“I’m not a real lady,” she said, facing the Lord. They were in the guest room of his manor. She was lying on the bed, still recovering from Alice’s torture. Cedric was seated next to her, trying to convince her to continue her lessons. The Lord had taken it upon himself to deliver food to her every day during her recovery. He had felt personally responsible for her injuries and mental torment, given his connections to the Family. But little did he know that her suffering was the fault of a certain goddess who lived in her subconscious, a goddess who not only sent her on a fool’s errand but also created her very being.

Stabbing a demon isn’t a fool’s errand, Lillian interjected.

It is if you’re the one stabbed instead, she countered. Now leave me alone! I need to speak with Cedric about something important.

If you think making eyes at the Lord is an important task, then you and I have very different definitions of ‘important’, the goddess scoffs.

“You’re from the Walker family,” Cedric said, interrupting her inner dialogue. “How can you not be a lady?”

“I’m not from that family,” she said. “I’ve been lying, which I apologize for. The truth is, I’m an assassin. I was sent by a powerful woman to kill someone in the manor.”

“Were you trying to kill me?”

“No,” she said. “I was after Aaron. He took a life so I came to take his. An eye for an eye, so to speak.”

“Do you still need to kill him? Because he’s a very hard butler to replace,” Cedric said.

She hesitates. Aaron had seemed kind to her, trying to free her from Lillian’s influence, but it was thanks to him she had been kidnapped by the Family and tormented by Alice. She no longer knew what to make of him and hadn’t seen his face in the duration of her recovery. It was probably best for both of them, given how bloodthirsty the goddess was.

You should still kill him, Lillian said.

It won’t bring me home. As you said, I belong here. I have no incentive to help you, she replied.

“I don’t need to kill him,” she told the Lord. “But it seems like his past is linked to mine. He used to work for the woman who sent me to kill him.”

Cedric looked at her doubtfully. “You’re lying again.”

“I’m actually telling the truth for once,” she said.

"Aaron is a demon," he said. "But you already knew that, didn't you? You don't look surprised at all."

"It's how I knew to kill him. My bracelet can tell demons apart from humans," she said, holding up her wrist.

Cedric inspects the silver band, watching it vibrate against his fingers. "So that's why you tried to kill me. You knew I was also a demon."

A very attractive demon, she thought.

But a demon nonetheless, Lillian said.

"Yes," she said, ignoring the goddess's words. "It's why I was standing over your bed trying to kill you in your sleep."

"I deserve that," he said. "For letting my sister get her hands on you. I should've given her an answer sooner. You were covered in so much blood." A troubled expression crosses his face.

"Is something wrong, Lord Philips?"

"You wouldn't wake up for three days," he said. "I thought you died, but Aaron kept reassuring me that you would live. I was afraid that the girl who had healed me would perish by my hands."

“So you remember,” she said. They had avoided talking about it before Alice had tortured her.

“You’re not an easy girl to forget,” he said, giving her a meaningful look.

“I’m not sure you meant that as a compliment.” She lowers her head, allowing a bit of hair to cover her face.

“No, what I mean is that I remember you from before that. Years ago, on a foggy morning. I thought it was a dream.” He looks at her, almost not believing the words coming out of his mouth.

Her mouth opens in surprise. She thought he had forgotten about that moment.

He laughs, registering her expression. “Forget it, please. I must sound crazy.”

She sits up straighter, ignoring the shooting pain in her legs. “You sound perfectly sane because I remember you too.”

Relief washes over his face. “I was just a boy then, playing with magic. You were kind to me and you didn’t need to be.”

Her mind drifts back to that moment years ago. He had tried to warn her about all this, the Mothers and the insanity of the dimensional gods. Maybe if she had ignored Lillian that night, she could’ve avoided all of this. But then, she wouldn’t have met him again.

“You were kind to me too, trying to tell me about all this,” she said.

He gives her a sheepish grin. “I ripped a hole in the fabric of the universe that led you here. I wouldn’t say that was kind of me.”

“Don’t blame yourself. Lillian would’ve dragged me here against my own will, regardless of what you did.” She places a hand over his, trying to comfort him.

A sad expression crosses his face. “So much could have been avoided if I hadn’t wanted magic so badly.”

“But then I wouldn’t have met you,” she blurted. The sad expression melts away from his face, replaced by surprise.

“You are a lovely person,” he said, agreeing with her, “and I’ve enjoyed your presence in the manor.” The Lord tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear.

She locks eyes with Cedric, a deep flush rising to her cheeks. She wasn’t used to seeing this side of him.

"Are you alright?" He places a palm on her forehead. "You seem like you're running a fever."

"I'm fine," she reassures him. “Although I could do without any more debutante lessons since, you know, I’m not a real lady.”

