JEAN-PIERRE

“Are you replying to more fan mail?” asked Jean-Pierre disconsolately, lingering in Asmodeus’ bedroom doorway, and Asmodeus leaned back from his desk, gesturing for Jean-Pierre to come inside.

“I thought you were still asleep,” he said, leaning back in his seat and letting Jean-Pierre clamber into his lap, leaning in against his brother’s chest and resting his cheek against his shoulder. Asmodeus’ desk chair was a huge, beautifully crafted thing, more than large enough to accommodate Jean-Pierre in Asmodeus’ lap, folded up as he was, his knees curled in against his brother’s chest as he pulled the chair back into his desk again. “Peadar abandoned you?”

“He’s lounging in the sun coming in through the window,” said Jean-Pierre quietly. “I just forgot everyone was gone, that’s all.”

He’d been half-asleep, waking up, stumbling to look in the garden and feeling strange and empty when he realised there was no one outside, and after five minutes Aimé hadn’t replied to his text – he knew he’d gone to help Bedelia, of course, and everyone else was fishing. He did know. He was just tired when he woke up, that was all, and forgot.

He’d felt a little sick going up the stairs, not sure if Asmodeus was home or not, and it had been a relief, hearing his record player on as he ascended the stairs and finding him working at his desk.

Asmodeus’ lips brushed Jean-Pierre’s forehead, the hand not holding his fountain pen stroking his lower back.

“Family dinner tonight,” Asmodeus reminded him quietly.

“I know,” said Jean-Pierre. “I wasn’t frightened.”

“You just don’t like it.”

Jean-Pierre didn’t say anything, watching the way Asmodeus wrote. He was ambidextrous, Jean-Pierre knew – he wrote with his right hand in English and French, and with his left in Arabic.

It wasn’t fan mail, as it happened, nor something from the Embassy, either: Asmodeus was writing in English, and replying to a letter from what looked to be a record label in England.

“You’re going to do another album?” Jean-Pierre asked.

“That troubles you?”

“You said you’d stay in the new year.” It sounded bratty even to his own ears, but Asmodeus didn’t tell him so, only continued to gently stroke Jean-Pierre’s back and rest his chin on top of Jean’s head.

“I’ll record in Dublin,” he said, in that calm, reasonable he had when he was specifically not telling Jean-Pierre that he was being uncalm, and unreasonable. Jean-Pierre curled in tighter to his body, pressing his lips tightly together.

“Another cover album?”

“They sell better than my original work, I’m told,” said Asmodeus.

“Only because you never sing on your own compositions.”

“I can write music,” Asmodeus said softly. “Poetry, even. Where the two meet, however, I draw a terrible blank.”

“Will you play with us at the party?” asked Jean. “You keep saying you’ll play with us and you never do.”

“I’m sorry,” said Asmodeus, sounding genuine, as blank as his face was. “I didn’t realise it mattered so much to you.”

“It doesn’t, it’s not important. I just like it when you play with us, that’s all, and most of the time when you come to trad nights with us you won’t even sing.”

“I’ll bring my accordion to the party.”

“Thank you. Are you going to play it on your record?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Snob.”

“I am a snob,” said Asmodeus pleasantly. “And for my darling hick brothers I shall play any instrument under the sky, but some are not for the recording studio.”

“You think it will ruin your sex appeal, if people hear you play the accordion?”

“It could well do,” said Asmodeus gravely, and Jean-Pierre laughed, turning his head and looking over Asmodeus’ shoulder. His music cabinet was open, and on the bottom shelf Jean-Pierre could see all of Asmodeus’ own records, the neat sleeves organised in chronological order, dates always at the underside of the sleeve’s spine.

It was how Hamish MacKinnon organised his records, Jean-Pierre knew. Most of Asmodeus’ records, it seemed to him, were produced with Hamish MacKinnon in mind, whether his record labels knew that or not.

No matter that Asmodeus was going to stay a while, Jean-Pierre knew he’d visit England for him.

“What are we listening to?” Jean-Pierre asked.

“It’s Poulenc.”

“It’s very drab.”

“Change the record if you like, I wasn’t listening very actively.”

