Page 116 of The Devil May Care

I wave a hand at the parchment. “Look at it. Seven realms, all color-coded, each more dramatic than the last. Crimson, Viridian, Cobalt—Hell is literally a rainbow.”

He tilts his head, still not getting it, which only makes it funnier. “And this… is humorous to you?”

“Yes,” I say, a little too eagerly, considering. “There are people backhome, on Earth, who think rainbows are evil. Like actually evil. That they’re some sort of moral threat.”

He stares at me in silence. Not confused anymore. Just… stunned. “You mean the symbol of light fractured into wavelengths? That rainbow?”

“Oh, absolutely,” I say, biting back another laugh. “Because back home it’s associated with queerness. Being free to be who you are and love who you love regardless of gender or sex. A lot of us use it to show that we’re part of the community or that we support it. But some people—bigots, mostly—see it as corrupting or dangerous. Like they tell us we’re going to…uh…here.” I gesture around us, wiggling my fingers. There are entire movements to erase it from schools, cities, people. Outlaw it. Ban it.”

“Ban rainbows?” Caziel slowly lowers his gaze to the map again, jaw tight. “I thought…” He hesitates. “I assumed humans had moved past that.”

“Some have,” I say quietly. “A lot haven’t. Especially where I’m from.”

He looks back at me, eyes sharp but clouded. “So, you celebrate a rainbow, and they punish you for it.”

“Pretty much.”

“And who you choose to love, or how you exist in your own skin, can make you a target?”

I nod once. “People have died for it. People are still dying for it.”

“For love?”

“For the people we love. For who we are. But it’s not all bad. There’s still some beauty left. Pride, for example.”

He doesn’t speak for a long time. Just stares at the colors bleeding across the map like stained glass, war and magic and fire wrapped in every shade.

“In Crimson,” he says finally, voice low but sure, “you could stand in the street and claim your heart as loudly as you wanted. No one would question it. Male and male, female and female, it matters not in Crimson.”

“Provided you’re both Daemari?” The laugh that slips out this time isn’t amused. It’s hollow. “How messed up is it that we call you guys the bad ones. The punishment. And yet demons—Daemari—can be more accepting than humans.”

His expression shifts—something wounded, something full of fire. “We are not perfect. We are still full of judgment and rules and violence, but we are not what your world made us out to be. We are not all monsters.”

“I know,” I say. And I do. “No group of people is all bad or all good. I don’t even think individuals are. We all have shadows and darkness.”

He’s still watching me. Not just my face, but something deeper. The quiet admission beneath my words. Maybe the part of me that never got to be loud about it.

“You, Kay Ward, are exactly who you were meant to be. Only the non-worthy would believe otherwise.”

And just like that, I forget to breathe.

The warmth between us sharpens. He doesn’t reach for me, doesn’t move, but something seems to reach for me—his voice, maybe, or his gaze.

“I would not tolerate a world that feared you, demonized you.” he says. “But I could burn it down.”

My throat tightens. He doesn’t meanmeme. He means people in general. Caziel has shown he is a compassionate man, even if he buries it down in the depths of his heart. It’s there, the care he has for others. He’s helping me, after all. He doesn’t look away from me, even as silence settles in the heated room. I’m not used to being looked at like that, like I’m not a riddle or a risk or a mistake waiting to happen. Just something, someone, worthy.

His hand shifts slightly on the map between us, brushing a crease from the parchment. And then, very deliberately, he lifts it and places it—lightly, carefully—over mine. Not a claim. Not a question. Just contact. His palm is warm. Callused. He doesn’t grip, doesn’t press. He simply lets our hands touch in the hush between his world and mine.

I exhale slowly.

“Do you celebrate it?” he asks, voice softer now. “This Pride. In your world.”

I nod. “We try. There are parades, art, music… even glitter. A lot of glitter.”

He tilts his head. “That sounds… chaotic.”

I smile. “It is. Beautifully. Loudly. Sometimes messily. But it’s alsohealing. It’s about being seen. Being yourself. And not apologizing for it.”