Chapter Fifty Three

"Belle!" I shriek, dropping my mug – thankfully, Bay's hand snakes up and snatches it before disaster can strike and shrapnel can litter the floor, but I pay him little heed. Shooting to my feet, I drop the blanket and dash forward, only to collapse to my knees as I draw close. It seems to matter little to her – despite Emilio's exasperated cry of warning, she moves like a bronze streak, racing around Raffe and twirling up my legs.

"Belle," I whisper, leaning my head against her body as it wraps around my neck, a thick band of muscle and sinew. "Belle, Belle, Belle, Belle…"

I stroke at her mane and massage at her little wings, breaking into ecstatic sobs as she coils tighter and tighter around me. Her tail tucks and wraps around my throat, and her head rests against my jugular vein as if she's measuring my fluttering pulses. Purring, she tickles the skin of my throat with a long, leisurely lap of her tongue.

"Oh, thank you, God," Raffe whispers, stumbling towards me. His shadow passes over our moonlight, and, though I shrink away from him, I can't stop the arms from enfolding around me, followed by silky soft feathers.

As his feathers brush against my cheek, I swivel around and bite into the warmth of muscle.

With a shout of surprise, Raffe rips his wings backwards, causing my teeth to rake one or two curls of his downy plumage from his flesh. Spitting them out of my mouth, I glare venomously at him, baring my teeth up at those mystified blue eyes.

"Don't you get near her!" I hiss. "Stay away from us, Raffe! You're not one of us!"

Maybe I'm being petty by saying that. Maybe I'm being a little bitch, keeping Belle all for myself. Maybe I'm cutting him off, maybe I'm being cruel. But it's time for me to rip the bandage off, time for him to get shoved out the window, and time for me to stop living my romantic fantasy before it gets someone I really love killed.

Raffe stares at me sideways. "Penryn, what's going on? What are you –"

The malicious rasp of leather releasing metal stops him halfway through his words, quickly followed by more hisses. In the corner of my eye, Emilio's swords glint, and behind him, the blades of additional Nephilim shine as well.

"You heard her," Emilio threatens coldly. "Back. And, Penryn, put the lizard down."

Raffe's wings raise, their silhouettes against the moonlight revealing to me that I'd taken the feathers out of the wing opposite the scissor slice. "Don't you get close to either of them, matador. Stay away from my girls."

My girls. A shiver travels down my spine.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Hugo mutters in the background. His head buries into his hand, fingers rubbing at his temple. "Step back, you brutes. Just let Pigeon-Bat and Penryn talk it out. Swords down, all of you. Bay, Paige, Tallulah, with me."

"What did you call me?" Lucius wonders, sounding more amused than pissed. He ambles out of his dark corner, lips pulled back in the hair-raising smirk I've come to recognize and even fear, his sunglasses glinting just as wickedly as Emilio's swords. Theobella seems to watch him as he passes, the scales of her mane standing on end as he draws near, then flattening as he walks off.

"Penryn, what's your issue?" Raffe growls, dismissing our audience without wasting another moment on them. He paces back and forth, opening and closing his wings in agitation, causing the moonlight to dance over my face. "Belle is fine. Aren't you, little lizard?"

Belle doesn't twitch at her name – she remains still, like a metal necklace entwined around my throat.

"No closer!" I warn him, hands grappling over the stubbly carpet to find one of his feathers. Shaking it ominously at him, I shout, "I will bite you!"

"What was up with that, by the way?" In the silver of the moonlight, Raffe gnashes his teeth. "Was taking a chunk out of me really necessary? Is it really so hard to use big-girl words?"

"I don't know!" I cry out at him, staggering to my feet, shivering in the winter's cold. "I don't know! Would you have listened? Would you have cared? I don't know anymore!"

"Well, you certainly used to know, so what's changed, Penryn?" Raffe runs his fingers through his hair. "Belle is fine – she's right there! It's okay! Everything's better! Why are you still freaking out about it?"

Biting my lip, I turn my gaze away from him, taking sudden interest in the foot of Hugo's bed. The clawed feet braced against the floorboards are perhaps more likely to be found on the legs of a bathtub, but surprisingly suiting for the eccentric boy.

"Penryn!" Raffe snaps, the strain in his voice frustrated and impatient.

"How am I supposed to trust you now?" I whisper, my face still hidden behind my screen of hair.

