Lilly stood in the center of Asmodeus’s bed-chamber admiring the striking green sheen the magical lighting gave to the adamantine laced walls of Fortress Nessus. At least, what she could see of it. The instant she came to a halt in the center of the room, the pissed off Archfiend snapped his fingers and had her chained to ceiling by the wrists. Aside from the stretch of her shoulders from her weight hanging a couple of inches off the ground being slightly uncomfortable, Lilly just smiled as he prowled in a slow circle around her with his finger on his chin.

He could, if he wanted, affect an air of menacing thirteen-foot tyranny. But it seemed he preferred the more reasonable shape of a six-foot-tall, three-horned devil with an athletic build, crimson skin, and slicked-back hair. He was, also, still very naked as he examined her closely. It was as distracting as it was enjoyable. She found herself trying to turn to keep her eyes on the display until he went too far for her peripheral vision to follow. When he didn’t return to her sight, she kicked her feet a little, holding the chains and using her upper-body strength to turn herself into a swing.

“So,” Lilly said as her lazy swinging motions started to gain a solid rhythm, “are you going to torture me, or what?”

“Would you enjoy that?” he asked behind her, his deep baritone voice pitched in a growl that rumbled through her chest and straight into her pants.

“Keep talking like that and I might,” she said under her breath, looking over her shoulder as best as she could at the Lord of the Nine Hells.

“What was that?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said quickly and then focused on her swinging again. “I’m just bored.”

“You’re bored?” he asked flatly.

“Yep,” she said, letting the last letter pop. “I figured you’d be all raged out and try to kill me.”

“And why would I do that?” he asked, stopping her swinging motion with a hand on her back. She smirked to herself as she twisted her weight around against it to face him.

“Because I orchestrated a spell large enough the disrupt the magics holding your realm together for the sole purpose of allowing another deity access to punish those she deemed guilty,” she said bluntly, a small smile forming at the corners of her mouth. “Including your Dukes and Devil Lords.”

Asmodeus raised an eyebrow at her as his gaze narrowed on hers.

“And yet you came to me willingly,” he said in a low tone.

“Considering the number of guards you sent, I was going to end up here sooner or later anyway,” she said. “I figured it was better for everyone involved if I just came to you directly.”

“Why?” he asked, watching her closely as if he were attempting to catch her at something. “Unless you wanted to die,” he said after a pause.

“Meh,” she said, shrugging as best as she could. “The thought’s crossed my mind.”

“In correspondence to your little stunt or are saying that as an over-all, blanket statement?”

Lilly looked at the Archfiend, smiling mirthlessly and allowed him to see the truth in her eyes.

“The thought’s crossed my mind,” she said without any inflection, causing him to pause with a slight lift of his chin to look at her skeptically.

“So, you expended an incredible amount of energy to tear a hole in reality, allowing a rival god entrance into my domain, as some kind of suicide attempt?” he asked, putting his hands on her hips and leaning down to put his face next to hers. “There has to be more to it than that.”

“Would you believe I had a dream about you a while ago and decided it was easier to cause trouble than it would be to follow the proper channels to get an audience with you?” she asked, leaning her head back until he looked her in the eyes again.

Asmodeus inhaled slowly as he studied her face carefully.

“There’s something off about you,” he said quietly.

“I get that a lot,” she said with a slight chuckle.

“Well, since you seem to be in such an honest mood,” he said, sliding his hand up to her throat and wrapping his clawed fingers under her chin, “how about you tell me why. I promise, if I don’t like the answer, I’ll grant your wish and put you out of your misery.”

“Such a merciful god,” she said with a sardonic smile as she inhaled deeply through her nose. “Except you’re no longer a god, are you?” she asked and she felt him start to squeeze, making her chuckle. “I can smell it. The absence of your Divine Spark,” she pushed, making him squeeze hard enough to cut off her voice.

“What have you done?” he growled, leaning into her face until the tip of his nose brushed hers.

“Nothing,” she croaked around his grip. “It wasn’t me.”

Asmodeus sneered and released his grip on her throat forcefully, making her cough as the pressure disappeared and she was able to breathe easily again. The Archfiend bared his fangs at her, his lip twitching with frustration as he started to pace in front of her, never taking his eyes off hers.

“What are you?” he asked with a growl and she snorted derisively at him.

“And here I thought you were smart,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“You’re baiting me,” he said coldly.

“Duh,” she said with a smug smirk.

“Why?”

“Because it’s fun,” she said, widening her eyes and letting her smile turn manic.

“You’re insane,” he said and she rolled her eyes in exasperation.

