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Chapter Text

Stella dislikes Stolas. It is personal, of course. Stolas is a pathetic little nestling schooled and bred to play a single role—a role of privilege, of renown, yet a single role nonetheless—for the family with no other expectations. Stella would be just a wife, a princess by marriage, and she would have to create all the connections, do all the networking and upkeeping the family name. Stolas has the privilege of being a scion of the Goetia, a son of Paimon instead of just a descendant from the king; he is a prince, an heir to a powerful throne.

Stella has heard all about Stolas since she was old enough to leave the nursery. He was a ghostly constant that haunted her life; her father boasted about the power the marriage would bring them—him, just him, and Andre after him—and her mother sweetened her ear with honeyed words about how pleasant a boy Stolas was and how well he would take care of her. Stella hadn’t needed a keeper then, she doesn’t need one now, and if she did it wouldn’t be Stolas. Andrealphus called Stolas the embodiment of celestial knowledge and earthly might, the last true child of the fallen.

There was a point in life, when she actually believed those words. She is no longer young, naïve, or a sentimental fool who entertains the plebeian notions of romance. She was promised a powerful prince of hell, a master of ancient magic, someone who was described as almost ethereal in looks and whose power could scorch the soil even in the bowels of the Wrathian volcanoes. The reality of Stolas was disappointing. He was sweet in the way syrup gets sickly cloying and sticky after a while, unpleasant in his naiveté and the softness inside him makes her want to hurt him, to crush him, to cleanse everything that made him less of what she was promised.

For all that Stolas is, for all the power he possesses…he is pathetic, complacent, and unfit to rule. The potential is wasted on him. He doesn’t live up to the expectations she had. He can’t even touch her without flinching. He averts his eyes when the lay together, keeps to his aggravating silence, still like a puppet whose strings were cut—entirely useless, eternally damned for hurting her ego. No woman would wish to lay with a man who acts as if sex was a chore required of him. It’s a chore for her as well, the difference is that this will reflect worse on her than on him.

She hurts him. She lashes out at him with vitriol and cruelty, committed to shatter that glacial mask, that complacency, that infuriating softness that has no place to be when she was promised power and something so unholy that her father offered a quarter of his estate as a dowry, Andrealphus’ inheritance, to secure her marriage to Stolas.

Stella runs hot. There is gurgling lava inside her, waiting to burst free in a great explosion and burn everything and everyone in her way. And yet Stolas doesn’t burn—his feathers are singed, his face saddened, but his bones don’t melt in the face of Stella’s rage. He stands unmovable, detached, as if her words and turmoil were beneath him. Only then she fully understands why the call him the link between heaven and earth; Stolas is frigid, unfeeling, and she hates him more than she has ever hated anyone.

She wanted him to rage with her. She wanted to see that unholy power, to light the spark of that roaring hellfire that surely burns inside him. There is no fire inside Stolas. Only coldness. Only the aloofness of magic that leaves her bereft.

-.-.-.-.-.-

She lays the egg. Finally. It takes them a year for her o become gravid, to subject herself to that pathetic fool, that frigid doll she married. The egg is viable; her duty is done, her purpose fulfilled, and she can now reap the benefits of marrying Paimon’s son.

She expects Stolas to leave her alone, to scamper away like the mouse he is. Stolas’ mushy interior resurfaces with greater strength; he seeks her out, voice plaint and a tentative smile on his beak. She hates that for all her might, for all her will, she hasn’t broken him. He bends, he begs, he refuses to learn.

Stolas is waiting for her at the garden. He had given orders for her to join him, too. She lashes out at him—a red mark with her fingerprints on his cheek that will bruise—and tells him to never order her around again. He is no one to command her. The apology he gives her tastes almost too sweetly; it’s the look of fear in his eyes what soothes her like a cool balm. It reminds her that he is a pathetic mouse, a scared little nestling, while she is a powerful princess. She is free and he will be forever trapped.

“We should give her a name.” Stolas says with his eyes fixed on his teacup. He doesn’t dare to touch his cheek—she believes he can learn but he simply refuses.

“It’s an egg. It doesn’t need a name until it hatches.”

“She,” Stolas corrects softly.

“It doesn’t matter. Your father can choose the name. It’s tradition, isn’t it? He chose his other grandchildren's names.”

Paimon is controlling. Stella fears him. She respects him, of course. He is the king. He is powerful and their lives are in his hand one way or another. She fears him too. She remembers him from the negotiations with her parents: the smile never reached his eyes, and he stared at her as if he was choosing a hellpup to gift over. She remembers his words, too: “As long as she pleases Stolas.” She doesn’t please Stolas. She doesn’t think anyone would, but Stolas fears her, and she is safe.

"Only the spares. Precautionary or not, she will be my only heir. I get to name her.”

Stella searches in his eyes for deceit. They agreed—she decreed it, and he complied—to never lay with each other again. This egg will be their only one. She feels no attachment to the egg. She may bond with it when it hatches, but a child is ultimately a trading pawn. Except this girl will never be sold as a bride. The way Stolas speaks, the way he stares at her with factuality seals the egg’s fate. This child, this girl, will sit in Stolas’ throne.

Where was that spark before? Where was that fire, that resolve? Where was that absoluteness when she wanted it, when she craved it so much that it made her sick with rage and sorrow?

“I don’t care.” The lie burns her tongue. She hates the unhatched egg. She hates that it managed to do what she couldn’t in a year. It thawed Stolas’ icy mask, it made him flesh and blood. If that egg didn’t hold her life, if she weren’t so sure that Paimon would fly her alive if anything happened to that egg at her hands, she would destroy it only to see Stolas’ despair. She wants his flame so badly. “Name it whatever you want.”

“You are her mother,” Stolas says weakly, a last effort to persuade her of participating in this debasing of herself. “Don’t you wish to name her with me?”

“The only thing I care about is not to lay with you ever again. As long as you don’t break the damned egg, do whatever you want with it,” she spats angrily. She wants no part in this. “Don’t talk to me about the egg unless it hatches or whatever. I have a life, Stolas, and you and your childish notions of family are not my problem.”

“I see.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

He doesn’t call her again. His icy mask is back in place, carefully done with expertise. She hates it and oh how she rages.

It doesn’t fall. No matter what she does, what she says, how much she screams and demands and hurts him, she doesn’t even see a hint of that spark again.

-.-.-.-.-.-

The egg hatches. Stolas was right, it was a she. An ugly, bald thing with swollen eyes that Stella can’t bear to touch, much less hold.

“Octavia.” Stolas decree with a smile that is as warm as a summer day in Wrath. He looks at her—the owlet, the little traitor—as if she was the centre of the universe, like he only looks at the night sky and his stars and constellations. “Do you want to hold her?”

“No.” I will drop her, Stella thinks but keeps quiet. “It’s ugly.”

Stolas’ eyes are hard when they stare at her, finally acknowledging. Pools of molten lava. They are ferocious, soul-seeing, and Stella feels a spark of excitement and fear crawling on her spine, feeding her fire. Oh, he sees her for the first time and it’s with such intensity, with so many emotions—looking into his eyes, her husband’s crimson eyes, is like staring at one of those eldritch horrors that only the fallen house inside them. She can feel her blood sing in tune to his anger, his passion, the living power breathing within his veins.

She doesn’t love him, but right then and there, she believes she could. She could love him. She could give him another child, a better child, a child that will scorch the earth.

The moment passes, Stolas returns his eyes to their daughter, and he is a sunny day once more.

“Her name is Octavia. Learn it, memorise it, use it. You will never call her ‘it’ ever again.”

—his voice is anything but. The roaring inferno is there, and with it a threat of annihilation. No, not a threat. A promise. His fire, his spark, his passion, his power is not for Stella—not for her rage, not for her sorrow—but for Octavia.

She leaves the room. He doesn’t look away from the being in his arms.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Paimon was pleased when Stella and Stolas informed him about the egg. Stella informed her parents and brother the following day as protocol dictated. He was pleased when the egg was laid, so pleased, in fact, that he personally came to keep Stolas’ company. Stella had been surrounded by doctors and one of her personal maids, too exhausted to pay attention to the world outside. Her other maid had been her eyes and ears, and she had later told her of the conversation between Paimon and Stolas:

“Finally, a child! Your firstborn is extremely important, little one. She will be your one true heir, the holder of all your possessions and title. Your line will live in her and her descendants; she will carry your legacy, Stolos.”
“Yes. We are proud of her; I named her Octavia.”
“Octavia. What a quirky name.”
“I feel she will have a connection with all that is born and grown from the earth, but no more can I say.”
“Mmhm. Fine, then. I leave this matter to you and your visions, little one.”

Stella still ponders on that conversation and its meaning. She can’t view Paimon as an involved parent, yet her maid insisted the king had ruffled Stolas’ feathers, and when her husband chittered like a stupid owlet, the king had smiled. Apparent care aside, the king’s speech was curious at best. Stolas was the youngest of Paimon’s line, his words contradictory with their circumstances, and yet Paimon had only arranged Stolas’ marriage.

The ceremony where Paimon presents Octavia to court is lavish and exclusive. All members of the Ars Goetia are in attendance, but not every member of the Goetia. Lucifer is there with his daughter. Octavia passes from Stolas’ ferocious embrace to Paimon’s lighter one, and then Lucifer himself picks the ugly chick and laughs, rubbing his nose against Octavia’s downy fluff in delight.

“Princess Octavia of the Ars Goetia.”

Paimon intones solemnly, in a regal voice that carries power and intent throughout the hall. There is no outward command, yet the expectation is clear and every Ars Goetia in attendance bows their head, acknowledging their king’s granddaughter. Her daughter. The Goetia kneel, watching the little bundle of fluff with envy and greed. Stella understands that feeling; she is nobility by birth, but her title comes from her marriage, and yet she still isn’t Ars Goetia, she isn’t a being of magic and otherworldly power. Octavia is all but a little, fragile thing, yet she is already part of the elite, already so above many demons her seniors. Already so above her own mother.

“What does her future hold, my son? Surely you have seen the extension of her life and line.”

Stolas writes prophecies. He has written prophecies for his nephews and nieces, for the children’s of other kings’ children. What those prophecies say nobody knows. Stella never cared about his job, but it being addressed in front of the court, even if Lucifer and his daughter have already left, catches her attention.

“Prophecies aren’t free, Your Majesty. This child’s father already knows the future.”

“Shall I command you to obey, Stolos?”

“I am yours to command, father, but my prophecies are not. I will have my payment; you may choose to give it freely, or I can choose to take it by force. This is my right, to which we both are bound to by Lucifer’s law.”

Stella stares in awe as prince and king speak calmly to each other, just another spectator as every other demon in that hall. For once protocol is forgotten, briefly overruled by the daring words of the prince. Paimon is not someone to antagonise or defy. His word is law and Ars Goetia and Goetia alike are bound to his will. When the king asks something of you, the only possible answer is yes. But here is Stolas, molten lava bubbling like a living volcano about to burst, fire ready to explode and consume everything in its path, holding Octavia in the safety and warmth of his brood, challenging the king with an impassive face and his spine straight, every bit the Great Prince of Hell that he is.

Paimon laughs. It’s an amused, indulgent laughter. A few courtiers dare to mimic him, unsure of what role they should play, before being brutally brought to their knees with a wave of the king’s talons.

“So be it then, my little one. Choose your price,” Paimon acquiesces and leans back on his throne.

Stolas is taut as a bow. His hold on Octavia protective, challenging anyone to try and pry her from his talons—no one approaches him, not on the dais of honour, not when black tendrils of magic glow in his hands like a promise of damnation. Stella can’t take her eyes off him and the power he exudes. Her mouse of a husband has grown fangs and claws, and she is as taken as she is mystified and furious. It is, as usual, all about Octavia.

When Stolas speaks, the entire hall is watching his every move, and the palpable tension in the room is almost alive, a terrifying being that sucks the air out of their lungs, asphyxiating them.

“I want full veto power of decision over my daughter.” His words are clear, unflinching, and his eyes look far ahead, as if he was leagues away from everyone in the room. “She will not be married off. She will not be fostered by other Goetia or raised on a palace alone; as a matter of fact, she will not leave my sight nor any place I call home until she is of age and can fend for herself. She won’t be forced to do anything without my knowledge nor given duties without my say so. Octavia is my heir. She was born of my bones, of my blood and my magic. I will punish whoever dares to harm her, to claim her, to take her from me. These are my terms, Your Majesty.”

They aren’t terms. They are a declaration of something no other Goetia or Ars Goetia has dared to demand. They expect the king to laugh at him, to fly him alive. Stella expects it as well, but she is no less enthralled by the dark undertones in her husband’s speech, the promise of an excruciating death to anyone that challenges his word, to anyone that dares disrespect him. She is so captivated that she doesn’t pay attention to his words, only his voice, and the threatening lull of the eldritch horror in his veins. The magic saturating the halls.

“Your demands exceed your station,” Paimon states factually and the tension grows. “Very well. For such demands, I expect a great destiny. In a week’s time you will have my written agreement, and I will have my prophecy.”

“My king is gracious.”

Paimon waves his hand again, pulling Stolas’ to his side with a swirl of magic. He looks at the nestling sleeping within Stolas’ brood and pats Stolas’ head.

“Your father is gracious, Stolos,” Paimon says. “Eat, little one. This is your celebration, after all.”

Nothing else is said. The Goetia are good at pretending nothing happens when something big blows in their faces.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Octavia grows. She is a curious, annoying little nestling and Stolas worries himself sick over her. Stella struggles to bond with her; she has no patience for Octavia’s games, her acute chittering whenever she is alone or out of Stolas’ brood, her unblinking eyes that is the only trait she inherited from her. Staring at Octavia is like watching a blank canvas that she isn’t skilled in painting, so she ushers the nestling to her father’s waiting arms or any imp that looks capable enough to keep the ugly owlet alive.

Although she comes out as ungrateful—in Andre’s words—she is relieved the nestling is alive. She is relieved the egg was viable and hatched without complications. She doesn’t hate Octavia as much as she is indifferent to her; Stella's job was to deliver an egg, and she did it. The girl is Stolas’ heir, Stolas’ responsibility. She parades the nestling like one does a particularly interesting artwork that other claims to be valuable and she only saw as lines and paint blobs. Octavia is much the same. Whatever Stolas sees in his daughter, Stella can’t even dream to understand.

Octavia continues growing. She learns to call Stolas’ first. She learns to call Stolas for most anything—if she is cold, if she is hungry, if she is distressed. Stella learns to tolerate the curious owlet. She takes the girl to her parents’ estate once, as an obligation, and the owlet cried for her father until she exhausted herself and fell asleep. She didn’t eat, didn’t speak, and when she cried herself sick the second day of their five day stay, Stella gave up and called Stolas—her stupid, stupid husband who had been just as distressed as his ugly daughter—to come and calm the owlet down.

Stella doesn’t take Octavia to her parents again. She won’t tolerate the judgment in their eyes.

Octavia is nearly a year old when Stella’s paradise shatters to dust. She is out of luck, too. Stolas’ fire has never been for her.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Paimon doesn’t rage. He stares at them—at Stolas, and Stella, and her parents and brother—as a disappointed teacher expecting a confession. Stolas touches her knee with his own, a gesture of something that doesn’t belong in their relationship, but she is too terrified—has been too terrified since the summons—of Paimon to do anything but cling to that little contact between her and Stolas.

“One of you, or all of you, have lied to me in some degree, and all of you, with the only exception of my son, are disposable,” Paimon states cheerfully, another contradiction with his disappointed face. “However, I am a generous king and an indulgent parent. This is the only chance you’ll get to explain yourselves and fix this…inconvenience.”

There is a tense, terrified silence following those words. Andrealphus is an Ars Goetia. He has the magic, he has the talent, he has the title. He should have the protection granted to him by rank, a protection Stella believed so absolute she had counted on his support to do as she pleased. He wasn’t supposed to be disposable. She isn’t supposed to be disposable. She is the wife of the king’s son, the mother of that long-awaited heir. Before she voices any of that—if she her voice doesn’t fail her, betray her like her trembling body—the king speaks again, his voice softer this time, indulgent as he addresses his son.

“I am divided between complimenting you and giving you a reminder of what happens to lying owlets, Stolos. You are the youngest of my children and I have been more lenient on you, but do not take me for a fool, little one. They,” and Paimon points at Stella and her family, “may be guilty of ignorance or your accomplices, but you, my owlet, know well what you have done and what I expect of you.”

Stella shivers at the power exuded in Paimon’s voice, in the threat that hides in plain sight. They all could hear it. Stolas says nothing. Why isn’t he saying anything? She wants to dig her talons on his arms. To make him bleed until the pain is so intense he has no other choice but to act—to defend her as fiercely as he does Octavia. But Stolas remain silent.

“Your Majesty, I assure you my daughter would never dare to lie to you. None of us would! You are our king! Your word is law. We are but your humble subjects.”

Implicitly, her father is placing the blame for the unknown offense at Stolas’ talons. Stella knows that is unwise. It’s desperate. She shivers when the king fixes his steady gaze on her, when he pulls her from her seat next to Stolas and makes her stand at attendance in front of him.

“I can see into that heart of yours. You are a greedy, insignificant little creature, not so different from that father of yours,” Paimon states, then turns to her father and says, colder than she had ever heard him, and a shiver runs down her spine. “I bought your useless daughter to carry on Stolas’ legacy. She failed, so you either lied to me with your promises of her skills, or she has passed someone else’s child for Stolas’.”

The accusation stings. She is impulsive and she was—still is—angry at Stolas for his softness and misplaced tenderness, but she isn’t stupid enough to cheat on him when so much depended on that one egg. She did her duty. She laid the egg, it hatched, it has Stolas’ face.

“Your Majesty, my daughter would…”

“Your Majesty, I did my duty!” she yells, the fire inside her pushing her to scream. “I laid the egg. Stolas’ egg. Stolas,” she says his name like thunder, her face turning to her silent, frozen husband. “Tell him.”

“Whose egg? That child has not a drop of magic in her veins.”

It can’t be. It can’t be.

“Father, stop, please.” Stolas stands. No, he marches and with a wave of his hand Stella is safely pulled away from Paimon. They don’t touch, don’t comfort each other, but she breathes heavily as he stands at her side. “I didn’t lie. They didn’t lie. The prophecy was whispered to me, and it shall come to pass, the hows and whens evade me, they are too far into the future for me to know.”

“She isn’t the heir I wanted.” It’s factual again, emotionless. Paimon sighs, pinching the space above his beak, and gives Stolas an exasperated look. “You will try again. You two will have another child, a child with magic.”

“No. I will not. I refuse. I may not be able to see my own future, but I know this path will lead to my destruction. I won’t stay with Stella.”

“If not with her, you will have one with someone else.”

“You can’t dissolve their marriage!” her father sputters. He has lost all his dignity, and his fear has been replaced by indignation. She stares at him, numbly; he doesn’t even look at her, doesn’t comfort her. “You said she would be a princess! My family’s prestige is on the line!”

“If only she hadn’t failed at the only thing that was expected of her.”

“My daughter isn’t at fault that your son is so terrible in bed that she had to resort to other means to conceive! Your brat was negligent in his duties! Don’t think the court doesn’t know of your son’s proclivities. It is well-known that he spent an indecent amount of time with King Asmodeus in Lust while he was still underage, and no matter how you wanted to cover it by saying he was being prepared for his wedding, there are witnesses who saw his lack of decorum with Prince Vassago. Accept it, Your Majesty, if someone is at fault here is your son.”