After a sharp inhale, Raffe falls silent. Through the forest of my hair, I silently watch him lower his head and examine his hands.

"Why?" My voice cracks. "I get that she's okay now" – I stroke Belle's head fervently, causing the little dragon to purr and Emilio to bristle with unease – "but why did you do it? She – she loved you. And she trusted you. I told her that you wouldn't lay a finger on her. And you said you wouldn't. Why did you?"

"You know exactly why." Raffe's voice is rough, gravelly, teeming with a defeated sort of emotion. "I had no other choice."

"Of course you did!" I scold, growing tense, each muscle in my body going rigid as if in preparation for a fight. "You could've lied, could've laughed, could've pointed a finger at the one who'd suggested that she's a Nephilim – anything but what you did!"

"And how would they have reacted, Penryn?" he inquires coolly. "You heard Uriel. The tone of his voice. Maybe you didn't see the cruelty in his eyes, but I did. It was almost queer, the amount of hatred burning there. Unlike him to be so uncomposed. But there was no way out of that situation for Belle. If I made an excuse, passed her off as a squirrel or something, he would've ordered her impaled on a spit and roasted alive for festivities. If I had called her a pet, he would've accused me of harboring Nephilim, and then killed her himself. Or even worse, he'd do what he did to me – toy around, make her believe she was safe, and then rip her to pieces the moment her back was turned. I gave her what I thought was a painless death." He blinks. "Speaking of that, how are you alive, Belle?"

Theobella. Her bright eyes seal shut slowly, veiling the black slits slicing her jeweled gaze apart. Call me Theobella.

"Is that your full name, or what?" Hugo wonders, voice lazily bemused. "Cuz, no offense, but going around and changing your name doesn't flow too well around here, even if you've kicked the bucket. Bay has a bad memory."

A twitch yanks her tufted tail back from the hollow beneath my jaw. Her eyes open again, and, for the first time, she moves, her head lifting from the contour my by lifegiving vein. Stained black, her scales do not reflect the bright moonlight, despite the fullness of its ivory face. Darkened and ominous, the dragon stares flatly in Hugo's direction, still as a statue perched upon my shoulders.

Theobella. Her eyes shutter and then quickly snap apart in a blink. It means the Beauty of God.

"Well, that's entirely up to the language," Lucius murmurs, glancing up from his game of solitary. "Don't get cocky. Bella, though it does mean beauty in Italian, can also be traced back to Latin, in which it roughly translates war." His sunglasses produce a blinding glare as he lifts his head. "Conflict. Hostility. In which case, you'd be the War of God. And, in my language, Yheo – pronounced like Theo, dear reader – means horror, and bbel means misery, so you'd be the Horror of Misery. Or in your own ancient language of the Nephilim, in which T'ea means 'terror' and not 'divine', after good old Theophilia, mother of the Dragon King, and Bel'a means gorgeous. So, in English, you'd be Gorgeous Terror."

Gorgeous Terror. A shiver runs down my spine. I've heard those words before, I'm sure of it, but I can't put a finger on where.

"Whatever." Hugo shrugs in my periphery. "No matter how you butcher it, that is the queen of all stripper names. Like, the stripper name of a goddess."

"Not better than Candy," Lucius argues, setting up a game of solitary onto a desk. "Candy trumps all. Love me some Candy."

"Why are you here?" Raffe snaps irritably, rounding on the demon with abhorring blue eyes. "Who allowed him entrance?"

"Somebody did, which is more than I can say about you," Bay defends, his voice kind and startlingly motherly. "Raphael, friend, you're drunk as hell and confused even moreso. Would you like some tea? Perhaps a warm place by the fire?"

Raffe glares vehemently at Bay. "I don't need your coddling. Leave me alone."

"Have it your way." Smiling benignly, Bay steps forward. His eyes are abruptly as flat and cold as riverstones, and he draws a jet black sword, the likes of which I've only seen once before. I watched it take the hundreds of lives in the cherub swarm. "You have decided to refuse my hospitality. So, get out."

Taken aback by Bay's cool, deadly approach, Raffe jumps. "What?"

"Get out." Bay lifts his sword to his face and inspects one of the edges before glaring over the top of the blade at Raffe, like a cat wondering in what manner it'll rip up a curtain or devour a mouse. "I won't say it again, friend."

