Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The car that arrived at the south entrance was unmarked.

It came through the lower gate without ceremony - no outriders, no flags, not even a signal to the waiting staff that someone important was inside. It simply rolled to a stop with that casual, utilitarian finality that spoke not of privilege, but function.

A government plate hung on the bumper, pale with age and too clean to be honest. No crest. No seal.

The rain had begun again. A thin, steady drizzle that turned the air to silver and softened the palace stone beneath the wheels. It hissed quietly under the tyres as the vehicle came to a halt just outside the south entrance.

There was no protocol waiting. No flags. No press. Only two members of the palace guard and the discreet presence of Steven, who stood to one side beneath the shelter of the archway, coat collar turned up against the wind.

The rear door opened before the driver could so much as move.

He stepped out.

No umbrella. No hesitation.

His coat was dark and civilian - military cut, perhaps, but stripped of decoration. Buttoned to the throat. He wore gloves, leather, and walked like a man who knew where he was going. The kind of pace that came from long habit rather than arrogance. Like a wolf trained to move through cities.

He nodded once to Steven. Didn’t shake his hand. Steven didn’t offer it.

Lucifer watched it all unfold from the upper window, the line of his body still and angled slightly away so that only his shoulder pressed against the pane. He made no move to go down. That wasn’t the arrangement. And besides, he didn’t want to be polite.

Alastor Hartfelt.

The American.

Lucifer had been informed of the appointment three days ago. Not consulted - informed. As though he weren’t the King.

A sealed folder had arrived by morning courier, thick with staples and blackout bars, and Steven had lingered just long enough to murmur, “The Prime Minister suggests we cooperate.” Which, of course, meant the Americans had requested a dog beneath the royal table, and the Prime Minister had agreed to let it sniff.

Lucifer had read the file. Twice. The second time with a drink in hand.

Hartfelt was not a standard envoy. He was not a career diplomat or ceremonial attaché. He was not meant to be seen.

He was meant to notice.

Occupied France. Post-war Japan. Some minor public role in D.C. that vanished during the Korean War. A single blacked-out line beneath “Special Projects” that suggested something best not inquired after.

The sort of life that didn’t rise through the ranks. It clawed its way out of something buried and dangerous and came back with teeth.

Lucifer had hated him before they’d ever shared a room.

He turned from the window as the man vanished inside.

There were a dozen places he could have arranged to meet him: the south parlour, the ambassador’s receiving room, the secondary library. But no. He’d chosen the crimson drawing room. Deliberately cavernous, high-ceilinged, and slightly too cold, where the portraits glared down and the heavy velvet curtains had never quite lost their dust.

It was not a room built to soothe. It was built to remind.

He took his seat there now, in the wide-backed chair beside the unlit hearth. The fire had been prepared but not sparked. The shadows lingered in the corners.

When Hartfelt was shown in, Lucifer didn’t rise.

The man paused just past the doorway. His coat was gone now, his suit a deep, near-black charcoal that caught none of the light. No insignia. No colours. Not even a tie pin. Lucifer’s gaze caught on the absence. It was intentional. The kind of omission that demanded to be noticed. A statement from someone who knew precisely which rules he was ignoring.

But not all of them.

Hartfelt inclined his head in a shallow bow - no deeper than protocol demanded, but clean. Practised. He met Lucifer’s gaze without hesitation. Not challenging - not quite - but unbroken in a way that suggested deliberate choice. When he did look away, it was only to take in Lucifer’s hands resting on the chair arms, his eyes flicking there and back again as if committing something to memory.

“Your Majesty,” he said, perfectly level. “Apologies that I'm early, I was uncertain if I’d be searched on arrival.”

Lucifer tilted his head a fraction, noting the order of it: the title first, the excuse second. Dry. Polite. Not submissive.

“It's excused.”

His voice was polished and precise - Mid-Atlantic, neutral on the surface, but too composed to be native. The kind of accent that had been learned, not inherited, shaped by radios, rehearsals, and necessity. There was no warmth in it, but it wasn’t cold either. Just… constructed.

Lucifer gestured toward the empty chair opposite his own.

Hartfelt moved forward and sat with the careful poise of a man who could throw the chair if he needed to. Not relaxed. Not posturing either. Just aware of exits, of corners, of weight.

Lucifer studied him fully now. Early forties, if the records were accurate. A lean, long face shaped by heat and hunger, high-cheeked and narrow-jawed. There were fine lines at the corners of his mouth. Not laugh lines, despite the faint smile that had yet to leave his face. His hair was combed back with military discipline but not vanity. A single curl resisted the order near his temple.

Lucifer found himself watching it longer than he liked.

“You’re here as an observer,” he said finally. “You are not to interfere with royal staff, disrupt procedure, or speak to the press. You will submit all reports through Steven, and all findings will remain classified. Do you understand?”

Hartfelt inclined his head slightly. “I do.”

“There is no formal connection between this palace and foreign intelligence.”

The man’s mouth twitched, smile growing.

“Of course not.”

Lucifer let the pause sit between them. Then: “Do you find that amusing?”

“Only in the way most fiction is.”

Lucifer’s gaze sharpened. “Let me be clear, Mr Hartfelt. You are not here because I requested you. You are here because your superiors believe it beneficial to have a… specialist presence on the grounds. Your clearance has been granted, but it can be revoked at any time. If you intend to remain, you will follow instruction. You will show respect. And you will remember where you are.”

Hartfelt didn’t flinch. “Understood.”

