Chapter 79 Smoke and Mirrors
Asmodeus came for her at sunset, when the sky over Lust’s capital turned colors that didn’t exist in nature. No explanation, just a knock at her door and that familiar sharp grin when she opened it.
“Come on. We’re going somewhere quiet.”
He led her through the palace to a part she hadn’t seen before, up spiral stairs that seemed to climb forever until they emerged onto a rooftop garden. Unlike the opulent chaos below, this space was simple. Cushions scattered around low tables, plants growing in wild tangles, and a view of the city that stretched to the horizon.
“My actual favourite place,” Asmodeus said, settling onto cushions near the edge. “Not the clubs, not the lounges. Just this.”
Lilith sat beside him, watching lights flicker to life across the city as darkness fell. He was already rolling that smoke, fingers moving with practiced efficiency.
“Yesterday was fun,” he said without looking up. “Today’s going to be honest. You good with that?”
“I think so.”
“You’ll know soon enough.” He lit the roll and took a long drag before offering it to her. “Fair warning, this is stronger than what you tried before. An enchanted lotus mixed with something that makes lying physically difficult. We’re having a real conversation tonight.”
Lilith took it hesitantly. The smoke burned less than she expected, settling into her lungs with warmth that spread through her chest and made the world’s edges soften. Colours seemed richer, sounds felt fuller, and the constant anxiety she’d been carrying receded like a tide pulling away from shore.
“There we go.” Asmodeus watched her with the focus of someone cataloguing responses. “How do you feel?”
“Lighter. Like I’ve been carrying something heavy and just set it down.” She took another careful drag and handed it back. “Is this what you do every night?”
“Most nights. Sometimes it’s the only way to quiet the wanting.” He leaned back against cushions, smoke curling between them. “Lust doesn’t sleep, you know. It just demands and demands until you either feed it or find a way to turn down the volume.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a while, passing the smoke back and forth as the stars emerged overhead. Lilith felt her thoughts becoming liquid, flowing in directions she normally kept locked down.
“Can I ask you something?” Asmodeus’s voice was quieter than usual. “What do you actually want? Not what the prophecy wants, not what Father expects, not what my brothers need.”
The question should have been simple but felt impossibly complex. Lilith stared at the city lights and tried to find an answer that felt true.
“I don’t know anymore,” she admitted finally. “I wanted to survive when I first got here. Then I wanted to understand what was happening. Then I wanted to be strong enough to handle it. But now? I have no idea what I want beyond making it through each day without everything falling apart.”
“That’s existing, not wanting.” Asmodeus took another drag. “Try again.
What makes you feel alive instead of just not dead?”
Images flickered through her mind, made sharper by whatever she was smoking. Azrael’s hand cupped her face in the rain. Cain’s fierce protectiveness when anyone threatened her. Mammon is making her feel valuable. This moment right now, honest and unguarded.
“I want to stop being pulled in every direction,” she said slowly. “I want to make choices because they’re mine, not because someone else needs me to choose that way. I want to feel like myself instead of like a vessel everyone’s trying to fill with their own desires.”
“Good start. Now the hard question.” Asmodeus turned to look at her directly. “Azrael or Cain. Which one do you actually want?”
Lilith’s breath caught. “That’s not fair.”
“Nothing about any of this is fair. But you’re going to have to choose eventually, and right now you’re just torturing all three of you by pretending you don’t already know.” His eyes were sharp despite the smoke. “So which one? The one who makes you feel worshipped or the one who makes you feel alive?”
“I care about them both.”
“That’s not what I asked. I asked which one you want.” He passed her the smoke again. “The thing about desire is you can’t logic your way into or out of it. You either want someone or you don’t, and everything else is just noise.”
The smoke made lying feel impossible, made her walls come down whether she wanted them to or not. She thought about Azrael’s careful devotion, how he made her feel precious and protected. Then she thought about Cain’s raw intensity, how being near her felt like standing too close to fire.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, and felt the truth of it ache in her chest. “I want different things from each of them. Azrael makes me feel safe. Cain makes me feel fearless. How am I supposed to choose between safety and freedom?”
