“…You look pale. Did Lucifer say something to you?” asked Solomon once he had taken Melody’s hand. Melody held back a sound of protest; did Solomon really think her paleness was from Lucifer alone? She was just as wary of Solomon now. Still, his expression seemed earnest enough.

“He just gave me some important information,” said Melody cautiously.

“…I see. Well, good,” replied Solomon. While he wasn’t quite as smooth of a dancer as Lucifer, he still lead the dance with a fair amount of grace and surety. “This is the Devildom. When it comes down to it, you’re human, and that makes you different. Never forget that.” Melody could feel a bit of anger rising; Solomon had shown himself to be a threat as well, even though he was human.

“No, I won’t forget it,” Melody replied, regretting the icy sound of her own voice; she rarely spoke to anyone that way. Solomon peered at her for a few moments, almost fumbling his next step, but he recovered well enough.

“Melody, the truth is, I am sorry for what happened in the Labyrinth,” he said, his tone quiet, barely audible past the music. “I didn’t act out of malice; if I had stopped to argue with Mammon, it was likely that more damage would have been done than rattled nerves and a scraped knee,” he went on to say. “I acted based on my knowledge of demons, my understanding of my own powers, and the big picture. And while I would do the exact same thing again, I frightened you badly, and that was not my intention.”

“I was afraid, and you did hurt me,” Melody agreed, her voice quivering a bit. “I felt like I was expendable.” She could feel her eyes threaten to tear up, but she didn’t want her makeup to run; then everyone would know she had been crying.

“I’m used to making decisions like that and dealing with the consequences of my actions. But I didn’t make that move because you’re expendable. In fact, I would say you’re quite the opposite. I was taking a bet that at least one of those brothers would go after you if you were there; you had a pact with three of them. Even if you didn’t invoke any of the pacts, they would have an interest in making sure you were safe, which would give me the chance to finish the incantation to boost Asmodeus’ power to get us all out safely.” Solomon shook his head.

“You’re not very good at apologies, are you?” Melody asked, surprised at herself for her boldness. Oddly enough, Solomon didn’t seem offended, and he ended up laughing, his expression sheepish.

“No, I’m not.” Solomon’s tone was frank. “It’s rarely come up that I’ve had a desire to apologize sincerely,” he admitted. Then his expression grew serious. “You may have made pacts with demons, but you still lack the power to command them,” he went on to say.

“I thought I had commanded Mammon once,” Melody pointed out meekly. Solomon gave her statement a moment of thought as they danced.

“Well, there are degrees. Commanding obedience from a demon is different than commanding their powers. When you gave Mammon an order, it was something purely physical, yes?”

“That’s right,” Melody agreed. “I told him to get down, and he ducked immediately before he would have even had time to process the words,” she said, trying not to feel guilty about it.

“You were in the room with him. That’s the most limited part of the pact, and even a non-magical human can manage that much. But, you can’t call him to your side via a summon, or augment his power that way,” Solomon explained. Then he blinked, and a hint of a smile grew on his face. “Would you like me to lend you my power? Think of it as a peace offering.”

“I don’t… I mean…” Melody took a deep breath, pushing down her fears. “I’m not comfortable forcing them to do anything they don’t want to,” she managed to explain. Solomon shook his head. The song ended, but he whirled her away into another before anyone could ask to cut in; he wasn’t finished with this conversation. Out of the corner of her eye, Melody thought she saw Lucifer watching the two of them, but she couldn’t be sure.

“I think you want to die even less. And, honestly, you might even do harm to them, or yourself, if you don’t at least learn how it feels to use the pacts in a different way. Once you set an order in motion, they must fulfill it if at all possible. If you can’t recognize when you do something like that, you might issue a command that puts them in the path of danger, or has them torn up internally while they fight against it.” Solomon paused for a moment, seeing the distress on Melody’s face.

“Is this… true? Why didn’t anyone tell me this?” she asked, horrified at the thought she might hurt the three demons she had pacts with. While Mammon’s had been more of a blunder, they had made peace and they had protected each other at least once since. Beel and Levi had both made pacts to keep her safe! She couldn’t return the favor by putting them at risk.

“Because, they’re demons; revealing their weaknesses would be a foolish move. And because humans like me exist,” Solomon said, pulling Melody a bit closer, gray eyes meeting her blue ones, expression serious. “Didn’t I tell you at the beginning how many pacts I have? It was neither a joke nor an exaggeration. There were times in my life when I certainly wasn’t making them with benevolence in mind. At least, not as far as the demons themselves were concerned. Like many other humans, I bought into a certain narrative about demons that informed my choices. I learned things the hard way, and I don’t wish for you to do the same.”

