Caelum hadn't slept.
Not truly.
When he closed his eyes, the devil didn't wait anymore. She whispered in mirrors, in puddles, in reflections from chrome lampposts. Sometimes her voice echoed through people's mouths—strangers on trains, servers at cafés, allies in council meetings. Just a word. Just a sentence. Just enough.
"You've started sounding like me," she said one night, reflected in the antique silver fork at a dinner table.
He didn't flinch.
Power felt louder these days. His Whisper Parliament had enacted reforms across five cities. He was now a myth spoken by children and politicians alike. His name, forged in vengeance, had grown teeth.
But so had the mask.
The devil asked questions he wasn't prepared to answer.
"Why do you hesitate before kindness?"
"When was the last time you lied without reason?"
"If I called in your soul tonight, what would be left to take?"
Caelum poured another drink. Didn't finish it. Walked to the mirror, stared long.
The reflection blinked first.
Not him.
Her.
He smashed it.
But the whisper came anyway.
"Break glass all you want. I live in what you've become."
Outside, protests surged in support of policies Caelum hadn't even proposed—they'd invented his ideology, carried it further than he meant. Like a fire building its own wind.
Inside, Caelum sat alone in his room, hands ink-stained from midnight planning, and whispered to no one:
"Is this still mine?"
No one answered.
Not even her.