Chapter 12

'Wait, blocked you? Like a prayer thing?'

Chloe watched helplessly as Ellie's eyes filled with tears.

'No, our thing,' she sniffled. 'We're twins. We can… feel each other, for want of a better word. A wave of each other's psyche, if you will.' She huffed out a wobbly laugh. 'Rory calls it my fearometer, and I call it her angerometer. Even when we're miles apart, it's still there.'

Chloe grappled quickly with the new information. 'So you can get a glimpse of each other's mental states?'

Ellie nodded miserably. 'She's been using it a lot lately to check in on me when I've been spending time with Lucifer,' she explained. 'I thought I would return the favour for their session today… but she's blocked me, I can't feel anything! Why would she do that?' Her eyes were wide and desperate when she looked at Chloe again. 'What if they're in danger? What if poor Linda is in danger?'

'Maybe Rory's just trying to protect you?' Chloe suggested, grasping at straws. 'It's probably a very difficult discussion they're having there. Maybe she didn't want you to experience the anger or pain she's going through?'

Ellie nodded, though did not look convinced.

'Whatever it is, I'm sure it's fine,' Chloe said, trying to be reassuring. 'Hey, look at the time, they've only got half an hour left of the appointment. When it's done, we can contact Lucifer and make sure they're all okay. How does that sound?'

Ellie nodded again, still wary.

Chloe watched her sympathetically as she fiddled with her hands anxiously. 'Would a completely consensual hug make you feel better?'

Ellie sniffed. 'Worth a try.'

Now that is progress, Chloe thought as she approached her, and very gently and slowly took her into her arms. Her slender frame stiffened for a moment, but then relaxed in her embrace, and the body language reminded her so much of Lucifer that it made her heart ache all over again. A sudden, but pleasant ball of warmth spread throughout Chloe's chest and to the rest of her body, and as both of them stepped back Chloe realised she was surrounded in a blanket of soft white.

'Oh, goodness, sorry!' Ellie said, embarrassed, as her wings flexed outwards in a stretch.

'Oh, Ellie, they're beautiful,' Chloe sighed, truly taking in the sight before her. Ellie's wings were bright white, just like Lucifer's, but appeared to also glow, lined in places with gold and silver light.

'Thank you,' she said softly, before folding them away with a gentle shrug. 'Sorry, again, I don't know why they just popped out like that…'

'That's okay,' Chloe told her, doing her best to appear nonchalant, so as not to make her more nervous. 'Right, hot chocolate time. Have you ever tried marshmallows? I'll have to see if Trixie has left us any…' She stepped further away from Ellie and craned her neck to scan the high shelf for the sweet treats.

Had she looked down, she might have noticed the colours of the ring on her finger begin to swirl…

Lucifer and Linda watched the young angel with trepidation as she rose from her seat on the couch and began to pace.

'Take your time, Rory,' Linda advised her softly, noticing the stormy indecision.

After a minute of activity, Rory gently placed one hand on the office doorhandle, the other on her own forehead. A strange, silvery light seemed to emanate from her, through her fingers and into the door, spreading quickly around and across all four walls, the floor and the ceiling. Linda lifted a hand instinctively to shield herself from the brightness, and Lucifer gaped at his daughter's display.

'What are you doing?' he asked her when the light eventually faded, and Rory glanced around the room, as though admiring her handiwork.

'Blocking this room from celestial interference,' she said flatly. 'It will last exactly an hour. I haven't met Aunt Gabriel yet, and frankly I don't trust her. And I don't want my cousins, or even Ellie, getting any of this either.'

'That's a thing?' Lucifer said incredulously. 'Unbelievable…'

Rory moved back to the couch, but did not sit down. She surveyed her aunt and father with an imperious expression. 'Nothing I am about to say can ever leave this room,' she said, in a voice so severe it made the hairs on Linda's neck rise.

'Doctor-patient confidentiality,' she told her. 'Whatever we say in here stays in here.'

Rory let out a pained exhale and twisted her face in thought. She glanced between the open notebook in Linda's lap, to the CCTV camera just outside the window. 'Not enough,' she decided after another moment. 'No record of this can exist.'

'These are just my notes, Rory,' Linda tried to console her. 'These books stay in a locked filing cabinet, and are for my eyes only.'

