For the next few days, Trixie couldn't get the Devil out of her head. The word 'deception' haunted her, and she found herself examining him closely whenever he visited. The things he said, the way he moved… she knew Mom saw it too. Lucifer would do something, and she would frown, or wince, before shaking her head slightly and carrying on as though nothing had happened at all.

It was clear she wasn't going to do anything about it, not anytime soon at least. Which meant Trixie had to. She promised not to abandon him… but that meant not abandoning him to whatever was happening to him, right? She just needed to figure out what was going on, that's all.

That was hard though, considering he barely spoke to her these days. Oh sure, in front of Mom he made some effort to play the part, but as soon as her back was turned, he immediately returned to ignoring her again. She needed to form a plan, something that would give him no choice but to talk to her, with no chance of escape.

The perfect opportunity presented itself when Mom got called into work late one night. The first thing Trixie did was make sure to ask if Lucifer could be the one to watch her. Sometimes, now that she was older, Mom would let her look after herself, but never when there was a strong possibility that she wouldn't be back before bedtime. Dad was going to be stuck at work too, and with Lucifer already in the apartment after having joined them for dinner, it just made sense.

Of course, as she suspected, it was the last thing he wanted to do, going as far as to offer to join Mom in sorting paperwork at the station if it meant he could get out of it. Thankfully though, Trixie wasn't the only one who wanted him there.

"Please, Lucifer?" her mom pleaded, her blue eyes widening in the same way Trixie's did when she was after something. "It'll save me trying to find a sitter, which will be a complete nightmare at this time of night, and she won't even be up for much longer." Mom glanced over towards the living room where Trixie was sitting, and when she saw her watching them, she caught Lucifer by the arm, tugging him a little further into the kitchen.

Not that it stopped Trixie from being able to hear her. Well, both of them, really. Considering they were adults, you would think at least one of them would have learned to whisper properly by now. Instead, they didn't seem to have a clue how to be able to talk to each other without being overheard. "You need to spend some time with her again anyway, you know? If we're going to do this long term. It's not like she's going anywhere."

"Ever?" Lucifer said, his expression shocked, obviously horrified at the idea.

Mom raised her hand to her temple, rubbing it like she always did when she started to get a headache. "No, not ever," she replied, still quietly, but not whispering like before, either. Maybe she realised there was no point, not with Lucifer refusing to join in. "But not any time soon, either. Please? I need you to do this for me, Lucifer."

His eyes narrowed. "It is a requirement of our relationship?" he asked carefully, and, after a beat, Mom nodded.

"But, Lucifer, I want you to want to spend time with her, with both of us."

He frowned. "I am, am I not?"

"You are, but—" she broke off, then grabbed her keys and a hairband from the nearby bowl on the counter. "Look," she said, roughly tugging her hair into a ponytail, and turning to grab her jacket. "Are you going to do it, or not? Because otherwise, I need to go and start disturbing the neighbours. Again."

Silently, Trixie groaned. She hated being stuck with whoever happened to be free in their apartment building that day. Generally, it was someone old and retired, who wouldn't let her watch what she wanted to on TV, and actually insisted on the bedtime her Mom told them.

It made her miss Maze even more.

After a few moments, Lucifer nodded. "Very well, if you insist."

There was the temple rub again, this time accompanied by an eye roll. "Great," Mom uttered, not sounding the least bit pleased with his level of enthusiasm. Checking her watch, she quickly rattled off her instructions for the night, which mostly consisted of things Trixie had heard a hundred times before. "She can stay up another hour, since I'm bailing. No more sweets, and nothing on the television that's going to rile her up before bed. Do not let her trick you into letting her watch the last hour of the Shining."

Trixie opened her mouth to protest, but quickly closed it again at the look Mom gave her. Okay, so it was true, she might have had a couple of nightmares about that particular film, but Maze said nightmares were good for the soul! Which was probably the reason her friend loved the movie so much, considering she didn't have one. Trixie wondered if there was a way she could get rid of hers, too. That way, she wouldn't be scared anymore, and she could watch all the horror movies she liked.

Of course, the old Lucifer probably would have still let her watch it. This one however? She fully expected to be packed off to bed the second the clock hit one hour from now.

