Loneliness is nothing new to Wilhelm; he knows its shape well. His title wedges a distance between him and other people, and his upbringing only encouraged the walls to rise higher. Everyone knows the prince, but nobody knows Wilhelm, not really. It was this loneliness that left the door open for Lucifer then, and this loneliness that cultivates the ideal soil in which Sannleikr's influence can push its roots deep.

This is a fresh, bleeding hurt. The reminder that nobody ever cared bruises, but the realization that the only one who believed in him only saw him as a tool to use — that the only one he could turn to is now a dead end — gouges deep.

"I don't know, I don't know!" he answers with an emphatic gesture of his hands.

With Lucifer's words like shrapnel buried in his brain, and his heart hemorrhaging, it's hard to make much sense of anything right now. Wilhelm digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, heaving himself up onto his feet. His breath is still ragged, his voice raw.

"Why are you...why are you pretending to help me? I'm not a fucking idiot! You already said it — nobody gives a shit, and that includes you."

Everything in him wants Lucifer to contradict him again. Prove him wrong. Take back the secrets he'd spilled.