Elsewhere, near the gates of paradise, toward the inner lands of that sky...

All the rescued souls knew that there was only one possible strategy: to attack by blessing all the little tricksters who served Rose of the Winds. Together, Potato Peels, the former damned, harmonious half-moons, solitary half-moons, and saints from every era remembered the horrors Rose had made them endure.

Their strategy would be the following: pretend to remember nothing. Then bless, without anger—for what would blessings be worth, in such a case, without freely given happiness? However, one small problem remained. There was this black woman still searching for her soulmate. Of course, she no longer remembered her identity, but how would a demon react if, in the heart of paradise, someone asked: “Are you the one I’m looking for?”

Faced with this difficulty, Marilyn stepped forward:

— In the end, it’s only a minor problem, since they’ll think they’re at home.

So the rescued souls approached the little devils and the other birds of ill omen with conviction. Then, before those vile counterparts could utter a word—or anything wicked—they were blessed.

At once, their horns melted; their tails shrank and disappeared all the way to the tailbone. They turned blue with embarrassment, just like an angel caught dipping his fingers into a bowl of blueberries. From that moment on, the devils, who were devils no longer, resembled men. Once the word had spread, they too began to bless. It was as though they had undergone a swift exorcism, one that irreversibly transformed their personalities. They had simply become angels without wings, powerless—rather like adults newly born as humans.

What almost compromised this simple plan was the moment when a green devil spotted Uncle Maxime a few meters away. The strange platypus had just completed his landing and was adjusting his mouth, a sight that disturbed the horned creature’s sense of logic.

“It must be the change of air, or the horror shift, that’s making me see things. If I tell Rose of the Winds that I saw a four-legged duck with a corkscrew tail and a beak hundreds of meters long, he’ll think I’ve gone soft. No! I’d better not mention it to anyone—least of all to him. He’d drown me in molasses, or worse, he’d scrape off the beautiful tattoo of a fondue fork I have on my thigh,” he told himself, just before receiving a blessing.

Uncle and Henri wondered about it, despite the success of the charge.

Then came a stretch of eternity in which, in certain places, bottlenecks formed. One cannot bring all the damned souls into paradise without creating overcrowding. In those spots, it felt like rush hour in the center of a megacity, with people honking through that famous question. Absolutions acted like green traffic lights. Then came the immeasurable joy of being free as air itself. It was exuberance at its purest—like the celebration of a great victory in hockey or football.

Later, when they had the chance, the good revolutionaries washed the angels’ wings with spring water, using the soap they found in the halos of the saints.

— There! The idea was excellent. Everything will fall into place, the group of four unfortunate companions could not help saying.

— What does not exist moves faster than mind or matter, Uncle Maxime declared, this time without a slip.

After that, he invited Henri and Marilyn to go in search of Rose of the Winds. In no time, everything was already in place to locate the cunning and diseased general. Uncle Maxime opened his mouth wide. At the very last moment, just before he performed a zirgouille, the black woman was about to leap into the void.

Like a reflex.