Jean-Pierre extricated himself, plucking the needle from the vinyl and sliding it back into its sleeve. He didn’t even bother trying to put it back on the shelf – Asmodeus always got very fussy about that sort of thing even though Jean-Pierre and he had similar organisational systems anyway – but put it on the bed instead, and began to rifle through Asmodeus’ frankly brain-numbing selection of music, through different operas, orchestral compositions, and jazz.

Asmodeus’ music preferences, from range to range, were almost always dull – if they weren’t intellectual, they were clever in a sort of smug, superior way, and if they weren’t superior, they were sultry, and if they weren’t sultry, they were sarcastic, and if they weren’t that, they were experimental, which Jean-Pierre disliked most of all.

He picked out one of the very well-used records, sliding it out of the sleeve and putting it into place.

“You always pick Eartha Kitt,” said Asmodeus, not turning around to look at him.

“She’s all you have worth listening to,” said Jean, and pressed the switch for the needle.

“Would you like to talk about it?” asked Asmodeus as Jean-Pierre turned the volume dial slightly down, not really caring if he couldn’t make out the words, and fell back onto the bed.

“Talk about what?” Jean-Pierre asked. “It doesn’t bother me they didn’t invite me fishing. Even if I wanted to sit about all day waiting to kill a fish, which I don’t, there’s barely enough space in the boat with all four of them.”

“They’re getting two boats,” said Asmodeus.

“I didn’t want to go anyway,” Jean-Pierre said irritably, although he realised he said it irritably enough that it didn’t sound true at all, which in all honesty, it probably wasn’t. He felt tight and full and too hot, like the tense air before a storm. “But they could have asked me.”

“They could have,” Asmodeus agreed.

“They brought George,” said Jean-Pierre.

“His first time fishing,” said Asmodeus.

“As if I don’t have anything to teach him,” Jean-Pierre muttered. “Just because he’s not interested in anything I like – but I pay for things Colm does with him, and me and Aimé put a lot of effort into his Christmas presents, and I can do things other than read books and do surgery. And Benedictine’s going to be horrible to him, and I expect he’ll still like her better than me.”

Asmodeus spun his chair slowly around, and took off his reading glasses to look at Jean-Pierre properly.

Jean crossed his arms over his chest and looked up at the ceiling.

“I never got the impression that George didn’t like you just as well as he does Colm,” said Asmodeus, painfully reasonably this time. “I expect he just doesn’t feel as though he can invite you anywhere, that’s all. Why don’t you invite him to do something?”

“Like what?” asked Jean-Pierre. “He faints at the sight of blood, and I’m certain he can’t come to Tayto Park with us, and—”

“When you and Aimé next see a film, perhaps?” suggested Asmodeus. “Or a museum, or the aquarium, the zoo. Colm won’t go anywhere like that in case he catches culture, you know that.”

“Have you taken him to the ballet?”

“A pantomime.”

“When?”

“Last week.”

“You didn’t invite me.”

“It was Cinderella. Last time I brought you to see an adaptation of it you whispered anti-monarchist commentary in my ear throughout.”

Jean-Pierre dragged one of Asmodeus’ silken pillows under his head and another to his chest, wrapping his arms around it and hugging it to his chest.

“Is George what you were upset about?” asked Asmodeus.

“I’m not upset about anything,” said Jean-Pierre.

“You were upset last night.”

“No.”

“When Aimé was hurt.”

“He was fine.”

“You were frightened to give him stitches.”

“I thought it would heal on its own.”

Asmodeus didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look expectant, didn’t even raise an eyebrow, just kept his gaze on Jean-Pierre, his green eyes politely attentive, his expression neutral.

Jean-Pierre squeezed the pillow in his arms a little tighter.

It had been more blood than he was expecting, the wound deeper, and he’d flipped into his usual medical persona in an instant, but he’d ignored every other instinct, because he couldn’t help but think of Aimé dead, Aimé frothing at the mouth with rabies, sick to his stomach and wasting away from cat scratch fever, stiff as a corpse with tetanus, or septic, septic and made jaundiced with the septicaemia, and right in front of Jean-Pierre’s eyes—

Asmodeus was still looking at him.