"I'll drink your tea, then." Miffed, he stomps over to the spices and leaves with his nose in the air, wings still opening and closing with agitation. As if he'd been anticipating that response, Bay smiles and sheathes his sword again, throwing an arm around Hugo. Smiling, I leave them to their conversation after a single Hugo comment on the sexiness of Fallen angels taking control of a situation.

"I'm so glad you're back, Belle – or, ah, Theobella." I brush down her scales, feeling her pleasured purr rumble against my skin. "I thought I'd lost you. How on Earth did you –" I choke. "How?"

That is a question I cannot answer.

"Cannot or will not?" Emilio growls, still looking extremely distrustful of the Nephilim – perhaps he'd had more of a rural upbringing than he cares to admit, and had been raised on silly stories of demons and things. "Penryn, I am your servant, but I'm also your protector. I must insist that you unwind that thing at once."

Casually, Belle's – Theobella's – tail wraps around my neck even tighter, like a chain clamping itself around a dog's neck. Unease is not the word I'd use to describe the stir of emotion this somewhat bizarre action provides – more like uncertainty, maybe?

"She's just a baby," I refute adamantly, cupping Belle against me. "And she's probably traumatized. I can't leave her alone."

His eyes narrow like the gaze of a hawk. "It goes against the laws of nature for a creature to get their head chopped off and then to be up and walking, Penryn," he argues with a steely tone of voice. "Bad things happen when someone messes with the universal code. Really bad things."

"Amen," sighs Lucius darkly, more himself to anyone else. Such a bizarre, out of place statement does earn him a short span of attention – as if he's got this odd obsession with corners, there he lurks again, leaning against the wall and toying with a gear assumedly belonging to Hugo, spinning it on his finger like a basketball.

Ignoring him and any other silly antics the demon may attempt, I turn my nose up to Emilio. "People aren't supposed to turn into lion doves, either. So all Nephilim go against the codes of nature. Are we in the wrong? No."

He shakes his head in annoyance. "Penryn, that's a perfectly normal thing to happen. This is not natural. This is not supposed to happen. When you can't kill something, it's oftentimes a bad thing. That is the only moral on any of your stupid American TV!"

In my heart, I know he's right. There is something incredibly fishy about the situation. No matter of hoping that the universe had just paid me back for all my bad luck will change the fact that there is something different – something wrong. But to leave Theobella alone when she herself must be facing turmoil? It's appalling Emilio would suggest it at all.

"Well, maybe it's natural to her," I suggest tenaciously. "Like a person wouldn't believe in turning from beast to man, but for a Nephilim, it's normal. Maybe it's something like that."

Eyes flashing distrustfully, Emilio turns away, seeming pissed at my lack of trust in his word. He sheathes both of his swords in a fluid motion – watching them return to their scabbards on his back is quite the relief, but also slightly frightening, as if now with him as a diffused threat, things will be different. With a shadowed glance backwards, Emilio seems to try to be telling me that he thinks so, too. Darkly, he mutters, "La mona aunque se vista de seda, mona se queda," and turns away, pacing the length of the room in agitation.

"What did you say?" After a few seconds of his lips remaining sealed, I turn to the rest of the ensemble. "What did he say?"

"Called you a monkey, basically." Yawning, Hugo stalks like a cat to the center of the room and reclines in front of the fire. "That was fun. Just kidding, that was absolutely miserably. Bay, let's cuddle. Come here, furball."

"Furball?" Bay wonders, sounding rather confused. He plods obediently by Hugo's side and slips down onto the fuzzy carpet with him, arm-in-arm. The two huddle there in each other's embraces, murmuring softly to one another while staring at the same repetition of false fire smoldering in the belly of the machine.

Grinning, I walk over to them, stroking Theobella all the way. Paige, too, waddles my direction, looking curiously up at Belle – not a dash of hostility burdens her innocence, a quality I can't help but admire. She hugs at my legs, then pulls at my waitress's dress, begging to get closer to Theobella.

"Why did she choose the name Theobella?" Paige wonders in an awed voice as I descend beside her. "Is that your real name, or were you like the Lonely Demon?"

Theobella's head lifts in a question, her gaze moving towards Paige. She blinks slowly.

"You know, how his dad forced him to give up his old name," Paige explains. "Were you like that? Is your dad forcing you to give up your name? Do you have a dad?"

Her voice the mental equivalent of a deadpan as her head drops back to my collarbone. My name is Theobella. That is all.

