There was no lock on the door, but it did not matter.

None of them could have followed.

Sebastian looked up, slumping against the door.

Ciel was laying on the ground, half crumpled, his wings splayed out, breathing heavily.

"I'm sorry, Ciel. I never wanted you to have to do something like that. Are you hurt?"

Ciel didn't answer immediately, though he shook his head weakly.

Sebastian swallowed a heavy lump in his throat as he saw bloody marks on Ciel's upper arm where he'd grabbed too hard, bruises already blooming under the crescent cuts his nails had left behind.

It made him feel like curling up, like hiding and never seeing the angel-or anyone else-ever again.

He set the mannequin upright, glancing over it briefly. "Dammit." He hissed.

He wondered which one of his charges had been destroyed to get this, and if he could have saved them.

They were outside of Claude's domain, now, but he didn't know if they had entered into limbo or another demon's space.

Ciel groaned, pushing himself to his knees slowly. Shockingly, his wings did not hurt; he folded them against his back carefully.

He lifted from the floor, aching. At first, he had thought it was a wood flooring, but quickly realized that it was some kind of huge paper, painted to look like wood. It was lifting up slightly.

He looked around the room.

There was a huge hole in the wall opposite the door they had entered through and almost no furniture. There was a bed and a dresser, but as Ciel approached the dresser, found that it was like a huge block of wood had simply had lines painted on it to look like a dresser, the handles made of beads the size of Ciel's fist. The bed looked like it was made somewhat similarly, a frame of wood with felt stretched over it, a single pillow at the top made with huge, clumsy stitches. The walls were papered with a once-garish floral print that had since faded and begun to peel at the edges of the room.

There were no light fixtures or candles in the room, but a window above the bed, and as Ciel turned again, one side of the room had no wall at all, seeming to fall out into emptiness.

Ciel looked at Sebastian, who was looking at him, and seemed as utterly confused as he was.

Sebastian could not sense any other presence in the space, but he could not tell where the room was meant to lead, and his horns were dangerously uncared for. He watched Ciel climb unsteadily onto the bed, and push his hand through the window, which had no panes, only to pull it back in again and look back at Sebastian, bewildered.

Ciel made no sound as he lowered back to the floor, and as he turned back to the empty doorway, gasped quietly.

"There's a crib." He nearly whispered, crossing over the threshold of the rooms as if possessed.

"Ciel, wait!" Sebastian tried, but the angel had already passed into the other room, and Sebastian could only chase dutifully.

This room had the same wood-painted-paper flooring, but the three walls had been papered with a faded blue stripe pattern, and there was a braided rug made of huge strands of fraying cloth. Ciel was standing on tiptoe on the opposite wall of the room, leaning against a crib and looking in. The crib's bottom was made in the same way as the bed in the other room, but had thin sheets of wood coming up to frame it. There was a thick swatch of fleece, matted down and discolored, covering a lump in the crib, and as Sebastian drew closer, Ciel backed away.

There was a porcelain infant in the crib, slightly larger than an actual baby, face messily painted with black eyes and red lips and cheeks, a tuft of yellow hair curling out from a sculpted bonnet.

It was completely fake and barely realistic, yet Sebastian was still expecting it to breathe or cry.

Everything was so silent, so still. Too quiet, too still.

Ciel was inspecting the other pieces of furniture in the room; there was a rocking chair pushed into one corner, made from the same strips of wood as the crib, not nearly stable enough for anyone to sit in, and a rocking-horse carved out of another large block of wood, painted with basic colors similar to the huge doll.

There was a hole cut into the floor, with a flimsy rail coming up on one side, and Ciel looked to Sebastian questioningly.

"You ought to put your dress back on, first." Sebastian advised. "You saw how the dancers reacted to you."

Ciel couldn't argue; his feet were at risk of splinters anyway from the cheap wood, and he didn't like the idea of leaving his arms uncovered to have someone impure grab and burn him.

But that didn't mean he wasn't going to complain about being choked back into those corsets.

"I-I can't breathe at all! It doesn't need to be that tight!" Ciel gasped, scrabbling at the lace pulled against his stomach.