"Are you saying you'd rather be my maid?" The Lord didn't bother hiding his incredulous tone.

"No! I mean, you've been very generous towards me, letting me heal and stay as a guest in your manor. But I have no family here and I feel guilty for lying to you," she said. She fiddles with the cuffs of her dress, unsure of how Cedric would respond.

He stays silent for a moment, processing the information she gave him. Then, his eye lights up with an idea.

"You can be a lady of this manor," he said. "You'll train for your debutante ball and still come out to society as a worthy bachelorette."

"But I don't have any royal blood in me," she protested.

"I could pretend that you're a distant cousin from France and I have more than enough money for a dowry if a man offers you his hand," he suggested.

Her eyes widened. This was a chance for her to properly fit into the Charis Realm and live a normal life.

"Why are you willing to do so much for me? I didn't exactly arrive at the manor with the best intentions," she said, immediately regretting her words. Don't question his kindness! What if he takes his offer back?

"I've grown fond of you," he admits. "You make the manor feel less lonely, sort of like the nice sister I never had. I want to see you live a good life."

Her heart clenched at the word "sister." So that's how he saw her. It explained why he was so kind to her.

Did you think you meant something more to him? You barely know him, Lillian scoffs.

Get out of my head, Nicole demands. If you're going to stay in here, at least be a little nicer to me.

You failed your task. I have every right to be cruel to you, Lillian said.

Just as she was formulating a mental retort to the goddess, Cedric interrupts her inner dialogue.

"Is something wrong? You look troubled," he said.

She smooths her face, pretending that he hadn't hurt her feelings by basically calling her his sister and ignoring the fact that a certain goddess was still taunting her with his indirect rejection.

"It's just, Aaron had told me that you were human before, that he turned you into a demon. I'm not sure what kind of person willing asks to be transformed into a creature of hell," she lied.

Oh please, you seemed perfectly fine with trading eyes with Asmodeus just a while ago. I call bullshit, Lillian said.

Cedric takes off his eye patch, sighing. "I suppose I had to eventually tell this story to someone one day." He faces her, somehow even more beautiful with his mismatched eyes. She shivers, marveling at the contrast between Aaron's sinister amber demon eye and his own sorrowful brown one.

"It's almost your bedtime so I'm not sure I should be telling a girl such as yourself this gruesome story," he said. "I could always read you a nice fairytale instead. Personally, I prefer any story by Dickens."

"I'm not a child," she said, crossing her arms and sticking out her lower lip in a pout. "Besides, I like gruesome stories."

"I would've never expected someone as innocent-looking as you to have a taste for the macabre," he said. "Although now that I think about it, it's very fitting for the girl who tried to assassinate me."

She blushed fiercely. "You’re never going to stop reminding me of my sins, are you?”

"You never killed anyone so you didn't sin," he said. "What I did was a sin."

She pulls her covers up, getting comfortable in her bed. "And what did you do?"

"I saved a demon's life," he said. "The Family didn't like that. I had to abandon my sister with them so that she wouldn't be associated with my crime. I regret it every single day. If I stayed, maybe she wouldn't have turned into the monster that hurt you."

"It's not your fault," she said. "Alice said she was the Chosen One, whatever that means." She was feigning ignorance so that it would prompt the Lord to explain the Family to her. She found it interesting that he told her he saved Aaron’s life when the demon butler made it appear the other way around and suspected that Cedric’s story would explain their relationship.

“The Chosen One,” he spat. “Of course she would tell you that. You can’t go a single minute of conversation without her mentioning it.”

Alice was proud of serving Ileana, that much she knew. She could still hear her hiss her title into her ear, the phantom dagger in her thigh.

“She was always the gifted one,” he said. “The magic in the Family went to women. There have been no exceptions to this rule. Men could never hold magic and if they tried, they turned to ashes. She had the rarest power: mind control. My mother and father were so proud of her that they forgot I existed, but I digress. Other girls could control the dead or transform into animals. She had the power to topple kingdoms.”

“I’m surprised she’s not the Queen already,” she said. She could see how easy it would be for Alice to take the throne and gain the reins of power.

“She would be if the Family saw any value in it. But a year ago, they began to worship a goddess, a woman who claimed to control the universe. They abandoned their wealth and royal titles to devote their lives to her, believing that she would help them ascend to a higher plane of existence. She named my sister the Chosen One because she picked her to hold great power, to do more than mind control. I haven’t the faintest clue as to what that means, but the Family knew they had to treat her with care if they wanted to appease the goddess.”

“What does Aaron have to do with all of this?” She already knew Ileana was the source of Alice’s abilities.

“I was just getting there,” he said. “How clever of you to have assumed that Aaron was the demon I saved.”