Prince Vassago?

Stella has spread rumours about what a terrible bed partner Stolas is. She has complained to her mother, giggled behind his back with her friends, and in those two years of marriage no one told her anything about Stolas’ proclivities. She only knew Vassago in passing. He was another Ars Goetia a decade older than her, and he hardly ever visited court.

Was it so simple? Was all her hurt for nothing? Her parents knew she was marrying someone who would remain forever frozen to her touch, indifferent to her flame, and they had sold her out regardless for a chance to be elevated through her. She had tormented, and be tormented by Stolas and his icy mask, his aloofness, his otherworldly magic while they all knew she was doomed from the start? She turns around to Stolas, stupid, pathetic, tender in flesh and soul Stolas with a world of vitriol willing to break free, but all her rage simmers to embers at Stolas’ eyes. Oh, what a pathetic, pathetic man. He didn’t even know.

If she had any grace left, anything that wasn’t the anger and hurt, she would pity him.

“There will be no other child of my blood.” Stolas’ voice breaks through the fog.

Her father is on his knees, a look of muted horror etched in his face. Her mother is at her side, trembling, kneeling and refusing to look up. Andrealphus is frozen. Stella has never seen him like this, so small, so…diminished.

“No one can re-write the stars, father. I can only listen to their voice, to the drumming song of the universe and pass down their messages, their warnings. I don’t rule over them more than any of us rule over creation itself. There will be no other child.”

“Get out, all of you. I will deal with your insubordination and slander after dealing with my son.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

Stella didn’t know then what she knows now: that was the last time she would see Stolas.

She moves out of the palace and back into her parents’ estate. Her father loses his voice; his life is pardoned despite his great insult, but his voice is taken away as punishment. Deep into the night, he sobs and whimper, driven mad by the horrors in his dreams. Stella pities him not. She has nightmares of her own.

-.-.-.-.-.-

A month into her stay with her parents, she understands she will never see the palace again. Her things are brought back, her jewels returned to the royal estate, and a sizable part of her dowry is deposited to a personal vault whose only key is given to her by an imp with a monocle. Her marriage gets dissolved, her husband and daughter taken from her as easily as her purpose.

If Stella were a good person, she would mourn her loss. She isn’t a good person. She takes what is hers and takes up on Andrealphus’ offer to move into his estate.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Six months after her annulment, Andrealphus shows her a document that glows red and white. His face is unreadable.

“What is this supposed to mean?” she asks hoarsely. The family three of the king has lost a branch.

“Nothing.” Andrealphus answers stiffly. He holds her in his arms, the embracing frightened and so cold it burns her skin beneath her feathers. “Nothing,” and it sounds wet, small, and she remembers his face back in the king’s throne room.

“Do you think he kill him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care,” his arms tighten around her frame. She doesn’t complain even when small shards of ice dig painfully into her body. “You are alive, Stella. You are alive and that is all that matters.”

Chapter Text

Love is a curious, funny feeling. Multifaceted, too.

The tower will take six months to be remodelled. The building was erected centuries ago, before Stolas was born. It was designed as a place of study and research, not to house someone permanently. It wasn’t designed to house children either. Stolas and Octavia are confined to the palace while they wait. Their servants are dismissed one by one, slowly, until only Paimon’s loyal butler and the washers and launderers remain in that palace that always felt too big and empty for a nestling.

Mr Butler delivers small updates to his young prince every now and then. He is cautious when he speaks, always careful of the young and impressionable ears of the nestling that Stolas’ carries with him everywhere, terrified of setting her down and losing her.

“Your father wants to know if there is any particular plant you want transferred to the tower, my prince.”

In the beginning, Stolas had opted for silent despair. Now, when everything is said and done, when reality has finally sunk its claws on him, Stolas considers his answer. So far no demand has been denied, even the most extravagant ones he wanted for Octavia’s future.

“I want all my carnivores to be brought with me. I will give you a list.”

“It shall be done, my prince.”

It will. Stolas can feel the overwhelming weight of the magic that is being casted on the tower from his room. It makes his feathers tingle.

“I wish for all my books to be brought as well.”

“The books from your personal library or the main library, my prince?”

“Both.”

“I see. I will inform His Majesty of your wishes.”

“Father already confiscated my grimoire and placed wards to prevent me from opening portals. Tell father, while you are at it, that he doesn’t need to take anything else from me. I am simply trading one prison for another.”

“Be strong, my prince. His Majesty will see reason.”

Treasonous words. Comforting words. Love is a funny little thing, emboldening those who wouldn’t have ever dared to go against the status quo. Stolas has his little girl, his beautiful and brilliant daughter, and Stella is no more. He no longer has bruises and loud noises don’t frighten him anymore. Mr Butler squeezes his shoulder, the last semblance of affection between them.

“Will you come with me? Father has allowed a single servant to keep us company. Will you come with me to the tower? I think, if you do, I can really be brave.”

“If His Majesty allows it, it would be my honour to follow you, my prince.”

Stolas nods, holding the sleeping nestling in his arms, and sears the face of his butler in his memory. He fears he never will see him again. If he gets to miss anything from his old life, from the days before his Octavia, it will be his company.

-.-.-.-.-.-

The palace never meant freedom. It has always been a prison, a gilded cage designed to resemble freedom, a leash long enough that its inhabitants don’t feel it winds tightly around their necks until they drop dead. Yet, it has never felt as sombre and devastatingly hostile as it feels now, when Stolas haunts the halls with his baby in his arm and his father’s loyal shadows following him up close, breathing down their neck in a mockery of protection.

They are there to keep him inside those walls. Stolas turns it into a game when Octavia’s inquisitive eyes catch their looming shadows; she questions, his brave little girl chirps in question when the shadows approach them, when her room is emptied of all but a clean set of clothes.

Octavia is only a year old, too young to truly understand the magnitude of the change that surrounds their home, but old enough to show curiosity and play along her father’s game, to be enthralled with his voice and his lullaby.

Stolas takes Via with him to the closet where his improvised nest is—safe, safe, safe—and sleeps with his top set of eyes open, the glowing red of his eldritch magic as their only source of light. His father took the grimoire from him as a means to keep him. He will not take his Via. Selfishly, Stolas clings to his daughter and with her to his sanity.

At night, he dreams for the first time.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Paimon is there on the last day. Stolas hadn’t seen his father since the summons, since they draw this contract that allowed Octavia to live. To remain Stolas’ daughter even if that title offered her nothing. Paimon has hard, soul-seeing eyes. Stolas never made them soften with love, never made them shine with approval, but he also never made them narrow in anger. There are legends told in whispers about his anger and the life-lasting effects; Stolas’ siblings are the subject of nightmares, each one powerful and terrifying, but their whispered warnings it’s all he truly remembers of them.

As Stolas readjusts his grip on Octavia—his Starfire placidly hiding her face in his brood—he wonders why Paimon is there and if it means something. He should be beyond the point of caring. It changes nothing for him or Octavia. Mr Butler’s words resonate within him: the king will see reason. But Stolas knows deep in his bones that his father will not. His father sees this as reasonable, as a neat solution that Stolas agreed to—desperately to save his daughter, but he agreed to it nonetheless—and it is out of his hands now.

Paimon approaches him, his steps full of purpose and never faltering. He cups Stolas’ head in a single hand, and Stolas feels so young with that single touch. His father rarely touched him as a child, or he has little recollection of such tender moments shared between them, and even if the touch is featherlight Stolas feel his flesh burning.

“You are too stubborn, little one. The most stubborn of all your siblings,” Paimon sighs and the impassive mask shatters into tiny pieces, the cracks big enough to show Stolas a contradiction, a cauterised wound that continues bleeding somehow. “I will ask you one last time, for my sake and yours, won’t you give me the child? I promise to place her with a noble family of minor importance, rings away so you don’t have to bear the pain of seeing her in court. She will live a good life in the countryside. You will return to court, have a year to make your own preparations; I’ll allow you to have your pick, or draw a contract if marriage has made you jaded.”

They had gone over that conversation exactly once, six months ago, and Stolas’ answer hasn’t changed. Would Octavia really live a happy life away from him? The thought seems impossible. His baby who has known nothing but him for a year, who calls for him to tend to her every need, who trusts him and no one else… Stolas can’t bear the idea of Octavia being sent away, of being forgotten or forgetting her. And he knows, he knows that whatever child that would come after her, if she is missing from his side, will never be loved enough, for the wound in Stolas’ heart would remain open, bleeding, festering.

“She was made of my bones; Octavia is my blood, my essence and my magic.” He sacrificed his freedom for her conception; he let Stella take everything from him: his voice, his choice, his will, his conception of family, his ideals. Now, faced with the choice of parting from his owlet after opening his heart to her, after offering all what remains of who he is and he could be, Stolas will sacrifice himself again for his right to keep her no matter how selfish. And he is selfish. He knows this. “To give her away is to cut a piece of myself and cast it off.”

“Very well. I can’t change your mind.” Paimon’s touch lingers for only a moment before he pulls away. “This path is something you have chosen; it isn’t set in stone. Although we part today in anger, I trust you will return to me in time, Stolas. For now, this is my last gift to you,” he says and points at his side, where Mr Butler appears out of thin air. “You will take care of my son.”

Mr Butler bows his head and makes his way to Stolas’ side. It is a small household; it has always been a small household. Stolas and his caretaker, and now his daughter. A household without yelling, without hurting and bruising and tiptoeing whenever he left the sanctuary of his garden. Octavia chirps and chitters, secured in her father’s arm. She has Stolas’ face, Stella’s eyes and Paimon’s colouring. She carries a powerful line in her veins, but fate is a cruel mistress. Stolas nuzzles his child’s face, extending his hand to the imp who had been his constant.

The House of Stolas is small but enough.

Paimon’s hand lingers at his side, twitching, without purpose now that the distance between it and Stolas’ face has grown; it stays there, where it’s supposed to be, prevented from reaching out now that everything is said and done. Decreed. “I will be waiting.”

Those words would have ripped wounds in Stolas’ feeble heart years ago. Naively, he would have reached for his father’s hand, beg for another chance to prove himself to him. He had always wanted to show his worth to the Ars Goetia, thinking that perhaps if he did he would be worthy of love. A part of him still wheeps for his father, for the idealised version of his father; Octavia chitters, her round eyes innocent and curious, her tiny hands gripping his feathers tightly. His daughter isn’t a mistress of anything yet—she might never be a mistress of anything—and yet the love he has for her, the pride on her mere existence is overwhelming.

Fathers are supposed to love their children regardless of how useful they are. This truth will take time to sink, time to heal as it breaks Stolas apart.

“Kings belong to their kingdom and not the children they father; only widows and parents wait for the corpses of those they loved, and they rot as they wait for a justice that never comes.” His words are bitter when he speaks, the last of his teenage pride and rebellion mixing in a curse pushed from his dried, bruised throat. “You will bury me here, in this unholy ground.” This is no prophecy, but it rings just as true.

Behind him, the palace that saw him born shines like a star in a night earthly sky; it’s frozen in stasis, forever, or until someone else claims it or Paimon gives it away. Stolas’ sigil hasn’t been erased, but maybe one day it will, when he is as forgotten as any of the prophets that have come before him, perished before him at the whim of holy hands and holy blades. In front of him, the tower awaits like a living presence, intimidating and unwelcoming.

Stolas doesn’t look back when he walks into the tower. His new home. Another prison.

Paimon says nothing as he watches his youngest son go. Kings belong to their kingdoms. His hands shake unbecomingly as the door shuts quietly, sealing Stolas away as if the lid of a coffin was slowly lowered to cover a body still preserved.

(Stolas will not know this, but Paimon’s hands will shake for decades to come).

“Be brave, Your Highness. Keep your chin up and your eyes clear, my young prince, the steps are slim and narrow.”

“Yes.”

They will be okay. Stolas cried all his tears before his wedding; this march, at least, feels less harrowing.

-.-.-.-.-.-

The inside is illuminated by fairy lights on both sides of the stairwell, casting gentle shadows. The air is scented like the flowers Stolas loves so much in an attempt to give it a comforting air. It fails, terribly.

Their ascension is slow. Silence only broken by Octavia’s hisses and Stolas’ tired hoots. She is getting hungry, and the stairs don’t seem to end.

“The princess is getting hungry,” the old butler notices. He is familiar with the hungry hisses of owlets and their strict diet of only meat for the first two years of their lives. “There is a kitchen, and a pantry fully stocked in the second level, just below your rooms, Your Highness. I will hurry up and get the princess something appropriate.”

Stolas breathes deeply. He has been taking care of Octavia on his own since her egg fell out of Stella. He has kept her warm, safe, happy. He has fed her, kept her in his brood—still her favourite place to sleep on—and synchronised his body to her calls. The offer is so strange, so foreign… but it’s also sincere. Mr Butler looks at him with infinite sympathy.

“Thank you,” Stolas sniffs, eyes wet and mushy interior shining through the cracks of his tiredness and hopelessness. “Thank you.”

“I will take care of you, my prince. You won’t do this alone.”

Something breaks inside Stolas. It breaks free from its cage. Stolas doesn’t wheep, doesn’t fall to his knees, body latching to his former caretaker, doesn’t wail until his throat is ruined and the shrieks haunt every inch of that damned tower. The dried sob sounds much worse; the litany of ‘thank you, thank you’ doesn’t stop even as Stolas’ body slides to the floor, sitting on the cold stone of the steps with unfocused eyes.

Mr Butler doesn’t leave. He doesn’t speak either, but the company and his hands in Stolas’ crown feathers feel grounding. Real in a way Stolas’ body doesn’t.

Octavia chirps confusedly, warm and tiny hands pressed against her father’s dried cheeks.

-.-.-.-.-.-

The third floor is where the magic feels stronger.

Stolas is intimately familiar with Paimon’s magic. His father relied on it more than the average Ars Goetia; he used to shift reality, to create different shapes sturdy enough to contain his true form. Here, in this tower that is ancient as Hell itself, every stone and wall is imbued in Paimon’s magic. It tingles against Stolas’ feathers, the well-known feeling of power a low murmur that whispers of secrets, of lies, and truths, and promises of knowledge.

At first glance, the third floor is an open concept not that different from the kitchen below them. The stairwell leading to the fourth floor, to the observatory, is even in the same place, like someone had taken the same design and triplicated it. Stolas isn’t an expert on wards, but he has the basic knowledge required to perform his rituals, to draw the protective circle corresponding to each full moon. This floor houses the nexus, the core of the magical enchantments that makes the tower so magnificent. Runes upon runes, wards upon wards interwoven like a spider’s web.

It would take him a hundred years to tear down the magnitude of spells, leaving just the bones that keep the tower standing. Stolas stares down at his hands, to where the feather cloak is thinner, and then follows the magic flow of the wards through the wall at his left. It thrums in answer, resonating with him, and the sorrow in the song almost makes him wheep. He pushes past it and glowing line of bright white and red flare to live, spidery paths and symbols in black shining across the entire room.

Stolas sees the room for what it is. The reality twisting in his fingers before it snapped and he was pushed forward, falling on the hard floor like a ragdoll.

“Your Highness!” Mr Butler rushes to his side. Delicately, he helps the prince up and his face scrunches in worry. “My prince, that was so careless of you! What were you thinking! Look at yourself!”

“Sorry. It wasn’t intentional. I will be more careful, I promise, Mr Butler. Forgive me for being careless.”

The butler shakes his head and takes him to the same coach where Octavia is eating—playing with her stripes of meat, licking her fingers after playing catch with her beak open wide—with the same severity he did when Stolas was younger and wandered off to climb up the tallest tree in the estate.

“Theory before practice, young prince,” Mr Butler scolds him gently. Taking a handkerchief from his uniform, he cleans the tendrils of blood near Stolas’ beak and below his eyes. “I will bring you something more substantial to eat. Try not to blow yourself while I am away.”

Pink dusts Stolas’ cheeks. This has been the same mantra since he was old enough to have his own workshop to play. “Try not to blow yourself away, my prince”; “Theory before practice, my prince”; “You are in a right state, my prince. I’ll draw you a bath and bring you some food, then it is off to bed”. Stolas has a child now, but right then, for the first time since he pronounced his marital vows, he feels light. Safe.

“Thank you.”

Octavia crawls onto his lap, chittering and hissing, and her tiny and bloody hand pushes a stripe of squirrel to his beak. Stolas laughs and accept his daughter’s offering, opening his beak and catching the meat when Octavia throws it in the air. The child squeals, delighted, and Stolas thinks that Stella would have yelled at him for the incivility. The thought strikes him, and a strange feeling arises inside him. He hasn’t thought of Stella, of the reality of her and her life, in sixth months.

Would she have wanted visitations? Would she have wished to keep contact with Via? She never seemed to like their daughter, but these questions plague him until Mister Butler returns with food. The meal is simple to eat, palatable. Mice and squirrels spicy skewers, a bottle of his favourite fizzy drink and some salad.

“Thank you.”

Mister Butler nods. “What is Princess Octavia’s routine?”

“She hasn’t had a proper routine since father informed me of our moving. I don’t… I didn’t want her out of my sight.” Stolas takes a deep breath, staring at what is left of his squirrel skewer. “I know that is a ridiculous fear here. I guess…the routine I had as a child is okay.”

“I will prepare her bath and sleeping dress. Unless you want me to give her a bath.”

“No. She… she doesn’t take well to strangers. She cries and she stops eating.”

As if sensing they were talking about her, Octavia pulls away from her father’s brood and chitters, eyes heavy with sleep. She is moody, and her shifting almost throws away the plate on Stolas hands. Her own hands are sticky, bloody, and her dress is ruined.

“I understand. I will draw her bath, Your Highness. Please finish your food.”

Stolas eats. Exploring can wait. He eats, and breaths, and grounds himself using his daughter’s weight as focus.

-.-.-.-.-.-

On the third day, Stolas explores beyond his walk in closet.

The third floor is like a massive living room. The space is circular and open with only a few couches in blues and purple arranged in a crescent. It has all the amenities money can buy, and one of the walls has a built-in bookshelf. It is a smaller version of the palace’s living room, with three doors for each of their bedrooms and a smaller one for a restroom.

Octavia’s room stays empty. They use it as a playground during the day. At night, she sleeps with Stolas in the nest. Octavia sleeps soundly the first night and the nights that follow. Her world extends as far as her daddy’s reach. She is still utterly dependant on him, terribly small, and Stolas takes comfort in her tiny body pressed against his brood like a reminder that he isn’t entirely alone. They only come out of Stolas’ room when Mr Butlers urges him to eat.

Stolas doesn’t sleep. Not the first night, or the night that follows, or any night of that first week. The windows are sightless, fogged panes that keep him from watching the exterior. The terrifying idea of truly dying in the tower haunts Stolas, keeping him awake at night.

“I will die alone. Stored away, like the ancient book tomes in the library. Just another relic of the Ars Goetia.”

Mr Butler’s hands are warm, small, and calloused. They hold him with surprising strength and in that embrace Stolas feels like a child again. He is only eighteen. His baby will have her second birthday, and all the following ones, in a prison, away from any of the sights that Stolas had had as child, and all of this is his fault. He was selfish. He couldn’t renounce to her. He couldn’t stand the idea of sleeping with Stella another time.

