Ira Rule didn't exist.

That was the conclusion the boy was rapidly coming to. As the minutes dragged on, it was getting easier to count grains of sand than it was to divide what was and what wasn't true behind the wild stories of a Chosen One.

So, he started at the beginning. At what he most suspected of holding some truth. He'd committed a sin against the angels. Something between falling for a Prince of Hell and claiming a Vestige. The details on that? Fuzzy at best. But the end result; painfully clear. The actions of his first life had led to this one. He was a being reincarnated through centuries of life to pay for a mistake he couldn't remember.

In every one of those laity lifetimes, the Prince had come to him. And Ira, unaware of the grave sin he was committing, had allowed himself to be swayed each time. He always found him, because the Third Prince of Hell knew who he was and what he had done.

Or so Ira had thought. 

"No, should I know you?"

What had changed? Why those words? They replayed on Ira's mind, along with the look the Prince had given him as he'd delivered it. Earth shattering confusion accompanied by a lifeless smirk playing across pale lips. The Third Prince of Hell didn't know Ira Rule. It didn't make sense. He had to be lying. 

Except, Ira's last accusation of mistruths had gone over incredibly poorly.

The Prince knew him. He had to know him--because Ira Rule knew the Third Prince of Hell. His midnight black hair, his olive skin, his annoyingly perfect pearl-white smile. Sickeningly, Ira even recognized the smooth pur of his voice. If he got closer, he knew he'd even recognize the scent of his skin. Cold and clear, like inhaling the winter breeze.

It was all exactly as he'd dreamed it.

Or was it? There was one little thing. Something had changed about the man. The demon, he reminded himself. It was in his eyes. They'd always been charcoal-dark in Ira's visions, sparkling with charm and curling at the edges with each of his laughs, but the waking world had reimagined them. Made them into eyes that weren't human, but were more animalistic--like Mel's. 

It rolled his stomach to compare the two, but he couldn't help it. So, to make up for it, he focused on picking apart the differences that he could. Upon first inspection, Melchior hadn't seemed out of place. It wasn't until the moon rose, when the world got dark, that he seemed at all odd. Even in the thickest of nights, his eyes shone a bright glittering green.

The Third Prince could never pass for human, not the way he was now. He looked down on the world with golden-yellow irises, the middle dashed in an oblong oval of oil black. They were unmistakably feline.

Which brought him back to where he started. How could the Prince not know him? It just didn't make sense. Was that how Ira had gone so long without running into him, despite being directly in his path? How had the Prince found the son of a merchant in Poland faster than he'd found a soldier of the Progeny? Was it another trick from the angels? A way to get a leg up on his Prophecy?

The only clarity was how incredibly unclear it all was. Rapidly, he was falling into complete chaos. Ira didn't know when, exactly, he'd stepped from the path so carefully set for him. Had it happened the day he went for his pilgrimage and met Melchior Brisbane? Had it happened when he'd lost him?

All he could trace was that one minute he was the Soul of the Progeny and the next he was stuffed into the passenger seat of a glossy black four-door, his daggers resting in his palms, as a demon-girl with pink hair and antlers blabbered on about the proper way to make a Margarita.

The girl had her elbows pressed into the small space between the two front seats, leaning forward to speak directly into the electricity between Ira and the driver. He felt that she might have been doing it on purpose, an emotional diffuser meant to keep Ira from stabbing the man at the wheel. He appreciated it, even when he had to sharply snap his face to the left to avoid a glancing blow from her horns.

"Mayvalt, dear, please sit properly." The man beside Ira muttered as they turned onto a shaky dirt road.

She huffed and folded herself into the back of the car, but for only a moment before she began to grow restless. She stretched across the seats with the same fluid ease as Peter. Resting against her extended legs was a long metal pole of fire-white iron, carved with patterns of grape vines and wildweeds. A Bo staff, Ira recognized. Though he'd never seen one in person before--it was much harder to blunt Beasts to death with sticks than it was to stab them.

Ira tried not to stare at her. Which, he had to admit, was difficult. He knew that he knew her, too, but her face was so much harder to place. He could guess from the way that the Prince spoke to her that they were familiar. Maybe she'd just been there, lingering in the background, for many of his lives.

For one heart-pounding second, when they'd first met, he thought that she knew him, too.

"What are you doing here?" Then her face had grown weary, her palms shaking. "Bone-snatchers have no business here."

They didn't know him--only what he was. A Bishop. One, somehow, entered in a fragile alliance with them.

"How much longer?" She groaned.

"Twenty minutes." Ira answered after a quick glance at the GPS display.

His fingers curled over the blades in his grip, squeezing as if to drive out the wave of dizziness threatening to consume him. One nap ago, he was patrolling the wilderness of New York for his pilgrimage, now he was updating the demons in the Prius with the time.

He'd done crazy things before--namely turning the entirety of Lake Seneca into a boiling pot to kill a monster about as large as a blue whale calf--but this was worse. He'd done exactly what they'd always claimed he would. Of his own free will Ira had returned to the Third Prince of Hell.

He shook his head. No. No, it wasn't like that. He wasn't betraying the Progeny for the Third Prince. If anything, he was doing it for Melchior. Did that make it any better? At the end of the day, he was Ira Rule, sitting shotgun to the Prince.

But what other choice existed? Letting the Cardinal slaughter Melchior in cold blood? Even if his death resulted in the completion of a twenty-year-old prophecy--would that really lead to one less Prince and one patched gate?

Ira didn't know much--and apparently, all that he did know was turning out to all be fiction--but the Third Prince said it wasn't his gate. Which meant killing him wouldn't stop the flow of his power, it wouldn't fix the hole. Unbelievably, Ira believed him.

He scowled. He believed the devil? An hour ago, he'd believed Father Pine and the Cardinal. How could he be so gullible? Right--because he had nothing else. Melchior's life was a price Ira couldn't pay, that much was clear, but the gate had to be addressed. Magic must be able to solve magic. If this Prince could help patch the Trammel, then Ira would handle the consequences as they came.

