Rarely…
Angels do sleep.

And when they do, it can be for quite a long time. There are those
who say, particularly now, that it was for this reason that The
Goth House chose Arcadia as its home.

Zophiel's head snapped up from his desk. He remembered
working — rather diligently, in fact — on a very significant and
lengthy project. For moments after waking, however, he could not
deduce from the notes before him precisely what had been
occupying his thoughts and time.

And something else was missing.

"Hmm."

The angel stood and moved to the center of his study — glancing
from volume to ornament to implement. Nothing seemed out of
place. And as if it might be for want of a sound, Zophiel laughed.

"It's that damned skull. Those damned imps. Why bring it to me
so often and not lately?"

"Because, Spy, you've lost that keen perception." came a voice,
or perhaps two.

"Sigron… or Pihon?" said the master of The Goth House. "Or
both?"

"We are here."

"Then this must be the end."

"No." they may have said twice.

"Why visit me if this is not over?"

"There is a choice you must make before we'll know the answer
to that question. If it were truly ended, we would be here is out
other role. Or you would not be here at all."

"Where would I be?"

Zophiel had learned from long history never to attempt a glimpse
of the pair of angels who now addressed him. They were of the
highest order and madness could be the result of seeing their
forms. Still, their words often had the same effect.
The half-fallen angel concentrated as they spoke.

"It is because He loves you that you are a spy. What other reason
could there be for Him to employ such an agent?"

Zophiel returned to his desk. The space the skull most often
occupied, when not enigmatically in the possession of the imps,
was uncluttered — even free of dust.

"This is not my study."

"Then where would you be?"

Perception.

Very often the most obvious truth is so large that it cannot fully be
seen. Or, at least, not all at once. Zophiel's head snapped up
and he realized he had been napping in the Cloister. As this
reverie subsided, however, he could not remember the last time
he'd visited this part of The Goth House.

This House had ever been intended as the refuge of Hope. And
Zophiel's had just been restored. He stood, saying only,

"Ravenlord."