Lucifer exhaled through his nose, long and quiet. He rose to his feet slowly, letting the movement settle.

He let the silence hang like smoke. Hartfelt didn’t fidget, didn’t speak, didn’t glance away. He simply sat upright, hands loose, one ankle resting over the opposite knee, as though he'd been summoned not for a conversation but an assessment, and knew how to pass one.

Lucifer disliked him intensely.

There was a quiet knock, then Steven stepped in.

He didn’t bother with the full greeting - just a nod in Lucifer’s direction before turning to the American. “Mr Hartfelt. We’re ready for you now.”

Hartfelt rose fluidly. No cuff adjustments. No wasted motion. He inclined his head again, precisely as he had before.

“Your Majesty.”

Then he turned and followed Steven out of the room, his steps silent even on the old wood, like the building itself had agreed to keep his presence discreet.

Just before the door closed, Hartfelt’s head turned a fraction - not enough for Steven to notice, but enough for Lucifer to catch the quick, sidelong sweep of his gaze back into the room. It might have been habit. It might not have been.

Lucifer remained seated.

He waited until the door clicked shut before letting his hands uncurl where they’d been resting on the chair arms. His nails, trimmed to perfection, had left faint half-moons in the velvet.

He exhaled slowly through his nose.

The worst part wasn’t the man. It wasn’t the intrusion or the insult of being saddled with an American spy in his own home. It wasn’t even the fact that Hartfelt was clearly talented.

It was that he couldn’t say no.

He was the King. Nominally. But the war had rewritten the world, and the monarchy with it. Unlike in his father’s time, the king no longer held reins - only ribbons. Ceremonial. Decorative. Smiling while others drove. And those drivers, of late, had been increasingly fond of bringing foreign hands to the wheel.

The Americans were watching Europe like it might go feral again. Every whisper of revolution, every change in oil supply or border treaty sent their diplomats crawling. Hartfelt was here because the palace had become a point of concern. Not publicly. Not officially. But something had shifted.

Too much movement in too short a time.

Lilith’s death, followed by the crowning of Charlotte as heir - a girl, no less. Whispers in Parliament. Questions in the papers. The Prime Minister had soothed them with talk of tradition and stability, but Lucifer knew the weight of it. The expectation.

Produce a male heir, or at very least a spare.

Remarry. Reassure. Return to form.

He had done none of those things.

And now this - this foreign spectre in a tailored coat, haunting the edges of his corridors under the guise of support.

He’d been told it was about cooperation. Regional unity. Counterintelligence concerns. The file had used the phrase “cultural proximity asset.” As though Hartfelt’s bastardised roots - coloured, Southern, shined up for military precision - made him uniquely positioned to navigate both sides of the palace’s fracture.

He’d wear the crown. He’d host the galas. He’d smile, and wave, and deliver meaningless speeches about progress and legacy.

And all the while, the Americans would move their pieces.

Their man had already arrived. Already begun watching.

Lucifer lowered his hand and stared at the cold hearth.

The silence in the room had shifted. Not just emptiness now. Expectation. Pressure. That quiet, suffocating stillness that came before something changed shape forever.

He closed his eyes.

Not for long. Just enough to feel the ache behind them.

There were too many rooms in this palace. Too many mirrors. Too many old portraits that refused to be taken down. Everything whispered. Everything watched. And now, so would he.

Chapter Text

The rain hadn’t stopped.

It slid down the tall windows in thin rivulets, each one catching the grey light and warping the garden walk into a soft blur of greens and stone. The lawn below was empty - no umbrellas, no attendants, no unnecessary displays of purpose. Weather like this cleared the palace the way a command never could. Even the pigeons had vanished from the eaves.

He didn’t move when the door behind him opened.

No announcement. Just the quiet click of brass and the soft hush of leather soles against carpet. Familiar, unobtrusive. The sound of someone who had walked through that doorway for thirty years and knew precisely how not to overstep.

Steven didn’t speak straight away. He never did. He gave space, just enough to be respectful.

“They’ve met,” he said at last.

Lucifer’s gaze didn’t shift. “Where?”

“East parlour. The Princess invited him in. Tea.”

A beat.

“He declined.”

That earned a breath - half a sound, almost a laugh. But not quite. Lucifer lowered his hand from where it had been resting on the sill and let it fall loosely to his side.

“How American.”

Steven didn’t answer.

Lucifer turned slowly from the window, his expression unreadable. The weight of the crown never quite sat behind his eyes - too proud for that - but it lived in his posture. Even now, informal and unguarded, he held himself like a man accustomed to being seen, but not known.

“Do you think he’ll behave?” he asked, voice low.

Steven’s face remained composed. “He doesn’t blink enough.”

Lucifer paused. “That’s your criteria?”

Steven’s mouth twitched. “It’s a start.”

Lucifer paced back toward the hearth. It hadn’t been lit in days; the ash was cold, the logs untouched. He didn’t call for it to be lit. Instead, he let his fingertips brush the carved stone mantle, tracing lines worn smooth by centuries.

“He’s dangerous,” he said, more to the silence than the man beside him.

Steven gave a slow nod. “Yes.”

“Brilliant.”

“Yes.”

Lucifer’s fingers tightened slightly on the stone. “And yet we let him in.”

“We were told to,” Steven said simply. “And it was made clear that refusal was... not advantageous.”

Lucifer let the weight of that settle.

