Allen thought he was going to scream.
But when that shadow truly fell over him, he even forgot to breathe. The Demon King rose very slowly, like a mountain slowly rising out of the night, without a sound, yet dimming every light in the hall by several shades. The candle flames on both sides seemed pressed down from above, all of them shrinking by the same length at once, and every shadow in the great hall came alive, creeping slowly across the floor and the pillars.
Allen was still standing where he'd been, as if his feet had put down roots. He watched the Demon King descend from on high, step by step, his black robe trailing behind him as if he were bringing the whole of the darkness down from the throne with him. The two Queens withdrew to either side, making way for him. Vera lowered her head, her eyes on the floor. Vivian's smile was gone too, her chin raised slightly, as if waiting for a verdict she had known about long ago.
The Demon King stopped in front of him.
It was very sudden. Allen had always assumed he would lower his head, close his eyes, do something to avoid that face. But he didn't. He kept his eyes open and met the Demon King's gaze, as if some force had him by the back of the neck and was making him lift his face. Again he saw those dark red eyes, saw that face almost identical to his own, yet cold as a stone statue. Too close. So close Allen could smell the very faint cold scent on the other man, like old wood mixed with iron, cool enough to make his skin prickle.
The Demon King raised his hand.
Allen thought he was going to hit him, or grab him by the throat, and his body flinched back before he could think. But the Demon King only touched a finger to his forehead. The fingertip was very cold, like a small piece of jade fished out of the depths of winter. Allen's mind hummed, and his whole body seemed to be put on pause; he couldn't even blink.
"Your soul is not like an ordinary human's," the Demon King said.
His voice wasn't loud, yet it seemed to pour straight into Allen's mind through that finger on his forehead. Allen felt a layer of his consciousness being peeled back, as if an invisible hand had gently turned over the topmost page in his head. The memories of the plane, the terror of the fall, the blurry shadows of his family, were all lifted like sheets of paper and held there, waiting for someone to read them.
"You should have felt it yourself," the Demon King went on, taking his fingertip from Allen's forehead. "Ever since you woke, your body has been growing lighter, thinner... as though something inside were trying to break free."
Allen's breath caught.
He really had felt it; he just couldn't have put it into words. Ever since waking, he'd had a very subtle feeling of seeing the world through some kind of layer. When his hand touched things, it was as if through water; when his feet stepped on the floor, it was like sinking into cotton. He'd thought it was his injuries, exhaustion, fright. But once the Demon King said it out loud, those sensations suddenly came sharply into focus. It had been there all along... all along inside his body, like a second heart beating.
"That is because your soul is no longer what it was," the Demon King said. "It is becoming closer to us... but your body is still a human thing."
Allen looked up, his lips white. "So what? You're going to turn me into the same kind of thing as you?"
The Demon King looked at him for a while. The gaze was heavy, as if weighing something. Then he gave a faint smile, a curve so slight Allen couldn't tell whether it was meant to reassure or to mock.
"Not 'turn you into the same as us,'" he said. "Give back to you the form you were always meant to have."
Allen didn't understand... or rather, he didn't want to know at all. He just felt as if he'd been shoved into fog. Every sentence seemed to drift in from far away; it sounded reasonable, but when he thought it over, it was all empty. He could only grab hold of the most surface-level meaning: they were going to do something to his body, something serious... and there was no room to refuse.
"Your soul is rejecting this body." Vera spoke up. Her voice came from beside him, not loud but very clear, like an extremely thin blade slicing a gap through the fog. "If this continues, you will grow less and less able to control yourself. It will not be death. It will be something more troublesome than death. You will become a defective thing, half human and half demon, belonging neither to this side nor able to return to that one."
Allen whipped his head around to look at her. Vera's expression hadn't changed; it was still that same cold look, as if she were stating that one plus one equals two. But Allen heard something else in her words. More troublesome than death. Half human, half demon. The words were like shards of ice, dropping one by one into his chest.
