It was nighttime. No one else in my home was awake but me.

  I stood in front of my mirror and lifted my hair. My fingers played with two little horns—barely the size of pebbles—lightly poking out of my head.

  “At least they’re black. Very hard to see even when my hair isn’t perfect,” I uttered, messing with the strands.

  Curious even though I already knew the outcome, I pulled on the ends. A slight headache formed. I gave another yank, and my brain pulsed with pain.

  “Gods forbid I accidentally run into something,” I muttered as I laid down in bed.

  I was still the only one who knew what I was: an archdevil.

  Bumps started forming in my head years prior. The tips only surfaced this year.

  I remembered my birth father saying something about horns when I was born, but it was such a one-off statement so far in the past I forgot it. Besides, I didn’t see any on my birth mother. I’d have remembered if I did. Either she didn’t have them, or she cut them off. There were just never any signs that I would grow horns, and my ears looked a bit too much like forest devils for me to think otherwise.

  “Now that I think about it, the ones I’ve seen on others point more upward toward their heads,” I muttered while playing with the tips of my ears. “Mine aren’t as long and go back instead of up.”

  What Quintin told me was very helpful, but it only made me worry more about the future. If even a fraction of what he said was true, no one—not even my parents—could know I had these horns. Ever. Life as a forest devil was tough, but being an archdevil meant a death sentence, especially since I didn’t have any mana, training, or power.

  “I’ll definitely have to shave them down eventually.” I tapped the tiny bumps hidden in my hair. “That’s going to hurt so bad, I can tell.”

  I flew out of bed and started pacing around my room. I didn’t have a door or anything. I resided on the second floor of our home in an open storage area Quintin and Amalia converted into my bedroom as I got older. I could look down off the small railing by my stairs and see the kitchen below. The floorboards were squeaky, but I was used to them and knew exactly where to step as I enacted my panic-induced mania.

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  It wasn’t the first time, after all.

  I found myself questioning whether I had been intentionally placed in the body of an archdevil or if it was by chance. If it was by chance, it meant I had horrible luck, but it also suggested that my luck couldn’t possibly get any worse. However, if it was deliberate, there had to be a reason behind my transformation. If it stemmed from my past life, perhaps becoming an archdevil was a form of punishment. But then, considering their power and mythology, maybe it was a reward—though it certainly didn’t feel like one.

  Regardless, the fact remained. I was an archdevil living alone on the Human Continent.

  “Will things change when I awaken?” I looked at my wrists where the marks would one day appear. “Will a tail suddenly appear? What’s going to happen to me? Shit, I don’t know. I hate this.”

  I started thinking of contingency plans.

  “Worst case?” I’m hunted. On the run. I should assume that. The plan stays the same—just with more stress. Keeping hiding. Get stronger. Have an escape plan ready in case it all goes to shit.” I paused. “Do other devils hate archdevils?” I paused again. “I don’t know. If I can find one I can trust, it might be worth getting some information out of them about my kind. Otherwise, it’d be best to stay hidden for as long as possible. This is my burden to bear alone.”

  I collapsed onto the bed again, limbs heavy. My skull throbbed from all the overthinking. I shut my eyes. Just for a second.

  I waited for sleep.

  It didn’t come.

  “Screw it. I can’t…sleep?”

  I was aloft in a giant cage drifting in an endless sky.

  Floating. Weightless. Caged in an endless sky. The metal was cold under my legs, the feeling too familiar. A shiver ran down my spine as a sense of familiarity scratched the back of my brain.

  Suddenly, all my memories of being here came flooding back.

  This is where I ended up when I died. I remembered. But…I still can’t remember who I am. Why only that?

  I scanned the entire place. It was empty. I didn’t see the woman, the sky full of floating people, or the giant hand that tried to crush me before. Just the cage and an endless sky of wispy clouds.

  “No. No, no, no.” I scrambled to the bars, my breath sharp. I looked down. My stomach lurched. “Did I die again?!”

  “No, you’re just asleep,” a voice spoke closely into my ear—too close, too soft, too warm. Like breath against my skin. But there was no breath.

  I jolted, a gasp catching in my throat. My back hit the bars with a metallic clang.

  A woman stood behind me—too still, hands clasped neatly behind her back like she had always been there. She had no eyes, mouth, nose, or ears. Just a smooth, featureless skin. Her body was black and featureless, like a giant doll carved from metallic shadows. But her hair—it moved. Silver strands slithered and curled in the air and around her figure, weightless, shifting like a living thing.

  “Hello, you adorable little thing!”

  Her voice was bright. Cheerful. Sweet.

  It didn’t belong.