'Michael.'

Raphael's voice made Michael pause in the middle of showing a subdued teenager how to hold an axe. As much as technology had begun to grow into Taubolt at the end of the millenium, here in the Garden Coast it was a stain. Several of the younger Taubolt refugees were already plotting how they might combine magic and science in a way to utilise the best in both. If nothing else the wager had proven that they couldn't afford to turn a blind eye to the development of technology, and in itself it hadn't been evil. Perhaps there was a way to marry magic and technology so they could use such things inside the Garden Coast without making pipes and wires and phone-lines necessary.

But right now that goal was a very long way from being realised. More traditional methods of construction and careful development were needed, and that meant axes, saws and good hard labour.

Michael straightened up, his ponytail swinging, and looked around for someone to take over the kid's instruction. (The kid, seeing his distraction, looked hopeful.)

"I've got it, Jake," Swami said, managing to summon a rather weak smile. His dark eyes were worried but lit with a kind of hope Michael hadn't seen ever since the young empath had, er, overheard one of his and Raphael's conversations.

Michael couldn't discredit him. The boy had been wondering why Gabriel hadn't come to visit in weeks, and in the end the Archangels had told him everything. Even though Michael regretted the need for Swami to be burdened, there was less secrecy even among the Taubolt refugees than there had been. Swami's brothers knew what worried him. Most of the core group did.

Now, Swami's hearing Rafe's call would only be a help. Michael smiled and thanked him, and then stepped around a tree to flit off toward where Raphael was without alarming the other, less knowledgeable refugees in the clearing. To his surprise, when Michael stepped back into the physical world he found himself nowhere near the Garden Coast. Still it only took a moment of looking around before he recognised the location.

"Stonehenge?" he asked as he moved close to the elaborate ritual circle Rafe and Merlin had inscribed on the ground--in another plane, so as to avoid suspicion from the locals.

"Why not?" Rafe said with a shrug. "Full of magic rocks, full of potential doorways, a circle of power itself--perfect place to go around jimmying open cracks."

"We thought anywhere in Israel might be too close to some of Lucifer's forces," Merlin said dryly without looking up from the book in which he was writing. "Uluru is still too much a subject of interest given its recent ban on visitation, and while China and Africa have numerous places to choose from ..."

"Many of them lie within reach of their respective Gardens, are populated, or have none of the natural advantages of Stonehenge," Michael finished. Merlin shrugged. There were, of course, numerous other places around the world which were powerfully magical in and of themselves, but those nations were the ones who topped the list in terms of being seats of magic. Stonehenge had been in the public eye for so long that if anything strange happened about the place, people were more likely to dismiss it than not. Not so for many of the other potential spots.

What's more, Lucifer hadn't been here for decades. England had already fallen and wouldn't provide much in the way of entertainment for a while yet, as far as he was concerned. He was much more interested in wreaking havoc elsewhere.

Michael surveyed the circle, extending himself to feel the vibration of magic working between the sigils and the pillars of the Henge, and felt something in him turn over. "You're prepared, then."

"Yes." Raphael was following his gaze. Merlin was double-checking their wards and the glamour which protected the circle from prying demonic eyes.

Michael wasn't sure how to feel. When Rafe had first come to him, Michael had very nearly been overwhelmed by anger and fear--enough to snap at his younger brother that he shouldn't have let Gabriel go alone. That rage had died quickly, but the fear hadn't. Nor had the hurt. Gabriel hadn't even seen fit to tell Michael himself.

When Rafe had come to him again, to say that now Raphael was going to leave, Michael had been expecting him. It had been too long. Gabriel had been gone for months. Lucifer was beginning to notice. And Michael's own worry had only grown. Even through all that, he'd known that he would have to be the one to stay behind. Raphael had been enjoying their newfound capacity to shirk responsibility, as many of their younger siblings were. Michael was finding more joy than ever in embracing it and knowing he had done so because he now chose to.

The Archangel wasn't so sure about Gabriel. His little brother had been so very nearly broken, had found it so much harder to comprehend just what their Master wanted for them. Perhaps that, more than anything, was why their Lord had chosen to 'hide' from Lucifer. It gave Gabriel autonomy while making him feel useful in their Master's service.

Part of Michael wondered if this whole enterprise weren't deliberate. If it weren't their Master's way of letting Gabriel jump in the deep end of his own accord. If that was so, then it would be so for Rafe as well, and Michael couldn't interfere. It was their choice.

But now that it had come to it, Michael wanted to go with Raphael and Merlin so badly that it was a physical ache in him.

