Because something followed me out of that chapel.
It didn’t have his voice, not at first. It moved differently, spoke differently, waited longer between breaths. But the cadence was the same—the patience, the promise, the control.
Maybe I didn’t kill him.
Maybe I only killed a man who served him.
Maybe the priest was never one person at all—just a pattern, a creed, a way of remaking monsters out of the broken.
And maybe I became the proof it worked.
The notes, the photographs, the humming in the vents—it isn’t memory. It’s inheritance. Someone else picked up the scripture where he left off and kept preaching in the dark.
I stare at the photograph again—Raven asleep, bathed in that faint, unnatural light—and the ink at the bottom glints like a smile I’ve seen before. I can almost hear the whisper that came with it:She always made that sound when she dreamed.
I thought I ended him.
But faith like his doesn’t die. It just changes hands.
And tonight, I can’t tell whether the echo belongs to a ghost?—
or to a man still waiting for me to come back to the altar.
The humming stops when I whisper his name.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
RAVEN
Damien hasn’t spoken for ten minutes.
He’s standing in the middle of the living room like the floor might vanish if he moves too fast. One hand in his hair. The other hung at his side. His jaw keeps clenching, unclenching. Like he’s chewing glass.
I sit curled on the couch, watching him like I’m waiting for the ground to shake.
It already has.
I just don’t know how deep the fracture runs yet.
“Tell me,” I say softly.
His eyes flick to mine—sharp, wild, unsteady.
“I need a second,” he breathes.
That scares me more than shouting ever could.
Because Damien doesn’t stall. He doesn’t freeze.
He acts.
Always.
He walks to the table.
Picks something up.
Turns.