'I don't care,' Rory said brusquely. 'No record. It's too dangerous. You'll understand when I tell you.'

Linda conspicuously drew a line under what little she had already written, closed the book, and made a show of putting it down on the table. 'Okay,' she said, working hard to keep her voice steady. She watched as Rory made her way to the window and closed it with a loud snap.

She glowered between the two of them. 'Nobody can know of what I am about to say,' she reiterated. She nodded to Linda. 'Amenadiel cannot know of this, regardless of however important you think it is that he knows.' She turned to Lucifer, and he was momentarily caught off guard by the lack of hostility in her gaze. 'Neither can Chloe. Neither can Ellie. Nobody.' She sat down heavily. 'If you do not think you can keep this a secret, if you think it would come out during an argument, or whilst intoxicated, tell me now, and I can keep quiet. I will say this once, and only once, for if it is said more than that, it is no longer a secret but information.'

'Rory,' Linda said solemnly, 'I promise that whatever this is about, I will not tell anyone.' She held out her hand to the young angel.

'What's this?' Rory said, confused.

'A promise gesture,' Lucifer helpfully supplied. 'To shake on something is to form an agreement of sorts. A human adult equivalent of a pinky-swear, which no doubt Trixie has taught you.'

'Right,' she said, and shook Linda's hand. 'And you?'

'Your secret is safe with me,' Lucifer answered, keeping his own curiosity well in check. 'Devil's honour. You know I cannot lie.'

'Very well.' Rory leaned forward, looking profoundly uncomfortable. She sighed. 'I'm only telling you this because you will be God soon,' she directed at Lucifer. 'Omniscience, and all that, I'd rather you found this out on my terms, so that I can emphasise the importance of keeping this quiet. And you,' she glanced towards Linda, 'I feel have the right to know. I was told you could be trusted with this, and, well… it doesn't only concern me, but Charlie as well. But as I said, Amenadiel cannot know.'

'Wait, is this about what Cora said when we met?' Linda asked. 'One of the greatest secrets being within my grasp, or whatever it was?'

'The only mortal to know until it's time,' Rory parroted. 'Yes. I trust Cora implicitly, she will not tell anyone either. She knows the gravity of the situation I am about to share, likely knew of it before I even did.'

'Ah, yes, your future-telling cousin,' Lucifer remembered. 'Very interesting.'

'Take your time, Rory,' Linda advised her gently, exchanging an apprehensive look with Lucifer.

'Without… sounding like a condescending asshole,' she continued to meet Linda's gaze, 'What exactly do you recall about Nephilim, and more specifically, their powers?'

'Pretty much what you and your cousins told me when you came to meet Charlie,' she answered. 'You all have developed your powers at different rates and stages… you and Ellie can pull people's desires from them like Lucifer can… you all have wings, oh, and dragons!'

'Yeah, I think that about covers it.' Rory drummed her fingers against her legs as she pondered on how to approach what she wanted to say. 'Me and Ellie and the desires thing, Sachairi being telekinetic like Jophiel… Sophea and Cora had to go and ruin the analogy, but I guess we've all got eternity…'

'Charlie can slow down time, sort of,' Lucifer added, wondering where she was going with this.

'Yeah, he can,' Rory said. She sighed again, and ran a hand through her hair, pausing to tug slightly on the pink ends. 'I'm terrible at this – '

'Take your time,' Linda reiterated gently. 'There's no rush.'

'Nephilim have other gifts, too,' Rory continued after a moment. 'Some things that are entirely our own, some things that link up, somewhat, to what we've inherited from our angel parent. Again, there's not many of us, so there's not a huge amount of evidence to really go on, but…' She went back to glancing repeatedly between the two. 'Sachairi, for example, can not only pull objects towards him at will, but repel them too, where Jophiel can't. Ellie can pull out not only people's desires, but often their sins, too.'

'She told me,' Lucifer said softly. 'It's amazing. Can you do that, too?'

'No,' Rory shook her head. 'I have… other abilities, as does Ellie, but I feel like that's a talk for another time. We also… don't really use them, either, but that's an us thing, not a now thing, so.' She sighed, before turning back towards Linda, eyes downcast. 'Charlie, we all know, can slow down time…' She took a minute to steadily meet Linda's gaze. 'But… when he's older… he'll also be able to travel through it.'