He turned his back to the hearth and faced Steven fully. “My daughter is not some transitional heir to be measured and prodded and handed a script.”

“No,” Steven said. Quiet, but firm. “She’s not.”

Lucifer’s jaw tightened. “She’s not Lilith, and she’s not me. But she’s strong, and I’ll be damned before I let them poison her.”

Steven watched him closely.

“She’s already passed his first test.”

Lucifer arched a brow. “How so?”

“She didn’t flinch at the sight of him.”

Silence stretched between them.

Lucifer inhaled slowly through his nose, held it, then released. “And what did you think of him?”

Steven’s pause was not long, but deliberate. “He’s not playing a role. He is what he is.”

Lucifer frowned. “Which is?”

“Sharp. Controlled. Loyal, but not blindly. He’ll serve the agenda. But only while it aligns with his own sense of order.”

Lucifer gave a dry, bitter sound. “The Americans sent a wolf in a waistcoat.”

“They sent someone who could do the job.”

“Yes,” Lucifer murmured. “But they didn’t say whose.”

He stepped forward, brushing past Steven. “Fetch my coat.”

Steven straightened. “You’re going down there.”

“I’m going to take the long way to the east wing,” Lucifer replied, already moving toward the door. “And if I happen to pass the parlour window on the way, that is no one’s business but mine.”

Steven followed without hesitation. Not beside him. Not behind. Just offset, like always. Close enough to catch a fall that would never come.

“As Your Majesty commands,” he said softly.

Lucifer didn’t look back. But for the first time all day, his pace quickened.

The ancient corridors of the palace whispered when they were quiet.

Old stone had a way of remembering footsteps, where they paused, where they hesitated, where they turned back. Lucifer knew the sound of this place better than most. He could tell which aides scurried and which ministers loitered. He had lived beneath this ceiling all his life and still found it vast, too cold in the mornings and too still at night. A house of portraits and memory.

Steven said nothing as they moved through the west gallery and down the short passage that cut toward the east wing. They passed no one. The staff had learned not to linger when the King walked without direction.

They reached the edge of the parlour corridor before Lucifer stopped.

The carpet here was deep, muffling all sound. The windows ran tall along one side, pale light spilling across the white panelling. The door to the parlour stood open a fraction.

Voices, just low enough to pass as private.

Lucifer didn’t move. 

He stood beside the archway, not peering in but… listening. A hand braced against the smooth curve of the window frame. He could feel the damp of the rain pressed faintly against the glass.

“…a great deal of pressure,” Charlie was saying. Calm. Thoughtful. Her voice no longer held the naive brightness she’d carried in childhood, but it was still soft around the edges. A voice that welcomed. That soothed.

“It’s part of the job,” Hartfelt had said. Polished and even. “But some carry it with more grace than others.”

She let out a faint breath that might have been a laugh.

“You’re remarkably diplomatic for someone in intelligence.”

A beat.

“I’m rather observant for someone who shouldn’t exist on record.”

Lucifer’s mouth drew tight. He didn’t like the sound of that voice. Not because it was wrong, but because it wasn’t. It was level. Unthreatening. Just faintly amused. He knew how men like that worked.

Charlie, however, did not rise to it.

“My mother would have had you eating out of her hand in ten minutes.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Hartfelt replied.

“You’re not what I expected.”

“Likewise, Your Highness.”

Lucifer stepped back.

The reply was smooth, unhurried - the sort of line that could have been delivered to anyone. And yet something in its weight, in the evenness of tone, struck Lucifer as the kind of thing that might have sounded altogether different if aimed at him. He pushed the thought aside before it could take shape.

He didn’t enter. He didn’t interrupt. He turned down the far corridor and continued walking, as though the detour had been meaningless.

Still, the sound of that voice clung at the edge of his hearing, the way a scent lingered after its source had gone. Broader than the words, and perhaps meant for more than the person they were addressed to.

Steven matched his pace without asking questions.

They didn’t speak until they’d passed the tapestry at the next junction. One of Lilith’s additions, a hunting scene, all deep greens and deer with bright eyes. The kind of thing that had once earned quiet gasps from foreign dignitaries and amused glances from Lilith herself.

Now it hung slightly crooked.

Lucifer adjusted it with one finger as they passed.

“She mentioned Lilith,” he said.

Steven didn’t answer. He never did, unless the statement wanted it.

Lucifer didn’t press.

Instead, he let the silence stretch, long and thin like wire. The corridor narrowed ahead, lined with smaller portraits - former ministers, distant cousins, forgotten monarchs whose names even he had to squint to remember.

He didn’t stop walking.

“Do you think she likes him?” he asked, more sharply than he meant to.

Steven’s pause was brief, but noticeable.

“She didn’t dislike him.”

Lucifer’s mouth twitched. Not a smile.

“Then he’s already done his job.”

There was something brittle in his voice now. The shape of it surprised even him.

They reached the turning toward the upper west stairs, where the light thinned into cold silver and the sound of footsteps swallowed itself.

Lucifer slowed.

“He spoke of her to her fondly,” he murmured, as though the admission needed to be extracted slowly.

Steven studied him for a moment, eyes unreadable beneath the edge of his brow.

“Do you think it was genuine?” he asked.

“I think men like that don’t speak without calculation.”

“And if the calculation was genuine?”

Lucifer didn’t answer.

He stood at the top of the stairs, one hand on the carved railing, gaze fixed somewhere past the bannister. Past the walls. Past the years.

