Gabriel remained silent at first, continuing his work on the dead wood of the tree but still obvious paying attention to the argument happening just a few feet from him. Challenge was bright in Valkyrie, but when she looked at him Gabriel looked calmly back. His gaze didn't even flicker when Fletcher left them, though part of him wished the young man had stayed. It might have helped if Valkyrie didn't feel she was being ganged up on.

Still. The Archangel didn't let the show in his face. The time had come, apparently, and Skulduggery was right. Better this be done sooner than later.

"There's a difference between intent and method, Valkyrie," he said gently. "Wanting to rescue Skul isn't wrong. But the steps you take to do something good do matter. Sometimes, those steps undermine what you intended to achieve." A flicker of a grim, resigned smile crossed his face. "You may have heard the saying 'the road to Hell is paved with good intentions'. It's true. Lucifer's favoured and most successful means of destroying people is to manipulate them into justifying evil in the name of good."

The line was blurred, of course. There were exceptions; there were always exceptions. People were allowed to fail, to make mistakes. It was the ones who didn't realise what they had done was evil that fell.