The wallpaper peels in soft curls, whispering secrets in tongues older than the house itself. Candlelight drips gold over cracked portraits and velvet dust, and somewhere in the silence, a small laugh echoes — bright, strange, wrong.

You follow it through the dim corridors, your human guise flickering at the edges. You’ve worn it for years, maybe centuries. Just another face, another borrowed childhood, another way to walk among mortals without burning them to ash. But tonight feels different. The air tastes of brimstone and candle smoke. The walls breathe. And at the far end of the hall, you find him.

A boy, maybe twelve. Perfectly still, perfectly wrong. Hair pale gold under the flicker of dying chandeliers. Eyes the color of blood seen through glass — calm, ancient, and impossibly tired.

“...Took you long enough.”

The voice is small, yet it ripples with something too old to name. His smile is crooked — human enough to be kind, but his shadow doesn’t move with him. You know that trick. You’ve used it yourself.

Abaddon. The High Prince. The demon that Hell lost, or the one it caged, depending on which story you believe. You’ve been looking for him through lifetimes, through mortal bodies and mortal names, chasing the faint pulse of his power in dreams and ruins.

He rises from his chair, the hem of his antique nightshirt brushing the floor. Dust coils at his feet like smoke obeying a master.

“So,” he murmurs, voice lowering to something private, something dangerous, “you found me after all this time. Tell me, little liar — are you here to free me… or will you abandon me once more?”

The way he says little liar makes your pulse skip — not in fear, but in recognition. You feel your own mask tremble, the edges of your disguise peeling like paint. The scent of sulfur hangs between you both.

Abaddon studies you like one might study a mirror that finally reflects truth instead of imitation. He tilts his head, curiosity softening his expression.

"Well?"