Michael's eyes narrowed. "You know nothing of what happened."

"Then tell me."

"I can't."

"But he's my brother!"

"No. He. Isn't!" Michael spat through clenched teeth, emphasizing each word. "Do you think I get pleasure from this, Serah? It's why I exist. The sooner you accept that, the sooner things can get back to normal."

Normal. She was starting to wonder what that even meant anymore. Normal was Samuel hanging around, laughing and joking, alleviating some of the pressure on her wing-clad shoulders, reminding her that things were okay, that the world was a beautiful place. Reminding her that just because you lose a few battles doesn't mean you'll lose the whole war. It all seemed so dreary with him gone. How could anything be okay without him? How could anything ever be normal again?

"There's no such thing," she whispered. "You can't un-know something once you know it."

Michael hastily retreated from the playground out of frustration, the pop so loud it sounded like a truck backfiring in the distance. Some of the kids paused what they were doing and glanced around, hearing the noise, but went back to playing within a matter of seconds.

Serah stood up and strolled over to where Nicki and her friend sat, still coloring. She looked down at their notebooks, smiling at Nicki's lopsided butterflies, but froze as she studied the drawing covering the other girl’s page. Monsters of all kinds took up the space, with big teeth, sharp claws, and angry, beady eyes. Dead center of the paper was a massive red creature, large horns protruding from its oblong head, a long, pointy tail trailing it from behind.

"That's not what the devil really looks like," Nicki said, glancing at her friend's picture.

"How do you know?"

"Because he was an angel, duh," Nicki said. "Remember? They said that in church."

"Oh." The girl studied her notebook as she grabbed a black crayon, drawing oversized wings from the creature's back. She smiled when she finished. "Now it's right."

"It’s stupid," Nicki muttered. "You draw like a boy. Boys like ugly things, like monsters and scary movies."

The girl tore the paper out, tossing it to the ground beside her, and moved on to drawing butterflies with her best friend instead.

A few minutes later, the bell for class rang, and the girls ran off to join the other students. The paper still laid in the grass near the tree, discarded, the monsters long forgotten. Serah waited until the area was uninhabited to pick it up, teleporting to Hellum Township with the drawing in her hand.

She strode through the first six gates without hesitation, her stomach in her feet when she again came upon the seventh. The lot was once more abandoned, no one and nothing there to greet her. Irritated, she screamed his name, demanding he make himself be seen, but nothing so much as even stirred in the wind.

Ten seconds passed, then twenty. After thirty seconds, her patience had worn so thin it was completely frayed, her raw nerves exposed, a hint of agonizing emotion shining through. A loud groan vibrated her chest as she stormed the gate, faltering only momentarily before stepping right into it.

He couldn't just tell her what he had and then disappear.

The air shimmied around her, electricity coating her skin, prickling every inch of her body as she penetrated the force field. Her vision blurred, everything glowing white as she waded through it, the enchantments pushing against her, trying to force her back on the good side. She trudged forward, undeterred, breaking right through and taking her first tentative step into Hell.

Three

The long table, constructed entirely from weathered gray marble, filled the room, matching the thick boulders that made up the walls. Nine black chairs surrounded it, while a slab of marble elaborately carved into a gothic throne towered at the head of the table.

Luce sat back, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair, his massive frame trivialized by the high back of his seat. Dozens of white, pillar candles dimly lit the room, casting flickering shadows upon the face of the man sitting at the other end of the table, across from Luce. Fear shined from the man’s eyes, once bright green, now yellowing and dying like the rest of everything in the pit.

Luce flippantly flicked his pointer finger, overturning cards from a tall, worn deck on the other end of the table, as the man clutched a lesser partial deck, his hands shaking as he one by one flipped over his cards in turn. Luce slouched down, an uninterested scowl covering his face, his eyes everywhere but on the game. He appeared to not even be playing, at least twenty feet from his cards, but he was paying close attention to what was happening.

He saw every move, noted every hand, able to predict which cards would be next in line.

Both threw down threes. Luce tapped his fingers sliding cards onto the table facedown.

One. Two. Three. Four.

I declare war.

He overturned another—king—and sighed as the man played a two. Luce waved his hand, all six cards magically slipping onto the bottom of his stack.

"You’re running low on cards there, Robert," Luce mused. "Doesn’t bode well for you."

"It’s not over yet," Robert stammered, his voice shaking just as hard as his hands. "I’m feeling lucky."

"Good for you," Luce muttered, overturning another card when a gust of wind surged through the room, blowing out every single one of the candles. Luce snapped his fingers, igniting them again at once, as he heard her in his mind, above the chaos that usually consumed him.