Chapter Eight - Lucifer #3
I didn’t like the way that sounded. “So he’s one of you,” I said slowly.
“Yes.”
“But… he doesn’t know it.”
“No,” she replied. “Memory was the cost of survival.”
Az frowned. “Survival from what?”
Her eyes flicked to the mirror again. “To enter this sealed universe.”
The words hung there, heavy and unspoken.
I flexed my hands, the hotel suddenly feeling less like my domain and more like a puzzle box I’d been standing inside without realizing it.
“And you won’t tell me his name,” I said.
“No.”
“Or where exactly to find him.”
“You already know where to look,” she said calmly.
“That’s not an answer.”
She smiled. “It’s the only one that works.”
“Luce?” Az shook his head. “This is insane.”
“Yes,” Morathis agreed pleasantly. “It is.”
She stepped back again, silk settling, the goddess receding neatly into Kora Vance’s practiced composure.
“When you find him,” she said, voice soft enough to disappear into the music, “ask him this, ‘Who keeps you out when there’s no door to open?’”
Azazael snorted. “What does that even mean?”
I didn’t answer. I just turned my head slowly and let my eyes land on him, flat and warning, the kind of look that reminded people I’d thrown men into hell for less.
Az’s mouth shut on whatever else he’d been about to say. His shoulders shifted, the smirk fading as he glanced away, suddenly finding the carpet fascinating.
I turned back to Morathis. “Where will I find you when I need you?” I asked.
“I’m always here. Always.” She smiled again, and then her heels clicked once, retreating into the crowd, silk and secrets and boredom swallowing her whole.
Suddenly, it felt like this entire building was watching me.
Az let out a slow breath. “You realize she just told us nothing useful.”
I stared at the floor, at the reflections folding and unfolding in polished stone.
“She told us everything,” I muttered.
Something loosened in my chest since all of this shit started. Something I hadn’t felt in a long time until I’d met her—hope that was both sharp and dangerous as a blade you’d forgotten you still carried. Because the Oracle’s words finally had teeth.
Inside the world you walk through every day. Not a prophecy meant to torment me. A direction. A way back to Evie.
I swallowed hard and forced my hands to unclench. If Morathis was here, hidden in velvet and gold, then the rest of the Twelve weren’t a rumor or some story the Oracle had told me. They weren’t lost forever. They were close. Close enough to wake.
And most of all, close enough that I might get to Evie before the Illuminator did something that couldn’t be undone.
As we walked out, it felt like we were being watched, and that feeling followed us out of the casino.
The elevator ride up was quiet, the kind of silence that pressed in on your ears. We didn’t bother with small talk. When the doors opened onto the penthouse level, the city poured in through glass and light and height, and then the penthouse itself.
The glass table still lay shattered across the floor.
One of the sculptures had snapped clean at the base and leaned drunkenly against the wall.
Another was shattered on the floor. The couch was split open, stuffing exposed, and beyond it, the window we’d gone through still yawned black over the city.
I hadn’t called anyone to clean it up before we went looking for Morathis.
I hadn’t wanted staff underfoot. Or questions.
Az took it all in without comment.
“This way,” I said.
I showed him the room farthest from mine, out of habit and guilt. Thousands of years late and still instinctive.
Az stepped inside and stopped short. He crossed the space slowly, like the floor might vanish if he trusted it too much, then reached out and pressed his hand into the mattress. The bed dipped under his palm, soft and forgiving. He stared at it for a second too long, then sat. Then lay back.
A breath left him, rough and unguarded. “Hell,” he muttered. “It doesn’t fight you.”
I didn’t answer. There were some things you didn’t try to justify.
He pushed himself upright and looked at me, not like a soldier or a brother or a relic pulled out of the dark. Then his stomach betrayed him. A low, unmistakable growl, quiet but sharp in the open air. He went rigid as if he could threaten the sound into silence.
I glanced at him. “Hungry?”
His expression didn’t change, but annoyance flashed in his eyes, the kind aimed inward. “Maybe.”
I almost smiled. “I’ll find something,” I said.
He nodded once.
I left him there and walked back through the wreckage, past everything we’d ruined with our own hands.
I should’ve stopped at the kitchen. I meant to.
Instead, I looked up and caught sight of the broken window and beyond it, the lower rooftop terrace still lay demolished from where Az and I had crashed through it, furniture overturned, glass glittering under the lights like the aftermath of two storms colliding.
I winced and kept walking to my own balcony. As soon as I stepped outside, I pulled out a cigarette and lit it. I took a drag, then let the smoke out slowly, both hands braced on the railing as I stared down at the maze of light below.
By the time I ground it out against the metal rail, I’d remembered the one thing I’d actually walked out here to do.
I pulled out my phone, called room service, and ordered enough food for a legion.
Meat. Bread. Fruit. Whatever the kitchen had hot and fast. I told them to leave it outside the penthouse and not knock unless they wanted to lose the hand attached to it.
As soon as I got off the phone with room service, I dialed Tavik to fix the mess.
He’d worked under Topher for years, which meant he had the nervous efficiency of a demon who’d survived direct exposure to color-coded expectations, impossible standards, and the phrase circle back used as a threat.
When I ended the call, I flicked the cigarette butt off the edge of the roof and watched it tumble into the night like a dying star.
But the moment I turned from the view, it hit me—total and complete exhaustion, like something inside me finally gave out.
The lights seemed too bright, every noise down below too sharp, the world a fraction too loud for the state my body had quietly slipped into.
The weight behind my eyes thickened until it felt like I was carrying a storm in my skull. I rubbed a hand down my face and went back inside. The quiet of the penthouse swallowed me, plush and waiting, and my exhaustion sharpened as if my body had been holding itself upright purely out of spite.
By the time I reached my bedroom, the adrenaline had burned itself hollow, leaving that heavy buzz behind my eyes. I kicked off my boots, dropped my jacket over a chair, and didn’t bother with lights. I needed the darkness.
I lay down fully clothed on the bed, staring at the ceiling, jaw clenched like I could keep myself awake through sheer hatred of rest. I just needed long enough to think, just long enough to plan. But sleep took me like a blade sliding between the ribs, quick, deep, and with no warning.
And suddenly, I was standing in a hall. It wasn’t The Revel or anywhere I recognized. The space stretched endlessly and pale, arches breathing softly, light drifting without any windows. The air was wrong, pressing against my skin like a held breath.
It took me a heartbeat to understand what I was seeing.
Rooms lined the corridor in both directions, so many that were identical, carved into the walls like someone had taken a perfect idea and repeated it over and over again.
Each opening was framed in soft gold, curtains hanging like veils that never fully closed.