“Distract Vincent for me.”

The snake glanced nervously between the door of the living room and the open window. “Do we really have to do this? Surely there’s a better way….” he asked reluctantly.

She rolled her eyes, jumping up onto the windowsill. “We’ve been over this. If I told him I was going to the Demon Realm, he would do anything to stop me.”

“And for a good reason too!” her bond exclaimed loudly. “Demons don’t care for consequences at all! They’d happily kill you if they found you the slightest bit irritating! ….which I must add, is one of the most likely things to occur when it comes to you….”

“Which is why I’m heading straight for the Demon Emperor’s Palace. I have unfettered access, so they wouldn’t stop me, and demons with stronger bloodlines have more political sense. I’ll be back before the day is over,” she said, looking over the window’s edge.

“How? Don’t you only have one monthly Obelisk teleport?” he responded, slithering over to the window.

“The one after the Tutorial is free, so no. I have two,” she replied. “I have Ouroboros and Apophis with me as well, just in case.” The two daggers were strapped to sheaths on either side of her belt, and she wasn’t wearing her violet suit and jacket ensemble, just the black and brown leather adventurer clothes she had picked up before going to Scytale’s enclave.

She turned around to look down at the amphiptere on the floor. “Time for me to go.”

The silvery snake began to panic. “Wait! But you still haven’t explained how to distra-”

Turning back to the window, she stretched out her two hands, a mana-circle appearing on either one. She turned invisible as she jumped, her second spell slowing her fall from the forty-story-high building.

Scytale slithered onto the windowsill to look down as she landed, his eye ability seeing past the invisibility spell. He let out a groan as she began making her way around bushes and hedges in the garden, navigating a way that wouldn’t intersect with the guards.

Click.

He whipped his head around to stare at Vincent, who had just walked into the room with a pile of forms under one arm, shutting the door behind him. Scytale froze as Vincent stared back, taking in the absence of the Faction Head. Vincent slowly narrowed his eyes in the tense silence.

“Where’s Lucille?” he stated calmly, a vein throbbing on his forehead. “And why is the window open?”

The winged snake whimpered as he slowly lowered his head, his anxiety increasing by the second. Lucy was so going to suffer for this.

…

“Open Obelisk Directory,” a dark-haired girl stated.

Lucille was standing in the semi-translucent box of the System Obelisk, prepared to leave for another realm. The System acquiesced, providing a selection box for her.

[Directory: ]

1. Beast Realm

2. Demon Realm

3. Tartarus Realm

4. Mystical Realm

5. Heavenly Realm

[ ]

[You have 2 uses available. The next one will be gained on October the 1st.]

Selecting the [Demon Realm], she ignored the selection list to directly ask the System to take her to her location.

“Select The Daemonium Palace Stronghold in The Demon Emperor’s Dominium.”

If the Beast Realm was separated into regions, and its unique realm-specific Events were the Lairs, then the Demon Realm was segregated into Dominiums. Here, the realm-specific Events were the Strongholds, which doubled as Ascendant Cities. These cities were directly ruled by Demon Lords, and to gain ownership of a Stronghold, a demon needed to defeat them in battle to take their title. Unlike regions, which were fixed in size, Dominiums increased in size depending on how many Strongholds a demon owned. Any reigning Demon Emperor governed the largest Dominium, which had existed long before the Demon Realm’s assimilation into the Tower.

[Directory – Demon Realm ]

Dominium selection:

1. The Demon Emperor’s Dominium

Stronghold selection:

* The Daemonium Palace Stronghold

[ ]

[Confirm selection? Yes/No]

Pleased at how much quicker the selection process was in the Obelisk, she pressed [Yes]. With a disorientating sensation of her limbs disappearing, Lucy’s vision went black, the box of the Obelisk fading away as she turned into white particles, her body travelling through metaphysical space to go to the 2nd realm. The Demon Realm.

…

Lucille whistled as she walked through the streets of The Daemonium Palace Stronghold. She was outside of the palace itself, which was an imposing building made of red, black, and gold stone that towered over the streets from the mountain on which it sat, overlooking the city.