"I'm sorry, your waist is remarkably thin. Without the other corset layering it, it won't fit you." Sebastian responded, though he was smiling, because Ciel couldn't see him, and he was remarkably cute so flustered.

"As if-as if I would put them both on again! I could hardly be-end...hff…"

Ciel gasped again, pulling the collar.

"You know, these are remarkably well made. There's metal in there." Sebastian responded blandly, his fingers pulling the ribbon tighter at the center.

Though it was as close as could be in the center, the top and bottom were still extremely loose. "This...without both corsets, the dress won't stay up. It's already too long as it is; you'll never be able to walk if it's not at least back where it was." Sebastian murmured quietly.

"Fine." Ciel snapped. He handed Sebastian the other corset. "I'm going to regret this."

Sebastian held a chuckle in his chest. He let his hand linger on Ciel's shoulder.

He tried not to think about why.

Ciel tugged on the sleeve of his left arm. He huffed as Sebastian began to pull the second corset into place. He looked up, around the room, and back to the mannequin. "You said you can't sense anyone in here?" He asked warily.

Sebastian shook his head, then remembered Ciel couldn't see him.

"No. But, to be fair…I'm not in the best position. You've seen what my horns look like."

"Wait, that's how you can tell when other demons are around?"

"Not quite, I suppose. I'll say I definitely couldn't tell before I grew them, but now that they're here, most things are heightened...but as far as actually having the purpose of being able to track down other demons, I couldn't tell you. Precious little research has been done about the nature of demons."

"W-why?" Ciel huffed again as Sebastian jerked the ribbon together.

Sebastian actually did laugh, then.

"I know most other demons liken me to a black sheep in their flock, but demons in general almost never become even remotely intimate with one another. The closest I've ever seen to a bond in other demons is when they trade brides, and there are very few demons capable of communicating with any other layer of existence. Essentially, demons do not spend enough time with one another to find what they have in common, and even if they did, it would be remarkably difficult to share that information. And, Heaven doesn't really care about us anymore."

Sebastian nimbly tied the second corset into place. "There. Now, before we go anywhere, you must promise that you will not immediately head towards any sign of children. It's incredibly dangerous."

Ciel turned, straightening the back of his collar and folding his wings against it.

"It must be part of my nature. I'm telling you, I didn't know what I was doing until I'd done it."

"Then stay close to me." Sebastian sighed, being immediately ignored as Ciel crossed back through the doorway into the nursery.

"What if that's the only door in this space?" Ciel asked, peeking back through the empty hole.

Sebastian shook his head, crossing the room.

"It's not possible for a room to only have one exit unless it is part of a demon's personal domain. There must always be at least one entry and one exit."

"How do doors even work down here, that they can lead to anywhere?"

"If there was an explanation, I would tell you, but I do not know."

"This place is ridiculous. It makes no sense." Ciel scoffed, ducking back into the other room as Sebastian came close enough.

Surprisingly bold, Ciel took the steps down first, each one creaking unsteadily. It was like they'd never been used before. For good reason, Sebastian thought; they were not made by someone who knew what they were doing.

They lowered into a room the same exact size as the one above it.

"Heaven is hardly better." Sebastian defended, unsure of why he even had to defend Hell.

Ciel opened his mouth to make a response, but no sound came out as he took in the room around him.

The walls were papered with a faded and stained green, but huge parts of the paper had been pulled away, exposing a cheap, unrefined wood backdrop. There was a black settee, which upon closer inspection was a carved block of wood with fabric stretched over it, a side table that had a few pieces of giant paper, folded into the basic shapes of book shells, several shelves on the wall that were empty, and a reading chair made in the same fashion as the settee nestled in the corner next to a wall sconce that looked to be simply a ball of glass half-carved into the wall, a frame painted on the paper around it.

"What is Heaven like, for us?" Ciel finally asked, touching one of the pseudo-books gingerly.

Sebastian had to open and close his mouth a few times before he was actually able to answer.

It's very different for you than me.

He still sees fallen angels as angels.

He thinks we're the same.

Oh, goodness, he can't really think that!

"It has been quite a long time since I've been there." Sebastian began carefully. "But...it was almost the exact opposite of what I know here. Everything was light. Was...open."

Then he laughed shortly.

"For the most part." He added.