She smiles awkwardly, embarrassed to have acted so impatiently. He smiles back, amusement sparkling in his mismatched eyes.

“So my sister was destined to hold great power. But the goddess demanded that she needed to practice certain dark arts before she could wield that power, a kind of magic she promised to teach all the girls. That meant summoning a demon. They were all eager to do this because they wanted to purge the world of evil, although I believe they have become the world’s evil. The goddess brought the girls into the woods, far away from the Family, and gave them guidance during their ritual. I wanted to see the magic she was teaching them so I snuck into the group, hoping to gain some power.”

Her brow crinkles. Hadn’t he just said no man could ever wield magic?

Noticing her expression, he took a pause in his story. “I was foolish and young. I thought that just like my sister, I would be special, that I could hold magic. I was tired of being the black sheep of the family. But that day, in the woods, I regretted thinking that I was better than everyone else."

His voice lowered, barely above a whisper. "The ritual required a sacrifice, a new life in exchange for the demon’s ability to walk on earth. The human sacrifice they chose … he was just a baby. The child couldn't have spent more than a day on earth, with his fresh, pink skin. The slaughter felt meaningless, even though the goddess kept telling us how necessary it was to kill him. I still have nightmares about it, about killing the babe."

He looks down at his hands as if he could still see the blood there. His eyes were wet as if he wanted to cry but couldn't. She grabs his hands, squeezing his fingers.

"You don't have to finish telling me this story," she said, trying to comfort him. "If it hurts you this much, you should stop."

"No," he said firmly. "You deserve to know why I'm a demon." He squeezes her hand back, a small gesture of gratitude for acknowledging his pain.

She wanted to force him to stop his story, to say she wasn't worth reliving his past traumas. She knew all too well what it was like living with so much hurt, even before entering the Charis Realm. Her life hadn't been easy. Instead of dimensional mothers, she dealt with a plethora of mental issues and fought to feel adequate in her daily life. Somehow, as awful and confusing as it was being in another dimension, it was still an escape from those problems. And it didn't hurt that a beautiful boy was telling her a bedtime story, even at his own expense.

"When the girls had successfully summoned the demon, he emerged from the flames, beautiful as a phoenix rising from the ashes. He didn't look like he was from hell. He seemed so human. When the girls cut him, he bled. When the goddess struck him, he cried. They made plans to eat his flesh and absorb his power, but I couldn't bring myself to join them. I couldn't bear witness to another death. So when the girls slept, I woke him and convinced him to leave the forest with me. I thought saving him could make up for the baby. But we didn't make it very far before they hunted us down. They didn't like that I had snuck into their group and tried to learn their magic. And they hated how I couldn't stomach their killings. So, to punish me, they gave me a dagger and told me to slaughter him. Alice came up with that. She knew best how to torment me. They knew I couldn’t do it. Not even when Alice’s hand was over mine guiding the blade to his chest. So she did the one thing she swore never to do to me: she went inside my head. I didn’t even feel it when I stabbed him. She was getting much better at her mind magic, a lot smoother than when we were kids. She could go into people’s minds without them feeling it.”

She remembered the way Alice effortlessly altered reality during her torture. Would it have been different if she knew what Alice was doing? Judging by Cedric’s story, it was unlikely that knowing her abilities would’ve helped her escape.

“Sometimes, I wonder if she’s still in my head,” he said, “watching my thoughts.”

“Is that possible?” It terrified her to know that there could be two people in her head. One goddess was enough. Adding a deranged mind reader would make her go mad.

As if I would ever share your mental space with anyone else, Lillian said.

How comforting, she thought sarcastically. There’s only one parasite in my brain.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Aaron tells me it’s not possible. He’d know if someone was reading my thoughts.”

“How could he tell?” And did that mean he could sense Lillian in her thoughts now?

“When I stabbed him, I had fought off my sister’s influence enough to miss the mark. It gave Aaron enough time to fight off the girls and bring me back to the Philips manor. We knew we wouldn’t be safe for long so he offered me a deal. I would get the powers I always wanted and he could stay tethered to this world through me. I didn’t think I was going to lose an eye that day, but I had no choice. He wanted to create a powerful bond with me so that we could both survive. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of sharing an eye with him included sharing our thoughts,” he said, finishing his story.

Her eyes widened, slack-jawed. Did that mean he knew she was a Hand of Lillian? Everything she had told Aaron, even their plans to solidify their agreement - did he know that too?

He places a hand under her chin, closing her mouth. “I know it’s a lot to take in. You don’t have to say anything now. I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but I advise you to get some sleep first.”

Before she could utter another word, he places a light kiss on her forehead and leaves the room, quietly shutting the door behind him.