"You should eat first." Lucifer pushed the plate holding the Ziz toward Roland. "By the way, besides its symbolic significance, this bird tastes pretty good too."
"You've eaten it before?" Roland froze. "Wait, that can't be right. You don't have anything to do with holiness—"
"Nonsense. I used to be the chief archangel." Lucifer curled his lip. "Besides, with this thing—if no one sees you catch it and you eat it in secret, who cares whether you're holy?"
"So that's the real story." Roland broke off a wingtip over ten meters long. "It smells amazing! Come to think of it, God made both Behemoth and Leviathan out of clay, so does that make this beggar's chicken?"
"When you put it that way—I suppose it does." Lucifer said, "Hurry up and eat. Not everyone gets to taste my cooking."
"All right, let's see how good you are." Roland bit into the wingtip. His teeth first met the crisp shell formed from the essence of Leviathan's flesh and blood. It felt like an even coating of breadcrumbs, crunchy and crisp, with just a little resistance.
Juice glistened inside the meat when he bit through it. It came off the bone effortlessly, and one gentle tug brought the whole piece into his mouth.
"My God." Roland was astounded. "This is ridiculously good."
"Of course. This is a delicacy you only get to eat at the end of the world," Lucifer said. "Under normal circumstances, these three ingredients would never come together."
"So the world really is about to end?"
"More or less," Lucifer said. "If I'm right, this will be the ending of this book—it shouldn't be long now, unless the author writes some extras."
"—All right, got it." Roland shrugged and continued eating the Ziz. "Well, nothing to be done about it.