"Oh." Paige's eyes dampen slightly. "Oh, okay. …Would you like a Smartie?"

No.

"Yes!" Bay cries, thrusting back his head, eyes glittering excitedly. "May I please have one, Miss Young?"

Giggling, Paige drops one into his mouth, at complete ease with the Fallen angel. He chomps down contentedly on the treat, closing his eyes in the pleasure of it, before continuing to groom through Hugo's hair, more like an ape than I've ever seen him or any winged man ever look.

"Hey, Paige, what did Tallulah do with you?" Hugo wonders, lazily lifting one of his eyelids. With his head in Bay's lap and his hands twined together on his chest, he resembles Snow White before True Love's Kiss. "I mean, like, it was quite a while ago that you became stranded with you-know-who. What'd Daddy Issues do with you between then and now?"

"Not much." Paige shrugs. "We talked. A lot. He's patient. And sassy. He's sort of like your type of nice, Raffe."

Raffe shoots her a cutting glare from across the room as he grouchily stirs his tea. "What?"

"Like, the type of nice that's nice by not being nice," Paige explains.

"Wow." Hugo's eye rolls shut. "That clears things up. Thanks, Paige."

"He calls me a lamb for some reason," she continues, eager to talk – and I let her, listening along to every word she says, knowing that I get precious little time to just hang out with her from this point onwards until the end. "I think it's because I'm small compared to him. But I think he's more like a lamb, don't you? Because he's all white, and his hair is fluffy?"

"How do you know that?" I wonder, scrunching my brow.

"Because when we saved the she-angel, I got to ride on his shoulders," Paige explains. Suddenly, her eyes split wide open, and she claps her hands to her mouth, spraying her Smarties everywhere in the process.

"Oh, no!" she wails, voice muffled. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

"Don't worry. He left." Hugo props himself on an elbow, accidentally hitting Bay doing so. "Saying something about work. Why? What happened?"

"I'm not sure." Paige's eyes lower to the fire's burn, and orange dances over her face.

"What do you mean, you're not sure?" I inquire, reaching forward and grabbing Paige's hand, rubbing a thumb over it to reassure her. "What did you see, baby?"

"I saw the Lonely Demon being angry." Her dark eyes twist to mine, shimmering with false firelight. "He was so angry, Ryn-ryn. It was scary. It was – we were walking – it was like a superhero movie. We saw the nice woman being… I don't know… with this not nice guy. I don't know what was happening, but the woman was screaming against his hand. And he just… he was doing what a hero would do, but he wasn't good. He was so scary. And the man… the man…"

She buries her face in her hands, moaning. I wrap her up into an embrace, disregarding the Smarties that spill from her lap to mine – burying her face into my chest, she wraps her arms tightly around me, crying without sobs against me. A shiver runs through her body.

"It was like what I used to do, Ryn-ryn," she whispers heartbrokenly. "When I was a thing. Except he didn't do it to eat. He was just angry."

"Was the man an angel?" Raffe thrums questioningly.

She nods into me, sniffling slightly. "A big, mean angel. He was black as night with these big, evil eyes, like a villain… but he was scared. He was more scared than me."

Emilio pauses in his restless pacing, his back stiffening upon mention of the evil angel. Had I not been currently too infuriated with his assuming actions with Belle – Theobella – I would've noticed the livid undertone in the cool mask over his face.

"And you think that he's a nice guy?" Hugo chuckles, shaking his head, his expression one of utter bliss as Bay's hands begin to massage over his shoulders. "You're so much like your uncle it's crazy. I still don't understand why the hell he took you under his wing, so to speak, Pigeon-Bat."

"He's a good man." Bay shrugs. "Lord, he has his dark side, something I never want to see again, but all in all, he's a good man. He believes in your ability to change, Raphael." Bay smiles broadly, any vacancy in his eyes disappearing with its radiance. "Do me a favor and don't let him down. I do hate seeing him sad more than I do angry."

"What's wrong with her?" Uncertainly, Maion hangs over the demon's shoulder, hovering awkwardly. "Can you fix her?"

"Quiet," Lucius commands, his voice spiked with irritation. "I'm trying to focus."

His hand lies gently on her forehead, as if taking a temperature – Maion's pulse jumps at seeing those slender, spidery fingers drape across Metatron's skin, but knows of no other possible way to receive answers. The physician couldn't fathom what could've impaired one with such tenacious willpower so easily, their only conclusion being that whatever had befallen the wolf, the librarian's bane, had also infected her.

