"Sometimes," comes his answer, paired with the defensive set of his jaw and eyebrows. He's recalling a time centuries ago when Michael plucked him from the jaws of danger and dumped him unceremoniously at the threshold of Lucifer's garden, as if after all that time he were still some troublesome child.

Wilhelm comes to the Witchwood when he feels the weight of things he should redress. Over eight hundred years, you accumulate so many mistakes, all of them like wounds that fester without proper treatment. You inflict so many scars.

In the red haze that drapes the forest, his wings transform into black rippling masses of shadow at his back. Following Michael's gaze, he finds the dark shapes of birds rustling in tree branches. Too many eyes stare back.

"Is there one coming?"

A demigod, he means.