Melody remembered that conversation, and what had followed. Solomon had spoken of his reputation as an ‘evil’ sorcerer. Lucifer had said that she shouldn’t trust Solomon because he was willing to subjugate demons to his will. But demons were often seen as evil, so, was it evil for him to subjugate something that was already evil? Perhaps evil actually was subjective; what was evil to a demon wasn’t the same as what was evil to a human. Or angel. And would it be evil for her to hold this power over the three demons without learning to use that properly? Maybe not, but it definitely struck her as careless, and, she had no desire to see them hurt. Simeon had also mentioned that good and evil were very complex, and she was starting to understand why.

“I think I understand,” Melody said with a sigh of resignation. Maybe she could ask them first if it was okay to use the pact. Would it be so bad if they said yes? She wasn’t sure. Even asking would be difficult for her. “Will it hurt?” Melody had never pretended to be any tougher than she was; she didn’t like pain one bit.

“Not at all. You’ll barely even feel it,” Solomon assured her. With a snap of his fingers, the spell was done. Melody felt an odd tremor run through her, similar to when she had made the pacts, though it had an oddly layered effect inside her. She shivered slightly. “…There. I’ve put a spell on you. As of this moment, you have use of my powers for the next six hours. You should experience what it’s like to control a demon and use his powers.” Finally, Solomon lightened up a bit, smiling. “We are on a retreat after all. Why waste this opportunity? So, go… show me what you can do. I’m counting on you to deliver.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Despite Solomon’s serious talk, Melody felt as though she was walking into a trap somehow. His last lines sounded more like someone expecting entertainment, not someone looking out for her, or her demons’, best interests. She was so busy trying to sort it out, she almost didn’t notice that the song had ended. Solomon very carefully let her go and gave her a slight bow. Though his expression was mostly polite, the slight crinkles at the corner of his eyes showed that he was amused. She just wasn’t sure if it was at her expense, or not. Then the sorcerer turned his back on her and disappeared into the crowd, leaving her alone.

Again Melody felt the sense of being lost in a sea of strangers and automatically went looking for a friendly face to serve as a lifeline. Lord Diavolo was hard to miss, with his brilliant red hair and tall stature. He was near the middle of the room, dancing with a very pretty demoness. And though he had a polite smile on his face, there was something about his expression that made Melody feel he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about his dance partner. Which struck her as strange; Diavolo seemed to usually be so jolly and interested in everything around him. Perhaps he didn’t like the way the demoness was hanging on him. For a moment, she happened to lock eyes with him, and his smile brightened the tiniest bit before he, and his partner, were swallowed in the press of bodies.

Every so often she thought she saw one of the six brothers, but with so many demons in the room, it was even harder to find just one. Levi wasn’t the only demon with purple hair, just as Beel wasn’t the only one with reddish-orange hair. Satan and Lucifer had hair colors that wouldn’t be out of place in the human realm and were even harder to find. For a few minutes, Melody was frankly terrified, and she had a suspicion that the demons around her could tell, just by the way they looked at her. Fortunately, she applied a bit of logic and started looking toward the edges of the ballroom, rather than through the middle. Sure enough, she saw Beel standing by a long table with snacks laid out on it. Carefully she tried to weave her way through the crowd, but it was slow going. It seemed like some of the demons were deliberately blocking her path, and the fear inside her kept building up. She almost screamed when someone grabbed her hand.

“Oi! Melody, next time there’s an event like this, we gotta get you some stilts or somethin’!” Mammon might be brash and loud, but Melody was instantly comforted at the fact it was he that had found her. “You’re so hard to find.”

“I’m not that short, Mammon,” Melody weakly protested. While she knew she was short in general, especially compared to a lot of the demons, she wasn’t outside the normal range. 5’2” wasn’t that small, was it?

“Sure ya are. You’re just a tiny thing,” Mammon teased, patting her head. A lot of people would have objected to this, but Melody just smiled. But then Mammon took a closer look at her and frowned slightly. “You’re lookin’ paler than usual. Somethin’ happen?”

“No… well… yes,” Melody said. It was a habit, back home, to just pretend everything was okay. Her siblings would make things harder for her if she told their mother how they picked on her, just as she knew her mother would make things difficult for her siblings for how they treated her. The cycle just kept repeating until Melody mastered the art of the ‘everything is fine’ attitude. But here, in the Devildom, it was better to be safe than sorry, especially since no one person had harmed her, so there was no one to point the finger at, thus no one to get in trouble. “I’m just not used to crowds.” It was completely the truth. “And it was a bit scary to dance with Lucifer in his demon form, and Solomon after the labyrinth incident. But, I don’t think they did it to scare me.” Also completely true.

