clear that it was anything but.

Some men look back on their war days with a degree of pride and honour, but Mr Green didn't. To him, war was monstrous, a thing of Hell, something he wanted to erase from his memory forever. It had lost him two brothers, a lover, and countless friends. He'd stared death in the face so many times on that battlefield that, cast it into so many heads, that when his age finally caught up to him, he didn't care.

I wasn't particularly close to Mr Green. No one on the street was - he kept to himself, and barely ever spoke to anyone. Dad seemed to like him, and Mr Green didn't mind his company in short bursts, and that was the only reason we ever spoke. So I wasn't especially sad when he died.

Dad wasn't, either, but it was for a different reason.

"He can stop suffering now," He'd said to me with an almost serene smile when he gave me the news. "He can forget everything. So we will be happy for him okay?"

I don't remember Mr Green very clearly, long as it's been since he died. But the look on his face when I asked him what the war had been like - it's something that's stuck to me ever since. It's the same look that I saw flash across Belphegor's face just now.

Mr Green never let go of the war when he was alive. He'd start whenever he heard a sudden loud noise, wrinkled hands trembling, as if he was back on the battlefield, and he and his friends were killing and being killed all over again. I don't want to be the reason Belphegor has that look on his face.

I take a deep breath and nod. "I'll keep this a secret. Cross my heart and hope to die."

Belphegor's hand imitates mine as I draw an 'x' over my chest. He smiles, his face softening, and I can't help but think that I have be doing the right thing - right?

"Thank you," He says quietly. "I mean it."

Chapter Text

The first step to getting Belphegor out of the attic is getting Beelzebub’s pact, and, as it turns out, it isn’t long before that becomes a lot more possible than I’d initially thought it would be. In fact, the whole process first begins not even a full day after I spoke to Belphegor - the very next evening, to be precise.

I’m spending my free time after dinner in the library - as it turns out, it has a multitude of interesting novels to get stuck in, and I’ve chosen a rather clever one about a goddess who has to work a regular office job, and assassinate her boss to re-attain her godhood as part of a divine prophecy. The boss turns out to be the reincarnation of said god’s best friend from ancient times, and the god has to choose between whether to go through with the prophecy and assassinate her, or to spare her and be forced to live a mortal life forever.

It involves a lot of sitcom-style workplace hijinks and a good few genuinely heartfelt moments, which on any other occasion would make me a little sniffly. Actually, the only reason I’ve managed to keep myself from shedding any tears is that Satan’s sitting on the other side of the room, and I really don’t want to cry in front of him.

I’ve only just gotten to what feels like an extremely significant scene when my D.D.D. starts ringing. Satan looks up briefly, then back down, evidently expecting me to pick it up. I don’t, though, and the ringing soon seems to start getting on his nerves.

“...aren’t you going to answer that?” He asks finally, aiming an irritated look at my D.D.D. as the ringtone continues to loop the same jingle over and over again.

“Give me a moment,” I say, refusing to move my eyes even an inch from the page. “Something important’s happening.”

A moment passes. The ringing doesn’t stop - in fact, it sounds like it’s getting louder.

Satan sighs and heaves himself from his armchair, then picks up my D.D.D. and hits the ‘accept call’ button himself. I’m too busy with my book to care about how rude that is, so I just let him.

“Hello?” He says into the receiver, clearly irritated. There’s silence on the other end for a moment, then a muffled and slightly outraged-sounding response. “...calm down, I can barely tell what you’re saying. No, I didn’t steal it. She’s right here.”

A garbled answer. Somehow Satan manages to audibly scowl. “Don’t talk to me that.”

I allow my eyes to trail away from the page as the big important scene draws to a close. Satan notices me looking at him and immediately shoves my D.D.D. at me with a displeased, “It’s Luke.”

“Right…” I watch him stomp back over to his arm chair and sit down so heavily that I hear the springs groan, then raise the D.D.D. to my ear. “Hello?”

“IK!” I almost drop the D.D.D. again at the sudden exclamation. It's like Luke’s shouting down a megaphone, directly into my ear. “U-um, you’re in the House of Lamentation, right?”

“Yeah,” I say, a little puzzled. “Do you need something?”

“Well… ” He seems to struggle with words for a moment, then finally just says, “I’ll tell you in person. Can— can you come outside?”

I glance over at Satan. He’s still frowning a little, but he does seem to have gotten stuck back into his book. “Sure. Give me a minute.”

“Thank you!” His relief is palpable, even through the tinny call audio. “O-okay, I’ll see you!”

The D.D.D. beeps as he hangs up. I pause for a moment longer to observe Satan again, then set my book aside and hurry out of the room.

Luke is waiting by the gate when I get outside, looking incredibly small in his fully-white attire in the middle of the darkness. He keeps glancing back and forth anxiously, as if expecting security guards or just a Devildom monster to pounce on him, and he nearly jumps a full metre into the air when I come up right next to him.

“Oh!” He exclaims, eyes wide. A split second, they start watering. “IK! I’m so glad to see you…!”

“What’s wrong?” I ask, freezing up a little as he seizes my hands and starts wringing them with such enthusiasm that it feels like he’s trying to squeeze my fingers off my hands. “Are you alright? What’s happened?”

“I— I’m fine,” He says, sniffling a little as he pulls back and swipes at his eyes with the cuff of his sleeve. “But I really need to ask you a favour.”

I pat awkwardly at his arm, wishing I had a tissue or handkerchief to offer him. “Sure thing. What is it?”

He glances back at the path and up at the windows of the House of Lamentation, then leans in, voice low, and asks, “Could I stay over tonight?”

“Stay over?” I repeat, surprised. Luke doesn’t normally come near the House if he can help it - even on the days where he walks all the way back with me, he barely ever comes past the gate. “Why?”

“It… it’s... um…” He fiddles with his fingers, looking dangerously close to tears again, and I hurry to console him.

“No, no, it’s okay, you don’t have to tell me!” I wonder if should rub his back or something. “It’s just - are you sure you want to stay here? You hate the House…”

“Well, I wouldn’t normally,” He says, sounding a little stung. When he continues, though, he just sounds morose. “But I can’t stay at the Purgatory Hall right now. So, just for tonight…”

He gives me a pleading look. I sigh despite myself, but nod. “Sure. But, uh, there’s something you should know first…”

“What?” He asks, tilting his head slightly to the side.

“I’m kind of staying in Mr— I mean, Beel’s room right now,” I say, and Luke’s face immediately falls. “Something came up, so… my room hasn’t really been usable this last couple of days.”

“You didn’t tell us that!” His eyes blow wide, and he looks as if he can’t quite decide between being angry and being concerned. “What happened?”

I think back to exactly what led to Beelzebub punching that wall. “...I can’t really say. Nothing bad, though.”

He juts out his lower lip, looking more than a little peeved. He thinks hard for a moment, then shakes his head, picking nervously at one side of his stole.

“I didn’t want any of those demons to know I was here,” He says despondently.

“Beel probably won’t tell,” I say, attempting to reassure him. “He’s been pretty nice to me.”

“That’s to you, though…” Luke looks as if he wants to start chewing on his nails, but he keeps determinedly lowering his hand every time it approaches his face. “I’ve never even spoken to him before.”

“Good time to start, then?” I offer, and he shoots me a reproachful look. “Okay, okay, sorry… but, if you’ve never talked, that should mean he doesn’t have any reason not to like you, right?”

Luke seems slightly placated by that, but then he shakes his head again. “But he doesn’t have any reason to like me, either.”

“Then give him one,” I say, shrugging a little. “I think I still have a few of those chocolate bars Simeon gave me in my room somewhere - he’d like it if you gave him one of those.”

“No, those are yours…” Luke blows out his cheeks, remarkably like a hamster, then releases all the air with a hiss. “I could bake him something, I guess. Once this has all blown over.”

A twig snaps from somewhere close by. Luke jerks on the spot, looking around frantically for a moment, then turns back to me.

“Can we go inside now?” He asks, voice trembling slightly. “I don’t like it out here.”

“Sure.” I begin leading the way to the door. “Be quiet, though - if you don’t want any of the others to know you’re here.”

He nods, and stays completely silent as I usher him through the front door, then close it as softly as possible. He lingers over the welcome mat for a moment, staring down the entrance hall with wary eyes, then follows as I gesture for him to follow me up the stairs.

Everything from flicker of the candlelight to the creak of his feet on the steps seems to unsettle him. The sound of a door closing somewhere deeper in the House nearly scares him right out of his skin. When we get to the top of the staircase, he abruptly grabs my right hand.

I give him a surprised look, but don’t say anything. As I begin to lead him down the hall to Beelzebub’s room, he squeezes my hand appreciatively.

Asmodeus’s door is wide open when we pass it, but the room itself is empty. Beelzebub’s door, on the other hand, is firmly shut - though I know that it isn’t locked, since the door’s locking mechanism has apparently been broken for so long that everyone’s given up on having it fixed.

I’d been kind of hoping that Beelzebub would be down in the kitchen, but unfortunately he’s sitting right there on the bed when Luke and I slip inside. He doesn’t even bother looking up for a moment, having gotten used to me coming in and out over the last few days, but then he freezes in the middle of taking a bite of his muffin. It’s like he can sense a presence that isn’t usually here.

Luke shuffles subtly behind me as Beelzebub raises his head - though, of course, that doesn’t hide him at all. Beelzebub stares at him for a moment in stony silence, then turns his gaze to me. He doesn’t say a word, but his expression asks his question just fine on its own. What’s HE doing here?

“Uh,” I begin, hoping that the hand still holding Luke’s isn’t getting clammy out of nerves. “Is it alright if Luke stays here tonight?”

Beelzebub continues staring at me for a solid few moments, then finally says, “This isn’t a hotel room.”

“I know, but…” Luke gives my hand another squeeze, this time in silent support. “I’m not asking you to let him use Bel— uh, the other bed. He can just stay upstairs as well.”

My little slip-up doesn’t escape Beelzebub’s notice, if the way his expression darkens for a moment is anything to go by. He pauses for a moment, then asks, “Is there enough room on the sofa for both of you?”

“Probably,” I say. “I can always take the floor if there isn’t.”

“The floor?!” exclaims Luke, forgetting his nervousness in his indignation. “No way! You’re not sleeping on the floor!”

Beelzebub frowns as well. “Isn’t that bad for humans?”

“It's fine just for a night,” I say, feeling a little self-conscious under both their disapproving gazes. “But it’s just a last resort, anyway. I’m not saying I’m going to do it.”

There's a thick and awkward pause. Finally, Beelzebub nods and returns to his muffin. “...he can stay. Just be quiet, or Lucifer will notice.”

Luke goes a little stiff in surprise, but I nod and begin pulling him over to the stairs before Beelzebub can change his mind. “Thank you!”

Luke’s eyes stay fixed on Beelzebub the whole way up the little spiral staircase, only moving away once he physically isn’t in his line of sight anymore. He glances around the little upper floor, looking first at the various things I’ve stored in the now thoroughly-dusted cabinet, then at the heap of blankets on the sofa.

“Is this where you’ve been sleeping?” He asks, sitting carefully on the end.

“Yeah,” I say, settling beside him. Alatus pokes his head (or his entire body, really) out from one of the drawers in the coffee table and squeaks in greeting. “It’s pretty comfy. Did you bring anything with you?”

I don’t see any bags, but he does have that whole storage magic thing he and Simeon can do with their angel charms (or whatever the proper term for them is). Luke, however, looks a little downtrodden, and shakes his head.

“I stormed out before I could really think properly,” He says in a small voice, shoulders hunching slightly. “I don’t have anything.”

I nod in understanding, glancing over at my stash of things. “...I don’t have a spare toothbrush, but you can use my soap and things if you like. Do you normally wear pyjamas, or…?”

“Sometimes,” He says. “But it's fine if I just take my hat and shoes off. Technically, I’m not supposed to take off my cloak, so…”

“Alright.” I nod again. “We can figure out the sleeping thing when we get to it.”

He nods as well, still perched uncomfortably on the very edge of the sofa. I can tell that being in the same room as Beelzebub is still making him nervous - normally conversation is never particularly hard to keep going with him, but right now Luke seems far more interested in staring at his feet than talking.

I’m just wondering if I should show him Toaster (who’s in sleep mode under the coffee table) when there’s a knock at the door. Luke shoots to his feet in alarm, looking around for somewhere to hide, and I quickly gesture for him to dive under the blankets as Beelzebub calls out a monotone "come in".

Satan pokes his head in and glances around for a moment, before spotting me looking down at him from the balcony. He offers a pleasant smile and holds up my D.D.D., as well as the book I'd been reading when Luke called me. “You forgot these.”

“Ah, thanks…” I glance one more time at the blanket pile to make sure that Luke is completely hidden, then hurry down the staircase to collect my things. Rather than leave, though, Satan chooses to hover at the door for a moment, glancing around as if looking for something.

“Did you sort things out with Luke?” He asks nonchalantly. Behind me, the sound of Beelzebub crunching on the bag of crisps he’s just opened stops for a split second, then continues.

“Uh, yeah,” I say, “He needed to borrow something.”

“Borrow something,” He repeats, raising an eyebrow. “I see.”

He looks almost conspiratorial, as if he thinks he knows something that I don’t, which doesn’t bode very well. The last time I saw him pull a face like that was at dinner a few weeks ago, when he cunningly flicked a spoonful of sauce into Lucifer’s drink, then blamed it on an oblivious Mammon, who’d been thoroughly focused on explaining the particulars of some money-related scheme to me for the entire meal.

Satan’s eyes move over to the stairs. “...and did he leave afterwards?”

“Yep,” I lie. I can handle yes-or-no questions - there’s less of a chance of going on a ramble when answering those. “Did you want to talk to him or something?”

“Not really,” He answers, eyes still focused on the stairs. “Though I suspect I wouldn’t have to try very hard if I did.”

Now Beelzebub’s crunching stops entirely. I laugh nervously. “What does that mean?”

“I think you already know,” Satan says to me, then addresses the room at large. “Do you, Luke?”

