There was, in Ira's spinning mind, a serious wrongness to his current doings. It wasn't quite that Ira counted himself a choir boy. A vexed warrior in dedicated service to his heavenly betrayer, sure, but heretic? Holy man? No, none of those boxes could be met with little checks--and yet, he could not twist up his own heart enough to convince himself that what he was doing was okay.

The occasional snide remarks that filled the stale air did not aid his unease.

"Would it kill them to dust?" The businessman scoffed, rubbing his fingertips together to clean them of the heavy black soot collected there. "Is a nightly janitor out of the budget? Is the tourism money drying up? Not much funds to be found in humble service, darling?"

"Ira." Ira corrected sharply, digging his heels in against the devil's many insults. "And I don't know--and also stop talking to me."

The picture of the two was corrupted. All of it--down to the particles of gray dust filling the open doorway of the cavernous tunnel before them--was wrong. Ira should not have been there, stood in that holy place. The creature beside him belonged there even less.

The pretend-man huffed theatrically and crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, I'm most definitely not going down there. This suit cost more than my car."

Ira, who hardly understood the difference between cashmere and silk, tossed him an examining glance. The outfit was plain. A simple black suit that glistened as brightly as oil. The buttons adorning the sleeves, as gold as his unblinking eyes, had been loosened to allow an air of casual disinterest. Yes, Ira determined, it was nothing but boring fabric. The most interesting thing about it being the man beneath it.

"Good." Ira shrugged. "Didn't want you to come with me anyways."

"I'm truly wounded by your lack of empathy." The Third Prince purred playfully.

His teasing filled the young Bishop with questions. Ira couldn't wrap his mind around why he did it at all. What entertainment could he wriggle free from his act? Ira knew he didn't care for the price of his outfit, nor did he feel bothered by the muck inside the tunnel laid before them--or Ira's bitter bite. All of it, the luxury as well as the filth, rolled down his hide without leaving a single lasting trace. It was evident in the dim of his golden eyes.

In a way, the Third Prince very much reminded Ira of a taxidermied fox he'd seen in the dusty back room of a museum, pinned behind glass and frozen beneath a flickering old bulb. The fur had twitched from the cold draft of a nearby AC vent, but the marble eyes never blinked. If screws had been fixed to that fox's plastic jaws, Ira imagined it would deliver witticisms much to the same effect as the demon Prince.

Ira blew a tensed breath from his nose and pressed his fingertips into his thin eyelids. The mystery of the man--devil, he corrected--beside him would have to go unanswered. There was a much greater concern within himself.

Another question: what was he doing? What madness had consumed him, driven him to the doorway--literally. They stood at the final entrance, the place where the historical cathedral bled into the private catacombs which led to the pumping heart of his Sect. With him, he'd brought a poisoned pill. Their greatest enemy--and Ira had taken him to the only stronghold they had in the city.

Sickeningly sweet taunts rose to mind, words he'd collected from his nightmares: how desperate. Isn't that what the mock-Melchior had told him? The apparition apparently had a point.

"I seriously think you should just stay here." Ira said. "I'm already at a disadvantage just being myself, bringing you along is going to throw my loyalty into further question."

"Yourself?" The Third Prince asked, cocking one oil-black eyebrow over his glass and epoxy eyes.

Ira steeled his flinch before it could rise to his muscles and flesh. He contained it into the thump of his racing heart, forcing it to rise up into a nonchalant shrug. He should be more careful lying out hints of his true self to the one devil who would understand it. "I stood up for you last summer, in front of the entirety of the Progeny. I called you our one savior--but you didn't quite live up to the role. Did you?" He dismissed.

The Third Prince huffed, shaking his head. "Well, not to victim blame--but I wouldn't have picked me."

Ira clenched his jaws until his teeth creaked. From between his fangs, he forced out his venom. "I was short on options. In case you need reminding, it was you or him. And his life means significantly more to me than yours does."

"Again, ouch." The Prince feigned. "Not even my greatest enemies find this much sport in insulting me."

Ira rolled his eyes and sighed a breath into the still and dusty air. "There's not much point in talking about the old times. We can't change the past, we can only fix the aftermath."

He squished down the bitterness that sentence raised in him. His past, his entanglement with the Prince, could not extend beyond the events of last summer. If he stopped to find justice for all the lives the Prince had involved himself into, Ira would lose sight of the only thing that mattered: finding Melchior. And saving the world--but first, finding Melchior.

"Ah, fixing it. Right. And remind me, why does that require this mineshaft?" He asked.

