His father. His father. It had been such a long time since Ghastly last spoke to him. As a mortal, his father was dead long before Mevolent even arrived on the scene, but Ghastly still remembered him. He remembered the tailor shop. And he remembered his mother, the way she was for months after her husband's death. Not grieving, exactly - it hadn't been a shock, she'd known what the result of marrying him would be, and the two of them had discussed it many times. But she'd still been different. Quieter. More introspective.

A lot of Ghastly's memories of his father, come to think of it, involved either clothes or his mother's feelings. It made him smile to think of them both up in Heaven, bragging about him. Bragging about him to a mind-reader. Bragging about him to a mind-reader he was very good friends with and who knew absolutely everything about him.

"Not just shoes," Ghastly contradicted Gabe. "I'm halfway through making you a co - " He stopped, stared, tore his gaze away and tried to remember what he was saying through a stupidly large grin. "Halfway through making you a cowboy hat. But it's good to know what my job prospects are after I die."

It was also good to know that even after death, people didn't change.

"I didn't think I'd ever be calling an Archangel adorable," Erskine lamented. "But here I am, considering it. My worldview has changed. The Archangel and the living skeleton. Am I the only one here who thinks they're adorable?" He paused. "Is adorable the right word?"