Silence. Satan seems unfazed by the lack of reply; in fact, it only seems to make him even more smug. He seems completely sure that Luke’s in here - and he is, but it’s not like Satan has any way of proving it. Unless he saw us on our way here…

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” He says to me, still wearing that pleasant smile, though it now looks significantly more mischievous than before. “Have a nice evening.”

I stare after him as he turns and disappears down the hall, then turn to Beelzebub, who’s gone back to eating his crisps. “How’d Satan know Luke was here?”

Beelzebub shrugs. “If something happens that'd make Lucifer mad, he’ll find out about it.”

“Right…” I shut the door again. “Wait - does that mean he’s going to tell on us?”

Beelzebub thinks for a moment, still chewing, then shakes his head. “Probably not. He’ll think it’s more fun keeping the secret… unless he decides that it’d be more fun to watch Lucifer get worked up about it.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” I mumble.

Luke is peering out from beneath the blankets when I get back up the stairs. Once I’ve confirmed that Satan is gone, he clambers out, now looking substantially more flushed and dishevelled.

“He must be up to something,” He mumbles, patting down the front of his shirt and resuming his previous position on the edge of the sofa. “Demons always are…”

“That’s not true,” I say, sitting next to him again.

He shakes his head adamantly, folding his arms. “They’re literally the embodiments of evil. Darkness incarnate! You can’t trust them.”

I shift on the spot, beginning to get rapidly uncomfortable. “Uh…”

“I wouldn’t even talk to one if I had the choice,” He growls, screwing his hands into fists. “They’re ab— abho—”

He struggles for the right word for a moment, then finally declares, “They’re absolutely horrible!”

I blink and ask, “Were you looking for ‘abhorrent’?”

He pauses and thinks for a moment, then nods firmly. “Yeah, exactly!”

Something vaguely plastic crackles from down below, and I turn to see Beelzebub depositing his crisp bag in the bin (which he has, mercifully, emptied at some point in the last day) with about twice more vigour than is necessary. I frown and turn back to Luke.

“You do know…” I begin, picking each word carefully as if defusing a bomb, “...you’re going to be staying in an ‘abhorrent’ demon’s room tonight, right?”

I make sure to place the air quotes around the word with both my fingers and my voice. Luke immediately bristles.

“I wouldn’t if I had any other choice!” He snaps. “They’re despicable!”

“Well, if you don’t want Beel to kick you out, you could at least be tactful about it,” I say, beginning to feel rather offended on Beelzebub’s behalf. “Because he’s being awfully nice by just letting you stay in here all of a sudden, and it’s not like he’s given you a reason to say any of that. I don't think you get to call every demon names when they haven't done anything. There's a word for that, you know, and it's just a bit mean, isn't it?"

My voice raises in volume with each word, enunciating each word so forcefully that I feel almost as if I'm hovering above the sofa rather than sitting on it. My final question hangs in the air like some kind of dark omen, and Luke stares at me in stunned silence for a moment - then abruptly breaks out into a fit of tears.

“Oh—” I hurriedly start patting his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. There are siren blaring in my head like it's a fire drill, “No, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout—”

“But you’re right!” Luke wails, so loudly that I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the House heard him. “I’m awful! And— and— and now Simeon hates me!”

“What?” To be honest, I can’t imagine Simeon hating anyone, let alone Luke. “Why do you think that?”

“Because he does!” He rubs furiously at his eyes, but only seems to succeed in irritating them further. The material his sleeves are made of don’t look very soft, and his eyelids have gone all puffy when he pulls his hands away from them.

“Don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself…” I look around, first at the blankets, then at my neatly folded onesie sitting in the cabinet. After a moment’s deliberation, I hop up to retrieve it, then offer one of the sleeves to him. “Just, uh - pat. Like this.”

Luke obediently follows my example, too caught up in his misery to bother with politeness. He does have enough sense to not blow his nose on it, at least.

I let him calm down for a moment or two, patting his back as he continues to dab at his eyes. Finally, once the tears themselves have mostly subsided, I ask, “Is that why you wanted to stay here? You had a fight with Simeon?”

He sniffles and nods. I hesitate, then try, “Was it about demons?”

He nods again. His voice is choked. “I just didn't get why he's so fine with them, and… and...”

He goes quiet again, then continues, ducking his head in shame, “I said some bad things, and he… he called me a child, and then he told me…”

Tears rapidly begin coursing down his cheeks again, and he buries his face in the sleeve of my onesie. “H-he said that this is why I’m still so low-ranking, and— and that I’ll never grow at this rate, I'll never make it as a throne, let alone a seraph!”

For a moment, there’s so sound apart from Luke’s increasingly violent sobs. I sit there, practically completely unmoving, though my right hand continues to pat robotically at his back. I feel almost as if I’m having an out-of-body experience - like the confusion of where my anger’s supposed to be directed has booted my soul out of my body entirely. I can practically see my own expression.

A long while later, I say, my voice a little strained, “Was the stuff you said in the argument like the stuff you said just now?”

Luke hiccups and nods ashamedly. “Worse.”

“Right.” I slowly stop patting his back, and Luke shrinks in on himself, clearly expecting me to start berating him as well. Instead, I ask, “Do you really believe all of that?”

He pauses in surprise, then considers my question, brow furrowing and unfurrowing several times in quick succession. Eventually he just says, “I… I don’t know.”

“Okay…” I’d kind of suspected something since that little slip-up he had with ‘abhorrent’, so now I decide to see if I can confirm it. “All that stuff you said, then - did you come up with by yourself, or did someone else say it to you?”

At that, his entire body stills, and he actually raises his head to look directly at me, eyes wide. “How did you…?”

He doesn’t wait for me to answer, though, just slumps backwards a little, looking almost defeated. A long while later, he mumbles, “Lesser angels like me usually get put in a cluster. Um - it’s not the same as your star cluster, it’s more of a… team. And all the other angels in my cluster are always talking like that. They hate demons.”

“They sound like a bunch of pricks,” I say without thinking, then realise that Luke was also just talking like that and quickly clarify, “You’re not, though.”

“But I am,” He sighs miserably, “They said all the things, but I believed them.”

“You don’t sound like you really do,” I point out. “If you did, you wouldn’t be this upset.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “But I think I… might. We're not taught anything else. The seraphs know best.”

“Alright, then let’s try something.” I clear my throat and think back to some of more awful members of my year. Like that Josh who used to chase girls around the playground with a slug, "Do you think you'd run them over with a big red combine harvester and leave them to get eaten by the crows?"

Luke opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. I realise after a moment that he probably doesn't know what that is, let alone heard the song.

“Never mind,” I say, deciding that I should go for something more simpler. “How about… do you actually hate any of the demons down here?”

The answer to that one comes a lot more easily. Luke nods his head firmly, and I don’t even need to ask who they are before he’s proclaiming, “Lucifer and Mephistopheles.”

Those were two of the names I was expecting to hear, so I’m not particularly surprised. “Alright, so why do you hate them?”

“Lucifer always makes fun of me,” Luke says with a dark scowl, though the effect is slightly marred by him giving an almighty sniff almost immediately after. “And Mephistopheles is just rude - and he did something bad to Solomon.”

I make a sound of understanding and lean forward slightly. I feel like I’m the interviewer on one of those reality talk shows - Jeremy Kyle, maybe? I’ve never actually watched it, but I’ve heard about what goes on in it. Or maybe I’m thinking of Judge Rinder.

“So you don’t hate them just because they’re demons,” I say. Luke seems a little puzzled by that, but he does tentatively nod after a moment. “Actually - would you really call it hate? Like, would you, say... stab them with a knife? If you wouldn’t get in trouble for it?”

“What?” He shakes his head so violently that his already crooked hat nearly goes flying off. “No way!”

“Then it sounds more like you just don’t like them, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” I say, wondering if I sound like a teacher. “Well, okay  - tell me if I’m wrong, but I think you've just been hearing bad stuff about them for too long. You don’t think that they’re scum or anything.”

Luke blinks at me, then looks down at his knees and taps his fingers restlessly against them. “I don’t know…”

“I can’t read your mind or anything,” I say, giving him another pat on the back. “But I don’t think you’re awful. And I don’t think Simeon hates you, either.”

His eyes well up again at the very mention of his name, but instead of crying again, he just sniffs bravely and asks, quiet, “Really?”

“People say mean things when they’re mad,” I say, thinking ruefully of my own experiences in that area, on both the giving and receiving ends. “Does Simeon know what the angels in your cluster have been saying?”

He thinks for a moment. “...I don’t know. Maybe…”

“I don’t know exactly what you said to each other...” I begin, then pause for a moment. Am I being too preachy? Ah, what the heck, I’m in this deep now. “...uh, but it sounds like Simeon took whatever you said really seriously. If he really thinks that you believe that - well,it makes sense that he got mad. But he shouldn’t have said all that about… thrones, and…”

“Seraphs,” Luke finishes for me, managing a watery kind of smile. Even at a moment like this, he manages to reel off an explanation as if he’s studied for a moment like this. “Thrones and seraphs. We have a nine-level hierarchy for angels in the Celestial Realm. Thrones are one level above mine, and seraphs are the highest ranking out of everyone.”

“Ah.” I kind of want to ask exactly which level Luke’s on, since I don’t know anything about this (is this Biblical stuff too? I never did pay attention to that bit), but it’s not really the right time for a question like that. “Well, I think you’d make a great seraph.”

At that, his smile widens into a beam, and it’s so bright that all signs of his tears seem to disappear in an instant. “Really?”

“Really,” I say firmly, and Luke’s beam, impossibly, gets even brighter. He's almost physically exuding light, which wouldn’t be the most surprising thing to happen this week.

“You’d make a good seraph as well!” He declares, hands curling into enthusiastic - thankfully no longer distressed - fists. “I bet that you’d go right up the ranks if you were an angel!”

“An angel?” I repeat, laughing a little awkwardly. To be honest... I just really didn't want you to cry. “I don’t know about that.”

“You’re lovely enough to be one,” He insists, actually beginning to vibrate a little out of sheer intensity. “And you talk just like Michael does when he’s giving lessons, too.”

Oh wow. Now that’s high praise. Luke’s nearly always talking about that archangel who’s apparently the embodiment of all that is good and holy - you’d think he’d hung the very stars in the sky himself - so to even be placed in the same sentence as him is a tremendous compliment.

I can feel my ears beginning to burn, which is a little embarrassing, though at least I don't really visibly blush - so the only indication Luke gets of how impossibly flattered I am is how wobbly my smile is. “Th-thanks…”

Luke opens his mouth to say something else, only to be interrupted by the sound of the door opening, and he goes stone-rigid, face draining of all colour. I feel myself tense as well - it seems that both of us forgot that this room had another occupant.

Hesitantly, I turn around and peer over the edge of the balcony. To my surprise, though, it looks as if Beelzebub has just walked in, rather than being in the middle of walking out. He glances up to me, catching my eye, and offers a small nod.

Luke, beside me, has shrunk so far into his collar that he resembles nothing so much as an embarrassed turtle. I clear my throat nervously and ask the question that both of us want to know the answer to. “Uh… how much of all that did you hear?”

He blinks and shrugs. “Not a lot. I left when he started crying.”

“You did?” Luke’s voice is high-pitched and distressed. “I— I didn’t notice…”

“You were too busy crying,” Beelzebub says knowledgeably. He walks over to his bed and sits down, tearing open the bag of iced buns that he's retrieved in the meantime. Luke and I exchange slightly apprehensive looks as he shoves one into his mouth whole.

After a moment, voice mostly muffled by the bun he’s still chewing, Beelzebub says, “You shouldn’t say any of that stuff around anyone else, Luke. Demons get violent when they’re offended.”

I wonder for a moment what he means by ‘that stuff’, then realise that, if he left during Luke’s initial fountain of tears, he wouldn’t have heard all of my masquerading as a counsellor with credentials directly afterwards. I give Luke a gentle push on the shoulder, but he doesn’t seem to need prompting - he’s already taking a deep breath.

“A-actually,” He begins in a commendably strong voice, then immediately quietens as soon as he starts on the other words. “I, um… didn’t…”

The last two words are mumbled in such quick succession that they don’t sound like words at all. Beelzebub cocks his head to the side, swallowing his first iced bun and then shoving another one into his mouth. “What? I didn’t catch that.”

“I said that I didn’t mean it!” Luke flares, face flushing with embarrassment. “I— I just—”

Beelzebub listens to him stammer for a moment, chewing thoughtfully, then asks, “Why did you say it if you didn’t mean it?”

“I don’t know,” Luke mumbles shamefacedly, and Beelzebub cranes his neck slightly as if to hear better. “Because I thought that was the right thing to think.”

I give him a supportive pat on the back, and he offers me a tight-lipped smile in reply. Below, Beelzebub finishes his second bun, but he doesn’t immediately go for another one this time. He fidgets about with the bag, and the crackling plastic serves as an almost welcome interruption to the strained hush filling the room.

“Alright,” He says finally, and shoves another bun into his mouth. “Apology accepted.”

Luke’s face flushes again, this time out of what looks like a kind of irritation. “I didn’t—”

I cut him off with a gentle jab to the arm, and he catches himself. “I mean— um, thanks…”

He quietens for a moment, then seems to realise something and straightens up again. “But this doesn’t mean we’re friends, okay?!”

Well, I wasn’t expecting them to hold hands and go frolicking or anything, but that’s a little disheartening. Beelzebub seems surprised. “What do you mean?”

“I still won’t trust you that easily,” Luke says, seeming to get braver as he gets more and more into his stride. “So— so don’t get any ideas!”

Beelzebub gazes up at him for a moment, then glances at me. I can only offer a helpless shrug - it’s not like I can force Luke into being all buddy-buddy with him. Eventually, he just nods, and goes back to his iced buns.

I turn back around and settle back more comfortably on the sofa. Luke does the same with a touch of satisfaction, and, after a moment, I ask, “What was that last bit about?”

“I still have to be careful,” Luke says, as if it’s obvious. “Demons and angels are from different realms... they're total opposites. And demons don't like us, either. So we both have to keep our guards up."

