Hyun stares over my shoulder, through the glass door. “So you literally have a place you call the ‘innermost sanctum’...”

“Yes,” I reply.

“That’s, like, your holiest of holy places--”

“Yes.”

“And I really can’t poke my nose in there?”

“Do you truly need me to repeat everything I explained to you yet again?”

“No,” Hyun sighs overdramatically, though a grin tilts up one half of his mouth to flash teeth at. It is clearly meant to irritate me. It is succeeding.

“Should you enter there,” I repeat slowly, “and Michael were to sense this and appear, none would be there to protect you from his sword.”

His smile fades, “Where’re you gonna be? You still owe me answers.”

At the moment I wish for nothing more than to be within my chambers. My mind craves solitude and silence. I know that this impasse I have created cannot and will not hold for long, and precious time has been wasted. But I can feel fists pounding upon them, hear the reverberating echoes of the emptiness there. I can hear War’s voice ringing in my head as he calls out to me, demanding my presence, demanding entrance. I tell him to wait in my mind, but of course War cannot hear me. I must attend to him, to be sure the youngest of our number understands what is happening and what must be done...whatever that is.

I nod at the book, “You deserve to absorb that away from others’ eyes.”

“That’s not what I asked,” his eyes narrow. “Why do I feel like you just want to keep me busy so I don’t notice what you’re up to.”

“That is not at all true,” I shake my head. “I promised you answers, and the words there will contain nearly all of what I have thought, said, and been told since our first...encounter.”

“Nearly?” His brows knit together, eyes narrowing further.

“There are some things I have not had time to record or explore thanks to needing to drag you away from Earth without delay. But those facts,” I swallow, “are likely ones better heard from my own mouth than read in a book.”

Hyun’s expression remains unchanged: suspicious.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“You doubt me?”

“No,” he says, carefully. “But you definitely give the impression of being really good at selectively leaving out bits of information.”

I motion to the book, “Well now you have most of it. And if you must know: I am going to speak with War.”

After that will I address the rest of my plan, whatever that plan may yet be. I shall also tell Hyun what little truth I know...and then rip Gabriel down by his wings to the inner sanctum to explain to both of us what he knows and what we should now do.

“That asshole of yours really hates me, doesn’t he?” Hyun snorts.

Children.

“He is young -- older than you,” I say defensively, “but young to us. In the same way you were averse to all this, so is he to you.”

“Yeah, well…” Hyun flusters and though he does not finish the rest of his sentence, it is written in the disdain of his expression: I still don’t like him.

The feeling, I could assure him, is mutual.

Hyun exhales a defeated sigh, like he knows to complain is useless -- well, it would appear that he can be taught. “You’re right, you’re right. I’ll just,” he taps the book, “get to reading this, then.”

I nod, “And stay out of the innermost sanctum -- truly it is for your own protection.”

“You’re not gonna lock it?” Hyun winks.

“There has never been a lock,” I reply. “Just as there is no longer a door to be locked for this chapel: God shuts Their doors to none.”

“Except me.”

“Something to that effect,” I smile wearily. “And I would prefer not to lock you somewhere in order to ensure you do not needlessly endanger your own life.”

“Yeah, well, you do think I’m an idiot, so…”

He is stalling, turning the book over and over in his hands. I twitch, I must go. The starburst on the cover catches the light from the walls to wink at me. I would call it playful, but Death is not playful, though many a human likes to claim they have “flirted with Death.”

“I will be back.” I give Hyun a little bow before turning on my heel and leaving him be. A small part of my logic screams at me that Hyun will play the fool and attempt to enter the innermost sanctum in spite of -- or perhaps in order to spite my warning. But the greater part of my reason dictates that not even a fool would willingly enter the house of the very beings actively attempting to kill them.

Well...he is human. Humans have not always been known to act in their own self-interest. No, no. I shake my head as I cross the threshold of the arch into the bright main chamber. First, to War. After, to plan.

“Death.”

War leans against my doors, face dark as thunder.