"Why are you crying, Azel?"
Sister Nancy's voice was soft. The kind of soft that adults used when they were about to lie to make you feel better.
"Someone adopted Uriel today." I wiped my nose with my sleeve. "She's leaving now."
Through the window of the orphanage, I could see Uriel climbing into the back of a car, clutching a stuffed rabbit I'd given her last Christmas. She didn't look back. Kids never looked back. Looking back meant acknowledging the ones left behind.
"Why does no one want me, Sister?" The question came out broken, scattered between sobs. I scrubbed at my eyes with both hands, but the tears kept coming. "What's wrong with me?"
Sister Nancy knelt down. Her habit rustled against the cold floor. She was always so careful, Sister Nancy. So gentle. Even when the other kids screamed and fought and broke things, she never raised her voice.
She smiled.
"You're special, Azel. So you need special people."
I looked up at her with hope sparking in my chest. Special. Maybe that was it. Maybe I just needed to wait for the right family. Special people for a special boy.
How naive.
Lie.
It's been ten years since then.
And I was still there.
The first few years, I held onto that hope like a lifeline. Every time a couple walked through the doors, every time Sister Nancy called a name that wasn't mine, I told myself: The special people just haven't arrived yet. They're coming. They have to be coming.
But they never came.
I watched my brothers and sisters leave, one by one. Watched them climb into cars and vans and never look back. Watched them get the life I dreamed about, while I aged out of cute and into inconvenient.
By fifteen, I stopped hoping.
By seventeen, I stopped crying.
At eighteen, I packed a single bag and walked out of St. Catherine's for the last time. The funding didn't cover adults. I had no education worth mentioning, no skills, no connections. Just a high school equivalency certificate and a lifetime of wondering what was wrong with me that no one ever wanted to find out.
I worked odd jobs. Restaurants. Warehouses. Night shifts at convenience stores where drunks screamed at me for not having their brand of cigarettes. I slept in rooms barely bigger than closets, ate meals that cost less than a bus fare, and told myself it was fine. That I was fine.
The hole in my chest said otherwise.
Twenty-eight years old, and I still felt like that eight-year-old kid, face pressed against the window, watching everyone else drive away.
I just learned to hide it better.
———————
The hallway stretched before me, its marble floors gleaming under chandeliers that probably cost more than every possession I'd owned in my previous life combined.
I stopped walking.
Why am I thinking about this now?
The memories had been filtering through since I woke up in this body, but they'd stayed in the background. Noise. Static. Just part of the chaos of suddenly being someone else.
But now, heading toward the study of a man these memories insisted was "Father," everything came flooding back with uncomfortable clarity.
Father. The word felt foreign on my tongue. Alien. Like trying on clothes three sizes too big.
I started walking again, slower this time. My reflection moved alongside me in the polished walls, silver hair and sharp features that still didn't feel like mine.
Duke Varys Morningstar had summoned me. His failure of a son. The boy who'd spent two years drowning in depression after his second failed awakening. The boy who, in another timeline, would've sold his soul to demons because he couldn't bear the shame anymore.
According to the memories rattling around in my skull, Varys had never once expressed disappointment. Never once raised his voice. He'd only watched his youngest son retreat further into darkness, helpless to pull him back.
The thought made something twist in my chest.
He loves you, the memories whispered. They all do.
I didn't know what to do with that.
In my old life, love was something that happened to other people. Something I read about in novels, watched in movies, observed from a safe distance. The closest I'd ever come was Sister Nancy's gentle lies and the temporary companionship of other orphans who left before we could get too attached.
And now I had parents. A brother. An extended family that spanned one of the most powerful houses on Veloria.
All of whom loved a boy who no longer existed.
Or does he?
The question nagged at me as I approached the study doors. I had Lucifer's memories. His feelings. The complicated tangle of shame and longing and desperate hope that had defined his fifteen years. Was that him living on inside me? Or had I simply... absorbed him?
I didn't have an answer.
The doors were massive, carved from dark wood and inlaid with silver stars. The Morningstar family crest. A constellation I didn't recognize from any sky I'd seen in my old life.
I raised my hand to knock.
It trembled slightly.
Get it together. He's just your... you're just...
I knocked before I could finish the thought.
"Enter."
The voice was deep. Warm in a way that surprised me, even though the memories had prepared me for it. I pushed open the door.