"Humans and angels are from completely different realms as well,” I point out. “Does that mean we aren’t friends, either?”

He shakes his head vehemently. “No, of course we’re friends! That’s different!”

“How so?”

“Well, we’ve actually talked properly,” He says. “And you’re nice to me. I haven’t really talked to any of the demons, and most of the ones I know keep making fun of me.”

I consider. “...that does make sense.”

I suppose I can’t fault Luke for wanting to keep his distance - even if he doesn’t really think all demons are abhorrent and despicable, it is true that he and the demons we do know are still basically strangers. At least I know now that he’s not just... being awful.

The rest of the evening goes by without any further event. Luke seems to have forgotten about the fight with Simeon, and I’m not about upset him by bringing it up again, so I just continue to chat with him over my origami. Following Beelzebub’s advice the other day, it seems to be going much more smoothly than before. It’s like magic.

The sleeping situation takes a while to sort out, but we opt on taking a different end of the sofa each. I curl up in my blanket so as to take up as little space as possible, and while Luke does the same at first, once he falls asleep, he stretches out completely.

It’s kind of hard to get to sleep with Luke constantly unconsciously kicking me in the shins (somehow he keeps managing to get me there no matter how I rearrange myself), so I’m still lying wide awake several hours later. Which I suppose might be a good thing, since it means I’m awake to see Simeon’s call flash up on my D.D.D.’s screen.

I'm impressed he managed to get one through - he's never done it on his own before. Isit up slowly, so as not to disturb Luke, and ease my way out of the blanket. After a moment, I hit the accept call button, and while I hear Simeon’s voice start saying something almost immediately, I don’t respond until I’ve tiptoed down the stairs and out of the room.

“—llo? Hello?!” is the first thing I hear when I finally raise the D.D.D. to my ear. “Are you there?!”

“Shhh,” I whisper in reply. “Everyone’s asleep.”

“IK!” Simeon sounds as if he’s let go of a lifetime's worth of tension with that one word. It strikes me how similar his relief is to Luke’s when I answered his own call earlier. “I’m so sorry to disturb you at this hour, but - is Luke with you?”

I pause for a moment, remembering exactly what Luke said he told him. My tone sours. “...yeah.”

Simeon clearly hears the change in my voice, because he releases a sigh so deep that I feel like I get a breeze on my end. “... did he tell you about our argument?”

I scowl, even though he can’t see me. “Yup.”

He’s silent for a moment. “You’re angry at me, aren't you?”

“It’s not me you should be worrying about,” I say forcefully, then quickly clap a hand to my mouth, glancing cautiously at both Asmodeus and Beelzebub’s doors. No sound comes from either of them. I relax a little. “I mean… you should really be thinking about Luke.”

He sighs again, and when he replies, his voice is small. “...I am. But I don’t want you to be angry at me, either.”

“I’m not angry,” I say, and I’m only lying a little. “Just…”

I don’t want to say ‘disappointed’, but I can’t think of any other word. Finally, I say, “I do get why you got mad, but the bit about the thrones and seraphs was just unnecessary.”

Another silence, this one more stricken. “He told you about that?”

Simeon doesn’t wait for a reply before continuing. “I know it was an awful thing to say, but in the heat of the moment - I couldn’t believe it. It was all so backward. I suppose I saw red…”

“Well, lucky you, because Luke doesn’t actually think all of that,” I say matter-of-factly. “He told me that that’s the sort of stuff his cluster’s always saying.”

“His cluster?” Simeon repeats. “...he didn’t tell me that.”

“Peer pressure’s really good at making you think you believe something that you really don’t,” I reply. “You can’t tell someone something that you haven’t really realised yourself.”

Simeon goes quiet for a moment. “Did he tell you all of this as well?”

“Some of it’s, uh, inference, I guess…” I kick restlessly at the carpet. “Does everyone else in the Celestial Realm think like those pr— uh, angels in his cluster?”

“Well, everyone's different…” Simeon sighs yet again, this time wearily. “But if they did, Luke and I wouldn’t have been sent down here for the exchange programme in the first place. Open-mindedness and kindness are two of the ideals we teach back home... though there will always be those that don’t learn it.”

“That’s just how it is,” I reply, fighting the urge to sigh myself. “Sounds like the Celestial Realm isn’t all that different from the human world.”

He laughs a little at that. “I suppose not.”

Neither of us say anything for a moment. Then Simeon suddenly says, “Most angels in the Celestial Realm feel a kind of inherent superiority to demons - and humans, too. In truth, though, there isn’t much that separates us. And there are many things demons and humans have that angels have never been able to achieve.”

“What about you, then?”

“What do you mean?”

I lean back against the wall and trace the pattern of the wallpaper with a finger. “Do you think angels are better, too?"

A long pause. Simeon’s voice is quiet. “Of course not. There are some angels who are infinitely crueller than any demon ever has been.”

I open my mouth to say something, but Simeon’s carrying on before I can. Even though he’s not here, I can practically see him shaking his head. “...I’ve said too much. IK, if it isn’t too much trouble - can you pretend you didn’t hear that?”

“Hear what?” I ask innocently, and he chuckles a little.

“Thank you. Now…” I hear the rustling of fabric and the creaking of springs. “...I doubt Luke will want to see me now, so… can you take care of him? Until I can apologise?"

“Well, we all have tomorrow off,” I say. (Apparently the Devildom also has the equivalent of human-world INSET Days.) “You’ll have plenty of time to say sorry then.”

He makes a thoughtful sound. “I don’t know… he might need some space. Would it be better to wait for him to reach out first?”

“If you want to cross a bridge, you should build it yourself,” I reply, quoting one of Aunt Lisa’s favourite little sayings. She comes up with a lot of them herself, and I can tell that she feels awfully clever when she does. “You can’t expect someone else to do it for you… but I do think Luke might need a day or so. To think.”

He gives a quiet huff of amusement. “You’re very sage for someone so young - and small. Where do you keep it all?”

“In my left knee,” I say decidedly, and he lets slip a full-on laugh at that. “And you need to come up with better jokes than calling me small."

“I can’t refrain from speaking the truth,” He answers almost cheekily. “You are very small.”

“I’m going to hang up on you.”

“Oh— wait a moment, don’t do that!”

I slowly move my finger away from the ‘end call’ button, trying to keep my voice stern. “What? I’m a very busy businessman, you know.”

“Of course, of course,” He says placatingly. “The busiest businessman of all. But I still need to thank you - for being there for Luke.”

I don’t respond for a moment, and Simeon seems to think that I changed my mind and hung up on him after all. “...hello? IK?”

“I’m here,” I say quietly. Then, after a pause, I add, “And you can thank me by giving him a proper apology. I’ll tell him to say sorry, too.”

“I don’t need an apology if the things he said weren’t things he actually believed,” Simeon says firmly. “And I will - when the moment is right.”

“Just make sure you don’t miss the moment, then,” I agree. “They’re usually tricky to time.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” He says, and I can almost hear his smile. “You know, you make a wonderful mediator. Maybe we should start calling you our dove of peace?”

I cough, a little embarrassed. “That’s, uh… not necessary…”

“Oh, but maybe it is,” He counters, “I'd probably still be in hot water without you."

“It would've gotten better eventually,” I mumble. “Thank you, though…”

“What are you thanking me for?” He asks in reply. “Save them for yourself - you deserve it.”

I’m not sure how to respond to that, so I just say, “Alright, thank you…”

“You’re hopeless,” Simeon sighs, though he’s laughing too. “Well, it’s awfully late now - you should get yourself to bed. Good night, little dove.”

“Night.” 

 My D.D.D. clicks to indicate that the call has ended, and I turn to return to Beelzebub’s room, wondering vaguely if ‘little dove’ is going to become a regular thing now. It’s completely dark save for the dim glow of a night lamp. I can see the vague outline of Beelzebub’s head nestled on his pillow. 

He’s snoring loudly - almost too loudly. I watch him for a second, wondering if he heard any of the phone call, then decide that I’m being creepy right now and quickly scuttle back up the stairs.

Luke’s half-falling off of the sofa when I reach it, so I carefully re-situate him (which is harder than I’d predicted - Luke’s heavier than he looks) before returning to my end. I don’t really want to deal with his sleep-kicking, so rather than lying down, I wrap my blankets around myself and prop myself upright, just out of his range.

I don’t know what time it is when I finally fall asleep, but it feels like I’ve only just closed my eyes when the sound of bustling about on the lower floor of the room wakes me up again. I grumble something not entirely coherent, even to myself, and peer over the edge of the balcony.

Beelzebub is already up and dressed, and is attempting to make his bed into something resembling neatness. As if he senses my eyes on him, he turns to look up at me, and offers a small smile in greeting.

“Morning,” He says. “It’s my turn to make breakfast today, so I need to be up early. You can go back to bed.”

Normally I’d take up that sort of offer without hesitation, but sleeping in this position has given me an awful crick in the neck. I shake my head with a wince and start getting up. “Nah, I’m awake now. Do, uh… do you need help with breakfast?”

He rubs at the back of his head, then nods dolefully. “Probably. I need someone to stop me from eating everything before I can serve it.”

“Alrighty.” I get up and shove my feet into my shoes. I can't be bothered to change -and there's no school today, so I could stay in my onesie all day if I wanted to. “You won’t punch me if I do it wrong, will you?”

It was meant to be a joke, but Beelzebub visibly deflates, evidently not very proud of his moment of destruction. “Of course not.”

“Who’s punching who?” mumbles Luke sleepily, beginning to sit up. He looks a lot smaller - and younger, actually - without his hat. He yawns and looks around, then abruptly shoots up, eyes wide. “Where—”

His eyes land on me, and he relaxes a little, though he still looks alarmed. “Oh, right…”

“Morning,” I say. “Did you sleep well?”

He rubs at his eyes and shrugs. “I guess. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great, either…”

“Well, that’s usually the best you can hope for,” I say bracingly. “What do you want for breakfast? I’ll bring you up something - 'cause, you know, everyone would notice if you showed up at the table…”

“Oh! Really?” That alone seems to be enough to wake him up properly, and he perks up, already looking fresh as a daisy. “Um, I don’t know… I don’t like a lot of demon food…”

“Well, what do you normally have?” I ask. He thinks for a moment.

“Usually something like a muffin,” He says. “Or toast. But I can’t have the dark stuff - it gets stuck in my throat.”

Well, that seems simple enough. “Alright. Do you want anything to drink?”

“Just water’s fine,” He answers, beginning to properly disentangle himself from his blankets. He reaches for his hat, but pauses before putting it on, and gives me a wide smile. “Thank you - for all this, I mean.”

“All in a day’s work,” I say half-jokingly, beginning to descend the stairs. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Be careful!” He calls in reply, and I offer him a wave before turning and following Beelzebub out of the room.

Beelzebub is silent on the way there, hands buried deep in his pockets and dragging his feet a little. When we get to the kitchen (I take a moment to observe the still destroyed wall), he heads straight for the fridge, opens it, and makes a disappointed noise.

“It’s nearly empty,” He says, standing back so that I can have a look. “I thought Satan and Levi did the shopping just two days ago…”

He moves over to the cupboards and searches about in them for a bit, pulling out an assortment of packages, most of which are empty. Finally, looking defeated, he says, “...all we have is bread.”

“There’s still two things of eggs in there,” I say helpfully, pointing over at the very corner of the cupboard. “And there are still some apples in the fruit bowl.”

Beelzebub nods and retrieves both, then sets them on the counter along with the bag of bread. They don’t make a very impressive sight - especially considering they’re supposed to feed eight people today. Nine if we count Luke (which I do), and about fifteen if we also take into account the amount of food that Beelzebub is capable of eating at any given mealtime.

“You could do eggs on toast,” I offer. “And you could cut up the apples and put them in one big bowl so that it looks like there’s more than there is.”

Beelzebub doesn’t look convinced. I go up on my tip-toes to pull the cartons of eggs over to myself, then open them. One is full, and the other one’s only got five left.

“You can do a lot with eggs,” I say, tapping one. It’s about three times as large as an average chicken egg, which makes me wonder exactly what kind of animal it came from. “Fry them, scramble them, poach them, boil them… we could just dump them all in a big pan and do a soft boil. And then you could have eggs and soldiers.”

“Soft boil?” Beelzebub repeats, looking more confused than he’d been before I started talking. “Soldiers?”

“Soft boil is where you cook them until the white’s solid, but the yolk’s still runny,” I explain. “You slice the toast into strips - those are the soldiers - and you dip them in the yolk.”

Beelzebub nods thoughtfully, looking rather intrigued by the concept. “We've never done it like that. How do you soft boil eggs?”

“You put it in water and heat it up.”

“I know that. How long are you supposed to do it for?”

I wrinkle my nose and think, then shrug. “I don’t know. Usually I can kind of… tell. But that’s with chicken eggs, so…”

Beelzebub frowns a little, but opens the pots-and-pans cupboard anyway, pulling out the sort of giant heavy-bottomed pot that you might use to make soup for a party of twenty. After a pause, he pulls out a frying pan as well.

“Do you know how to fry eggs?” He asks me. “Or scramble them?”

“Yeah. Do you want to do some of those as well?”

He nods. “The others might not like the soft-boiled eggs.”

“Well, you can always leave a few for longer so that they’re hard-boiled,” I say, but follow him to the stove nevertheless. “We can do half boiled and half fried - scrambled eggs are just fried eggs after you beat them up a bit.”

Over the next forty five minutes or so, we get to work. I have a bit of a crisis with how we’re going to keep all the food warm, but apparently there’s a spell for that (there seems to be a spell for everything down here in the Devildom), so everything else goes smoothly. Beelzebub even manages to refrain from eating all the food before it’s on the table - though he does sneak two pieces of toast and a fried egg, which he proclaims to be ‘very good’.

Several of the other brothers wander in and out while we’re preparing. Satan regards the scrambled egg in particular with a look of what I can only describe as distaste on his face, while Mammon takes one look at the soft-boiled ones sitting in a basket and asks in horror if he’s supposed to eat them raw.