It took Linda a moment to process, but then – 'Charlie will be able to time-travel?'

Rory's expression was agonised as she slowly nodded. 'Yes.'

Lucifer once more looked incredulous. 'How do you know this?'

'Did you meet him?' Linda gasped.

Once more, 'Yes.' Rory's dark eyes softened as she witnessed Linda's shock. 'He's going to be an incredible young man, honestly. Thank you in advance.'

'When?' she asked.

'Early 2016,' Rory answered. 'I'm not sure exactly when from, I couldn't get that out of him, but I'm pretty sure he looked about the same age the rest of us do. But this is the important part. His catalyst for going back in time was curiosity.' She huffed out a laugh despite herself. 'He turns out to be pretty nosy, actually. He wanted to know more about my childhood in the Cursed Islands, had a ton of questions, that allegedly no one could or would answer.'

'So he self-actualised the ability to go back in time, to, what? Hang out with you? Talk about curses?'

'It started that way, yeah,' Rory answered Lucifer, while Linda watched on with wide eyes. 'But the resulting chain of events…' she trailed off with a sigh.

The room fell silent for a minute.

'That's so crazy,' Linda admitted eventually. 'You met my baby before he was even born.'

'Before you and Amenadiel even met,' Lucifer smirked at her. 'He was quite literally meant to be.'

'So… do the conditions of his childhood have to be the same?' Linda asked. 'Like some kind of a loop?'

'He told me very little about his own life,' Rory said. 'Very little. Said he didn't want to accidentally let slip something that would mess with the future, which is fair enough, I guess.' She seemed a little more at ease now, and wriggled backwards slightly in the seat. 'But, and this is vital, he must go back in time again.'

'Did he do something important?' Lucifer asked.

Rory nodded, and her eyes actually glazed over with what could have been tears. 'Yeah, he did,' she said in a very small voice. 'We discussed it at length, before he travelled back to his own time. He has to travel back in this one, too, when he's ready. If he doesn't…' she trailed off again, and looked sympathetically at Linda. 'I don't mean to frighten you. But if he doesn't go back in time, I could cease to exist.'

'What?' both said simultaneously, identical expressions of horror on their faces.

'I cannot give you much more detail than that,' she said apologetically. 'But not only me. There was what I can only describe as an apocalyptic event in the Cursed Islands that year. Charlie helped me and my friends put an end to it and played an essential role.'

'Oh my goodness,' Linda murmured quietly.

'I'm so sorry to spring this on you,' Rory said, and her tone was genuine. 'Before he left, Charlie told me to tell you. Said I would need an outlet in the years between. But he also said that he himself could never know, lest he not travel exactly when he did.'

'So that's why we're so strictly sworn to secrecy,' Lucifer said, recovering far quicker than the therapist. 'Charlie has to grow up wondering what happened to you, become curious enough to manifest his abilities, and go back, and sort of help you save the world?'

Rory glanced at him quickly. 'Pretty much.'

Lucifer was nonplussed. 'That's incredible.'

'And he told you about me?' Linda asked, tears in her own eyes.

'Yeah,' Rory said, screwing her face up in an attempt to remember the exact words. 'I don't know which of us ends up meeting Mom first, but you can trust her with this. Just don't let her write it down anywhere.' She snorted, and sounded a lot more like herself. 'I mean, I'm not saying he's going to ransack your office to find any information you might have on me, but I mean the kid was desperate, nosy thing.'

All three stared at the abandoned notebook on the table.

'Fair enough,' Linda said weakly.

'Charlie also gave me a list of names that I couldn't tell under any circumstances, people he'd questioned before he self-actualised,' Rory continued. 'All of the Nephilim, except Cora, of course, but she's Cora, all of angels bar Lucifer. Not Amenadiel, which sucks, and I don't really get why, but whatever, I promised.' She sighed again. 'I didn't have a clue at the time who the other humans were he talked about, but I'm starting to.' She ran a hand through her hair again. 'Shit, Lucifer, I think I've broken Linda.'

'She's stronger than she looks,' Lucifer started.

'I'm okay, Rory,' Linda said, voice strained. 'It's just a lot for me to process. Oh my goodness, was that why you were so uncomfortable when he cuddled into you that time?'

