“Oh, thou art too lovely for this.”

Kit thought he should step back, but the Devil’s fingers were cool against his scar. “I should think, to you, the damaged vessel might hold more appeal.”

“Perfection in all things.” Lucifer said. He caressed Kit’s sightless eye with rose-pale lips, the writhing shadows of his crown brushing Kit’s face with a palpable touch. “There. Scars do not suit thee.”

Kit blinked. And then gasped, because he could blink, and beyond blinking he could see. Not as he would have seen before. Not as he would see with his left eye, even now. But, he looked for a word, but otherwise.

The Devil still stood before him, close enough to kiss again, but on the right side Kit saw him as a vining of light and darkness, a twist of contradictions. Kit would have stepped back, but somehow those wings had crossed behind his back; he stood encircled by them and enfolded by the rich, heady pungency of sweat and good tobacco.

“I’ve dreamed of you,” Kit said, wondering.”

“And hast thy dream come true?”

“Not yet.” But he wasn’t sure it was truth as he said it.

“Now.” Lucifer whispered, and his breath at least was as hot as Kit thought it should be. “Bargain with me.”

Kit swallowed, shivered. The Devil’s hands stayed slack and open by hissides; only the wings restrained Kit. Who raised his chin to meet eyes that twitched at the corner with an almost smile. “Will Shakespeare,” he said. “I’m here to buy his life.

“The cost of that is dear.”

“How dear? I could take his place if I had to. But mayhap there’s somethin gelse…. I could pay you with a song.”

“Thine art might be enough to buy his freedom. Thy soul.”

“Mine art. All of it?”

Just that smile. The wings parted, shifted, opened. Lucifer stepped away half lovely swan-winged man, half vortex of light and shadow, and looked down, bowing his long aristocratic neck.

“What about my body?”

A gesture, as if the Devil reached out and pulled something from a table, although there was no table near him. He wheeled about, wings furled tight, their peaks reaching three foot or more over his head, their primaries brushing the floor. Still silent, he tossed the black thing that swung from his fingers at Kit. It sailed heavily though the air; Kit got his hands up in time and caught it, barking his fingertips. And almost dropped it, when he saw what he held.

Rough iron bands abraded his skin; if it were locked in place they would go across the top of his skull, under the chin, around the sides. Hinges made the thing to be opened. A padlock hung from the cheek-piece. The bit or mouthpiece was flat and broad, the size of a small woman’s palm, scattered with blades that would score his tongue and palate, worse if he was so foolish as to try to talk. It weighed a great deal.

“A scold’s bridle.”

Lucifer smiled, and as if the smile cast a shadow over him, seemed to change and darken. Kit found himself looking further up, into eyes he saw in his nightmares. Richard Baines. God help me.

“Holla,” the image said, his lips moving gently, “ye pampered Jades of Asia.”

Kit might have dropped the thing in his hands and run. But there was only abyss to run to, and his right eye showed him that same dancing twist of mocking light with the suggestion of wings behind it. And Will was here.

Somewhere.

“Father of lies,” Kit said. White feathers settled.

“Welcome to Hell, Christofer Marley. What wilt thou sell me for the freedom of thy friend?.”

“I…” He looked down at the instrument of torture in his hands, and remembered something a Faerie Queen had said, about mortal men and bindings. “If this is what it takes, Satan, I will do it. But I think I have something you would value more than a little sport to my torment.”

An arched eyebrow rose. The Devil tilted his head politely, waiting for Kit to continue.

“My name,” Kit said, and let the bridle fall. It vanished before it could clank on the stones. He wondered if it had ever existed. “I’ll sell you my name, for Will’s freedom.” He swallowed, but the Devil smiled.

“Done.” he answered promptly, leaving Kit to wonder if he had made a bad bargain indeed. “Thou art Christofer Marley nomore. And more, I tell thee it will be a long time indeed before thou art remembered for what thou hast been, and not what thine enemies proclaim thee. Thy trials are not over, in Faerie or the mortal realm.”

“How bad will it be?”

“Bad. But all is illusion and memory. Thee, and me. God, and the world. Faerie and Hell.”

Kit turned and walked to the edge of that vanishing tile of stone, floating in an infinite absence. Where are the damned? he asked, which was not what he had intended to ask at all. The words seemed to surround Kit, floating on the air like the toll of the bell, the fumes of the snuffed candle that should accompany them.

“Wherefore in the name of God the All-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of the Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of all the saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us of binding and loosing, in Heaven and on earth, we deprive Christofer Marley himself and all his accomplices and all his abettors of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Our lord, we separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church in Heaven and on earth, we declare him excommunicated and anathematized and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels and all the reprobate, so long as he will not burst the fetters of the demon, do penance, and satisfy the Church; we deliver him to Satan to mortify his body, that his soul may be saved on the day of judgment.”

“Is that what thou didst expect?” Satan asked. “Eternal fire, and the demons of Hell forking souls into furnaces like so much coke for burning?”

“No. Ridiculous, on the face of it. But…”

“The damned are all around thee.”

“Those creatures on the glassy plain. Lost creatures, aye. But I saw I see no souls in torment, Father of lies.”

“Seest thou not thyself? Seest thou not Satan and his angels, then?”

“Am I damned? I feel no fire upon my skin, or on my soul.”

“Fire cannot kiss thy soul, who was Christofer Marley. Such conceits are for simpler hearts than thine. Thou art in Hell, and have been every day of thy life since thy God abandoned thee in a little room in France. And thou, brave soul, reconstructed Him into a God that could love thee. But thou hast not the power to change God.”

Kit closed his eyes, without turning. He felt the cup of a warm wing against his shoulder, and knew Satan came to stand beside him. “Haven’t I?”

“Perhaps thou art more powerful than I.” Lucifer admitted, and Kit studied his profile. Leander. Adonis. Apollo. His body straight as Circe’s wand. Eyes as blue as Heaven looked on the darkness, unflinching, and then turned to regard Kit from beneath lashes frosted in gold.

“I have not succeeded. Is it not what children wish, a father’s acceptance? His love?”

“Yes,” Kit said, into a hollowness that echoed. “If Hell is not torment,” he asked, knowing the answer, “then what is Hell?” If I fell, would he come after me? On those white, white wings? Or would I fall forever, like…

Kit stepped away from the abyss, retreated to the center. Like him.

“Sweet child.” Lucifer said. And then said what Kit had always known he would. “Why this is hell, nor am I out of it. Thinkst thou that I that saw the face of God, and tasted the eternal joys of heaven am not tormented with ten thousand hells, In being deprived of everlasting bliss? O Faustus leave these frivolous demands, which strikes a terror to my fainting soul.” Kit’s own words, given into the mouth of a seductive devil. Mephostophilis. And again, the angel smiled. “Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed In one self place. But where we are is hell, And where hell is there must we ever be. And to be short, when all the world dissolves, And every creature shall be purified, All places shall be hell that is not heaven.”