"Then stay up here, Princess." Ira invited.

"Careful handing out pet names, darling, you'd shudder to hear what I could think up for you." The Third Prince said, his tone as cool as spring water.

Ira's stomach rolled in on itself, sending a sharp bitter pang up into the soft organ behind his ribs. Scorched into the skin of his eyelids, so that it appeared each time they drifted shut, there was a teasing smile built over sharp and white fangs. His voice still echoed in the inner-channel of Ira's ears, filling his head with that one teasing nickname.

"Now, best to give up on the idea of leaving me behind. I didn't come all this way just to join the next guided tour. I need to hear your songbirds sing." The Prince scolded, speaking to fill the void that had been born of Ira's sudden silence. "If I can't get a vow from each and every one of the Cardinals not to harm the Faun in my absence, then well, your plan stops here."

Ira rolled the taunt muscles of his neck. That couldn't happen. "Let's go."

"Ah, finally." The Prince muttered. He slipped his fingers up the edges of his sleek black jacket and pushed it from his shoulders, shedding it as carelessly as snake's skin. He tossed the coat to the side, where it landed across an abandoned old settee inside the annex they inhabited. "I thought it was getting a little too dialogue heavy."

Ira, because it was much easier than wrapping his mind around the Prince's words, ignored him. He stepped into the darkness, and into the dust. Beneath his foot, the metal staircase groaned in familiar greeting. Ira's fingers sought the rail, wrapping tightly once they'd met.

He took one step down, holding his breath as he did. Behind him, the Prince made another noise of gentle displeasure. The act only lasted for a second before his footfalls followed Ira down into the catacombs.

There was a sense of déjà vu to it. Of descending into the pure abyss, the sound of another trailing behind him. He had been here before with Father Pine, following him down blindly. No--it was another time. Memories stirred up in the base of his skull, clinging heavy to the vulnerable flesh of his mind. It was the day he had met his cursed boy. Unburying themselves from the Cardinal's court had been their first task. Ira stubbornly charging ahead and Melchior meekly allowing him.

Together. In the dark. His heart full of a heaviness he hadn't known how to shake himself, not until he'd seen Melchior pour out of the hall only to spill across the ancient carpet of a nearby Catholic school. The laughter that had come out of him had been warmer than sunshine and had washed away all his unease like the tide. The memory of that day stung. Ira turned it away, gently escorting it into the back of his skull where he'd tied up everything else that soured his gut to think about.

Thunk!

Ira froze, stilling at the bottom of the staircase. His boots eased slightly forward, feeling along the sudden flatness beneath him. They had arrived, stepping off the final metal step into the concrete box at the bottom.

And now that they had, the realization of his current position flared up into the forefront of his mind. This was, is, could only be--a remarkably terrible idea.

"Is this it? Well, your Cardinal could certainly use an interior designer." The Prince murmured into the still damp air. His voice caramelized there, hanging in the cellar as tempting as amber to a mosquito. Ira knew he would sink into it, held tight for eons, if he stopped swimming for even a moment.

"I'm. . . thinking."

"Oh, brother," the Prince cursed. "Haven't you been doing enough of that? Are you carving a dissertation on the inside of your skull?"

The task laid ahead seemed impossible. The weight of it bore down on Ira's bones as heavy as iron manacles, bruising his soft flesh down into the muscle beneath. Failure wasn't an option. If it came down to it, just what would he do to secure their success? He was unarmed. The Prince--well, Ira had never seen him with a weapon either.

Ira shook his head, vaporizing the thoughts that had taken hold there. What was he even thinking of? Taking on all seven Cardinals? Beating the location of the Vestige out of them? No, for better or worse his greatest weapon against them had to be his persuasion. Just as he had done last summer. Right before he led them all to their doom. It wouldn't work. They would not listen to him. Not for a second time. How could they? Who would ever be so stupid as to follow Ira into the abyss?

"Easy there, darling."

Ira flinched. It was easy to forget that he had company. The Prince, in the dark, did not exist at all. There was no rustle of his movements, no drift from his breath, no warmth from his skin. There was only the slightest scent of chilled ice in an already frozen cellar.

"Your heart is going so fast, I'm worried it might burst."

"It's. . ." fine? But was it? He swallowed, flexing hard to force the knot down his tensed throat. "Ira."

"I know, dear."

The Bishop scoffed a tight exhale from his nose in reply and sunk his fingers into the neckline of his black cloak, tracing the surface of his skin until he found the warmed chain resting there. He pinched it between his fingertips, withdrawing the three keys he kept laid against his thunderous heart. Two for an apartment a block away, and one for the doorway blocking him now.