'It all kind of came flooding back,' Rory admitted guiltily. 'He told me I was his favourite cousin, growing up. From the beginning, it seems, I guess.'

'That's a long time you've been dealing with that by yourself,' Lucifer commented, looking at his daughter in concern.

'And why I must continue to do so,' Rory told him. 'It's why I cannot talk about anything that happened to me during my time on Earth. None of it, except the most basic of trivialities. There's just no telling what details people could remember and unwittingly pass to Charlie.'

'That bastard,' Lucifer muttered.

'Hey!' Rory rounded on her father. 'It's not Charlie's fault, don't you dare say that!'

'I don't mean Charlie,' Lucifer said loftily. 'I mean your Grandfather. Surely He could see all of this?'

'Oh, yeah,' Rory said in a hard voice. 'We had a nice little chat when I got back to Heaven.'

'Ellie mentioned that you fell out big time,' Lucifer mused.

'That's putting it mildly,' Rory replied. 'Manipulating me and Charlie into danger was just one of many reasons I was angry with Him.' Her eyes actually flashed red briefly. 'Turns out He had a lot of involvement in my time on Earth, the time when I felt most alone.' She huffed. 'And I must stay alone in this. I cannot discuss what happened any further, just in case.'

'That's not true,' Linda said softly. 'You can talk to us.'

Rory shook her head. 'Too risky. Charlie said he didn't want to accidentally change anything… and besides, it's just a blip in our eternal existence. A few years of pain, for an eternity of gain.'

'You can talk to me.' Lucifer leaned across the couch, and took Rory's hand in his, tightly, in case she tried to pull away. 'Do that little light shield thing again, and teach me how to do it while you're at it.' He gently caressed the back of her hand until she looked at him. 'I know we have our differences, Rory. I know you're angry with me for a lot of things, and you've every right to be. But that is a lot of years to keep quiet about something that has clearly caused you pain.' He took a deep breath before continuing. 'I know what it is like to feel alone, to feel that you have to hide part of yourself away to avoid monumentally cocking things up. I don't want you to have to feel like that anymore.'

'But you don't lie,' Rory said numbly, taken completely off-guard by her father's sincerity and vulnerability. 'And if Charlie comes asking questions, it would be easy to evade the bigger secrets, perhaps, but any other strange details he wants to know –'

'I'll have absolutely no qualms in telling the nosy little bugger that it's none of his bloody business,' Lucifer said firmly. 'No offense, Doctor…'

'None taken,' she said, voice a little stronger now, though she still looked a little shellshocked. 'Rory, it must have been incredibly difficult to keep all that in for so many years. Lucifer is right, you need to talk to someone about your time on Earth. Only that will help you to heal from the trauma it has caused you.'

'I'll think on it,' Rory promised. She sighed as she looked back at him. 'Looks like we've got a lot to talk about.'

'Well, as you say, we've got eternity.' Lucifer glanced at the clock. 'Though right now, it's just you and me, as we've got precisely twenty seconds left of the session.'

'We'll wrap it up there,' Linda said.

'I'm sorry, again,' Rory said awkwardly. 'I just thought you should know. We both did.'

'Don't be sorry,' Linda said at once. 'You did the right thing, and it must have been difficult. I'm proud of you.'

'As am I,' Lucifer said, squeezing his daughter's hand before letting go.

'Can we discuss this again? If you take the same precautions?' Linda asked as the three of them stood.

'I think it unwise,' Rory said.

'It's just… I have so many questions. And no doubt I'll think of more.'

'It is an impressive can of worms you've opened, Rory,' Lucifer pointed out. 'And we are sworn to secrecy here.'

Rory's face twisted. 'It's too risky,' she said, looking at Linda pityingly. 'It may be my past, but it's Charlie's future… And the world's, really… Does it help if I tell you Charlie will come back from his adventure completely unscathed? Once I knew he was telling the truth about who he was, I did everything I could to protect him, as did my friends, although they, of course, were not told the full story.'

'I don't doubt you,' Linda said warmly. 'And it does… a bit.'

Rory nodded. 'For the sake of appearances, we need to act as though this conversation has never happened.' She glanced to Lucifer. 'We left off on an argument, remember?' She returned to the door, and once again placed one hand on the wood, and one hand on her head. A dimmer ray of light emerged this time; Lucifer and Linda both had to squint to watch its movement around the office.