Lucifer let the silence thicken. Let it settle in his chest like ash.

Then, in a different voice, lighter, cooler: “Keep him busy. I don’t want him trailing Charlie's shadow just yet.”

Steven nodded. “He’s scheduled to review the guard postings this evening. I’ll see he stays occupied.”

Lucifer turned without another word and began his descent, the cane clicking once with each step.

Behind him, the portrait of Queen Lilith watched from the end of the corridor. Framed in shadow and smiling, as if she knew something he didn’t.

Chapter Text

His main dining parlour was smaller than most imagined.

It seated twelve, not twelve hundred. No grand chandeliers loomed from the ceiling. No gold leaf clung to the cornices. The walls were panelled in a pale oak that softened the candlelight into something almost reverent, and the ceiling arched high and spare above, as though reluctant to lower itself over royalty. At its centre, the long mahogany table gleamed like wet lacquer.

There was no orchestra here. No tapestries of conquest.

The only true indulgence was the view.

Three tall windows opened onto the eastern courtyard, where the gardens blurred into the growing dusk. It was raining again - soft, soundless rain that turned the hedgerows to charcoal silhouettes and laid a watery sheen over the paving stones. Distant lamps flickered like stars.

No one ate before the King, so when Lucifer entered, the room rose.

Charlie stood first, her chair already drawn half back from the table. She moved gracefully - no hesitation, no rustle of skirts. Her gown was cream, finely stitched with thread that caught no light, and the simple twist of her hair exposed the nape of her neck with understated defiance. A small tiara and minimal adornment, yet she glowed with something more potent than regalia: certainty. She had bled for that certainty. She had earned it.

She smiled.

The rest stood in her wake. Habit. Deference. The slow unwinding of ceremony.

Lord Merion, bent nearly double with age, his milky eyes glinting behind spectacles. He had survived four coronations, a coup, and still dressed like it was 1892. Lady Blythe, draped in eternal black lace, her gloves pressed tightly to her wrists as though the grief beneath might spill out if loosened. The Archbishop, skeletal and unsmiling, wearing a ring that hadn’t left his finger since before Charlie was born. The Defence Minister, florid and overfed, whose smile soured any room he entered.

The architects of continuity, or at least the performance of it.

And-

Lucifer’s gaze halted.

Alastor Hartfelt.

Seated two places down on the left.

He sat like a ghost might - quiet, tangible, undeniable. One hand rested lightly on the polished table edge, the other on his knee, fingers curved with surgical calm. His posture was immaculate. Every line of his suit deliberate. The colour tonight was deep red - so dark it passed for black in the candlelight - fitted modernly, the lapels wide and unforgiving. There was no insignia. No decoration. Just a white pocket square folded into geometric obedience. No tie pin. No visible watch.

And yet Lucifer was certain he kept time.

When he rose - at the proper moment, as he ought - he did so without performance. Not stiff. Not deferential. Just steady. Like a man who knew the weight of rooms, and how to balance them.

Charlie’s voice broke the stillness with soft authority.

“Your Majesty.”

Lucifer inclined his head. The barest movement. Enough to acknowledge. Not enough to concede.

“Please,” he said, crossing the final steps to the head of the table. “Be seated.”

As the chairs scraped back into place, Hartfelt’s gaze followed Lucifer the short distance to the head of the table - steady, unhurried, and unbroken until Lucifer had sat.

Steven stepped in behind him, silent as a drawn breath. He pulled the chair out with the familiarity of three decades of service. Lucifer sat without looking at him.

The rest followed suit.

Chairs creaked. Fabric whispered. Cutlery was rebalanced. Servants moved like smoke along the walls, replenishing wine, smoothing corners, keeping their eyes low and their ears open. The hum of polite conversation tried to stir itself back into being.

Lucifer did not speak.

His gaze moved once, deliberately, to the place setting in front of Hartfelt. A full setting. Silver polished. Water poured. Everything in place.

He hadn’t been invited.

Someone had assumed, or someone had been told.

Lucifer picked up his napkin with slow precision, folding it across his lap as the rain tapped once against the glass behind him.

The meal began. But Lucifer had already lost his appetite.

“Mr Hartfelt,” Lucifer said, his voice smooth as poured wine, “I don’t recall extending you a dinner invitation.”

The table quieted. Not wholly, but just enough to make the space around the words stretch.

Hartfelt didn’t flinch.

He didn’t stiffen, didn’t blink, didn’t so much as shift in his chair. He met Lucifer’s gaze across the table with that same composed stillness - the expression of a man who knew exactly where he was, and what weight the question carried.

“I was advised,” he said mildly, “that familiarity with internal protocol would better serve my observations.”

The words landed with the softness of silk and the precision of a scalpel.

Lucifer reached for his wine. The stem was cool between his fingers. He turned it once, twice, before lifting it to his lips.

“Observations rarely require cutlery,” he said, and sipped.

The silence threatened to deepen.

Charlie cut through it with a gentle cough - not nervous, not panicked. Just enough to draw the air back into motion.

“I asked him to attend,” she said, evenly.

Lucifer looked at her.

Not harshly. Not indulgently. Just long enough to test her balance.

She didn’t look away.

“He’s not the only one expected to adapt,” she added, her voice measured but resolute.

There was a pause and Lucifer inclined his head. The smallest tilt. Not acceptance. But recognition.

The meal resumed.

