"Sounds plausible." He considers. "My father's also an angel, I think, if your theory holds true. My mother's probably a demon. Harder to say with Myriol."

"There'll be personality quizzes online soon. What Daeva Are You? Click here to find out! Question one: would you rather cook dinner, combine some leftovers, or go out to eat."

"Or go on a date with a demon. I pick go on a date with a demon."

"That's probably a not-an-angel answer, angels are often racist against demons."

"I predict I will not be the racist sort of angel."

"Maybe you could convince the racist angels to stop blocking the Hell concordance to have a tiny stupid war!"

"That sounds like my kind of job!"

"I'm getting that sense. How does one even discover this talent?"

"By being chatty and meddlesome!"

"Of course. You weren't bitten by a radioactive diplomat?"

Snicker. "No. Sorry to disappoint if you were looking for a dramatic origin story."

"It'd be so interesting if a radioactive diplomat went around biting people! That's not diplomatic at all!"

"Well, the diplomat is radioactive at the time, so clearly they're going through some troubles and may not be at their best."

"I don't think that's how radiation sickness works!"

He laughs. "Fair point, but extreme stress can cause all sorts of bizarre behaviour and I know if I were radioactive I'd be pretty stressed about it."

"Angel'll patch that up in a jiffy."

"Yeah, angels are medical miracles, I hear. Although unfortunately not universally effective ones."

"Pretty sure they can't do anything for my balance; do you have an unangelable thing?"

"Some sort of weird nerve condition. Every so often all my pain signals turn on and don't turn off again for a while - a short episode is five minutes, a long one's half an hour. I get enough warning that I can safely learn to drive a car and fly an ultralight aircraft and so on, but it isn't very much fun and the angels my family consulted have all been totally stumped."

"Angels are brilliant medics in principle but for skills that have no applicability within Heaven I think we're only scratching the surface at this point. That sounds really unpleasant, though - how often, what should I do if you have one here - or is that impossible because you would've known this morning?"

"No, I only get a couple minutes of warning. But I had one yesterday, it's really rare to get two in the same week, and since I've yet to find a painkiller that works, the best anyone can do for me when it happens is stand around awkwardly while I curl up and whimper."

"Aircraft only need a couple minutes to land safely?"

"It's possible to never be more than two minutes away from a safe landing. Less fun that way, but possible."

"It does sound less fun. Humans can have wings, y'know, just can't take them off neatly without good trained angel help and find flying more tiring."

"And it could be awkward if I crashed."