There aren't any actual egg cups in the kitchen, so Beelzebub clinks in the cupboard for all the drinking things and then produces a series of shot glasses that just so happen to be the perfect size to fit. He puts eight of them in the dining room, and secretly hands me a ninth that I shove into my pocket for Luke to use later.

By the time we’ve carried all the food into the dining room, everyone’s shown up. Neither Asmodeus nor Levi look particularly enthused by what they see, though Lucifer does appear to look favourably upon the bowl of chopped apples. (I’d wanted to cut them into rabbits, but we didn’t have enough time, so I just sliced them into the sort of chunks you get in kids’ snack packets.)

It’s only once everyone’s already started eating that I realise that I probably should have set aside the food for Luke earlier, when it was just me and Beelzebub in the kitchen. Now I’m going to have to try to hide some with everyone at the table.

“The fluffy stuff is good,” Mammon comments, spooning some more scrambled egg onto his plate and shoving a forkful into his mouth. He glances over at me, then pauses. “...oi, what’re you doing?”

I jump like the guiltiest criminal in the world and try to hide the napkin-wrapped toast in my hands behind my back. “Uh… nothing.”

“Put the food back on your plate, IK,” Lucifer says flatly. His soft-boiled egg is still sitting untouched in front of him, though, based on how he’s been eyeing it analytically for the past few minutes, I’m pretty sure that’s because he hasn’t figured out how to get the top off properly.

“The food is on my plate,” I say, pointing at the two chunks of apple and half of a fried egg sitting on it. He gives me a look. “...what?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” He replies sternly, leaning back and folding his arms. “Put it back and eat it like you’re supposed to.”

It’s clear that he’s not going to stop staring at me until I do as he says. I sigh, relenting, but at that moment Beelzebub abruptly starts coughing - and, somehow, knocks Levi’s cup over in the process. Levi responds by giving a distressed screech and leaping up as whatever hot drink he had in there spills all over his lap, and he manages to jostle Asmodeus so hard in that he falls out of his chair entirely. It’s like a game of dominoes.

In the commotion that follows (Asmodeus alternating between yelling at Levi for knocking over and lamenting the minimal scrape on his hand, and Levi complaining loudly about Beelzebub’s clumsiness), I manage to sneak both the toast and two soft-boiled eggs into my pocket, each wrapped in a napkin.

I’m not sure how I’m going to get out of the room without someone seeing the lump in the front of my onesie, but at least Lucifer hasn’t noticed. I shoot Beelzebub a thumbs up as he pretends to be listening to Asmodeus’s rant, and he gives me a short nod in reply.

Unfortunately, Beelzebub’s little distraction proves to be fruitless in the end, because as soon as the room's calmed down a little, Satan decides to ask loudly, “Need to feed your pet, do you?”

The table falls into a hush. Lucifer’s brows furrow dangerously, while I shoot him the most betrayed look I can muster.

Beelzebub has more sense than I do, and asks, “What are you talking about?”

“The food that IK just stuffed into her pocket,” Satan says.

Please shut up. Hyper-aware of all the other brothers’ eyes on me, I quickly school my expression into the closest thing to nonchalance I can muster. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you?” Satan spears a fried egg and deposits it on his plate, keeping his eyes on me the whole while. It’s an oddly threatening gesture.

“I do not,” I say, deciding that I should probably get out of here before Satan can condemn me any further. “Please excuse me. I need to go water my dandelions.”

“Your what?” Mammon asks, but I’m already half-running and half-shuffling out of the room before he can finish.

No one comes chasing after me, but I’ve pretty much just confirmed my guilt by running away. I slow down a little to climb the stairs, hoping that Luke hasn’t gotten too hungry while he’s waiting. Well, no use in crying over spilt milk. Though I wouldn’t have had to spill it in the first place if Satan didn’t decide to snitch...

What's his problem? Did I do something to upset him? Or, wait… is this about Lucifer? Beelzebub did say that he might tell if he decided that it’d be fun to watch him get all worked up… or maybe this is part of some bigger scheme. Well, whatever. It’s done now…

Luke is still sat on the sofa where I left him, though he looks substantially tidier, and is flipping through the book I was reading yesterday. He regards the food I set on the coffee table with a lot more enthusiasm than any of the brothers did (though they did seem to enjoy it once they ate it), and gives me just about the most exuberant smile I’ve ever seen.

“Wow, thanks!” He exclaims happily, acting for all the word as if it’s a banquet and not two pieces of toast and two eggs.

“No problem,” I reply with a small smile of my own, knocking the top off the first soft-boiled egg and setting it in the shot glass. “Here, you can dip the toast in this.”

He leans forward and peers at the golden yolk. “Ooo, that looks really pretty.”

We chat a little while he eats, though Luke is mostly preoccupied with keeping the yolk from dripping onto his pristine white clothes. At one point the conversation comes to a brief hush, and I glance over to where the origami animals for Levi are sitting on top of the bookshelf.

He didn’t say much to me at breakfast, but he didn’t look uncomfortable or resentful, either. At this point I’m pretty sure he’s just waiting for me to take the first step forward - which I could technically do any day now, since I finished the snakes last night.

I get up to retrieve the paper animals - not for any reason in particular, just to look at them - only to stop in my tracks as a knock comes from the door. Both Luke and I freeze - this is Beelzebub’s room, so it won’t be him. And none of the others are supposed to know that he’s here.

We look at each other. A silent moment of understanding seems to pass between us, and Luke quickly leaps to hide the remains of his mostly-eaten breakfast in one of the drawers in the coffee table, then buries himself in one of the blankets again as I hurry down the stairs.

Lucifer looks down at me as I creak the door open just a little. “IK.”

I sidle out and stand just in front of him, shutting the door behind myself. “...hello.”

“Is there anything you need to tell me?” He asks impassively, folding his arms.

I pretend to think for a moment. “...not that I know of.”

“Really?” He reaches for the doorknob, and I quickly shift to the side to block his hand. His eyes narrow. “Because it seems that there is. What are you hiding?”

“Nothing.”

He doesn’t even deign me with a response for that one. He just stands there and stares me down like some kind of judgemental statue.

“Alright, fine… uh...” I fumble for an excuse, flipping through idea after idea in quick succession, then somehow manage to land on, “It’s… the President of America.”

It does, at least, give Lucifer pause. His mouth opens and closes for a moment, a bewildered frown crossing his face for the briefest of seconds, and then his face falls into that unimpressed ‘do you think I’m an idiot?’ expression again.

“The President of America,” He repeats. “You’re hiding him in Beel’s room, are you?”

I’ve gone and dug my own grave, haven’t I? “...um… yes.”

If it had been anyone else, they’d probably roll their eyes. Lucifer, instead, smiles almost slyly, and asks. “And why shouldn’t I go in and meet him now?”

“He’s… busy,” I say, now beginning to gain a little confidence, as ridiculous as my lie is. Well, it isn’t so much a lie as it is stalling for time - I’m 100% sure that Lucifer doesn’t believe me. I'd be worried if he did. “He’s a busy Miss Lizzie and he doesn’t have time for visitors right now.”

Lucifer raises an eyebrow. “And what is he busy with?”

“He’s busy with…” My mind goes blank. “With… uh…”

Lucifer waits for a moment. When it becomes apparent that he isn’t going to get a coherent or logical answer, he observes, “It sounds as if he isn’t busy at all.”

“Wait, you can’t go in—” I quickly block him as he reaches for the doorknob again, wondering how many times I’ll be able to do that before he decides to just squish me or something for my insolence, “He’s— uh, he’s—”

Lucifer is beginning to look increasingly impatient, so I reach into the very deepest recesses of my mind, and come up with an absolute belter. “—he’s dead.”

Complete silence.

Lucifer stares at me. “...he’s dead?”

I nod furiously. “Yes. That’s what he’s busy with.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just lets out a long, long sigh. Finally, he begins, “Let me get this straight. You’re hiding the President of America in Beel’s room, and I’m not allowed to go in because he’s busy with being dead?”

“Exactly.”

“And why is he dead?”

“I killed him,” I say without even a moment’s hesitation. “I drowned him in the toilet.”

At this point I’m pretty sure Lucifer’s just playing along out of pity. “...why?”

“I thought it’d be funny.” I raise a fist and add feebly, "Anarchy!"

“You could put a little more spirit in it,” interjects a new voice, and both Lucifer and I start. Satan is standing just down the hallway, looking very pleased with himself, and I can’t help but want to punch him. Directly in the nose, if I can reach.

“Satan,” Lucifer says flatly. “What do you want?”

Satan raises his eyebrows and shifts his weight to one side, setting a hand on his hips. “Nothing. Just wanted to tell you that there’s no point in searching Beel’s room.”

...what. Lucifer frowns. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Satan says breezily. “No point in searching it. There’s nothing in there.”

Lucifer stares at him for a moment. “...weren’t you the one talking about a ‘pet’ just earlier?”

“I was joking,” He explains as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and Lucifer’s mouth twists into an irritated scowl, which Satan regards with the kind of joy that a dog would look at a treat with. “Besides, there’s something else that needs your attention right now…”

A pause. Lucifer’s head falls to one side, and he looks so thoroughly tired of Satan’s nonsense that I have to disguise a laugh behind my hand. “What is it?”

“Your bed’s on fire.”

“I see. In that case—” It takes Lucifer a hot second to register exactly what Satan just said. Once he does, though, the look on his face is absolutely thunderous. “ —it’s what?”

“On fire,” Satan repeats, taking endless apparent joy in enunciating each word with great drama. “Your bed. It’s on fire.”

That’s all Lucifer needs to hear. Promptly forgetting both about me and the apparent dead President I’m hiding in Beelzebub’s room, he turns and chooses to power-walk down the hallway rather than run. He disappears down the hall in record time, and Satan follows at a much more leisurely pace - he stops at the corner, peering around it and wearing the smuggest look I’ve ever seen on anyone.

I trail behind him, though I don’t have the courage to copy him. Then, after a moment, I ask, “...is his bed actually on fire?”

“Hmm?” Satan turns around to look down at me. “Kind of. It is fire, but it’s pretty much just aesthetic. It doesn’t actually burn anything, so his room will be fine… though I don’t know how long it’ll take for him to figure that out.”

“Oh.” I consider for a moment. “No offence, but… what’s your problem?”

His face falls a little at that. “That’s rather rude.”

“So is setting someone’s bed on fire.” His face clears up, and he nods in understanding. Then I add, “And so is telling on people.”

He has the nerve to look puzzled. “What are you talking about? Oh, right… breakfast?”

“Of course I’m talking about breakfast,” I say indignantly. “You practically gave us away!”

“I did just save your skin as well, though,” He points out. “I wasn’t intending to snitch. I just thought it’d be funny to confuse Lucifer.”

Well, that is on-brand, at least. “You couldn’t have just set his bed on fire without getting us involved as well?”

“It’s more entertaining this way,” Satan says with a satisfied smile. “By the time Lucifer’s sorted all that and finished yelling at me, I presume you’ll have your dog out of the House. Then, when he barges into Beel's room to do a search, he’ll find absolutely nothing at all.”

I don’t respond for a moment, so he decides to tack on, “Come on, wouldn’t it be funny?”

“...not really.” I say finally.

Satan sighs. “Well, I suppose it isn’t for everyone.”

As if this is some sort of pastime like knitting or painting? “...I’m going back to my room.”

“Beel’s room, you mean,” He corrects as I turn back down the hallway. “And remember to get Luke out of there before Lucifer remembers your terrible lying.”

I shake my head, but make a sound of affirmation before walking down the hall and back into Beelzebub’s room, carefully shutting the door behind me. Something shifts up on the in-room balcony, and I hurry back up the stairs without pausing for a moment to really check what it is, opening my mouth to tell Luke that it’s alright to stop hiding for now. Then I stop short.

Luke is nowhere to be seen - the blankets he’d been hiding in earlier are scattered loosely about on the sofa, clearly empty. In his place is Levi, standing facing the wall, and not saying a word.

After a moment, my voice about twice as high as normal, I say, “Hello.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Rapidly beginning to lose my nerve - isn’t this what happened at the end of Blair Witch? - I clear my throat and ask, “What are you doing?”

“...you were being really suspicious at breakfast,” He says after a long silence, and I breathe out an unnoticeable sigh of relief. Not Blair Witch, then. “And then Satan said all that stuff, and I came up and heard those stupid lies you tried to tell Lucifer…”

“They weren’t that stupid,” I mumble, though I’m fully aware that I’m incorrect.

“...so I came to check things out.” He finally turns around to look at me, and I can’t read the expression on his face for the life of me. “But there’s no pets or anything here. So I don’t know what Satan was talking about, or what you were panicking about…”

He lifts his hands, and I realise with a jolt that he’s holding the paper goldfish. “...but I found this.”

“Oh.” I feel the urge to pull my hood over my head to hide my face, but I try to stick the moment out. Now's as good a time as any for the apology, I guess. I was hoping I'd have time to rehearse, but... “That’s, um… meant to be Henry.”

He stares at me for a moment. Unnerved, I point over at the seven snakes with a slightly trembly finger. “A-and, uh, those are meant to be Lotan. I couldn’t find a seven-headed serpent design, just a snake one, so... I just did seven of them. You could glue them together, maybe— or, well, I'll glue them...”

Levi turns and looks at the paper snakes. I finish a little pathetically, “....I made these for you. To say sorry.”

He continues to not say anything, and I continue to get progressively more unsettled. “U-uh, I know it’s been a while, but I couldn’t figure out how to do them properly… I’m, um, not good with apologies and stuff, so I thought—”

I cut myself off as Levi sets the goldfish back down beside the snakes, head ducked and shoulders trembling slightly. A horrible feeling of premonition wells up in the pit of my stomach - didn’t something similar happen just last night? “A-are you—”

“Shut up!” He snaps, though it lacks bite, and he sounds like he has a stuffy nose. Keeping his face turned away from me, he raises a hand to his eyes and gives them a single, aggressive swipe.