Plates arrived like clockwork, carried in by gloved hands. The first course was some delicate arrangement of trout and preserved lemon, set with edible flowers and fennel curls. The scent was faint - citrus, butter, something herbal - but it barely registered.

Lucifer made no move to taste it.

Around the table, the rhythm of civility resumed.

Porcelain met silver with quiet regularity. Crystal glasses refilled themselves on cue. A servant swept a crumb from Lady Blythe’s place setting without being seen.

Behind him, Steven stood unmoving. A silent pillar behind the throne.

Lucifer's own hands remained still above his plate.

He was watching.

The American’s fingers moved with studied elegance, selecting his cutlery like a pianist choosing keys. Not dainty. Not theatrical. Simply correct. As though everything in the room had been placed for him to understand, and he was beginning with the tools.

There was no pleasure on his face. No discomfort, either. He ate like a soldier used to better meals than expected. Neatly. Thoughtfully. Without indulgence.

Lucifer broke the silence again, his voice cool and idle. “Mr Hartfelt. I hear you’ve been exploring the palace. I wasn’t aware your duties extended to the groundskeeper.”

It wasn’t a question.

Hartfelt paused just long enough to place his fork precisely on the edge of his plate before lifting his napkin to his mouth. The gesture was seamless. Measured.

“They don’t, Your Majesty,” he said. “But the Minister suggested I familiarise myself with more than the layout of the grounds.”

Lucifer’s eyes flicked sharply toward Hallam.

The minister, a nervous man at the best of times, paled visibly.

“Only- Only a suggestion, of course,” he stammered. “I thought… given the nature of…”

He trailed off under the weight of Lucifer’s gaze.

Hartfelt turned toward him slightly, the corners of his mouth softening into something almost kind.

“It’s quite all right,” he said, tone dry but not cruel. “I am aware this will be a time of adjustment for us all.”

Lucifer’s teeth met with a soft, deliberate click as he set his fork down.

He didn’t speak.

Not yet.

But the temperature of the room had shifted.

The fish on his plate cooled untouched. And across the table, the man who wasn’t meant to be there sat perfectly at ease.

Charlie’s smile flicked between them - light, deliberate, warm with the exact edge needed to keep the conversation from curdling.

“It’s a pleasure having him here,” she said, voice carrying the kind of ease that only came from careful practice. “We were discussing the changes being made in the gardens. I asked if native flowers from Mr Hartfelt’s home might suit the eastern terrace.”

Lucifer didn’t move his head. Only his gaze shifted, landing on her with the weight of an unspoken question.

“Were you,” he said flatly.

Across the table, Hartfelt tilted his chin no more than a degree. “Hypothetically,” he offered, the word laced with the faintest curl of humour.

There was a flicker - there, just there - at the edge of his mouth. Amusement, maybe. Or invitation.

Lucifer didn’t take it.

Not yet.

The air around the table thinned, then eased, like a held breath slowly exhaled. Conversation began to stitch itself back together in quiet threads. Lord Merion leaned toward Lady Blythe to murmur something about the early rainfall affecting this year’s lavender. The Archbishop chewed methodically, eyes half-lidded, fingers as immaculate as altar silver.

Steven remained silent at Lucifer’s shoulder. A monolith in tailored black, still as stone, but Lucifer felt his awareness, the small recalibrations of a man who could measure threat by breath alone.

Lucifer turned his wine glass between his fingers, letting the candlelight glint off the deep garnet of the liquid.

“You know,” he said after a moment, tone conversational in the same way a knife might be ornamental, “when I first visited America, I was warned not to judge your country by its diplomats. I was told the real decisions were made in smaller rooms.”

Hartfelt didn’t glance up. “That was good advice.”

“So,” Lucifer continued, the barest edge sharpening his words, “should I be relieved that you’re not a diplomat, or concerned that you’ve found your way to my table anyway?”

That made Hartfelt look at him. His gaze was steady. Not confrontational or deferential. Just watching.

Amber. Brown. Not quite either. Those eyes were like firelight through a scotch glass. Something unreadable flickering behind it.

“I was told,” Hartfelt said, low and precise, “to be where I’d be most useful.”

Lucifer didn’t blink. “And where is that?”

A pause.

Hartfelt’s voice didn’t rise. If anything, it quieted. “Where I can see.”

His eyes held there a beat too long, as though the words had been meant for more than the room.

The table didn’t freeze, but it tensed. The quiet carried weight.

Lucifer’s expression didn’t change, but the air near him cooled by a degree.

“See what?” he asked.

Hartfelt’s eyes didn’t waver. “Whatever I need to.”

It wasn’t a challenge, it wasn’t a threat. Not openly. Just a statement of fact.

That was the problem.

Charlie’s spoon met her saucer with dainty finality, the porcelain chime just loud enough to draw a line through the tension.

“Mr Hartfelt is quite perceptive,” she said, pleasantly. “He noticed I wasn’t originally right-handed from the way I fold napkins.”

Hartfelt offered a modest shrug, hands folding gently again above his plate. “Just an observation.”

“And you’ve made many?” she asked, eyes bright with mischief.

“Enough.”

The smile she gave in return wasn’t soft. It was precise. Controlled. The smile of a woman who had once watched her mother command a ballroom without uttering a word. It didn’t ask to be believed. It simply was.

“Then I imagine you’ll need months more before you understand anything at all.”

Hartfelt inclined his head, that single rebellious curl catching the candlelight like a fuse about to catch. “Undoubtedly.”

Lucifer lifted his glass. His hand didn’t tremble, but the grip was firmer than necessary.

