“You know it’s fucked up,” Remi snapped, “because youliedto us! You said you were visiting him, Luce! That he just wasn’t ready to come back to Hell!”
Luce groaned and abandoned his picking to scrub at his face with both hands—mostly to hide from Remi’s now piercing glare. “He disowned me, Remi! I was trying to give him space to calm down!”
“Maybe they were right to call you the Prince of Lies,” she snapped. “You didn’t want to deal with the emotions and the mess, so you’ve been pretending everything was just fine! Fuck, Luce, how did you think this was the right thing to do?”
“I—” He sighed. “I couldn’t bear to see him looking at me the way he did, Remiel. So much pain, so much anger...”
Remi scoffed. “So now you’re playing the martyred father who had no choice but to back away. Reminds me of someone else we knew.”
“Stop it.” Luce glared back, temper flaring at her insinuation. “I amnotmy brother.”
“Well, ignoring your problems until they blow up in your face sure seems to be a family trait!”
“Enough!” He shoved her backwards into the doorframe, slamming his palms down on either side of her face and leaning in close. “That isenough,Remiel! If you weren’t one of my oldest friends, you’d be severely punished for this kind of insolence.”
She didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink. “Not exactly contradicting my point with that one, Luci.”
His glower was short lived, dissolving into a grimace at the comparison to his brother and the fact that it might be truer than he’d like. This was the difference, however, and it was the one he assured himself mattered most—Lucifer knew when to stop.
“I didn’t know how to face him,” he finally said, forcing out the words and dropping his arms back to his sides. “I still don’t.”
“I can’t believe you haven’t even seen him.” Remi frowned. “When you forbid us from reaching out to him we respected that, because we thought you wanted space to bond. To fix whatever had broken.”
Luce winced. “It’s what I should have been doing.”
“Instead, you left a heartbrokenchildto fend for himself.”
“I had Balthazar’s Eyes on him,” he protested weakly. “Cwall, more often than not.”
Remi scoffed. “That idiot is no substitute for hisfather, and you know it!”
“Cwall is highly capable.”
“But he’s notyou. He’s not even human!”
“Neither are we,” Luce countered.
“Don’t you start with semantics.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Not when you’re hiding down here while you should be halfway through a Rift right now.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“You are,” she interrupted his indignant rebuttal in her matter-of-fact manner, and he found it difficult to argue. “It’s okay. But you can’t get stuck wallowing for too long or it’ll be another couple decades before we see you again.”
He took a breath and held it until he felt a tiny bit more composed. “You’re right.”
“I’m always right.” She uncrossed her arms to loop one around Luce’s, tugging him by the elbow into the hallway. “I can’t even remember a time I was wrong about something.”
“I can.”
“No—” her grip tightened on his arm until it twinged with the threat of violence, “—you can’t. And anyway, I’mabsolutelyright about this. You’re way overdue to apologize to your son after you’ve been neglecting your son forfifteen years.”
“I wasn’t neglecting him,” Luce grumbled under his breath. “He’s a grown man and he knows where I live. He chose not to come home.”
Remiel pointedly ignored him.
“What we’re gonna do is this,” she spoke loudly to drown his continued muttering. “I’m going to personally march you down to the Rift, since you apparently cannot be trusted to do it on your own, and you’re going to go visit your fucking son. Try begging his forgiveness and hope he’s willing to listen.”
“The Devil doesn’tbeg,” Luce scowled. “This is a terrible idea.”