"You know what I just don't get?" The demon girl pondered.

She'd introduced herself as Mayvalt, he reminded himself. He'd been slowly warming himself to the idea of calling her by her name, given that the alternative of calling her The He-Goat seemed too disjointed from his mission of saving Melchior, who it turned out, was at least half a demon himself.

Still, he would be lying if he said it was easy. She was the first he had ever seen to wear her demonic tells so proudly. Or, he reflected, the only. It was as if she stood in clear challenge to everything Ira stood for, taunting him to come after her fuzz-crowned antlers.

He ran the flat of his thumb down the sloping edges of Melchior's tooth. Was that how he felt? When he looked out at the world with eyes too-green and too-keen, did he fear what they would see when they looked back?

"Fashion trends?" The Third Prince suggested. "I've told you a thousand times, dear, they do end eventually."

Ira's cheeks flushed. The Prince used words like dear and darling as often as Ira used words like supine and-

"This is about my leather again, isn't it? Sap, boss! You've been wearing nothing but gray suits since they were invented." She snapped her tongue sharply against the roof of her mouth and adjusted her iron-spiked jacket with a brisk flick.

"Alright, fine. Suits don't expire--and everything else does." He shrugged.

Ira had to shut his eyes again. It helped when his reality began to feel too disjointed. He'd shut his eyes and imagine that this was an oil-thick illusion. One that he could rip free of when he woke up. He wasn't in the Third Prince of Hell's car listening to an argument about fabric, he was safe in bed.

"No, but really. Why is he here?" She asked, waiving an open palm towards Ira.

Ira suppressed a flinch in his tensed shoulders and ran his fingers over the tooth held caged in his clasped fingers. "Oh, am I taking someone's spot? I didn't realize. See, I thought you needed all the help you could get."

"We do," she admitted begrudgingly, "I just don't see what's in it for you."

"Does shutting the gate not benefit all of us?" Ira asked. "I want less Beasts in New York--and you?"

"Same, more or less." She agreed. "So, just that? This little task is worth your holier than thou dignity? Consorting with the likes of us?"

"Mayvalt."

"Sap, boss! He's Progeny!" She hissed. "Look, I'm willing to play nice, alright? I've been very calm about you clutching those bone shards, I even thought we had a touching moment back at Eden--but it doesn't mean I trust you, bone-snatcher."

"These are the only weapons capable of stopping whatever army is coming from Hell!" Ira snapped.

"They're not!" She retorted. "They're just the only weapons your kind could get their hands on."

"What does that mean?"

"Oh-kay! Enough of that now, Mayvalt." The Third Prince interrupted in his glass-steady voice. "Tearing eachother apart won't stop Belial, so let's all just calm down."

"Easy for you to say." She muttered.

"Low blow." He replied in a dry voice.

Ira shut his eyes. He clutched Melchior's knife tight in his palm and imagined that he was safe somewhere, waiting. He'd tell him about this later. The crazy car ride he took to be at his side, the odds he'd gone against, and the risk he'd swallowed just for a chance to see him again.

"I don't care if you trust me." Ira said. "I need the gate shut. I need to stop the Progeny's flawed attempt to claim a Vestige. If you want those things too then it seems pretty clear that we should team up."

"Sure, but, why?" Mayvalt pressed. "Shouldn't you want a Vestige? How else are you ever going to get rid of the boss? You guys want him dead, don't you? What else have these years of animosity been for?"

"Thanks, Mayvalt." The driver said. She shrugged unapologetically.

"We do." Ira agreed stiffly. 

It felt strange to speak so openly about his murder--but if it at all bothered the Third Prince, it didn't show in his golden eyes. He seemed completely unaffected. It was eery, really. The vast amount of nothing in his expression. Ira looked away.

"Right, so again--why?"

"It doesn't matter." Ira grit between his clenched teeth.

She blew out an angry huff and folded her arms over her chest. "Sap, fine! Then how are they going to do it?"

They're going to kill the most important person in the world. But those words turned to cement in his throat and rose no further. How could he admit to the two demons looking at him that the ritualistic sacrifice was coming from his side?

"You want us to stop it, right?" She asked. "How are we supposed to stop something we don't understand? In all the Demon-Born wars, Vestiges were earned by heroic actions on the battlefield. Yet, you're talking with so much certainty. A Vestige will be claimed. How could you possibly know that? How could you predict the flimsily whims of the Ely?"

Ely. Ira didn't know that word--but he wasn't going to admit that either. From the flinching in her sneer as she spit the word out of her delicate mouth, he assumed it to mean angels.

"It doesn't ma-"

"Sap!" She snapped, throwing her hands up in the air.

"Alright," the Third Prince sighed. "Look, you don't trust us. I get that. But you came here because we're the only ones who could help you. Right?"

Ira begrudgingly nodded.

"So, we have to know. At least a little. If you want us to succeed that is." The Prince spoke calmly, while the girl huffed from the back seats. Ira frowned in concentration. Succeeding meant saving Melchior from the edge of the Cardinal's Ossein blade. That, even above saving the city, was the most important thing. He glanced down at the tooth clasped in his shaking fist, he rolled his shoulders against the restraining tightness of the bandages hidden beneath his shirt. 

To what ends wouldn't he go to for Melchior Brisbane?

"Twenty years ago," Ira began, swallowing to break apart the knot forming in his throat. "Our Cardinal spoke to an angel."

"Twenty years ago?" The Third Prince echoed. He murmured the words so softly under his breath that Ira might have thought he'd imagined it if not for the slight gasp from Mayvalt. As if a piece had clicked together. Ira snapped his teeth shut, suddenly afraid of what he'd given away without understanding.

"What did the angel say?" Mayvalt asked, leaning forward in her seat. "Or did they give something to the Progeny?"