“They all die,” Jean-Pierre muttered. “They all get hurt. I know that.”

“That doesn’t make it easy,” said Asmodeus.

“Bet you wouldn’t be so calm if it was your Scotsman liable to fall down dead at any moment.”

“You’re very jealous today,” said Asmodeus, so calmly Jean-Pierre knew he’d struck a nerve. “You could have gone with him to help Bedelia, you know.”

“She didn’t invite me.”

“You think she’d have been displeased to see you?”

“She invited him.”

“Which bothers you.”

“I told him to go.”

“Because you didn’t want to look at his arm.”

“Do I want to look at him or not?” Jean-Pierre asked, hearing the snap in his own voice. “Am I jealous of Bedelia or jealous of Aimé, or of George, or Colm? Hm? Who am I jealous of, De, please, won’t you tell me all, you who understands me so well?”

“It will get easier, you know,” Asmodeus said gently, after letting a few seconds pass. “I know it’s difficult at the moment, but it will get easier, once everyone’s found their rhythm, and you’ve sorted everything out with Heidemarie. I think you’re feeling a lot at once, that’s all. I know it makes you irritable when you don’t know what direction you’re being pulled in. It’s a lot to make sense of at once.”

It was comforting, when Asmodeus said things like that.

Asmodeus never talked about Jean-Pierre’s feelings the way Colm did – he always seemed to understand when it was a matter of it being too much at once rather than one or two specific feelings, even if it didn’t make them go away.

“I want to ask you something,” said Jean-Pierre.

“Alright.”

“I want you to be truthful.”

“I always am.”

“Will Aimé’s father try to kill him?”

“Not yet, I don’t think,” Asmodeus said, looking at Jean-Pierre seriously. “I expect he won’t until a new heir is already lined up, so to speak. But then, yes, I do believe he’ll try.”

“But he’s mine,” said Jean-Pierre, ashamed of how desperate he felt, how nervous he sounded, humiliated and small in his big brother’s bed, and not much wanting to leave it at this moment and think of the world outside. “And that means he’s yours by extension. Untouchable. Won’t that put him off?

“You can’t hide behind me for everything, Jean,” said Asmodeus.

“I don’t mean that,” Jean-Pierre muttered, sitting up. “I just mean— Won’t he be frightened of you? Can’t you make him frightened of you?”

Asmodeus inhaled, putting his chin on the back of his hand and leaning back in his chair, artfully crossing one ankle over the other. Everything Asmodeus did was artful, absolutely everything, and Jean-Pierre was strangely comforted to see him relax into the position, because it meant Asmodeus was thinking about it very seriously.

“You know,” he said finally, “I’m very glad you asked me that.”

“Glad?” Jean-Pierre repeated. “Why?”

“It’s good when you ask me for help,” said Asmodeus softly. “When you don’t feel you have to do everything yourself. But here especially, with Deverell… I assume you’re asking me because you know you can’t kill him yourself.”

“I could,” said Jean-Pierre immediately, defensively.

“With a little effort, yes,” Asmodeus agreed. “But you know why you shouldn’t.”

Jean-Pierre sighed, feeling the black silk under his fingers, dragging and pulling at it. “I told Aimé I’d not kill him. That it was Aimé’s right to kill him, if he wanted. And if he does want to, I’ll help him.” He was aware of the defiance in his tone, but Asmodeus didn’t seem angry, or even annoyed.

“You’re thinking it through,” said Asmodeus. “You’re holding back an impulse you know could have consequences for other people. That’s good, Jean – you know that, don’t you? You know you’ve come on in leaps and bounds, these past years.”

“I’m not as much of a liability.”

“Jean, if I have proven anything to you since we’ve known one another,” said Asmodeus, “I should hope it would be that no matter what liability you might or might not be, I will always come to get you. For you, this is good. It’s good that you’re setting limits for yourself, that you’re thinking critically about these things – avoiding undue risk to us, to the Embassy, yes, but to yourself, as well. You know I’m proud of you and the progress you’ve made, don’t you? You know I’m always proud?”

