Addison scanned the surroundings as she moved forward, looking for any of the demons. It seemed like she had been summoned in a cave, thin enough to see the walls on either side, but too tall to see most of the ceiling. The majority of the light was ambient, floating in from the wide mouth ahead of her.

“Am I staying down here then?” she called out, inching toward the opening.

The demons didn’t keep her without work. She honestly couldn’t decide at that moment what she was going to prefer. Would her spirits be lifted by cleaning the whipping floor, or would she feel better as a beggar in the human realm? The list of menial tasks was unending.

Each of them sounded worse than the last, she decided as she continued walking. She liked the human world- it beat what sat underneath it. But the witch had left her sour, and she needed comfort and solitude. Things she would likely only get upon returning to the Fae.

“See if I choose any of you then!”

The words left her mouth in a joking yell, and as they bounced off the walks and echoed forward, she immediately regretted them. A small voice in the back of her began to taunt her, cut off by a rush of dry wind on her face.

“We’ll see what, exactly?” a scraping voice asked.

Addison let out a small sigh, realizing Abbadon hadn’t gone as far as she had feared. He had simply moved outside the cave. The demon was probably the worst of the three, having ignored the human realm entirely. He understood speech, but nothing else about her. “If I choose any of you. I do get to choose someday,” she said, taking the last step to the mouth of the cave.

A vibrating thud stopped her in her tracks. It was followed by its twin, and Addison flinched before she looked up at the tall red beast. “Some sort of threat?”

“Yeah, Some sort of threat,” she mumbled in response.

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A flutter of butterflies bounced around in her stomach. It appeared that her mouth was in the mood to test one guardian after another cycle. But instead of an assault, she watched as he snorted in her direction and turned his back to her.

“Perhaps you spend too much time up there.”

“Perhaps we should have negotiated better,” a third voice said from another group of shadows.

Addison took the chance to walk further out, not sure yet who else had joined the conversation.

“You are supposed to be the one in charge of deals, Rikas,” Abbadon spoke as he perched himself on a stool.

The piece of wood bowed underneath the beast's weight, and Addison wondered why he bothered with the undersized equipment.

Rikas moved forward, his footsteps barely shifting the dust underneath him. Addison wished she spent more time with him if she was being honest. He looked like her; spent time in a human form more often than not. Even when he shifted to his beastly self was smaller.

More palatable.

As far as demons went, she supposed. He rolled his eyes at the dainty workbench beside his partner and moved further toward Addison and the cave. “Indeed, brother. I made the original deal that was meant to seal us a child.”

Abbadon let out another snort but otherwise didn’t seem to move.

“I was asking where I’m being stationed? What's the quest this time?” Addison asked during a moment of silence. Gruesome work awaited, she was sure, but she couldn’t stand to be in the middle of petty arguing.

It was worse somehow when a hulking demon of hell was talking down to you. Especially when he never understood the comebacks.

Rikas bridged the remaining distance, leaning against one wall of the cave and looked at her. “I really don’t know.”

Addison let her eyes drift over to his position, rotating herself so that she could see him without craning. “You don’t know? Why the rush getting me here then? And why..here?” There had been a vague sense of amusement while the two beasts had been speaking, but now her irritation was back full force.

Getting thrown around realm to realm, dust to dust to run empty errands. It was old and she wasn’t sure why she was doing any of it anymore. “This is the best use of my soul? My body? Me?” The words came rolling out of her before she could think to stop them.

The man in front of her shrugged his shoulders lazily. His eyes moved down the length of her body and then back up again. “We didn’t bargain you away, child. We didn’t separate your soul for you. If it were me alone, you would be at the crossroads.”

A third grunting laugh rolled around the room, echoing into the cave she had come from.

“It’s not up to me. This is not a deal I can barter. This is hell for all of us.”