"Mayvalt."

"Just curious, boss."

"Yes," Ira murmured. A boy and, "a Prophecy."

"What? Like a riddle?" Mayvalt tilted her head, "Didn't know the Ely had it in them."

"It was a way to claim a Vestige." Ira said.

"And they waited twenty years to finish it?" The Prince asked.

"The conditions of the deal were barbaric." Ira said honestly. Human sacrifice wasn't something he liked to believe many people capable of. "The Cardinal forbid anyone from repeating the Prophecy. It fell away into obscurity. Even when, six years ago, a requirement of the Prophecy had been met. There was inaction. Until now. Until the gate opened. Until we had a reason to do the worst of the worst."

It wasn't until explaining their history to the eagerly listening Mayvalt and the indifferent Prince that a question Ira had long battled with suddenly became clear. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.

"I don't think the Cardinal ever intended to use the Prophecy."

"Until the gate opened." The Third Prince said.

"What are you thinking, boss?"

"I'm not sure yet," he said, "twenty years ago, my younger brother began moving pieces. To start this war? Maybe, but if the Progeny never showed intent to make good on creating a Vestige, a catalyst was needed."

"The gate?" Mayvalt asked. "But Mammon opened-"

"He said he did." The Third Prince shook his head. "But that always seemed strange to me. This gate is stronger than what I assumed he had to give."

"Wait!" Ira interrupted. "Your younger brother? Another Prince of Hell?"

"No, even younger. I mean an Ely." He said. 

"No, no way." Ira snapped. "An angel didn't open a rift between Earth and Hell. They wouldn't! They gave us the Trammel to stop Earth and Hell from ever merging!"

"Right, just how they gave you a barbaric deal?" Mayvalt asked. "Kid, Ely are the worst! Egotistical, maniacal, xenophobic harp-handlers!"

Ira shut his eyes and pressed his flattened palms to the sides of his head, blocking his ears. "You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Mayvalt, that's enough." The Prince said.

"But, boss!"

"Enough." He repeated. "I hope for our sake that Mammon did create this gate." 

"Why?" Ira sputtered. 

The Prince sighed, as if preparing to explain the migratory path of birds to a disinterested toddler. "Gates draw on the power of the key holder. Therefore, a gate will always be weaker than it's master, and why killing the opener will shut the rift. If Mammon opened this gate, he could never use it on himself. However, if someone stronger than him opened it-" 

"He could come through? Angels." Ira whispered. 

"Angels?" Mayvalt muttered bitterly.

"Mayvalt, settle down." The Prince warned. "It doesn't matter what anyone here thinks of good or evil. Let's just focus on saving the world and not worry about what side that puts us on. So, how do we stop them from claiming the Vestige?"

"Saving the world, huh?" Mayvalt quipped.

"Well, dear, I have to save myself before I can save the world." He shrugged.

"There's going to be a boy with them," Ira forced the heavy words over his flinching tongue. "No harm can come to him. We have to save him."

"You mean-" Mayvalt turned pale.

"Yeah," Ira said, unable to let the words be spoken by anyone other than himself. The terrible truth was his to own. It was his fate. "They're going to kill him. That's how they'll earn their Vestige."

"This boy," the Prince asked with a tone bordering between disinterest and mild neutrality, "how old is he?"

"Why?" Ira startled. 

"Well, just something. So we know who to look for." He shrugged. "You want us to safe-keep him, right?" 

Ira stared into his golden eyes and saw no sign of lies. Of hidden motivation. Of anything at all. And it terrified him. Because he knew that the Prince was playing him. Digging at him for a slip, for a little more. 

Twenty years ago, an angel had given Ira and a prophecy to the Progeny. That timeline had resonated with the Prince. He was looking for a match. He was looking for a soul reincarnated twenty years ago, maybe he even knew that the angels had been guarding it. That much seemed a pretty obvious conclusion. The Prince was looking for him. Unaware that Ira had already been found.

"He's eighteen." Ira said. Melchior was younger than Ira by a year and a few months. "He came after the Prophecy."

"I didn't ask about the prophecy." He pointed, in that voice that never shook or gave anything at all away.

"No," Ira said between clenched fangs, "you didn't."

"So, why him? Why does he have to die? Why will the angels give you a Vestige for it?" Mayvalt asked, rambling off her questions as quick as gunfire. 

"He's special." Ira said. 

"Special how?" The Prince asked. 

Ira's stomach rolled with a sudden hot spike of anger. He's not yours he wanted to scream--but then the Prince would ask how he could possibly know that. 

"He has a curse--or, maybe a gift, I guess. I don't know what to call it, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it all." Ira said, turning the tooth between his fingers. Until he'd seen it with his own eyes, the idea of a human boy becoming a hellhound had seemed laughably impossible. 

"Do tell." The Prince pressed. 

Ira's tongue felt frozen behind his teeth. There were pieces of Melchior that he wanted to break off and hide deep beneath his ribs. Truths that felt too personal to so freely share. But maybe the Third Prince had heard of curses. Maybe he could tell them how to undo Melchior's, how to turn him human again, and keep him from the subject of anymore sacrifices.

"I don't know much." Ira said honestly, "but I saw it once. He turned into a Ze'ev." 

"He's a Ze'ev?" Mayvalt asked, tilting her head.

"No!" Ira said quickly. "He can turn into one--but he's human." 

"You mean he looks human." Mayvalt suggested. "Boss can do that. He can cast illusions over demons to hide their demonic tells from hunters. He's done it for more Faun than you could even count." 

"Melchior is human!" Ira snapped. "He's a legacy child. His parents are in the Progeny, his siblings, his grandparents. He's human, he was born human." 

"Kid, I'm telling you that that's not possible." She shrugged.

The Prince blew a breath from his nose and shook his head. "Mayvalt, he's right." 

Her oak-brown eyes widened and flung towards the man poised over the steering wheel. "What do you mean he's right? You think this Heimrian kid can turn into a wolf?"

