Unity could breathe now, but the peace did not last. The four gods who had taken her fear stood in a loose circle. Between two young palm trees, their trunks carved with the words freedom and unity, the gods began to argue. The fight was about Lucifer. The one who was cast out. The one still missing his share of her dread. Ember FireSprite spoke first. Coals flickered across her shoulders. "He was thrown out for a reason," she said. "You want to hand him a place at this table?" "Every table has an empty seat," Allah said. "Mine has one for him." "Then your table is a fool's table," Ember said. Sparks jumped from her hands. JC crossed his arms. His golden light dimmed as the voices rose. "I carry the fear of being cast out," he said. "I feel it right now. He feels it too. That does not make him safe. It makes him the same as me." The argument grew louder. Ember's fire climbed higher. Allah would not repeat himself, so he only stared. JC looked ready to leave. Unity felt the gathering start to break, like a rope pulled from both ends. If they split now, no one would hold the last piece of fear. Her mission would end here. A man sat under the carved trees. He had not spoken once. Long locks fell past his shoulders. A knit cap held them back. Unity had seen him arrive quietly, barefoot, and take a place in the shade. He watched the gods fight the way a poor man watches rich men break dishes. "Stop," Bob Marley said. He did not stand. "You all sound the same." The gods turned. Ember's fire held. "I grew up with nothing," Bob said. "No shoes. A father who left. People decided I did not belong. They were wrong." He pointed at the two trunks above him. "Freedom. Unity. You cannot pick one." "He tried to build his own world," Ember said. "So did I," Bob said. "On a stage. Full of poor people. All one country." He looked at Unity. "You cannot leave a man outside and call it whole." The words landed. Unity stepped into the circle. Her voice held steady. "Bob is right," she said. "I do not take sides. I never have. If I cast out the cast-out one, I am no different from Heaven." She faced the four gods. "The last piece of fear is his. I will carry it to him myself. None of you have to touch it. But none of you break this gathering over him." Ember's fire sank low. She said nothing, which meant yes. Allah nodded once. JC's light brightened again. The circle held. The gathering did not break. But now the choice was Unity's alone. She had promised to walk out and find Lucifer. She still did not know where the cast-out god had gone.

Unity left the carved trees behind. She carried the last piece of fear in her chest. It was heavy and cold, shaped like something that did not belong. She still did not know where Lucifer had gone. So she asked. She asked every god and spirit who stood near the gathering. Miriam Lichtenberg heard her first. The Jewish warrior wore the Star of David on her chest. On her arm, a tattoo read 11-11. She kept careful records of the lost, and she did not forget a name. If anyone tracked where the cast-out went, it would be her. "The cast-out one," Unity said. "Where did he go?" Miriam shook her head. "I keep lists. His name was taken off every list. Taken," she said. "You cannot track a man they erased." Unity turned to JC. The golden light around him was soft. He had walked many towns. He shared bread with people who had nothing. "You carry the fear of being cast out," Unity said. "You said you feel what he feels. Then you can find him." JC shook his head. "I feel the fear. I do not feel the man. I have been run out of towns. I always went back." He looked at her plainly. "He never went back. I don't know where he waits." Bob Marley sat nearby in the shade. He had argued for Lucifer before the gods. He looked tired now. "I spoke for him," Bob said. "I never met him. Speaking for a man is not the same as knowing him." Unity felt the gathering grow quiet. No one knew. Every answer closed a door. The fear in her chest pressed harder. She pressed her hand flat against it. Then a young man stepped out from behind the others. He wore a white shirt open over a tank top. His black hair was pulled back loose. He moved like he was still half inside a song. He had slipped away from a rehearsal, and his feet shifted even standing still. "You are chasing the wrong thing," Michael Jackson said. Unity looked at him. "What do you mean?" "On stage, two sounds fight. The music and the noise. You pick one and follow it." He tapped his chest, over the spot where she held the fear. "You carry his fear. His fear is a sound. Stop asking people. Follow it." Unity went still. She had been asking the gathering. The answer was not in the gathering. It was in her own chest. The cold piece of fear pulled, faint, like a thread drawn tight in one direction. She closed her eyes. She let the fear lead instead of fighting it. It pulled toward high stone walls and stained glass. A soaring cathedral, crowned with a golden cross. The place that cast him out was the place his fear still pointed. "I know where he is," Unity said. She opened her eyes and walked toward the cathedral. The gathering stayed behind. The pull in her chest grew stronger with every step.

