“You two look awfully comfortable,” Pyre said. He was at the entrance to Ivan’s room, smoke drifting from his mouth. Behind him, the lizardman of wrath had a dark expression on his face. The room was a mess. Claw marks and indents decorated the walls, floor, bed, and ceiling. Ceiling? Ivan shook his head and removed the image in his mind. His gaze fell on his brand-new axe. It was bent, a footprint on the blade. Raea was holding Palan who was resting his head on her chest.

“Shh.” Raea glared at Pyre and Ivan. “He’s sleeping.” Palan’s open eyes rolled around, and his gaze landed on Ivan. The lizardman shuddered and took a step behind Pyre.

Pyre grunted. “I suppose anyone would be tired after not sleeping for a week,” he said as he took a seat on Ivan’s couch—what remained of it at least.

“Huh? What do you mean?” Raea asked and raised her head. There was a wrinkle on her forehead.

“You’ve been dead for five days,” Pyre said. “Palan hadn’t left your side the whole time. He didn’t sleep either.” He chewed on his pipe and raised an eyebrow. “He didn’t tell you?”

Raea lowered her gaze and stroked Palan’s hair. “No. No, he didn’t,” she said with a small smile on her face. She sighed. “You said I was dead for five days?”

“That’s right,” Pyre said and nodded. “I’m curious. What’s it like being dead? Do you remember anything? It would be possible to kill you again to refresh your memories. The archbishop is about to wake up.”

“I’ll pass,” Raea said and made a face. “I remember I saw something, but I don’t know what. It’s like a dream you forget upon waking. There was a lot of white. And walls. Lots of white walls.” Raea’s brow furrowed as she bit her lower lip. “It upsets me that I can’t recall anything else. It feels like I forgot something important.”

“You sure you don’t want to die again?” Pyre asked and scratched his head.

“I like being alive, thank you very much,” Raea said.

“Then why’d you kill yourself?” Pyre asked and tapped the ashes out of his pipe. It spilled over the floor, causing Ivan’s face to turn ugly. The lizardman sighed. Well, the room was already a wreck. He’d have to move to a new one anyways. He consoled himself and picked up his dented axe, stroking its edge.

Raea’s face froze. “Did Palan tell you?” she asked.

“Your chest was on fire and there was blood on your hand,” Pyre said. “I think it’s pretty obvious what happened, considering neither you nor Palan suffered injuries from a fight. Do you want to talk about it? I want to watch the world burn, but I can’t do that if my lighter is broken.”

“Aren’t I your lighter?” Ivan asked and furrowed his brow. “You gave me the surname of Blackflame.”

“Well, Raea’s flames are blacker,” Pyre said and snorted. “Besides, when you’re trying to burn something, two fire sources are better than one.”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me a tool,” Raea said and glared at the two men across from her. The edges of her pupils were beginning to turn purple.

“Alright,” Pyre said and relit his pipe. “You’re Raea Caelum, an individual, not a tool. My previous offer still stands. I’m very good at dealing with problems.”

“Is that why you smoke illusion grass?” Ivan asked.

Pyre coughed. “And it has solved all my problems, hasn’t it?” He offered the pipe towards Raea. “So what do you say?”

A fireball flew out of Raea’s finger and incinerated the pipe. “No matter how many times you ask, I’m going to say no, so stop asking,” she said. “But as for talking about it…. I’m scared of my envy.”

“Your envy?” Pyre asked. “Well, I guess you’ve already embraced wrath. What part of envy makes you scared?”

“It’s going to make me hurt someone,” Raea said and bit her lower lip. “It’s already hurt Elrith and expelled me from the capital. I don’t want people to get hurt because of my inability to control my feelings.”

Pyre stared at the angel who burned down nearly half the first sector because she was mad. “Uh, that was an unexpected reason,” Pyre said and scratched his head. “But it’s a good thing I helped Headmaster Hailing with his research. We developed different ways to suppress or empower different sins and virtues. For example, we’d improve an angel’s patience by having them solve a puzzle every time they needed something. I thought of that by the way. And—“

A massive fireball flew over Pyre’s head, melting a hole through the wall, creating a pool of lava. Cory let out a screech and smacked black flames off of her body. She peered through the hole in the wall and blinked. “The harbinger’s really amazing,” she said and sighed. She had finished cleaning up the vomit and was taking a nap on the bed Raea’s corpse had been in.

Pyre cleared his throat as a bead of sweat ran down his forehead. Ivan trembled at the melted wall. “I. Hate. Puzzles,” Raea said, her eyes purple. “So it was your fault.”

“N-no,” Pyre said. “I meant, Headmaster thought of that and I tried to convince him it was too cruel. No one should have to suffer through mental torture to use the bathroom.” He shook his head and sighed. “But what can I say? Headmaster Hailing was my boss. I couldn’t disobey him.”

“I’m going to roast both of you together one day,” Raea said with a frown.

“Who’re we roasting?” Palan asked. His neck cracked as he sat up. His tails were still sleeping, tangled in a ball behind him.

“Pyre and his boss.”

“Roast him after we kill Sariel,” Palan said. He scratched his cheek and spat out a tooth before focusing on Pyre. “When is that happening?”

“As soon as the archbishop wakes up, we’ll begin our attack,” Pyre said. He abandoned the idea of correcting Raea’s envy—she’d probably kill him if she knew what the fix was. “We have close to thirty archlings. A few more are on the verge of evolving, but we’ve let the angels prepare for too long. Our location will most likely be exposed soon, and maybe that lightning avatar will pay us a visit. Also, I finished building the cannon.”

“I thought you had lots of cannons,” Palan said.

“The cannon,” Pyre said and snorted. “Not a cannon.”