“You will not, my prince.” Mr Butler says gently.

“All my stories have been told. I will never leave this tower alive. Never.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

On the second week, Mr Butler forces him to eat. He doesn’t accept a ‘no’ for an answer and goes as far as feeding him with a spoon like he did when Stolas was an owlet. “You need your strength,” he says every time, voice stern and unyielding, but eyes filled with worry and concern.

Stolas eats. He doesn’t have the heart to refuse; his body still betrays him.

Octavia becomes bolder, more assertive, and her natural curiosity wins her over. She starts following Mr Butler out of the nest, chirping and chittering excitedly whenever she hears his voice. The old imp brings them food; Octavia eats eagerly, voracious, like only a growing owlet can eat. She takes to her father’s old caretaker like she never did to Stella and Stolas is both grateful for the help and devastated.

They fall into a routine of sorts. Mr Butler feeds them; Stolas bathes and preens Octavia; Mr Butler preens Stolas; Octavia explores the living room under Mr Butler and Stolas’ sharp supervision. They play with her, offer her as much socialisation as they can.

One day, after Octavia has been put to bed in the safety of the nest, Mr Butler gives Stolas a leatherbound journal and a packet of writing tools. He sits outside the nest—he has been invited, but he has yet to take his prince on his offering—and watches the prince intently.

“If you won’t sleep for my sake, or hers, or yours, you can write your thoughts. You are a tinkerer, my prince, and you haven’t visited your plants, studied your stars, or conducted any experiment. This won’t cure what ails you, but it is my hope that it gives you reprieve.”

“I don’t have the grimoire.”

“No, but you have this,” he points at his head. “Don’t despair, my prince. You will get through this. I don’t see the future, but I have my utmost faith in you.”

The next day, Stolas studies the wards and pushes, carefully, against them to see how much they can give in before pushing back at him. He writes his findings. He visits his plants, too, creating a routine for himself.

On the fourth week, when they are more settled, Stolas asks to see the kitchen. He is still restless. Mr Butler shows him the pantry and guides him through the process of preparing a meat cake for he and Octavia.

“Stolas,” the prince says absently. “It is only us three here. I don’t care about propriety. Via can’t care less. Just Stolas,” he says on the eve of their third week.

“All right, if that is what you wish.”

“Yes.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

A month passes, then another.

Stolas turns nineteen years old.

Mr Butler brings a cake to his room and Octavia presents him a handful of drawings of the three of them; they’re lines, bright and colourful with no shape, but she tells him everything in that baby talk that only a parent understands.

His father sends him a letter through the full-body mirror in the communal living room and a douzaine of books on different subjects, a bag of seeds with specimens from all seven rings, and a few crystals. Stolas doesn’t open the letter; he can’t bring his hands to tear the envelope. He stores it away, for later, for when his heart doesn’t hurt.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Stolas has lived in the tower for nearly six months when he has full understanding of how his imprisonment works. He has dutifully written his findings, prodding the wards, and he proudly states his finding over breakfast one morning.

“I think I figured out how our pantry is always stocked.”

The kitchen is large and probably one of the best lit areas in the tower. The windowpanes aren’t fogged here, for starters. The wall opposed to the breakfast station is made of pure glass and some sections can be opened, allowing some needed fresh air into the kitchen. There are cabinets on both sides of the cooker, a double bowl sink with running hot and cold water, the breakfast station, a cutting station for fresh fruit and vegetables, with several drawers to place the silverware; and, most importantly right now: the pantry door, which Stolas is pointing at with his fork.

“Manners, Stolas” Mr Butler chides.

“Manners, ‘Tola!” Octavia repeats with a loud chirp.

Stolas pouts and lowers his fork, chastised. Octavia giggles, eyes full of mirth and expectation, and praising her comes easily. She is speaking now, a few words here and there. ‘Daddy’, ‘Tola’, ‘Tee’ when she calls out to Mr Butler and ‘Via’. She knows nothing of titles, manners, or the greatness of the Goetia Family. She knows to say: ‘thank you’, to ask with ‘please’, and when she forgets or throws a tantrum, like children are wont to do at her age, Stolas or Mr Butler remind her gently how to be kind and gracious, how to say ‘sorry’ for hurting other’s feelings. She knows the freedom of living in her nursery clothes—easy to get in and out, easy to wash—and the safety of the nest.

Octavia will be two soon. Stolas has worked himself to the bone with that deadline in mind.

“Sorry,” Stolas adds, much to Octavia’s delight and loud clapping.

“How is our pantry always stocked?” Mr Butler asks. Six months in and the polite ‘Your Highness’ and ‘My Prince’ are still on the tip of his tongue. He struggles with using ‘Stolas’, but he acknowledges that the prince needs a friend.

“Backdoors.” Stolas announces proudly smug. “The tower wasn’t initially designed for permanent residency. However, besides being an observatory it’s a conduit for rituals, and a ritual can last from a few hours to a month or two. The caster can’t be disrupted until the competition of the ritual, so no external influences can enter the tower. The capacity to store supplies was here before father intervened, but only for a mid-term. The were in stasis, preserved, but couldn’t regenerate. Magic cannot multiply food, and we should have run out months ago, but we haven’t…that leads me to two different conclusions. There must be a monitoring spell that tracks when we’re running out of supplies and informs someone who is portalling in and out, or the pantry is connected to the somewhere with people who stock it manually. Either way, we aren’t cut off of the rest of hell as I originally thought, and if that is correct…I can tap into the ward and track the flow of magic to one of those backdoors. I could get you out. Theoretically.”

Magic isn’t something common to imps, but Mr Butler isn’t just any imp. He has served the Ars Goetia since he was young, and he has lived beyond his years. Even if he doesn’t understand everything, he understands the implications. If Stolas can get him out, he can get Octavia out too, eventually.

“Six moons have come and gone; Hell is beginning to suffer. Father will reach out before the year concludes—Hell needs its prophet. Don’t worry, I will do nothing reckless. Theory before practice.”

“What will you do if your theory is correct? Breaking a contract is…unwise, Stolas.”

“The arrangement was for me to stay in the tower. It says nothing about you, or Octavia being trapped here.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

Octavia turns two years old.

Stolas finds a weak link on the chain that makes the wards. He unravels it, piece by piece, until he makes a fissure big enough to let him see through the cracks.

It knocks him out and he stays out cold for a week.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Stolas promises never to be reckless. Mr Butler lectures him for the longest time, voice stern, eyes full of worry, and hands shaking from where he had been holding Octavia.

Octavia doesn’t wander off the nest. She presses herself against Stolas’ brood—it’s falling off, just like her downy fluff is being slowly replaced by feathers—and hisses whenever he leaves her sight. Stolas is weak, bloody, but victorious.

Two nights after waking up, as Octavia sleeps pressed against his thigh, Stolas tells Mr Butler about his vision.

“The stars whispered her name to me. They didn’t reveal her fate as it is, but as it will be. I saw glimpses of the possibilities and choices she can make, and each and every choice starts here, in this tower. They called her Starfire when the stars fell from the sky and the world wore a mourning black. That darkness felt alive, haunting, like the open maw of a giant wolf, and from that darkness she came with a crown of stars on her head. She was the only source of light, of warmth.”

“That is ominous.”

“Great destinies tend to be.” They are tragic, too. Stolas expects to spare her as much suffer as he can, taking the blows and punishment she could face. “She is my bones.”

“You have said that before, Your Highness.”

“She is my blood, my essence and my magic.”

Mr Butler observed him with sad, understanding eyes. “You won’t die, Stolas.”

“I have already had. Not here, not now, but my father has buried me hundreds of times.” There is no bitterness in his words now, no sadness. “I get to live more times than I get to die, but the stars reveal not the hows, not the whens, not the whys. I have this knowledge searing in my memory, but anything beyond that certainty of death and life scurries away from my hands, slippery, as if I tried to pick up water.”

The stay in silence for a while. Stolas breaks it, eyes far away as his arms shine in black and red.

“A day will come when you take my child out of this tower, not for long, not forever, but you will. It marks the beginning and the end. She is my bones, my blood, my essence and my magic. For a soul to live a soul has to die. Balance. There always must be balance.”

Mr Butler is old. So, so very old. Stolas doesn’t know how much. He was already old when Paimon placed Stolas in his arms and told him to tend to the new prince. Stolas is only nineteen years old, too young for the world to be done with him.

“I didn’t know.”

Mr Butlers enters the nest this time. Only this time. He pulls the young prince into and embrace and holds him as the child—he is a child, a tired and broken child—sobs a litany of “I’m sorry. I’m so, sorry. Please forgive me” until his voice gives out and only the eerie quietness remains.

“I am old, Stolas. Older than even some of your brothers and sisters. I have seen too many things; life has been kinder to me than to others of my kind. I prided myself serving your father, but it is my honour to carry your burdens in my back.”

“I don’t want this.”

“I believe you.”

“It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”

“Life is hardly fair, my child. It simply is and we have to live with the hand we are dealt; we make our choices to the best of our capabilities. We can only look forward and hope we are doing what is right, what we can live with.”

“Don’t leave. You promised.”

But promises were made to be broken, hasn’t Stolas learnt that?

-.-.-.-.-.-

Hell needs its prophet.

The grimoire sings, flashing bright purple, blue and pink. It burns the flesh off the hand of the hellhound who is holding it without warning, without Stolas being able to do anything but watch. The wails permeate the tower, the stench of charred flesh sickening. The hellhound is taken away and only Prince Vassago remains there, still like a statue.

“They say you were sick. Too sick to perform your duties. The king passed them down to us; there are less seers now. The stars are quiet. Hell is…” Vassago stops, swallows, and looks away. “I didn’t know, Stolas.”

Stolas holds the grimoire against his chest and the book thrums, a rhythmic melody that goes harmoniously with his own song. Every creature in existence—sinners, angels, demons—has a song and a symphony where they play. Few can hear that music, and even fewer can play more than one song. Stolas can hear them all, hum along, move flawlessly as if he belonged.

“Hell needs its prophet,” Stolas intones calmly, fully detached. He had found Vassago so handsome, so enticing. He had let the other prince held him once, at a party in his father’s estate. He had been severely scolded for his lack of decorum; now, he understood better. His father had known the nature of Stolas’ heart even then, when Stolas himself did not. “The grimoire won’t return to you willingly.”

“Stolas, please.”

They aren’t friends. Their budding relationship was cut off before it could germinate.

“I’m sorry.”

“You did nothing.” It’s both salvation and condemnation. “You will continue to do nothing; our story has diverted from its original path.”

“They won’t keep you here forever. They can’t.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

The stars talk to Stolas. They whisper their secrets, their warnings, their promises. They love him—love him, fiercely, possessively—and what they failed to teach others they see through with him.

Stolas records the prophecies. Painstakingly slowly.

There is blood in Stolas’ hands—dots of rich and black royal blood hidden under his clothes—and Stolas’ tongue. The grimoire is dull, dead in Vassago’s talons, and the stars have gone silent once more.

“I will come back. I promise.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

Vassago doesn’t come back.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Stolas turns twenty.

Another letter arrives, another set of books, and materials for experiments. Stolas stares at them with practised indifference. It’s been two years, now, since he started working with the wards. It occurs to him that maybe he has been working with the bad approach.

Stolas doesn’t open the letter written in his father’s neat penmanship.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Another full moon, another session of writing prophecies. Octavia adjusts to the routine, her eyes round and curious.

Stolas writes prophecies. Stolas dreams.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Octavia turns three years old.

Stolas wakes up with blood in his mouth.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Blue. The world is pale blue and white, snowy feathers. They haven’t seen each other in almost three years. Andrealphus is tall, lithe, and his face looks haunted. He stares at Stolas as if he had seen a ghost. Terrified.

“I knew you would come,” Stolas says with his eyes cast far away.

Andrealphus swallows. “The court says you died.”

“I did. Hundreds of times; the stars have told me all about my deaths.” Plural, that is important. “The grimoire has gone cold. It can’t hurt you anymore—none of you.”

The grimoire is dead for all purposes. It has been dead since Vassago came, since it burnt that hellhound, since it nuzzled against Stolas’ chest like a happy puppy returning to his legitimate owner.

“Come, Andre. I have been waiting for you.”

Chapter Text

The last time Andrealphus had been under the full weight of King Paimon’s scrutiny was when he took over his father’s title and duties—had to, really. The nightmares had been too much, too frequent, and his father’s mind too weak to put up with them for long—a year ago. If only that had been the only time, but Andrealphus has learnt that fate is rarely a merciful mistress.

Few would presume to read the king’s mind. Andrealphus is not one of those lucky few, not one of his children, but he has kept his head down, has done his father’s duties, and has kept Stella on a tight leash ever since her request to make her a Countess was not only rejected but cut her spending allowance in half. The marquis refuses to make more mistakes or allow his family to lose what little grace they have left.

“I have a mission for you, Andrealphus. If you accept it, you will be sworn into secrecy. If you reject it, your memory of this conversation will be erased. I want a willing participant, after all.”

The king doesn’t reveal more, waiting for his answer, and the pit of anxiety in Andrealphus’ stomach grows. He has been forced to choose caution over ambition in the face of his predecessor’s mistakes. What the king is asking must be important enough to warrant the secrecy, and if Andrealphus agrees it might lose the shackles on him and his sister. It might also be a punishment disguised as an honour, there is always that possibility, however the temptation is strong.

“Of course, Your Majesty. I am but your humble servant.”

“Indeed.”

Andrealphus says the words, swears his secrecy, gives over two feathers and watches as one burns in Paimon’s hand as the other neatly takes its place next to a bright red feather before both disappear in the air. Has someone else been tasked with this mission and failed? Is it risky? Unease blooms in his chest, but he has no time to panic, not really, when the king produces a familiar book and sets it on the desk.

The grimoire of the earth and sky. Stolas’ grimoire.

“You will take the grimoire to Stolas and assists him on his rituals for the full moon. Stolas isn’t to leave your sight and if he does for any reason, the grimoire shall stay with you. Your task is of utmost importance to Hell’s functioning. As you may be aware, last year was rather rough on all of us.”

Andrealphus grimaces. He understands. They haven’t recovered from their shortage of food since the last Harvest Moon was only partially cursed; royals died trying to complete the ritual, their powers dried out and their bodies were only piles of bones; dust, when they touched them. It was when the rumours of Stolas’ supposed death started. Why else would the prince shirk such an important duty? Andrealphus had to keep Stella indoors for months after the several attempts on her life.

With Stolas alive, the theories about his sickness seem more likely. Or they would if the king looked worried, which he doesn’t. Paimon is expectant, as if he knew Andrealphus would ask questions.

“I rejoice that our prince is feeling well enough to perform his duties again. The rumours of his death have been rather worrisome, baseless as they are.”

There were no funeral rites, no mourning period, no grand announcement about anything—another heir, or an already existing heir taking over Stolas’ duties. There’s been nothing for two years. Stolas isn’t just any prince; he is the son of the king. His death wouldn’t be forgotten. The king laughs, a belly laughter that shakes the room and reminds Andrealphus no one truly knows what Paimon thinks.

“Of course you do.” Paimon says with a knowing glint in his red eyes. “All rumours point at your sister as the culprit behind Stolas’ death or sickness. How is she, by the way? She hasn’t come to court in nearly a year. I heard negotiations for her hand have been difficult.”

Andrealphus schools his expression into a blank mask, not giving away the irritation and the fear Paimon’s words have brought. He has been so careful with the information leaving his estate and so few people know that he’s been negotiating a marriage for Stella. One of her intendeds could have said something, of course, but they were all minor lords—and what a shame is that, to hand his baby sister to a man with so much less power and influence than himself only because everyone who fits her status has refused her hand, calling her a murderer—with no voice in court. It is still a better option than Paimon spying on them. A less terrifying one.

“She is taking it hard,” Andrealphus offers. Stella is depressed. Heartbroken. He has never seen her so diminished; some days he struggles with getting her out of bed, others he is grateful she manages to visit the garden without fear. “I will send her to the countryside with our mother soon. Some fresh air might do her some good. Thank you for your concern, my king.”

Paimon nods. “As per her hand…?”

“Nothing concrete. It may be good to postpone it for a year, give her space to heal. She is only twenty, after all, there is time.”

They had married too young—Stolas and Stella—and had a child even younger. Andrealphus is twenty-five and hasn’t even started looking for means to conceive an heir or a spouse. Looking back with fresh eyes, he regrets Stella’s marriage. It didn’t give her the happiness and security he had wished for her.

“It is my hope that once His Highness starts making an appearance again the rumours settle. The court will be more at ease knowing he has made a full recovery.”

“There seems to be a misunderstanding. The knowledge of Stolas is what you have sworn to keep in secret. You will take his grimoire to the tower in the palace, assist him to complete the ritual, and bring the grimoire back. Stolas can’t leave the tower, and you won’t speak of his existence.”

“Your Majesty?” Andrealphus stutters for the first time, confused.

“Allow me to be clear, Andrealphus. There are hundreds of you but only one Stolas, only one with his power, and since my son refuses to sire a proper heir and your sister failed so utterly at the only duty she had, he has been confined in the tower for his own protection. You will do well to keep your mouth shut and be grateful the only punishment your family endured was your father’s madness.”

Andrealphus swallows the plea for Stella’s reputation. He knows better than to challenge the king in favour of the one he sees as the culprit for his son’s lack of heir and now for his apparent imprisonment. Andrealphus won’t commit the mistake his father committed. His mother and sister only have him as source of power and protection.

“Of course, Your Majesty. You were graceful and merciful with our family, sparing us for our father’s treasonous words. Allow me to serve you. It will be my honour to assist Prince Stolas in his duties.”

Paimon’s looming shadow retreats, and the air is less charged. Death still haunts this place.

“This privilege will be the highest honour you will ever have, Andrealphus. Now leave. The grimoire will be delivery to you on the day you leave for the tower and be warned that if you try to use it your life will be forfeit.”

“I understand, Your Majesty.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

Stella is awake when Andrealphus gets home. She is dressed in a simple baby blue dress and her feathers are preened. She’s staring at the window while one of the maids is painting her talons and the other massages her shoulders. They curtsey at him and immediately go back to tend to Stella. His sister looks away from the window for only a moment and takes in the sight of her older brother.

“You came back,” Stella says the world quietly. It sounds like relief.

Stella didn’t use to be quiet. Andrealphus remembers how only a year ago she was vibrating with life, hopeful to inherit Andrealphus’ lesser title and become a royal herself instead of just the sister of Marquiss. The king’s refusal had sting, but she hadn’t given up; then, her close friends started distancing themselves as the rumours of her involvement in whatever ailed Prince Stolas grew in strength, baseless as they were, as if an external sourced fed the flames and logic and lack of proof weren’t enough to suffocate that inferno.

The king’s silence hadn’t helped them. No one had seen even a glimpse of Prince Stolas or his daughter in two years, but everyone knew Stella and he had been married, and then there was an annulment. Annulments didn’t happen in the Goetia family.

Andrealphus doesn’t know, even to this day, why the first assassination attempt took him by surprised. He doesn’t know why the execution of those imps who hurt her hasn’t deterred others from trying. All he knows is that Stella is terrified, isolated, and he can’t give her what she needs.

“Of course, Stella,” he says as if it was logical, although he understands her fear. King Paimon hasn’t publicly stripped them from their rank, but the king’s indifference to them hasn’t one unperceived to other royals. “Have you eaten, sister?”