“...do you need a moment?” I ask, tentatively patting his back as he hiccups slightly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you…”

“I’m not upset,” He mumbles thickly, swiping one hand through his hair and using the other to rub at his eyes again. “I’m… I don’t know…”

He sniffs and wobbles over to the sofa, then sits down with a heavy and slightly shaky sigh.

“...sorry,” He says after a beat. “For ignoring you for ages.”

“I’m supposed to be the one apologising, you know.” I sit down next to him. “It’s okay. You had a good reason to.”

“Did I?” He asks morosely. “I can’t stop you from thinking what you want to.”

“Well...” I pat his back as he sniffs. “...after everything Mephisto told me, I think it's normal. So I don’t think you should feel bad. It's my fault for being buddy-buddy with him."

“Buddy-buddy?” He repeats, and laughs a little. “That’s not true, either, is it? Solomon said the other day that Mephisto’s been avoiding you as well.”

“Ah. Yeah…” I look down and pick at the ends of my sleeves guiltily. “...I had a kind of argument with him right before I had the one with you. So he’s mad at me as well.”

“What’s he got to be mad about?” Levi snorts, but, after a moment, offers an understanding nod anyway. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but then asks, “...do you really think he’s changed?”

“Well— I don’t know for sure, but… I think so.” My foot kicks about in mid-air - my feet don’t touch the ground on this sofa, so I can’t tap it on the floor like I usually would. “When we talked, I thought it seemed like he wanted to say sorry, but… I think he thinks it’s too late, so he just hasn’t.”

“...oh.” I glance up at Levi’s face. The conflict in his expression is clear. “I…”

He takes a deep breath, eyes seeming far away for a split second, then looks down at me again. “...just how much did he tell you?”

“Well,” I begin carefully, watching him for any signs of anger. “I don’t know how much there is, but he told me about the door… and how he made friends with you to get to it.”

His expression shifts slightly. “...so he didn’t tell you about what happened after he went through the door?”

“No.” This time something definitely flashes across his face, though I can’t quite tell if it’s anger or confusion or something else. He ducks his head for a moment, seeming disconcerted, and mumbles something unintelligible to himself.

Finally, he looks back up, mouth set into a thin line. “Alright. So…”

He leans back and huffs a breath out through his nose, then manages a kind of smile. “I don’t know how much that changes things, yet… but thanks for saying all that. And… I’m accepting your apology as well, by the way.”

“Really? Oh, good.” A weight seems to lift from my shoulders almost immediately, and I breathe out a sigh of relief so obvious that Levi actually laughs. “I was starting to think you’d hate me forever.”

“I don’t think I could’ve. Even if you never said sorry,” Levi says a little embarrassedly, reaching up and scratching at the nape of his neck. “I did notice that you started skipping breakfast and dinner, you know. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I thought you might not eat if I was at the table,” I mumble. “Since you kept leaving. I don’t normally have breakfast, anyway, and Mammon kept giving me his noodles for dinner. So it’s not like I went hungry.”

“You’re such a goody-two-shoes,” He shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “Are you sure you’re just a kid? You're like some wise old lady in disguise... you know, the kind that gives you a prophecy at the beginning of a game.”

“If I was a wise old lady, I wouldn’t bother looking like a kid,” I say. “No one could make me do anything if I was elderly. I could just bang them over the head with a walking stick and they’d leave me alone.”

“Or they’d put you in a nursing home,” Levi counters with a snicker, and it’s so nice being able to just banter casually with him again that I don’t bother asking him how he knows what a nursing home is. “You’d have to eat porridge and soup and sit inside all day.”

“No, I’d be a V.I.P. old lady,” I decide firmly. “I’d go tap, tap with my walking stick and all the nurses would have to bring me chocolates and sweets and fruit and… and other stuff, too. And I’d quite like to just sit inside all day, actually.”

“...yeah, me too,” He agrees after a moment. Then he pauses, and asks, almost shyly, “Actually, since we’re not fighting anymore… do you want to try the fruit jumper again?”

“The one with the bananas and coconuts?” I deflate a little. “I’m not very good at that one.”

“I know." He smirks a little. “But you’ll never get past that level if you don’t learn how, right?”

“Right…” I repeat a little suspiciously. Somehow I feel like Levi’s eagerness to play comes less from a want to help me practise the game, and more from a want to see me fall twenty times in a row again. “Then—”

The door swings open, promptly popping the bubble of goodwill that’s begun to form around us, and both Levi and I turn and look down to see Beelzebub standing in the doorway. For a moment, he just nods at us in greeting, but then he stops short and looks around.

Then he looks squarely at me, and the panicked question on his face is one that I’d managed to forget over the course of the conversation with Levi.

Where’s Luke?

Chapter Text

Levi looks between me and Beelzebub for a moment, then asks, "Why are you making those weird faces?"

"Uh..." Beelzebub begins, sending me a panicked look. "...nothing. You— uh, you should go. Now."

Bad move, bad move! I frantically shake my head at him, only to go stock still when Levi turns to look at me again. I attempt to yank some semblance of a casual look onto my face, but evidently I haven't done it in time, because Levi immediately looks about ten times more suspicious than before.

"You're both up to something," He decides, turning around on the spot as if something about the room might have changed. After a moment, he pauses, then looks down at me again. "Was Satan actually telling the truth at breakfast?"

I send Beelzebub a panicked look of my own out of the corner of my eye. He silently waves his hands about, eyes wide with urgency. "...no."

Well, technically he wasn't. We had an angel in the room, not a pet. Levi's expression hardens. "You're lying."

"I'm... um..." I make my next decision in about half a second, and it's mostly influenced by the fact that Levi and I just made up, and I don't want to make him mad at me again. "...yeah, I am."

Beelzebub, still standing in the doorway, deflates a little, but he doesn't look particularly surprised that I've cracked. Clearly he didn't have much faith in my integrity (or the opposite, technically) as an accomplice. Levi, meanwhile, blinks for a second, taken aback, then frowns.

"Are you gonna tell me the truth, then?" He asks, crossing his arms with a frown. He looks like a crabby teacher.

I glance at Beelzebub. He just shrugs a little, so I take that as some semblance of approval. "...you have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?"

He looks down at the pinkie I'm holding out as if he's never seen a finger before. "What are you doing?"

"Pinkie promise," I say by way of explanation. He eyes me suspiciously for a moment, but complies, linking his little finger with mine. 

I give it a little business-like shake, wondering vaguely if Levi actually knows what a pinkie promise is. His reaction would suggest not, but it must have come up at one point or another in all that anime he watches, right?

"Alright, I promise not to tell anyone," Levi mumbles a little awkwardly, pulling his hand back and stuffing it into his pocket. "What's going on, then?"

I pause for a moment, twisting my hands together agitatedly, then finally say, "Luke had an argument with Simeon, so he was staying the night. And, uh... now he's disappeared."

"Disappeared?" Levi repeats, looking perplexed. "Wait, Luke was staying here?!"

"It was kind of a special case," I say a little awkwardly. "Not just some... sleepover. But, yeah, he was..."

"We did tell him not to leave the room, right?" Beelzebub's head pops up from the little staircase, and he looks about the balcony as if Luke might be hiding in one of the corners.

"Not specifically," I say, copying him, as if I might see something that he can't. "But you'd think he'd just... know that. Kind of in the nature of not wanting anyone to know he's here..."

Levi still seems to be having some problems processing the entire situation. I'm not entirely sure why - it's not that hard to grasp. "Wait a second! Beel, why would you even let him do that?"

"Stay here, you mean?" Beel scratches at the back of his head, face falling into a thoughtful frown for a moment. "...I don't know. IK brought him in and... I just didn't kick him out, I guess."

"Seriously?" Levi looks to me. "Did you bribe him or something?"

"I don't think I did..." I ponder. "...but I might be remembering wrong..."

"You didn't," Beelzebub affirms. "You just asked nicely."

"Ask 'nicely'?" Levi pulls a face and shakes his head. "Since when do demons agree to things because they got asked nicely?"

Beelzebub doesn't seem to know the answer to that question. His nose wrinkles as he thinks (it seems to be taking a little effort), and then he just shrugs. "Since IK came down to the Devildom, I guess."

Levi's eyebrows raise. He looks rather contemplative. I, meanwhile, take another look around the room and (as if I wasn't sure of it before) announce, "Luke's definitely missing. We should probably start looking for him."

"'We'?" Levi repeats, then starts rapidly shaking his head. "No way, nuh-uh - this isn't anything to do with me! You're the one who let him stay here. I don't wanna get in trouble with Lucifer when he finds out..."

"It might take him a while," I say in an attempt to put him a little more at ease. "Satan set his bed on fire."

"Satan what?" Both Beelzebub and Levi's faces drain of colour for a moment. It's clear that they're kind of fearing for their brother's life.

"It's not the proper kind," I reassure them. "Just the aesthetic kind, he said. But it should keep him busy for a bit..."

Levi hesitates, as if considering it, then shakes his head again - this time twice as aggressively. "It's still a no! There's no way I'm taking that risk!"

"I wasn't asking you to," I say soothingly, giving him a pat on the arm like a diplomatic babysitter. "It'd be nice if you could help is all I'm saying, but I'm not asking you to."

He stares at me for a moment, then jerks his head away. "Quit looking at me like that!"

"Like that?" I ask. I don't think I'm pulling any specific expression...

"Oh, for—" He whips around to face Beelzebub, pointing a finger back at me with an irritated, "Where did she learn to do that?!"

Beelzebub looks at me. "Learn to do what?"

"Do that..." Levi flings his hands about in an attempt at a demonstration. "I don't know, that thing!"

"I'm not doing a thing," I say, now beginning to get a little confused. "I'm just asking nicely. Is it working?"

"What do you think?" He shoots back, then abruptly claps his hands to his face, as if trying to slap some sense into himself. When he pulls them away, he's wearing a look that's somewhere between regret and resignation.

"I think it worked," Beelzebub comments unhelpfully. Levi immediately levels him with a glare that... doesn't really have any effect at all.

"You and Beel can do the looking," He says to me after a moment, crossing his arms and trying very hard not to meet my eye. "I'll keep an eye on Lucifer. I'll text you if it looks like he might run into you or something, so keep your D.D.D. notifications on."

"Really?" I feel a goofy grin coming on, but I manage to quash it into something less stupid-looking. "Thank you."

"...whatever," He mutters after a moment, though he does look at least a little gratified. "Let's just get this over with."

Beelzebub silently descends the stairs again, and both Levi and I follow him. We stop briefly at the door, exchanging looks with each other, and I feel like I'm in a spy or heist movie - at the moment where the team wishes each other good luck before separating.

Levi blows out into his cheeks, face puffing up like a pufferfish for a split second, then finally releases all the air with a long hiss. "...I'm risking my neck for this, you know. And this doesn't even have anything to do with me."

"You don't have to if you don't want to," I say.

"See, you say that," He waves a hand about in an attempt to articulate himself better, frowning again, "But it still feels like I do. You're way too good at asking nicely."

"'Manners maketh man', I guess," I reply with a shrug, then smile again. "I do appreciate it, though."

He huffs, but there isn't much heart in it. "You'd better..."

Beelzebub and I watch as he practically tiptoes along the corridor and disappears around the corner, presumably to somewhere outside Lucifer's room. After a moment, Beelzebub asks, "So where do we start?"

"Uh..." I think for a moment. "I don't know.... I was only gone for a few minutes, so he can't have gone far."

Beelzebub cocks his head to the side "What happened?"

I quickly run through everything - bringing Luke breakfast, Lucifer knocking on the door, going out to stop him from coming in, then Satan's arrival and the whole bed-on-fire-business. I doubt that's more than fifteen minutes that I was away, and he couldn't have left during the conversation with Lucifer - we were right by the door.

So if he did leave the room, it would have been extremely sneakily, and it would have to have happened within the five or so minute window of Lucifer striding off to attend to his bed-fire and Satan and I following to the corner. That's the only time we'd all be away from the door.

"...that definitely doesn't make sense." Beelzebub says once my explanation's over.

"It really doesn't, does it?" I sigh, then suddenly have a bright idea. "Wait, hang on... I could try shooting him a message."

I pull out my D.D.D. and do just that. After a moment, we hear a buzz from inside Beelzebub's room; after following the sound, we both realise with dismay that Luke's D.D.D. is still sitting in the bundle of blankets that he was hiding in earlier.

"Well, he can only be in the House," Beelzebub offers in what I think is an attempt at reassurance, giving my shoulder a clumsy pat. "The front door gets locked at night, and Luke doesn't have the key. So he has to be here somewhere."

"Right..." I don't feel much better, but I try to put on a brave face nevertheless. "...I'll search downstairs, then."

Beelzebub nods, stowing Luke's D.D.D. absent-mindedly in one of his pockets. "Then I'll look up here.

Without much ceremony, we separate. I nearly fall down the stairs on my way down in my hurry, but I manage to catch myself on the banister just in time to avoid breaking my neck. After a pause to get my head together, I decide to start with my own room, followed by the kitchen, the dining room, then the common room.

The former three are unoccupied; the latter isn't. Luckily, neither Asmodeus nor Mammon seem particularly suspicious about me just walking in, milling about for a second, then leaving. Mammon just offers me a small grin when I walk in and a wave when I leave, and Asmodeus seems far too focused on filing his nails to even notice me.

I check out the living room (though a better room for it would be 'hall'), which is empty as usual. I'm pretty sure none of the brothers even use this space - and, to be fair, there isn't much to use it for. It's nearly all void space, with a single large fireplace and a few wooden chairs along the walls, so it's easy to glance around and conclude that Luke isn't here either.

I get delayed for a moment in there, but that's mostly my own fault for getting distracted by how easily my socks slide along the polished marble floor. I spend a minute or so slipping about like some kind of ice skater, then catch myself and quickly move on with the search.

Luke isn't in the library, and for once Satan isn't either. I'd assume he's either getting the lecture of a lifetime from Lucifer or hiding in his room for safety. The book he was reading yesterday is still sitting by his unoccupied armchair, with his place marked out with a cat-eared bookmark.

