“Boss,” Beezle murmured, and my eyes fell away from Her. My Hounds looked up at me, eyes like saucers. “She looks a Home of a lot like you.”

I longed to shout the word NO! over and over and over again as if I could make my denial true by being noisy about it. But Bub rubbed his shoulder against my leg, and Beezle added, “May as well get to the bottom of this.”

Her lips curled in a smile that seemed genuine. But I could not trust a single thing this female did.

“Your Hounds are very smart pets.”

Beezle snorted angrily, and Bub stepped forwards. “We’re not pets! We’re companions!”

“Partners in crime!” Beezle barked.

“The B Team!”

She cocked an eyebrow at that, those all-too-familiar eyes sliding up towards me. “The B Team?” She smirked. That was my smirk.

Home’s bones. She wasn’t lying.

“Yeah!” Bub yipped. “Like, Beezle, Bub and Boss! We’re the B Team!”

She laughed, a genuinely amused, tinkling chuckle that I wanted to hate so badly, but it sort of reminded me of Jemma’s laugh.

“They’re adorable, Simeon! I am so very pleased to learn you’ve had companionship while growing up … there.” The distaste in Her voice was unmistakable, and I bristled.

“‘There’ is my home! The place my mother abandoned me, under my father’s guardianship, according to the rules of the Kingdom!” I snarled. But then my brain stuck on something else She’d said. “Wait. Did … did you just call me Simeon?”

She tilted her head to the side—like a predator—and regarded me. “It is the name I gave you, son. It’s not my fault your father decided on something as unimaginative as ‘Satan Junior’.” She shook her head. “His hubris knows no bounds.”

My brain was racing. I wanted to rage at Her for deriding Father’s hubris while She sat up here in her golden … office, or whatever She wanted to call it, and plotted the downfall of Hell for shits and giggles.

Instead, I turned to the Hounds. “Did you know Simeon was my name, when you whispered it to me that day at the hospital?”

Bub looked completely mystified. “I dunno, Boss. It just … popped into my head! I swear I had no idea that it was your actual, real-life name!”

But behind him, Beezle’s expression morphed from confused, to something lingering at the edges of horrified. “I … I have this weird memory, Boss. It’s real fuzzy, and I was only a pup, just opening my eyes for the first time. A voice whispering, ‘Look after my Simeon’ to me.” He blinked up at me, then turned to Bub his dark, liquid eyes full of worry. “To us.”