Jean-Pierre’s eyes were very hot, all of a sudden, and he reached up, wiping at them furiously, his stomach flipping painfully in his gut, and Asmodeus came forward, leaning at the edge of the bed and curling one of his hands in Jean’s hair, stroking through it.

“Do you think he’ll try to kill Aimé too?” he asked quietly.

“He didn’t try to kill Farhad.”

“Only because he didn’t have to,” Jean-Pierre whispered. “All he had to do was come into his hospital room and— and gloat.”

Asmodeus kept stroking through Jean-Pierre’s hair, combing his fingers slowly through it. It was easier, didn’t tangle quite so easily, since he’d let Asmodeus cut it.

“When it comes to the point where Aimé and Myrddin might meet,” said Asmodeus, “I expect Aimé will be more than able to hold his own. I wouldn’t expect you to make yourself alone forever, simply because of what he might think, or what comment he might make of it.”

“I love you,” said Jean-Pierre.

“I love you too,” Asmodeus said. “Very much, I do.”

“Will you lie down with me?” asked Jean-Pierre.

“No,” said Asmodeus. “But I’ll suffer through a blanket over me if you want to share my chair.”

Jean-Pierre nodded.

He didn’t sleep, curled into Asmodeus’ shoulder, but just dozed, enough that he laughed drowsily when Peadar toddled into the room and clambered up to stuff himself into the gap between Jean-Pierre’s knees and Asmodeus’ belly.

“This isn’t comfortable, you know,” muttered Asmodeus as he slid a letter into an envelope.

“Speak for yourself,” Jean-Pierre said as Peadar purred and shoved his head up against Jean’s chin.

*     *     *

AIMÉ

Benedictine had apparently never been on a trampoline before, and she was laughing with Bedelia and George both, struggling to keep her balance, but she still didn’t fall over quite as much as George, who was always falling over himself.

Leaning up against the uneven bricks of the front of the house, he could hear all of them laughing, hear Bedelia trying to explain to both of them what to do, how to do it. At one point, Aimé heard Benedictine and George both laugh and make admiring sounds – Bedelia had done a backflip.

Sitting at the table inside, Pádraic, Jean-Pierre, and Colm were playing a card game Aimé wasn’t sure of the name of, and they were playing with a Camelot deck, except the labels on the art were in Irish.

It was the time of evening where Aimé would usually be smoking a cigarette, and his mouth felt empty, his lips chapped and dry. He’d brought his wine outside with him, but he wasn’t drinking it, just held it loosely at his side. The stone was cool under his shoulders, but he had nothing to look at out here in the dark yard, so he looked at the goose who was still standing outside the chicken coop, looking suspiciously about at the darkened garden, at Aimé himself.

She was a guard-goose, Bedelia said – they’d hatched her alongside some of the chicks, and she kicked up a mighty fuss if anything suspicious showed up in the yard, and was a good deal bigger than the hens themselves.

He heard the doorstep creak as someone came outside, and glanced to Asmodeus.

“Did they really nearly get arrested today?” he asked.

“No,” Asmodeus said. “A gard stopped them because they were fishing out of season, which is an on the spot fine. Benedictine hopped about with some legalese, Colm threatened him, but before he and his partner could get any more riled up, Pádraic stepped in. Knew them personally.”

“George seemed to think it was a close thing,” said Aimé.

“Well, in fairness to him, if Pádraic hadn’t joined them, I expect it would have been. They don’t know how to keep themselves in check, at times, and they feed into one another.”

“They’d have killed him, you mean,” said Aimé, surprised by how cold his voice sounded, even though his heart had skipped a beat when George had mentioned it casually, nervously, trying to laugh about it.

“If George and Pádraic hadn’t been there? No, I don’t expect so. They might have knocked the two of them out, given them a bit of amnesia at most.”

“Because that’s completely normal,” said Aimé, and Asmodeus sighed. His back hit the stone beside Aimé, so that they were touching each other, Asmodeus’ shoulder in line with Aimé’s head. “Are you pissed at me?”

“Me?” Asmodeus asked, glancing at him. “No. Why?”

“’Cause of the shit I said about you and Benedictine. About race.”

