"Everyone is dangerous without a soul." His voice was flat. "Some people are dangerous even with one. And it's plain to anyone who looks that having lost yours doesn't exclude you from regaining it. You may be different to how you were -- but that doesn't change that you are still partly an angel."

His words became slowly fierce, but his voice became low, easy to lose in the patter of rain -- as if to imbue them well enough with passion, they needed to be more controlled, not less. Her question is enough to cut him off for a breath, to realise he might be on the verge of talking without thinking.

The last time he'd done that, he'd told Lloyd what happened to his mother, in spite of Lloyd's demands that he stop. It was not a good habit to get into.

So before Kratos answered he fell silent, studying Valdis until he could be sure he wouldn't lose track of what he was saying. When he did speak, the passion was gone, and his tone was even. "I wasn't born an angel. No angels from my world were born angels. Most of them are half-elves. And most of them feel my having been born human sullies everything I do."

It wasn't something he liked to talk about, but he did remember that the last time they spoke like this, Valdis had walked away when he declined to give her equal information in return.