He hated that voice.

Not because it was insubordinate, though it was, quietly. Not because it had the gall to flirt beneath the skin of propriety.

He hated it because it had learned to bow without breaking. Because it danced on the edge of deference and disdain and dared him to guess which one would come next.

Because it did not kneel.

He drank.

Slowly. Deliberately. Like a man choosing not to speak because silence cut deeper.

“I hope,” he said at last, cool and civil, “our guests find the trout tolerable. I’m told it was bought from an old English fishery. Very proud stock.”

Hartfelt's smile didn't change, but the corners of his eyes warmed, just slightly. Enough for Lucifer to notice.

“It tastes like pride,” he said evenly.

Lucifer’s hand stilled, not obviously, but the wine glass hovered just long enough to betray its weight.

Hartfelt’s attention lingered on him through the lift and set of the glass, watching the motion like it told him something.

Then he set it down.

Hartfelt resumed eating, his knife gliding through the fish with quiet, almost reverent precision. Clean. Intentional. Like a man who had handled sharp things in darker rooms than this one.

And Lucifer, for reasons he couldn’t name - not yet - felt something in his chest move.

Not fear. Not interest. But the first glint of something else.

Chapter Text

It began like ivy. Not loud or sudden. Just a slow, insidious creep that took to the stone when no one was watching.

There was no announcement. No revised seating chart or official memorandum. But within weeks, Alastor Hartfelt’s presence had wrapped itself into the architecture of the palace.

He was everywhere.

Not centre-stage, he was too clever for that. No, he lingered at the edges, spoke sparingly in briefings, never interrupted, never overstepped. But he was always present. Present enough to be known. Present enough to matter. The staff began nodding to him in corridors. At first cautiously, then with something dangerously close to affection. A footman had laughed - laughed - at something he said in the corridor outside the kitchens. The senior chambermaid now consulted him on the timing of deliveries, claiming he “had a better head for timing than any of the guards.” Even the butler - trained under Lilith herself and incapable of warmth - had started referring to him as Mr Hartfelt with a tone that bordered on respect.

And Charlie-

Lucifer didn’t want to look too closely at his relationship with Charlie.

She smiled when he entered a room. Not the way she smiled for the press or the ministers or even Steven - those were polite, princessly things. This was something else. Something that lingered. She deferred to him, not obviously, but in the way her questions curved toward his opinion, her silences lengthened when he was about to speak. She’d taken to sharing observations with him over breakfast, long before Lucifer himself had finished waking.

Once, Lucifer caught her adjusting the lapel of his coat before a briefing.

He said nothing, but he watched.

He watched as Steven - Steven, nicknamed Satan because it was so hard to get him to like you - began exchanging quiet updates with the man during morning walks, like the two of them had somehow reached an understanding he hadn’t authorised. Watched as Charlotte walked with her hands clasped behind her back the same way Hartfelt did when he was thinking. Watched as his own court began to tilt, just slightly, on its axis. And sometimes, when Lucifer caught him at the edge of a room, he found those dark eyes already on him  - not hurried, not embarrassed. Just there. Like he’d been watching for longer than Lucifer had realised.

Gravitational, Lucifer thought bitterly. Like a stone thrown into deep water. Not showy. Not eager. Just inevitable.

And that was the real danger, wasn’t it? Not the observation, or the surveillance, but the way he seemed to belong where he shouldn't.

The garden press event was meant to be unremarkable.

A seasonal fixture. A smile-and-wave. It had been part of the calendar since his father's reign - a gentle reassurance to the public that the monarchy, like the roses, was perennial.

This year, it felt different.

Rain clung to the colonnades in a fine mist, not enough to cancel but enough to soak collars and fray tempers. Journalists huddled in wool coats and too-thin umbrellas. The royal press secretary had insisted on keeping things minimal - just a short address, a few prepared questions, some photos beside the blooming hydrangeas. It was meant to be harmless.

But Lucifer could feel the tension before the cameras even turned on.

The crowd was colder than usual. The laughter tighter. Everything clipped and measured. The kind of public presence that suggested uncertainty just beneath the surface.

Charlie stood at the centre of it all, bare-headed but composed, the soft blue of her coat setting her apart from the black umbrellas and grey suits like a cloudless patch of sky. She spoke clearly. Warmly. She referenced her mother with poise and tradition. She smiled when she needed to.

Lucifer stood half a pace behind her.

Resplendent in charcoal grey, cane in hand, hair immaculate. Every inch the sovereign. Every inch control.

Behind them, out of sight of the lenses but not the ears, Steven watched silently beneath the overhang, flanked by two guards in civilian dress. And further back still, tucked in among the mingling press as if he belonged there, was Alastor Hartfelt.

He’d dressed the part. Neutral trench coat, umbrella in hand, a soft brown hat pulled just low enough to obscure the exact angle of his eyes. To most, he looked like a foreign attaché or junior embassy official. An observer. An echo.

To Lucifer, he looked like a provocation.

The kind of provocation that knew exactly where to stand so Lucifer would have to see him.

The address neared its end. Charlotte thanked the gardeners. Mentioned the coming season’s changes. The photographers moved in, barked their rapid-fire clicks, asked for a glance this way, that way, a step to the left-

A voice, male, somewhere near the front called out. Not shouting. Just loud enough to carry:

“Beautiful as ever, Princess. Though I expect we’ll see a real heir soon enough.”