Asmodeus laughed. “No. I think what you said was quite stupid and short-sighted, but it didn’t piss me off.”

“Oh, so you’re not angry,” said Aimé. “You’re disappointed.”

“You’re young,” said Asmodeus. “You’re rich, white, educated. I’m not angry you don’t have a frame of reference for what other people’s lives are like. I am… frustrated. That the vectors by which many of my siblings’ lives are judged and balanced are calculated in such a way, that many others are so ignorant of them they might as well not exist. I feel injustice very keenly – I always have. That our acknowledgement of injustice itself is so coloured by our own experiences, and therefore, our own prejudices, our own perceptions, troubles me. There is no such thing as a truly impartial perception, or communication – and because there is no such thing, true equality, true justice, will always be difficult to achieve.”

“I forget that you’re a philosopher too,” said Aimé slowly, surprised by how much that high-concept paragraph fucking soothed him, and Asmodeus laughed his low, resonant laugh.

“I’m no philosopher,” Asmodeus murmured. “I’m good at delivering a message, that’s all. One of life’s communicators, you might say.”

“Is that why you were nervous about Benedictine coming before? Because she’s Black, and Colm and Jean are white?”

“Funny you should notice that,” Asmodeus murmured. “I don’t think Jean and Colm ever have, you know.”

“Have you asked them?”

“No. I’d rather not draw attention to it.” Asmodeus inhaled slowly, looking thoughtful for a moment. He was holding his spectacles in one hand, one beautifully manicured thumb nail sliding slowly back and forth over one of the thin arms. “It isn’t that Benedictine is Black or Haitian that troubles me. What you have to understand is that until quite recently, the speed of communication we have today truly wasn’t possible, even within the magical world. I knew the three of them would Fall around the same time, but I didn’t know until soon before that they would Fall in precisely the same instant. I made a decision from where I was, which of them would be quickest for me to get to. Jean-Pierre I knew would be fine, and Benedictine Fell in the midst of rainforest – I made the decision to go to Colm because he Fell about two miles off the coast. If I’d not been there, he likely would have continuously choked on water, passed out, and woken up again. Would have drowned a hundred times, a thousand, before he was pushed ashore or caught in a boat – and that’s if no animal came upon him, or no current pushed him further into the Atlantic. I made the decision to go to him, to bring him ashore.”

Aimé looked at Asmodeus’ face, at the serious expression on his face, the way he stared into the middle distance, thinking deeply, thinking that far back.

“Pre-revolution,” said Asmodeus softly. “If she had been found by the French, if she had fallen into town or at the docks instead of in the woods, if she had encountered slavers instead of rebels, I think about what could have happened to her, all the additional pains she would have suffered, because I chose to help Colm first.”

Aimé was out of his depth with this, didn’t know exactly how to respond and what to say, but he wanted to say the right thing, or if not the right thing, wanted to say something, something that would actually make Asmodeus feel better. How did you make Asmodeus feel better?

“But none of that extra stuff did happen to her,” said Aimé. “You just said, she did go in with other rebels, and then she was part of the revolution, right? And now she helps other people.”

“I know,” said Asmodeus.

“And if you had gone to her,” Aimé pointed out, “you’d just feel guilty about Colm drowning.”

“I know.”

Aimé shifted slightly on his feet, crossing his arms over his chest as he tried to put the next part into a decent sentence, into something worth actually saying. “And even if all that stuff had happened, it wouldn’t be your fault. Because you didn’t invent French people being racist as fuck, or— or fucking slavery. Or any of that shit. You’re just one guy who can’t juggle three people on three different islands with two oceans between them at once.”

“Yes,” said Asmodeus, and he put an arm around Aimé’s neck, squeezing his shoulder and giving him a strange half-hug that made Aimé smile. “Yes, I do know all that, actually, Aimé.”

“But you still feel guilty.”

Asmodeus sighed, and patted the top of his arm. “All the time.”

“Twenty-three thousand angels,” Aimé said. “You can’t protect all of them. Not from everything. They’re still landing on Earth, and it’s, it’s fucking shit. All we can do is try and fix the small stuff. Right?”

