Mads blinked. He looked the creature up and down, trying to find a world where those words matched the mouth they'd just come out of. 

"You weren't supposed to know that," his guardian angel continued. "You weren't ever supposed to know about me." 

Mads hand began to cramp and he realised he was clutching the counter even tighter now. He brought his hand into his lap to rub his knuckles, in an attempt to soothe the pain, and an excuse to look away from the figure in front of him. 

They cleared their throat, still awkwardly standing in front of him. "Well, cat's out of the bag now. We need to go see Marley." 

"W-wait," Mads yelped. "Why aren't I supposed to know about you? I mean--" he paused, realising the answer is probably obvious, "--Why do I know about you?" 

"Because this is unprecedented! I need to understand how this happened!" The angel waved their arms in exasperation, nearly hitting Mads in the face with one of them. Mads flinched backwards and the angel quickly brought their hands in close to their chest. 

They watched him carefully for a moment, until Mads finally looked down, breaking the eye contact. His hand kept fidgeting in his lap. He had a lot of questions now, about what a guardian angel even was, and why on earth he had one.  

As if the angel could tell this from his face alone, they swooped forward onto one knee, leaning into Mads' eyeline that was currently transfixed on the floor. "My name is Micidia," they offered. "Does that help?" 

Mads steeled himself so he could stand to even look at this horror of an entity. "M-micidia," he tried, to see how the name felt in his mouth. "Why do I have a guardian angel?" 

Micidia sucked the air through their teeth and leant back. It seemed like a question they didn't want to answer. Was this a regular occurrence, chatting with their ward? In this wild world of ghosts, potion masters and witches, why had Mads never heard of guardian angels before? 

"It just happens," they started vaguely. "We don't really know. It's kind of a lottery, and yay! You won. You got me." One of their hands waved wildly while they spoke, the others sat reserved at their hips. "It doesn't really matter, okay? What matters is I've been looking out for you since you were born. I was meant to get you to maturity, then I'd be off the hook. But this? This is concerning, and is worth breaking some NDAs for. We need to find out what the fuck that crystal is made of." 

Mads was aware that he was staring now, locked in place as Micidia grabbed his hands and spoke so earnestly to him. The seven voices had started to sound so normal now, like a cushion on each side of his head as they spoke. Maybe it wasn't too far fetched, considering how quick Micidia was to help him when he fell, how they seemed to have a sixth sense for Mads' movements. They were comforting to the touch, now that the initial shock of their existence had worn off.  

But Mads knew that demons were real, and demons were tricky. So he had to be sure. 

"Can you prove that you're friendly?" Mads asked quietly. 

Micidia squeezed his hands and took another breath, which felt a little more like impatience than an attempt to soothe him. After a moment, they leant back on their heels, and their face began to melt into something else. 

The eyes dripped into one big mass, and when Mads blinked he was looking at the face of his sister. He gasped involuntarily and leant back, once again unsettled by the body horror that Micidia didn't seem to realise they were presenting him with. 

"Solvej," Micidia said through Solvej's mouth. "Your older sister. I don't know where she is now, I don't really pay attention. But she practically raised you."  

Mads grit his teeth together and managed to hold his gaze. That was good, but not good enough. "You could've guessed that. There's pictures of her on my phone. Maybe you looked while I was asleep." 

Micidia visibly rolled their eyes this time. Their face flipped into something else, something Mads didn't quite recognise at first. 

"Eddie," they tried again. "Your first crush. You tried to ask her out in year two, and she re-gifted your valentines card to your deskmate."  

Mads nearly threw up. He pushed Micidia's face away and jumped up from the stool to get as far away as the studio apartment would allow. Primary school embarrassments were not on Mads' tipsy to-do list for the evening. 

"Alright! Got it! Thanks for that one," he yelped, and grabbed a coat from the pile of laundry by his bed, moreso looking for something to focus on that was not Micidia nor the memory of his primary school crush. "Off we go." 

"Really? Thank god." Micidia stood to their full height and put their face back in place. "Is she close? Will it take long?" 

Mads shook his head violently as he fixed his shirt sleeves underneath his hooded jacket. "Not even slightly. She mentioned living in Maribyrnong, I think? That's at least an hour away, if we get to a tram stop before the last one. What time is it?" 

Micidia ran their hands down their face as Mads dug around his pockets for his phone. "Alright then. I'll meet you there." 

Mads whipped his head up to look at them. "Like hell you will. You can come, and stop me falling asleep and getting mugged on the way." 

"I'll be there," Micidia assured him, that giant mouth filling up with a toothy grin. "I'm always lookin' out for you." 

Mads huffed and shoved his nearly-dead phone into his back pocket. He was too deep into this now. "You just dropped the bomb of all bombs on me, after giving me the fright of my life, after the next biggest fright of my life." He gestured sharply at Marley's crystal where it sat on the kitchen counter. "So you can sit with me on that fucking tram and answer some of my questions." 

Micidia's shoulders slumped and they stared blankly at Mads. To anyone looking in, they looked exactly like the tired, long-overworked babysitter that they felt like deep down. "Fine." They started towards the door. 

"Can you look human, or what?" 

"I'll just be visible to you. Little shoulder angel, isn't that cute?" 

Mads made after them to try and beat them to the door. "As if! I'm not being one of those people who talks to themselves on public transport in the middle of the night. You're sitting with me or we're not going." 

Micidia let out an over-exaggerated groan. "Fine. God, you're never going to grow up and free me from this, are you?" 

Mads screwed up his nose in a sneer and crossed his arms across his chest. He watched as Micidia's second set of arms shrunk into their body, the giant set of silken wings on their back shrunk into their shoulder blades (how did Mads not notice those until now?), and their face started to shift again. 

Dark navy blue skin faded into a much more natural human brown. Sheer white blond hair to match Mads' own curled out of their head, along with the streaks of pink that Mad had dyed himself a few days earlier. The eyes in their hands, along with the mouth under their jawline, set into their skin like old, faded tattoos. Mads looked them up and down when the transformation set in, and was pleased to find they looked like a perfectly ordinary human.  

Just, ten feet tall. 

"Can you...?" Mads beckoned one hand downwards to try and bring Micidia closer to him. "It'd be better to blend in with me, right?" 

"Oh. Right." Micidia nodded as their height zipped down to a comfortable six foot. Mads smiled sheepishly, then beckoned his hand again.

Micidia rolled their eyes, but zipped down a little further, meeting the boy's eyeline. Mads beamed at his new equal-heighted friend.

"Alright... Cid. I'm going to call you Cid. Not that weird Latin shit," Mads mumbled, and reached past Micidia for the door handle. "You don't have any other clothes, do you?" 

Cid looked down to inspect their outfit. It was exactly the same as what Mads was wearing. "Nah," they shrugged. "I'm not good with the whole 'clothes' thing. I'll just wear yours." 

Mads closed his eyes and took a deep breath. They'd made some good progress, and he was tired. He'll let that one slide.  

"Alright, then. To... somewhere in Maribyrnong, we go."