The key in Lux’s hand jangled as it swung on it’s chain, reflecting the harsh light that shone in her eyes. She walked with a consistent stride, counting each turn she took, coincidentally—counting each hexafoil engraved into the manor with it. The one she’d just passed made ten. And that was far from the only protective ritual she’d spotted scattered through the house. There was rock salt, incense—and lavender; so damn much of it.

  Yet, not a single one of these things seemed to slow the rot creeping in from Azazel’s curse.

  “Now, you should know—Azazel inherited her father’s albinism,” Lady Rae had said as the ledge door creaked shut, walking beside Lux as the hall went dark again, “she always had impaired vision, but since her cursing. . ., well, she sustained an injury. I’ve got no clue how much worse off her vision is now—please, try not to startle her.”

  As Lux strode past a crammed recreation room, a slew of maids scurried after her.

  ”Hold on there—,” one maid stopped right in front of her, clutching her broom as her eyes flicked between Lux, and her colleagues, “are you sure you want to go on further? It’s not safe—,”

  “I ensure you it’s perfectly safe for me,” Lux peered past the maid’s shoulder, eyeing the shadowed door at the end of the hall; a faded flower painted onto it. The entrance to the east wing.

  “Ah—,” her face flushed as she looked upon Lux’s spirit—remembering her immortality just a little too late. She lowered her head to a curtsy, “My apologies, please, go on.”

  Lux nodded as the maid walked off, disappearing into another dark hall. The quiet clacking that sounded through the entire house came to a slow still, voices of housekeepers and guests fading into nothing as Lux lifted her key to the door.

  “The east wing’s entrance is that little, green door in the south wing’s lounge—it has some. . ., sloppy flowers on it, painted by my children when they were young,” Lady Rae had added, preparing to send Lux on her way, “if you need any extra assurance, just look where the courtyard begins to wilt. That’s how you’ll know you’re in the right place.”

  The doorknob rattled until the lock begrudgingly gave in, hinges groaning as it fell open. She dragged her eyes over a lengthy, dilapidated hall; lined with cracked windows. Mounds of dirt and brittle petals were splayed across the floor—pouring from knocked pots.

  There was a bedside table pressed up against another locked door. On it, a single vase of wilted flowers.

  Locking the childishly colored door behind her, Lux creeped through the hall. She could see the courtyard closely now—filtered through the monochrome veil of black blood stains across the window, making it seem that the sky itself that had been drained of color.

  A desperate caw echoed somewhere outside; perhaps a warning, telling her to pause and reconsider before future was sent plunging down a broken dumbwaiter.

  She didn’t listen. Not to the caw, nor to the crawling under her skin that told her something was off about this task—this manor, these trees; everything. She gripped the sides of the nightstand, dragging it away from the door, refusing to hesitate any longer.

  Immediately, she was bombarded by the smell of mildew and tea left out too long. “Hello?” Lux pinched her nose, looking for a lightbulb to switch on, but found none; leaving only the faint light outcast by her spirit to guide the way. “My name is Lux, sent on behalf of the Lea-Bethel house of the Upper-Plane. . ..”

  Her stride was heavier than usual; her second attempt at announcing her presence. She glanced into each open room she passed; first a kitchen—sink piled high with dirty pots, an open bag of birdseed on the counter. A damp washroom with a bathtub rusted at its feet. Then, a disheveled bedroom covered in jumbled up blankets and neglected dresses.

  She stopped in the center of an empty lounge, standing in another prism of light. The stained-glass door before her, patterned exactly as the ledge door had been.

  Another hexafoil. That makes eleven.

  As she pushed the stained-glass door open, another desperate caw bellowed through the monochrome sky. White arches framed three windowed walls, black, sheer curtains hung from floor to ceiling, fabric tied around the arms of a dusty chandelier.

  Dry leaves crunched under her shoe as she poured over an abundance of rotten flora, following the muffled pattering hidden behind it.

  A pair of buckled, black pumps tapped against a rusted patio table—a bovidae therian. Her hair, the same color as her milky skin; with her mother’s spiraling horns. No doubt, Azazel Avarice, dropping a fistful of birdseed onto the open windowsill, teasing the crow in the sky.

  The crow’s wings flapped to a slow, hovering until Azazel pulled her arm back to her chest, lowering its head to peck away at its feed. However, that pleased pecking didn’t last—soon replaced with something hoarse; pained.

  The bird’s head shot up, eyes bulging with black blood, spittle gathering at its beak. Then, it began writhing, claws flailing until it’s strength faded, falling to the ground in a splat of its own blood.

  An overwhelming sense of disgust rose inside Lux. Not because of the nature of the crow’s death, or the distress in it’s eyes; but because the blood puddling around it’s corpse had begun to seep under Azazel’s pumps—and she hadn’t even seemed to notice.

  Forcibly, Lux swallowed her disgust, beginning a second introduction, “I hope you won’t mind the intrusion—I’m an angel sent on behalf—.”

  Azazel coughed, black staining her handkerchief.

  Lux paused; watching Azazel’s head tilt back. Speckles of black discolored her red eyes; shaking as they landed on her spirit.

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  “Come sit—I can’t you see you clearly over there.” Azazel demanded, “don’t bother re-introducing yourself, I heard the first time.”

  Reluctantly, Lux teetered around the rim of the table, eyeing the blood below, ensuring she didn’t touch the ground while she sat.

  Only now, facing her directly, could Lux see the disfigurement cascading down Azazel’s right side. A deep knife-stroke that started in her right eye, slashed through her throat, only stopping where it collided with her collarbone. The scar was lifted, somehow healed. Specks of black lived behind her torn skin; matching her eyes.

  “Mama sent you, am I right?” Azazel said, already scowling.