“Quite right,” said Asmodeus. He squeezed him again, and Aimé wished he felt like he could squeeze him back, like he could give Asmodeus a proper hug, but it didn’t feel like he could, somehow.

“Am I making it worse?”

“No, no you’re not,” Asmodeus murmured. “I’m just glad you’re here with us, that’s all.

“It was fucking easier when I just said shit to piss people off, you know. It was easier doing that and getting a reaction than trying to give a shit and actually care if I fucking hurt people.”

Asmodeus laughed, and like this, Aimé’s head pulled in against his chest, the sound was so resonant it thrummed through his head and made his teeth tingle, and Asmodeus chuckled more quietly this time, patting Aimé’s hair and letting him go.

“Do you miss it?” Aimé asked.

Asmodeus was quiet, looking out into the yard the same way Aimé did, and he didn’t answer right away, seeming to consider the question in detail. Jean called him cold, sometimes, but he didn’t seem cold to Aimé – he was warm and solid, even when he wasn’t touching Aimé, like a strong pillar of something.

Aimé wondered if Asmodeus would seem so comforting, if Aimé didn’t know him personally, if he’d find him intimidating, as tall as he was, as broad-shouldered, as cool and collected. Increasingly, he wasn’t intimidated by him at all, not anymore than he was by Jean-Pierre or Colm.

“That’s a very broad question,” said Asmodeus. “Do you mind if I ask you to clarify?”

“Um,” Aimé said, “I was just thinking about you doing Benedictine’s hair, the way you take care of her, of everyone, but Jean says you write like you learned to a thousand years ago, and I know you don’t like computers, technology. That you like ballet, that you like old-fashioned stuff, but there’s always been bad shit, evil shit. I guess I’m asking if you get homesick. Not for a place, per se, just… for what it was like for you. Before.”

There was another silence before Asmodeus answered, and when he did, his voice was slow, measured. “I miss the way it felt. The universe used to seem profoundly simple and finite in a way that comforted me. Now, it is neither, and that that was ever my perception seems, in retrospect, to be painfully foolish. I don’t resent… what has happened. Where I have come to, where any of us have come to. Such is the nature of time and progress. But I always grieve for what was – or, perhaps, how I imagine it could have been, would have been, if I had been truly blessed with the gift of foresight, and had known long ago what I’ve learned with time.”

Inside, Aimé heard a thump on the table, and then heard the sound of Pádraic and Jean-Pierre’s laughter as Colm swore in Irish, went off on a speech that Aimé wouldn’t have been able to understand even if he was inside.

“Everyone feels like that, I’m told,” said Asmodeus, with the barest of catches in his smooth, easy voice, as though he was worried about what he’d said. Insecurity wasn’t something Aimé associated with Asmodeus. “To some extent.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Aimé said. “But even if you weren’t a big brother to twenty thousand people, I think you’d feel that way more than most people do. Being as old as you are.”

“You want a cigarette?” asked Asmodeus.

“I don’t know,” said Aimé. “I don’t think so, actually. I just… think I’d normally have one right about now. You don’t gamble.”

“No,” said Asmodeus. “No, I don’t. It annoys Colm and Jean, sometimes – Jean-Pierre likes to play card games, likes to cheat, do impressive shuffles. He gambles at parties a lot, not just card games or dominos but little bets of skill, dares. Colm likes cards as well, but he prefers bets of skill. Neither of them will bet on greyhound or horse races, but they’ll bet on other competitions. You should see the two of them argue with one another, the bets they place, when there’s next a big agility competition for dogs on the television.”

“They televise shit like that?” asked Aimé, and Asmodeus laughed.

“Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, they do, sometimes.”

“And Bene?”

“Yes, on all of the above.”

“But you don’t like it.”

“No.”

“’Cause it’s a sin?”

Asmodeus didn’t laugh this time, but smiled, showed his white, white teeth. “I don’t even like to play cards with adults, you know. I play with children, children who don’t understand what it is to bet, and don’t try. Adults don’t understand what it is either, of course, but they do try.”

“What does that mean?”

“Gambling always escalates,” said Asmodeus. “There’s something profoundly foolish in a man who rolls his boulder from the top of the mountain and thinks he can control which way it will roll.”