Rafe's hand clapping down on his shoulder made Michael start and realise he had been staring down at the circle, and that there had been something of his conflict on his face. "You probably could still come with," Rafe said in undertone, and managed a reckless grin born of fear and excitement and the wild awe of not knowing what was going to happen next. "I mean, free will and all that."

Somehow it was the look in Rafe's eyes which helped Michael's resolve firm. The eldest Archangel smiled at his brother, lifting a hand to rest it on Raphael's wrist and squeeze gently. "Yes, I could. But I won't. I am needed here. I enjoy my work here. And you were right, Rafe. It's possible you could have helped Gabriel sooner during the wager, if one of us had only gone to you. You're better suited to this spontaneity than I am, and if he's injured he'll need you more." He glanced away, across the rolling pastures around the Henge, closing his eyes and taking a breath and for a moment feeling all around them. The never-ending hum of magic in the stones. The sky, distant and close at once in equal amounts according to an angel's differing choice of perception. The sunlight, warm and bearing with it all the promise of the space beyond. His brother and nephew, determined and excited in turns.

Michael opened his eyes and looked back at Raphael, and his heart swelled with affection and pride. "I choose to be here. And I trust you, Rafe. Find him, and help him. I'll make sure Lucifer never finds this door."

For a moment Raphael looked at him, a smile on his own lips and eyes warm. Then the younger Archangel stepped in and embraced the elder, a gesture Michael willingly returned; for a moment (for a lifetime) they remained like that, a farewell the angels had never before required.

Then Raphael pulled away and turned without speaking, and Michael stepped back to leave the circle uninterrupted. Merlin glanced his way; their eyes met, but they didn't speak either, because speech wasn't truly needed to convey their regard.

Raphael spread his wings and gathered Merlin in his arms. Merlin began to speak. Magic gathered and the air filled with the scent of ozone. The stones hummed and the tone climbed to a high chorus. The wind picked up, tugging Michael's hair and clothes. Something appeared in the centre; not a rip, not a crack, but some sort of door fashioned in the curve of Raphael's wings. The sound that poured from it made Michael cringe and step back, but Merlin and Raphael were already working in concert to shape a ward against it.

The healer-angel took a step. The sound of Merlin's voice was all but drowned, but the protective curve of Raphael's wings remained steady. The resonances, left without a catalyst in Merlin's spell, fizzled and slowly the opening collapsed.

And they were gone, and Michael was alone.

~~~

For a moment that wasn't a moment, Gabriel was caught between the whisper and the crash and the sudden rising boil that was Skulduggery in his arms. His wings trembled and his song wavered, and it was only the knowledge that he could not let this overcome him that let him press on.

If he faltered, they'd both be lost.

'Skulduggery, don't!' he cried telepathically even as he added an under-weaving hum to the music which resonating all along his feathers and soothed the deafening power of the noise inside it. He flipped his wings, just a little, though he wasn't sure if his intent was to throw the Faceless One--Imemiah!--off or just unbalance him without breaking their cocoon. Im--the Faceless One lurched but didn't release him. Another underweave broke up the whisper, or tried--there were too many melodies at once, and the threads of his started to destabilise.

Keep it simple. Skul's true name, and the cocoon which split the water, the weave which let him step into the lee of each crashing piece of music. The noise settled like a boom in his head, loud but tolerable. His pace steadied. The music was still loud, but easier to bear; everything else, he let drift past. The Faceless One's whisper to threaded in and out of his, never catching, never interrupting. The roll of the music around them snatched it away, tearing at the once-angel on Gabriel's back.

For a moment--or an hour, or a day, or a year; it was impossible to tell--it seemed as though he'd got it, that they'd be all right. Then pain shot through his wings and Gabriel's voice shook with effort not to cry out and let the song break. He stumbled on nothing, caught himself, staggered on. His wings half-bucked, trembled, but he kept them tight.

It was hard to tell if Imemiah still strictly had fingers, but either way the once-angel dug into Gabriel's back and wings, tearing pieces out of him. Gabriel couldn't really tell whether he--no, it. Now only an it--was deliberately trying to throw him off or just desperate to maintain its hold. Either way, the Archangel's focus narrowed in that way that only an angel's could, set on that bright resonance of Skulduggery's name, and the thrum around him of his own music, and he set everything else aside.

He didn't know just when Imemiah was ripped away.

He didn't know when he hit the curtain of Skul's reality.

He just knew it when his foot hit solid ground, and there was a wild reverberation from the skull on the shelf, and that his whole body was afire.

With a whimper the Archangel didn't really wrap up the song so much as let it fizzle, sinking to the floor of Guild's office.