“I dreamed with the girl again.” Stella says instead, turning back to the window. Her reflection has a troubled face with dull, wide eyes staring into nothing. “She would be three this year. She had my eyes; it was all she had from me, everything else was Stolas. I couldn’t love her. She was too foreign.”

Andrealphus saw Octavia twice. The first time when she was introduced to the whole court of the Ars Goetia, proudly declared a princess of the blood. She had been a ball of downy fluff, and swollen eyes in a small face. Stolas had broken protocol that day, challenged the king in ways not even his older siblings had done, and yet had been rewarded. It should have been a sign.

Octavia was older when Stella brought her to the family home and Andrealphus travelled from his estate for that visit. He had commissioned a chest with a few toys for her, every single one skilfully crafted with the best materials in all of Pride. She had cried for a full day, hissing in hunger yet refusing food from the servants. Shivering with her downy fluff and her clothes offering no comfort—Stella had looked so terrified, so awkward trying to soothe a child that so evidently disliked her. Stars—literal stars—had shone in Octavia’s eyes when Stolas arrived the next day; she ate, she pressed herself firmly against his brood, and she chittered happily as if she needed nothing else in the world.

“Sometimes I see Stolas, too.” This she says with emotion and her eyes flash, suddenly alive. “I didn’t kill him. He is alive, Andre, and he is punishing me.”

Andrealphus rushes to her side, glaring at the maids until it’s only the two of them. He hugs her instead, holding her as if he was afraid she could disappear. Stella is right in what she says. Stolas is alive. It changes nothing for them. As long as the court believes she killed him and his daughter, as long as the king’s silence condemns them, nothing will change for them.

“I promise you, sister, he isn’t punishing you. No one is. No one would dare.”

“Then why did they all leave!” Stella screams, full of anger, and hurt. She’s practically vibrating in Andrealphus’ arms. “Why all my letters to my friends return to me unanswered! Nisha married months ago, and I wasn’t invited! I outrank her! She is nothing but the daughter of a lowly president. Liora is engaged! Do you know how I learnt of it? Voxtagram. Her face is plastered all over Voxtagram and Vee-tweet with her fiancé by her side and when I called her to demand an explanation she dared to hung up on me! They were my bridesmaids!”

As much as this display hurts Andrealphus, it elates him as well. This is the closest Stella has come to show she is alive and not a ghost haunting Andrealphus’ estate.

“They are disloyal friends, Stella. It reflects poorly on them, not on you, and for their feeble hearts they will be punished in time, starting with that ungrateful little rat, Nisha.” Andrealphus promised her sweetly. “Liora will take more time. Her grandfather is quite influential, but even Marquis Leraje has made his good number of enemies.”

“I elevated all of them! I even introduced Liora to her fiancé!”

Andrealphus tuts. “Did you?”

Stella pushes him away, suddenly deflated once more. She is sullen and her hands shake, but her voice sounds infinitely tired. “It was at one of those soirées Stolas and I had to interact; he brought one of his nephews to chaperon and I brought Liora. His nephew brought along a friend, Tallis, and he and Liora became infatuated with each other. I encouraged her to pursuit him. If I had known she would repay me so poorly, I would have crushed that budding feeling.”

“I see.” Andrealphus frowns in distaste. Stella had facilitated the union, but chances were those two would have ended up meeting without her input.

‘This is a good lesson, little sister,’ Andrealphus thinks bitterly. There are no true friends in politics, only allies and those whose loyalty you buy in coin or deed. Marquis Leraje is a well-known whore, fathering more bastards with lowborn plebeians than can be accounted for, but he is also a powerful demon and a long-time friend and business partner of Duke Buné. Now it seems they would also join families with the union between his granddaughter and Buné’s great-grandson.

“King Paimon summoned me today to give me a task of great importance and secrecy. I believe this will help our family. If others see that the king is granting us his favour, they will fall in line.”

This is mere speculation. Andrealphus doesn’t know if the king expects him to aid Stolas multiple times, if this was given to him as the privilege he claimed or as reminder that he and his sister are only alive to do Stolas’ biding. Be as it is, he can turn this in his favour. He is intelligent, resourceful, has made some powerful allies and a whisper here and there of the king showing favour to him without being too explicit would be a good start.

“The king hates us." Stella says. “He never forgave father for insulting Stolas.”

Andrealphus presses his beak in a tight line. Their father had condemned the family with his arrogance and as if that hadn’t been enough, as if that hadn’t satisfied his need to dictate his family’s fate, he had dared to ruin them and sunk them further into shame by taking his own life, destroying any credibility, trustworthiness and power their march had possessed. Andrealphus had inherited ruins and ashes, their subject’s whispers of doom and curses, the heavy eyes of the court as they compared him to his predecessor, and the indifference of a king who had passed the mistakes of the father onto the shoulders of the son.

Andrealphus isn’t naïve. He is aware that there isn’t love lost between Paimon and his family, but indifference is preferable to open contempt. Indifference can be turned into grudging acceptance, into favour; contempt can’t be reversed as easily and Paimon’s word is law.

“Father was out of line with his words. Whatever opinion he had for the prince, whatever feelings, he should have kept them to himself and negotiate a compromise. The king wouldn’t have forced an annulment if father had behaved.”

“At least he tried to defend me,” Stella spits bitterly. She pushes him further away, standing from the plush armchair in front of the window. When she turns, she thunders, all anger, bitterness and hurt clear as day in her pretty face. She looks so much like the child he adored, but her words are as a poignant as the blade of a blessed dagger. “Even my frigid husband spoke on my behalf! Stolas defended me, physically placed me in safety! What did you even do? You stayed there, silent, letting the king calling me a failure, a common whore in all but name! Our father was an imbecile but even he didn’t let the king speak of me as he pleased!”

She breathes heavily as her anger pushes her into action. Stella lacks magic, but she is a Goetia, and her strength isn’t something to underestimate. She grabs the nearest object and throws it at the door—the perfume bottle shatters, a loud crash sound followed by the overwhelming scent of sandalwood—as if it had personally offended her.

Andrealphus stares at his sister in shock. He has known of her violent tendencies, but she had never turned them on him. He swallows as the shame drowns him; she is right. He didn’t defend her. It wasn’t his place, he was only there as courtesy, but that doesn’t lessen them guilt for making her abandoned.

“I have apologised a hundred times for not speaking on your behalf and it has done nothing; I won’t apologise a hundred and one.”

“You will never make it up to me, Andre.”

“I know, but I no longer will try. Look at yourself, Stella. All our misfortune comes from father’s words. He didn’t speak on your behalf, he did defend you, he was defending his own honour, his word, and the house prestige.”

“Father was protecting my future!”

“Father burnt your future to ashes. He didn’t want the divorce not because he cared about you—he cared for none of us—and was afraid you were left destitute. He cared because he had paid Paimon too much money and many of our business deals, prestige and power depended on that marriage.”

“He still tried…!”

“No, you will listen this time!” Andrealphus raises his voice, and she flinches, surprised at the sharpness of his tone. “Stolas had already calmed his father’s temper when he came to your defence! Stolas implied you hadn’t been deceitful, and it was Stolas’ judgment what made Paimon suggest he had a mistress carrying his egg that the two of you would raise. It was an indignity, and one I would loathe for you to suffer, but it would have saved us so much. Had father not insulted Stolas to Paimon’s face, our reputation wouldn’t have suffered, and minor lords wouldn’t think they are our equals. He gave Paimon an exit on the marriage! You had given Stolas a child! If he divorced you two after announcing Octavia as an Ars Goetia, after you had done everything correctly, the court would have eaten Stolas alive, placing all the blame at his feet! Father’s words allowed Paimon to sever relations arguing bad faith and now you are seen as the mastermind of all evil things! Is that the defence you want? A defence that will have you murdered in your sleep!?”

She is silent, speechless. For once Andrealphus doesn’t care. For once, he has shared his mind with someone—even if that someone is the little sister he has coddled all her life—and it feels…freeing.

Breathing deeply, he continues in a much calmer manner:

“I think a change of scenery will do you some good. I’ve written to mother, and she is thrilled to see you. You will be staying with her in Wrath.”

“I would rather die than staying with her in that shithole place.”

“Then sleep with your window open, sister, because this decision is final. You leave in three weeks, pack your belongings or ask her to buy you things there. It is your choice.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

The days following his falling-out with Stella, Andrealphus writes letters. He hates every minute of it. Letters required too much time and effort, they are slow and inefficient, but most official matters are still expected to be done by hand. He isn’t in a position where he can demand a higher ranking royal to simply do his bidding and, if they insist on having him penning letters, he must do so.

On the days he isn’t writing letters, he goes over their budget and stock for the winter season with his butler. The numbers aren’t good, but they could be worse. If they are conscious and manage their resources carefully, not over expending, the reserve will see them through for the winter months. It is the only good thing about their partial unpopularity, they were able to save food last year and the march didn’t suffer as deeply as other royals’ lands.

“I delivered your letter to Prince Seir asking for a renegotiation on the deal of wood, carbon and the hide of the hellbears living in his woods and waited for his answer, my lord. Here it is,” the butler offers the missives.

Andrealphus arches an eyebrow. “Why are here two missives?”

“Prince Vassago was visiting his cousin and asked for a letter to be penned for you on his behalf, my lord.”

Andrealphus has no business with Vassago despite their domains brief interaction. Their lands are on different rings and the red prince never expressed any interest in him. This suddenness is…intriguing, and it comes when there is no time to lose. But he can’t afford to offend another prince, especially when he needs his deal with Seir to continue working smoothly.

“I will take lunch in my office. Finish the inspection and bring me the report,” he orders as he leaves with the letters.

Andrealphus spends the next following hour staring at Vassago’s letter. The food grows cold, unappetizing, and his hands tremble.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Against his best judgment, Andrealphus informs Stella they will have a visitor at the end of the week. Their interactions have been limited since his fit of temper, and as much as he claims he simply is busy with winter preparations, the truth of the matter is that he is avoiding his sister. He has done much for Stella in the last two years, both for her security and happiness as for the betterment of their status. Losing his temper, freeing as it was at the times, shames him.

Stella is dressed in a creamy dress with gold accents and jewellery to match. Every she is wearing is new and exquisitely crafted.

“Have you changed your mind about banning me to the countryside?” She doesn’t lift her eyes from the soup, her movements measured and regal. “Why are you telling me this, Andre?”

“I’m not banning you, Stella,” Andrealphus sighs. He tells himself that she speaking to him is a win even if her words are aimed to hurt him. “Prince Vassago and I will discuss some mutually beneficial business. I thought you would like the opportunity to play host for a few hours after our meeting has concluded.”

“Stolas’ sidepiece?”

“You will be careful of how you speak about him. Our situation is precarious as it is.”

Stella shrugs. She has never cared about politics. She is charming, but her interests are limited and rather fixed. She can be the perfect host and gather the best gossip, but the slightest drop of something substantial will elude her.

“Fine. I will host.”

“Thank you, darling sister.”

The rest of the week goes in a flurry of activity. Stella has the entire staff working to make the estate look presentable. Everything is polished and sparkling. The menu is carefully selected from the best refreshments to be delivered by the butler to Andrealphus’ office, to the dinner four-course meal, to the dessert and tea. Stella never had the opportunity to host a great party on Stolas’ dime and she is taking her fill.

Vassago praises the refreshments. The small shrimps that inhabit the frozen lakes of Andrealphus eastern march are an expensive delicacy that only the wealthiest of the Goetia could afford; it is part of Andrealphus’ pride, and he makes a pleased noise when Vassago offers the proper compliment. His manners are exquisite, his voice a pleasant cadence made for grand speeches, and his conversation is light and enjoyable. A thoroughly pleasant company.

Why has this prince of hell sought a meeting with him? His letter had stated a desire to discuss some business, insinuated between lines that Andrealphus possessed something the prince found of interest and, in exchange for his serviced, he could persuade Seir to lower his punishing demands. Not in so many words, obviously, and although he presumed good nature, no one truly acted so selflessly. It unnerves him not knowing what Vassago wants and how much it will cost him.

“May I speak frankly, my lord?” Vassago sets his glass of strong liquor to his side, cunning eyes behind his glasses. “The game of chase can only be so fun, and sadly I lack the patience for it today.”

Andrealphus nods. He much rather to cut straight to business, too. “Please, do.”

“Rumour hast it that you will deliver a special cargo in the king’s name for the pink moon,” he pauses to gauge Andrealphus’ reaction. “Don’t be so surprised, my lord, I am an Ars Goetia of many talents, however little I use them. You don’t have the book with you yet.”

“Spying the private conversations of the king is treasonous, Your Highness,” Andrealphus says carefully even, studying Vassago’s face. “How bold of you to speak so.”

“I did ask if I could speak frankly,” Vassago laughs. “I didn’t spy our king. My role is to know hidden things; I’m an archivist, Andrealphus, and you are now where I was a year ago. I took that blessed book to the prince as well.”

“So?” Andrealphus arches an eyebrow. “What do you want me to do or say?”

“I committed a mistake. I was too enthusiastic about speaking to the prince and not of doing the king’s bidding. The king won’t allow anyone sympathetic to the prince to visit him. It’s a risk. You, on the other hand, have all the reason to do this for the king and hate the prince after the failed marriage to your sister. You will do this job more than once and this is why I reached out. I need you to deliver a letter to the prince for me.”

“Why would I facilitate communication between you if that is against the king’s wishes? How does this benefit me? I could lose everything if word reaches the wrong demon.”

“Because Stolas has never misinterpreted a single prophecy. When you see him work you will understand what I am talking about, but for a more practical approach, just remember how many casters were required last year to perform the Harvest Moon Festival and they could only keep the skies open for a short amount of time before dying. Stolas has been performing that ritual since he was fourteen.”

“That clarifies nothing. Yes, Stolas has powerful magic, so do many others.”

Vassago breathes and exhales. “I can’t say I understand everything Stolas speaks when he is in trance, but I can tell you that he saved Octavia for more than mere paternal love. Something is coming and when it does I want to be on the winning team.”

Andrealphus narrows his eyes in a pensive frown. He remembers Paimon’s words from two years ago, when he and his family were summoned to his office: “One of you, or all of you, have lied to me in some degree, and all of you, with the only exception of my son, are disposable.” Could it be that those words meant something deeper than he had first thought? Vassago seems to believe Stolas is special, that he will do something important. Andrealphus’ gift for prophecy is limited, shorter-term in comparison to many others, and he doesn’t have extra help like Vassago does.

“If I deliver this letter, what will you give me?”

Vassago smiles. “I heard your sister is having marital issues. I think I can help with that.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

Andrealphus doesn’t know what Vassago did or said, but he knows Seir’s acceptance to renegotiate their agreement is Vassago’s doing. The leopard prince had refused to change their terms in his first letter, and only two days ago he agreed to meet Andrealphus a week after the full moon.

They didn’t have to meet for a second time, although Vassago insists to deliver his letter personally to Andrealphus. ‘It’s one less risk, you know?’  he said with a smug smile. Andrealphus is well away of that. The only reason why he doesn’t snap at the prince, besides the obvious, is Stella’s cautious curiosity toward the man Vassago brought with him.

Boaz is in his mid-twenties, much like Andrealphus, and good-looking. His speech is smooth and proper—not too arrogant, not too boring, not too much of anything, really—and he’s been asking the correct questions to engage with Stella. He compliments her often, showing interest in what she says and flaunting his own wealth when it’s pertinent. This is a dance, and he does it flawlessly; Stella is taking with how he looks at her.

Andrealphus isn’t as convinced. Stella’s dowry is significative, and the man could become heir apparent to Andrealphus’ march if he dies without issue. It is a good deal in theory.

“They seem happy,” Vassago says.

“They barely know each other,” Andrealphus snorts.

“It isn’t so different from her marriage to Stolas. They barely saw each other and the only time they spoke properly was at their vows exchange.”

Andrealphus hums. Vassago takes this as a cue to continue, speaking more quietly despite the good distance separating them from the young couple.

“It was always going to end. Now she at least has a choice.”

“Does she?” Andrealphus turns to look at him. “You are offering something very generous for a simple delivery. Nobles think she’s blessed and wish nothing to do with her. In an entire year, I haven’t managed to get her a husband. I find it too coincidental that this lord seems so willing.”

“Everyone is aware that Earl Merritt is at death’s door. He never recovered from his injuries, even if he has lived for longer than we expected. Boaz is conditioned to marry to inherit the earldom. Your sister is a good candidate if he ignores the rumours. You are without an heir and seem unwilling to settle down; your sister gives him the possibility to inherit a march. He has much to gain from this match, and Stella would gain security and a husband that has a good reputation and serves under a generous prince.”

“You understand this sounds as a subtle threat, don’t you?” They have done with formalities at Vassago’s insistence. “My sister under your rule.”

“Only if she agrees to marry. She can always say no, and I will accept that,” Vassago shrugs again. “I don’t do threats, Andrealphus. I am not our sweetling Stolas with his soft heart and patient demeanour.”

No. Vassago certainly is not.

“If not a threat, then what it is?”

“A gift to cement this alliance.”

“Ah.” Andrealphus breathes and schools his face. He has shown his hand too easily. He will do unspeakable things for Stella, even if he isn’t above marrying her off if that is beneficial as well. “Quite generous.”

“Of course.” Vassago smiles then. “If a future earl doesn’t please her, I have a viscount to offer. Although I think she will choose him. They are well-matched.”

Andrealphus nods. Vassago’s letter to Stolas feels heavy. For something so small, so insignificant in size and weight, it carries too many consequences. Then again, he has little choice.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Stella seems lighter when she leaves. She is back on speaking terms with him, at least.

“I will return before winter settles,” Stella states more than questions. “I have an invitation for Lord Boaz’s youngest sister’s party.”

It’s a bold movement, yet a well-placed one. Stella is determined to return to high society gatherings. Andrealphus would worry more if this weren’t Vassago’s court. Their tentative alliance seems genuine, as in Vassago is just as determined to contact Stolas.

“Yes, Stella. Give my greetings to mother.”

Stella huffs. “If I must.”

“You are a Goetia, little sister. All we ever do is endure with dignity,” Andrealphus scolds her lightly. She is as frustrated with their mother’s coldness as Andrealphus was with their father’s impulsiveness. Some hearts burn, some are frozen landscapes.

He waits for the car to leave the premises. The full moon will be upon them in a matter of days and Andrealphus feels an unbecoming trepidation. It is just a delivery, to Stolas of all people, someone who trembled at the slightest scolding. Even if two years have passed, he has a lifetime of knowing Stolas’ weak heart.

-.-.-.-.-.-

There is something wrong with the grimoire. It dawned on Andrealphus when he saw it in Paimon’s office but now the feeling is more intense, like the type of noise only you can hear, a constant beep that no one else perceives, but reversed. It’s a deafening silence, an absence so glaring that it disrupts a familiar symphony. Andrealphus was never one to hear ‘the music’ as Stolas often put it, but now it seems all he can feel, can hear, can taste, is that nagging sensation that the world is off its axis.

He tries to levitate the grimoire, pure instinct preventing him from touching it. Nothing happens. The magic surrounds the grimoire, it shines, and then the spell breaks. The grimoire stays on the desk, unperturbed, but mostly silent. Andrealphus tries a different spell, then another, and every one of them bounces off. When he finally resigns himself to touch the book, its surface is deadly cold. It almost burns to the touch.