"You said it yourself." He shrugged. "I can cast illusions on Ze'ev. Well, I didn't. I haven't--not since their banishment to the Deireadh. It's never been worth the trouble to help hide them in Heimr. Besides, an illusion is just a trick of the light. It couldn't grant them a real human form. You could stick your hand right through, down to the fur." 

Ira thought of the way Melchior felt. Of his warm broad palms as he steadied Ira on rocky ground. Of his rough curls and his soft lips--he turned bright pink and looked out the window. 

"Heimrians can become wolves?" Mayvalt repeated stiffly. 

"It's incredibly rare." The Third Prince said. "A gift present in only a few of the original wolves, one that passed down to even fewer." 

Mayvalt turned pale, "The first wolf? You mean-" 

"Yes," the Prince sighed, "my brother's child." 

"Your brother?" Ira asked, and then because the image was strange in his mind, "wait, your brother's kids are, like, actually dogs?" 

"No." The Prince said. "One of my brother's children had the ability to turn into a Ze'ev--which she passed on. Mostly by creating new pure wolves who could never take Heimrian form, but once a millenia a Silver-Tongued wolf might have been born. One who could change like she could. Your friend must have run into it, and was passed it's gift." 

"Can it be. . .undone?" Ira asked. He regretted it the moment he had. He was too scared to know. 

"We'd have to ask my brother, I suppose. The gift comes from him." 

"Well, lucky for your friend--we happen to be on the way now." Mayvalt laughed darkly. "The first wolf was the daughter of Mammon." 

"This was done to him by Mammon?" Ira asked. The wounds concealed beneath his tightly wrapped bandages ached. 

"Maybe." The Third Prince shrugged. "Or it's all part of some prophecy. Which you think an Ely gave you." 

"They did." 

"Sure." He shrugged again. 

Ira narrowed his eyes, "you don't think an El--I mean an angel gave my Cardinal the Prophecy?" 

"I think we should be careful." He said. "Riddles are demonic business. I've never known an Ely to be so adept at playing such layered chess." 

"It had to be an angel! Or we'd get no Vestige!" Ira hissed. 

"Any Prince with enough power left could grant a Vestige, fallen or otherwise." The Third Prince said. 

"Wait! Then why don't you just-" 

"Give you a Vestige so you can kill me? Yeah, no thanks." He scoffed lightly. "Besides, believe it or not, I can't. If I had the power left I would have made one to handle my nephew." 

Ira slumped back in his seat. Even the prophecy was a lie? He didn't know what to say to stitch together the brokenness of himself. The Prince turned his cold golden eyes towards him and forced up a sigh that sounded like theatrical comfort. 

"Look," he began, "maybe it really was an angel." 

"Don't patronize me." Ira muttered. There was nothing about the Prince that seemed genuine. Even the ease in which he switched to words that Ira was familiar with seemed fabricated to lower his guard. 

"I mean it." The Prince insisted. "Mammon told me that, twenty years ago, my younger brother Mikhal took something of mine. I believe he gave it to the Progeny, maybe as part of your prophecy. It all happened around the same time." 

"Demons don't ever lie?" Ira mumbled. 

"They do--but only to gain. It lowered my brother's advantage to not have what was mine, there'd be no reason to lie about Mikhal taking it." The Third Prince said. "Unless of course he was only trying to stir animosity between my younger brother and I, which is possible." 

Ira knew that it was possible, but not true. The angels really had given something to the Progeny twenty years ago as part of the prophecy. Whoever had taken Ira had also given the prophecy. It really did come from the angels. He blew a sigh from his nose and nodded. 

"You're. . . relieved?" The Prince asked slowly. 

"I guess," Ira shrugged. 

"Alright," he said strangely. "That's. . . good." 

Ira turned to face him. He was, as much as he'd been trying to deny it, unfortunately handsome. Everything about him seem angelic, reminding Ira that all fallen Princes had come from a height worthy of collapse. He had the sort of graceful beauty that deserved to be stained into glass windows. From the sharp bones of his expressionless face to his rich olive tone, he was perfectly molded. 

If not for his otherworldly perfection or glowing eyes, Ira would have thought him a modern man by his fancy appearance. His black hair was shorter on the sides, but where it was longer at the top he'd gelled it back from his face. As Mayvalt had teased, he was wearing a gray suit. Or, he had been at the beginning of the night. In preparation of battle, he'd shed the jacket and rolled the white sleeves up to his elbows.

He did not at all seem a man about to fight a war between Earth and Hell. His slumped shoulders, nonchalant golden eyes, and styled shoes did not quite fit the image Ira had always imagined of dueling Princes. 

In that way, he really did seem earthly. Accompanied by his stolen last name, a single indonesian word, he had all the features befitting a man from Southeast Asia. Sunrise-rich olive skin, midnight dark hair, and charming fox-eyes. He really looked like nothing more than a model businessman in colored contact lenses. 

"Should we go over the plan again?" Mayvalt asked, interrupting him from his deep admiration of the Third Prince.

"We have one?" The Prince asked.

"Yeah, what was it again? I believe you said, 'just don't die, good luck,'" Ira repeated.

"Well, I've been thinking--and I've come around that maybe that isn't the best plan." Mayvalt said.

"You don't say," The Third Prince huffed.

Ira laughed--and then he squeezed his eyes shut and held his knives in his steady grip to combat the wave of disbelief flooding over him. He was laughing at the Princes' jokes? 

"Belial will be there, supposedly waiting on Ba'al to shepherd his army over-"

"Who is Ba'al?" Ira interrupted. He remembered from a brief mention of it before that the Third Prince was going to stop his nephew, who he already presumed to be Belial. 

"Me," The Third Prince answered. "It's just another outdated title."

"You said your friends called you Bezel." Ira said, and then bit his tongue at using such an informal name for the Third Prince of Hell.