Ciel made a short sound, peering out of the giant hole where the wall should've been. "You really can't remember it at all, can you?" Sebastian asked softly.

Ciel stilled, his shoulders bowing in slightly.

"No." He responded, softer. "That's what bothers me the most...like I wasn't anything, before I was sacrificed. And I...I still can't understand why I was sacrificed at all."

Ciel wrapped his arms together, stepping back from the empty wall slightly. "...I think there's another floor down there, not too far out...but I can't tell."

He turned back, and passed through another hole in the wall, the same space as the one upstairs.

Sebastian couldn't think of what he was meant to say. He wanted to reassure Ciel, but how could he? There wasn't any assuaging concerns that could be justified.

The final room was a kitchen, or at least was meant to resemble one. A rickety, uneven table sat squarely in the middle of the room, a clay fireplace filled one back corner, and the back wall was covered with another block of wood, lines painted to represent cabinets and the top of it painted black. There were large hooks on the wall, crudely shaped iron pots and pans on them, and a door against the far wall.

Ciel rested his hand on the door handle. He turned back to face Sebastian, waiting for a confirmation.

Sebastian nodded.

Ciel pulled on the door.

It didn't budge.

"Wha-? What on..?"

Ciel took the knob in both hands and pushed, then pulled with all his might, but the door didn't move at all. "Sebastian," he began, unable to hide the mounting panic in his voice, "it won't open!"

Sebastian stepped forward, taking the handle. As soon as he pushed on it, though, he knew it would not move.

"It's fake. See the trim? It's just glued to the wall, and the door's painted another color. The knob has wire in it."

"B-but you said there were always two doors, at least!"

"Because there are. The other one must be out there, somewhere." Sebastian gestured to the empty wall space, carefully monitoring the anxiety in Ciel's chest.

"It...it's very dark, out there. I mean, it's dark in here, too, but…"

"Only dim. I'm sure that...er...sure that it'll be easier to see once we're closer to the ground."

Ciel made a face.

"It's not that far, really."

"I already flew once, earlier, and it was remarkably uncomfortable!"

Sebastian looked down at Ciel. He didn't seem to be overexaggerating; Sebastian had watched Ciel's wings snap backward when he was dragged through the doorway.

But Sebastian could see the next floor down, no more than two and a half meters or so, and it would be fine. Ciel knelt at the edge of the wall, peeking down.

"I...I don't know...this place seems…"

He stood again, turning back to the room.

His eyes grew large, his pupils shrank, and he choked on the breath in his throat.

"Ciel?"

"This place...it's a dollhouse."

Sebastian felt a chill as soon as Ciel said it, though he knew it was true.

"We...we are no longer in my level of hell."

Sebastian stiffly pulled Ciel into his grip, almost compulsively grabbing his own horn.

"What does that mean?" Ciel asked softly, too frightened by Sebastian's tone to fight.

"Listen to me. Very carefully." Sebastian began.

"I can't protect you here. Not like I could in my own realm."

His voice was shaking, he knew it was, but he couldn't do much to change it.

"What does that mean?" Ciel begged, his hand closing over Sebastian's.

"I have a bounty on my head, here. We're in Limbo now."

"What?"

Sebastian forced himself to breathe.

"Do you remember Finny's garden? With all the plants?"

Ciel nodded, looking from Sebastian back to the darkness. "Good...you need to run. Find another door, think of that room, think of Finny, before opening the door. You do that, with every door you find, you can make your way back there. Find Finny, stay with him, and I will come find you."

What? Sebastian, I can't-"

"-Yes, you can. You're safer alone than with me, here, and it's only a matter of time before someone figures out I'm here. Don't let anyone know who you were sacrificed to, that you are pure...do your best not to run into anyone, I suppose."

Somewhere, very far away, a bell began to toll. Sebastian knelt slowly, lifting Ciel.

"Sebastian-"

"-I'm sorry, Ciel. I swear to you, I will find you again."

"-Sebastian!"

"I'm sorry."

"Sebastian!"

He turned and launched his angel out into the darkness with as much gentleness as he could.

"Sebastian!"

The demon shuddered and turned away, forcing the angel's cries to fall upon deaf ears.