"Your body must be adjusted," Vera said. "Otherwise, you will slowly lose even the knowledge of who you are."
"And if you do this to me now, I'll know who I am?" Allen's voice finally rose, even cracking a little. He sounded like someone pushed too far, or someone who had finally found an outlet to vent. "You dragged me into a place like this, and now you want to change my body, and you're telling me it's for my own good?"
Vera fell silent. On the other side, Vivian gave a soft sigh, as if she had long expected a scene like this. The Demon King still stood in front of him, his shadow covering Allen entirely, like a night he could never shake off.
"Do you think we have time to spare?" the Demon King said abruptly. His tone hadn't changed; it was still flat, yet Allen felt the air around him grow heavier. As if a great hand were pressing down from above, settling on the back of his neck, and slowly pushing downward.
"When you were swept into the Interstice, your soul was marked. Left untreated, those marks will slowly spread. By then, you may not even be able to keep a human shape." The Demon King paused, as if giving Allen time to digest it. "The others are not like you. They were only passing through. You, on the other hand, I fished out. Your soul and my soul are the same thread, and here it will awaken. Do you think the body you have now can contain it?"
Allen opened his mouth to argue, but nothing came out. He thought of those currents of light, those images scattered through his mind, that feeling of floating up out of his own body. All of it had really happened; it hadn't been his imagination. At least half of what the Demon King said was true... Maybe not all of it. Maybe they were hiding something. But he couldn't tell. Right now he couldn't even tell whom he ought to believe.
"Then what will I turn into?" Allen asked hoarsely. He didn't know why he asked. Maybe he just wanted to grab hold of something certain in a situation that had spun completely out of control.
"You will sleep," the Demon King said. "When you wake, your body will suit you better. It will not hurt, and you will not die. You will only need a few days to adjust."
He said it far too calmly. So calmly that the back of Allen's neck went cold. It won't hurt, you won't die. What kind of guarantee was that? It was like someone pushing him through a black door, patting him on the back and saying, "Go on in, you won't fall." But no one would say what was on the other side of the door.
"Do I have a choice?" Allen asked.
The Demon King didn't answer. He only raised his hand and made an extremely slight gesture. The two Queens closed in from either side, like shadows that had been waiting there all along. Allen was taken by the arms, one on the left and one on the right, and his body seemed to be lifted clean off the floor. He didn't struggle. He couldn't. His legs were weak, and he hurt everywhere. Worse, he found he didn't even have the strength to ask one more question, as though something were flowing out of his body bit by bit.
"We begin at midnight." The Demon King's voice came from behind him. Allen didn't turn around. He didn't want to. He was afraid that if he looked back, he would see those red eyes still hanging in midair, like two lamps left burning just for him.
He was helped out of the great hall, and the doors swung slowly shut behind him with a deep, heavy thud. The wind outside was very cold and cut straight into his collar. Allen's one bare foot touched the stone steps, and the cold made him flinch. The sky was still purple, pressing down thick and heavy, as if it would never clear.
"Don't make such a sour face." Vivian walked on his left, her voice light and soft, as if coaxing a child who wouldn't go to sleep. "Your big sisters will keep watch over you the whole time. When you wake up, we'll be the first thing you see."
"I didn't ask you to keep watch," Allen said.
Vivian smiled as if she hadn't heard the barb in his words. "Such a tough talker~ When the time actually comes, you might even call me Big Sister."
Allen didn't answer. He was too tired... so tired that even getting angry felt like a strain. Vera walked on his right without a word, yet her hand held him steadily, as if she were afraid he might collapse at any moment. Allen looked at the long corridor ahead, leading who knew where, and suddenly thought: if he tore free of these two right now and turned and ran, how far would he get? Ten steps? Five? Maybe he'd be caught before he even made it back to the hall doors. He might even be locked up. He closed his eyes for a moment and drove the thought out of his head... No rush. He told himself: first live through tonight... first wake up.
As for the rest, there would always be a way.