"How do you know how fast my heart is beating anyway?" He asked. Ira stepped forward with his free hand extended. He touched his flattened palm to the smooth concrete wall and dragged it downwards, trying in vain to find the keyhole.

"The same way I know that you should look an inch to your left." The Prince said with a hint of humor sewn into his tone. Ira drifted in the direction he was pointed, finally finding the sliver in the stone. "We have better senses than Heimrians."

"We?" Ira repeated. He leaned forward, fixed his key into position, and twisted with a strained flick of his wrist. Hadn't Melchior been the same? Oddly perceptive, as if tuned into the very fabric of the world. "D-demons?" Why was that word only hard to say when it came attached to the memory of him?

"Non-humans." The Prince corrected. "It seems you still struggle to remember that I am not a creature of Hell anymore than you are."

"Ah, right." He said lamely. "It's just hard to. . . correct."

"Then I'll correct them, too. So that they approve of your mission." The Prince said. Ira wondered if his keen ears could hear all the rumblings inside of his head. How else did he look so easily past Ira's shell?

"You can't heal centuries of hatred with talk."

"But you haven't even heard me talk yet." The Prince chuckled. "I've been told I have a tongue made of honey."

"Where there's honey, there's bees and bears." Ira pointed.

"Let's just hope your council is less pessimistic than you, darling."

"It's Ira." He growled.

"I know." The Prince agreed.

"It won't work." Ira said. "You don't know the Cardinals. There's nothing they protect more than their pride."

"Let me worry about that, you just focus on your part." The Prince said, waving his hand in front of his face as if easily dismissing a pesky mosquito. Ira squinted down his eyes into a glare, leveling it and all his vitriol but the Prince was unmoved. He couldn't be convinced.

Ira muttered a string of curses, ones which caused the Prince to laugh, and pressed his shoulder into the doorway. The stone slab squealed on its iron hinges, slicing the stale silence into ribbons. Blossoming into the crack of the doorway, golden light flushed forward to fill their tomb. Ira breathed in the wash of cold that followed, letting it sting along the sheen of sweat collected like tears along his face.

The door followed the full path of its motion, until it thumped against the wall. The jolt sent a cloud of dust raining down over the heads of the two still inside the damp catacombs. The Prince winced, raising his palms to shade himself from the debris.

"My hair." He muttered distastefully.

"You're surprisingly. . . shallow." Ira murmured, his tone as distant as the questions filling up the inside of his head.

The Prince shrugged mutely. "Time has a way of draining all things, until just inches remain."

Ira didn't think so. Men who stood only three inches tall wouldn't place themselves in the heart of their enemies home to plead for a chance to save the world. And although the Prince wasn't human, Ira figured he felt similarly. There was something pleasing about the Prince. His rich suits matched his snobbish tone--which explained perfectly his cold and displeased expression. It was comforting to look at him, and to see all the gears under his cellophane flesh. But men, and devils too, weren't ever that transparent. The Prince was behaving exactly as how he assumed Ira assumed him to be. Which made him the most dangerous sort of puzzle. A labyrinth of sliding walls and trap doors.

"Let's go." The Bishop ordered. He turned his gaze away from the lion at his side. If he wanted to survive, he would need to use it to his advantage. "I'm thinking of chasing down a pack of hyenas."

"Oh, great." The Prince grumbled. "More riddles."

Ira Rule stepped into the white marble hall, followed swiftly by the Third Prince. The lights were blinding, unlike anything that had reached them from the doorway. It scorched deep lashes into his blue eyes. He bowed his head, blinking rapidly to dismiss the tears gathered along the edges of his eyelids. He didn't mind the temporary distraction, anything to keep him from stealing glances at the paintings posted every few feet along both sides of the hall.

The Prince didn't seem to be suffering similarly. "I take it back. Your Cardinal does have an interior designer, and that person should be fired immediately."

Ira blew an exasperated breath from his nose, an attempt at agreement with a man he never wanted to be in agreement with. The hall was miles long, with white marble to make up every surface. The air was filled with so much silence there was a weight to it. The hollowness became a painful buzzing that rushed to fill Ira's ears. The only disruption to the purity were the portraits of perfectly painted tortures strung up along the endless walls.

Ira knew, or he suspected, that there were doorways behind each one. Tunnels that spanned further and deeper than the subway. Veins which filled each cement centimeter of New York's body. With the catacombs, Ira could travel for years and never see a drop of sunlight. The thought sent terrible shivers down his spine.

