Back in bed, Cedric held her close, more determined than ever not to let her leave his side. Nicole lies there in his arms, staring at the windows. The Charis Realm never ceased to surprise her. To think the only thing she had to worry about was a cult. There were all sorts of monsters out there, a thought that disturbed her. Maybe she should’ve left sooner. She shakes the thought away. If she had left, she would’ve never gotten a chance to fall for the Lord.

Speaking of which, Cedric was fast asleep, finally able to rest now that the killer was dead. Irene was resting in the guest room, still recovering from the events of the night. Nicole couldn’t help but pity her. At least she knew about the magic in the realm. She couldn’t imagine how terrified Irene was.

She sees the sky outside shimmer like the clouds were raining glitter. She rubs her eyes, certain she was hallucinating.

“Lillian,” she whispered, watching the pale, ghostly form of the goddess materialize before her eyes. “I thought Aaron had trapped you in that lantern.”

“He did,” she replied. “That wasn’t very nice of him.”

“Neither was possessing me,” Nicole retorts. Still, she couldn’t believe her eyes. She thought she would never see the Fallen Mother again.

“Sorry about that,” Lillian said, although there wasn’t a bit of remorse in the goddess’s voice. “Wouldn’t you do the same if you saw your dead lover come back to life before your eyes?”

“I wouldn’t be in that situation,” she spat.

The Fallen Mother laughs. “I’m not so sure about that.”

She stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“No one can escape the blueprint.”

Nicole pushes Cedric’s arms aside, getting up from the bed. She was fed up with the goddess’s cryptic words despite the fact that she had only spoken for a few minutes.

“The fuck do you mean by blueprint?” she snarled. “You shouldn’t even be here.” She swings at Lillian’s form, her hands passing through the goddess’s body.

“I don’t want to be here myself,” Lillian said. “Especially now that Raven is gone. But I have nothing to lose anymore. You’re the last thing I love.”

“That’s a load of bull,” she replied. “You only wanted to use me to become the dimensional Mother again.”

“Maybe,” Lillian said. “But there’s a reason why I chose you to be my Hand.”

“You caught me in a moment of weakness. That’s why you chose me. I was depressed and I hated my life. I was easy for you to take advantage of.”

“There were people weaker than you that I could’ve chosen, people on their deathbeds. I made you my Hand because I had created you with love. You are the last piece of my humanity. I could play all the mind games I want, but it took me a millennium to realize that I can’t cheat fate. You cannot make the same mistakes that I did,” the goddess said.

“Fate isn’t real. You shouldn’t try to make excuses for what you’ve done,” she said. “People make their own lives. After all, I could’ve chosen not to create that agreement with you.” Nicole hadn’t forgotten that the goddess had still yet to fulfill her end of that bargain.

“I used to be like you. Maybe if you lived for a thousand more years you would understand me. Not even Mothers who create entire dimensions are in control of any of this. We just follow a blueprint that the Higher Order gives us. I tried to escape my fate, you know. I fell from grace on purpose. But here I am, still trapped as the Mother of the Charis Realm.”

“But Ileana is the current Mother,” Nicole said. “You have no power here.”

“She won’t be the Mother much longer if she continues to go against the blueprint. She’s a young goddess. She thinks this entire realm is my design and that killing me will finally destroy it all. It will only make things worse for her and her followers. The realm will punish them.”

“They can change their destinies,” she said. “Right?”

“Free will is an illusion,” the goddess said firmly. “Everything that will happen has already been written by the Higher Order.”

“Even your fall from grace?”

A look of sorrow crosses her face. “Even my fall.”

“What about your feelings for Raven?” Surely love couldn’t be controlled by some higher power.

“That too,” Lillian said. “No one has free will. Especially not the angels.”

She sits in silence, trying to digest the new information she was given. Were her feelings for the Lord preordained as well? Did that mean anything she experienced was truly her choice? Suddenly, she was struck by another realization. Some bastard outside of time and space purposely made it so that she would suffer. And if the events of her life so far had indicated anything, she was destined to suffer more.