Which meant she had 60 minutes to find out why he was acting this way...

"As you wish, Chloe," Lucifer replied, smoothly taking the jacket from Mom and helping her slip into it. He pulled her ponytail free, and she smiled at him gratefully.

"Thank you," she said, softer now, before picking up her bag. "I mean it. I'll be back as soon as I can." Rising to her tiptoes, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek, before also blowing a kiss in Trixie's direction. "Be good, Monkey."

Pretending to catch the kiss, Trixie nodded, beaming. She fully intended to be good tonight, but only if 'good' also included being good at interrogating her sitter for the evening. "See you tomorrow!" she shouted cheerfully, more than used to evenings like this now. A flash of guilt crossed her Mom's face, but she quickly buried it under a smile, as she always did.

And then she was gone, the door slamming behind her, and it was just the two of them, alone at last.

Lucifer stared at her, and she stared right back. It had never occurred to her before, how little she ever saw him blink, but right now, it couldn't be more obvious. If he thought she would back down first though, he was wrong. She was a kid, which practically made her an expert in staring competitions.

And sure enough, he was the one to look away first. "Television then," he said, more to himself than anything, before starting to walk across to the living room.

She shook her head. "I don't want to watch TV," she said, trying to put on her best 'don't argue with me' mom-style voice. Television meant he would have an excuse not to talk to her, and that would defeat the entire point of tonight. "Can we do some colouring instead?" That, she figured, would at least give her the chance to ask him questions without arousing suspicion.

A few months ago, for parent's day, she'd been tasked with writing a 'day in the life' report on what her mom did at work. Much to her dismay, Mom refused to tell her about all the fun stuff, like shooting and beating up bad guys, but she did talk a lot about interrogations, and how to get information out of people by making them think they were your friend.

Lucifer though... he was already supposed to be her friend. Which meant he should answer whatever she asked, right? After all, he always told the truth.

And yet, that flower...

Her 'friend' eyed her warily. "This is something we do?" he asked, a note of disbelief in his voice.

Mom's voice echoed in her head. "He's been having some trouble remembering, so don't be worried if he's forgotten a few things, okay?"

Deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt, just for now, she nodded. It was the truth, after all; colouring was something they often did together on the nights that Lucifer would babysit. Or spawnsit, as he always called it. She preferred that, actually. It wasn't like she was a baby anymore. It was one of the many reasons she didn't use colouring books now, either. They were for children, and she was practically a teenager.

No, she would do the drawing and Lucifer would colour, just like they always did. It was better that way. And absolutely nothing to do with the fact she had never met an adult who could draw as badly as Lucifer.

At least... that's what she used to think, back before she saw him paint. Now, she wasn't so sure.

"Here," she said, handing him a pile of artwork she hadn't gotten around to filling in yet. Colouring wasn't as much fun as drawing, and there wasn't anyone else around most of the time willing to do it for her. Mom and Dad were too busy most of the time, and Maze, well… she tended to attack the paper as though it contained images of her mortal enemies. Trixie liked her drawings; she had no desire to see every person on them covered in blood. It wasn't that she was fussy, exactly, it was just… Maze didn't even stay in the lines. Even Charlie would be able to do that, eventually.

Lucifer awkwardly folded himself down in front of the coffee table, and she pushed the pencil box towards him. "You can work on those, and I'll make us something new."

The glare he gave the task in front of him reminded her of how she looked at vegetables when she didn't want to eat them. After a few seconds though, he huffed defeatedly, selecting a crayon and diligently setting to work. She watched him for a while, but when his eyes flickered up towards her questioningly, she buried her head in her sketchpad and started to draw.

She tried engaging him in conversation, but he gave her one word answers at best. The difference to how much they used to talk was staggering. The silence made her feel uneasy, and, not for the first time, she wished the Lucifer she used to know was there. Not this imposter who wore his face and pretended to like her. Lucifer pretended too, but he only pretended not to like her. There was a difference.

After a bit, she looked up to find him tapping his fingers on the table, a completed pile of artwork stacked in front of him, with nothing left to do. "You can work on this if you like," she said, pushing her half finished drawing towards him. "I'm not done yet, but…"

"That's quite alright," he replied, a ghost of a smile gracing his lips. "I'm sure I'll manage."