Uncertain and desperate, Maion had been left with two choices – she could either plead Laylah, the superior physician, for her help, or she could strike a deal with the sole most dangerous on the planet.

"How peculiar." Sarcasm bites deep into the demon's tone. "Her brain's being suppressed by a greater force. The same one pinning the madwoman's thoughts down." His black fangs gnaw at his lower lip, his expression one of fierce concentration. "Unfortunately, that docks my prime suspect for this madness. And subject two…" He trails off, sinking deeper into his brooding reverie.

"Can you help her?"

Lucius shifts his gaze to the librarian, causing Maion to as well. The frozen expression of utmost terror across her face, the nothingness in her eyes, and the rigid position held in her joints makes her stomach tremble.

"Remember when you angels first descended to earth?" Lucius muses, more caught in his own thoughts than focused on the task at hand. "You two acted silly one evening. I was off on a dusky stroll when I heard the two of you – what gave you the idea that singing 'The Gambler' into the mirror then chanting my name would make me appear?"

Maion's lips twitch in mortification. "Um…"

"She did see me in the mirror, you know," he chuckles. "She wasn't lying or trying to pull your leg. It ruffled her feathers that you didn't believe her, but she forgave you anyway."

Maion sits in silence, allowing him to continue on whatever vestige of moral remains in his heart.

At last, the demon sighs. "I can dispel the influence, but it is much, much more powerful than I have the ability to muster at the moment. Something else is leeching off of my power. Any more time and your shared happy memories will waste away into nothingness. For the time being, all that's being lost are details to her books – she shall enjoy rereading them all, I expect."

"How much time do we have?" Maion demands.

"Not long." Lucius's sunglasses glint. "I ask you now to make a difficult decision. In order to remove the mental wall, I must have… severe mental infusion. Such actions would only be available to me if I were to make her one of my wives."

Maion's hand snakes forward, looping through the librarian's stiff fingers, but she remains silent.

"You can either lose Metatron's memories of you, her intelligence, and everything that makes her your Metatron… or you could make her no longer your Metatron." He turns his face away. "I leave the decision to you. I do not trifle in the affairs of soul mates."

Maion buries her eyes into the one hand left unscathed. "Do whatever necessary."

She's braced for a burst of light, an earsplitting shriek, a spasm, anything – but the room remains quiet for a very many minutes. The only sound is the flutter of her own heartbeat and the steady rhythm of breath from the demon beside her.

"Don't cry." Lucius's voice is harsh with disapproval. "We're all done now. There's no need for tears to be shed."

"What?" Gasping, Maion rubs at her eyes with the back of her palm, blinking the remaining tears from her eyes and gulping down the lump in her throat. Leaping forward, she whispers Metatron's name urgently, crouched over the she-angel's now-peaceful face.

But, as a shadow falls over both of them, Maion's attention is dragged elsewhere.

"She's been through quite the ordeal." Lucius's voice is as impassive as ever, almost as if the more tender tones she'd witnessed earlier had never existed. "Be gentle with her when she awakens in a week or so. She's had her mind invaded and violated, and, considering her mind is her most valued asset in her own thoughts, it'll be quite a blow. The wrong move can push her into shock."

Staring up at him and his stone-cold expression, something happens upon Maion. "We never sealed the deal."

"Oops." One of his white eyebrows rises with frosty sarcasm. "If we'd sealed the deal and made it permanent, she would've never been yours again. Would you like me to fix that?"

He needs no response, which fits the situation quite well, considering that Maion has none to offer. Sticking his hands into his pockets, he strolls aimlessly towards the door, maintaining his dangerous aura despite the touch of kindness Maion had inadvertently discovered. Before he exits, however, he hangs in the doorway, glancing nonchalantly back.

"Metatron was incapacitated in the same area as the wolf, correct?" he calls with a tone of overruling boredom.

"Yes." Maion blinks. "The exact same place."

Lucius's lips twitch into a smile. "Here's a tip: look into that."

"The sunrise is going to be beautiful, Bree-aw'n," Audiat whispers, nuzzling against his warm chest. "You'll see sometime. I realized I couldn't watch the dawn's triumph from my balcony, which was weird, because that's what they're for, so I did the next best thing. My glass windows stream the sun through them."