"I said those who dislike me tend to call me Bezel." He corrected. Ira then briefly considered it, if it was for people who didn't favor him. 

"Doesn't matter!" Mayvalt said with a brisk click of her tongue. "So, Belial want's Ba'al to shepherd-"

"Wait! You're in charge of his army?" Ira snapped as her words dawned over him. He tensed his fists, strengthening his grasp over his Ossein blades. "You're working with him?"

"I briefly considered working with him." The Third Prince dismissed casually.

"Seems important to mention!" Ira snapped.

"It's being mentioned now, isn't it?"

"Can everyone please focus!" Mayvalt bleated. "We three are about to face an army unlike anything this world has seen in centuries! Boss, stop teasing the choir boy! Bone-snatcher, admit that we're demons, you're working with us, and move past it! We have to reach a common ground--or Belial won't even need to challenge us before we fall apart!"

Ira sucked in a breath of the static-laced air and loosened the grasp on his weapons. The Prince raised his palm in offered surrender before gripping the steering wheel again.

"Sap," Mayvalt hissed. "Good, let's go again."

"Right." The Prince began. "My nephew will be expecting me. I had promised to meet him at the gate to assist in commanding my older brother's army. The gate beneath Lake Seneca feeds directly into the Deireadh-"

"Deepest part of Avernus. That's where all the really bad stuff is." Mayvalt answered before Ira could ask. 

"Avernus," Ira repeated slowly. The question just barely rising by the tone of his voice.

"Hell."

"Okay, got it. It's really bad." Ira nodded.

"What the Progeny have been fighting all along are Behemoths. In a swamp, they'd be tadpoles. We're looking for crocodiles." The Third Prince said.

"Metaphors still aren't your strong suit, boss." Mayvalt muttered. "And I think you mean alligators."

"Don't they both live in swamps?" He asked.

"Okay, enough," Ira shook his head, "I saw one much larger than the rest. We killed it at Lake Seneca. It had to be a part of the advanced army, not a Behemoth."

"Sorry to burst your bubble, but we saw that, too. It was a Behemoth." Mayvalt said. "Granted, a big Behemoth--but still just a Behemoth."

"Angels." Ira cursed. "What are our odds of beating this thing?"

"You said the Progeny are heading to the lake, too?" The Third Prince asked.

Ira's stomach rolled. "I didn't have time to warn them. They'll be going for a ceremony, not a battle. I don't know how many, or what weapons they'll bring."

"If I know my bone-snatchers--they'll be armed, trust me." Mayvalt mumbled with a bitter scowl.

"What sort of ceremony?" The Third Prince asked.

Ira's throat ran dry behind his trembling lips. He broke off his gaze and glared down at the knives perfectly folded in his lap. They were really going to kill Melchior? His Mel, with the chatterbox voice and the overflowing energy. Why did it have to be his Mel? Why did the price for saving the world have to be so impossibly high? 

"Look, I'm not trying to pry into your cult for no reason. It's important."

"How?" Mayvalt asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Well, I can't imagine a birthday party being of much strategic value to us, dear."

Ira squeezed his eyes shut. If he had to guess, all seven Cardinal's would be present. As well as a peanut gallery, all eager to see the completion of their Forgotten Prophecy. Melchior's death would be the cultivation of everything they'd believed in for the last two decades. They would come. Morbid curiosity would force them.

"It's to. . .kill him." He forced out. "They'll be there."

"Who?" Mayvalt pushed.

"Everyone--uh, I think?"

"Vague and unhelpful but I'll add it to the drawing board." Mayvalt muttered.

"Okay, and with that, what is our new plan looking like?" The Third Prince asked.

Mayvalt thrummed her fingertips against her Bo staff. "It's sounding like; don't die, good luck."

"Fine plan as ever, I'd wager." The Prince shrugged.

Ira laughed--and squeezed his eyes shut tight.

• • •

Ira had been here before. He'd stood in this exact spot, offering Melchior his hand. And he'd smiled, and he'd laughed, and he'd taken his hand in return--and it had led to only more disaster. His Mel, breaking and condensing, and turning into a monster with fangs and claws. 

And now he was back. 

Standing in the spot just before Lake Seneca, watching the oil-dark sky as the pearlish moon rose slowly over the crest of the world. His company was different. The knot in his stomach was new. The dread hanging over them was much mirrored to the joy and excitement that had come first. 

"We should split up." The Third Prince announced. "I'll go on my own, Mayvalt stay with the Bishop." 

Ira flinched from the proximity of his glass-smooth voice. He turned, nearly bumping into the man positioned over him. The Prince had taken to crowding just behind Ira's shoulder, glaring ahead with his feline eyes. Ira had long exhausted himself with trying to maintain distance. No matter how many steps he took, the Prince caught up to him with his annoyingly long legs. 

Ira was once again cruelly reminded of his own height. If staring up at Melchior hadn't been enough, he nearly had to tilt his head to see all of the Prince. He was as lengthy as a pencil--and Ira very much wished to grind him down to sawdust. 

"What? No, boss!" Mayvalt hissed. She squeezed into the path, forcing a way in-between Ira and the Prince the same way she had in the car. Maybe she had smelled his murderous intent. 

"Arguing with me remains nothing but a waste of time, my dear." He replied coldly. "We have two enemies at the moment. Belial is expected me, he's not expecting guests. Don't waste the only shot we have at catching him off guard." 

"He's right. The Prince can try and speak to his nephew while I try to dissuade the Cardinal." Ira muttered. It pained him to agree with the Prince, but if that's what it took to give Melchior the best shot at making it out. "You and I will go around the bank, I know a spot we can wait." 

Mayvalt scowled for a moment before nodding. She tucked her Bo under her arm and leveled a scrutinizing gaze at the Third Prince. "Ba'al, don't mess up." 

"I won't." He swore in return.

"Don't forget either." She said. "That this world is worth saving. Even if you can't feel that." 