I take a half-hearted peek in the little bathroom by the staircase, but of course Luke's not in there either. That means the only room left on this floor is the music room - which I'm pretty sure I've still haven't been in yet.

Once I step in, I can only wish I'd done it on a happier occasion - just looking at that gorgeous grand piano is making my heart do backflips. It's a shame that I'd only be able to do about three fairly simple pieces any justice if I did get the chance to play it properly. I wonder for a moment if it's actually a Devildom instrument that just looks like a piano, but a quick plink about disproves that notion.

Despite the others calling it the music room, the piano is the only instrument in it; the rest of the room is just carpet and chairs, maybe intended for an audience. The entire room smells kind of stale, and the thin layer of dust covering it gives the impression that this isn't a room that's used much.

The odd thing, though, is that the carpet looks well-trodden - almost certainly more used than anything else in the room, as if someone comes in here every day just to do a tap dance. At the very least, someone's definitely been walking around in this room. But, for some reason, they haven't used any of the things in it.

I don't know it nearly as well as the other rooms thus far, so I inspect the music room with extra vigilance. According to how I conduct my hunt, Luke could be under the grand piano (or somehow in it), beneath the chairs, or even dangling from the chandelier... though, of course, he isn't. All I find is dust, a large portion of which I manage to breathe in.

At some point during my search, I also notice that the wall directly across from the door isn't actually a wall. It takes me a moment to figure it out, but it's a giant curtain, made of incredibly thick velvet.

The amount of effort it takes me to find the opening in the curtain and then push through it is a little embarrassing, but I get there eventually. For a moment I'm too busy disentangling myself to properly emerge on the other side, but then I realise what I've just walked out into, and freeze.

It's like the conservatories that I'd see attached to wealthier people's houses back home - though maybe a better word for this one would be observatory. The Devildom doesn't have a day-night cycle, and the sky is always dark, so the stars are always out - and it seems that there would be no better place to take them in than here.

There's a mattress laid out neatly beneath the glass ceiling, with only a cushion atop it - a black and white one, with a tail that reminds me of a cow. There are a few planet-shaped lights hanging from the ceiling as well - is that one meant to be Saturn or are the rings just a coincidence? - each glowing a soft silver. There's even a small fountain in the centre of the room, though the water in it doesn't seem to have run for a while.

For a moment I just want to flop down on the mattress and stare at the sky for a while. I've never really appreciated how cool the Devildom's stars are before, but now that they're above me in such centre-stage clarity, I can't help but marvel. Maybe it's just the ambience the room provides, but somehow I suddenly feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of it all.

Unlike the stars back home, these aren't all near-identical pin-pricks of white - there are different shapes and different sizes, and nearly none of the stars seem to settle on a single colour. The hues are so light that change is almost unnoticeable to the casual eye, but it's definitely there. Some stars fade between purple and blue, others seem to cycle through the entire colour wheel like disco lights, and others still simply pulse peacefully through various shades of green.

I've never been particularly fascinated by constellations - I've wanted to be, but I never quite got into the allure of remembering all those abstract shapes and names. The only way I really know to appreciate the stars is just to look at them... but I don't have time to do that right now. I'll have to come back later.

Luke's clearly not here. After a minute or two (I can't quite bring myself to tear my eyes away from the sky, even though my neck is beginning to hurt from being craned back like this), I force myself to leave. The curtain falls closed again, blocking the room from view.

As I shut the music room's door, it occurs to me that maybe the state of the carpet wasn't owing to some phantom enjoying a tap-dance after all. Maybe that phantom just really liked looking at the stars.

Beelzebub is waiting for me at the top of the stairs when I finally drag myself up, still a little dreamy about the stars in the observatory. The solemn look on his face quickly tells me that he's been unsuccessful in his efforts as well, and the realisation acts like a bucket of cold water - quite suddenly the magic disappears, replaced by the distinctly cold feeling that Luke's unexplained absence leaves behind.

"There wasn't really much to look at, so I double and triple-checked," He mumbles, hands deep in his pockets and an equally deep frown on his face. "All of the rooms on this floor are our bedrooms... but I don't think Luke would be in any of those anyway. Someone would've noticed."

"Probably not," I agree with a sigh, pulling my D.D.D. out of my pocket to check the time.

We've been searching for nearly an hour and a half - which isn't as long as I thought it'd take us to search a house as big as the House of Lamentation. Then again, the whole place feels a lot less big once you get to know the interior better.

There's a text from Levi that explains that, while Beelzebub and I were busy searching, Lucifer left the House. He's wording the text like a secret agent making a report - he's included a poorly-angled photo of Lucifer's semi-distant figure walking along the path. I get the feeling that he's actually kind of enjoying playing spy like this.

"Lucifer's out," I say aloud, showing Beelzebub my D.D.D.'s screen. He squints slightly and leans closer to read the texts, then lets out a light sigh of relief.

"That's good," He says. "Why, though?"

"Beats me..." I lock my D.D.D. again and shove it into my pocket. "...but what do we do now?"

His face falls slightly. It's clear that he doesn't know. "...um... maybe we should look again? We could swap floors..."

"Would that really help, though?" I frown, beginning to move away. Beelzebub follows, twisting his hands together anxiously. "Unless he just appears in one of the rooms we've already checked..."

"There might be some spots downstairs that you don't know about," Beelzebub offers, which is a valid point, but I'm a little distracted by something I've just noticed hanging from the wall.

It's just a little down the corridor, next to the corner that leads to Lucifer's room - an enormous A3-sized sheet of yellowing paper behind a thin sheet of glass. It's covered with carefully inked black lines and labels so fancily-written that I can't even read them, and it takes me a moment to figure out what it is.

"Is this... a floor plan?" I ask, moving closer to get a better look at the paper. Beelzebub follows.

"Yeah," He says, giving it a once-over, evidently not particularly interested. "The House of Lamentation used to be a house in the human world. This came with it when it appeared in the Devildom, so we just kept it. Lucifer keeps moving it..."

It 'appeared'? How does that work? I shelve the questions rapidly beginning to rear their heads for later, following the ink with my finger as I try to match up the lines to the real-life house. "...was this drawn before or after they built it? Was it, like, a draft design?"

"How am I supposed to know that?" Beelzebub asks by way of reply. He yawns and rubs at the end of his nose, shuffling restlessly on the spot. "Why do you want to know, anyway?"

"There's a room marked on here that isn't actually in the house," I say, pointing at a little box on the first floor. "See? There's meant to be a room above the entrance hall... according to the map, the door would be just over there..."

Beelzebub turns to follow my pointing finger as I gesture just a little down the corridor. "...but there's nothing there."

He frowns, glancing between the floor plan and the distinctly door-less wall several times in quick succession. The only thing on it is a few paintings and a tapestry. "That's weird."

"It is," I agree, looking up at the paper again. "I mean, if it was just a draft, it'd make sense if the actual house to be different... but that's the only thing the floor plan doesn't have right. All the other rooms are on here."

Beelzebub nods in acknowledgement, then shuffles down the corridor to the door-less wall. I follow, looking back at the floor plan every now and then, as if the lines might have changed - though, of course, they don't.

"...this tapestry..." Beelzebub is squinting at it. "...there's something written in it."

"Is there?" I follow his example and peer at it. "I don't see anything."

It's a fairly simple affair compared to some of the ones I've seen in photos, but still gorgeous; the base is a heavy red fabric, and there are all sorts of swirling gold patterns stitched into it. It resembles my dad's fancy special-occasions jacket, the one with the snake-like dragons on the sleeves - he hasn't worn it since my last birthday, but its embroidery is practically burnt into my memory.

Despite all the patterns, though, I can't make out any letters or symbols. Beelzebub, however, seems to be able to see something that I can't.

"It's really faint," He mutters, running a finger over a seemingly inconspicuous patch of the fabric. "But these look like celestial runes..."

"Celestial runes?" I repeat, and try to take a closer look. "...I still don't see anything."

"You wouldn't be able to," Beelzebub says, pulling back and looking down at me. "Celestial runes can only be seen by beings that've been touched by the Celestial Realm's light."

"...oh." I'm not sure what to say to that. "So you can read it, then?"

He hesitates, then nods. For a moment, he doesn't say anything, clearly expecting me to ask why he can read it when he's a demon. I don't, though, so once the silence starts getting awkward, he speaks again.

“Uh, it’s like a riddle…” He turns back to the tapestry and runs his fingers along the fabric again. "'The Morningstar rose and brought light. Another star followed to chase the night.'"

Beelzebub’s finger dips a little, and he continues. “There next bit is down here. 'The key sings among the stars in the sky.'"

“The ‘Morningstar’...” Somehow I don’t think that’s referring to Venus. “...is that Lucifer?”

A pause. Beelzebub whips around to look at me, clearly surprised. “How do you know that?”

“Lucifer means ‘morningstar’ in Latin,” I say a little awkwardly. “And, uh… there’s this book called the Bible… actually, that doesn’t matter right now. Do you know what that other star's meant to be?”

Beelzebub falls silent. Something passes across his face so quickly that I don’t quite catch what it is, and his hands abruptly curl into his fists.

“...yeah,” He replies finally. “It’s… Lilith.”

“...Lilith?” I almost don’t want to ask who he’s talking about. The way Beelzebub’s eyes dim a little at the very sound of the name makes me feel like I’m intruding just by saying it.

“Lilith,” He repeats, and goes quiet. His gaze falls to the floor, and his bottom lip trembles slightly.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” I say in what I hope is a comforting tone, panicking slightly at the prospect of facing another crying person in the same twenty four hours as the last two. “I mean… it’s not really my business.”

Beelzebub raises his head and stares at me, expression unreadable. It feels as if he’s trying to say something to me with his eyes alone, but I don’t quite understand what.

Finally, he murmurs, “It isn’t… but I want to tell you anyway.”

I feel my eyes widen a little in surprise, but quickly force my expression to flatten. Beelzebub looks away from the tapestry, fiddling with the ends of his sleeves, eyes distant.

Finally, he begins, “We started out as angels in the Celestial Realm, before we were ever demons - that’s why I can read the runes. We were still brothers back then, but… we had a sister, too. Lilith. She was the youngest out of us.”

I don’t say anything. Beelzebub glances back down at me, and I rather get the feeling that he’s grateful for the silence.

“That's the other star,” He says. “We all had our own jobs, and Lilith was Lucifer’s… shadow, I guess. Seraphs used to joke that she’d grow up to be his replacement, but in the end they just kind of… co-existed. He was the Morningstar, and Lilith was the one that followed. She was always getting into trouble, going against his rules - like she was running from the star light, and chasing the night sky."

Something about this rings a bell.

Beelzebub seems to notice the shift in my expression. “...is something wrong?”

“Not really…” I turn back to the tapestry. “But, uh - that second bit of the riddle, it said something about a song, right?”

He looks at me, confused, then nods. “Yeah. 'The key sings among the stars.'.”

Sing... star...

I take several steps back and look at the tapestry. Up close, the patterns don’t seem to have any particular rhyme or reason to them, but from further away, the differences in gaps between swirls forms a familiar shape - a rhombus, turned so that it’s stood on one of its corners. A diamond.

“When it comes to magic...” I begin, still staring up at the tapestry. “...can you use music to cast it?"

“I don’t know." He follows my example, stepping backwards and leaning back slightly. He doesn’t seem to get what I'm getting - he just shoots me an odd look. “But it’s probably not impossible.”

“I sure hope it isn’t, because otherwise this is going to look really dumb,” I mumble, mostly to myself, and move forward again.

I push the tapestry hesitantly to the side. The wall behind it is completely blank.

Beelzebub’s confused stare burns into the back of my head. I try to ignore it, stomping down the self conscious little voice in the back of my head, and take a deep breath. Then I whistle:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky...

I follow the melody with the words in my mind. As the last note of the fourth line peters out, I take in a breath to begin the fifth, something about the tapestry seems to change.

It's nothing obvious - maybe even nothing physical. A tightening of the fibres, maybe, or a brightening of the colours... I'm not sure what it is, but what I think I know is that my idea has worked.

I push the tapestry back again. A door that hadn't been there before is standing behind it.

There's a sharp intake of breath from behind me - Beelzebub has seen it as well. He looks between the door and me, then asks, looking a little stunned, "How did you do that?"

"Just a lucky guess," I say, though inwardly I'm really quite proud. "So the floor plan wasn't wrong after all. The room was just hiding."

He nods slowly, eyes fixed on the door. After a moment, sounding almost afraid, he asks, "Should we go in?"

"...I don't know." I look at the door as well. It doesn't have a lock, but the fact that it was hidden by a spell in the first place implies that no one's supposed to find it. "What do you think?"

Beelzebub hovers unsurely for another moment or two. "...let's go in."

He barges past me without even waiting for a reply, but I don't pay it any mind. The handle goes without any protest or alarm, and I follow unsurely as he swings the door open and practically charges inside.

A split second later, he stops in his tracks, and I nearly walk right into him. As I pull back, it suddenly strikes me how bright the room is, and I realise with a start that there actually seems to be sunlight coming in through the windows - but there isn't any sun in the Devildom, so how is that possible?

Squinting slightly, I turn on the spot and examine the room. Nearly everything in it is draped with a white cloth, and anything that might have made it look even remotely lived-in is missing. No mess, no clutter, no empty bottles or discarded books. It's like an exhibit - everything arranged just-so, but nothing alive about it, and everything has an air of such alien value that you don't dare to get too close. You can look, but you can't touch.

The walls are painted in a clashing array of colours, as if a kid with twenty cans of spray-paint and no graffiti experience whatsoever was allowed to come in and go wild. There's a single poster is hung up above what must be the fireplace - it resembles something that Picasso might have doodled under the influence, and a clumsy signature is scribbled across the bottom in white.

They're just about only lively things about this room. Everything else is white, ghostly... and lonely.

"This..." Beelzebub breathes, and I turn to see him staring around himself in something resembling wonder. "This is Lilith's room. From the Celestial Realm..."