“Do you know what the Higher Order has planned for me?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Lillian said. She gives Nicole a cruel, thin-lipped smile before giving her the rundown of what life had planned for her.

Meanwhile, Aaron was pacing around in his room. No longer in the presence of other mortals, he sheds his glamour. He examines his horns and wings in the mirror, trying to get used to his own appearance. He had played the part of Aaron the Butler for so long that he almost forgot who he really was.

Truthfully, he wishes he didn’t remember. Asmodeus, Prince of Hell and Demon of Lust, had been a different person from who he was now. Back then, he had wanted to be King of Hell at any cost, to the point he plotted his father’s murder in every waking second he had. Sleep forced him to seek reprieve from his endless ambition, back when he had the ability to lose consciousness. He was a fool, careless in the way young demons were, convinced he could take the throne with a few unholy alliances. If he only hadn’t been so stupid, so naive. The memory of his exile resurfaces, bringing with it the humiliation and pain buried beneath centuries of pretending.

He was tempted to slip on his glamour again. It was easy to hide and avoid Asmodeus, to act like the demon in the mirror was an illusion. He focuses on the human eye he got from the Lord, the plain brown color of it oddly reassuring. Just as Cedric was manifesting demon abilities, he too was convinced that he was becoming more human. A chunk of his gold scales had given away to soft flesh. His fire was becoming more difficult to summon. Usually, he would loathe the idea of inviting weakness into his body, but he tolerated his new condition. It took a crumb of humanity to keep him tethered to the Charis Realm. Without it, he would be forced to return to hell, trapped in a limbo of pain.

Something raps against his window, interrupting him from his thoughts. He pulls back the drapes to discover a certain wayward angel. He wastes no time letting him in, quickly unlatching the windows.

“Raven,” he said, greeting the dark-winged man. “I see you’ve returned.”

“Asmodeus,” the angel said, his voice wary. He directs a cautious glance at the butler’s demon form.

“No mortal will enter the room,” he said. “I wouldn’t risk letting any of the humans look at me like this.”

“You can never be too careful,” the angel said, closing his wings. A half-smile made its way to the butler’s face. He had missed Raven’s prudent persona.

“So what brings you here?”

“I need answers.” He takes a seat on the demon’s bed. Something in Aaron’s chest clenches, but he ignores it.

“I take it that you’ve seen the realm.”

The angel grumbles, clearly displeased with the state of things. “The Higher Order should’ve never allowed Ileana to be the new Mother. She’s brought nothing but discord to the realm. Lillian was a perfectly good Mother. She followed the blueprint they gave her.”

“Nothing wrong with going a little off script.”

This prompted a glare from the angel. “Going a ‘little off script’ will bring about the collapse of reality. Why did Lillian ever stop being the Mother of the Charis Realm?”

“The Higher Order found out about her plans for you.”

“What plans?”

“The ones that made you beg me to kill you,” he said as if it were the most casual thing in the world.

“What did she want to do to me?”

He hesitates.

“I need to know,” Raven said. “Don’t spare me the truth.”

“She was going to pervert you as she did to every one of us except she wanted to take it a step further with you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She touches all of us,” he said bluntly. “She was kinder to her newest Hand. Only did it to her in her dreams.”

“Touch?”

Aaron gives it a few moments for the realization to hit.

“Oh. She never did that to me.” The angel looks at him sheepishly.

“Because that’s not what gods are supposed to use angels for. But she said she was in love with you. She loved you so much that she had plans to fall and put you to sleep. She was going to stow you away somewhere and use your body for eternity. Said she would use parts of you to stay young when she was mortal.”

Raven looked horrified. “That makes no sense.”

“It was the story you told me.”

“So did you do it?”

A puzzled expression crosses Aaron’s face. “Do what?”

“Kill me.”

He hung his head in shame. “Yes.”

“Then why am I still alive?”

“Lillian wasn’t lying when she said that I loved you.”

A silence falls between the pair. Several times Raven’s mouth moved, his lips shaping words that never come out.

Aarons speaks, saving Raven the effort of having to ask. “You didn’t deserve to die. I thought you needed a second chance at life. A life free from Lillian. But I’m a demon. I can’t bring back the dead on my own.”

