"Deinde sum-bat eh 'Quid tibi estne, hilarae?'" Someone on the television said.

"What the fuck am I watching again?"

"Comedy from Purgatory."

"Your language is complete bullshit, by the way."

"Would you feel appropriate saying that to a speaker of any other foreign language?"

"Angelic is different in that I know it's bullshit. There aren't rules. There's only really bastardized latin."

"It's not that bad..."

Cecil seemed hurt, and I smirked. It was the twenty-seventh, and we had spent all of yesterday doing absolutely nothing around the house. Micky's house, technically, as I guess I was too lazy to check if I was clear to move back into my own yet.

Probably we couldn't do this forever, but the empty promise of one more day before all this annoying cryptic nonsense could crumble encouraged me to waste all the time I could. There were things I could be doing. Working. Checking up on Michael. Checking up on the RC. However, I was quite satisfied not to.

Who needs responsibility when there's awful television to enjoy? Cecil never clued me into what was being said, or ever actually laughed. But he watched the grainy footage of fallen angels doing their all to tell what I assumed were poor jokes with a clear attention.

"Where did you get the name Cecil from anyways?" I had asked him.

"I liked the name."

"But where does an angel find that sort of name?"

"Just a gravestone."

"What about 'Fear'?"

"That came later."

Cecil had admitted he was a fallen angel, but that hadn't triggered him to be more open about who he was. I was quite unable to prompt him to talk more about his previous life besides the occasional answer to a question such as 'Do the other angels know you?' and 'What exactly was Heaven like?'

His answers were 'No' and 'Bad'. When I asked him why he fell, he only grunted.

We were first broken from our slothful solace by Micky, who came in the mornings to boast about his previous night. And we were finally broken by a rough knock on the door.

I didn't move to open it. Cecil shifted slightly in his chair.

The knocking grew more intense. I started to get up when, with a large crash, the door was slammed open.

I swore, and Cecil turned over in his chair before falling on the floor.

Michael didn't look particularly upset, so I guess the action of breaking down a door wasn't all that extreme to him.

"I have the child herd."

"What?" I asked, and I heard Cecil snort from behind his chair. Hiding again.

"I have gathered the children." He sort of swatted his hands in the air as he spoke.

I leaned over and looked behind him. Out in the hallway, looking all very ashamed, was the Coalition sans Amy.

"Why."

"Amy is still missing. Interrogate the children."

"Why don't you interrogate the kids?"

"I can't threaten kids! I love kids."

"Well, I'm not going to do it."

Michael stamped his feet as came towards me, and grabbed me by the collar of my shirt. He wasn't much taller than I, and though he seemed quite pissed, looked very childish.

"You need to find my daughter."

"Why me? Why does everyone keep turning to me?"

Michael let go of my collar and took a step back. The question seemed to have genuinely surprised him. "I've heard you're someone good for... this."

"Who told you that?"

Michael briefly dropped his eyes to the floor and looked almost sheepish. Then his eyes became wide and he began to back off. "I hold care for Amrael. Speak with the children." Then he sprinted as fast as he could out the door.

The Coalition slowly walked in. I felt like I had missed something important. They were keeping their shoulders slumped and eyes low. Probably Michael had yelled at them before bringing them here. Even his disappearance had done nothing to raise their energy.

I half gestured to the couch and they sat down. Luckily, Micky mostly owned impractically big furniture, and the five kids all fit with only slight discomfort.

Cecil was still sitting behind the chair, so I sat in it. Slowly looked from person to person. They all seemed ashamed. I waited until the silence had settled before breaking it.

"Do any of you know where Amy is?"

Ivy's eyes were especially wide as she shook her head.

At the same time, Remiel, the angel, had begun to say "I think-" But he shut his mouth when he saw Ivy speaking.

"Well!" I clapped my hands together for emphasis. "Looks like we'll actually be doing this police style. One on one. Remiel first. Cecil, keep watch."

I got up and Cecil dove right into my chair. I took Remiel to the bedroom and sat on the bed. He stood in front of me, shifting his weight around awkwardly.

"You were about to say something." I said, but it slipped out of my thoughts. I immediately corrected my mistake. "You won't get in any trouble, you know. I'll make sure of it. All the blame will go on... Well, Michael if I can manage. But don't worry about anything. You know I have no obligations here."

"Right. Well. I'm not very sure. You know, she could be anywhere, and she always had a lot of- friends, you know."

"Did you know any of her other friends?"

"Sort of. Didn't really meet them, but I know she liked other angels. Talked with them a lot. Fallens especially. She liked to make her dad angry, you know."

"Did she ever say anything about leaving?"

"Probably, but uh, it's vague."

I had the feeling I wasn't going to get anywhere, and still had four other people to get through. Reminding myself that I was doing this for literally no real reason but a threat, I sent Remiel out after asking if he had anything else to say, and Alex was sent in. I hadn't been trained in this. No one could blame me if I had no idea what the procedure was.

Alex had on a long grey coat with a frizzy white collar. Same one as always. Taking a second glance at it, I determined the fur trim to actually be a very cheap, maybe plastic-based imitation. The fabric was certainly heavy, but definitely not vintage. It was probably incredibly hot to wear through.

"The Coalition was always supposed to be about revolution, but we-" Alex started immediately on a speech, one he had likely practiced in his head previously, but his stutters threw it off. He blushed and stopped talking.

"Please continue."

"We never really did anything. No one in Hell ever really does anything. Revolutionary. It's a dictatorship but with a bunch of rich people in charge. But Amy had this other group she ran with. Real revolutionaries."

"What do you mean by 'real'?"

"Adults." He seemed distracted. "It was only me and Julie that ever went with her. They all sat around in the tunnels, planning to kill and bomb and upheave or something. I didn't like them much. But me and Julie and her are all- you know, important. Special kids. Kin of kings, kind of. So she took me."

