"What game?"

"Whatever game it is you're playing."

"She's not a part of any game," Luce said.

Abaddon nodded, slowly lowering his hands as his smile fell. "So your attempt to play house with a mortal is genuine? How long do you think He will tolerate that? Do you know how many angels your brother had to smite in your absence because they tried to intermingle? Too many. You can't keep her, Lucifer. He's not going to let you."

Luce's skin tingled, the hair on his arms standing on end at those words as the anger he'd tried to control started simmering inside of him. Letting go of Serah was impossible. He'd tried and failed and tried and failed and he didn't want to try again. He didn't want to let go of her. He didn't want to lose her. He'd lost enough.

But he knew how these things went.

He knew how these things ended.

"What do you want from me, Abaddon?" Luce's voice was low and menacing. He was done with this conversation.

Abaddon stepped forward, further into the street where Luce stood. "You know what I want. Join us, brother. Join me. Together we can take control and then nobody can tell us anything. Just imagine it, getting to make your own choices, not having to live by somebody else's rules."

"It's a nice dream, but that's all it is... a dream. I tried and failed."

"That's because you relied on force," Abaddon said. "You tried to physically take over, but we've got another plan, a different one that's almost guaranteed to work."

"What is it?"

"We're going to involve the humans."

Luce just stared at him. That wasn't a different plan. He'd tried that once with Eve.

"I know what you're thinking," Abaddon said. "You're thinking about what happened in the Garden of Eden, but it's a different world now. You seduced one human. I'm talking about six billion."

"And how exactly do you plan to pull that off?"

"We're going to show ourselves to them." Abaddon grinned. "To all of them."

Abaddon deliberately dropped his guard and let his thoughts flood through for Lucifer to observe. A hoard of angels, mostly Powers and Guardians, coming together to take over the earth. They were going to rise up and announce their existence. It all flashed through Luce's mind—public spectacles, with newspapers and television cameras, leading to bloodbaths and uprisings among the mortals, the death and destruction spanning the globe. The wave of devastation would move too fast, span too far, for their Father to clean it up with the wave of a hand. He'd conceal an angel's mess quickly to keep it from being discovered, but it was against his nature to intervene when it came to free will. The angels would capitalize on the chaos, and front and center in Abaddon's plan was Lucifer.

Lucifer, the leader, standing in the middle of it all and watching as the world collapsed around him.

"Seems you have it all figured out," Luce said. "What do you need me for?"

"These humans, most of them don't know me… they don't know Hagith or Morael or Nanael, either. But you? They all know you. Lucifer is a name they learn in childhood. Satan… the proverbial devil… imagine their reaction if they knew he walked the earth. Imagine if they knew you mingled among them. I'm close to humans, so I know their hearts. Half of them don't even believe in God anymore, but they worry they may be wrong—not because they fear our Father but because they're terrified of you. They're afraid you exist. Imagine if they knew."

A thrilling tingle crept up Luce's spine. Exactly how many times during his stay in the pit had he dreamed of just that? It was everything he'd ever wanted… that was, until the day he wanted her.

In the short time since Serah had shown up at the gates, Luce's priorities had changed. He wasn't sure when it happened, or even why, but eventually his fight against the world turned into a fight for one soul, a soul that almost got damned for him. He'd never felt regret before… any angels that fell with him, or after him, had done it from their own choosing, had done it from their own actions, things they'd gotten into willingly. All of them, that is, except for Serah. He robbed her of her Grace, thrusting her into this other life, and now he was contemplating taking that world from her, too.

His tendency for selfishness, his penchant for greed, urged him to buy into his old friend's grand plan, but something else stopped him.

Something that felt infuriatingly like compassion.

Something that seemed to be a lot like loyalty.

Something like sympathy.

And empathy.

It was consideration.

Goddamned kindheartedness.

Who knew he had it in him?

"Thanks," Luce said, "but no thanks."

Abaddon's expression fell, his eyes darkening. That wasn't the answer he'd expected. Wasn't the response he'd wanted. "You're refusing?"

"I'm politely declining," Luce clarified as a surge of anger flowed through him. He could feel his fingertips tingling, desperate to purge it, the sky above them darkening with a sudden cloud covering as a gust of wind whipped between them. "It was a proposition, correct? An offer? You aren't so overconfident that you'd actually try to demand something of me, are you? Because I answer to nobody, Guardian… not you, not Michael, and not even Him."

"It was an offer," Abaddon said curtly. "One I don't understand why you won't take me up on."