“The fuck,” the crass word leaves his mouth, his shock too great. What has been done to the book? Was it Vassago’s doing or Paimon’s?

He places the grimoire on a satchel and leaves for Stolas’ palace. It is too late for regrets. It’s been too late since his father opened his blessed mouth and ruined them all.

-.-.-.-.-.-

He hadn’t expected Stolas to be at the other end of the door, waiting for him. There is something…different about him.

“I know you would come,” Stolas states. Have his eyes always had that faraway look? They see through Andrealphus, as if he wasn’t there, as if he was unimportant and all Stolas could see right now were the stars and the moon bright in the sky.

His voice is more disturbing than his eyes. It sounds distant, dreamily, and his words stick to Andrealphus’ skin. It’s overwhelming.

Andrealphus swallows. He imagined this scenario on his way to the palace. Stolas, fidgeting and nervous. He would say something scathing, blame him for everything that happened, mock him and taunt him for being just as trapped now as he was before. He had expected something tangible, someone that could be hurt. When he speaks next, it’s not to hurt Stolas. He says the only thing that comes to his screaming mind, because Stolas is there but he isn’t.

“The court says you died.”

“I did. Hundreds of times; the stars have told me all about my deaths.” Plural, that is important. “The grimoire has gone cold. It can’t hurt you anymore—none of you.”

He clearly didn’t expect that answer. It startles him. Hundreds of times? Deaths? What is he talking about? Has the isolation driven him to madness? Is this why the grimoire is unresponsive? ‘Cold’ as he calls it.

“Come, Andre. I have been waiting for you.”

And Andrealphus doesn’t want to follow him. He wants out. He needs out. He follows Stolas instead. He has little choice. They climb the stairs in silence. The steps narrow and slippery. Thy stop on the third floor and Stolas takes him to an open living space with all the amenities a prince could wish for. The fabrics are of the best quality, the place smelled of lavender, and wherever Andrealphus looked at he found luxury.

“’Tola!” an acute voice shrieks from somewhere, and soon Andrealphus sees the girl barrelling against the prince. She has Stella’s eyes.

Andrealphus swallows. He hadn’t expected to see the girl. He had expected Stolas to conduct this as a business meeting and not a family reunion.

Stolas picks up the girl and nuzzles their faces together. “Daddy, my sweet Starfire,” he corrects her gently, in a voice that is soft and full of warmth, and adoration, and not even that makes him look more real. “Why are you out of the nest, little one? Are you giving Tee troubles again?”

Octavia stares at him. Her eyes are too big on her tiny face. “Noo,” she whines. “Daddy come to bath.”

No sooner has Octavia spoken, a harried imp comes running. Stolas chuckles, nuzzling the girl’s face again. “I’m sorry, my little one. Daddy has to work tonight. Can you go with Tee?”

Octavia pouts. “No work! You say no work! Tee, tell daddy no work. Daddy, come to bath. You promised. The story, daddy!”

Andrealphus watches the scene with a frozen expression. ‘Tee, Paimon’s butler, apologises to Stolas without sparing Andrealphus a single glance, as if he wasn’t important despite his title.

“Stolas has to work, Via.” The imp says. “I’m sure he will finish quickly and come to finish the story.”

Stolas has to work. Andrealphus is shaken. What sort of relationship that imp has with the prince to believe he is an equal to his betters? He always took Paimon’s butler for someone efficient and discrete, good for the role he had. Now he isn’t so sure.

“My tummy hurts, daddy! No work!”

“Via, Stolas needs…”

“It’s fine.” Stolas mutters. “Andrealphus, would you mind waiting?”

“I do.” Andrealphus forces himself out of his stupor. “This ritual is important. I’m sure your butler can do his job and handle the girl while you complete the pink moon ritual. I’m sure your father laid out his expectations for the night.”

If Andrealphus had expected Stolas to cower and do what he said, he found himself disappointed. Stolas shrugs, and cradling his daughter to his chest, he chitters and chirrups playfully. The girl giggles loudly, almost shrieking, and that is also Stella when she was a little girl herself. Andrealphus swallow slightly, unprepared to be reminded of his sister.

“All rituals are important, which means none of them is,” Stolas drones. He turns his head and fixes Andrealphus with an intense look, all signs of playfulness gone. “If my father had any expectation, he would have come himself. Now, Octavia is distressed so I will put her to bed. You, Andrealphus, can wait here until I finish, or can ask Mr Butler for refreshment and I am sure he will bring you something if you are polite.”

“Stolas!” Andrealphus is shaking. Shaking. All rituals are important, so none of them is? What in the seven circles has got into him! “I will…”

“Have you ever been in prison, Andrealphus?”

“Of course not!”

“No, I imagine you haven’t. It is a funny thing, when your choices are taken from you for the first time. What will you do, Andre? Inform my father I was difficult? He won’t care if you have to beg, or wait, or be offended so long the ritual is done. Will you then, perhaps, leave and tell my father I refused to perform my duties? Father may scold me, but what will happen to you and your reputation if you can’t even convince meek Stolas of doing something? I imagine, you wouldn’t be very useful for my father.”

Andrealphus reels back, as if slapped, and stares at Stolas in a new life. “Are you threatening me?”

Stolas laughs. He laughs, and it is all Paimon.  Andrealphus would have never made such comparison.

“Why would I do that? You can’t harm me, Andre. The years where I trembled at the sight of you and your sister have come and gone, it’s a chapter closed.”

“Your father never said I couldn’t ‘convince’ you.”

“No, but I assume Vassago would be quite upset if you do. I’ve told you, Andre, I knew you would come. I have been waiting for you. You are here on other demons’ behalf and not on your own, as per usual. Your father’s biding, your sister’s biding, my father’s biding, and now even someone who has no authority over you. We aren’t so different, are we?” Stolas smiles and it’s a sharp thing, pointedly and all-knowing. “Hell needs its prophet,” he says and summons the grimoire to him. It sings in Stolas’ hands. “I won’t take much.”

Stolas doesn’t wait for an answer.

-.-.-.-.-.-

The exchange leaves Andrealphus shaken to his core. Some change was to be expected, nothing ever remains the same, but such a visceral one…? He doesn’t recognise Stolas.

“You seem troubled, my lord. Could I offer you some chamomile tea and a light meal? His Highness will take some time to put the princess to bed,” the imp says primly, as if not two minutes ago he had addressed Stolas so disrespectfully.

Andrealphus glares at the duplicitous creature. “What is your game, imp? Do you only remember manners and your proper place now?”

The imp dares to look him up and down, unimpressed, as if Andrealphus was an unruly child. “No tea or refreshments, then.”

“Do you dare to talk back? Who do you think you are to make those decisions? You will bring me whatever I ask for.” Andrealphus narrows his eyes. “Clearly Stolas is all words; he can’t even keep his help in line.”

“Apologies, Lord Andrealphus, but my only duty is to care for and protect Prince Stolas. Since you need nothing from me, I will return to where I am needed. Please stay here and don’t wander off, the tower doesn’t take well to outsiders.”

Andrealphus is left alone again, the mundane creature leaving through the same door Stolas did. He scolds himself for losing his temper; the imp was irrelevant, but Andrealphus had needed a point to centre himself, to gather his thoughts and make sense of Stolas. The grimoire had sung in his hands, a warmth little song as if it was coming home after so long. As if the magic within wasn’t depleted.

There is also the matter of Stolas knowing about his conversation with Vassago. Had Vassago told Stolas he would contact him through someone new? Then again, Vassago never revealed how he knew Paimon had chosen Andrealphus for this task. Stolas had also said ‘I knew you were coming, Andre,’ not ‘I knew someone was coming.’ Is Stolas’ sight that far-reaching? He used to call Stolas ‘the last link between heaven and earth’ but every one of his teachers had used those words to speak of Paimon’s youngest son. Andrealphus used the words to enthral Stella with her husband-to-be, but he never took real interest in Stolas’ gifts.

It dawns on him that he doesn’t know the full reach of Stolas’ power. He minimised his achievements, as many other Ars Goetia did, because Stolas refused to play the game. He was soft, malleable, and Andrealphus saw Stella play with Stolas as she did with any of her dolls. Surely someone with true power wouldn’t allow himself to be manhandled.

Only now, Vassago’s words, along with the feeling of unease, of knowing himself watched, remind him that Stolas has been performing the Harvest Moon Festival since he was fourteen. Without help. Last year, the fifteen demons tasked with performing the ritual died. Five of those fifteen had been Ars Goetia, all of them with heirs old enough to take over their duties, as if it had been known they wouldn’t come back. Knowing Paimon, he probably did it on purpose.

Lost in his thoughts, Andrealphus is caught unaware of Stolas’ return. Stolas had always used blacks and greys slacks and waistcoats with some dark purple or burnt burgundy accents or accessories. He always covered his body from neck to toes and his expression was aloof and regal. Now, the prince is dressed in a scandalous outfit, highlighting just how much he has changed. The romper reaches his thigh, leaving most of his legs uncovered; the ruffle cuffs are short as well, and he isn’t wearing his usual black gloves. The romper is a light shade of blue, almost pale enough to be confused for white, and a see-through gossamer layer on top that glimmers in gold, as if small stars had been trapped there.

The outfit is completely different from Andrealphus’ proper dark blue waistcoat over a lighter tunic.

“I assume you weren’t polite,” Stolas says with a tilt to his voice, sitting across Andrealphus. “Octavia didn’t recognise you.”

The last thing Andrealphus wants is to chit-chat about the girl, but it’s been made more than clear that he is following Stolas’ schedule. At least he looks more real now, tangible, even if his clothes are flowing as if they were an illusion.

“She saw me twice, one of those times she was barely old enough to leave the nest. I would be surprised if she had recognised me. Don’t tell me you actually expected that.”

Stolas hums, eyes staring somewhere behind Andrealphus. “No, but she used to ask for her mother. Sometimes, she still does. She has memories of how Stella looks like, and I assure you that I haven’t shown my daughter a photo of your sister.”

Andrealphus would take offence if he didn’t agree that this was for the better. The way Stolas says ‘my daughter’ is possessive. A warning. “No one will take your daughter.”

“No.” Stolas agrees. “It still makes me curious what she knows.”

It is curious. Andrealphus doesn’t tell him that Stella dreams of the girl. A small voice inside him warns him not to bring his sister into Stolas’ life. It will do more harm than good, it will benefit no one. Stella doesn’t love the girl and Andrealphus is indifferent to her, but Stolas loves his precautionary heir. Love is an irrational yet powerful emotion, and Andrealphus doesn’t know how this Stolas will behave.

“Children are impressionable.”

Stolas hums again.

“What are we waiting for, Stolas? This conversation is pointless. Are you on a power trip? Do you want to shove in my face that I have to do your biding too?” He finally asks. “We both dislike each other, so why delay the inevitable and force each other to under this torture?”

“I knew you would come when Vassago didn’t return. I rarely dream, Andre. You know how unreliable dreams are. How fickle.”

Andrealphus swallows. Prophets rarely dream. They aren’t seers, they see things that will come and what matters is how they interpret that vision; what is spoken is what will happen. A dreaming prophet is unheard off, especially one who sees omens from in the stars. Andrealphus pulls his hands close to his chest, feeling suddenly too vulnerable in the open space.

“I dreamed of a snowy landscape and a bright blue sky; you were fleeing across the barren lands, running to the tower, and behind you looming shadows chased you. They tore you to pieces, yet your blood didn’t paint the snow black. Every night I dreamed of you, there was one more shadow and you got one step closer to the tower. A few days ago, the dream changed. You were wearing red feathers, they shone under the sunlight and burnt the shadows away, like reflecting light on a mirror. And now, here you are.”

“Vassago,” Andrealphus mutters. He ignores who is behind those shadows. It could be anyone—a jealous lord of higher standing, the gossipers who take pleasure in tormenting Stella, enemies he has angered in his way to rebuild his reputation—and he feels stupid for being so naïve. “Vassago knew I was chosen by your father. He approached me first, unprompted. He wanted—wants to speak with you. Those shadows…”

“Don’t,” Stolas’ voice is harsh and sharp, a command in his voice like he has never heard before. “Andre, I don’t ‘dislike’ you. I don’t hate you. I’m telling you what I saw because you are here, but what my dream means…don’t ask me to interpret it.”

Andrealphus is smart enough to read between the lines. Stolas’ dream is safe to share, it’s raw and unfiltered, not yet decreed and set in stone. He has never wanted to know his future nor his fortune, even if now it feels essential for him to know, to prepare himself.

“Vassago is not a threat,” Stolas continue in a softer voice, apologetic in his expression. “Whatever offer he made you was sincere.”

“And you expect me to believe you didn’t put him up to this?”

Stolas laughs. “I don’t rule the heart, Andre. You are far too suspicious; offering you kindness is a sure way to be at odds with you. Mutually beneficial allies suit you best. Don’t forget Vassago can find hidden treasures.”

“Why tell me all this? What is your aim, Stolas?”

“Octavia.”

“The girl?”

“Yes. She needs a suitable teacher.”

“I can’t teach your daughter.”

“No. I want someone whose authority supersedes my father’s ruling. You can come and go freely where I am here. I want you to look for a teacher, someone power yet kind, someone who rules over hearts and passions; someone who sees my daughter and claims guardianship over her for her sake and not their own political clout.”

“Now, why would I ever do that? You’ve said it yourself; you are stuck here and can’t offer me anything.”

“I already gave you a choice.”

“I didn’t ask for your dream, you offered.”

“Yet you accepted it and almost made a petition that would demand a price too high to pay. I prevented you from asking and by that I am giving you a choice. I only ask that when time comes, you bring me a name. It isn’t much what I ask, Andre.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Will you?”

“I should.”

“Why? It’s not as if someone will reward you for refusing. You will continue as you are, if you do. It will change nothing for you, and isn’t that dreadful?” Stolas shrugs his shoulders.

“What happened to you, Stolas?”

“I died,” Stolas says flippantly. “Is that a yes?”

This is the second time he says that. Andrealphus shakes his head. “I don’t know what has come into you—madness, surely—but I agree to your terms. I will get the girl a teacher, and you will keep my prophecy unwritten and uninterpreted.”

“Of course, Andre. Now, I already read Vassago’s letter. I will give you my answer after the ritual. The moon is calling to me now.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

The portal has been open for over three hours and five circles have been cursed. Gluttony took the longest, greedily feeding from the restorative powers that Stolas channels through his body and the casting circle. Two more rings to go and it will be over.

Andrealphus is exhausted but he can’t take his eyes away from Stolas’ body covered in sigils.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Five hours and thirty-six seconds. That is how long it took Stolas to undo the damage done in the last three years of neglect. His body falls like a ragdoll to the floor, yet the power exuding from the circle prevents Andrealphus from either leaving or approaching.

An hour later he carries a breathing Stolas to the third floor. Stolas is burning and even Andrealphus natural ice powers aren’t enough to counter it.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Andrealphus leaves early in the morning the next day. Stolas sleepily waving away and bundled in blankets. Tired but alive. Alive.

-.-.-.-.-.-

The air outside feels different, fresher somehow. There is something in the air, a faint sound, like the wings of a hummingbird flapping tirelessly. Something small yet important, as if Hell was slowly returning to its natural state.

Chapter Text

Vassago

Vassago sips his tea—bitter, as he prefers. He doesn’t prod Andrealphus for details of his meeting with Stolas; the Marquis’ ragged face is explanation enough. Vassago pats his chest, Stolas’ letter tucked inside his red vest.

“Is His Majesty satisfied with your performance?”

Andrealphus nurses a sweeter drink. From Vassago’s terrace, the lake stretches out in serene beauty, its surface reflecting the pink-hued sun of Sloth like polished glass. The air is rich and sweet, like blooming flowers, as even that ring is showing improvement. But all that beauty pales beneath the weight of his purpose—the reminder of why he is here, and what Stolas expects of him.

“Yes. I will go back next month for the Flower Moon.”

Vassago makes a pleased sound. “I’ll have my answer penned by then.”

“Stolas gave me a task,” Andrealphus says carefully. Vassago gives him his full attention. “Do you know anyone who deals with hearts and emotions? Someone who is…empathetic.”

“Perhaps.”

Vassago stares into his own drink, crystalline and bitter. There are overlapping domains among the Ars Goetia—Andrealphus and Stolas share astronomy; he and Stolas can see the future to some capacity—but there is a special twist to their gifts, something that made them unique. It can be a limitation. Stolas isn’t the only prophet, but he is The Prophet. Vassago, too, can glimpse into the future—catch fleeting visions of specific outcomes—but only through an anchor, a connection formed by delving into people’s memories and secrets. Stolas has no such limitation. And yet, his heart remains an enigma to Vassago—not because he guards it behind walls like the other Ars Goetia, but because peering into it is a risk too great to take.

Vassago has never stared into the abysm of creation, into the massiveness of the cosmos and pretend understanding. Stolas’ heart is linked to the stars, and Vassago would rather keep his sanity than attempt to glimpse into that blackhole.

“Why do you ask?” he continues, not looking up. He suspects Andrealphus saw something when he convened with Stolas. The Marquis has been quiet, distant, and there is a sort of disrupting noise clinging to him. Vassago could attempt to gleam into his heart, but that would be in poor taste.

“I think you know why,” Andrealphus says dryly.

“Ah.” Vassago frowns. “Not personally. I can ask, but you are being rather ambiguous. Many Ars Goetia deal with hearts.”

Andrealphus icy glare turns towards him, staring deep into his eyes as if he wanted to melt the fire running in Vassago’s vein. They have seen each other a handful of times and their alliance is still too new to be of comfort to the other. Andrealphus delivered the promised letter, Vassago has given Stella a shot back to high society, their mutual needs are fulfilled in paper and that leaves them in an awkward position. They aren’t friends and their meeting was happenstance.

Andrealphus is also of lower station. Curious. That never had mattered where Stolas was concerned—but that was then, when Stella was married to Stolas and Andrealphus could live in a make-believe world where a prince of hell was under his command—but it matters now. He has few allies as it is. Antagonising someone powerful—someone who could pull the rug from under his talons—would be foolish. The game hasn’t changed. The rules remain the same. Only Andrealphus’ hand is worse than before.  

“I am trusting you with this information because Stolas seems to trust you,” Andrealphus says cooly. “I barely know you, Vassago.”

There is a raw edge to Andrealphus’ voice—fear, laced with something sharper. Desperation. It wasn’t there last time. Whatever happened in Stolas’ Tower is why Andrealphus is so subdued now. But Vassago still doesn’t know what could have made the Marquis look so frail. None of it changes anything; Andrealphus is hard pressed to comply with this request, and he is afraid of failing his task. He is also sure Stolas won’t mind Vassago’s direct interference.

“Do you trust Stolas’ judgement, then?” Vassago asks, tilting his head slightly. “You two never seemed close.”

Trust. A fragile word among demons, more a transaction than a virtue. He knows Andrealphus isn’t foolish enough to put his faith in something as fleeting as good will.

Andrealphus doesn’t look away, but a small speckle of fear has entered his eyes. It makes Vassago curious. He wouldn’t have taken the Marquiss for a demon who easily showed his weaknesses. Unless this is a ploy, but it wouldn’t be a beneficial one. And yet, here he sits, spine stiff but hands restless, the flick of his feathers betraying his tension. Something happened in that tower. Something that left a mark.