While some places in the Beast Realm shared similarities with places in the Mystical Realm, the Demon Realm could never be mistaken for one of the other realms. Sure, the Strongholds might have some infrastructure resembling places in other realms, but the Strongholds themselves most often resembled a stereotypical vampire’s castle, with dark stained glass and pitch-black walls. It could change depending on the area you were in and the strength of the demon ruling it, such as the rooftop tiles being on fire, or a wall of freezing shards of giant ice surrounding it, but there was always this striking sense of being in a vintage horror movie.

Lucy guessed it might have been because the sky of the Demon Realm was blood red.

The Demon Realm itself had a fascinating ecology and structure. Unlike the Beast Realm, which slowly grew larger as more frontier regions came into being, the Demon Realm just existed. From what the realms knew, the Demon Realm was an infinite landscape that just went on, and on, and on. You could keep walking in one direction and never return to the starting point. And this realm was filled with an assortment of random biomes that seemingly had no rhyme or reason, with all the colours of the environment being distinctly wrong in some way.

At one stage you could be walking through a forest of vibrant blue and deep green glowing trees and plants in the shape of ferns, to find yourself emerging at the top of a mountain, stretches of endless chasms below. Even the night cycle was weird, as the sky never had any constellations or marks to navigate by, and only a thick blanket of red and grey mist darkened the area when it was night. And it didn’t stop there.

The Demon Realm had very little mana, and when there was, it was the private stock of a higher-ranked demon, and wouldn’t be something you could use. That meant there were no magical plants, monsters, or beasts besides those who came from other realms. But that didn’t mean you’d only find mundane creatures there. While the Demon Realm was a physical realm unlike the spirit realm, it was an immaterial realm too. The spirit realm was filled with spiritual energy, and the Demon Realm was filled with demonic power, the opposite of spiritual energy. And that meant all living things within were demonic.

Everything was out to get you. Absolutely everything. Any beast was a demonic beast, any insect was a demonic insect, and any plant was a demonic plant. They all had highly aggressive territorial instincts, and intelligence and cunning far higher than what their strength would suggest. They didn’t gain sapience until much later, compared to creatures of similar strength in other realms, but even the weakest creatures in the Demon Realm wanted to kill you, from the grass to the bees to the birds.

It was for a very simple reason. All creatures with a demonic lineage had the ability to absorb the demonic power of another demonic creature. It enabled them to strengthen their abilities, fuelling more powerful demonic spells, and increased their soul presence and pressure to bring about bloodline submission, the instinct of a weaker demon to obey every command of a demon stronger than you. But it only activated when you had defeated the creature, giving you 50% of their demonic power if at the same strength, less if they were weaker, and more if they were stronger.

A demon could only trigger the ability once on another demon, and then they’d have to fight other demons to obtain demonic power. It had limits, because if they absorbed the demonic power from too many different demons without purifying the spiritual signatures, then they’d become highly aggressive and emotionally unstable, making them more reckless, and their abilities more prone to ruining their body.

This kill-or-be-killed nature of theirs extended to the ‘True Demons’ as well, those who weren’t demon beasts or plants. True Demons were the actual humanoid race of the Demon Realm and had their astral bodies, which were essentially their actual form. As creatures from an immaterial realm, all demon creatures were technically made up of demonic power. Only in the Demon Realm did it give them physical form though, which was why they needed to obtain mana from other realms to manifest properly in those realms.

That was how demonic contracts came about, a promise of mana, whether it be by demonic sacrifice or other methods, which would allow them to go to other realms or dimensions, which they found interesting. They couldn’t absorb the spiritual energy of non-demon races, but because all their abilities came from their astral form and dealt with the soul, they earned a reputation for collecting souls.

Only the noble demon bloodlines cared about contracting the mortal races to gain a source of mana. Most demons had too much to deal with in their realm to care about other realms. But mana was a valuable ‘currency’ for them all because it allowed them to advance their bloodline and make it stronger. And the stronger the demonic bloodline, the more human they appeared, at least in their normal forms.

All True Demons were unkillable. The body you killed in the material realms would only ever be an incarnation, a shard of their astral form. And the shard would automatically return to its owner if weakened slightly. If you tried to kill a True Demon in the Demon Realm… it wouldn’t work either. Sure, it was possible to slay their form, which had flesh and blood when in the Demon Realm, but if they ‘died’… they would just pop up sometime later somewhere else in the Demon Realm, weaker than they were before, and sometimes missing a few memories.