“We’ve already established that,” she said. “But you are missing the point, dear Archfiend.”

“Which is?” he growled.

“Insanity, chaos, enigmatic behavior,” she said pointedly. “A mortal without fear of a tyrannical Devil Lord, walking into the bed-chamber of a being she believed was a god until faced with them directly because of a dream. If you were smart, you would have answered your own question.”

Before he could respond, a heavy-handed knock pounded on the door. Asmodeus rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers, materializing a tailored, ink-black suit with a white button-down shirt and a slightly ostentatious crimson vest to cover his nakedness.

“Party pooper,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him for a moment before he waved his hand, opening the door to allow a large figure clad in Hell-Knight armor to enter.

“My Lord, we lost the source of the disturbance,” the Hell Knight said as Lilly spun to see him better, making him stop in his tracks and shake his head, “oh. It’s you.”

“Hey, Jareth,” Lilly said brightly, waving at him as best as she could.

The Hell Knight removed his helmet to reveal a very handsome human male with dark hair brushed back from his eyes and an exasperated look on his face. Tall, lean, and just as charismatic as the Archfiend, he’d managed to out-con a Devil Lord during his mortal life into giving him the power of a High Devil in the Prime Material Plane, the remainder of his mortal life to enjoy it, and then killed that same Devil Lord to take his position in Asmodeus’s court after his soul was remanded to the Nine Hells. As powerful as he was, Lilly knew his mind was the most dangerous tool in his arsenal. Son of a bitch could talk a Priestess of Tyr into cheating the system to get out of paying for his crimes and then talk her into his bed to celebrate his ill-gotten freedom. Come to think of it, if Lilly wasn’t mistaken, he had at one point. And that was before he’d made the deal.

“I thought you were in Dis,” she said, tilting her head in question.

“I was,” he said, shaking his head. “Until I was summoned to track down the individual responsible for the chaos that erupted in the Citadel a few hours ago. I should have figured it was you.”

“In my defense,” she said, but he held up a hand to stop her.

“You were left unsupervised,” he said, shaking his head before looking at Asmodeus. “Do you want me to kill her, or would you like to do it yourself?”

“Now I’m curious,” the Archfiend said.

“You’re a brave male,” he said looking back at Lilly with a scrutinous expression before looking back at the Archfiend. “I would say keep her tied up,” Jareth said, shaking his head, “but she likes that.”

Lilly couldn’t help the mischievous giggle that bubbled up her throat.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Asmodeus said.

“Woohoo!” Lilly added, knowing that she was being ignored and resuming her swinging.

“Is she always like this?” the Archfiend asked Jareth, pointing his thumb at Lilly.

“Pretty much,” Jareth responded with a shrug. “She’s sweet, but a total psycho. It’s not her fault, though. Not completely, at least. I tend to keep her around so I can get an accurate assessment of potential damage and avoid the fallout when she does shit.”

“Should I ask?”

“Two words, one adjective. Old Ones,” Jareth said and the Archfiend groaned as he started rubbing his temples. “This one fell through a portal when she was four and ended up outside of existence before she was touched by an Old One and sent back as a Prophet.”

“Wait, what?” Lilly asked, raising an eyebrow at Jareth. She knew her instincts were pretty dead-on when she followed them, but that was the first time she’d heard herself referred to as a prophet.

“The only reason I listen to you is that you tend to make predictions without realizing it,” Jareth said bluntly. “You’re cute and all, but I would have killed you a long time ago to save myself the migraines if it wasn’t for that. Especially after finding out that you were touched by an Old One.”

“What’s wrong with being touched by an Old One?” Lilly asked.

“The problem in dealing with Old Ones is that everything you could learn about our universe doesn’t apply to them,” he says with a long-suffering sigh. “They exist outside of all mortal comprehension. Only Gods have a chance and even that is a little iffy,” he explained, holding a hand out and tilting it from side to side. “You told me that you remember being in the Outer Planes for what felt like centuries, right?”

“Yeah, it’s weird. Like, I remember being a lot older than when I got back,” she said, her brow furrowing as she recalled her time there. "Not much older than I am now. Why?”

“Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff,” he said and she raised an eyebrow at him. “The closest comparison I can give is two ends of a spaghetti noodle got mashed together to make a spaghetti O,” he said, drawing the letter in the air with his finger. “So, what you are doing when you prophesize is predicting the future by remembering your past. It’s just going all the way around,” he finished making the circle in the air again more exaggeratedly. “You still get migraines a lot?” he asked her and she nodded. “It hurts because every time that you change your future with your decisions you are changing your memories as well. Once or twice is okay, but hundreds, if not thousands, of times, would drive even a god batty,” Jareth said with a careless shrug.