"I know." He said. "I'll do my best." 

"I believe in you." She nodded. 

He laughed like actors cried and smiled like lawyers talk and said, "thank you, Mayvalt." 

Mayvalt turned her brown eyes to Ira and tilted her chin in a way that seemed to suggest she was ready. He turned from the crowded path and slipped past the Prince, disappearing into the surrounding gray pine. He could hear her whisper-soft footsteps follow him. 

Ira turned them south, walking down the curve of the endless lake, to a small patch of even ground. The slope they'd started at would have been good for hiding behind, but in an emergency, it would have been too steep to quickly cross. 

So instead he chose a plot of beach that met twisted pine. Where they could move quickly into the field but stay behind the foliage until they had to. He'd first seen this place on the night he and Melchior had faced off against the King Behemoth. He hadn't noticed it, not until the Progeny knights came pouring out, so he knew they could shelter reasonably well. 

Ira dipped his head at her, and she returned the gesture. They saddled up to the husk of a tree large enough to conceal them and slid down to the base of it, folding into the shadows and the brush. Ira looked down at the lake. 

It was still, and dark, and vacant. 

"Where is Belial?" He whispered. 

"How should I know? I've been with you." She hissed back. "Where are your bone-snatchers?" 

"They'll be here." Ira said. The agreed meeting was at midnight, which was still a few minutes off. "I guess we. . . just wait?" 

"Yeah," she agreed tersely. "I guess." 

Ira nodded and fell into silence. She did, too. Keeping her grip tightened around her white-iron Bo. Ira eyed it with curiosity. 

"Your weapon. . . what is it?" He asked. 

She glanced up at him and narrowed her eyes. "Why? Wanna know how to kill me?" 

"Angels," Ira scowled. Was this how Melchior had always felt dealing with his impossible temper? "We're on the same side." 

"Are we?"

"Yes!" Ira sighed. "I'd do anything to save Mel."

She kept her eyes decidedly narrowed before exhaling sharply. Her left hand left the comfort of her staff to touch the golden ring over one of her antlers. "Alright, fine. I guess it's true that everyone works for someone." 

"Even the Prince?" Ira muttered. 

She forced a sad smile across her pink lips and nodded, "even the Prince." 

"Who? A Greater Demon? Another Prince?" Ira pressed. 

She shook her peach-toned curls, "I wish it was that simple. No, boss isn't some low-level lackey. No one could make him do anything he did not will himself to do. His owner is a little more complex. And it's nothing you should worry yourself with." 

Ira thought that it was, but didn't press. She ran her fingers down her Bo again and scrunched up her eyebrows. "This is Fae-Iron." 

"It's pretty." Ira said, and then thought that maybe he shouldn't have. 

She laughed. "Yes, it is. Much better than swords made of stolen ribs." 

"Does it. . . work?" 

"It kills my kind, which you might say is working." She agreed. Her voice quivered in a bitterness that Ira didn't feel he had the right to question. 

"How?" Ira asked. "Demons are invulnerable. We can only kill them with Ossein, or burn them with holy water." 

"Demons aren't invulnerable." She laughed. "My great-great-great-uncle died in a bar fight when he was just two-thousand years old." 

"What?" Ira balked. "But you heal! We have to use Ossein or you'd just walk away!" 

"True." She nodded. "Have you ever wondered why our bones can kill us?" 

"Not. . . really." Ira admitted. 

"Because it comes from Avernus." She said. "Just like this Fae-Iron. Avernus is our home, it holds our magic and our life. To extinguish something that powerful, you'd need a force of equal or greater value. Nothing you can find here in Heimr." 

"So, Ossein is equal value and holy water is. . . greater value?" Ira worked out. 

"Pretty much. For the same reason, not even the best blade of Avernus could harm Ba'al. He's a force from Elysium, requiring the greatest power-value to extinguish. But unlike this Fae-Iron, which you could wield just as well as I could, for a Heimrian to hold onto power from Elysium, it must first be diluted. Water is a vessel, so is the blade of a Vestige." She said. Ira nodded his understanding. 

"And Heimrians?" Ira asked. "Uh, humans." 

"I could kill you in an uncountable number of ways with a single sheet of note paper." She said without flinching. 

"Oh," Ira swallowed. 

She blew a sigh from her nose and laughed softly, "alright, fine. Heimrians may be flies to us, but it's only because your gift is. . . different. Some say the Heimrians were given the best gift of them all, and all the wars in the world have been fought out of jealousy." 

Ira leaned forward, placing his hands on his knees. "What? What gift?" 

Mayvalt placed her hand over her mouth and widened her eyes. "Oh, sap! Did I say that? I was just trying to cheer you up." 

"Mayvalt!" 

"I'm sorry! That was an accident!" She said, raising her palms. "I haven't ever spoken to a Heimrian about this stuff before. I got carried away." 

"Why won't you just tell me?" Ira scowled. 

"It's forbidden!" She whispered hoarsely. "It's like telling a child Santa isn't real, I just can't do it."

"You know about Santa?" 

"Kid, I've lived here longer than you have." 

"I doubt it." Ira growled, temper flaring. 

She held still, sizing him up in her doeish eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?" 

Ira forced his shoulders up into a shrug, "ah, angels, did I say that? Total slip up." 

"Kid, you-" her voice caught in her throat, dying there. Her eyes widened. Faster than a viper, she struck, her palms grabbed Ira's shoulders and forced him down. Ira squeaked in alarm before folding willingly down into the foliage. She twisted, look left and right before settling in a distance between. 

"What?" Ira hissed between his teeth. 

She glanced down at him and then pointed, off into the gray pines towards the north corner of the lake. Ira moved over onto his knees and followed the guide of her steady hand. He couldn't see anything. Only trees and brush and--wait, there was something. Flaring brightly red and crashing between the trees. 

The Cardinal. 