It was random, and on a supposedly infinite landscape, sometimes it was the equivalent of never seeing them again, but if they were a User, the System could return them to the closest Stronghold’s Obelisk. The System abused its connection with them to place Obelisks throughout the realm if they reformed somewhere far from civilisation. True Demons could only ‘die’ by being defeated so many times their sapience was reduced due to lack of strength, and they turned into a demon beast. If they get killed again and again after that, they get reduced to the weakest rank of demon creature within the realm and continue with that life until they finally regain strength, working their way back up to True Demon.

But no matter how far any demon creature was from civilisation, there was one presence they could always feel the location of, wherever they were. The one existence at the very top of their food chain, the Primordial Demon. Who was also, unfortunately, the very same individual Lucille needed to meet today.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

She sighed as she gazed up at the imposing palace. There were some individuals within the Tower that the System didn’t control. Not that it couldn’t, but rather because they were vitally essential to the mechanisms of their realms, in that their existence was a fundamental feature of the realm itself. The Beast Realm had the Dragon Sovereign, the supreme ruling beast over all of the beast races. The Mystical Realm had the World Tree, the sole natural gate to the spirit realm. The Heavenly Realm technically had four, the Celestial Cardinal Beasts, who all worked together to maintain order. Tartarus had the Monarch of Death. And the Demon Realm had the Primordial Demon, who also held the title of Demon Emperor. The System termed them Paragon Anomalies because their strength was something that could never be replicated.

She took a step, and then a shudder went through her as a vibration resonated throughout her soul, the all-encompassing sensation of roaring waves of demonic power flooding the area around her. She accessed the new notification she sensed appearing. A familiar emotionless voice spoke.

[You are within the Auctoritas of Demon Emperor Vitis Exolvuntur Imperatoris-Daemonium.]

She grimaced and sped up her pace slightly. There was a reason why Dominiums were called such. A True Demon had absolute control over their territory, capable of sensing everything within. Unlike normal spiritual sense, it meant they were capable of killing anything with demonic power within too, with just a thought. And when a demon was within their Stronghold, it manifested in the form of ‘Auctoritas’, or Khaos Authority. The thoughts and minds of every demon within the Auctoritas would be unconcealed before the ruling demon’s presence. It very obviously came with an instinctual sense of fear for the weaker demons. Fear was the only method of ruling known to demons.

She sighed slightly as she came to stand before two demons, guarding a great gate before an imposing staircase that led up to the doors of the Daemonium Palace. One of them had grey skin, light grey hair and glowing orange eyes indicating a member of the Ash-veil vassal bloodline under the Infernal demons, while the other had rose-tinted skin, brown hair and six red horns that curved over the back of his head like a helmet. She didn’t know what bloodline the demon carried, but the unconcealed maroon wings on his back suggested he had an impure bloodline, likely with strong demon beast lineage. They gazed at her suspiciously as she walked up.

“Good morning,” she said, smiling. “Or is it evening?” She peered up at the sky. “I can never tell when I’m here.”

“State your business,” the winged demon replied sternly, taking a step forward with a glaive in his hand to bar her entry.

“I want to enter the Daemonium Palace,” she replied casually.

The Ash-veil demon frowned slightly. “And why do you want to enter the palace?” he asked.

Lucy shrugged. “To meet the Demon Emperor.”

They stared at her with undisguised disbelief. The winged demon scowled at her, growling slightly in a way that showed his large incisors. “How dare you think so lightly of the Demon Emperor’s time! Go away at once!” he said, pointing the glaive at her.

She crossed her arms and gazed back at them, unfazed. “But I have unfettered access,” she replied, grinning.

The winged demon glared at her, moving his glaive threateningly, while the Ash-veil demon frowned at her. She didn’t move, even as the winged demon’s expression grew darker. The winged demon went to take a step forward, but the Ash-veil demon put out a hand to stop him.

“Just wait,” he said, closing his luminous orange eyes. They waited for a moment, the winged demon still glowering at her, before the grey-skinned demon’s eyes flew open and widened just as a new voice was heard.

“She can come in,” said a lazy female voice, the telepathic words drifting by them.

The Ash-veil demon hastily bowed to Lucy, forcing the winged demon next to him to do the same, who was looking very flustered and confused. Then he straightened up and gestured to the gate. “You may enter, Miss- er, milady,” he told her awkwardly.