She wondered what the picture would end up looking like. A year ago, she would have dreaded the result, fully expecting to see a stick figure version of Mom slotted awkwardly beside the finished portrait of Lucifer. It was like the Devil considered every art project to be a game of Hangman, only there were never any winners when it came to the finished result.

Idly, she wondered if that horrible painting she'd seen in his bedroom at the penthouse was his; if he could paint, but not draw, maybe that would explain why on earth he would ever have something that awful up on the wall. If Mom thought her nightmares were bad after watching the Shining, they were nothing compared to the terrifying mermaids with painted faces that haunted her dreams after seeing that. Auntie Linda told her clowns were nothing to be afraid of; Trixie wasn't so sure.

At least she'd managed to make a start on adding Mom into the picture, something to draw attention away from the fact she had just spent the last 30 minutes studying the man in front of her intently, playing a real life game of spot the difference. She kept thinking there was something on his forehead, like a mark or a scar, but every time she tried to focus on it, what she thought was there, suddenly wasn't anymore. "Can I see?" she said, gesturing towards her now coloured in pictures. He didn't look up from the pad, using his free hand to blindly slide them towards her.

She flicked through them, the frown on her face growing with every page. The drawings were neatly filled in, the colours he'd chosen were good, but… "Why have you filled in all the wings with black?" she asked, completely puzzled as to why he would do such a thing.

His gaze remained fixed on his drawing. "Why wouldn't I?" he asked, a note of irritation in his voice.

"Because angel wings aren't black," she said, shaking her ruined artwork at him to emphasize her point.

When he finally looked at her, his eyes were as dark as the wings he had created. "Well mine are," he said, practically growling the words. In the next breath though, his voice softened again, sliding back into its usual smooth tones. He continued, "Angel wings aren't all white, like you humans presume. Each angel is different. There are even some who believe the colour reflects the nature of our soul." He stopped working then for a moment, his grip on the pencil growing so tight Trixie worried it might snap in half.

"A ridiculous notion, of course. The purest wings I've ever seen belonged to the most tainted of us all. They were a lie."

A lie.

But it was Lucifer who was lying.

His wings weren't black.

She'd seen them before, nearly two years ago now. It was a Monday night, and, as usual, she was stuck in her bedroom doing homework. There was something—she couldn't even remember what it was now—that she desperately wanted to watch on TV, but Mom wouldn't let her until she was finished. So when she heard her mom scream, the kind of scream that usually indicated there was a large spider in the vicinity, she hadn't exactly raced out there to rescue her.

To her surprise though, when she heard Mom for a second time, it wasn't Trixie she was calling out to. At the sound of Mom's voice, she finally got up and went to her bedroom door, sliding it open just enough to see her standing on a chair in the corner of the room, her phone clutched tightly in one hand. Before Trixie could say anything though, the strangest noise came from outside the building. Instantly forgetting about attempting to help with the spider situation in any way, she ran to her window, and when she got there…

She saw Lucifer, standing in front of the apartment, two huge gleaming white wings spread out on either side of him. They were there for no more than a second before he shrugged his shoulders, and then they vanished into his back as if they had never been there at all. The afterimage stayed in her mind though, and it raced with the possibilities. Lucifer could fly. Lucifer had flown here! Could he take Mom flying? Would he take her flying?

Only one thing was for certain, and that was that his wings were the most beautiful things she had ever seen. There was no other word for it, they were awesome.

Seeing them was a memory she would never forget.

And neither was what happened afterwards, when he burst into the apartment seconds later to find Mom screaming and pointing at the floor, the spider having made its way towards the chair she had taken sanctuary on. The look on his face when he realised the emergency she'd called him about was an eight legged insect was hilarious. Trixie watched the pair of them from the gap in her door, trying not to laugh as Lucifer ranted about the Brittany buffet she'd pulled him away from, while Mom shouted at him to shut up and actually do something to help her. Trixie still didn't quite understand what a 'Brittany buffet' was, but a geography class a few weeks later made her suspect that it might be something to do with French food.