After another moment of silence, Audiat laughs. "You were so worried when I first got into stained glass, remember? Always hanging over my shoulder, neglecting your duties, making sure there wasn't a single fragment of glass left on the ground for me to step on. That was when you were ridiculously overprotective. You got better, though, and I began to understand that you were so nitpicky about that because you cared."

Audiat pauses. "I wonder if we'll go through another overprotective stage? That's okay with me, Bree-aw'. I'm not going to let you move anywhere without mountains of bubble wrap for months, anyway, so you might as well return the favor.

"You're so much bigger now, too." Audiat blinks repeatedly. "Just the Nephilim form, though. You're…" Carefully, Audiat props herself up on one elbow, studying him. "You're exactly how I remembered you. Oh, my, I'm acting creepy, aren't I?" Audiat laughs nervously, sinking back onto the bed, blushing. "You're asleep. You can't hear a word I'm saying. And here I am, ogling at you… I'll go… do something else…"

Reluctance pools in her heart, forming a cold stone in the pit of her stomach. Brushing her knuckles against his cheek, gentler than a blade of grass, she whispers a tentative farewell to him. But, as she begins to peel back the thick covers warming Bryon's feverish body and inches out of it, two things happen simultaneously – a cold, cold wind sweeps through the apartment, swirling the curtains and reminding Audiat of the phantom that'd crept outside her door and bared its teeth in warning, and Bryon cries out in his sleep.

Turning back with a throb of her heart, Audiat turns to see that his eyes had split wide open – and though the nasty glaze hasn't yet settled over his eyes, it will most assuredly be quick to seal over the sightless bronze pupils. His haggard breathing only tugs her heartstrings more.

"Oh, so you'll go through a needy phase?" Audiat chides playfully. She pauses guiltily, slipping back beneath the covers. "Okay, okay, I'll admit, I couldn't last more than a few seconds outside of the blankets, but that's different. Tomorrow, I'll go check in with Penryn. Won't that be great? I'm so excited, but she also scares me. My god, I have no idea what to do around my own niece…"

Audiat falls silent as, for the first time, as Bryon's eyes gradually droop shut, his head twists towards her. Her breath catches in her throat as his forehead gently presses against her shoulder – nothing more, nothing less than a simple touch. In Audiat's eyes, it's nothing short of the most intimate of gestures.

A shadow looms over the sleeping Uriel.

"Did you really think that killing her would stop your fate?" whispers the shadow. "You're a smart angel, as smart as they come, but what you've done is stupid. It's like shearing off a single ray of sunlight and saying you've thrust the world into darkness.

"Let this sink into your dreams, Feathers. She was perfectly harmless until that blade cut her head from her body. Anything that happens from this point onwards to you will be nothing but your own fault. She's heard Raphael talking, speaking, blaming you for her anguished… he noticed, that idiot, and he brought you to my attention… and hers…"

A cold, emotionless laugh echoes through the chamber.

"People call me sadistic. Your agony will be a thousand times worse than Gabriel's. She will carve out a hollow in your chest and drive you around like a meat suit. She will twist the strings of your puppet together and make you dance. She will dangle everything you love in front of you before cleverly snatching it back and mangling your story in the worst way possible."

The shadow grows even closer to Uriel's ear.

"Don't you ever, ever try to fight your fate again. Listen to me. If you push against destiny, she'll snap you back like a rubber band and give you a worse end than before. I should know. Take your doom calmly and trudge onwards to oblivion. Oblivion is so much better than what happens if you continue."

"And what would that be?" whispers the archangel, opening his eyes to the shadow.

"Hell." Cruelly, the shadow's lips perk. "She knows every trick in the book to make you feel pain. I learned how to play my cards from that one. You've made her your enemy now. There's nothing left to do but accept it. Be content with your life. Live it fully. Because when she snaps her whip… you will become nothing more than a nightmare in the eyes of all those you love."

"And why would you warn me of this, Son of Satan?" the archangel purrs, grinning nastily up at the shadow before the moon.

"You fool. It's out of pity."

I dropped a huge clue in this chapter. Good luck spotting it, though, since there's a lot going on between the lines.

We're going to hit 400 reviews soon, which is just... crazy. You do realize this isn't that good a fanfiction, right?

POLL: Lucius, seemingly immortal in attitude, evidently isn't. He ages just like anyone else, though with a speed seemingly slower than Bryon. Estimates for an approximate maturity of our little demon?

Ciao,

~wolfluvermh