Ira's heart thumped painfully in his ribs. His eyes traced the man walking through the woods, following down his line of soldiers. Where is he? Where is Mel? Ira could hardly see in the dark. He could only trace vague outlines of soldiers in dark cloaks, lines and lines of them flooding towards Lake Seneca. 

At the head of the snake, the Cardinal paused. He stood out as vibrantly as fallen blood in the snow. The man turned to face his ranks, where shoving and pushing, a soldier was battling against the flow to meet with the Cardinal at the front. 

"We have to move closer," Ira whispered, "I can't hear-"

"-'you came, I didn't think you would.'"

Ira flinched before snapping back to look at Mayvalt. She had her eyes squeezed shut in concentration, her head tilted to favor her left ear. He might have asked what she was doing--but it seemed obvious. She was listening. Hearing much further than Ira could. It seemed suddenly clear just how many times he'd seen Melchior do exactly this without understanding. His chest, and the wounds over it, suddenly ached at the thought of him. 

"'Absalom, we have to wait,' 'I have waited for six years, why would I wait even a second more?' 'I know that this isn't what you want!' 'What I want has never mattered, it's only about the fate of the world,' 'Then you must stop! You can not fulfill the prophecy. It must be-'" her voice stammered to a halt in her throat. Her eyes opened and found Ira in the dark. 

"You." She whispered. "You're the one who's going to kill him?" 

"Is he here?" Ira asked instead. "Can you hear him? Anyone speaking to him? About him?" 

Mayvalt swallowed the grim expression over her pale face and shut her eyes again. She tilted her head again. Her neck twitched, her ears flinched, chasing the sounds of the pine. "Samson! He said his name, the Cardinal is arguing with Samson." 

"Is he here? Melchior?" 

"They don't know what to do. Someone is mad. He says they never should have let you go. 'He will come, I know it.' The Cardinal says." 

"Mayvalt! Is he here?" Ira snapped. 

She pressed her teeth together behind her pink lips and scowled. "I'm trying! I'm trying!" She sucked in a gasp and flung her eyes open. "'Do you want a break, Melchior?'" 

Ira's heart stammered behind his ribs. He pressed his palms to his lips and forced back his whimper of relief. He was here. He was alive, and walking. As long as he still breathed, Ira would find a way to save him.

"'No, I'm fine. What's going on?' 'They're waiting on Ira,' 'He hasn't come back yet?' Did you really think he would?'" Mayvalt's eyebrows pressed into a scowl. She shook her head and pressed her lips together. 

"What?" Ira asked. "What did Melchior say?" 

She looked at him with pity in her brown eyes and said nothing. 

"Tell me!" He begged, but she said nothing. Growing frustrated, he pushed himself to his heels and eased off from his hiding space behind the pine.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting closer, obviously."

"Why?" She sputtered.

Ira narrowed his eyes, "you're hiding things from me! I'm going to go where I can hear for myself."

"Kid, wait!" She whispered, reaching to grab his wrist. Ira pulled away, raising his hands to keep himself from her range.

"I'm not a kid! We're the same age!" Ira snarled.

"We look the same age!" She spat back, "that does not make us the same age!"

Ira choked back his hiss of anger and began to bury himself back into the pine, moving a few feet at a time towards the Progeny crowded trees. Mayvalt muttered under her breath, something about maple syrup--or whatever it was she always spit between her teeth--and followed. Slipping from pine to pine, Ira moved until the conversation down below began to flow more freely.

"-what are we doing? What if Ira Rule doesn't show?" 

"-be quiet, John. The Cardinal knows what he's doing!" 

Not him. Where is he? Further down the line of soldiers? Ira moved greedily forward. He had to hear, he had to know. Mayvalt snatched his wrist, halting him finally. She leveled a glare at him and pressed a finger to her lips, kneeling down and forcing him along with her. He nodded his understanding. If she could hear them, then this close they'd definitely hear Ira and her.

Ira peered around the new bush they'd settled behind. There still remained quite some distance of forest ahead but the words come more eagerly to him here. It would have to do. He pressed his back against the rough bark of another pine and squeezed his eyes shut to better focus on the soldiers and their bitter arguments. 

He roamed down the line, trying with every fiber of his being to find him. If he could just find him- 

"What do you hope Ba'al will do for you?" 

Ira opened his eyes. He looked at Mayvalt, who was looking back at him with curious brown eyes. Ira glanced between her and the soldiers. "Shh!" 

She shrugged, "They have bigger concerns now than vigilance." 

Ira pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth and scowled. "I'm trying to focus." 

"Do you think he'll save the world?" She asked. "Do you think he'll shut the gate?" 

Ira's heart whimpered behind his ribs. "He said he'd-" 

"He can't." Mayvalt said. "He never could. To stop the gate, he'd have to kill his brother." 

"His brother is trying to destroy the world!" 

"We find ways to forgive family." Mayvalt said with a slight shrug. Ira winced, thinking of Father Pine and all the lies he'd built their home out of. "And it's not about loyalty to Ba'al. He'd have no way to do it. He has no power to make a Vestige, he has no way out of Heimr."

"No way out?" Ira scoffed. "What about the gate?" 

"A gate that boss didn't create? One's never existed before." Mayvalt's eyes widened, as if she'd never considered such a factor. It didn't matter--not to Ira. He shook his head and pushed forward.

"Why are you telling me all this?" He asked. "I thought we were on the same side." 

"We are." Mayvalt nodded. "So you have to know what's possible and what is not. If the time comes when a terrible choice must be made--you must make it. Do you understand?" 

Ira's stomach filled with rocks and fell to his boots. "We don't need a Vestige! Killing the Third Prince won't shut the gate, right?" 

"But killing Belial might slow this approaching army." 

"That's enough! How could you even say that?" Ira hissed. "I won't kill the person I l-" 

BOOM!