The study was exactly what you'd expect from the head of a great noble house, and somehow also nothing like it. Yes, there were the mandatory bookshelves climbing to the ceiling. Yes, there was the massive desk positioned to catch the morning light. Yes, there were maps on the walls marked with territories and battle lines.
But there were also toys.
A wooden sword hung above the fireplace, weathered and cracked from use. Next to it, a child's drawing of stick figures, one much taller than the others. On the desk itself, amid the important documents and military reports, sat a small crystal horse, its mane frozen mid-gallop.
My throat tightened.
These were Lucifer's things. Childhood treasures kept by a father who refused to forget the boy his son used to be.
Duke Varys Morningstar stood by the window, his back to me. Even from behind, his presence filled the room. SSS+ ranked. One of perhaps thirty humans on Veloria who could claim that level of power. His silver hair, the same shade as mine, was tied back in a simple tail.
"Lucifer." He didn't turn around. "Thank you for coming."
"You summoned me." The words came out flatter than I intended. "I didn't have much choice."
A pause. Then, quietly: "You always have a choice with me, son. I thought you knew that by now."
Something cracked in my chest.
Son.
In twenty-eight years of my previous life, no one had ever called me that. Not once. And here was this stranger, this impossibly powerful man, saying it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
He turned to face me.
Duke Varys Morningstar looked tired. Not the physical exhaustion of a man who commanded armies and negotiated with kings, but something deeper. The weariness of a father who'd watched his child fade away and didn't know how to bring him back.
"How are you feeling?" he asked. "About the ceremony?"
Terrified, I didn't say. Hopeful. Confused. Like I'm wearing someone else's skin and everyone's going to figure it out any second now.
"Fine," I said instead. "I'm fine."
He studied me for a long moment. Those amethyst eyes, the same as mine, saw more than I was comfortable with.
"You've been different lately," he said carefully. "Since you woke up this morning."
Shit.
"Different how?"
"I'm not sure." He moved toward his desk, not sitting behind it but leaning against its edge. Closer to me. Like he was trying not to spook a wild animal. "Your eyes are... clearer. You walked in here without flinching. You're looking at me like you're actually seeing me for the first time in two years."
I didn't have a good response to that.
Because he was right.
The original Lucifer had spent those two years buried in shame, unable to meet anyone's gaze. Unable to accept the love his family kept offering because he was too convinced he didn't deserve it.
I didn't have that baggage. Or rather, I had different baggage. Twenty-eight years of loneliness and abandonment that made the concept of unconditional family love feel like a foreign language.
"I had a dream," I found myself saying. "A strange one."
"About?"
"About someone who spent his whole life waiting for a family that never came."
The words hung in the air between us. Varys's expression shifted, something painful moving behind his eyes.
"Lucifer..."
"It made me realize something." I met his gaze fully, maybe for the first time since I'd woken up in this body. "I've been an idiot."
He blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I've been so focused on what I couldn't do, what I wasn't, that I forgot to appreciate what I had." The confession came easier than expected. Maybe because it was true for both versions of me. "I have a family. A real family. And I've spent two years acting like that didn't matter."
Varys was very still.
"Lucifer, I need you to understand something." His voice was rough. "Your mother and I, Michael, we have never once regretted you. Never once wished you were different. Whatever happens at the ceremony, whatever the outcome..."
"I know." And I did. The memories made that painfully clear. "I know you don't care about the awakening."
"I care because you care. Because it's eating you alive. But your worth as my son has nothing to do with mana cores or ranks or power." He stepped closer, close enough that I could see the faint lines around his eyes. The grey in his hair that hadn't been there in Lucifer's earliest memories. "You are my son. That will never change."
The hole in my chest, the one I'd carried since I was eight years old, ached in a way it never had before.
Special people for a special boy.
Sister Nancy's lie had become someone else's truth.
I didn't cry. I wasn't sure this body remembered how. But something shifted inside me, some wall that the original Lucifer had built and I had inherited crumbling just a little.
"Thank you," I said. "For not giving up on me."
Varys smiled. It transformed his face, erasing the weariness and revealing the man behind the Duke.
"Never." He reached out and gripped my shoulder. The touch was gentle despite the strength I knew those hands possessed. "Now go get some rest. The extended family arrives tomorrow, and you'll need your energy for the ceremony."
I nodded and turned to leave.
"Lucifer."
I stopped at the door.
"Whatever you dreamed about, whoever spent their life waiting..." Varys's voice was soft. "I hope they know they'd always be welcome here."
The words hit harder than they should have.