And if Stolas was the one to leave it, well… that is interesting.

“We aren’t close. However, if Stolas trusts you, it means he won’t kill me for involving you.”

Vassago notices the statement was said matter-of-factly. Andrealphus isn’t being dramatic for the sake of annoying Vassago. What a relief. Many Ars Goetia are dramatic. Vassago isn’t exempt of this flaw. If anything, he reveals in it, and it is also one of the things that attracted him about Stolas: the flair. But there is a different type of drama, more calculated, that seems to suit Andrealphus’ well. Vassago doesn’t find that nearly as tolerable.

“I see.” Vassago says. “Someone ‘empathetic’ is a bit more specific. I will ask around. Did he say why he wants this demon?”

“Yes.” Andrealphus says quietly.

When Andrealphus doesn’t elaborate further, Vassago continues: “I see. Well, our options are limited with Stolas not permitted from leaving the tower right now. I can’t talk to him freely, but I will look for a candidate that meets the criteria and who aligns with his temper.”

Another beat of silence passes, and then he speaks again:

“How was your meeting with Seir?”

“Smoothly. We reached an agreement, and he agreed to lower his prices.”

Vassago can’t help a smile. This is, after all, a mutually beneficial alliance. They are demons. They want to survive.

-.-.-.-.-

Mr Butler

After Lord Andrealphus left, His Highness’ silent timeline became more obvious. Prince Stolas had been a creature of habits since the day he hatched. Now, the tentative routine they had managed to establish for Lady Octavia’s well-being is obsolete. His Highness keeps tinkering with the kitchen appliances and tweaking the runic work carved onto the Tower’s walls, but now he brings Lady Octavia with him as he works.

Lady Octavia is, obviously, ecstatic to spend time with her father. She will be four in some months. Specks of down still fill her small body, her diet is still strictly limited to tiny morsels of hairless rodents, but she already feels like a grown-up. Her keen pink eyes take everything His Highness shows her with avid hunger, and she offers her opinions in that straightforward way only children have. Her ideas are blunt, tied to childish logic, and her metaphors are rudimentary, but she is a smart child, and His Highness values her input.

Unlike His Majesty, who hardly listened to any of his children regardless of age or merit, Prince Stolas listens, truly listens, and considers Lady Octavia’s ideas. Even the wild ones—perhaps especially those. He often muses that children, untouched by the rigid logic of adulthood, glimpse the truth of creation more clearly than any scholar ever could. They ask the questions that adults, accustomed to routine, no longer think to ask. Mr Butler isn’t a magician or a keeper of lost knowledge. He is there to help his prince—the child he has been caring for since the day King Paimon placed Stolas’ egg in his hands—to keep him company in his self-imposed isolation, and to lessen the terrible weight that means to become a parent when one is as young as his Stolas is.

A child raising a child.

Sometimes, all Mr Butler could see was the young prince, just ten years of age, waiting excitedly for his father to acknowledge his presence. When His Highness sits by Lady Octavia’s bed, telling her the same stories he had been told as a child, Mr Butler can’t help but feel a deep sadness. His Highness hasn’t changed much—he is still painfully earnest and terribly alone.

Perhaps that is the consequence of having such a mushy interior. His Majesty had once said in passing that he worried about His Highness’ soft heart. ‘He is my blood, and yet, he is disgustingly fragile’. That may have influenced His Majesty’s decision to send Mr Butler along with His Highness, to keep him company once more. Perhaps it was mercy, not worry, for his youngest son. Mr Butler couldn’t imagine how terribly it would have been to live in that tower with only a child who barely spoke as company.

It would have broken His Highness’ spirit.

“B! B! B!” Lady Octavia’s chants drag him back to the present. The little owlet is dressed in a simple and long white dress—a baby gown—that has stains on the hem of her sleeves and around her neck, with no socks or slippers, barefoot as her father. “Mealtime! ‘Tolas wants to cook!”

“Satan spare us,” Mr Butler says curtly, picking the small owlet in his arms. She talks far less than His Highness did at her age, but she speaks more than one would expect of a child who has spent three years living in a tower with only her depressed father and a servant for company, completely isolated from the outside world.

Octavia giggles, her tiny arms circled around his neck, her tiny beak nuzzling into the hollow of his shoulder. “’Tolas say the walls talk to him ‘gain. He made a silly face and all his eyes were tiny, tiny, tiny! Silly ‘Tolas! Walls don’t talk! They sing! Prettily! Then, Via hungry and Daddy says to Via ‘Lunch quickly, S’tafire!’. Via is a star, B!”

His Highness has been tinkering with the wards more often now. There is a quiet diligence when he works, making annotations in a journal with painstakingly accuracy. He writes down times, equations, and runes that mean nothing for someone like Mr Butler, but His Highness uses him to bounce off ideas, talking about wonders that trespass the boundaries of hell itself. Mr Butler has never seen the stars, but he knows intrinsically that his Prince’s future—his boy’s salvation—is written in that old song that few demons can hear and even fewer can understand.

It isn’t the first time Lady Octavia has said cryptic things. The walls sing’ is one of the most common ones, though not the most cryptic. She had also often asked His Highness why the stars cried—“They cry every night! They make sad noises! The moony too! The moony does sad faces, like this,’ she had said, pulling the side of her mouth downward. “She sad ‘cause Daddy sad! Daddy sad when he looks at Daddy’s mirror!”— but after His Highness performed the pink moon ritual, she said the stars sang and the moon was no longer sad. Now it made a cradle, so Daddy wasn’t so sad.

Mr Butler had found that worrisome. His Highness, not so much. On the contrary, he is hopeful and encourages her to tell him what she hears from the walls, what the stars and the moon whisper in her ear, and what faces the moon makes that have Octavia laughing at odd hours of the night. But Octavia is still at that age where everything fascinates her, except the very specific questions her father asks her.

The irony isn’t lost on Mr Butler. His Highness had once been an inquisitive little boy, eager to read all there was about the stars, to study and master the grimoire his father had given him as a gift on his tenth birthday. That grimoire now seems more like a curse than a blessing—a shackle that keeps Stolas chained to that tower.

Mr Butler takes a steady breath, readjusting his grip on the little girl in his arms. His Highness possesses a well of knowledge about the arcane, but he is still only twenty-two and has spent the last four years isolated from his peers. There might be more than meets the eye. He makes a mental note to speak to him about Lady Octavia’s perceptions. She might be sensing something she doesn’t understand or that she struggles to put into words.

B?” Octavia chirps expectantly, looking up at him from her cozy spot. “‘Tolas naughty?”

That was one of her absolute favourite words. ‘Tolas, Daddy, B, Via, naughty, moony, S’tafire.

“No, my lady. His Highness…”

Octavia chirrups angrily, her down fluffing up in clear indignation. She clicks her beak just like Stolas does when he’s thinking—and she believes his thinking face is his angry face because he looks so serious—before letting out a soft, keening hiss.

“Via,” she huffs, puffing up her little chest in childish indignation. “Via ‘n ‘Tolas!”

Mr Butler smiles at her, patting her tiny leg. “Of course. Pardon me. No, Via. Stolas wasn’t naughty. But we better keep your daddy out of the kitchen.”

Octavia nods firmly. “’Tolas a bad cook.”

“Yes, Via. Daddy is a bad cook, but he is a good storyteller.”

Octavia hums, lowering her head again and closing her eyes. She seems done talking now.

Mr Butler descends to the second level of the tower, just below the living quarters. The tower is spacious for a prison—well-stocked, clean, and comfortable. But a cage is still a cage, no matter how luxurious. Mr Butler knows every corner of the tower well by now—he knows the weight behind His Highness’ steps, which stones to skip to avoid making noise, and how the kitchen should smell if Stolas were actually trying to cook.

The air smells like sugar and butter, and in the middle of the kitchen island, there is a cake. The cake is frosted white with big strawberries on top. Stolas stands beside it, holding a delicate plate, a guilty expression flashing across his face. His hands disappear behind his back in a feeble attempt to look innocent.

Octavia chitters loudly, opening and closing her beak while her down fluffs up in indignation.

“Your Highness?” Mr Butler stares at the cake, his uneasy etched into the stark lines on his face.

Stolas doesn’t cook. He made a few attempts in the past, during the few months of their imprisonment, but he had stopped after he gave Octavia food poisoning. Stolas’ gifts with plants extends to poisons, elixirs, and potions—hearty and healthy meals are beside his expertise, as if his hands hadn’t been meant to nurture complex beings. But in all those years, the fridge has never, ever, given them fully cooked meals. The fridge magically restocks fresh and raw ingredients—oranges instead of fresh squashed juices, small, white rodents cleaned of hair and ready to be cooked.

“Where did this cake come from?”

Stolas’ talons tighten around the plate. “Ah, well, you see—”

Octavia wriggles in Mr Butler’s arms, hissing and chirruping angrily. As soon as he sets her down, she dashes to her father, reaching eagerly for the cake. Stolas clicks his beak, grabbing her before she can dive face-first into the cake.

“Wait, my little Starfire. Daddy will give you a slice in a moment,” he coos, lovingly preening her head. Then, seeing Mr Butler’s unwavering stare, his feathers ruffle slightly, and he straightens as if trying to look composed.

“Your Highness.” Mr Butler’s voice is sharp.

Stolas shifts uncomfortably, beak clicking. “I did a thing.” He tries to sound light-hearted, but the weight of Mr Butler’s gaze keeps his tone subdued. “Several things, actually. But none of them are dangerous,” he adds quickly, peeking up at him like a child trying to gauge how much trouble he’s in.

Mr Butler inhales slowly, exhaling through his nose. His silence is deliberate, pressing. Stolas fidgets.

“Allow me to doubt it,” Mr Butler says with a light tremor to his voice. His Highness has been inconsiderate with his own safety since he started messing with the tower’s runic work. “I will prepare lunch,” Mr Butler finally says, his tone leaving no room for argument. “You will give Lady Octavia a bath, take one yourself, and change both of you into proper clothes. Then you will explain in detail what you did.” A pause. “After lunch.”

Stolas wilts under the reprimand. His shoulders slump slightly, his hands playing idly with Octavia’s down. He knows better than to protest. Instead, he nods, a nervous laugh escaping him like a child caught red-handed.

Right,” he mumbles, already turning with Octavia in his arms.

Mr Butler watches him for a moment longer, then turns to inspect the kitchen, determined to piece together where that cake came from and what His Highness did this time.

-.-.-.-.-

Stolas

Stolas fills a quarter of the bathtub with cold water before opening the hot water tap. He checks the temperature constantly, keeping an eye on Octavia who has taken to play quietly with her bath toys. She doesn’t make a single noise—no giggles, no chirps, not even a coo—and that worries him. He doesn’t have any parenting books to check whether her behaviour is normal or if she is behind on her developmental milestones.

He tells her what he is doing as a way to keep her engaged. “Our bath is almost ready, Via. Do you want sparkles and a toy?” he asks while closing the tap. The water is a bit colder than he likes it, but it is perfect for her and her down.

Octavia doesn’t immediately answer, but she is looking at him. She heard him. Stolas waits patiently for her, not pressuring her with more questions that could overwhelm her. After a minute or two, Octavia finally gets up, grabs a few toys, and offers them to Stolas with a big smile.

“Excellent choice, my Starfire,” Stolas praises her easily. “Come here, my owlet.”

Octavia doesn’t squeal or giggle when he picks her up and nuzzles her cheek, but she lets out a small coo, and that relieves him. Stolas peels the dirty dress off her before lowering Octavia onto the edge of the tub, using a sponge to gather water and carefully squirting the liquid over her little talons. He has to be very obvious with his actions, showing her that the sponge doesn’t hurt, that the water feels nice, before even lowering her onto the water properly.

Sometimes, she loves bath time and eagerly jumps in. Other times, she stares at the water with a terrified expression, clinging to Stolas’ feathers and refusing to go near the tub unless he gets in first, keeping her on his lap the entire time. She had screamed ‘Bad water! Red water!’ once, before going completely mute. Stolas still has no idea of what she meant.

Today seems to be a good day. Octavia grabs the sponge in her tiny hands and squeezes it, chirping happily as the water splashes the tiles on the floor. She repeats the action two more times before leaning towards the water, clapping her hands with the sponge and trying to dive into the water. Stolas smiles, relieved, and lowers her inside the tub. The pinkish water barely covers her chest, but she splashes and chirps happily.

“Good girl,” Stolas passes her the toys she had selected, and waits again until she is engrossed in her games to start washing her feathers.

“’Tolas and Via,” she says quietly to her toys, gripping one in each hand—sponge already forgotten—and making them splash. “’Tolas sad makes Via sad—no, no! No sad ‘Tolas!”

“Why do you think Daddy is sad, Via?”

Octavia ignores him completely. Her face is scrunched in a focused scowl, her hands tightening around her toys. “Naughty ‘Tolas play bad lights ‘gain. Tower go shaky-shaky! Via no like shaky-shaky. Scary, Daddy!”

 Stolas swallows hard and kneels by the tub. He cups Octavia’s face, staring into her pretty pink eyes—the only clear inheritance from her mother—and searches for something inside them. Her eyes are wide and filled with wonder, but there is also a twinkle in them, the promise of something more, something he still can’t quite name yet.

“Via, what does it mean shaky-shaky?” he asks calmly, grabbing the sponge again. “Daddy hasn’t played with the bad lights in a long time.”

Octavia nods quickly. She submerges both toys in the water, then pulls up the one representing Stolas. The ‘Via’ toy was under the water, and she started moving her legs, making the water inside the tub shake while the ‘Stolas’ toy was playing out of the water.

Shaky-shaky. Daddy go shaky-shaky after Mummy’s… buh—buh." She makes a face, clearly frustrated. "Ande! After Mummy’s Ande make Moony happy! ‘Tolas do much shaky-shaky. Shaky-Shaky wants Daddy, but Daddy is Via Daddy.”

Stolas swallows again, sponge forgotten. He has tried to be careful, balancing his need to keep Octavia close at all times with his awareness that she is young and shouldn’t be exposed to the raw power of the runes in the Tower. He sends her away when he works on the practical side of the rune patchwork in the Tower. Octavia had nightmares after Stolas lost consciousness the first time he tampered with the runes, and then again after he performed the Pink Moon ritual.

And then—Stolas' mind halts, his beak clicking shut.

He stares at his little girl, swallowing the bubble of fear and hysteria in his throat. He’s shaking, and if he weren’t kneeling and leaning heavily on the tub, he would probably have fallen forward. Stolas breathes heavily, trying to keep his voice steady and calm.

"Mummy’s Ande, Via?” Stolas fights the urge to pull her out of the tub and burrow into the nest with her, hiding his owlet beneath him until the fear inside him lets him breathe.

Octavia nods. 'Diff'cult name. Mummy say Ande name, but hard name. Daddy no like Ande—he mean. He make Daddy cry lots. He mean like Mummy mean. Bye-bye, Mummy!'"

“Andrealphus is your mother’s brother,” Stolas says slowly, waiting for something to happen. Maybe he expects Octavia to ask questions, but she nods.

“Via knows! Via smart like ‘Tolas! Via keep Daddy safe—no more crying, Daddy!” She beams at him, splashing her toys again. 'No shaky-shaky! Shaky-shaky bad!”

Stolas gives in and pulls her out of the water, making her squeal. He holds her close to his chest, resisting the urge to scream and cry. He bites his tongue, silencing all his questions. He knows she won’t answer. But now he also knows that his father was a fool. His girl—his little, clever girl—isn’t destitute. She knows. She knows things Stolas has never even told her

Stolas has never talked about Stella or Andrealphus. He didn’t tell Octavia the man who visited him months ago was her uncle, and yet she knows. She knows.

“Daddy sad?” she asks quietly against his chest, nuzzling her little face into his chest-feathers. 'Bad Via?”

“No, my Starfire. Via has made Daddy very, very happy. Via always makes Daddy very happy.

-.-.-.-.-

Two hours have passed when Stolas finally descends to the kitchen with Octavia. They are dressed in matching pyjamas—shorts and shirts with yellow stars on a hot pink background—despite the early hour. Octavia is in a talkative mood again, chirping, cooing, and calling Stolas ‘daddy’ without being prompted. She devours her lunch eagerly, as if she hadn’t been fed in days. She asks for seconds, which surprises Mr Butler, and she asks Stolas to feed her.

Stolas and Mr Butler eat at a much slower pace. Stolas nibbles at his food, only truly eating once Octavia is done with her meal and has ditched them to play in the playpen on the floor. Mr Butler waits until he’s done with his meal to ask about the cake.

“I did it, Mr Butler,” Stolas says quietly, his eyes fixed on his little girl. His expression is grim, his talons shaking as he grips his pyjama shorts. Most days, Stolas’ struggles to get dressed. He hasn’t stepped outside the tower in years, nor has he seen the real light of the pentagram either. The sight of His Highness in pyjamas at midday is common now.

“What did you do, Your Highness?”

I delayed it for as long as I could, but the world keeps turning, spinning on its axis, and time is running out. I have been dreaming,” he whispers that part, like a terrible secret finally being revealed. “A Prophet who dreams, who has ever heard of such an abomination?”

“You have dreamed before.”

“Yes.” Stolas swallows. “But they are not my dreams. Prophets don’t dream. Seers do, and dreams, like visions, are fickle. Prophecies are unchangeable. Absolute.”

Mr Butler nods. “What have you been dreaming about, Your Highness?”

“The door.” Stolas closes his eyes, muffling a sob. “The door is open. Octavia is…She is my bones. She is my blood, my essence, and my magic.”

“Ah,” Mr Butler says gently. “You completed your experiments with the backdoors you mentioned.”

“I did.”

“You stole the cake from the palace.”

“No. I opened a portal to Gluttony and stole the most delicious cake—I did it. Oh, my Lucifer, I did it.”

Mr Butler grabs his hand, squeezing it gently. “We knew you would do it, Your Highness. Fate can’t be stalled forever.”

“I know, but it isn’t fair.”

“You will be fine. You’ve grown into a marvellous prince. I am very proud of you, Your Highness.”

Stolas can’t stifle his sobs, and they soon attract Octavia. She stares at her father and Mr Butler before slowly reaching out to them with her tiny arms.

“Daddy sad?”

Stolas can’t even bring himself to deny it. He falls to his knees and hugs his former caregiver. Prophets can interpret fate, but they are not its masters, and they can’t stop it. That is another lesson Stolas has to learn the hard way.

“No sad, Daddy. Hug?"

She is his bones. His blood. His essence. His magic.

“Your High—Stolas,” Mr Butler breathes out, patting Stolas’ forehead feathers with a rare tenderness. “Be brave, my prince. Be very brave.”

“I don’t want to be brave. Father was wrong. He was wrong.” Stolas sobs harder, his grip on Mr Butler becoming crushing. “I know he is wrong!”

But it doesn’t matter. Prophecy can’t be prevented. One can only prepare to stave the worse of a prophecy.

-.-.-.-.-

Missives to His Highness, Prince Vassago

15.05.XXXX

His Highness, Prince Vassago,

My Dear Cousin,

I write to you with the fulfilment of my promise. After much deliberation and renegotiation, I have reached new terms with Marquis Andrealphus. The prices of the imported woods, charcoal, and the hides of the hellbears have been adjusted to a more favourable rate, as per your request. Andrealphus, despite his precarious economical and status situation, attempted to drive a hard bargain to preserve his own dignity. What a pompous prick. Regardless, I trust this will serve your interests well and aid in establishing the communication you sought with him.