Soft laughter. Meant to smooth it over. Let it pass.

Lucifer smiled.

Too widely.

Too still.

He didn’t speak.

Someone else did, though.

Not from the stage. Not from the official circle. From the press line.

A man in a damp coat, head tilted just slightly forward, like a hound catching a scent.

“There seems to be some confusion,” said Alastor Hartfelt, voice carrying with unnatural clarity and an uncannily natural sounding London accent. Calm. Unsmiling. “Succession, as I understand it, is governed by law, not opinion. And dear Princess Charlotte is the sole heir. Perhaps the gentleman was misinformed.”

A flicker of confusion rippled through the crowd. A few heads turned.

The journalist flushed. “I only meant-”

“I’m sure you did,” Hartfelt said smoothly. “But meaning and meaning well are not always the same.”

Silence followed.

The cameras, still aimed at the royals, caught none of it directly. But the moment hung. Thick as wet wool.

Lucifer’s jaw flexed once around the grip of his cane.

Beside him, Charlie gave the smallest shake of her head - confused, maybe, or trying to process whether what just happened had been real.

Then her shoulders straightened and she looked forward with a smile.

Lucifer didn’t look at her.

He looked at him.

Back among the umbrellas and suits, Hartfelt adjusted his collar, the movement precise. Casual. Calculated. He didn’t look toward the stage, but the timing was too exact to be coincidence - the brief flick of movement falling squarely in Lucifer’s line of sight.

When the cameras flashed again, Lucifer was still smiling.

But now, it was with teeth.

Chapter Text

His office reeked faintly of dust and ash.

Lucifer sat behind his desk, coat loosened, one boot resting over his opposite knee. The cigarette between his fingers had gone out some time ago, forgotten to the slow thrum in his jaw and the way his thoughts kept catching on the same point like a phonograph needle skipping.

He should have said something. Should have silenced the room himself, not let an American interloper speak in his place. But the truth of it hung cold and bare in the back of his throat - Alastor had done it better.

The lighter clicked once, twice, then failed to spark. Lucifer didn’t bother again.

A knock echoed faintly through the room as the door opened with the kind of ease that came from decades of practice. Not loud. Not tentative. Just quiet, exact, and deliberate.

Steven stepped in without ceremony, crossing only far enough to be seen. 

“He’s waiting.”

Lucifer didn’t look up. He didn’t need to.

“Is he?” he murmured, not really a question.

Steven didn’t blink. “He didn’t ask. Just said he assumed you’d want a word.”

Lucifer exhaled through his nose - long, low. The cigarette between his fingers had long since gone cold. He hadn’t noticed.

“Let him in.”

Steven nodded once. Then paused, the smallest break in his otherwise absolute professionalism.

“I’ll be just outside.”

That - coming from Steven - was as close to comfort as he ever allowed.

The door closed behind him, and silence hung in the air. 

Lucifer didn’t move. Didn’t reach for the lighter. Just sat, one leg crossed, gaze fixed somewhere past the ashtray. 

Alastor Hartfelt entered like a whisper someone had the good sense not to say aloud. No ceremony. No cough to announce himself. He didn’t need it. Space adjusted for him. Even silence bent.

Lucifer didn’t look up until the door clicked shut.

“Bold of you,” he said eventually, still watching the smoke trail that no longer rose. “Breaking rank at a public event. Do you plan to undermine me in private as well, or was that a one-time indulgence?”

A moment’s pause.

“Would you have preferred I let her stumble?”

That made Lucifer lift his gaze.

Alastor stood just inside the room. His coat was still buttoned; the shoulders damp, cuffs darkened by rain. He hadn’t removed a single layer of armour. His expression was calm. Observing. And unreadable.

His gaze flicked over Lucifer once - not hurried, not invasive, but deliberate enough that Lucifer felt the measure of it.

Lucifer’s voice dropped into something lighter. Sharper.

“I don’t recall requesting your counsel. And I’m quite certain you weren’t meant to be visible.”

“I wasn’t,” Alastor replied. “But I was.”

Lucifer narrowed his eyes.

“And why was that, exactly?”

“There was a lapse,” Alastor said, voice mild. “I corrected it.”

Lucifer’s mouth curled without humour. “How patriotic of you.”

“I wasn’t speaking as an American.”

“No?” He tilted his head slightly. “Then what were you speaking as?”

“A man who recognises protocol when he hears it breaking.”

Lucifer stood. Not fast. Just enough to let the room feel it. Each movement measured and considered.

“Be careful, Mr Hartfelt. Correcting protocol in private is one thing. Correcting it in public?” He stepped out from behind the desk, closing the space slowly. “That’s theatre.”

“I’m told this palace has always had a flair for performance.”

Lucifer stopped. Just short of reaching distance. The air between them changed, more tension than threat. Charged in a way that couldn’t be named.

“A word of advice, since you’re so fond of observation,” he said. “Don’t mistake indulgence for weakness. Especially not mine.”

Alastor nodded slightly. “Understood.”

He didn’t step back, and Lucifer didn’t move.

The silence between them held, thick and exacting.

Then Alastor said, quietly, “A crown doesn’t make you powerful.”

Lucifer’s expression barely flickered.

“No,” he said. “But strength doesn’t make you worthy.”

Their eyes locked. Something passed between them that was hard to name. Harder to unfeel.

Lucifer’s mouth twitched. “You’re rather invested,” he murmured, “for someone with no stake in this monarchy.”

“I have a stake in stability.”