I left before he could see my face.
————————
Back in my room, I sat on the edge of that ridiculous bed and stared at the ceiling.
Twenty-eight years of wanting a family.
And now I had one.
The irony wasn't lost on me. The orphan who no one wanted had been reborn into a house that loved him unconditionally. The boy who spent his whole life asking "why doesn't anyone want me?" had inherited the life of someone who'd been wanted all along but was too broken to see it.
Don't waste it, I told myself. Whatever the original Lucifer couldn't appreciate, whatever he threw away for the Demon Cult's empty promises... don't make the same mistake.
I had one week until the awakening ceremony.
One week to prepare for a third attempt that the original Lucifer never even got to make.
One week to figure out if fate would give me a chance, or if I'd need to make my own.
I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes.
For the first time in twenty-eight years, the hole in my chest felt a little bit smaller.
The door swung open without a knock.
"You're not dead. Good. I was worried the Duke finally snapped and killed you for being annoying."
I cracked one eye open. Aldric stood in the doorway, balancing a tray loaded with enough food to feed a small army. Or one emotionally drained transmigrator.
"Do you ever knock?"
"Do you ever lock your door?" He kicked it shut behind him and set the tray on the bedside table. "Your mother sent this. She seemed convinced you'd forget to eat. Again."
I sat up, eyeing the spread. Fresh bread, some kind of roasted meat, fruit that looked like it cost more than my old apartment's rent. My stomach growled traitorously.
"I wasn't going to forget."
"You forgot breakfast. And lunch yesterday. And dinner the day before that."
"I was busy."
"Being dramatically depressed isn't busy, Young Master. It's just sad."
I grabbed a roll and threw it at his head. He caught it, naturally, and took a bite.
"Hey. That's my food."
"Consider it payment for emotional labor." He chewed thoughtfully. "So. The Duke didn't actually kill you. What did he want?"
"Just... checking in." The words felt inadequate for what had actually happened. "Family stuff."
Aldric's expression shifted, just slightly. The sarcasm faded, replaced by something more careful.
"You seem different."
"Everyone keeps saying that."
"Because it's true." He leaned against the bedpost, arms crossed. "The old you would've come back from that meeting and locked yourself in here for three days. Instead you're sitting up, eating food, and only throwing things at my head once."
"Maybe I'm turning over a new leaf."
"Maybe." He didn't sound convinced. "Or maybe you finally realized that wallowing in self-pity is exhausting and everyone around you was one more missed meal away from staging an intervention."
I paused mid-bite. "Were you actually going to stage an intervention?"
"Your mother was drawing up plans. I was going to be the one who dragged you out of bed by your ankles."
"Romantic."
"I've been told I have a gentle touch."
Despite everything, I felt the corner of my mouth twitch. This was what had been missing in my old life. Not just family, but... this. Someone who cared enough to insult you. Someone who'd drag you out of darkness by your ankles if that's what it took.
"The extended family arrives tomorrow," Aldric said, his tone shifting to something more serious. "You know what that means."
"Subtle insults disguised as concern. Passive-aggressive comments about my failure. Uncle Cain pretending he ever believed in me."
"So you do remember how family gatherings work."
"Hard to forget."
Aldric studied me for a long moment. "You're really different, you know. Not just today. Something changed."
You have no idea.
"Maybe I grew up."
"Overnight?"
"I'm a fast learner."
He snorted. "You failed two awakening attempts."
"And I'll succeed at the third." The words came out with more conviction than I expected. "Watch me."
Something flickered in Aldric's eyes. Surprise, maybe. Or hope.
"Bold words from someone who couldn't get out of bed three days ago."
"Three days ago was a different person."
He held my gaze for a moment longer, then nodded slowly. "Alright. I'll hold you to that." He pushed off from the bedpost and headed for the door. "Eat your food. All of it. Your mother will ask, and I refuse to lie to madam."
"Scared of her?"
"Terrified. She's SSS rank and she knows where I sleep."
"Fair point."
He paused at the door, hand on the frame. "Lucifer."
"What?"
"Whatever happened to you..." He didn't turn around. "I'm glad it did."
The door clicked shut before I could respond.
I stared at it for a long moment, then looked down at the tray of food. At the care that had gone into preparing it. At the friend who'd delivered it while pretending he didn't care.
Special people for a special boy.
Maybe Sister Nancy hadn't been lying after all.
I picked up a piece of fruit and took a bite.
It tasted like a second chance.