“You’re not choosing between those things. You’re choosing which person you want to wake up next to for eternity, because that’s what binding means.” Asmodeus’s voice was gentle despite the brutal honesty. “Safety is easier. Freedom is harder. But only you know which one your soul actually craves.”
Lilith felt tears prickling at her eyes, the smoke stripping away her ability to deflect or avoid. “What if I choose wrong?”
“Then you choose wrong and live with it like everyone else who’s ever made a hard decision.” He stubbed out what remained of the roll. “But at least it’ll be your choice, your mistake, your life. Right now you’re just letting the prophecy choose for you by refusing to choose at all.”
The honesty hurt more than she’d expected. Asmodeus wasn’t wrong. She’d been hiding behind uncertainty because making a choice felt like closing doors she wasn’t ready to close.
“Your turn,” she said, needing to shift focus. “What do you actually want?”
Asmodeus laughed, but it was bitter. “Peace. Just one moment where I’m not hungry for something I can’t have, where I’m not surrounded by people who want pieces of me, where I’m not performing desire I stopped feeling years ago.”
“But you’re always surrounded by people having fun, always—”
“Always wanting more. Always chasing the next pleasure because the last one wore off too fast. Always hungry.” He looked out over his kingdom with something that might have been exhaustion. “This is the cost nobody talks about. Lust means you’re never satisfied. Ever. You get what you want and immediately want something else. It’s torture disguised as pleasure.”
Lilith saw him differently now, beneath the careless hedonism. Someone who couldn’t stop wanting even when wanting became painful.
“Do you regret it?” she asked quietly. “Being Lust?”
“Every single day. And also never, because this is who I am and fighting it would be worse.” He started rolling another smoke. “All the sins are like that. Pride isolates you because you can’t admit weakness. Wrath destroys everything you touch. Greed empties you no matter how much you accumulate. Envy poisons every good thing by making you want what you don’t have. We’re all suffering our own particular hell while pretending we’re powerful.”
“That’s depressing.”
“That’s honest.” He lit the new roll. “Which is why I don’t do this often. Honesty is exhausting.”
They smoked in silence for a while, the city pulsing with life below them while they sat above it all feeling too much and not enough simultaneously. Lilith’s thoughts spiralled through everything she’d learned during her visits. Azrael’s lonely perfection. Cain’s destructive passion. Mammon’s endless hunger for value. Lucian’s mirrors force confrontation. And now Asmodeus’s insatiable desire that could never be fed.
“I’m scared,” she admitted, the words escaping before she could stop them. “I’m scared of choosing wrong, of disappointing everyone, of not being strong enough for what’s coming. I’m scared that even if I do everything right, it won’t matter because Armageddon is going to destroy everything anyway.”
“Good. Fear means you’re paying attention.” Asmodeus offered her the smoke again. “But don’t let fear make your choices for you. That’s just another way of letting someone else run your life.”
“How do I stop being afraid?”
“You don’t. You just decide some things are worth being afraid of.” He looked at her with unexpected gentleness. “Like choosing someone because you want them, not because it’s strategic. Like wanting things just for yourself even when it’s selfish. Like becoming dangerous enough that people have to take you seriously.”
Lilith thought about yesterday’s lesson, about the power she’d felt making someone give her what she wanted. About understanding desire well enough to use it.
“I don’t want to go back,” she said quietly. “To the Vestibulum, to all the politics and prophecy and pretending. I want to stay here where I can just be honest.”
“You can’t stay. And even if you could, you’d get bored eventually. Pleasure loses meaning when there’s no contrast.” Asmodeus stubbed out the smoke. “But you can take this feeling with you. Remember what it’s like to want things and say them out loud. Remember that you’re allowed to choose yourself sometimes.”
The stars overhead seemed close enough to touch, the smoke making everything feel possible and impossible at once. Lilith lay back on the cushions and stared up at infinity.
“Thank you,” she said. “For this. For being honest even when it’s ugly.”
“That’s what Lust is good for. Showing you what you actually want underneath all the lies you tell yourself.” He settled beside her, both of them looking up. “Tomorrow you leave and go back to being the Seraph everyone needs you to be. But tonight, you’re just Lilith who wants things and isn’t sorry about it.”
They stayed there until the smoke wore off and reality started creeping back in, two people being honest in the darkness because morning would bring all the masks back anyway.