When it became clear that Lucifer wasn't going to do anything—"And risk getting cobwebs on my Armani, Detective? Preposterous!"—Trixie ended up taking matters into her own hands. One minute Mom was threatening him with sending the photograph she had of his unicorn painted face to Maze, and the next, the spider was neutralised, the small throwing knife Trixie normally kept hidden inside Miss Alien pinning it to the floor.

Silence fell over the room, until a long, slow clap finally broke it. "Well done, urchin!" Lucifer beamed. "Mazikeen will be pleased." He looked genuinely impressed, and that in turn made Trixie feel so proud of herself that she almost forgot Mom had also seen that particular display.

"Trixie Espinoza!"

Unfortunately, she was a little too late in disappearing back into her bedroom, clinging to the vain hope that she could have passed off the knife as magically appearing from nowhere. Mom climbed down from the chair with Lucifer's assistance, still being extremely careful to avoid going anywhere near the spider, despite the fact it was very obviously dead.

"We are going to be having a serious talk about this later, young lady." She hesitated, glancing behind her with a shudder. "But… thank you. At least someone helped me."

And just like that, Mom and Lucifer were back at it as though they had never stopped.

"I came, didn't I? Wasn't that helping?"

"You didn't DO anything!"

"Well, I beg to differ. I think you'll find I helped you down off that chair, for one thing."

"Oh, that's right, you did. Thank you, Lucifer, I couldn't have done it without you."

"You're very welcome, Detective. Any time."

"Urgh, you just—Wait. How'd you get here so fast, anyway?"

"I wasn't far away. What? I wasn't! I'm curious though, why call me, out of all the people who could have helped you with this… dangerous animal? The spawn seems to have certainly proved herself capable."

"Oh. I—I guess you were just the first person I thought of."

"Oh."

It was at that point Trixie did finally close her door. Mom and Lucifer were obviously about to have one of those weird moments where they would just stare at each other without saying anything, and she'd seen enough of those to last her a lifetime.

Or so she thought, at the time.

Now she would do anything to see them look at one another like that again.

And anything… well, that included breaking the rules Mom had laid down for her. Just like Lucifer was doing, only, they were the rules he set himself. He didn't lie, not ever. And yet here he was, telling her something she knew wasn't true.

She could make excuses for it, if she tried. Maybe angels could dye their wings, just like Mom dyed her hair sometimes. The idea that Lucifer bought a suit that white feathers didn't go with and changed his wings to match actually didn't sound all that unfeasible. Or… what if wings were like pocket squares, and he had interchangeable sets, just like the accessories for her Ken dolls she used to have, back before Molly McDowell destroyed them all?

Okay, so she knew she was reaching there. The truth was, she didn't think it was either of those things. Lucifer seemed so angry over the colour of his wings, almost offended that she would think all angel wings should be white. But why would he be offended, when he had white feathers himself?

It was another puzzle on top of all the others she had to solve. Why he was acting so different. Why he was treating her the way he was. And now, why he was lying.

Did one lie make a liar though? There was a simple way of testing that, at least. He'd already lied once. She just needed to see if he would lie again.

"Lucifer?"

It was obvious by the sudden tension in his shoulders that he'd heard her, and yet he didn't so much as raise his eyes from where he was busy scribbling on the paper. After a second or two, she tried again, this time injecting a little more whine into her voice. Getting someone's attention when she wanted, after all, was a skill she had down to a fine art.

"Luciiiferrr?"

Finally, he looked up, visibly annoyed. "What?" he said, jabbing his pencil pointedly against the sketchpad. "I thought you wanted me to complete this?"

She ignored the question, instead, focusing on her own. "What's Hell like?" she asked innocently, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the coffee table, her face resting sweetly in the cradle of her hands.

He regarded her for a moment, before his gaze flickered back to his drawing. "What do you think it's like?" he replied, a question to her question, which was the last thing she wanted.

Even though he wasn't particularly watching, she shrugged. "Just like in the movies, I guess. Red everywhere, lots of fire and screaming…"

"Well, there you go then," he said, putting down his pencil and selecting a different one. "You already know."