The explosion shook the whole forest. Ira dropped lower against the bark of the tree. At his side, Mayvalt did the same. The Progeny ranks seemed just as unsure, they halted in their march and froze in quiet breaths. Ira sunk down against the forest floor and peeked with careful curiosity between the bushes blocking him from sight. Down towards the beach, where it had been still and calm, a tidal wave was rising.

The lake was swirling, full of popping bubbles that rang out with gunfire-clear bangs. It was the same as it had been that day all those weeks ago. Ira squeezed his Ossein blades in the palm of his hands. It was happening. It was beginning.

From the oil-black depths, a figure began to emerge. Ira had to lean forward and squint to make sense of what he was seeing. A man, drenched by the lake and by glowing silver armoury, was rising from the water. He looked like the Prince. If the Prince had traded in suit and tie for old-fashioned relics.

"Belial." Mayvalt muttered. "He must have been on the other side preparing for the invasion."

"What does that mean?" Ira asked, though he was terrified to think he already knew.

"It means that it's too late." She said. "the army is coming."

"What do we do?" Ira hissed.

"I. . . I don't know." She winced. 

Ira looked back at the Progeny. The Cardinal turned and raised his sword from his hip. "We don't have time to wait! Bring me Melchior Brisbane!" 

Ira's veins froze under the thin of his skin. "Mel." 

"Kid, wait!" 

Ira didn't. He shot up to his feet. He had to get to him--nothing else mattered. Nothing but Melchior. He hardly made it three steps before Mayvalt was upon him, seizing him by the arms and forcing him against a pine tree. She slipped her palm over his mouth and crushed him into the bark until the stitches over his ribs threatened to tear. 

"Listen!" She hissed into his ear. "There goes Ba'al."

Ira twisted, forcing his eyes towards the demons meeting on the beach below. Just as she'd said, the Prince had stepped from the forest. He walked casually down the sand, as if the world was not careening into disaster, and stopped just at the water's edge.

Belial came up the bank, finding a resting place at the lip of the lake's edge. He stood with his silver boots submerged, his arms crossed over his broad chest. He opened his mouth and began to speak. Ira leaned against his restraints--craning his neck until he thought it might pop, but he couldn't hear them.

Mayvalt inhaled and then began to whisper, "Boss says they still have matters to resolve, Belial says yes, the army. Sap! Boss is telling him, 'I can't help you or my brother harm Heimr. You know why,' like some Heimrian movie star. Belial is angry, 'you want your-'" she flinched, "he's trying to pull dirt on boss, but he's calling their bluff."

Ira narrowed his eyes. "You're hardly making sense! I-" 

He froze. The wind had picked up, carrying the sound of their voices on the breeze. 

"-my father will-"

"-have to come here to do that, Belial."

"He will cross! It's only a matter of time!"

"Your father can cross? This gate? How could he? He claims to have made it, a maker may not use their own gate as you well know." The Third Prince said, mockery clear in his tone.

"My father is stronger than you think, uncle." Belial hissed.

"I doubt that, nephew. If he's so skilled, tell him to come speak to me face to face." The Prince replied.

"He will not lower himself as to speak with a traitor." Belial said.

"He knew what he was when he sought me for this deal."

"A traitor to lowly demons? Yes. But to your own family? Not even he thought so little of you, uncle. To throw it all away--over what? What possible reason could make you forsake us? Us, your true family. Is it that goat? Shall I get rid of her?" Belial's words rang across the beach.

"She's nothing to me." The Prince muttered. "No one is."

Mayvalt tensed at Ira's side. He cast his eyes to her and she shook her head, offering a meek shrug that only seemed to say it is what it is.

"Right, of course, except for your soul."

Ira froze. The Prince's soul? He twisted in his place, seeking the sight of the two on the shore. The Progeny down below seemed to be doing the same, listening with wides eyes as the two Greater Demons bickered. Ira blew out a breath of relief. If they'd stopped, Melchior was okay.

"Correct, Belial." The Prince said. "Which you do not have, nor have no guarantee of bringing to me."

"I know it's location, which is more than you have or ever will have if you do not assist." Belial mocked. "Is that the issue, uncle? You'd like proof that we have it first?"

The Prince hesitated. Mayvalt's breath hitched. Then, he laughed, and Mayvalt exhaled sharply. "That carrot seems so rotten to me now, nephew. What would be the point in finding my soul if the world I had to share was burnt to ash? I think I'd rather wait. No matter what happens this lifetime, as long as this world continues, so shall my soul. I will find them."

I will find you, I swear.

The whispers rose as vague recollections in Ira's mind, sharp punches from blades of familiarity which stuck in his gut. Ira squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his teeth together to keep down the sick threatening to spill over.

"Well, now, this is awkward." The Prince chuckled. "See, I can't kill you. You can't kill me. So should we just call it a night?"

"You think. . . it's just over?" Belial said. He laughed, throwing back his head so that his helmet caught the moonlight. "Uncle, we had hoped to do this with you--but against you is fine."

"I won't shepard your army, Belial."

"I never needed you to." He snarled. He stepped backwards, submerging into the lake. He spread his arms out, palms held to the oil-dark sky. "When will you finally realize, uncle, that no one needs you. They pity you. You, who have fallen beneath even the Faun. My father offered you a way to redeem yourself but you're so blinded you can't even see it."

"Belial, wait!"

"It's over, uncle!" He shouted. "You stand no chance at stopping us!"

"Sap! Kid, go!" Mayvalt spat, shoving him roughly forward. She took up her Bo staff and broke into a run, rushing through the trees towards the beach. Ira blinked in shock before pulling his Ossein blades from his belt. 

Similar shock and movements began to break into the ranks of Progeny down below. Ira's eyes fell to them. He found the Cardinal, his Ossein longsword still raised. Ira looked back at Mayvalt, crashing through the tree in a mad rush towards the water. 

And he decided. 

That without Melchior--there was no point. He leapt forward, moving in swift clear decision towards the army below.