He turns around, and even though nearly everything is obstructed by the sheets, recognition crosses his face at every turn. His shoes scuff against the carpet, and I look down to find with a distant kind of amusement that it seems to be made out of the same patterned stuff they use to make bus seat covers.

Then Beelzebub pauses, coming back to his senses, and his brows abruptly furrow in confusion. "...but...what's it doing here...?"

I watch him for a moment, then look around the room again. That sense of age and neglect only seems to grow, pressing in on me until it feels suffocating even to stand here.

It hasn't escaped my notice that everything Beelzebub has said about Lilith so far has been in the past tense. There's a reason she isn't here with them.

"Um..." My voice breaks the silence like a drum, and Beelzebub turns to look at me so abruptly that I take a tiny step backwards, unnerved. "...if it's okay to ask... what happened to your sister?"

He doesn't reply for a long time. I take another step backwards, feeling even smaller than usual in the middle of this near-complete white void, but then he lets out a soft sigh, and mumbles, "She died. In the Celestial War."

A beat.

I want to say something - the normal things, like 'I'm sorry' or 'that's awful', but... they never seem to make anyone feel better. Aunt Lisa doesn't even bother with them anymore, no matter how close her client's lost loved one was. So I don't say anything at all. All I can do is offer Beelzebub a small pat on the arm.

Whether he even feels it, I don't know. He stares off at something far off in the distance for a minute or so, but the silence isn't as agonising as it might have been. It feels more necessary.

"You don't know what that is, do you?" Beelzebub asks finally, voice soft, as if afraid of disturbing someone. A ghost, maybe.

I try not to look away from his unrelenting gaze, fiddling restlessly with my cuffs. "...no."

"It was what got us exiled from the Celestial Realm in the first place," He says, and here his voice becomes robotic, as if he's trying to force himself away from the memory. "Lucifer started a rebellion. We followed him into battle, and that's how the war started. Then, when it was over... we lost. And we were punished."

His expression twists, and I hurry to pat his arm again, even though I don't really know if it's helping. "It's okay, it's okay, you don't have to carry on..."

But he only shakes his head. "No, I want to. I... have to..."

He takes a deep breath and swipes the back of his hand across his eyes, as if trying to push back the tears before they can even come. Then, finally, he begins, "It wasn't that part that killed her. It happened in the middle of a battle... right in front of us."

Us?

"There were archers on the other side," He continues, and as he goes to carry on, his voice suddenly breaks. But he doesn't stop - he keeps talking, with the steady, ruthless rhythm of a marching soldier. "I saw them drawing their bows. They weren't aiming at me, though. They were aiming at Belphie... and Lilith."

He turns back to me, and the look in his eyes is almost pleading - though pleading for what, I don't know. "I... I could only save one of them. I knew that. I was too far away. They were too far away. I could only reach one in time."

His words trail off. We both already know what choice he made.

"...the arrow wasn't what killed her," Beelzebub says quietly. "It hit her in the wing. She lost control. I had Belphie safe, but... I couldn't catch her. I tried, but I couldn't. I had to watch her fall, and I knew it was my fault when she disappeared. That... that was the worst part."

For a split second his face remains something close to composed, but a single slip-up is all it takes for his expression to crumple. His lips tremble at the corners, and he abruptly raises his hands to his face. Just before his expression disappears behind his palms, though, I catch a glimpse of the telltale glimmer of tears in his eyes.

"...sorry," He mumbles thickly. "I don't know why I'm saying all this..."

"It's alright," I reassure him, attempting to pat him on the shoulder, then patting his back instead when I realise that I can't reach. After a moment, hesitating, I say, "...I don't think you should blame yourself."

Beelzebub shakes his head. "That's what everyone always says. But I know that's not what they think."

"How do you know that?" I ask carefully. He shakes his head again, this time more slowly.

"Belphie wanted me to save Lilith," He says almost bitterly. "He looked at me just before I flew to save him, you know. I could tell from the look on his face... but after that... it felt like I didn't have any other choice. And I think he still blames me for not saving her instead."

His words linger in the silence, and he takes in a shaky breath that seems to pull all the air out of the room entirely. I press my lips together, conflicted, then finally decide to speak.

"...hey, listen," I begin after a moment, picking each word carefully. "It's not your fault. You didn't shoot those arrows. There wasn't a right or wrong thing you could've done. It was lose-lose, so I think you did what you could. And, uh... that's usually what matters most."

He doesn't reply immediately, so I continue, tripping a little over my words in my anxiety, "The— the thing about things like that... you can't really make it out without something to regret, one way or the other. Even if you did save your sister, you would've lost your twin brother. You made the choice you made, and you shouldn't regret that. Sometimes... you don't get to save everyone, and that's okay. You still tried your best to."

Beelzebub slowly pulls his hands away from his face. His eyes are red-rimmed, but his face is dry. "...is that what you think?"

"Well... yeah." I look down, shifting a little uncomfortably. "...it isn't really my place to say. Sorry. I'm not really good at this."

He sniffs and manages a small smile. "...I think you are. I feel... a bit better."

"Really?" I'm unable to keep the surprise out of my voice, and Beelzebub actually laughs a little.

"You're better with words than you think, you know," He mumbles, reaching forward, hesitating, then gently ruffling my hair. "...maybe that's why I told you all that in the first place. You're good at saying the things we need to hear."

"You think so?" Now that the air is beginning to clear a little, I allow myself to loosen up a bit, wrinkling my nose slightly. "I just... waffle."

"It's a good kind of waffle," He reassures, then pauses and thinks for a moment. "...all waffles are good kinds of waffle."

"Good point."

For a minute or so, we stand there and look at each other in mutual understanding. Beelzebub's expression is more open and earnest than I've ever seen it, and though he still doesn't look as if he can quite bring himself to believe everything I've told him, he doesn't look nearly as sorrowful. To be honest, given how insignificant my life and experiences must be in comparison to his, it's the most I can hope to have been able to do.

Then my D.D.D. starts buzzing, and the moment is abruptly shattered. Beelzebub blinks and shakes his head slightly, as if waking from a dream, then says, "You should probably get that."

I pull it out of my pocket. Even as I hold it up to my face, the screen lights up as several more texts come in quick succession.

L3V1:
RED ALERT RED ALERT RED ALERR

SOMETHING'S HAPENNNED LUCIFER'S ON HIS WYA BACK

HE'S GONE DEMON IT'S GOT TO BE SOMETHIGN SERIOUS

IK

IK ARE YOU REAEDING THESE

bread man:
i'm here

what's happened??

L3VI:
IDK BUT LUCIFER LOOKDS REALLY MAD

I'M TRYNING TO FOLLWO HIM BUT HE'S GOINGN SO FTAST

[...]

[...]

bread man:
levi???

are you alright?

L3V1:
[...]

i'm fine but luke is goign to need you

yuo need get to the undergruoond tomb NOW

i'll try to stall lucifer jsut HURRY 

Something crashes from somewhere deeper in the house. Heart beginning to race, I look up at Beelzebub. "What's the underground tomb? Where is it?!"

"The underground tomb?" He repeats, looking confused. "Why do you—"

"Come on, we need to go!" I'm already hurrying for the door, yanking it open so quicky that I nearly knock myself out with it. Beelzebub follows as I barge out from behind the tapestry and hover agitatedly on the spot, unsure of where to go. "Luke's down there - so's Lucifer."

Beelzebub takes an agonisingly long second to process what I've just said. Then his eyes widen, and he nods, turning and beginning to charge down the corridor. "This way."

He's moving so quickly that I practically have to sprint to keep up with him, and on any other occasion I might have slowed down to catch my breath. Now, however, somehow I manage to keep going on adrenaline alone, ignoring the tightening of my chest and rapidly developing stitch in my side.

Beelzebub leads the way down the stairs (I take them two at a time, despite the horrible lurching feeling I get every time I descend) and turns the corner. For a moment it looks as if he's heading for the living room, but instead of continuing around the next corner, he slows down and turns to the wall.

Except it isn't just a wall. There's a door in it that wasn't there before - why is that a recurring theme today?! - and it's wide open. What's odd, though is that I can't see anything beyond the frame. No room, no stairs, no corridor - nothing.

"You might want to hold your breath," Beelzebub says to me, and plunges forward into the darkness. I don't hesitate to follow.

The cold that washes over me as soon as I cross the threshold is so harsh that I nearly stop short; it's like ice is climbing up from the stone floor that I find myself standing on, freezing me at the joints. Then I catch a flicker of orange light and hear the faint strain of a voice I recognise - suddenly, the ice thaws, and I start running again.

The stairs are so narrow that I miss several on my way down, and by the time I get to the bottom I'm not running so much as I am just falling continuously. Beelzebub catches me before I fall at the bottom and pulls me forwards, through a low archway and into an enormous hall with high, sweeping ceilings and skeleton-laid stone coffins lining the walls. Then we process the scene in front of us, and we both stop dead.

Lucifer stands with his back to us, wings spread wide behind him with each feather stood on end, razor-sharp as they gleam under the dim candlelight. Levi is stood a few paces away from him, hands raised in an attempt at placation, but Lucifer is ignoring him; he's focusing solely on the little angel cowering in front of him.

"Luke—" I start before I even realise that I'm talking, and Lucifer whips around so quickly that his wings create a breeze, blowing back my hair. I shrink back as his eyes land on me and Beelzebub - and is it just me, or are his eyes redder than normal?

"IK!" Luke's eyes are wide and fearful. He looks smaller than ever in such a large space, and his white clothes stand out like a beacon against all the grey brickwork. "Y-you're here!"

"I'm here," I nod a little breathlessly, keeping my eyes warily on Lucifer, who simply stares back at me with unreadable and yet simultaneously seething eyes. "Wh-what's going on?"

"Luke," Beelzebub says suddenly, and I look at him with a start. His eyes are fixed on the book that I'm only just realising that Luke is clutching. "Put that down."

"The book...?" Luke goes to hold it up, and at the movement, Lucifer whips around again, wings flaring. "Ah—!"

"PUT IT DOWN!" He roars, and it sounds almost as if several voices are coming out of him at once. Luke drops the book with a petrified squeak - but the sight of it hitting the ground with a dull thud only seems to provoke Lucifer further, and he draws back like a cobra about to strike.

"H-h-hang on, Lucifer," Levi splutters, trying fruitlessly to calm him down, but he seems too scared to even lay a finger on his brother; he can only continue to raise his hands and wave them about, as if trying to waft Lucifer's ire away. "H-he probably doesn't even know what it is, you don't need to get all m-mad..."

Luke nods frantically, face white with terror. "I— I didn't—"

"QUIET!" Lucifer thunders, and both Levi and Luke clap their hands to their mouths in near-identical motions. For a moment the tomb is agonisingly quiet, but it's the kind of hush that you only get just before a predator is about to pounce... the calm before the storm.

Lucifer takes a single, deep breath. Voice strained, he slowly asks, "How did you get down here?"

Luke mouths soundlessly for a moment, too scared to even speak. Lucifer slams his hand on a nearby coffin, and the stone crumbles a little under the sheer force. "Answer me!"

"I— I don't know!" Luke finally manages to get out, attempting to fake a brave face, but the mask crumbles away almost as soon as he puts it on. "I just opened Beelzebub's door, and I came out here—"

He cuts himself off as a loud crack echoes through the hall. Lucifer is dangerously silent for a moment, and lifts his hand from the wrecked coffin beneath it with an almost dainty elegance.

"Did I hear you correctly?" He asks quietly, and Luke immediately starts shaking his head, but his voice fails him, and he doesn't seem to be able to say a thing. Lucifer asks again, voice beginning to rise, "Did you say 'Beelzebub's door'?"

Luke flounders for words, but Lucifer doesn't give him time to explain himself before turning around, and this time his red-hot gaze lands on Beelzebub alone. "What were you..?!"

His hand shoots out, and before any of us even have time to react, a hissing blue energy erupts from the tips of his fingers. My heart drops, and I attempt to reach out an eternity too late, as if to shield Beelzebub with my tiny human hands - but the energy only crackles across his body and flings him forward.

He hits the other end of the hall with a crash and slides onto the floor. Luke's hands tremble as he raises them, then drops them again - as if he wants to help Beelzebub up, but is too afraid to make any movements under Lucifer's glare. Beelzebub himself simply sits on the spot for a moment, dazed, then slowly gets to his feet.

Thank the stars, he doesn't look particularly hurt, just a little surprised, but it's enough to unglue my feet from the ground all the same. Even though that strange magic didn't do anything but catapult him, the fact that it could have been something else - something that might have done far more damage - stirs some kind of profound fear in the pit of my stomach that even I can't explain.

All it would have taken was a different spell, a different attack, and Beelzebub might have been seriously injured - even killed - by his own brother. And I would have completely failed to even try to prevent it from happening.

I feel like a prisoner about to walk themselves to the gallows, but I manage to make myself move nevertheless. My pulse pounds like a drum in my ears as I stride forward... and place myself firmly between Lucifer and my friends.

Every single nerve in my body is protesting against this, lighting up like a console in crisis, but somehow my voice is steady when I speak. "Leave them alone."

For a moment Lucifer doesn't move, expression static as he stares at me like he's never seen me before. A moment later, his eyes narrow, and his next words are cold and unfeeling. "Get out of the way."

I look him dead in the eyes, and, in an odd way, I get a little satisfaction from giving him a resounding, "No."

"IK—!" Levi's voice is barely above a terrified whisper, and he's practically covering his eyes with his hands, as if he can't bear to watch what happens next. "Don't...!"

I don't look behind me at Beelzebub or Luke, but I can feel their stunned stares on the back of my head. I refuse to break eye contact with Lucifer, though, even as my own eyes begin to water.

"You impertinent little..." His voice is barely more than a growl, and his right hand suddenly curls into a fist. "...I'll give you one more chance. Move aside."

"If I do..." I feel oddly serene now that I'm actually standing directly in the line of fire. Maybe my brain is so stressed that it's just shut down completely. "...you're probably going to kill someone."

"And I will kill someone if you don't," He hisses in reply. "Move."