“Interesting theory,” she said, rolling her eyes and frowning. “Why haven’t you explained that to me before,” she grumbled.

“Because you never asked,” Jareth said flatly. “And, honestly, thinking about it makes my brain hurt. Besides, all I had to do was pay attention while you were rambling and I could gain some insight into the methods to your madness. That’s why I said I should have known today's events were because of you, considering you were asking me about politics when you came to visit earlier this week. What I want to know is why you didn’t tell me what you were up to.”

“Two reasons,” she said, “plausible deniability and you would have talked me out of it.”

“What’s the damage on that, by the way,” Asmodeus asked.

“Nothing too detrimental, surprisingly,” Jareth said. “A handful of Dukes got pranked pretty hard, some of them may or may not be dead, but they were the ones I’d been worried about trying to usurp the positions of the Archfiends and then fucking it up. As for the Archfiends themselves, it seems the only one not affected is you,” he said and Asmodeus paused as he stared at Lilly. “If you’re thinking torture, I know for a fact that it won’t work on her. She’s too used to physical pain for it to be effective. However, getting her to talk isn’t difficult. May I?”

When Asmodeus waved a hand for Jareth to proceed, the Hell Knight put his helmet on the ground and started prowling around her, eyeing her like food. Lilly immediately realized how vulnerable she was with her hands chained above her head, and she’d been hanging out with Jareth long enough to know she was in trouble. When a slow smirk stretched his lips and he stepped up to put his hands on Lilly’s waist, she twitched instantly and squeaked as she tried to hold still. Proof that Jareth was an evil bastard. He knew she was ticklish as fuck.

“Tell me,” he said and she started to squeak in a quiet, continuous tone.

When she kept her mouth shut, he started flexing his fingers sporadically, making her kick and twitch wildly as she let out a sound halfway between a scream and a giggle. It only lasted a couple of seconds, but she had no issues coming clean. She was just being stubborn because it was Jareth.

“Knock the Archdevils down a few pegs to remind them who's boss,” she yelled between giggles. “The severity of their distention from their boss determined the lethality of their prank!”

Lilly endured a few more seconds while Jareth chuckled until he decided to relent, looking at the Archfiend and holding his hand out towards her.

“Tada,” he said with a smug smirk. “Just don’t do that too much or she’ll get used to it.”

“You are such an asshole,” she said.

“Threat level?” Asmodeus asked Jareth, completely ignoring her.

“Cosmic,” Jareth said before bowing to grab his helmet. “I’m going home.”

Without waiting for dismissal, Jareth left with it tucked under his arm.

“Bye, Jareth,” she called at his retreating figure. “Love you!”

“Love you, too,” he called back as the doors closed.

“Great guy,” she told Asmodeus. “Calls me his favorite little chaos bomb. He used to bounce me on his lap and tell me stories for hours.”

“And how old were you when he did this?” Asmodeus asked as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to know or could already guess.

“Twenty,” she said smugly. “What? I never outgrew my love of bedtime stories,” she explained with a smile and wagged her eyebrows.

With a snap of his fingers, the chains holding her prisoner vanished and she dropped to her feet. Surprise raised her eyebrows as she rolled her shoulders out and ignored the harsh tingle of blood circulation returning to her arms. He was silent as he watched her begin wandering around his bed-chamber, admiring the torture implements hanging on the walls. If the stories from his harem were to be believed, he was an expert at using them to invoke pleasure as opposed to pain.

“How long ago did you have your dream?” he asked much more calmly than he’d been.

“About a month ago,” she answered easily as she pulled a pear-shaped device off the wall and turned the small wing-nut on the end of it to watch it flower open slowly. With a wince and shudder, she returned it to the wall and picked up a thorny whip instead. “Can I borrow this?”

“No,” he said flatly and she turned to see him watching her from the chair in front of a small desk against the wall farthest from his bed.

With a huff, she returned the whip to the wall and came to stand in front of him with her hands stuffed into her pockets.

“Truth is, you’ve been popping up in my dreams a lot,” she admitted. “Once or twice, I can ignore pretty easily. But the frequency with which you’ve been haunting my thoughts without me actively focusing on you told me that I needed to see you. However, I wasn’t sure why until I got here.”

“And why exactly do you think you’ve been dreaming about me?” he asked.