In other matters, I must share news that may be of interest to you. The lands of Gluttony are experiencing an unusual renovation of magical energy. The ebb and flow of power registered this year is unlike any recorded in the past four years. As a result, Queen Beelzebub’s taxation upon us has lightened, an unexpected but welcome change. While I cannot say with certainty what has brought about this shift, it is undeniable that something stirs within the realm.

I do not know if you possess any hidden knowledge regarding this phenomenon, but should you uncover anything of significance, I would value your insight. And as ever, do remember—I stand by your side, cousin.

May our endeavours continue to be fruitful.

Prince Seir of the Ars Goetia.

27.06.XXXX
To His Highness, Prince Vassago,

My Most Esteemed Lord, 

I bring you news on both matters you set before me, and I trust they will be of use to you.

On the first—King Paimon’s whereabouts—I have found trace of one of his forms in the mortal realm. He has been seen working alongside a magician, though to what end, I cannot yet say. His return to Hell remains uncertain, but I will keep my ears to the ground and my eyes sharp for further signs of his movements.

As for the second—those of noble blood who meddle in the matters of the heart and mind—the list is long, as expected. Most of them answer to one of the Kings, making their actions little more than extensions of their rulers’ will. However, there are few who stand outside such bounds. The Kings themselves—Bael, Paimon, and Belial—are not beholden to such jurisdiction, and then there is King Asmodeus. His dual nature places him above the pacts binding the Ars Goetia, leaving his involvement in such matters unchecked.

I hope this information serves you well, my Lord, and should you have need of more, you need only ask. I remain ever eager to prove my worth and serve you as faithfully as my humble means allow.

Your devoted eyes and ears,

Shusi

28.06.XXXX
To His Highness, Prince Vassago,

My Gracious Lord, 

I must begin by expressing my deepest gratitude for your attentiveness and care regarding my marriage concerns. Your introduction to Lady Stella was most appreciated, and I acknowledge the effort you have taken to ensure my best interests are seen to. It is no small thing to have the guidance of a prince as keen-eyed and perceptive as yourself, and I count myself most fortunate to be under your court.

Naturally, I am aware of the whispers that surround Lady Stella, particularly regarding her alleged role in Prince Stolas’ withdrawal from public life. At your behest, I made an effort to probe her on such matters. To my lack of surprise, she did not require much encouragement to speak ill of him. According to her, Prince Stolas was an utter disgrace of a husband—useless, as she put it. She made mention of his apparent unnatural inclinations, the lack of magic in his whelp, and the general failure of his marriage. From what I have gathered, it is no wonder the union was dissolved, though whether it was by Lord Andrealphus’ will or some quiet compliance from Stolas himself remains to be determined.

That being said, my own requirements for a wife differ from those that burden a prince. I have no need for a magical heir, merely a competent one, and in that regard, Lady Stella remains a fitting match. Furthermore, should Andrealphus meet an untimely end without issue, my position as heir presumptive to his march would be a most desirable outcome—one that I would, of course, place at your service, my Lord.

Of course, I shall remain vigilant. I have already seen to it that my sister, Hashur, makes herself a good and trusted friend to Lady Stella. Through her, I will ensure that any matters of concern reach my ears swiftly. Should anything of interest arise, you shall be the first to know, my Lord.

Ever in your service,

Lord Boaz

10.07.XXXX
To His Highness, Prince Vassago,

My Most Perceptive Lord, 

I remain ever watchful in your service and bring you intelligence of significance.

I have continued to track King Paimon’s affairs and uncovered something most curious—every record concerning the midwives who attended Princess Octavia’s birth has been expunged. No names, no traces, no whispers remain. Furthermore, any documentation related to her has been sealed away. I attempted to breach the Archive to retrieve the royal records, but I paid dearly for the effort. I lost a finger in the process—fortunate, truly, that I did not lose my head instead. Whoever scrubbed those records did not merely intend to hide them; they meant to ensure that none would ever surface again. It is not possible to access Princess Octavia’s or Prince Stolas’ records.

On a different front, I have gathered fresh information concerning Prince Gaap, King Beleth’s son. His power swells, and his father is pleased. Gaap recently gained an additional legion to his name after corrupting a monastery—turning its nuns to rut with beasts and adore them as lovers. His Majesty Beleth was most satisfied with the display of his son’s capabilities.

There is more. Prince Gaap will soon be residing under King Asmodeus’ tutelage for several weeks, honing his mastery over lust. His timing is most fortuitous, as King Asmodeus is preparing for a personal visit to Wrath, and he will be taking Gaap along. The purpose of this journey is the subject of much speculation. Some claim the visit is one of business—an exchange between Wrathian steel and wood for the various instruments of discipline Lust produces. Others suggest a different reason altogether—that the King’s current ‘partner’ wishes to tour the countryside, and circumstances simply aligned to make it possible.

I will continue to dig where I can and remain ever at your service, my Lord.

Your devoted eyes and ears,

Shusi

Chapter Text

Asmodeus doesn’t pen letters often. It’s tedious and time-consuming. He was one of the first Sins to switch to phones when they became available, praising their practicality, speed, flexibility. Why bother buying bric-a-brac when a phone has every function, and for a fraction of the price? Asmodeus was definitely happy with his phone.

He’s an engineer, after all. Lust thrives in the development of the world. Of course, fingers and tongue are better than total abstinence. But who wouldn’t enjoy spending a couple of notes on the Deep Driller 1200 that came in seven different sizes and had twelve speeds? Classics are good—that’s why they’re classics—but innovation is the heart of lust, and war, and everything exciting in life.

So, Asmodeus is happy with his phone. He’s less happy with the stiff, official letter sitting on his desk bearing Satan’s sigil. He massages his temples and groans before reading the letter a second time.

“You know, the letter won’t change just because you’re glaring at it,” a scruffy voice says from behind, and a few seconds later Fizzarolli walks into his line of sight.

“I can hope,” Asmodeus replies dreamily. He pushes the letter to the side and turns, giving Fizzarolli his full attention. Fizz isn’t wearing his trademark clown clothes for once, even though his hat is firmly in place. He looks anxious, his tail swishing nervously behind him. “What’s wrong? If Mamm is trying to pull another shitty stunt on you, I swear…”

“No, no, not that!” Fizz waves his hands. “I mean, nothing’s wrong.”

Asmodeus hums. Fizz has plastered a disarming smile on his face, and he’s leaning close to Asmodeus’ desk too, almost invitingly—but his tail is wound around his ankle, and Asmodeus is a good observer. Anxiety and fear cling to Fizz, overpowering his natural sweet scent and transforming it into something bitter and acrid. It’s pungent.

Maybe if Fizzarolli knew that Asmodeus could smell his emotions things would be different. More honest. Or more awkward—it has happened before. Usually, Asmodeus doesn’t care about other demons’ opinions of him. Lust is overwhelming, thrilling, insatiable. He doesn’t care if other demons find him too much. Sins are used to being a show of decadence and excess. But he cares about Fizzarolli’s opinion.

“Hu-uh, I think you actually meant something is wrong, just not Mammon. What is it? Let’s have, uh—” he pauses to look at his wristwatch. There’s still an hour before lunch. Ah, screw it. “Early lunch. Let’s eat. I need a breather. Satan is so anal about regulations; can’t he enjoy the first sign of good luck in four years? And if he is so dissatisfied, he can go and bitch at Lucifer’s pet.”

Fizzarolli’s tail, still wound around his own ankle, twitches with the first sign of amusement. He curves his lip into a smirk, too used to Asmodeus’ theories on the depth of Lucifer and Paimon’s relationship to fake decorum. Many of their ‘creative sessions’ delved into gossip about which hole nobles wanted to play with, or which positions they preferred.

“Wouldn’t that be a wet dream, Oz?” Fizz’s smirk turns devious as he bridges the gap between them by jumping onto Asmodeus’ shoulders, wrapping his metallic arms around Asmodeus’ torso. “Whose stick is bigger, huh? We have two big, scary, all-power-hungry DILFs fighting for dominance…”

Asmodeus cackles, and the flames of his mane flickers with his mood, shining brighter as the sound of his voice reverberates through the empty corridors. “You know what they say about overcompensating, Fizz.”

“Don’t think big Satan is overcompensating anything.”

“He is. You should see how he gets with Luci—it’s a one-sided competition Luce is winning without even knowing he’s playing.” Asmodeus rolls his eyes. “And Paimon’s an ass, but he knows his place and loves it. Levi pulled a disappearing act—poof, just gone for a year—and Luci didn’t even notice she was busy vacaying in the human world. Meanwhile, Paimon disappears for, like, a month, and Luci loses his damn mind and is ready to pop up in the human world himself. Tell me again there’s nothing between those two—I dare you.”

“Huh, so Satan is a bottom with a complex and Paimon is happy being a pet? Can’t say I disagree. Being spoiled is the dream.”

“Exactly!” Asmodeus waves his hand with a smug air about him. “So, about lunch—don’t think I forgot about that—I can fix us some burgers if you want, or we can order something fancy.”

Fizzarolli loosens his grip on Asmodeus’ torso. He doesn’t let go entirely; instead, he shifts his body into a sitting position on Asmodeus’ right shoulder.

“Lunch? Ah, err, maybe another day? I mean, you have lunch with Prince Gaap—said so yourself yesterday. Besides, I have a date today…”

Asmodeus stops abruptly, almost tripping over his own feet. “A date?” he asks carefully even, as if he didn’t care. He shouldn’t care, by all things unholy. But he cared deeply about Fizzarolli and didn’t want any unsavoury miscreant pestering his partner. He’d seen first hand how intense some of Fizz’s fans were. He’d eviscerated a few himself.

Fizzarolli cackles, his tail flicking playfully. “No need to go all protective, Oz. It’s just with Blitz and Barbs. Catching up, you know. Barbs ditched her old job and she’s moving out of Pride, and Blitz and Verosika broke up. Big mess. It’s a date. We’ll even paint each other’s nails and drink ourselves silly. Why d’ya think I asked about Wrath? That festival you mentioned? Right up Blitz’s alley. Nothing to cheer him up like horses and beating some assholes up.”

Asmodeus laughs, his blue plumages tinged with a faint cyan hue. “Got it. No crazy fans needing a century of blue balling as punishment for getting handsy.”

“Nope. Just the same ol’ bitching.”

More reassured, Asmodeus carries on. “We can have some snacks, talk. We’ve both been busy. Besides, I’ll have to entertain Gaap during the festival. Kid didn’t get the hint to go home that week.”

“I think he gets a kick out of annoying you,” Fizz confesses. “He’s that type, y’know? Bratty.”

“Nah, he’s a know-it-all wannabe,” Asmodeus sighs tiredly. The playful air shifted between them, becoming a bit more serious. “I don’t want to talk about politics. There’s a weekend of dull conversations ahead and it’s giving me a headache.”

Fizz shifts awkwardly atop Asmodeus’ shoulder. “Hey, if it’s that much of an inconvenience, we can cancel. I’m sure there must be something in Pride to take Blitz’s mind off his breakup.”

Asmodeus shakes his head. “You’re not an inconvenience, Froggy. Satan is. Bee and I guessed he’d want to meet with us after the Pink Moon. He’s just hijacking our plans because it’s convenient for him. Even if we cancelled, he’d just summon me before the next full moon.”

“Oh,” Fizz says awkwardly. He isn’t politically savvy. He’s a performer, and a genius at interpersonal relationships. The convoluted bureaucratic and hierarchical system Hell relies on is a beast of an entirely different nature. All Fizz knows is what every imp knows: royals are bastards (with few exceptions) and food got pretty  expensive four years ago. “Do you think things will get back to normal?”

“Perhaps. This isn’t Hell’s first crisis—or worst. There was a revolt the year Luci announced exorcists—” Asmodeus’ face darkens, as if the mere word repulsed and offended him. “—would come and slaughter sinners once a year. Satan threw a fit. They came very close to coming to blows, which would’ve been a stupid move on Satan’s part. Luci may act like a scatterbrain butterfly half the time, and a disappointed inventor the other, but he still has a temper and the power to back him up. Now you have Mammon capitalising on the ‘exorcists’ coming to slaughter unsuspecting sinners every year. There’s not really a ‘normal’, but I’d like to keep relying on the commodities I enjoy.”

Fizz nods in understanding. Asmodeus has told him of the ancient times when sinners were divided among the Sins—hence the name sinners—and they were tortured and punished throughout the circles. There are still souls that belong to some of the Ars Goetia, exchanged centuries before Fizz was born. Now sinners are an attraction—and a plague, according to some—contained within the Pride ring. Demons enjoy the amenities brought by sinners, but they couldn’t care less about their continued survival. Just like imps, sinners are a dime a dozen, entirely expendable.

At least imps have access to health care even if it’s expensive and shitty.

"At least one of us will enjoy this trip," Asmodeus muses, unaware of Fizz’s distraction. “And I’ll join you for the Pain Games. We’ll cheer Blitz together.”

“Okay, fine.”

They’d been so engrossed in their conversation that Fizz only now realises they’re no longer on the third floor of Asmodeus’ penthouse. They are on the top floor, where Asmodeus lives. When did they take the lift? Why didn’t anyone stop them? Toy production has declined—like pretty much everything else—over the last four years, but mornings are still pretty busy for Asmodeus. Fizz has seen his schedule.

Asmodeus takes a left turn, walking past some hanging portraits, and steps right into the kitchen. Fizz doesn’t say anything at first—his arms tightening again around Asmodeus’ torso, his tail winding up his forearm—just taking in the sight of the sin tinkering in the kitchen. This isn’t the first time Asmodeus has cooked for him, but usually sex is involved.

“Are you sure you want to snub prince charming for little old me, Ozzie?”

Asmodeus pauses—hand mid-grab of some ground meat—hesitating for a moment, before returning to task. He takes out the ground beef, onions, bottles of condiments, and half a dozen more things to make some sick tasting burgers. Ram and Bull—Asmodeus' secondary and tertiary heads—float into Fizz's personal space, staring him down.

“Are you asking if I’d rather eat with someone whose company I enjoy than with someone who wants to make a Lust quantifier?”

“A lust quantifier would be a good idea. Wait, what’s the context? Like an orgy competition?”

Asmodeus shakes his head. “I wish. It’s to know how much succubi and incubi should be paid, Froggy. Like a quota.”

“Oh, yikes.”

Asmodeus nods with fake solemnity. “He makes lust a chore. Honestly, what else should we expect? His dad makes love potions,” he clarifies with a scowl. Lust is consensual. Enjoyable. Always. Making people fall in love with others? That is power and control. Asmodeus doesn’t deal with that shit. "Now," he clears his throat, trying to lighten the mood, "do you want your burgers with onion rings? You can help with your creative narrative. You know I love some saucy commentary.” He winks at Fizz, setting the ingredients on the counter.

“You really dislike him, don’t you?”

“Immensely.”

Fizz rests his head against Bull, patting that side of Asmodeus’ fiery mane. Bull’s eyes widen a fraction, only for a moment, before offering Fizz a giddy smile. “That is what I don’t get, Ozzie. If you dislike him, why did you agree to host him? You could’ve closed the door in his face. You’re a Deadly Sin, what could he have done? Cry you a river?”

Ram scowls in Fizz’s direction—or rather, in Bull’s direction. Fizz learnt early that Asmodeus’ heads get easily jealous of each other. He releases Asmodeus’ torso and pets Ram and Bull with one hand each.

Asmodeus laughs. “You spoil them,” he states.

“They need it.”

“To answer your question, I didn’t know I would dislike Gaap. He’s young, only sixty years—he should be more flexible. Besides, Beleth would’ve thrown a fit and complain to Paimon. The last thing I want is Paimon at my door, trying to mediate.”

Fizz hums and stays quiet—he has hundreds of questions, but he’s far more fascinated by Asmodeus’ hands working the ground beef. He’s shaping the patties for the burgers, gently adding pressure so they don’t break once in the pan. Soft pats, and the sound reminds Fizz of the nights they’ve shared together.

“Can I go next?” he blurts out. Unashamed. Maybe three years ago he would’ve blushed furiously, like a virgin, and looked for a place to hide after coming hard on Asmodeus. Now, he just throws a cheeky grin his direction and adds a “Daddy,” in a sing-song voice.

“Only if you behave,” Asmodeus plays along. His voice feels like a caress—gentle, yet firm, and it hits all the right spots.

Fizz could melt right now. Like pudding. Pudding Fizzy.

“I always behave,” Fizz says and rubs his face against Bull.

“Chaotically.”

“And don’t you love how exciting I make life?” Fizz jumps off Asmodeus’ shoulder, landing gracefully. He isn’t allowed to cook for safety reasons, and he doesn’t like holding sharp objects, but he can set out the plates.

“Of course I do.”

They spend the next half hour making burgers. Asmodeus doing the actual cooking, and Fizz delivering saucy comments on Asmodeus’ hands skills, while showing some skills himself. Talking to Asmodeus is easy. Maybe it shouldn’t be—he’s a sin, and Fizz is only a clown. An imp. A famous one, and his part-time associate, but still an imp under an actual contract with Mammon. Their banter still makes Fizz forget the tension and unease from earlier, and that Blitz has this batshit crazy idea of a kill-for-hire business.

The kitchen hums with life — the soft hiss of frying beef, the sharp crackle of onion rings hitting hot oil, the buttery scent curling through the air and clinging to Fizz’s clothes. Warmth radiates from the stove, wrapping around him like a heavy blanket. Fizz’s mouth waters shamelessly as the rich, savoury smell of seared meat thickens the air, laced with teasing notes of toasted bread and melted cheese.

“That smells delicious.”

“I hope so. I’m using the good seasoning.”

“I bet it’ll taste better—like the chef.”

Asmodeus’ blooming laughter fills the kitchen. “Flattery will get you double portion of bacon, cheeky thing.”

“I aim to please, big O.”

Asmodeus plates Fizz’s burger—a double meat monstrosity with cheese, bacon, onion rings, pickles, lettuce, and NO tomatoes—before him, with a generous side of fries. He plates his own burger next and then turns off the cooker and sits across Fizzarolli in the kitchen island.

It’s intimate.

“Meat’s been very bland lately. We hope—well, Satan—that the renewal during the Pink Moon ritual means the Sturgeon and Harvest Moons will be cursed properly this year. That means, no more food shortages.”

Food shortages have become a real issue across the Seven Rings over the past two years. Prices have skyrocketed. Even Fizz, with his steady income and the revenue from the Robo-Fizz and Loo Loo Land, has struggled to buy fresh produce.

“That is good, right?”

Asmodeus takes a small chip between his finger, twirling it around as if he were inspecting its quality, trying to find any imperfection. There’s a pensive quality to his expression—too serious—and his bright, neon-yellow eyes narrow into slits. “It is, of course. The Pink Moon gave Hell a much needed boost, but that alone isn’t enough to stop the decline that’s been prevalent the last four years. Satan mentioned something intriguing in his letter, Froggy. Something I didn’t consider at the time, too grateful to question its absurdity.”

Fizz grabs a chip from his plate and chews slowly. “Go on,” he says in his serious voice too. This isn’t one of their 'creative session' nights, but it’s shaping up to be one, apparently.