"I said no, you fucking walnut." If I'm going to die anyway, I might as well give it all I've got. Watch me, old man. "Do you need a hearing aid?"

Levi lets out a low groan, hands tearing at his hair. His expression is conflicted, as if he wants to intervene, but can't bring himself to - he's too scared of his own brother.

A shift crosses Lucifer's face, but for the moment, his features remain something close to composed. When he speaks again, his voice has dropped even lower. "What?"

"I'm not moving," I reply, hardening my expression the best I can. "Yell at me as loud as you like. It isn't going to change my mind."

"Change your mind?" Lucifer repeats, and suddenly his pupils seem to shrink to pin-pricks. Despite myself, I can't help but take a step backwards. "Change your mind? Do you really think YOU'RE the one in control of this situation?!"

Heat seems to roll off him in heavy, scorching waves, filling the room with choking smoke. I clench my hands into fists in an effort to stop them from trembling, forcing myself to breathe evenly as Lucifer bears down on me, wings broadening into gargantuan, seething shadows behind him.

"You are weak," He grinds out, each word cutting, "You humans and your infinitesimal existences - do you really think you have any power over me?"

No. But I can still try. It's one of the only things I'm good at. I narrow my eyes and attempt to mimic his glare. "Do you think I'm scared of you? Big loud shouty man? I couldn't get to the top of your ego from Mount Everest."

Lucifer's expression twists, and for a moment the hall seems to fall into a hush. Levi draws in a breath that sounds thrice as loud in the silence.

An invisible wind whips Lucifer's hair around his face as crackling light climbs down his arm in a wild and jagged stream, spitting and hissing like it's alive. It looks like lightning, but it isn't luminescent in the slightest; rather, the deep blue colour seems to suck in all light, spreading shadow through the air like a disease.

"You will regret this," Lucifer spits, eyes hard with hatred. Slowly, surely, the blazing hand lifts, looming above me - as if it fancies itself a judge's hammer about to deliver a sentence. "You don't know a thing, you DAMNED—!"

"IK, RUN!" Levi howls, but it's already too late. I don't have time to say another word before Lucifer strikes downwards.

For a split second, everything slows. Lucifer's lips are curled back in a near-animalistic snarl, and the strange magic coalesced in the palm of his hand howls; as his hand makes the descent, I realise that he's aiming for my heart. Dimly, I feel my own hand lift to meet it, and I attempt to turn away, as if that could ever be enough to shield me

Someone screams. I don't know who.

The lightning explodes around my outstretched hand with deafening thunder, and quite suddenly I'm staring at the ceiling, feeling the cold of the stone floor seeping into my back. Something cold trickles down my cheek.

My ears are ringing. Blood rushes through my head with a roar so load that I can scarcely hear anything. Everything is shrouded in a thin grey mist, buzzing, as if the light has burnt out my senses. I try to draw in a breath as darkness scrabbles at the corners of my vision, but it rattles so painfully in my lungs that I stop short, and I can only get air in short, fitful bursts.

I hear a whimper, and I know that it can't be anyone but me, but it feels so far away. Everything does.

Everything except the pain. It starts as a dull ache, but as I attempt to make sense of the indistinct sounds around me, it sharpens into nothing short of excruciating agony. I can almost feel the shape of the bolt through my arm, each line digging into flesh like barbed wire. My fingers twitch, independent of my own consciousness, and each movement is another red-hot dagger in the wound.

My eyelids begin to fall. I force them to stay open. I'm afraid to blink. I don't know if I'll be able to open my eyes again if I do.

I can feel hands tentatively touching my shoulders. A voice is calling out to me. Something carefully lifts my head from the cold stone of the floor and props me up, and another something seizes my left hand, squeezing it so hard that it almost distracts me from the burning in my right.

I catch movement in the corner of my eye, and I turn my head with what feels like all the effort in the world to follow it. I recognise the shape of Levi's horns as he flings himself at Lucifer, and for a moment both wings and tail seem to lock in battle - but then Lucifer throws Levi off of himself with all the ease of flicking a fly from a windowsill.

His hand rears back once more, as if to attack him as well, and I make a pathetic attempt at movement, as if I could be any use, but then there's a crash. Someone shouts something from what an endless distance away, and Lucifer freezes.

Levi takes advantage of the opportunity to strike again, and this time Lucifer doesn't resist his attack. Something thunders across the stones of the hall, and there's another shout, this one a roar of outrage. Another figure throws themselves at Lucifer's unmoving body, knocking him over entirely. Through the haze obscuring my vision, I recognise their white hair, and something that might have been a smile in any other situation pulls at my mouth.

The someone clutching my left hand is trembling. I can feel it. I try to squeeze their hand, but I can't seem to muster the strength, so I try to speak instead, but the words refuse to come as well.

Don't worry. It'll be alright.

Everything begins to quiet again, though I'm not sure if it's just the roaring in my ears getting louder. My right hand curls. The fire seems to saw right into the bone, and I bite back a low whine.

The darkness rapidly beginning to spread across my field of vision is almost reassuring now. I close my eyes - and, mercifully, everything stops.

"...thinking... though...you?!"

"...have to... won't survive..."

"...don't understand... where..."

"...can help... okay, right?!"

"...stay here... alone... wakes up..."

"...fever... days..."

"...too hot... cold... what...?"

"...be alright... me..."

"...tough... pull through."

"...don't remember... "

"...need anything?"

"...too many things..."

"...I'm... when you..."

Damp. Something's damp.

Who's messing with me? Dad, you're supposed to be at work...

I force my eyes open. The ceiling's the wrong colour.

...oh. Right. This is the Devildom.

I attempt to move, but then I realise that I'm swaddled in about ten separate blankets, each of which is tucked so tightly around me that the only thing I can do is flop about a bit, like a fish. There's something cool lying across my forehead. It's a damp cloth.

I hear an incoherent groan. Then I realise it was me. I feel like I've been put in a blender.

"Oh! You're awake!" Someone exclaims. A blurry orange blob forms somewhere above me; I stare at it, then shake my head experimentally. The shape sharpens into something recognisable.

"....Beel?" I manage to mumble after a long moment. My voice creaks painfully.

He nods and sits back down, wringing his hands anxiously. I turn my head to look at him, and he meets my gaze for a moment, then looks down again, as if uncomfortable. He looks tired, but thankfully unharmed.

"Try not to move too much," comes another voice, and I turn to the other side to see Solomon smiling benignly back at me. "You developed quite the fever while you were asleep. I imagine your body isn't feeling its best."

"Wh..." I squint at him for a moment. His left sleeve is rolled up, and there appears to be some kind of contraption wrapped around his forearm. "What's that for?"

"IV drip," He says by way of explanation, gesturing at the metal thing in his arm. "Your bodily functions were all slowed down to nearly nothing while you slept, so I'm acting as your life supplier. Beelzebub wanted to do it, but I figured another human would be a safer bet."

I mull over his words and find that they still don't make any sense. "...what?"

"Never mind." He pulls his chair forwards slightly and lifts the damp cloth from my forehead. "Just know that I was basically being your battery, so that your body didn't shut down while you were sleeping."

"Oh." I shut my eyes for a moment and release a long sigh. "...you didn't have to do that."

"Weren't you listening to me?" He chuckles, patting my face dry with his sleeve. "You would have died otherwise. Of course I had to."

"Oh," I repeat, opening my eyes again. I try to smile, but the only thing I can get any part of my face to do is blink. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Solomon smiles for a moment, but then his expression darkens, and he looks away with a small, distracted  frown. 

Then he turns back to me, smile back in place, as if nothing happened at all. "...do you want something to drink?"

Beel's head lifts suddenly. I look over just in time to meet his gaze. His eyes are wide with what looks like alarm, but he doesn't attempt to object as Solomon leans to retrieve a bottle of water from a new table set up by the bed. He holds it out to me with an odd, searching look, as if trying to gauge something from my face.

I shift about for a moment, then finally manage to loosen the blankets around me enough to push myself upwards. Something feels odd, but I can't quite put my finger on it, so I decide to just ignore it.

Then I pull my arms out of the blankets, and the odd feeling suddenly makes a lot more sense. It's the only thing that does - everything else seems to fall away into a spiralling kind of void.

My right hand isn't there anymore.

It's gone. Nothing remains of it. The only thing left is a stump of a wrist, marred with a spiralling pattern of dull, bruised purple that stretches across my skin like an awful spider web. I try to move muscles that aren't there, to tense fingers that I no longer have... nothing. Not a tingle, not a twitch.

Somewhere far away, someone sets a hand on my shoulder.

I look up through my daze to see Solomon smiling sombrely at me. Reaching down gently, he takes my only remaining hand and presses the already-open water bottle into it.

It takes me a long while to realise what he's trying to tell me. Finally, my hand trembling, I raise the bottle to my mouth and take a tiny sip. Despite how dry my throat felt before, the water only seems to obstruct it, and soon enough I lower the bottle again, unable to stomach any more.

Solomon attempts to coax me into drinking more, but I only shake my head in response and hold the bottle back out to him. It feels so strange to look down and see nothing but air. It's the sort of emptiness you get in your mouth in the days after losing a tooth... except I can't exactly grow back a new hand, and I don't think I'll ever be able to get used to this feeling. No matter how numb your limbs get, you can always feel that they're there.

As Solomon gives up and takes the bottle back, a large hand reaches out and slowly settles over the disfigured stump where mine used to be. I look up and meet Beel's eyes again. This time, he looks back at me earnestly, brows creased slightly.

"...you've opened your eyes a few times already," Solomon says finally, voice low as if afraid to make the glass-like hush. "Do you remember anything? Were you awake?"

"Remember anything?" I repeat absently, then slowly shake my head. The last thing I recall is lying on the floor of the underground tomb and wishing I didn't have nerves. "I don't think so."

"I thought as much." He leans back a little in his chair, steepling his hands in front of him like a stern headmaster. "You didn't seem fully conscious. All you did was..."

He suddenly trails off and goes quiet, apparently thinking better of what he'd been about to say. I frown slightly and attempt to lean forward. "What? What did I do?"

Solomon exchanges an almost uncomfortable look with Beel, and, after a long silence, says, "...all you did was stare at your wrist. You wouldn't answer properly when we talked to you, either, and after a while you'd just go back to sleep."

"Oh." I'm not sure what that was all about, but it sounds creepy. Like something you might see in a film. A ghost lamenting what was lost. Think I'm still in shock. "...sorry."

"Stop apologising," Beel mumbles, still covering my wrist-stump with one hand. Even as I attempt to look down at it, he moves his other hand over to keep it double-shielded, as if he thinks I'll go off my trolley if I see it one more time. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"...okay." I don't have the willpower to argue. I stare blankly at the pattern of the upper-most blanket, noting dimly that this is probably Beel's bed, then suddenly realise something. "What happened to Luke?"

"We had to send him back to the Purgatory Hall," Solomon answers before Beel can. "The... power that Lucifer used on you... it would have been dangerous for angels to be around you while the wound was still active - otherwise we would have had Simeon here to help with the healing process. Neither of them wanted to stay away, but they had to."

Active? "What... power?"

Both Solomon and Beel are silent for a moment. Then Solomon says, quickly, as if trying to spare me from actually hearing the details, "It's like a curse - or maybe more like venom. It hit you in the hand, so it wasn't instantly fatal, but it would have spread to your heart sooner or later. Sealing the curse off to the one hand was easy enough at the time, but that sort of venom is incredibly hard to eject from the human body. We had to amputate the entire hand. You're lucky you managed to stop him from hitting where he was aiming, or you'd..."

He trails off and doesn't finish that last sentence, but we both know full well how it ends. I'd be dead as a door nail. Dead as a dodo. Dead as a... I can't think of anything else.

"Lord Diavolo arrived just in time," Solomon carries on after a minute, as if giving the information some time to properly sink in. "He's the one who managed to isolate the curse to your hand so quickly... if he hadn't gotten there, Lucifer might have even tried to attack you again. You'll have to thank him next time you see him."

I nod, left hand moving about in mid air as if miming writing out a memo. I think back to those last few dim moments in the tomb, the voice I heard yelling that made Lucifer freeze on the spot. That must have been Diavolo... but he wasn't the only one there, was he?

"What about Mammon and Levi?" My voice is small, so small that I doubt Beel or Solomon would have been heard me if it hadn't been so quiet in here. "They were there too, weren't they?"

"They're both fine." Solomon smiles a little and reaches forward to pat my left hand in reassurance. "Lucifer hasn't even punished them for trying to fight him. They've both been visiting, actually... I had to ban them from coming in too much, though, since they were so loud."

Lucifer's name seems to stir some kind of fight-or-flight response inside me. Even though it's gone, I feel a kind of twinge where my right hand used to be. It's nothing compared to how the blow had felt in the moment, but even this mere spectre of the pain is enough to make me scrunch up my face and turn away.

Beel, finally pulling his hands away from my wrist, ducks his head slightly and mumbles, "Lucifer hasn't been out of his room since he attacked you."

"He hasn't been out at all?" I ask, suddenly a little concerned despite myself. "Not to eat or drink or anything?"

"Well, Levi says he's heard him playing music, so it's not like Lucifer's dead in there," Solomon shakes his head and chuckles a little at his own joke. "He's probably just been sneaking out while everyone's asleep or something."

The words 'Lucifer' and 'sneaking' don't seem to belong anywhere near each other. Lucifer doesn't sneak, he sweeps. When he's around, you know about it, if not because of the sheer size and intimidation of his aura alone.

"We think he's sulking," Solomon adds as I frown down at my lap. "I wasn't there to see it, but I hear Lord Diavolo scolded him into next week. Shame, really... Lucifer normally doesn't let anyone treat him like that, even him. It would've been a real sight to behold."

"He just stood there and took it," Beel mutters, face contorting slightly as if still bewildered by the whole thing. "Then he went and locked himself up."

"I wouldn't waste too much time thinking about him," Solomon says bracingly, knocking me in the shoulder in a kind of vaguely playful manner. "You have nothing to apologise to him for, and he has everything to apologise to you for. So don't worry about it."