"Come on." He urged again. "The sooner this is over, the sooner we can leave this place."

"And go to Hell instead? I can see why you're not too intimidated by the idea." The Prince said, flicking his fingers through his onyx hair to clear it of gray dust and white webs.

"You have no idea." Ira agreed. How terrible could it be? Was what he had already survived incomparable? He marched forward, his determination louder than the ringing in his head. It was in that deafening silence that they made the journey through the hallowed halls.

Ira moved forward, a puppet pulled by strings. The Prince trailed behind, his golden eyes flickering across the paintings they moved alongside. And neither spoke. It seemed finally that they had run out of words. Nothing was grand enough to fill the space inside the chamber, and so neither tried. Not until the hall ended. Not until Ira's feet came to a sudden stillness, planting him within reach of the grand double doors which announced the Cardinal's Court.

The dark oak seemed so out of place in the white corridor, as stark as the night sky pressed around the silver moon. And like the dark, it held monsters that Ira had once been very afraid of. He squeezed his eyes shut, reaching out with shaking fingers.

The cold metal ring embedded in the wood, serving in place of a door handle, was the first thing to brush past his skin. Ira shivered, but forced himself forward. He grabbed hold of it tightly. He held it, pressing down until his knuckles turned white--as white as the room around him.

He couldn't go any further. His feet sunk into the marble floors, crystals formed along his joints to keep him forever frozen in place. His heart was the only thing about him that could still writhe. It beat in circles, sending jolts of panic out with each thump.

Don't open the door.

"Have you ever been invited to dinner with your in-laws?"

Ira flinched. The movement caused an echo to blossom down his fingertips, causing a soft ringing where his hand was clenched tightly around the brass ring. With one push, he could burst the doors inward and storm into the Cardinal's Court. So, why now? Why had he hesitated? Why had the Prince filled his weakness with taunts? The hinges in his neck had rusted, so he stared down at the decorative door as he replied.

"I don't have in-laws." Ira muttered sourly. "I'm twenty."

"A perfectly fine age to get married." The Prince shrugged. "In my youth, Heimrians were lucky to be that old."

Ira turned pink. "I. . . disagree."

"Fine, fine." The Prince surrendered. "But are you aware of the feeling?"

Ira thought first of the day he had met Ishmael Brisbane. They had been standing in this very spot, pressing their hope into an impossible idea to save Melchior. Then he turned crimson and banished the memory. "No. I don't know. What are you trying to say?"

"I just think this is going to go terribly, that's all." The Prince said nonchalantly. "Don't you agree? Isn't that why you're standing there?"

"Well, I can see why no parents would want to see you brought home for the holidays--but I'm a crowd pleaser. Grandmas would go crazy over me." Ira dismissed, shrugging his thin shoulders.

"Then you should have no reason to be nervous, darling." The Prince smirked, a joke which never reached his golden marble eyes.

"I'm not." Ira lied. The words rose up as quickly as bile, rushing to fill the challenge the Prince leveled him with. His gaze returned to his skeletal-white grip on the brass handle. "I'm not. I'm not nervous, I'm. . ."

"You're?"

"I'm sure. I'm," Ira Rule, their reincarnated soul. "Going to make them listen."

"Good." The Prince said. "But I have an idea."

"You," the young Bishop spat, as if there was no greater curse than the name Bezel Pangeran, "have an idea?"

"You had the idea." The Prince so humbly corrected. "This is more of a plan B. In case of emergencies."

"How generous." Ira sighed. His fingers trembled, where they rested on the brass doorknob. Red had rushed to fill his face, flushing him with all his seething anger. As if he could fill his heart with it, so much so that there would be no space left for his fear. "What's this plan then? How many steps? Good plans need steps."

"As many as that pit you led us down." He shrugged.

"Bad plans have too many steps."

"I meant to say just half as many."

"I'm not sure if I believe you have a plan at all." The Bishop muttered.

"Hopefully, you never find out." The Prince said. "Maybe for once, things will just work out exactly as intended."

Ira laughed, a bitter and resentful sound that couldn't even cover half of what he really felt. "Life and angels are never that kind."

"Ah," the Prince sighed, "finally something we agree on."

Ira exhaled sharply. He wished his breath could become a force strong enough to whisk the Prince away, containing him as easily as a brittle rotten leaf. But the Prince didn't move, and when Ira turned to face him he did so with the precious few inches between them. Their eyes met in that place, filling the stale air with something even worse than hatred. Horrible, inevitable acceptance.

"So," the Bishop whispered, "what's this plan?"