Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong,
Balm and oil for weary hearts all cut and bruised with wrong.
I forgive thy treason — I redeem thy fall —
For Iron, Cold Iron, is the master of men all!— Cold Iron, Rudyard Kipling
[We skip back in time now to around 7pm; Boriel's player wasn't at the previous session, so this couldn't be played out then.]
When Boriel turns up to rugby practice in Ravenscourt Park, he finds Alex waiting there for him. A few of the other players have also arrived. Alex introduces "Barry John" around quickly, then apologises for having to skip out tonight. His girlfriend's son was playing in some scaffolding, and luckily it didn't all land on him.
Practice is good. The Rangers are enthusiastic amateurs and Boriel fits right in, being only about as good at rugby as the average human who has a little skill in the game. He also gets on well with them, but being a Malakite and therefore as deaf as a post is completely oblivious to any subplots that might be going on. He ends up going out to the pub (the Dog and Duck as chance would have it) for an hour or so with four of them; Harry Rand, the winger who played so well on Sunday and who seems to be default captain since Alex wasn't there, J.J. Munroe, Jono Harris and Charlie Blake. They have a good time for a while, then Boriel gets a pre-arranged phone call dragging him off to his surveillance work.
[People who skipped ahead can skip back now.]
We wind forward to after Eli and Magariel have left. Hezekiah, Atoziel, Helophel and Alanuel (the Mercurian of Trade) drive round to the local Trade tether, the Stock Exchange trading floor. They exercise extreme paranoia in getting there safely, but the squads of demons prepared to sacrifice their vessels to snatch Alex back fail to materialise. In the quiet of the tether they go celestial, at which point Hezekiah realises that he has lost a force. He is however a quite elegant green and silver seraph, in comparison with Excel's gold and Helophel's rich brown viper patterns. He does have visible Discords; three points of Burning Lies, as hypothesised, and a level of Selfless. Eli mentioned earlier that he had removed the really irritating one, the level of Need for Amanda! Since his remaining Discords are alien to an angel, they already seem to be harmonising themselves to his new nature.
Ascending to heaven, they start the tour at the Bazaar and work their way around the various Archangel's areas. Hezekiah discovers a stronger interest in Dreams than anyone had expected, a complete lack of regard for Stone, and something of an attraction for the Wind, but finally settles back on Trade as what he really wants to do. It is agreed to put him on the celestial equivalent of Witness Protection, but to find some way to reintroduce him to Amanda's life without raising demonic suspicion.
Events surrounding Giuseppe's gradually wind up. The murder case in particular is closed, pinned on the manager and the dead bouncer though the lack of obvious motive is a little frustrating to DS Martins. PC Wells does nothing further to raise the angels' suspicions about him, to the annoyance of Boriel and Helophel, while Atoziel's attempts to break his role are slightly frustrated by Christmas closures — he is turning up gaps in the documentation, but at a level where a lack of gaps would be suspicious in itself. And the Lightening servitors arrange a secure mobile phone for Magariel.
Over the next few days the angels are debriefed by their Superiors, which results in the usual collection of enigmatic comments and extra information. They are generally congratulated — Jean in particular has no objections to Excel's distraction from his primary mission — and rewarded with songs and skills. Janus likes Magariel's idea of joining the Young Conservative/Labour/Liberal groups to stir everything up, and tells him that there is currently a tether to the Wind on Blackheath. Yves comments to Atoziel that the Marches will be something to watch, and London. Why? He'll just have to wait and see.
Magariel spends Christmas with Amanda and David, eventually managing to win them over. This is helped considerably when a phone call from Alex is arranged — Marc believes in maintaining contacts, after all. He also sees Zack on Christmas day; since the boys don't connect him to Maggie, he doesn't find out if they have anything more planned.