“You know that mystical shit does not land with me.”

“Metaphors aren’t mystical, Aimé. You’re just overly literal.”

“Seems like this is a long way of you telling me you don’t know how to control yourself when the odds get higher.”

Asmodeus looked at him in a way that wasn’t intimidating, wasn’t scary, wasn’t angry. In fact, Aimé didn’t think he was angry at Aimé at all – but he was surprised that he’d said it, and surprised, too, that Aimé was right.

Asmodeus’ face didn’t move, his eyes didn’t widen, his lips didn’t part or even twitch. Not a single muscle moved in his jaw, his cheeks, his brow, and yet somehow, Aimé felt like he was looking at him naked for a half second, like he was seeing something he wasn’t supposed to.

“Do you gamble, Aimé?” asked Asmodeus softly.

“No,” said Aimé. “I try not to.”

“Poker?” asked Asmodeus. “Cards?”

“Bet the clothes off my back, a few times,” said Aimé. “Bet on boxing matches, mine, other people’s. We’re not supposed to bet, addicts. We don’t understand consequences the way we’re supposed to. Fucked in the head.”

“I like your head,” Asmodeus said mildly, patting him on the cheek, and Aimé smiled slightly as he took a sip of his wine, following Asmodeus inside.

“… have to come with us, Benedictine, it’s only a group of eight or so, but they’re already booking out the whole rink, so you might as well come along,” George was saying. “And Bedelia, Bedelia’s coming too. I don’t think I’ll be any good, but apparently it’s easier with your wings out.”

“They being good to you?” asked Benedictine, apparently directing the question to Bedelia only.

“They are, actually,” Bedelia said quietly, piecing out more of the pie she and Aimé had worked on earlier and pushing more of it to George and to Benedictine both. “I think it’s different, now that I’m an adult, you know? I look the same way you do. It made them all more nervous when I was a kid.”

Aimé let Jean-Pierre pull him closer when l’ange reached for him, allowing himself to be tugged to sit on the arm of his chair, Jean-Pierre’s hand wrapped loosely around his belly, his head coming to rest on Aimé’s side.

He looked serious, frowning down at his cards, and Aimé put his hand in Jean-Pierre’s hair, looking between his and Colm’s frowns, to Pádraic’s serious expression.

“What about you, Paddy?” asked Benedictine.

Pádraic shrugged and didn’t answer, focusing on his cards and tapping the tabletop to up his bet – they were only gambling with those little fish-shaped biscuits, which Aimé knew damn well that of the three of them, only Colm could actually eat, but they’d transitioned from using nuts because Jean-Pierre kept eating from Colm and Pádraic’s pots.

“You needn’t still be angry at them, Daddy,” said Bedelia. “They’re all being very nice to me now.”

Pádraic grumbled something that didn’t sound like English, that Aimé couldn’t make sense of, but it made Colm snort derisively.

“You should come,” said Bedelia.

“Party?” asked Aimé.

“Irish angels,” Asmodeus supplied, pouring more wine for him. “We’ve booked out an ice rink and the café attached, just a little meet-up on Boxing Day.”

“Oh, Stephen’s Day?” Aimé asked. “Don’t you want to go, ange?”

“No,” said Jean-Pierre crisply. He didn’t look up from his cards, but he kept his grip tight on Aimé’s side, fingers pressing into his side, hard enough to hurt a little, and Aimé caught his hand, interlinking their fingers so he’d squeeze Aimé’s hand instead.

Colm was looking at his cards with the same stout, scowling focus, and Aimé turned to look at Asmodeus, who gave a minute shake of his head.

“The fuck?” Aimé mouthed at him.

“Later,” Asmodeus silently replied, and then said smoothly, “I do think you’ll find it easier with your wings out, George, they’ll help you balance, but they’ll help you control your speed, as well. You can always spread your wings out to help you slow yourself down when you try to brake.”

“Are you good at ice-skating, Asmodeus?” George asked.

