“Where is he?” Lillian demands, using Nicole’s body to push Aaron further into the wall. “Where’s Raven?” She raises the dagger to Aaron’s throat, threatening to draw blood.

“Lower your weapon,” the butler said. “I won’t say anything with that thing pointed at me.”

“Speak or I slit your throat,” Lillian said, pressing the blade into his skin.

“You’ve changed. You never had these violent urges when you were a dimensional Mother,” he said. “It’s a shame you sank so low.”

“How does it feel to face the consequences of your actions, Asmodeus? You conspired to strip me of my power. And look at where we are now.”

“You’re not allowed here,” he said, bristling at her use of his true name. “Ileana will sense your presence and hunt you down. And the old rules won’t apply to her now that you’re one of the Fallen.”

“I’d like to see her try,” Lillian said. “I sure don’t mind dismembering you two traitors from head to toe.”

“I’m on your side.”

Lillian laughs. “Is that why you took Raven away from me? Are allies supposed to help exile their comrades from their homes? I built this place, Asmodeus, yet you’re the one with the right to live here. I don’t like repeating myself. Where’s Raven?”

“He’s been here all along,” Aaron said. “He’s never left this place.”

“That can’t be. I felt him die in my arms,” she said, her hand trembling. “I sensed his soul leaving his body.”

“Death never took him. Thanatos pitied Raven for the short life that he lived and gave him a second chance. He’s still with us,” the butler explained. “But he’s not the same.”

“What did he do to my love? If he perverted his soul I swear I will-”

“I loved him too,” Aaron said, interrupting her. “Don’t you think I would’ve done every violent thing imaginable if Thanatos corrupted him?”

“You didn’t love him as I did,” she said. “If you truly loved him, you would’ve never let him die in the first place.”

"I loved him more than you imagined," he said, pushing her back. “I hid him from you because you were dangerous to him.”

Lillian slaps Aaron’s face, furious. “You were the one that got him killed! If you had never interfered, then maybe, just maybe he’d still be with us.”

“Look at what you’re doing to Miss Walker’s body,” Aaron said, pointing to the cracks on Nicole’s arm. “Her form can’t handle the sheer amount of power you possess, just like Raven could’ve never handled a relationship with you.”

She falters, hurt by the truth of his statement. But her sadness quickly leaves her face, replaced once again by anger. She sinks her nails into Aaron’s arms, injecting pain into him.

“WHERE IS RAVEN?” She starts to tear his form apart, her hands glowing purple. Aaron grits his teeth, holding back a moan of pain.

“Leave … leave the girl’s body and I will … I will deliver Raven to you,” he said, feeling himself on the edge of his own existence. “Remove your mark from her. She can no longer be your Hand, Lillian.”

“You only say that because you despised serving me,” she scoffs. “Being my Hand was the best thing that happened to you, Prince of Hell, and it’s the same for this girl. Without me, she cannot get the one thing she wants the most in this world.”

Aaron’s face morphs, shifting from an expression of pain to one of happiness. “You know, I had forgotten about that, Fallen Mother.”

She looks at him with confusion. “Forgot what?”

“Forgot that I was the Prince of Hell.” His eye glows amber and a wall of flames engulfs his body, burning Lillian’s hands. She steps back, crying out in pain.

“Being your servant was the worst mistake of my life,” he said. “I only stooped that low because my father had exiled me. But you knew that, didn’t you? You knew I was the scorned, bastard prince.”

“Yet you still serve that mortal, Cedric,” Lillian said. “Some prince you are.” The cracks had spread to Nicole’s face, threatening to incinerate her body, but Lillian was healing them as more popped up.

“I blame you,” he said. “You seek out the broken and the weary to make them in your image. You pervert them until they have no purpose or desire that isn’t yours.”

“Pervert?” Outrage colors her voice.

“Pervert,” Aaron said. “You probably tasted her the same way you tasted all of us. Even after thousands of years, you never change.”

“How could you tell?” She sounded amused.

“I could smell you on her. That millennia-old, foul stench of a crone.”

“Yet you still let her stay, so close to the mortal you call master,” she said.

“Only because you led her astray. I was hoping that she would tell the truth and be cleansed of your influence.” Aaron sets his hands aflame, burning his gloves to ashes. Then, he steps towards Lillian and places his burning hands around Nicole’s neck, squeezing the fallen goddess out the girl’s body. He begins to chant an ancient tongue, something that sounded like Latin but much older. Lillian attempts to do the same, but he covers her mouth, finishing his spell.

Time freezes. Then, all at once, everything moves backward. Every action is reversed until Aaron is pressed up against the blackboard with Nicole glaring at him, dagger against his neck.

“You’re going to pay for what you did,” she said. “You had no right to kill the love of her life.”

“You’re right,” Aaron says, exhausted from his time spell, “which is why I should be the one to end my own life.”

Nicole blinks, taken aback. “Wh-”

He snatches the dagger out of her hand, using its sharp edge to nick a small piece of his skin at the base of his neck. Black blood trickles down to his collarbone, dripping from the blade.

“All you needed was the blood, right? Now you can take whatever you want from Lillian,” he said. He hands the dagger back to her.

She stares at him, bewildered. “Why are you helping me?”

He gives her a sad smile. “You deserve a life free of Lillian.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, wiping the blood off his neck. “I can play dead for a couple of thousand years so she’ll believe that you did your job right. You should be on your way home now, wherever that is.”

They look at her dagger. Nothing happens.

“The last time Lillian sent me here, she drew a pattern with the dagger. Maybe I need to do that again?”

“No, something’s wrong.”

“I don’t remember Latin lessons involving knives, Aaron,” Cedric said, walking into the room, interrupting their conversation. “Did something happen here? Was Miss Walker misbehaving?”

He asks the last question with a smirk, mischief sparkling in his eyes. Nicole blushes, sticking the bloodstained dagger in her trousers. Details of her dream spring back to mind, of the two Lords burning her at the stake for sinning. She wonders what the Lord actually did to girls who misbehaved.

“Nothing out of the ordinary, my Lord,” Aaron said, bowing to him.

“Oh quit it with that nonsense,” Cedric said. “You don’t need to bow to me.”

“But you’re the master of this manor,” the butler countered. “And I am merely your humble servant.”

“You know we’re more than that to each other.” The air in the room grows thick with tension. They stare at each other, Lord and butler, living mirrors of one another with their dark hair and matching eyepatches. Nicole remembers Cedric’s hidden eye, the one that looked exactly like Aaron’s reddish-brown one. They were more than master and servant, alright. Her mind wanders back to the possibility of them being lovers.

Cedric touches Aaron’s cheek, a gesture so tender that Nicole felt as if she were the one that intruded in the room instead of Cedric. But then, the butler slaps his hand away.

“What are you talking about? You’re giving Miss Walker the wrong idea,” Aaron said.

“It’s not my fault her mind wanders to sinful places,” Cedric chuckles, noticing her pink cheeks.

Sinful? The word tugs at her brain, searching for a memory that doesn’t exist. Why did she get the feeling that something had happened between her and Aaron?

“I’ll be sure to correct her improper ways,” the butler said.

“I’m not sure if she’ll be as much fun if you do.”

"I'm standing right here," she said.

"I can see that. Your posture is awful," Cedric remarks.

Self-conscious, she straightens her back, embarrassed that her back had been slouched.

"You've got your work cut out for you," the Lord said to the butler. With that rude comment, Cedric leaves, but not before saying one last thing.

"Oh and Nicole? You look good in my pants."