Asmodeus leans back on the stool. His massive frame dwarfs the comfy backrest, and Bull and Ram frown. They look agitated.

“I don’t know how much you know about Hell’s magic.”

“I know Sins have magic. Some Goetia too. Hellhounds can draw magic too, but I don’t know if that is innate, or they draw from Bee’s power like succubi and incubi do with your crystals. Basic knowledge, y’know. Well, not basic, because Blitz and Barbs know shit about magic, but Mammon sometimes lends my services to important people, and you know how they love to talk about how big their junks are. Literally and figuratively.”

“Does Mammon keep doing that shit after we revised your contract?” Asmodeus’ voice lowers an octave and that is never a good sign.

“Not important right now! Focus, Oz.”

“Not important? Fizz, I’m sure I added a clause that forbids him from putting your at risk with detailed specifications that include lending you out to…”

Fizz shoves a chip into Asmodeus’ mouth before he can start a tirade. He appreciates the concern—heck, even the support—but Mammon looks out for him as well. Fizz is the face of his brand right now. He cares about Fizz too.

“It’s private parties with limited time. Perfectly safe and legal. Now, focus.”

Asmodeus chews bitterly. “We will talk about this later. If you’re doing private shows, I want you to be safe. Mamm wouldn’t know safety even if it hit him in the face.”

Fizz reluctantly agrees, shoving a few chips into his own mouth now.

“Each Ring is cursed at least once a year, but not always on the exact day of the full moon. It all depends on the ring’s needs. Some rituals can be performed without stepping into the ring, too, but the Pink Moon is not one of them. It’s the Crown Jewel of the Moon Calendar and it’s extremely taxing. Under the correct circumstances, our involvement wouldn’t be necessary, but considering Hell is growing weak and we are using multiple casters for the ritual, someone should have informed us. And yet, we, the Sins, weren’t informed nor summoned to help perform it this year.”

“Oh. I see how that’s sus.”

“It’s more than sus,” Asmodeus agrees. “The ritual was performed. We all felt it. But if it is who we think it is, we should’ve been informed. Something’s not adding up.”

“Ah. So, politics. Lots of politics.”

“Necessary politics, I’m afraid,” Asmodeus laments, finally tossing the chip into his mouth.

Fizz doesn’t know what to say to that. He hadn’t even known the rings had to be cursed. Sure, he’d noticed food rotting faster, supermarkets running out of dairy products, and the prices being criminal even at the farm markets.

“I thought it was just…how things were,” Fizz says awkwardly.

Asmodeus bursts out laughing. The sound is rich, warm, and it doesn’t feel like he’s mocking Fizz’s ignorance. People either laugh because of Fizz or at him, and sometimes both feel the same. Asmodeus’ laughter feels like neither; it just is—exuberant and intoxicating. Fizz laughs quietly. Shy. He’s unsure if he should laugh at a clearly one-sided joke.

“I—I’m sorry, Fizzy. I’m not laughing at you—never at you. It’s just so refreshing to see the world with your eyes. To be young and have a first is always something to celebrate.”

Sometimes, Fizz forgets Asmodeus is ancient. He forgets that this demon, this powerful Sin who snuggles with him after they fuck each other silly, has lived for millennia—long before Fizz was even a thought in Satan’s mind. Asmodeus makes it easy, with his love for technology and his charismatic personality. He makes Fizz forget that, once he’s dust—and then, when he’s not even that, Asmodeus will keep living on.

Fizz swallows hard, pushing those thoughts away. They’re too depressing. “I wouldn’t say this first is that mind-blowing, but if you want to throw a party…” he winks at the Sin, angling his body just right and offering Asmodeus a smile full of promises he shouldn’t make.

“I’m always down for a party, especially with you.”

The teasing brings them back to familiar territory. Fizz breathes in, then out. Apparently, rings have to be cursed to work—they don’t just operate on their own. There are rituals and actual magic involved. What will be next? Asmodeus confessing that royals have an actual role to play, beyond being assholes with massive egos?

“Actually, yes,” Asmodeus hums. He smiles innocently when Fizz looks at him with an arched eyebrow. “Royals are assholes with massive egos and they do have an actual role in Hell. At least, the Ars Goetia.”

Fizz covers his face with his hands, making a mortified sound. His tail winds tightly around his waist, protectively, and he can feel his cheeks and neck burning with embarrassment. His flesh must be flushed under the makeup.

Fizz mumbles an apology. Asmodeus is a Sin, but he is also a royal. He must think Fizz is ungrateful. Fuck.

“Don’t apologise, Fizz. I share your opinion. Most Goetia are stiff, adhering to absurd traditions. Their egos took a massive hit when Luci forbade them from prostituting themselves for souls. They’ve tried to stay relevant ever since, but few have succeeded.” Asmodeus dismisses it with a wave of his hand, as if it’s old news.

“I think it’ll take a while for my mind to wrap around this, Oz,” Fizz confesses. “Sins are…different. I mean, you don’t mind me, and…”

“Of course not. I like you. We’re partners, Fizz. Did I do something to make you uncomfortable?”

Partners. Fizz swallows again. They are, aren’t they? He has shares in Asmodeus’ factories. He has a contract that allows him to perform at Ozzie’s without salary withholding. Fuck. He even has health insurance.

He also spends more time now at Asmodeus’ penthouse than at his own flat, but that’s neither here nor there.

Partners.

“Froggy?”

“No, no! We’re fine, Oz.”

“Are you sure?” Asmodeus asks carefully. His face is softer now, concerned.

“Yes.” Fizz shrugs with a smile, leaning back on his chair and grabbing his burger to take a big bite. “What I meant was, Sins are more powerful than Goetia, and most of the Sins I know are laid-back and chill. Most Goetia aren’t.”

No Goetia can be described as ‘chill’—neither the ones who have hired his services nor the ones who have come to Ozzie’s in disguise. The first ones see Fizzarolli like an amusing pet, a prized toy that they were wealthy and powerful enough to rent from a Sin. The second ones resented him because Asmodeus had made it very clear they could either play nice and behave or have a miserable time without getting their rocks off.

“Has Gaap given you any trouble?” Asmodeus leans suddenly towards the kitchen island, resting his face on his folded hands. His voice is deceptively composed, almost disinterested.

Fizz knows he’s shown his hand. It’s been a while since that happened. Normally, those sorts of comments—the jealous and resentful ones—slid off him like water down the drain.

He’s a professional performer. Living inside someone else’s mouth becomes natural: someone will always criticise what Fizz does or doesn’t do, what he eats, how he dresses. Demons love him and hate him for the very same reasons. To survive that world, one had to have a very thick skin.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Fizz says truthfully. Prince Gaap’s sneers and veiled insults disguised as curiosity are mild compared to what he’s heard before—what some of his fans have even said to his face. “You have to play nice with him, remember?”

Asmodeus narrows his eyes and his voice, when he speaks, is sweet. Cheery. Like fucking Firelure had come early. “Hospitality goes both ways. Gaap doesn’t get to badmouth you—or anyone else in my house.”

“He doesn’t badmouth me. He’s just angry he has to acknowledge me. Nothing else, nothing more.”

“He doesn’t get to that either.”

Fizz actually arches an eyebrow, looking sceptical.

“I’ll deal with Gaap,” Asmodeus decides. “A bit of humbling has never hurt anyone. Maybe it is time to show him a good time at Ozzie’s.”

“Now, that sounds like a plan.”

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Fizz can feel the weight of Prince Gaap’s glare as soon as he steps out of the lift. The prince's whiskers wrinkle in distaste, his eyes narrowing into sharp slits. “Sire,” he greets Asmodeus courteously, inclining his head. “Fizzarolli,” he adds as a second thought, without sparing the jester a glance. “I didn’t know you were otherwise occupied, Sire. Your secretary said you were expecting me.”

Ise had rung Asmodeus three times to let him know Gaap was waiting in the lounge at Ozzie's. Her last call had been thirty minutes ago—officially making Asmodeus rude.

“Yes, I was. Sorry about that.” Asmodeus waves a hand, dismissively. His full attention is back on Fizzarolli within the minute. “Let me know when you want to be picked up, Fizz, and I’ll have Uzza get you. Say hi to Blitz and Barbie from me.”

“Yep. Will do.” Fizz mock-salutes him and turns around, not without offering Gaap a shallow bow and a perfunctory: “Your Highness.”

Fizz feels the feline’s eyes burning into his back as he leaves Ozzie’s, but there’s nothing he can do. He slides into the backseat of the waiting car and gives Uzza the address for Barbie’s place in Pride. The drive is, luckily, uneventful. Uzza is a good listener. He isn't overwhelmed by Fizz's fame or interested in his relationship with Asmodeus. Fizz appreciates it.

After a quick snack stop, the car pulls up outside Barbie and Blitz’s place. He’s fashionably late for five minutes, but he got the good shit and he’s sure Barbie will forgive him. He’s more worried about Blitz’s lack of texts. He’s always texting—fuck, he texted even when he was working as security for Verosika. But Fizz’s last text was still on read.

“Lord Asmodeus said you would give him a call when my services were needed. Is that correct?” Uzza looks at him through the mirror. He seems unbothered. He also speaks like a damn office guy despite working for the fucking King of Lust.

“Yep. I’ll text him in the morning. No need to wait on us.”

Uzza hums. “You said that last time, sir, and I picked you and your friends up from an alley in Greed.” There isn’t judgement in Uzza’s tone. He doesn’t call Fizz “sir” with a mocking voice, humouring him. Yet, the deadpan tone makes him sound like a disappointed teacher.

Fizz winces, remembering that night. Blitz and Barbie had decided to go shot-for-shot with some shark demon who kept quoting Penemue, and things escalated fast. Someone broke a chair—Barbie, probably—and Blitz got stabbed in the thigh during a very passionate argument about whether Wrath or Greed had better dive bars. For imps, a stabbing was barely worth a bandage, but still, Uzza had to drive them to a clinic that didn’t ask questions. Fizz vaguely recalled singing on top of the car on the way out, shirt half-buttoned and one heel missing. Yeah, that night.

“Trust me, we’ll get plastered at home like good bitches.”

“Of course. If your plans change, please do let me know.”

“Sure thing, pal.”

Fizz grabs the bottle of tequila he purchased, the snacks, and kicks the door shut on his way out. Uzza stays parked, waiting for the intercom outside Barbie’s building to come to life. He doesn’t have to wait long. After the second ring, Barbie’s voice comes from the other side.

“You’re fucking late, Fizz! I’ve been waiting with this idiot trying to drink his own piss! Get in!” Barbie sounds more worried than exasperated or angry, even if her words could suggest otherwise. Fizz knows her.

Fizz goes inside, not looking back to see whether Uzza is still waiting outside. He takes the lift to the second floor, humming to himself. Barbie is already outside the door, waving at him. She pulls him in and slams the door shut.

“Thank fuck you’re here. He’s had it bad, Fizz. He didn’t even eat his horse-shaped pancakes, and you know how that shit excites him. I can’t even piss him off, and I’ve tried. Really tried.”

Fizz lets himself be dragged in, brows furrowing. Blitz ‘I love everything horse-related’, not eating horse-shaped pancakes? Heresy.

“Good thing I got the good shit, right?” he emphasises by lifting his arms and showing the treats. Maybe he’ll be shit-faced by the time Blitz is tipsy, but Barbie can go toe-to-toe with him.

Barbie gives an approving hum, walking past the small lobby into an open space that serves as kitchen and living room. “This better work,” she says while kicking some dirty clothes out of the way. The only sofa in the living room is covered with blankets, a pillow, and a stuffed horse toy. “He insisted on sleeping there. Some shit about giving me privacy, as if we hadn’t slept in the same tent for thirteen years.”

Fizz nods. It makes sense. “Where is he?”

“Showering. I threatened to kick his ass if he didn’t.” Barbie stopped in front of the pantry and picks out some plastic glasses. One was crooked, the other was stained with ink that never got out, and the other was one of those 2-for-1 merch that sinners gave away trying to sway hellborns into their political shit. “I saw your latest ad. Are you okay? Didn’t get screwed over by that fucking clown?”

“Fine. That paid handsomely.” Fizz shrugs. Advertising a robot version of himself to entertain the elite wasn’t how Fizz had imagined his career going. But it pays the bills—medical, legal—and keeps them off the streets. Besides, it’s better that those perverts scratch their itch with a robot—even if it’s modelled after him and programmed to act like him—and not him. “Anyhow,” he stretches the word, making an exaggerated movement with his arms, “going back to Blitz, from 1 to 10 how many paper tissues do we need?”

Barbie shakes her head and presses her lips together. It takes her a moment to finally compose herself, but the tension in her shoulders hasn’t disappeared. “He’s fucking shut himself off. He’s not even crying, or yelling, or wanting revenge. He just sits on the fucking couch, all by himself, and stares at a fucking point on the wall. I want to kill that bitch.”

Fizz doesn’t usually advocate for violence. He’s squeamish. But he agrees that some retaliation is more than justified in some cases. Anything involving someone hurting Blitz? More than retaliation. So, ‘I want to kill that bitch’ is probably a fucking understatement. Blitz is never quiet. Never still.

“Well, you know what they say about succubi—”

A loud crash from the only bathroom cuts Fizz off. He and Barbie turn around, and in a couple of steps, they’re already outside the door, banging on it and talking at the same time. From the other side, Blitz grunts something unintelligible before opening the door. He’s only wearing a ratty towel around his waist and his horns are covered in cheap horn-polish—the one Fizz has told him again and again is a scam.

“Are you okay?” Fizz takes a quick look. There aren’t any bruises or cuts.

Barbie grabs Blitz by the wrist and drags him out of the bathroom, which lets Fizz look inside. On the side next to the shower is a rack with all its contents scattered across the tiles. The body wash bottle is under the sink, and some of the other bottles—probably Barbie’s skincare products—have lost their caps, and their bottles are slightly cracked.

“Did you lose balance again?” Fizz asks without turning. He’s already collecting bottles and hanging the rack on its hook on the wall.

“Fuck you, no!” Blitz’s answer comes fast—too sharp.

“Like fuck you didn’t!” Barbie snaps. “Have you even taken your meds? They ain’t fucking cheap, asshole!”

“I’m well aware of…”

“Then take them!”

Fizz steps out of the bathroom to find Barbie pouring water into a glass—the 2-for-1 shitty one with Vox’s face on it—and Blitz sitting on the couch in a wet towel. Barbie grumbles something under her breath, then rummages on the kitchen counter until she finds a bottle of pills. She’s right. That shit is expensive. Like, I work for a Sin or a Pop star kind of expensive.

They were all left with lasting effects from the fire. Fizz got the worst of it by losing his horns—although his mechanical arms and legs were adapted so he could use them as a cooling system substitute. Blitz’s ear injury had left him with poor balance, which had only recently improved with his meds for vertigo. Barbie was probably the luckiest, marginally. She had lost a lot of mobility as well, but her burns hadn’t been as severe.

“Drink.”

“Huh, maybe I should put the tequila away…” Fizz suggests. His tail twitches, circling his own waist. “Y’know, mixing alcohol and meds isn’t smart.”

“Lucky us. We’re dumb as shit,” Barbie snarks. “And this ain’t the first time.”

Sighing, Fizz relents. That’s true—he just needs to think about last time. “Fine, fine! We drink to forget tonight!”

Blitz makes a face but stops resisting. At least that hasn’t changed—Blitz caving under Barbie’s pressure. Because everything else? Everything else has gone to shit.

“And put some clothes on!”

Blitz rolls his eyes and kicks the towel to the side. “If you wanted to see me naked, you only had to ask nicely, Fizz,” he says with exaggerated humour and a smile as sharp as a razor blade. Blitz calls it sexy and Barbie calls overcompensation.

Fizz calls it avoidant. “See ya naked plenty of times, pal. Nothin’ new.”

“Ouch. Tough public tonic.”

Eventually, Blitz puts on some black bottoms and a red shirt with a yellow horse on the front. They sit on the floor around the dwarf table. Fizz uses his prosthetics to bring drinks, glasses, and snacks from the kitchen, while Barbie fishes takeaway menus from under the table.

“All right, all right!” Fizz lounges dramatically over the table. “I say we order some Sinberry Glacé Tart. I tried it a few months ago and fuck, it was the tastiest shit I’ve ever tried.”

“Isn’t that one of Queen Bee’s trademarked dishes?” Barbie asks.

Fizz nods eagerly. “Yep. It’s Tuesday, everything in the Honeycomb quarter in Gluttony is at half-price. We can get some Lava Cream Cake—we may need some euphoria here.”

Barbie shrugs. “Do they even deliver here? Imp City isn’t Pentagram, so it’s not as shitty, but you can still find gutted bastards on the streets. We can do with cheap spicy noodles.”

“Hey, if Fizz wants to splurge, I say we let him.” Blitz is pouring some tequila into his glass. Quite generously too. “I’m not in the mood for whatever aphrodisiac this has in it,” he adds, pointing at the snacks. They’re all in blue, pink, and purple packages. “Just make it hot.”

Barbie throws her head up and groans. “Agh! Whatever!”

Fizz ends up placing an order for Gluttony’s finest Sinberry Glacé Tart and one small Lava Cream Cake. He orders the spicy noodles and two cheeseburgers—one with extra jalapeños and chipotle—from one of the menus. Bee’s food is magical—quite literally—and it doesn’t mess with their systems as badly. Most of the time.

“So, Blitz—”

“At least let me get drunk before you start.” Blitz downs his shot in one swig. He closes his eyes, shivers, and pours himself a second glass. “I don’t know what shit Barbie has told you, but I’m fine. It was high time to break things off with that bitch—I just regret the money I’ll lose. Word of advice, Fizz? Don’t fuck your boss.”

Barbie and Fizz exchange a long look. They can see how off Blitz has been acting. He’s detached and avoidant, and although the latter was expected, the first one wasn’t. Blitz’s avoidance has always come in a loud, exaggerated, and full of innuendos package. He flirted, made the dirtiest comments, and was so charming he tricked people into forgetting their point.

This is a poor attempt at distracting them. It’s as close to admitting he is unwell.

“In case you don’t have eyes, Mammon isn’t exactly my type.”

“Nah, you’re more into feathers, ain’t ya?” Blitz smirks over the rim of his glass. His lips are half parted, and his eyes twinkle in mischief. “Can’t blame you. King of Lust must be an incredible fuck.”

Fizz takes his empty glass and fills it with the amber liquid. The burn is light in his scarred throat compared to the intensity of Blitz’s eyes on him. Barbie snorts and leans against the couch, muttering ‘idiots’ with something closer to worry than anger.

Gathering his wits, Fizz sets his glass down. “Okay, whatever, we don’t have to talk about your shitty ex. Actually, before Barbie moves out, I wanna invite you over to Wrath.”

“Wrath?” the twins ask. Barbie sounds disgusted, while Blitz is curious.

“Yep! There’s this festival around September—Moon something—in Wrath that has some games. Brutal and physically challenging. I thought you may enjoy them since, well, you probably miss kicking people’s asses, and Barbie might miss the exercise.”

As if a switch had been flipped, Blitz sits straighter on the chair. “Fill me in. I’m all ears. What games?”

Fizz doesn’t hesitate. They will have time to get the full story behind Blitz’s breakup later, when he’s drunk and ranting.