She smiled and headed through the large gate, even as the Ash-veil demon struggled to stop the winged demon from angrily storming after her. Then she gazed at the tall series of marble stairs that led up to the palace and sighed, resigning herself to half an hour of climbing. It was probably a demonstration of sorts. If you mattered, the Demon Emperor could just teleport you right to him, but otherwise, you had to climb on foot like common rabble. There was a reason few outside demons ever saw the Demon Emperor in person.

But that voice… a woman, so it wasn’t the Demon Emperor. Then… was it her?

After some time, Lucille made it to the top of the stairs. The huge double doors of the Daemonium Palace were fully open, revealing a long, wide corridor, embroidered scarlet drapery and banners hanging from the ceiling. She walked forward, making her way through the first hall of the palace. She stepped through another pair of large double doors, finding herself on a blood-red carpet that extended onwards up a distant series of steps. She continued walking until she found herself in front of a short staircase of about twenty steps. At the top was… a throne. An empty throne. She knew any reigning Demon Emperor only ever sat on the throne on very rare occasions, never calling assembly. Unless it was for a Millennium Chapter involving the Demon Realm.

The throne didn’t look like the stereotypical image of a demon ruler’s throne, with pointy spikes and pitch-black colouration. It was quite tasteful in design, being made of red, black, white, gold and a few red gemstones for decoration, the main colour predominantly being red. Lucy had heard there was annoyance towards the Demon Emperor from the Eternal Empire when the Mystical Realm assimilated, due to the Empire’s national colours being scarlet and gold, and the Demon Emperor at the time had replied by…. making all the Strongholds within his Dominium built out of red and gold. She had heard it was an interesting era back then.

As for the current reigning Demon Emperor… she had heard he was lazy and indifferent to everyone, but how much of that was truth was up to her to discover. He definitely hadn’t been lazy when he massacred half of the Empire’s forces on the Millennium Chapter battlefield all alone—using an incarnation with only 1/8th of his main body’s strength. In one day. While sitting on a throne. And mocking them.

The guy was terrifying.

But she turned her head to look around, as she stayed still in that throne room, wondering where to go. She didn’t dare use her perception field within the Auctoritas of the Demon Emperor, and she hadn’t seen anybody else since she stepped in. The Daemonium Palace wasn’t the central force for political affairs in the Demon Realm. None of the higher-ranked demons liked to enter the Auctoritas of another demon, in case they weren’t strong enough to stand against instinctual loyalty, so they typically sent messages to each other by proxy. The Demon Emperor just telepathically sent messages to the Four Demon Duchies as he was mentally linked to the four highest noble bloodlines’ rulers. The Primordial Demon didn’t need to eat, drink, or even sleep unless he wanted to, and so only a few servants stayed in the palace. And one of the Demon Dukes, who managed the palace in his stead.

She turned around when she heard the sound of footsteps approaching. She blinked when she saw a woman waving to her.

“Why, hello there,” said the demon.

She was wearing a very… revealing black outfit that left little to the imagination about her curvy figure, and had long wavy black hair that cascaded down her back. Curling across every part of exposed skin besides her forehead, chin and nose were black lines of script, shifting and reordering themselves with each of her steps. Two glossy, ebony-black horns extended from either side of her forehead to curl slightly around her ears, like long goat horns, and her lips and nails were painted black, matching the raven hair on her head and dark eyes. A pair of large, black, leathery wings extended from her shoulder blades and folded up as she came closer. She was about a head taller than Lucille, and she tilted her head as she looked down at her, tapping her chin with pale white fingers.

“I didn’t expect that our visitor would be such a gorgeous little girl. Although…” she said, smirking. “I haven’t seen what you look like under that mask of yours.”

Lucy put a smile on her face, ignoring the antagonising remarks, and bowed politely with one hand placed over her chest. “My name is Lucille Goldcroft. I am honoured to meet you, Miss….?” she asked questioningly.

The demon laughed and gave her a dismissive wave. “Oh, just call me Lilith. No need for formalities. Come, follow me," she said, turning and heading towards a side corridor. Her wings disappeared, scattering into fragmented black light.

Lilith. So, it is her. I wonder why she came in person then…

Lucy walked beside her, her smile still fixed in place. “Do you work here normally, Miss Lilith? What’s your job?” she asked brightly, pretending to be oblivious to her identity.

