While he’s talking to them, I watch Beliel. Like the others, he’s handsome, masculine, and torn up. But unlike the others, he looks toward Raffe with a conflicting mix of hope and anger.

‘You’re here to take us back with you, right?’ asks Beliel. ‘We’re not fully Fallen yet. We still have some of our feathers even.’ Some of the others chuckle like that’s a joke.

Beliel strokes the remaining patches of sunset feathers on his wing. ‘They’ll grow back once they can see real sunlight again. Won’t they?’

‘Let us help,’ says Hawk. ‘Give us a mission.’

‘Let us earn our way back, Commander,’ says Cyclone. ‘We’re wasted down here.’

Raffe takes a good look at them. He looks at their tufts of feathers and splintered wing bones sticking out at odd angles. He looks at their skinned limbs and gnarled wounds. I can see in his eyes that it hurts to see his loyal soldiers like this.

‘What happened to the others?’ asks Raffe. He looks at the dozen or so Watchers around us.

‘They have their own journeys to travel now.’ Thermo’s voice holds a world of sadness.

So if we brought them back, it’d be a dozen Watchers against a hundred of Uriel’s angels.

‘Where are the hellions?’ I ask.

‘They’re the least of our worries,’ says Beliel.

I look around at the barren landscape. No hellions in sight. ‘I need them. I might be able to use them to get out of here.’

They all stare at me.

‘Have you even been here long enough to be this crazy?’ asks Little B.

‘That’s how we got here,’ I say. ‘The hellions can jump in and out through my sword, and I grabbed one to hitch a ride.’ I shrug. ‘I guess you guys never held a sword on a demon long enough to do this before.’

‘It only takes a second to kill one,’ says Raffe. ‘No reason to pause before skewering him.’

There’s a moment of silence as they stare at me, then they look at each other.

I brace for the barrage of questions, but all they ask is, ‘Can we catch a ride too?’

I glance at Raffe. He nods. It wouldn’t surprise me if this has now turned into a rescue mission for Raffe as much as a mission to save the angel host back in our world.

‘You don’t really believe her, do you?’ asks Little B.

‘You got something better to do than listen to her?’ asks Howler.

‘I don’t know if it’ll work,’ I say. ‘But if you could help me find hellions and convince them to jump back into my world, then we can all try to leave here together.’

‘She’s as crazy as the rest of them,’ says Little B. ‘No one has ever escaped the Pit without permission from the higher-ups. Ever.’