Chapter 91 Coming Home
Lilith was still unpacking when her door burst open without a knock.
Cain stood in the doorway looking like she’d been waiting for this moment since the day Lilith left, her volcanic glass eyes scanning the room before landing on Lilith with an intensity that made the air feel charged.
“You’re back,” Cain said, like she needed to confirm it was real.
“I’m back.”
Lilith barely got the words out before Cain crossed the room and pulled her into a hug that lifted her slightly off her feet.
It wasn’t gentle. It was the kind of hug that said I missed you more than I wanted to admit — fierce and warm and slightly desperate. Lilith felt something in her chest unclench that she hadn’t realized had been tight since she’d left.
“You were gone too long,” Cain said against her hair. “Way too long.”
“I was visiting kingdoms. It was the whole point.”
But Lilith hugged back just as hard.
“I know what the point was.” Cain pulled back finally, holding her at arm’s length and looking at her properly. “You look different.”
“Different how?”
“Older. Lighter somehow, but also heavier.” Cain’s brow furrowed. “Asmodeus did something to you, didn’t he?”
“He taught me things. Good things.” Lilith smiled. “Nothing scandalous, relax.”
“I’m not relaxed. I haven’t been relaxed since you left.”
Cain released her and dropped onto the nearest chair like she owned it, which was very on brand.
“Tell me everything. All of it. Start with Belphegor’s kingdom because Lucian mentioned something about Sera and a dream sprite and I need details.”
Sera chose that moment to emerge from the bathing room, stopping dead when she saw Cain.
Morpheus immediately launched himself from her shoulder toward the new arrival, landing on Cain’s knee and chittering enthusiastically.
“That’s Morpheus,” Sera said carefully, clearly unsure how Cain would react.
“He’s hideous.”
Cain looked down at the sprite with the expression of someone trying not to find something adorable and failing completely.
“Why does he look like that?”
“He was born that way,” Sera said defensively.
“I said hideous, not unwelcome.”
Cain scratched Morpheus under his chin, and the sprite went limp with pleasure.
“Sit. Both of you. I’ve been talking to Lucian and Mammon and Beelzebub for weeks while you were gone and I’m done with all of them.”
They spent the next two hours talking, the kind of conversation that happened between people who’d missed each other without fully admitting it.
Lilith described each kingdom visit while Cain listened with the focused attention she brought to everything, asking sharp questions and occasionally laughing at things that weren’t entirely appropriate to laugh at.
“Asmodeus taught you to seduce people?” Cain’s expression was somewhere between appalled and impressed.
“He taught me to read desire and use it strategically. It’s actually useful.” Lilith paused. “I made him hand over his ring using nothing but eye contact and a well-timed sentence.”
“That’s terrifying.”
But Cain was grinning.
“And Belphegor’s kingdom? What was that like?”
“Peaceful. Genuinely peaceful, not the kind where you’re bored but the kind where you actually rest.”
Lilith glanced at Sera.
“Sera got adopted by the kingdom.”
“By a dream sprite,” Sera corrected, though her cheeks colored slightly.
“And by Belphegor,” Lilith added innocently.
Cain’s eyebrows shot up.
“Belphegor? Our Belphegor? The one who fell asleep in a council meeting last month?”
“He doesn’t sleep because he’s lazy,” Sera said quickly, more forceful than she probably intended. “He sleeps because council meetings are genuinely terrible and he hears everything anyway and—”
She stopped, realizing Cain was staring at her.
“I mean. He’s nice.”
“He’s nice,” Cain repeated slowly, looking between Sera and Lilith with the expression of someone connecting dots. “Interesting.”
“It’s not…we’re just …”
Sera gave up and looked at Morpheus instead.
Cain let her off the hook, turning back to Lilith with something softer in her expression.
“And Gluttony? What was Beelzebub like at full capacity?”
“Overwhelming. Genuine. Kind of magnificent in his excess.”
Lilith smiled, thinking about the community feast, the creation hall, the floating lanterns at sunset.
“He showed me the good side of Gluttony. The community, the sharing, the people who consume life and turn it into art.”
“He always was the most straightforward of us.”
Cain was quiet for a moment, something flickering in her expression.
“I’m glad you got to see all of them properly. Got to understand what we actually are beyond what you’d heard.”
“Me too.” Lilith meant it. “It helped. I understand all of you better than I did before.”
“Does it help with…”
Cain gestured vaguely, leaving the question unfinished but perfectly clear.
“Choosing?”
Lilith felt the familiar weight settle back onto her shoulders.
“I don’t know yet. Maybe.”
Cain nodded, not pushing. That was something Lilith had always appreciated about her — the ability to know when to press and when to pull back.
“You’ll figure it out.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because everyone keeps hoping it’s true.”
Cain stood, and Morpheus immediately tried to cling to her before she detached him gently and handed him back to Sera.
“I should go. I just needed to see you were actually back and in one piece.”
“I’m back and in one piece.”
“Good.”
Cain moved toward the door, then paused with her hand on the frame.
“For what it’s worth? Wherever you’ve been, whatever you learned on those visits, I hope you also learned that people here missed you. Specifically me. I missed you specifically.”
She left before Lilith could respond, the door closing quietly behind her.
Lilith stared at it for a moment, feeling the warmth of those words settle somewhere deep in her chest.
“She missed you,” Sera said simply.
“Yeah.”
Lilith touched her own cheek, realizing she was smiling.
“She really did.”