Lilith laughed lightly, navigating the empty corridors with ease. “Oh yes, I’m a permanent employee. You see, I’m a very special kind of person to the Demon Emperor.”

Lucille stared at her for a second, before blinking and fixing her expression. “Really?”

She cannot be implying…. does she think I’m an idiot? Is she trying to mess with me, get me to slip up?

Lilith smirked and gestured for her to follow along. “Well, I have a… close relationship with him, let’s say.”

Why hasn’t he killed her yet for saying this?!

“What do you normally do when there are no visitors?” Lucy asked.

“I’m his secretary, most of the time,” she replied, her heeled boots clacking against the floor. “Maybe I was chosen for it because of my looks?” she mused aloud.

Lucille’s polite smile twitched a bit, but not enough to be noticeable as she walked beside the woman. No, you don’t just hire the Abyssal Duchess to be a secretary because of her looks…

“Is the Emperor busy? Do you need me to wait?” she questioned, trying to move the conversation along before she got killed because of what the demon was saying.

Lilith shook her head. “No, of course not. He’s never- he has time,” she said, switching her statement hastily.

Lucy narrowed her eyes slightly. This woman is really going to get me killed. Was she just about to say, ‘he’s never busy’?

“I’ve noticed you haven’t asked me about my unfettered access yet. Do you not need to know more?” Lucy asked her.

The demon woman paused, glancing at Lucy for a second. There was a slight delay before she answered, “…no need, everything’s been checked already.”

Lucille took note of how she had hesitated before answering. It likely meant she was mentally contacting someone… quite possibly the only other person to have unfettered access within the Demon Realm.

“Now, don’t make him angry. I’m not sure if even resurrection could save you from your fate if that happens,” the demon teased. “He doesn’t care for formalities, so make sure you tell him why you are there without dawdling. He’ll know if you do.”

She nodded as Lilith stopped for a moment to gaze at Lucy with narrowed eyes. A semi-transparent ghostly apparition of outstretched black wings loomed behind her as a black aura curled and twisted around her feet with every step as she walked closer to Lucille. The sounds of screaming winds could faintly be heard as her black lines of script slithered and coiled around her body.

“And don’t think you can try to form some sort of… closer relationship with him. That would be irrational, disrespectful, and idiotic,” she said, taking a step forward to gaze at Lucy with a cruel smirk on her face. “I will be there, in that room, so if I see any sign of you making that sort of move… well, let’s just say that maybe you’d be better off if he was the one to kill you,” she said in an icy voice that didn’t match her expression. Then her cruel smirk relaxed back into her usual smile as she continued walking down the corridor.

Lucy blinked an odd expression on her face and then shook her head wryly to follow after the demon woman.

I think I get it now. He’s not keeping her around for the reason she’s suggesting. She’s bug spray. Well, this is all irrelevant anyway.

They continued walking for a while before Lilith stopped at a small side door. She gestured to it. “We’ll wait in here. The Demon Emperor will join us in a bit.” She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t forget what I’ve told you, little girl.”

Lucille suppressed a sigh and nodded. She followed Lilith into the room, the demon woman telling her to take a seat on one of the couches, while Lilith herself stood behind the opposite couch and waited patiently.

Lucy contemplated keeping the mental construct for her expressions active but decided not to, and with a flick of a mental switch, she went expressionless, turning off the mental construct responsible for her facial expressions and subconscious body language, so anything she did was consciously controlled. She didn’t want to make things harder for herself by slipping up and accidentally showing the wrong emotion, so she paused the soul structure that formed her body language and outward emotions.

It was a tense few minutes as she waited, going over her plans for how she would talk to the Demon Emperor. Then, the door opposite the one she entered swung open to reveal a tall person, who walked over to the opposite couch. She took a moment to observe the Demon Emperor with her accelerated thoughts.

The 242-year-old Vitis Exolvuntur Imperatoris-Daemonium was dressed in what seemed to be a tied black silk dressing gown and pants, wearing no shoes or shirt. He was very tall, easily standing head and shoulders above Lucille, and looked to be in his mid-twenties. He had pitch-black hair that was even longer than her own, falling past his waist, and near bone-white skin that almost made him look like a statue. The Demon Emperor had the type of looks that could only be described as either belonging to a tall, muscled, and broad-shouldered woman, or a very pretty man. He had no horns, wings, talons, or tattoos that would denote him as something other than human, and if it weren’t for his eyes, he could probably be mistaken as one.