'All over,' Lucifer murmured.

'Thank you, Linda,' Rory said in a smooth voice, entirely devoid of the feeling of a minute before.

'No worries, either of you,' Linda bade them goodbye, and they left the office.

Lucifer turned to smile at his daughter as he held the door for her, and was caught completely off-guard at the chilling glare he received in response. His heart sank as the door closed behind them. Yes, of course. She had been about to rip him a new one before the topic had changed.

'Ah, a text from Chloe,' he broke the tension as they made their way out of the building. 'Ellie's with her. Shall we go and meet them?'

Rory simply huffed.

'Oh, and another…' he scrolled on the device. 'Ellie is aware that you blocked her, apparently. She's worried.'

'Bollocks,' Rory said quietly. 'Yes, I suppose I should see her, then. Did you fly here?'

'I drove,' he said. He smirked at her, in the hope she would do it back. She didn't. 'Have you ever been in a car before? I know Ellie hadn't.'

'A long time ago.'

They walked in silence towards the Corvette.

'Perhaps I could teach you to drive one day,' he said lightly as they got in.

Rory simply shrugged in response. Lucifer looked at her, and felt his heart crack just a little more. He recognised that look. A scrabble to build one's walls back up, to return to the familiar body language that people were used to. A trampling down of the pain to save face. In that moment he made a decision, and gently self-actualised a removal of his own prayer block. He had only done so for Amenadiel a handful of times in the past few years, and the practice still felt strange.

'Aurora,' he prayed to her softly, and watched as her hand tightened on the car's upholstery in surprised acknowledgement. 'I know you're still angry with me. And I will work to earn your forgiveness. But please – let's not be such strangers anymore. Even if you do not want to speak of this matter out loud again, I can still be here for you. This changes things, doesn't it? To go from enemies to allies and back again, it just hurts.'

A moment. Then: 'As you wish.'

'No, not just my wish. Please tell me you wish to fix things between us too. Please let it not be just my wish.'

Rory did not reply, and she turned to face away from him. But if he saw her glassy eyes in the wing-mirror as he started the engine, it was something else he could keep to himself. That and his own.

'What do you think?' Chloe asked as Ellie took a hesitant sip of her hot chocolate.

Her eyes widened in a youthful joy that was comparable to Trixie's expression. 'Oh, this is good!' Ellie said, and her eyes actually closed for a few seconds in bliss. 'Okay, I get why humans like it so much.' She smiled sweetly at Chloe. 'There's at least a hundred rooms in the Silver City that are chocolate-themed or chocolate-based. And I can definitely see why.'

'Wow, that does sound heavenly,' Chloe replied with a smile of her own. 'So… what was it like growing up there?'

'Amazing,' she said automatically. 'Me and the other half-angels had access to both the human and the angelic quarters, though we mostly stuck to the latter. But the human rooms are cool, there's thousands and thousands of them, and they just get better and more varied as time goes on.' She then gasped quietly. 'Gosh, I'm so sorry, I totally forgot you spent some time there yourself recently…' She eyed Chloe sadly.

'I did,' Chloe said numbly, having done her best to repress the experience. 'It… was nice. I saw my dad again, and we had such a good time. But I didn't like how it just made me forget about Earth, you know? For a moment there, I completely forgot about Lucifer, about the war, about Trixie, even…' She trailed off.

'And you're… worried it will do the same when you go to work there?' Ellie suggested gently. 'It won't, Chloe. You're alive. That should not stop you from interacting with your loved ones every now and then whilst there.'

'But what if it does?' Chloe asked, voicing for the first time one of her greatest concerns.

'Then I'm sure Lucifer can come up with a solution,' Ellie reassured her. 'He will be God, and you will be his Queen. He loves you so much, I'm sure he would deny you nothing.' She gave her a soft smile. 'You may be the only living mortal in the Silver City, but you won't be alone.'

Chloe smiled back at her, somewhat comforted. 'Your dad does have a lot of siblings.'

'That he does,' Ellie chuckled. 'I haven't even met most of them.'

'You and Rory and your cousins sort of kept to yourselves, then?'

Ellie nodded. 'For the most part. We did go to Earth sometimes, but usually just for day-trips together. It's only been a few years that we've all been adults together there, though. I'm still not fully used to being so tall.'

