Chapter Sixteen - Lucifer #3
The Reliquary’s hum settled low again, but the silence between everyone stretched, taut as a wire. Then Thyronis cleared His throat, and it pulled every eye in the room back to Him all the same. He stopped pacing and turned slightly to face all of us.
He began, calm and precise, “I can pick the seam big enough for us to enter.”
Az’s wings twitched at his back. Destiny leaned forward, listening hard. Topher folded his arms, eyes fixed on Thyronis like he was memorizing a map that might not exist twice.
“I don’t know what will be guarding it,” Thyronis continued. “The seam itself may be watched, or the entrance to Heaven’s realm beyond it, or there might be nothing at all.”
That uncertainty sat badly in my chest.
“And once we’re through?” I asked.
Thyronis’s mouth tightened. “Then it’s a guessing game. None of us knows what He’s designed there.”
I nodded once. That tracked.
“His collection won’t be somewhere subtle,” I said. Saying it out loud made it real in a way I didn’t like. “He doesn’t do modesty. Wherever he keeps them, it’ll be somewhere opulent and excessive and probably gleaming.”
Destiny swallowed and said low, “Like a dollhouse.”
That word scraped against something raw, and my hand shot to the edge of the table as my fingers locked around the stone.
I gripped it until my knuckles went white, but the surface didn’t crack.
It just yielded, just a fraction. When I finally loosened my hold, a shallow imprint remained, the shape of my fingers pressed into the scarred stone like a brand.
I didn’t know what condition Evie would be in when we found her. She could be hurt or drugged or… worse, touched in the most violent way possible by that Fucker.
“I’ve heard rumors about what He does,” I said quietly. “Keeping them in stasis. Preserved. Aware or unaware, no one seems to agree.”
Az shifted beside me, tension rolling off him in waves. Morathis stepped closer to the table, resting her fingertips against the surface. The mirrors that had bloomed along the walls tilted subtly toward her.
“Whatever guards he has,” she said, voice smooth and certain, “I can reflect them. Turn their attention back on them and make them doubt what they’re seeing, or convince them they’ve already searched and found nothing.”
She glanced up, her mirrored irises fracturing in the light. “I can also reflect absence. Hide us completely.”
I nodded.
Az didn’t waste the opening. “We find her, grab her,” he said. “Then we run.”
Thyronis inclined his head. “I’ll remain at the seam. Keep it open as long as possible. But I won’t be able to hold it indefinitely.”
Morathis nodded. “I can stay with you to help find her.”
Topher finally spoke, voice steady. “If it goes sideways, I can bend paths. Shorten distances and get us back to the seam faster.”
I took it all in. The plan wasn’t elegant, but it was becoming something solid. Brutally so.
“Good,” I said.
Az turned to me, eyes sharp. “When?”
I blew out a breath, slow and deliberate.
“As soon as possible.”
But… wait. The word caught in my chest because there was too much we didn’t know. There were too many ways this could go wrong before we ever laid eyes on her. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to admit any of that out loud.
Az shifted anyway, impatience rolling off him. “Then tell me how we’re not.”
I went still. Slowly, I lifted my gaze to him, and I thought quietly, “You’re doing it again.”
Az blinked once. “Doing what?”
“That.” I nodded at him, my voice sharpening. “Answering thoughts I didn’t speak.”
Everyone turned to look at Az. Topher’s brow furrowed, eyes flicking between us like he’d just walked into the middle of a conversation he hadn’t been invited to.
Destiny’s mouth parted slightly, confusion cutting through her nerves.
Thyronis’s ears angled forward, attention narrowing with predatory focus.
Even Morathis, who, so far, seemed surprised by nothing, just stared.
Az’s jaw flexed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I let out a humorless breath. “You do.”
Silence held for a beat, thick and uncomfortable, the kind that made the Reliquary’s wards hum a little louder.
Topher finally broke it. “Okay,” he said slowly, “what’s going on?”
Destiny’s eyes widened. “Are you two fighting right now? Because I feel like we don’t have time for… whatever this is.”
Morathis’s gaze slid to Az, then back to me. “Lucifer,” She said carefully, “why would he be answering thoughts you didn’t speak?”
Because he’d been in an oubliette since my fall, my mind supplied automatically. Starved. Sensory-deprived. Locked with nothing but time and rage and whatever gifts refused to die. And apparently, some gifts hadn’t.
I kept my eyes on Azazael. “How long, Az?”
His nostrils flared. His wings twitched once, restrained. “Stop.”
“Answer me.” My fingers curled around the edge of the table again, not hard enough to leave a mark this time, but hard enough to remind myself I still had control. “If you’re inside my head, I want to know.”
Az’s gaze flicked, just briefly, toward the door, like he was calculating distance. Then back to me. “I’m not inside you,” he said, his voice low and edged. “You’re just so fucking loud.”
Destiny made a strangled sound. “I’m sorry, what?”
Topher stared at Az. “Did you just say he’s loud?”
Az’s eyes cut to Topher. “I didn’t ask for this. It just… happens.”
Thyronis stepped closer, claws whispering over stone. “That is not a small thing,” He said, voice calm but dangerous.
Morathis’s smile didn’t reach Her eyes. “Especially in a room built for secrets.”
Az’s jaw tightened further, like the words tasted like chains. “I spent centuries trapped with nothing to do but listen,” he snapped. “To everything. To anything. To anyone. Whether I wanted to or not.”