“It probably has to do with the fact that your Spark is missing,” she said with a shrug. “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been able to feel the presence of Divine Beings. Chalk it up to Grand-Daddy Squid-face reaching out and touching me with his noodly appendage. If you’re missing yours, then chances are this is the universe’s way of telling me that it’s my job to help you get it back.”

“And why would want to help me?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Ah,” she said, taking a quick deep breath, “the signature of evil. Why would anyone do anything without a hidden agenda?” she asked as she shifted her stance to lean her hip against his desk as she thought in silence for a few moments. “Which leaves me in a quandary. Do I help simply because I want to, or do I try to get more out of the deal?”

“If you were smart, you’d try to milk it for all its worth,” he said bluntly.

“True,” she said, nodding her head. “But I also understand what could happen if I don’t help.”

“What do you mean?” he asked with a frown.

“If the hierarchy of the Nine Hells loses their king, the chaos will spill over onto the innocents. Whoever is behind it knows this. They are going to expect you to be vulnerable enough for them to take you down when the time comes. But regardless of Divine Spark, you’re still Asmodeus and, with the worship of your followers, you’re still a badass. It would take a lot to take you down. As much as I hate being stuck in the Nine Hells, it’s still my home for now and I really don’t feel like dealing with a war.”

“So, because you don’t feel like dealing with a war, you’re willing to ally with me in an attempt to return my divinity?” he asked with a healthy dose of disbelief coloring his voice.

“You could also sweeten the deal by wiping out the debts my friend and I have with your church,” she offered with a shrug. “Call it payment for services rendered.”

“And how much do you owe?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“About 50,000 gold pieces between the two of us,” she said. “Working as a Prayer Agent isn’t all that lucrative, to be honest with you. Considering there’s barely enough left over to pay for the materials I use in my experiments, let alone save enough to get set up in the Prime Material Plane once I do pay off my debts, having you release me from my obligations to pay for this,” she said, holding up her left hand so he could see her tattoo, “would make it worth the effort.”

“All you want is to have your debts wiped out?” he asked. “You don’t want riches and power?”

“Not really,” she said with a snort. “Unlike Jareth, I’m not interested in having a kingdom.”

“Then, what are you interested in?” he asked, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her into his lap. “There has to be something that drives you.”

“I could tell you,” she said with a chuckle that was a little more breathless than she would have preferred, “but what would be the fun in that?”

His arm tightened around her as his lips brushed the curve of her neck and she fought the shiver that ran through her as she realized she was sitting in the lap of the Première Dom of the Nine Hells. The primary reason she’d spent a week locked in Uriah's room every night was to ensure her traitorous hormones wouldn’t be an issue when she faced Asmodeus. Harnessing the sexual energy to use in her spell was just an experiment to see if it was possible to do so.

“Beware of lusting to excess, allowing desires to dictate actions without thought to the broader picture,” she whispered and he froze, his grip on her tightening almost painfully.

“Where did you hear that?” he asked, his warm breath feathering over her skin.

“A lesson I learned a long time ago,” she said, snaking her fingers into his hair to pull his head back so she could look him in the eyes. “Something you seem to have forgotten.”

The Archfiend stared at her coldly, his jaw clenching hard enough to make the muscle in his cheek jump. She watched as a myriad of emotions played across his handsome face and smiled a little when she saw a flash of genuine fear in his ruby eyes.

“You have my attention,” he said quietly.

“That’s all I ask,” she said with a satisfied smile and let go of her grip on his hair to stand.

“Who else knows?” he asked.

“As if I’d give you a hit list,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Besides, there’s no point in running my mouth to anyone who wouldn’t be able to wrap their head around the concept of the truth.”

“And you would still help me?” he asked.

“Why not?” she countered with a shrug. “If nothing else, it gives me something to do.”

Without asking permission, she walked back over to the wall where the thorny whip was hanging and took it down again to put in her bag.

“See ya around, my Lord,” she said with a flourishing bow before turning on her heel and walking out of the room. He didn’t say a word as she did so, nor did he attempt to stop her as she casually left Fortress Nessus through the front entrance with a smile on her face and a skip in her step.

She was already trying to figure out where to start her research into the paths of ascension when she reached the ground level of the Citadel Marketplace. It felt good having a purpose outside of her projects. As much as she loved writing, it felt better being on the move. She could think more easily when she was in motion and other people’s problems always made for wonderful distractions. Weaving her way through the crowds still gathered in the streets, she spotted Uriah and the other Weirdos outside Destiny’s shop. Seeing her friends whole and safe made her relax as she lifted her hand to wave to them. Her mouth was open on an inhale to call out to them as she walked when the world suddenly vanished and she felt herself tumbling through space.