The walls fell away.
One moment Lucifer was walking through a tunnel of bones and crystals. The next, he was standing in open space. A cavern so vast the ceiling didn't exist. The floor was smooth—polished, like glass worn by centuries of footsteps.
And at the center, an orb.
It floated ten feet above the ground, suspended by nothing. Its surface was dark, but light moved inside it—swirling, pulsing, breathing. Not light. Souls. Thousands of them. All colors, all shapes, all pressed together like fish in a net.
The rarest ones floated closest to the surface.
Lucifer saw them.
A warrior with eyes of fire. A child who glowed like starlight. A woman whose body shifted between forms, never settling.
And Francisca.
She hung near the top of the orb, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes closed. Her brown hair drifted around her face like she was underwater. Her skin was pale but whole. No wounds. No blood. Just stillness.
Preserved.
Not dead.
Lucifer's shadows went still.