Chloe's brow furrowed. 'What do you mean?'

'Rory and I were about yay-high –' she indicated the height of her bent elbow, 'for decades, maybe centuries.'

'I may have seen your pictures in the Book of Nephilim,' Chloe admitted. 'You were both so sweet – you still are – but I didn't realise you were children for that long!'

'It's why our Grandpa sent us to the Cursed Islands,' Ellie explained. 'He eventually realised. Our cousins were older when they came to Heaven for the first time, but Rory and I were new-born babies. If we were on Earth, we would be mortal, so we would age much, much faster.'

'Are you… mortal now?' Chloe asked, curious.

Ellie shook her head. 'I think it's a maturity thing,' she reasoned. 'We grew up, so we no longer needed mortality to age.'

'That makes sense,' Chloe nodded. 'You look like you're on the cusp between teenagerhood and young adulthood. But being a child for so long… that must have been strange?'

Ellie shrugged carefully. 'It's just… our lives, I guess,' she said. 'We don't know any different. And Rory and I always had each other in common, even if she's a bit different now.'

Chloe tilted her head. 'Different how?'

Ellie's eyes widened. 'I shouldn't have said that, it sounds unkind,' she said. 'It's just… she's so sarcastic, yet serious, and irritable all the time, in a way she seldom was when we were younger.'

Chloe's interest was piqued. 'What was she like?'

'So much fun,' Ellie answered. 'She used to be so friendly, to everyone, she used to have a blast with the human souls in the Silver City, especially the young ones, and there's been a lot of those over the course of human history. She was clumsy, and funny, and cheeky…'

'Sounds like someone else we know,' Chloe said lightly when she trailed off.

'I so wish she and Lucifer would sort out their differences,' Ellie breathed longingly, realising what she meant. 'I know she went through some bad things while she was living in the Cursed Islands, but she refuses to tell me anything about it. But this anger towards Lucifer of hers, it's not new, but it's so much more intense than it was.' She sighed. 'I just want us to be a family.'

'Oh, sweetie,' Chloe said, resisting the urge to hug the girl without her permission. 'No family is perfect. All of them are flawed in one way or another, but it doesn't make it any less a family.'

'Ours might just be the most flawed of them all,' Ellie admitted.

Chloe chuckled lightly. 'Have faith in them both,' she told her.

'I'm trying,' Ellie assured her. They both looked to the clock on the wall.

'How about I send Lucifer that message we talked about?' Chloe said, pulling out her phone. Ellie nodded gratefully as she drained the last of her drink. She picked up both mugs and collected the ones from earlier, taking all of them to the sink and turning on the tap.

'Just leave them,' Chloe said absentmindedly. 'I can sort them later.'

'It's okay,' Ellie said, as she made quick work of washing them. 'We might need them again, Rory has got to try this stuff!'

'Speaking of,' Chloe said, 'Rory and Lucifer are both on their way here.'

Ellie whirled around, half expecting them both to materialise into the apartment. After a few seconds, she turned back to face Chloe.

'Driving here together?' she said softly. 'Rory's willingly spending more time with him?' Her face brightened with joy.

'It seems that way,' Chloe nodded.

Ellie squealed with excitement, and Chloe barely had time to put her phone back on the counter before she had an armful of blurry gold and white.

'Sorry,' Ellie said sheepishly, stepping back.

'Don't be,' Chloe beamed. 'Most humans like hugs, you know?'

'Noted!'

'How about we get the kettle back on for another round of drinks? I might even be able to persuade all three of you to stay for dinner, any favourites?'

Ellie spun around the room euphorically, and Chloe found herself hopelessly praying to a godless sky that the others' session had gone well.

'Michael, are you sure you're okay?'

The condemned archangel and the damned soul sat side by side in Seph's family living room. The room was small, and fairly plain, but bursting with life: fruit bowls, ornaments, candles and magazines littered every surface; picture frames, posters, certificates and childish artwork covered every wall. A television perhaps a quarter of the size of Lucifer's stayed frozen in motion in one corner – this was Seph's guilt, Michael had come to realise with a mixture of exasperation and pity – guilt for playing the sick kid card to stay home for a day to binge-watch the latest series of one of her favourite shows.

