TC led me to her house again, and honestly barred the door when I told her I had to head out again in a few more hours.

"You're kidding me, right? You do recall what happened last time I let you wander about alone, right?"

"I have work to do in the city."

"I'll come along then."

"At the church again."

She sighed heavily. "Stop going there. I'm serious. That place is going to mess you up."

"I have work to do."

I was not, I decided, going to let TC know I was leaving soon. Or anything regarding the whole kidnapping thing. She probably wouldn't want to hear about it anyway.

I did finally persuade her to let me out. But it wasn't really persuasion, per se- she insisted on coming along, and I was only allowed to make one short speech before she dragged me back home. I didn't like being so tightly wound in her grip, but I couldn't think of a way out of it.

I entered through the back entrance and Lilith, who honestly seemed to always be awake and around when I came by, glared at TC.

"Gather some people. Neophytes, devotes, whoever. " I said. "You're welcome to stand next to me, you know, while I speak."

She ran off to follow my orders, and I wasn't actually sure she'd take the opportunity. She had quickly been losing her assertiveness as the church grew. I couldn't quite figure it out. But I wasn't fond of the change.

"She a girl you fancy? She's sort of cute, I guess." TC said, looking entirely disapproving.

"I do not fancy- that means like right?- girls." I said.

"Boys?"

"I do not feel such feelings at all, obviously. I am properly chaste."

"Yeah, but being chaste is different from being asexual. Are you asexual?"

"I'm chaste." I urged.

"Yeah, alright then." When Lilith came back and gestured me to follow, TC only leaned up against a wall and crossed her arms. "Five minutes. I'll be watching."

I stepped out to a crowd that probably numbered around one hundred. They were densely packed, but only a few looked truly unhappy about this fact. They were silent as I chose a spot to stand.

"My brothers, my sisters, my children and my people- I come here today to be the bearer of bad news: You, truly, are the chosen ones. Now I know you may already know that. We've said it so many times. We've known it so many times! But only now can I say I truly know it. And my knowledge is your knowledge. And my will is your will.

"This may be the last time I speak to you directly. But do not fear- the guidance of Heaven can always be found in the hearts of the truly faithful. And thus, I will always be with you. But first, I must return to the surface. To Earth, of course, to cleanse it of it's evils. But also to Heaven. To live as an angel once more."

Here is where I drew out my wings- or wing, as it now was. Gasps, comically fake sounding but surely genuine, sounded.

"I was besieged by nonbelievers. By the fallen. By those who want you to doubt and question and reject those truths you know to be evident- those of justice, of righteousness, and of piety. The fallen sinners tore off my wing, jealous of my faith. And angry, too. Angry that my words had found an audience. An audience who didn't doubt, like they did, and would never question, like they did.

"They expected me to fall when they tore off my wing. But I am not so easy to dissuade. I killed them all. And it was okay- it was okay to kill them. Do you want to know why? Because they were wrong. They were terribly, terribly wrong. And I? I knew better."

I wasn't sure if I was getting through to them. But I keep my wing in an honestly painful high arc, and raised my hands to the ceiling as I spoke. I tried my best to channel the energy of someone with better speaking skills. And I honestly think it worked. At least for me. I felt pretty good about it, even if the room stayed quiet.

The moment I stepped out of the room, TC grabbed me by the arm and kept me walking forward, surely hoping to leave before anyone else came to speak to me.

"That was more than five minutes." She said. I could guess she was a bit upset about something. Me leaving soon seemed to be a likely cause. "Oh well. I don't have much for plans tonight. Let's nip back to the library. We didn't get around to you finishing that file, did we?"

"I don't want to."

"What about everything you said back there? About knowing? Wouldn't you rather know these things about a man you only think you know?"

"I also spoke of doubting." I said grimly. "And not doubting. I have never thought for a moment that I know Michael, nor have I ever claimed so. But I know the idea of Michael, and even if he truly is a man, he is an idea first. I met him just yesterday, and I realized I had no doubt for him."

"What was he like?" Sometimes, usually when I mentioned Heaven, TC would lose her focus and start speaking dreamily. I had only vaguely noticed it before, but I now realized it was a pretty good way of keeping her quiet.

"He was beautiful." I said. I was not lying. It would have been pointless to lie about Michael. "And he was everything. He knew me, he knew everyone, and he loved me like he loved everyone. I was in a total state of calm whenever he looked at me. And his words were art in it's purest form."

"So you're basically saying you're Michael-sexual then?"

"Why do you feel the urge to bring sex into everything?" I grit my teeth. "He is pure. He is love. He is beauty."

"He's certainly got you under a spell."

"He's magic, but not a witch. No spells." I couldn't tell if she was joking or not, but she giggled. She giggled at a lot of things I said. I guess I sounded funny to her. It had to be a cultural thing.

"How magic is Michael then? I don't really believe in magic myself, you know. And I've never heard reports of angels fighting with magic on the battlefields either, so it must be a pretty exclusive thing." She had gone back into her half asleep and half interested state of dreaming.

"His being is magic, essentially, though magic is a crude word for it- it's Grace. All the Brothers are Graceful. Uriel can summon flames from his hands. Raphael can heal almost any wound. Gabriel can stop your blood. Percial can take away your senses with a single touch."

"That's terrifying. I almost understand why you're so subservient to them. It's odd to think that Grace- which you might remember from the report is a man-made serum- could do all that. But what about Michael?"

"Michael is everything."

"He can do everything?"

"No, he is everything. He was the one who created us. He is the one who controls the world. And when we die, it is him who carries our souls until the day of the great cleansing, when we shall be reborn from death with new earthly vessels."

"So he carries your souls in death? Like an incubus?"

I frowned. "That's a disgusting comparison to make. He carries us like a mother."

"A mother?" She asked.

"A mother." I said. I didn't understand her need for clarification on that part.

"Still, the whole soul-carrying thing is almost exactly what an cubi does when the soul they're contracted to dies- they carry it with them until they arrive in Hell, where they cleanse it from themself." TC sounded alert and intrigued, much to my contempt. "The report said Michael was a human when they injected Grace into him. So maybe this is just what the Grace did to him. What if he's a mutant incubus, and the angels are just mutant souls? It's a pretty fascinating idea."

"It is literally putrid and horrid. Blasphemous, of course, and a terrible, terrible thought to have."

"I'm going to force you to read the rest of the file you know. And... any other files that I may hand to you."

"You can't force me to read. I can barely read as is. It's not particularly hard to not do."

"You miss out on so much of life if you never bother to read."

"I can read in my own language."

"I meant in Hell. Your life in Hell."

"A life that, thankfully, will be over soon."

We came to the library of Envy in silence.

It took us a while to navigate to TC's secret bedroom-fileroom hybrid. But she had left the Grace report right on the mattress, right under two other files. She sat on one end of the mattress, holding the other two on her lap and looking nervous.

"I'm not going to read."

"Oh, please. You've already heard the most scandalous part. Just get the details."

"No."

"Give me that then-" I handed it to her. "I'll read it."