Damn. That wasn't what she wanted to hear either. Because, of course, he was right, she did know what Hell was like. Maze had described it to her plenty of times over the years, enough as Trixie could picture it perfectly. And it was nothing like that at all.

To hear Maze tell it, the underworld was home. Dangerous in all the right ways, a never ending labyrinth that could kill you the instant you let your guard down. It was dark, and silent, and there was always something watching in the shadows. Any fires there had burned out eons ago, banished along with any other light that might remind their King of where he came from.

Her friend always spoke of Hell with such longing. But Lucifer didn't.

He had hatred in his eyes, the night he spoke about the parts of Hell Disney got right. The rest of his expression though… that was just sad. She couldn't imagine what it was like, spending so much of your life trapped in the dark. As someone who still slept with a nightlight on until recently, she often wondered if Lucifer was scared down there.

Perhaps he was, and that's why he had changed so much.

Thinking of Hercules again gave her an idea though. "Is there a river of souls there?" she asked, hoping her excitement would be mistaken for her enthusiasm for the film, rather than in anticipation of his answer. Part of her wanted him to say yes, wanted him to lie, and yet she wasn't sure why. Wouldn't that be a bad thing? Wouldn't it mean...

She didn't want to think about what it would mean.

"No," he said, and despite herself, she breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't going to lie to her. He wasn't—

"They're all locked in their cells."

He wasn't Lucifer.

It was like a switch had flipped, and she suddenly knew it with every fibre of her being.

He was lying again, and he had absolutely no reason to. It made no difference to her whatsoever whether the doors in Hell were locked or not, but she knew that they weren't. It was one of the things that delighted Maze about the place; that souls could leave whenever they liked, but they never did. Personally, Trixie thought that was pretty cruel, but, well… it was Hell.

Glancing at her watch, she saw that there were only 15 minutes left until bedtime. In an effort to calm the rising panic in her mind, she slowly began to put her crayons away, feigning a yawn as she did so. As her thoughts finally started to settle, she tried asking a few more questions, but she was mostly met with short, sharp answers that didn't really answer anything at all, followed by flat out refusals, especially when it came to telling her any stories from Hell. "Your mother wouldn't like it," he stated, quite correctly, concentrating fiercely as his pencil flew across the page.

Or maybe you just don't know any, she thought, glaring at him, despite the fact he wasn't even watching. Because you've never been.

With only a couple of minutes left, he finally stopped, putting the sketchpad down and rising from his knees to the sofa. She was almost surprised not to hear the groan Mom or Dad would have made after sitting on the floor for such a long time; it was easy to forget he wasn't human sometimes. "I hope that meets your requirements," he said, nodding towards his work as he leaned back into the cushions. Quite honestly though, it sounded like he couldn't care less if it did.

Still, it didn't stop her from eagerly grabbing the pad, twisting it around on the table to face her, knocking the drawing she was brandishing earlier to the floor below. And what she saw there took her breath away. It was Mom. Not stick figure Mom, or not even a decent attempt at a portrait of her, much like Trixie herself would have done. No, this was almost a photograph, it was that good, every detail so finely crafted that, if he hadn't have been sat in front of her this entire time, she could never have believed he had drawn it from memory.

In her shock, she couldn't stop what she said next from slipping out. "You can't draw like this!"

"Hmm," he hummed non-committedly in response. Then, his eyebrows narrowed, and he sat up straighter, his head tilting to the side as he looked at her. For the first time that evening, she really, truly felt as though he were paying attention to her. And it didn't feel like a good thing.

"You're right," he said thoughtfully. "I always was too lazy to actually put in the time and effort to do anything like this. Why would I, when music was so much easier?"

"Music isn't easy," she protested. Another thing he would know, if he were Lucifer. The few times he'd tried to teach her piano in the past hadn't exactly been a piece of cake. In fact, it was cake he ended up using to bribe her to stop asking for lessons.

"Pfft," he said dismissively, reclining again. "All I ever had to do was open my mouth and make noise, and my siblings would call it beautiful. What's easier than that?"

A beeping noise rang out into the room, preventing her from answering right away. 'Lucifer' grinned, before pulling out his phone and tapping it once. It was then that she realised he'd set an alarm, an actual alarm, to alert him to when he could get rid of her. That bliksem!