His irises were large, ruby-red, and glowed with bloody light.

What was terrifying for her was that she could detect he had no aura at all. He felt just like an ordinary human, a pre-System individual. It suggested he had impossibly high control over his perpetually chaotic soul and incomprehensibly high mana, that was theorised to reach the World Tree’s level. The Primordial Demon was rumoured to be stronger than even the most powerful magical beast, the Dragon Sovereign.

She blinked as the Demon Emperor sat down on the couch with aplomb, crossing his arms as he gazed at her. “Let’s make this short. Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?” he asked in a low voice.

Aaaand I already can tell this is going to be difficult.

She removed her violet pocket watch from a pocket to show him at the same time she spoke up. “My name is Lucille Goldcroft, the Head of the Aurelian Commission. I would like to request a contract with you.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, just slowly tilting his head as he observed her. “A contract,” was all he stated.

She didn’t reply, keeping her face expressionless as her nervousness began to build.

He shook his head. “What, do you want power? You have nothing you could give me in return. I don’t care if you have unfettered access.”

“I don’t want power,” she replied calmly.

“Then what? Borrowing my status?” he said, no smile on his face as he watched her.

“I’m the Head of the Aurelian Commission,” she responded, shaking her head. “It would be detrimental to me to use your status.”

“Then get on with it,” he stated harshly. “It was you who asked for this audience.”

Lucille took a breath and explained. “I want to be involved in the disruption of order within the Tower this cycle.”

Behind him, Lilith’s eyes widened as she turned to stare at the Demon Emperor with shock on her face, but he didn’t change his expression as he gazed at her. Then he slowly shook his head.

“A little girl not even past her second decade is asking the Primordial Demon to be involved with the disruption of order,” he said blandly. His voice was level, seemingly without emotion or intent, but the harsh words dripped with derision.

She gazed back at him, not a single expression present on her face. “I am aware of something you need to know.”

“And what would that be?” he replied, tilting his head with mock curiosity.

She clasped her hands together and didn’t dare look away. “The reason why you will fail.”

He stared at her in silence, as she stiffened in position, waiting for his answer. Then he abruptly stood up with a dark expression. “How ridiculous. Get out,” he stated ruthlessly, walking towards the entrance he came from. He opened the door and prepared to leave, but he paused as he heard her say something.

“You’d think being the Primordial Demon for over 300,000 years would give you more patience,” Lucille stated tonelessly. She tilted her head. “I suppose playing pretend is wearing thin.” She tapped a finger on her chin. “What else did you go by? Ah yes. I think the first was Eligos, then Orobas. Then was Phenex. Andromalius. Finivit. Dilavre. Malphilet. Omni-”

Her voice cut out as a seizing pressure built up within her chest, choking the breath out of her and giving her a pounding sensation of abrasive static tattooing itself against her mind, the air rippling within the room. Her head went cold as a primal fear towards the existence in front of her emanated from deep within her being, her thoughts scattering like dust in the wind. Lucy gasped for air, clutching at her chest as a stabbing sensation pulsed from it, her vision swimming with a red haze. She deliriously registered Lilith dropping to her knees with strangulated gasps as well, unable to stand up against the wrathful presence of the Demon Emperor. He slowly walked forward to gaze coldly at her, and then as her vision began to dim, the pressure suddenly cut out.

Lucille coughed and spluttered as she drew in deep breaths, her skin cold and clammy as the chills ran up and down her spine, but she didn’t show any of the fear on her face as she shuddered.

The Demon Emperor turned to look at the demon woman on the opposite side of the room. “Lilith, out,” he ordered, expression stern.

The woman blinked, a very confused look on her face as she slowly stood up. “I- what? My lord?”

“I said out,” he stated coldly, narrowing his eyes at the woman.

She flinched, and then quickly made her way outside the door, shutting it behind her. The Demon Emperor sat back down on the couch, staring silently at Lucy as she slowly stopped breathing as heavily. When she was back to normal, if a bit pale, he leaned forward with a chilling expression on his face. “I will not say it again. Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?” he said, with a voice like ice.

Lucille sighed as she gazed back at him, weary. “My name is Lucille Goldcroft, and I come from a timeline that ended 231 years in the future.”

It was going to be a tiring discussion.