She remembers what he said about his age--and thinks most people's memories of childhood begin to fade a little by their twenties, so she can't quite imagine how it must be decades and decades later.

"The Book of Enoch talks about how before the Great Flood, a group of angels became obsessed with mortal women, after being exposed to their charms by Lilith; she mentored them and helped them find their way to sin. They fell to Earth and made what some people call the Nephilim with those women, although the preferred term is Bene Elohim--Nephilim sort of connotes something demonic." Which is not how she thinks of witches at all. As she explains, Hasibe heads for a tall building that appears to be under construction, a large part of its beams exposed.

"Those fallen angels taught their wives magic, and their children, too. When the Great Flood happened, people believed all the Bene Elohim, the first witches, had gone. But there's a little more to that claim that witches can float than people thought."