"It's bedtime for little girls, I believe," he said with a smirk, waving a hand at her as if to say hurry along, his attention now focused on the screen in front of him.

Resisting the urge to yell at him, she didn't argue, picking up as much of her stuff as she could carry and dumping it onto her bed. Less than ten minutes later and she was ready, spending the entire time seething while she brushed her teeth and put on her pyjamas. Despite just wanting to slam her door and be done with him for the evening, she decided to go back out there one last time.

It seemed important, somehow, not to let him know that anything was wrong.

When she reached the living room, the fake Lucifer was lying the full length of the sofa, still busy playing with his phone. At some point, he'd lit a fire, and the flames cast the hard edges of his face in sharp relief. He looked just like Lucifer. He was trying to be Lucifer. There had to be an explanation for that.

The fire wasn't the only thing that had changed while she was gone. The coffee table was now empty, the artwork she'd left there nowhere in sight. "Where are my drawings?" she asked, looking around the room again in case she'd somehow missed them.

With a huff, he lowered his phone. "You didn't appear to appreciate them," he said with a shrug. Then he turned to the fire and smiled smugly. "And I needed kindling."

Her heart sank. That drawing… that had been proof. It hadn't occurred to her before, but right then, in that moment, she knew proof was what she was going to need. Nobody was going to believe her if she just started telling people this wasn't Lucifer. Nobody. Even she thought she sounded a little crazy, and it was her that was thinking it in the first place!

Her disappointment must have shown on her face though, because this man, whoever he was, appeared to try and offer her some sort of comfort. "I'm sure you can draw more," he said, before picking up his phone again. Then, after a second, almost as if he realised he'd been too nice, he added, "They were worthless anyway."

She didn't even bother saying goodnight after that. In that instant, it didn't matter that this wasn't Lucifer. He still sounded like him, and hearing him say that hurt. She fled to her room, yanking back the covers and sending her art supplies scattering to the ground as she crawled inside. Stubbornly, she refused to cry. Her drawings weren't worthless. The real Lucifer even had one up on his fridge at the penthouse; she wasn't supposed to know that, but Mom told her anyway, and she'd promised to keep it a secret.

It was that thought she held onto as she leaned over to switch her light off, plunging the room into darkness. This wasn't Lucifer. It wasn't. It couldn't be. It became a mantra in her mind, playing on repeat as she willed for sleep to take her.

But when it did, she wished it hadn't. Her nightmares were filled with ghosts and demons, monstrous shapeshifters that could take your face, and creatures that would steal your soul. One by one, everyone she knew invaded her dreams, only to turn into a twisted version of themselves, the people she loved now nothing more than strangers.

It wasn't until Mom came home that she woke, the sound of the front door opening tearing her from the depths of her mind with a gasp. Her heart racing, she willed herself to calm down before Mom came in to check on her, as she always did when she missed bedtime. After a minute or two, she heard the front door again, which she could only assume was whoever was impersonating Lucifer leaving for the night. It was a relief, knowing he wasn't in the apartment anymore. Perhaps now she could sleep in peace

When Mom finally came in, she pretended to be asleep, although it was hard not to giggle when she heard Mom curse, after stepping on what was probably a pencil. One gentle kiss against her forehead later, and she was gone again, muttering something under her breath about how she was going to make Trixie tidy her room tomorrow.

It was thoughts of the mess on her floor that made her remember. Once she heard Mom head upstairs, she silently switched on her light again, before slipping from her bed onto the carpet, and starting to shift through the mess. It had to be here, it had to be.

A flash of white caught her attention from under the bed. She reached for it, slowly opening it up as if she had discovered the map to some hidden treasure. And there it was. Her drawing, the one that fell to the floor earlier, and the one Lucifer himself had coloured in, his black wings on display for all to see.

Her first piece of evidence.

Proof.

Rising from the floor, she carefully flattened the paper out on her desk, smoothing out the creases, before poking the image of Lucifer none too gently.

"I don't know who you are," she whispered to herself, staring at the image of the man pretending to be the Devil.

"But I'm sure as hell going to find out."