He has caged and tormented someone he loved, before. Breaches count, he told Porthos, over and over. It counted, when he dragged Nokov into a cell and punctured his skin with a thousand razor-sharp feathers, reshaped his fingerbones into claws, made him lurid and wild and serrated, an animal blade. It counted, even though he was someone else at the time - his soul, his sins. And he was not given the time to make any restitution for his regrets.

But he does own them.

He traces the line of one curling horn with delicate fingertips. The creature he was in that world would find them beautiful, he knows. His eyes are often slit-pupilled, but now they shine with a proper tapetum lucidum, reflecting Asmodeus's glow back, color changed.

"I am more like him than either of you yet imagine," he warns, voice soft and low, the quiet after a scream cut short. "Nothing's changed, just because I've had my nose rubbed in how much he doesn't know how lucky he is. You wanted this conversation, so have it."

He supposes he should be manipulative in turn, use his pain to cut it short, demand attention, complete a swift extraction. But that doesn't solve the problem of Zerxus wanting to listen to him. So Kahl will put his rage and pain aside, after the first moment of fervent longing. He is patient. He will wait.