“Alright then. If someone actually harasses you, you just tell the Great Mammon and he’ll sort it all out for ya,” said Mammon, giving her a look to be sure that she didn’t have anything else she needed to tell him. Melody still looked a bit pale, but her body language was slowly showing that she was less anxious than moments before. Mammon felt a bit warm inside; it was nice to have someone feel better after his arrival, rather than worse.

“Thank you.” As always, Melody was being polite to him, another thing that seemed rather unique to her. Even when lower demons were ‘polite’ it was usually because of his station, because they wanted something from him, or were avoiding negative backlash. Melody seemed to be polite because she was considerate of how the other person felt.

“No problem, really,” Mammon said. “Hey, just to be sure that people get the idea, how about I dance with you now,” he said, unable to completely conceal the blush. He had made such a mess of things earlier. Whether it had anything to do with Satan’s suggestion or not, he was trying a more direct approach now. He couldn’t have known it was close to Lucifer’s reasons for dancing with her. In reality, however, he just wanted to see if dancing with her could help him sort out his conflicted feelings.

“I would like that,” replied Melody, also blushing a bit. Neither Solomon nor Lucifer had been quite as… under-dressed… as Mammon. Formal wear must be a different kettle of fish in the Devildom. Or, maybe the Lords were expected to dress to their sins, rather than a strictly formal look? But, she couldn’t guess what his clothes had to do with greed. She expected it to be more of a lust thing, maybe. Speaking of which, where was Asmo? Melody hadn’t caught sight of him since he left her, and she still hadn’t seen his demon form.

But the thought soon drifted from her mind as the next dance started. Mammon was a more impatient dancer, and not nearly as smooth and precise as Lucifer and Solomon had been. He was also less distant and seemed to enjoy dancing for the sake of it. He chatted animatedly about various things, mostly centered around earning Grimm, yet never once did Melody feel that he was trying to get something out of her, or convey any sort of hidden message. He simply seemed to be relaying his interests to her. And while Melody wasn’t overly interested in money for the sake of money, there was a certain charm to how excited Mammon got about the topic. When he casually mentioned his job as a model, however, she was momentarily stunned. Well, that would explain the amount of skin he was showing. Maybe.

“Oh, ya didn’t know I worked as a model?” asked Mammon as he twirled her around.

“No, I didn’t.” After a pause, Melody added, “But it doesn’t surprise me, now that I think about it.” The first expression that crossed Mammon’s face was surprise, which rapidly shifted to a blush as his eyes shifted to the side. This was followed by a laugh and a wide grin.

“Of course, you’re not surprised. I am the Great Mammon, after all, and that includes lookin’ great!” Still, he seemed pleased, rather than simply taking it for granted that Melody would be unsurprised as his job as a model.

“It also seems like something that you would be able to do at the same time as going to school,” Melody pointed out. Not that she was going to refute that he was good-looking; she just never would have openly admitted that he was. “Shoots can probably be arranged around the schedules for your other duties.” Then it struck her that she might have put a damper on his work. “I’m sorry if I got in the way of that.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Mammon said, though in the past he had chafed under that very problem. “I was almost always on time for shoots before, so all I had to do is tell them I had more official business to do, and they found a way around it.” It wasn’t just that he was a model in demand, but that he was, as he said in the beginning, an actual big shot. A lot of demons might have dismissed his personality and his habits, but no one could say he wasn’t a powerful demon, with a powerful family.

“Can you show me some of the shots you were most proud of?” Melody asked, looking down at her feet. Models were the kind of people she would have avoided in the past, but, it didn’t seem right to think of Mammon differently just because he happened to have a side job that she associated with unpleasant people.

“Sure thing! Soon as we get back to the House of Lamentation and settle back in!” Mammon said, completely over the moon. Sure, he was happy when people admired his shots, and bought the magazines he was in, but most people looked at them for the fashion and the articles, not for him specifically. But now Melody was asking to see them because of him. She was just too nice. Slipping briefly into his soul vision, he saw no indication that she was doing this from any angle other than to express interest in what he had done.

“Pfft, normies!” scoffed a voice off to the side. Melody didn’t need to turn her head to know it was Leviathan speaking, but she did so anyways, giving him a smile. Mammon tightened his grip around her waist, just the tiniest bit, though not enough to hurt her.