Unity reached the cathedral at dusk. A golden cross crowned the high stone roof. Stained glass caught the last light. She stepped through the doors with her hand on her chest, where Lucifer's fear still pulled. But inside, the pull broke apart. The cold thread split in two. One line tugged toward a scattered ground of worn relics outside. The other tugged toward a dark house down the hill. Lucifer was not here. The place that cast him out held only his echo. She stood in the empty nave and tried to feel which way was true. Both pulls felt the same. Both felt cold. She pressed harder against her chest. The fear only grew louder in both directions. Footsteps crossed the stone. JC came through the side door, golden light soft around him. He had followed her from the gathering. He did not kneel. He looked at her plainly. "He is not here," Unity said. "The fear splits. I cannot tell which way is real." JC walked to the altar. He touched the cold stone. "I have been run out of towns," he said. "The fear points two ways because he does. Part of him went where they still keep his things. Part of him went where they hate him." He looked at her. "One pull is the man. One is the wound." "Which is which?" Unity asked. "I don't know the man," JC said. "I told you that already." He did not explain it twice. Unity closed her eyes. She felt the two threads again. One pull led to the relic ground, where old gods still sat among offerings. That was comfort. That was a place that wanted a god. The other pull led to the dark house with broken windows. She had seen red letters on its front as she passed. Non-Believers. She understood then. A cast-out god would not sit among kept relics. He would go where he was named a thing to fear. He would go toward the wound, not away from it. "The house," Unity said. "He went toward the people who deny him. That is where he fits now." JC nodded once. "Then go." Unity walked out of the cathedral and down the hill. The relic ground glowed warm on her left, candles burning among the worn fragments. She did not turn toward it. She followed the colder thread instead. She reached the dark house. Tattered windows gaped. The red word Non-Believers bled across the boards. The fear in her chest went quiet and sure. She had chosen right. Only one pull remained now, and it led inside. She pushed the broken door open. In the dark sat a red figure with horns and a sharp tail. He did not rise. He did not look surprised. "You found me," Lucifer said. "Most people stop at the door." Unity stepped inside. She still carried his fear. Now she had to give it to him.

Unity stood in the dark house. Lucifer sat across from her, red and still. She held his fear in her chest, ready to give it. But when she reached for it, she found she had nothing else. No throne. No welcome. No proof he belonged with the others. The fear alone would not make him stay. She needed something to offer, and her hands were empty. "The others want to unite all faiths," Unity said. "You are one of the five. I came to bring you in." Lucifer did not move. "They cast me out. Now they want me back." He looked at the broken windows. "Why would I believe you?" Unity had no answer. She had come with fear and a mission and nothing more. The silence pressed on her. She felt the house swallow her words. The door creaked. Figures filed in behind her. Robed people with horns on their hoods and painted masks. They carried glowing stones and arcane marks on their banners. They were Lucifer's worshippers, come to the one place that still named him. They raised their hands toward him. Then they saw Unity and began to kneel. "Stand up," Unity said. "Please." They rose, confused. She turned back to Lucifer. He watched his followers watch her. For the first time, something in his face shifted. An old man stepped through the crowd. His head was bald, his robe white, a silver glow around him. Gandi Silverlight. He had followed her from the hill. Unity knew him as the quiet one from the gathering, the man who spoke of peace when others argued. He did not kneel. He looked at Lucifer with plain eyes. "You ask him for belief," Gandi said to Unity. "But belief is not a gift you carry. It is a thing you show." He pointed to the worshippers. "They came to this dark place for him. That is proof enough that he belongs somewhere." Unity understood. She had been looking for an object to hand over. She had none. But she could give Lucifer what he had never gotten. She knelt before him herself. "Stand up," Lucifer said, flat. "You don't kneel. You told them not to." "I know," Unity said. "I kneel because no one ever did for you." She stayed down. "That is what I have to offer. Not a seat they saved. A god who came to find you." Lucifer stood. His tail dragged across the floor. He looked at his followers, at Gandi, at the girl on her knees in his house. Then he reached down and pulled her up by the arm. "Give me the fear," he said. Unity pressed her hand to her chest. The cold thread unwound. She passed it to him. He took it without flinching. The weight left her at last. She could breathe fully now. But as the fear entered Lucifer, his worshippers stirred behind her, their eyes turning dark and hungry, and she saw she had not freed him. She had woken something that answered to him alone.