'I'm fine,' Michael snapped. 'Why would I not be?'

'Look, you know I'm not big into prying,' she said. 'I've known you thousands of years longer than anyone actually in this loop, and I still barely know that much about you. But I know you've been even more down than usual since your sister left. What gives? Do you miss her? I understand if you do, I mean, I've literally been there a million times over…'

'Fine,' he ground out. 'The fact that I've been down here so Dad-damn long, and she's the first to come see me? Oh, but that's fine, 'cause Jophiel thought about it, and Rory tried to.' He made an exaggerated noise of irritation. 'I'm not mad at them. I'm mad at the thought that this is supposed to be my second chance at things, and for all the rest of them know I'm cleaning Hell's floors still.'

'To be fair, that doesn't exactly smack of a redemption arc,' Seph said thoughtfully. 'Wait, re-wind. I've heard of Jophiel, I think, but who's Rory?'

'My niece,' he told her. 'Lucifer's daughter.'

'Woah,' Seph said. 'The devil has a wain? Like Rosemary's Baby on crack?'

'No,' Michael laughed despite himself. 'But if you ever meet either of them, please mention that.'

'Nah, real talk, that must suck,' she sympathised.

'It's what I deserve,' he finally admitted. A strange sensation made its way across his back, a sort of throbbing, but dulled. He ignored it.

'You really believe that?' Seph asked. 'You've been here for thousands of years! I know you've killed people, but… is it really that bad? Is an angel killing a human different from, say, a human killing another animal?'

'There would've been a time where I would've made a similar analogy,' Michael said, not looking at her. 'But now I'm not so sure.' He huffed. 'And besides, Dad banished Lucifer here for far longer, for doing less.'

'I guess,' Seph mused. 'Still seems a wee bit excessive, but I guess I'm just human. Was there any other juicy gossip?' At the sudden look on his face, 'What – I'm just curious! Plus, who am I gonna tell?'

'Gabriel had a warning for me,' he told her quietly. There actually weren't any demons in this part of the loop – Seph had had her house to herself that day – but they only sat a scant ten metres from the front door, which also served as the Hell-loop door, and he decided he couldn't be too careful. 'Lucifer and his allies know I'm in here.'

'Oops,' Seph said. 'Wasn't me.'

'Obviously,' he said with an eyeroll. 'But there's the question of what, if anything, he'll do about it.'

'Aww,' she teased, trying to lighten his mood. 'You don't want to leave me?'

'This could be bad, Seph,' he told her firmly. 'And not just for me.'

'I'm chill,' she protested. 'Besides, we already established that I can't get deader than dead.'

'Not by my hand.'

'Ah.'

'Precisely.'

'How long do you reckon we've got?' Seph asked.

'Gabriel suggested a couple of centuries.'

Seph did some quick counting on her fingers. 'So… roughly seven and a half more lifetimes for me… maybe twelve more loops, if I keep the door shut, ten or eleven if I don't?'

'Give or take,' he confirmed. 'But time works differently on Earth, of course. A few minutes' delay there could mean a year or two here.'

'Alright.' She turned to face him. 'So we figure out how to hide you.'

'What?'

'You heard me,' she said, jaw set in determination. 'Twelve more loops. Dozens of scenes. We simply blend you into each of the backgrounds, so that if your brother or some other celestial being comes to check, they miss you.'

'That's mad,' Michael said with a shake of his head. 'That'll never work. They'll sense me. How on Earth do you plan to do that?'

'Oh, angel, I am so glad you asked.' She stood from the settee, and ran up a flight of stairs. She reappeared moments later carrying two large suitcases. 'You're in the home of a girl who danced, acted and skated, who grew up with a sister massive into theatrical makeup and cosplay, in an age where it was easier than ever to do all of that.' She bit her lip and considered the situation. 'Unless I just keep the door open here for the next couple of centuries, switch up your look, and just shut the door if we hear someone coming, that could work. If anyone comes in we can just pretend you're someone else. I think I've even got coloured contact lenses in here somewhere…'

'Seph, seriously,' Michael said. 'Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the assistance, but –'

'No buts,' she said. 'You're my friend. And have you seen how I treat my friends?'

'Er, no, actually.'

'Exactly,' she said, letting both cases clatter to the carpeted floor. 'Because I have never had any guilt about it.'