  “Is that a question—or are you acknowledging what you already know?”

  Azazel scoffed, “I suppose it’s both—why are you here?”

  “The Upper-Plane was contacted in regards to your curse,” Lux said, “I hear you have less than three months left in this life; that you’ll be damned to the Lower-Plane after death, by your own brother at that.”

  “So?”

  “So, I’ve been sent to save your soul.”

  Azazel’s glare thinned, thinking for a long, quiet moment, “do you really think someone like I am deserving of that?”

  Lux drew her magic quill out again, burying every judgement she’d already made of this repulsive woman—Azazel would be returning home with her; she would ensure it. No matter how she had to twist Azazel’s nature to make her appear holy. “That’s what I’m here to find out.”

  Azazel leaned forward; reaching out to the quill, touching the translucent scroll floating in front of it—writing in a language entirely foreign to her. “Your memories will be extracted, won’t they?”

  Lux’s head tilted slightly, cocking an eyebrow.

  “When you return to the Upper-Plane, Solstice will steal your memories, store them in that big old library—for all his servants to spend eternity studying, won’t he?”

  “Yes, that’s mandatory,” Lux said, “I happen to spend most of my time at that ‘big old library’ you’re referencing.”

  “Then listen here, all you sun slaves in heaven—,” Azazel locked eyes with Lux; putting on a show for the Upper-Plane, “I am a cannibal; a killer.”

  “I eat and eat and never get full—I have sucked the life from doctors, maids, and more. The day I became this monster; I took my baby brother’s life and relished in the little energy it gave me.”

  Suddenly, Azazel’s eyes shot down and her hand lurched towards Lux’s own—grabbing and yanking it so that it was right in between their gazes.

  “And if it weren’t for this angel’s hideous spirit-body—,” Azazel interlocked their fingers, squeezing Lux’s knuckles incredibly tight, “I would’ve consumed her the moment she opened her mouth.”

  Lux didn’t shudder, her expression only hardened further, ripped from the eternal numbness of the Upper-Plane; only now taught what pain truly felt like. She frowned, “do you really think my associates will fall for the act you’re putting on?”

  Just then, Azazel dug her sharp nails into Lux’s spirit further, breaking through her skin.

  Lux held back a wince, a bright, scalding fluid gathering at her wound. The fuel that kept her soul ignited, and her spirit pristine.

  Azazel tore her hand away from Lux, glaring down at her burned fingers, “what even—,”

  “Regardless which afterlife you prefer to wake in, I will be here until the day you return to the Upper-Plane with me; or are damned to the Lower-Plane with your nothing but your memories left to torment you. Do you understand?”

  Hate flared in Azazel’s eyes. her pitch akin to a hiss, “so you’ve been sent here to kill me?”

  Why would you think that? Lux felt her own frustration begin to bubble over, you’ll be dead either way; I’m giving you the easy way out.

  “I’m right, ain’t I?”

  “No, you’re entirely wrong,” Lux considered her next words carefully, but something told her that no matter what she said, the monster in front of her would rage. “I’ve been sent to free you from the circumstances of your life, and death.”

  “Free me?” Azazel scoffed, confirming Lux’s assumption, “Then tell me, Lux. If your kind is so free, then what is your real name?”

  “Not the one given to you by your God—the one given to you by your mother.”

  Amongst the Upper-Plane, such a question was strictly forbidden. One no angel with any self-respect would ask, let alone try to answer. If they did—they’d be drained of light, souls left to burn out; becoming nothing in an endless stretch of darkness as punishment for their sin. And Lux could tell Azazel knew this—she was smiling; entertained.

  “You don’t know it. Do you?”

  “I don’t,” Lux said, “but what does it matter? A mortal name means nothing to the life I live now.”

  Azazel didn’t answer her question, instead, her hand lurched forward again—latching onto Lux’s ear before she could pull away. “Do you even know what you are?” she trailed her finger up from Lux’s earlobe to the indistinct point at the tip; swiping her hair behind it. “With ears like that—you could be fae, elf. . ., though, I suppose for an elf, you’d be unusually short.”

  “I’m here to study your soul, not mine,” Lux stole her ear back, feeling Azazel’s fingers brush over her jaw, falling to her collarbone until she finally rested her forearms on the table. Still too close for Lux’s taste. “You’re asking questions I cannot and will not answer. Questions you won’t be permitted to ask in the Upper-Plane upon rebirth, do you understand?”

  Azazel let out a quiet huff, “can you at least answer this?” her gaze thinned, “whose existence do you find more pitiful—mine, or yours?”

  “You’re asking genuinely?”

  “Yes, of course!” Azazel rested her chin on her knuckles, leaning closer again, “there’s me, the cursed, cold-blooded killer, shunned by the outside world—but who still maintains her identity. . .. Then there’s you, a spirit bound to the doctrine of a god that stole your name, species, memories—everything from your past life away from you. All while demanding you devote every second of your eternal life to spinning the Upper-Plane’s cogwheels.”

  “You’re leaving out one detail,” Lux stiffened, “‘Spinning the Upper-Plane’s cogwheels’ is merely the exchange I make for the untainted life I have now. Memories are a hindrance to that life, and I prefer efficiency.”

  “So, you’re saying?”

  “That yours is the pitiful one.”

  Azazel shot up, metal chair screeching as it was kicked back. She raised her palm, plunging a stinging slap across Lux’s cheek.

  “Get out.”

  The sting she felt quickly turned hot, the feeling emanating up her spirit from where the tear in her knuckles had just been healed. She didn’t speak, lost in bewilderment, but when she glanced up at Azazel, she found her eyes were filled with malice.

  Azazel spat, “Don’t you dare come back.”