Lucifer’s voice stayed light. “Convenient word. And what does stability look like through your lens?”

“Predictability. Competence. Heirs who aren’t mocked in public.”

That landed sharper than he let show, but Lucifer’s tone cooled.

“You think we’re unpredictable?”

“I think your daughter stood alone. And that she shouldn’t have.”

Lucifer took one step forward. Not loud. Not fast. But it changed the room.

“I see,” he said softly. “The American’s come to teach us chivalry. How very ironic.”

Alastor didn’t so much as blink. “I came to see what yours used to look like.”

Chapter Text

The address was intended as damage control.

Nothing more than a polish. A small gesture. A public reassurance. Just a brief appearance from the Princess following an offhand remark at the garden press event - poorly worded, the Palace had called it. A misstep dressed up as a joke, buffered by enough forced laughter to make it palatable.

But Lucifer had reigned long enough to know better.

Royalty was like glass. It could be cut and set and lit to dazzle - but even the smallest fracture invited collapse. People did not forget the crack. They remembered how close it came to shattering.

So the Palace mobilised. Writers drafted, aides circled. Language was tested like weaponry. Each line was measured to the syllable. Not too emotional. Not too cold. Every word vetted by Lucifer himself. Twice. When the dust settled, the final statement was elegant, unassailable, and perfectly designed for live delivery.

No filters. No footage to be edited. Just Charlotte, the flag, and the Grand Staircase at her back. A Princess, yes - but more than that. A future monarch. A symbol of unbroken continuity.

She was nervous.

She always had been, though it had improved with age. Her tutors had taught her how to pitch her voice, how to soften a hard line with warmth, how to widen her vowels in a way that made her sound grounded. But all the training in the world could not smother instinct, and Charlie’s skill was not to public speaking.

Lucifer could see it in the tightness of her hands. In the way she touched her notes more than she read them. In the small, measured breaths she took when she thought no one was watching. She wasn’t frightened of the people. She wasn’t even frightened of the speech.

She was frightened of failing.

The public adored her. She knew it. But admiration was not the same as trust, and now the pressure had shifted. Now she wasn’t just the soft-hearted princess. She was the future. The crown-to-be.

Lucifer didn’t tell her it would be fine. That had never helped.

He stood with her instead that morning, near the base of the staircase, while her hair was smoothed and the final cue given. She wore navy with pearl fastenings. Gloves tucked carefully into her left hand. Her right clutched the speech once, then let it go.

“I’ll be upstairs,” he said, straightening her collar. “Watching.”

Her smile was quick, nervous. “Terrifying.”

He smiled back. "You’ve done harder things than this.”

Charlie exhaled, the breath catching a little at the end. "Not in front of a camera.”

Lucifer didn’t answer, the cameras had been just another unwanted modernisation forced into their faces which he couldn't say no to, so instead he just rested a hand briefly on her shoulder, and left her to it.

When she stepped up to the lectern, the hush that fell over the hall was not one of reverence. It was one of waiting. Tense. Precise. As though the crowd had collectively inhaled and refused to let go. Breath held. Eyes fixed. A thousand silent verdicts poised just behind their teeth.

Lucifer watched from the upper gallery, half-shrouded by the velvet curtain. Every detail below was etched in clarity.

She wore navy - sharp lines, clean tailoring, the fabric catching light at the collarbone. Her gloves were white, pristine against the dark. Her hair had been pinned in soft waves, parted just off-centre in the style Lilith had worn the first time she addressed the nation alone. The resemblance was deliberate. 

There were no notes in her hand. That, too, had been a choice.

She approached the microphone with her shoulders square and her jaw set. The steps were steady, each footfall placed as if she could feel the weight of generations beneath them.

And she smiled.

Not the practiced, open thing she gave at ribbon-cuttings. Not the gentle upward curve used on grieving mothers and politicians who interrupted her. This smile was poised. Commanding. Like it had always belonged to her. Like it had never not belonged.

He hated that it reminded him of Hartfelt.

Charlie cleared her throat once, softly, and began to speak.

Not flawlessly.

Her voice caught once, on a hard consonant, just past the opening line. There was a slight tremble when she said sovereign, but it passed. Her left hand hovered near her ribs for a breath, fluttered as though startled by its own uncertainty, then stilled. Fingertips pressed lightly against the edge of the podium. Grounding. Resolute.

But she didn’t falter.

She stood beneath the twin flags, and she spoke. Of legacy. Of duty. Of her mother. Of what it meant to inherit not only a title, but the impossible weight of a nation’s need. Her voice warmed as it went on, shoulders easing, vowels opening. A performer who had found her rhythm not in rehearsal, but in risk.

Through it all, she smiled.

Lucifer hadn’t realised how tightly he was gripping the bannister until the final sentence landed and the applause began - not erupting, not explosive, but rising in deliberate, respectable waves. As though the public had decided: Yes. This one will do.

His fingers ached when he let go. The railing had left fine grooves in the soft pad of his palm.

He didn’t clap.

He didn’t need to.

He only watched.

Later, he took the long way back to his office. He never used the west corridord - it was too narrow, too populated by staff - but something made him turn there today.

That’s when he heard her.

“...wasn’t sure I could do it,” Charlie was saying, voice hushed but bright. “My hands were shaking the whole time.”

“You smiled just like I told you to, Your Highness,” came the reply - quiet, distinctly American, but softened. “No one noticed your hands.”

A pause.

Chapter Text