“I enjoy it,” said Asmodeus, giving a delicate shrug of his shoulders, taking a piece of Bedelia’s pie and biting into it. Somehow, he dropped no crumbs, and he chewed delicately, primly, before he swallowed. “I’m no great artist.”

“Don’t fucking listen to a thing he says, George,” said Benedictine. “He won a medal for the Embassy at the Magical Olympics in ’57.”

“I like how you clarify ’57,” Asmodeus said dryly. “As though it were a regular event as opposed to a singular, short-lived experiment.”

“He won a medal,” said Benedictine to George and Bedelia, both of whom were looking at Asmodeus with wide-eyed, fascinated delight. “For figure-skating.”

“Do you have other awards for skating, De?” asked Bedelia.

“No,” Asmodeus said. “Most of my accolades are for dance.”

“Everyone in the group chat seems pretty excited you’re coming,” said George.

“That’s very flattering,” said Asmodeus, smiling. “I’m glad to hear it, of course.”

Jean-Pierre’s fingernails were digging so hard into Aimé’s hand that he was leaving crescent shaped marks.

“Can we play a boardgame, or something?” asked Aimé. “I don’t know the rules for any card games, and I’d like to get drunker before I have to learn.”

“The murder mystery one,” said George immediately, excitedly, and launched himself like a windmill of limbs across the room, rifling through the bottom shelf of the cupboard for the boardgames.

“Play on a team?” Aimé asked Jean-Pierre as he slowly put his cards down, and Jean nodded. He let Aimé tug him up and out of the chair, swapping their places so that he could bundle Jean-Pierre into his lap and scoot the chair closer, even as Colm and Bedelia cleared off the table for the board.

“I hate this fucking game,” muttered Colm.

Aimé waited for Jean-Pierre to snipe at him, but it didn’t come: Jean-Pierre seemed distracted, staring down at his own knees, and admittedly, Colm didn’t seem entirely with it either.

“Play on my team, Colm?” George asked as he rushed back to the table. “So Bedelia can be with Pádraic, and Benedictine can play with De?”

Colm sighed, long-suffering, but he did almost smile as he said, “Fine, kid. If you want.”

It took a little while for the frost to thaw, as they started setting the game up, but Jean-Pierre elected to read out everything from his cards in an exaggerated impression of Asmodeus’ voice, which Colm joined in with, and had everyone laughing.

The tension faded away, and Aimé relaxed with his arms loosely wrapped around Jean-Pierre’s waist, his cheek rested against Jean-Pierre’s chest.

He didn’t play much himself, just smiled as the others did, let himself relax right into Jean-Pierre, hold him, feel the tension slowly eke out of him. There were a few things he wanted to ask about, tonight, like Asmodeus and the dancing, how other angels apparently were excited to see Asmodeus.

It wasn’t until hours later, when Aimé went into the kitchen to dry up dishes as Asmodeus washed them and put them aside, because everyone else was about to play charades, but had begun to argue about whether you could use ISL, that he asked about it.

“What, they aren’t invited?”

“Colm and Jean aren’t,” said Asmodeus. “Pádraic is just angry about how they used to think of Bedelia.”

“I didn’t know there were other angels in Ireland.”

“Yes,” said Asmodeus. “As soon as George Fell I put him in contact. We’re a very close community, you know.”

“But not Jean-Pierre and Colm.”

“You might want to ask Jean about it,” said Asmodeus. “I’m not sure if he’ll want to, but if he does, I think it will be good for him. To talk through his feelings.”

Aimé dried off the serving dish in his hands.

“Other angels hate them,” he said. “Both of them? Or just Jean?”

“They’re thought of as a pair.”

“And you?”

“I love all angels,” said Asmodeus. “All of my siblings, my brothers, my sisters. I don’t pretend to be perfect, but all angels know me.”

It occurred to Aimé that this wasn’t anything like a fucking answer.

“I will always protect Colm and Jean-Pierre,” said Asmodeus when Aimé didn’t say anything. “Always, Aimé, as much as I can. But their choices are their own, when it comes to their relations with other angels, and with the world at large. I cannot undo every result of that which my brothers choose.”

“I’ll talk to him about it,” Aimé promised.

“Thank you,” said Asmodeus, and passed him another plate.