“What did you do?” The angel finally found the courage to speak.

“I gave Thanatos my soul in exchange for your second life.”

Raven’s eyes bulged out of their sockets. “Come again?”

“What? It’s not like I needed it anyway.”

“A soul is the most sacred part of any being,” the angel said. “Why did you give it away so easily?”

“Because that was what you were worth to me.”

Back in the Lord’s room, Lillian finished telling Nicole about her future. The girl stood in shock, unable to properly comprehend what the goddess told her.

“No way that’s going to happen,” she said. “Impossible. I would never do that.”

“The more you struggle against the strings of fate, the tighter they wrap around you,” the Fallen Mother said.

“Of course I’m going to struggle! You’re telling me that I’m going to-”

“I didn’t tell you anything,” the goddess said. “In fact, you never saw me. You’re going to go back to bed and this will all be a dream.”

She froze, briefly struggling against the goddess’s words. But her mental efforts are futile. She does as Lillian commands, slipping back into Cedric’s arms and closing her eyes. It was just a dream after all.

Nicole didn’t get to sleep for very long before something woke her up. Irene was shaking her frantically, insistent that there was something strange in the hallway. She moves to wake Cedric to investigate, but the opera singer stops her, wanting to be discreet.

“I don’t want him to be angry with me if it’s nothing,” Irene said.

Understanding that she and Cedric didn’t get along, she follows Irene out of the room and leaves the Lord to his peaceful slumber.

“It’s over there, in that corner.” Irene pointed to the end of the hallway. A creature shifted in the shadows, watching them with its menacing yellow eyes. Nicole shifts her bracelet into a sword, moving ahead of Irene to the monster. As she drew closer, she saw that it resembled the chimera she had slain before, only its fur was black rather than a tawny.

“Get Cedric,” she told Irene, keeping her eyes on the beast.

“No.”

Her head snaps back to the opera singer. She had opened her mouth to reassure her that the Lord wouldn’t be angry with her since there was a real threat in the manor when she heard an awful crunching sound. Irene was changing before her eyes, fur growing on her skin and claws extending from her nails. Her eyes flashed red, finally exposing their true colors before becoming the second chimera.

“Fuck,” Nicole said, realizing the mistake she had made. How could she be so stupid as to let a member of the Family into the manor?

Her head swivels between the two beasts, unsure of which to tackle first. They circle her, each able to pounce on her at the slightest movement.

She goes for the chimera in the shadows, letting out an incoherent war cry. Irene immediately pins her down while the other beast wraps a chain around her. The sword in her hands shifts back into a bracelet, unprompted by verbal command. She tries to turn it into a weapon, but it’s no use. The two monsters drag her off into the night. She screams the entire way, refusing to go quietly.

In the room below, Raven wore a very conflicted expression.

“You shouldn’t have traded your soul away,” he said, scolding the demon. “Don’t you know the consequences of doing something so rash?”

“It was my choice,” Aaron replied. “I don’t regret a single moment of it.”

“I can never love you back. The Higher Order made it so that I could only serve the gods. I’m not capable of being devoted to someone else.”

“I never expected you to love me back.”

The angel grew frustrated. “Then why-”

“Because it was what you deserved. Besides, I’m a demon. I don’t think my love is worth much if it makes you feel any better.”

“You’ve changed.” He touches the patch of soft flesh on Aaron’s body. “The old Asmodeus would’ve never made that kind of sacrifice.”

“The old Asmodeus is gone.”

Raven plucks a feather from his wings, placing it in Aaron’s hand. “I may not be able to love you, but you will always have my loyalty. Say my name to this feather and I will be at your side.”

Before the demon could get in another word, the angel left, vanishing into thin air. He looks down at the feather and tucks it into the inner pocket of his jacket. He had wanted to ask Raven to stay.

Cedric bursts into his room, interrupting his reverie. “Aaron, I need your help.”

He tilts his head to the side like a cat. “What is it?”

“Nicole has been kidnapped.”

He sighed, unsurprised. “Not again.”