"You think she's in the tunnels?"

"Maybe. The end of cycle thing is in two days, and they were planning something then, but- I just can't see her leaving us. We're supposed to play that day."

"Play?"

"Instruments? We're a band. Not a good one, but we won a contest in our school, so we're supposed to play before all the ceremonies begin. And Amy's sort of like our manager- she's completely tone deaf- and she was so excited about this."

"Do you think someone would harm her?"

"Well." Alex laughed nervously. "Do you think someone would try and harm Michael?"

I sighed. "Go and grab Julian."

In a moment, the young and over dressed boy sat down next to me on the bed. He was probably thirteen- I had never done my math right to determine if it was even possible for any of them to be fourteen yet. Thirteen year old kids should not wear suits. He was a good example of this fact.

"Do you have any idea where Amy could have gone?" I asked.

"No. I never got along with her much. Barely spoke."

"Did she seem at all suspicious the day before she disappeared?"

"Amy never changes. She's hyper. She's a pain. She fucking sucks. She probably just ran away to piss off Michael."

"I've heard you and her were both involved in an... literally underground anarchist cell. You two didn't bond at all through that?"

"She just likes me because I'm rich. You know Michael isn't even rich? The Lexes only act it. And my father will have you killed if you try and speak out against me, you know. Try and bring down the Occasio name. Kill you."

Right. I had been forgetting to do the whole spiel about not telling the authorities. Course, Alex had trusted me regardless, but it made sense the rich kid was going to be a bit stuck up. I hate stereotyping, but really, fuck the rich and fuck their kids.

"Leave then."

He did, and I waited a few moments. He didn't send anyone else in, so I went back into the living area.

Ivy and Aspen were the only two left. I was trying to assess whether it was worth it to go back in and speak to them as well when Ivy blurt out "Please don't tell my father!" And I suddenly began to feel very tired.

These weren't my kids, and this wasn't my responsibility. I sat down in the other chair- there were two soft recliners on either side of the long couch, and Cecil was in one of them. The kids were on the couch. I considered putting on a movie, as honestly it was feeling like some sort of family gathering.

I had two little sisters who were very sweet, mind you, but always getting into mischief. I haven't lived through both, so I suppose I'll never know which is worse: having children who hate each other or who collaborate extensively. Bianca and Nadia had their own form of sign language as well as at least two vocal languages. They were also fairly fluent in Spanish, much to my language-struggling contempt.

I also had two little sisters who weren't my sisters, and I usually just referred to them as such to save an explanation. They got along because they had to- Alexandria, who went by Ria, felt the need to constantly look out for Adeline. Part of my job at the orphanage seemed to consist of reminding her that Adeline was fine on her own- but I had never really succeeded in teaching Ria this.

The Coalition reminded me of some kind of terrible mix of all my younger siblings. As stuck up as Ria and as immature as Nadia. Except unlike my sisters, I did not particularly like the Coalition since, unlike the Coalition, my sisters were not members of a band of revolutionaries determined to ruin my day.

Remiel chattered something in angelic, and Ivy responded. Aspen soon joined in My rough approximations would be somewhere along the line of 'Quando something something something'. They spoke too fast for me to really guess at though.

I looked over to Cecil. He seemed surprised to see me make eye contact, and I tried to gesture with my head that he ought to be listening in.

The chatter died down. Alex and Julie only knew a few words, but the fact the whole group was able to conspire like this made me uncomfortable.

"When can we leave?" Ivy asked politely. "That's what we were discussing."

"Oh. I don't know. Michael left."

"They can leave now." Cecil said.

"Sure. But if you guys have anything else on where Amy is, please come and tell me. Or the police. Actually, just tell the police. Don't bring me into this again."

One by one they got up and walked out the door. Alex was the last to leave, and he lingered a moment after the door had closed in front of him. He turned to me.

"I don't think she's dead or anything, so you'll have to get involved again. She'll make you. Since I think she's pretty dead set on finding my dad as well. Maybe that's where she went."

"Your dad is dead and also probably not your dad." I hated being mean, but it helped remind me that I had no obligation to be nice.

"He is my fucking dad, you know." The only nerve Alex seemed to had had been pulled. But he wasn't exactly screaming at me. "I'm not like the others. I'm almost your age. I remember the war. And him."

"You're twenty?" I said with such astonishment that he groaned and slammed out the door. I looked to Cecil. "Does he look twenty?"

"Demons do age slower than humans."

"But I always figured it was more like, a gradual hill of decreased aging with adulthood at the top. Longer youth and shorter everything else."

"It's not like anyone ever studied demonkin like him."

"Demonkin? Is that the official word for it? Let's never use that word again."

"Why?"

"Let's never... use it."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Hey, can't I be cryptic for no good reason and get away with it for once? It's basically all you ever do and I never ask 'why' more than once."

"Hm." Cecil said, and he turned on the TV. "Amrael is in the tunnels with a few friends. Hasn't come back since she wants to make her dad and you angry. She'll be back tomorrow."

"Where did you get that from?"

"The kids said it. After the bit about wondering when you'd let them leave."

"Then there's nothing to worry about."

"Were you ever worried? I wasn't."

"Really? I mean, they're a pain in the ass, but on some moral level I was still concerned for them. And Amy. It's an awful thing for a friend to die at that young of an age."

"You've never had it happen to you."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean I don't have like, empathy. God, do they not have children in Heaven?" I said. "Wait, I know the answer to that. You don't. But must have had empathy."

"I enjoy children." Cecil declared kind of boldly, like he was facing a large crowd and it took a lot of willpower to declare it.

"Yeah. Me too."