“We have deliberated. I demand to come aboard your chariot to negotiate.” Raphael glanced at the angel beside him.

Freya took a second to think. “Land on the upper deck, we will talk there.”

It took a few moments for the two sides to properly meet atop the chariot. Raphael was accompanied by two guards. Freya had Apollyon, Kate and Amaterasu at her side.

“Speak, Raphael.” Freya crossed her arms.

“We talked to Gabriel. He did indeed break the treaty…” The archangel sighed. “It is your right to take him with you, but I must demand to be present when you interrogate him and decide his fate.”

“That is acceptable. What about his belongings?”

“Gabriel’s belongings are yours to take. It was decided not to let you take God’s.”

“Will we at least be given access to his stuff?”

“Under supervision, maybe. That idea was brought up, but we were unable to come to a compromise.”

“Then you have time to reach a conclusion until we have decided Gabriel’s ultimate fate. But rest assured that we will gain access to God’s things no matter what you decide. This is merely giving you a chance to do this on your terms.”

“I fully understand, high commander.”

“Good. I will notify the inquisitors to pick up Gabriel’s belongings shortly. That leaves one question.”

“Ask.”

“Why did you demand we hand you Kate?”

“A personal grudge, nothing more.”

Kate interrupted. “Oh please, just stop lying. You nearly lost control of your underlings. That wasn’t good for your reputation here and with Gabriel doing his little stunt with Uriel the courts are falling apart. You wanted me in your hands to project control.”

“You are sadly correct. The currently situation here is problematic and your presence only fanned the flames of unrest.”

“Frankly, I don’t give a shit. I might have cared if you didn't do so much stupid shit. If any of you remaining archangels just stopped to think for a moment. But you fuck around at every turn and it just makes things worse. Every time we take one of you out, another court falls and the heavens become ever more unstable. We don’t kill your kind for fun. Stop crossing us and you can rebuild. Keep fucking around and we will soon see what the heavens look like without archangels.”

“Is that a threat, young human-born?”

“That's head librarian to you and yes, it is. Maybe you really are as blind as you seem or maybe you already noticed something going on. You know of Jolene, I know you do, and she has been busy setting things on a good path for everyone involved. It looks to me that what you are currently doing is only good for yourself and not for the rest of the angels. Jolene doesn’t care about your pretty little order. Jolene cares about the well-being of everything. If removing you is the cost for making the other angels happy and content, then I suspect that she is willing to pay it. If my past interactions with her are anything go by, she will nudge us to be your executioners. She won’t do it herself, she will merely suggest that we follow her hints. I don’t know what the best path looks like but I can tell you that Gabriel and Uriel worked against it and thus had to be removed. Don’t put yourself in the same position.”

“I get your point. As far as I am concerned, I want to leave God and his legacy behind but the heavens need a strong leadership. We are not like you. I will lobby for handing you God’s belongings and will drop my interest in you.”

“Good.”

“Then I will ask you to leave now. I have much to discuss with the others.”

Freya nodded. “Give us Gabriel and we will.”

“Of course.” Raphael nodded at one of his guards who quickly teleported away before returning with a chained-up Gabriel. “Notify me when the interrogations begin.”

“We will.”

Kate leaned back in the main chair in the office. She and Apollyon had just read through the conversations between Abatur, Ptahil and God.

“You know what? Fuck this.”

Apollyon raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“This is a bit too much for one day. We take back this stupid book and get the revelation that our two ‘traitors’ worked with God because they hated angels. Two twerps who wanted to wipe out the male half of humanity and God who lied and told them he didn’t want angels to be involved with this stuff at all, only working on the project because his superior at the time told him to.”

“Yes, that is a rather annoying revelation, but I want to postulate one question before we leave this for today: why did their sabotage affect women and not men?”

“If I had to guess? Because Abatur and Ptahil trusted him with the sabotage and he didn't follow the agreement between them.”

“Possible. It is also likely that neither of the three knew how to achieve their goal properly and the deaths were an accident. To my knowledge, it was never investigated what sex the children would have been when a pregnant woman died from the sabotage. We only know that it was a nearly fifty-fifty chance and that men were fewer in numbers in Atlantis.”

“Hm… we need to talk to Abatur and Ptahil. We also need to ask Yushamin why she thought God had entered her hidden lab when the fae told us they fought Gabriel in there.”

“Yes, we should start with Yushamin. Maybe she and Yaldebaoth have made progress on figuring out what the actual sabotage was and if God was actually lying to our traitors or if there is more.”

“And what all that has to do with getting control over humanity. We know God lied about that to pretty much everyone.”

Apollyon nodded. “Yes. I am getting hungry, we should take a break.”

“Yea, we should. Let’s put this back where it belongs anyway. Make this place complete again.”

Apollyon paused. “It is your honour to do so, but I must admit that it is tempting to ask you to let me do it.”

“Polly… of course I will let you do it. This means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know why, but it does, yes.”

Kate picked up the tome and handed it to Apollyon. “Then the honour is yours.”

“Thank you.”

The two demons made their way to the hell side of the library, going past many of the shelves there to a side hall containing all the recorded correspondence and conversations between demons and natives of other worlds, like the heavens.

There it was: an empty spot on the shelves right in the middle between rows of massive tomes bound in leather. Apollyon took a deep breath and looked down at the tome in her hands.

She chuckled. “Welcome home.” She placed it on the shelf where it belonged. “Almost feels like helping a friend…”

“In a way, you did. These books might not be alive, but they can give us comfort and joy like living friends do. They did for me for a long time.”

“Strangely enough, reading never gave me that comfort, but simply being here, surrounded by books does.”

“It’s cute. It really is.”

“I haven't been called cute before.”

“Well, it’s about time then.”