He flipped through the pages slowly, eyes scanning the neat lines. “Ah, Silas again.” His voice hardened slightly. “Did he elaborate?”
I shook my head. “Only that he had… impure thoughts. And, well, he said…”
“Go on, child.”
“He said that he… hesoiledhimself while asleep,” I whispered, a little embarrassed to repeat the words aloud, especially to Father.
Father’s lips pressed into a thin line. “The flesh is a weak vessel. Desire is Hell’s oldest weapon.” He closed the notebook sharply. “I’ll speak with him tonight.”
I nodded, though my throat felt tight. I thought of Silas’s trembling hands, the way his voice had cracked when he said it. He hadn’t seemed dangerous—just frightened.
“Father,” I said carefully, “do you think—”
He turned to me, waiting, brow lifted.
“Do you think the Lord might still love someone who tries very hard to be good, even if they… slip sometimes?”
Father’s gaze softened just slightly, but his answer came without hesitation. “Love is not the question, my son. The Lord loves all His children. But love does not spare them from correction. Would you not strike the flame that threatens to burn your house down?”
“I would,” I said quickly, ashamed for asking.
He smiled faintly, setting the notebook on the altar. “Then you understand. Mercy without discipline breeds decay. The faithful must be reminded of the cost of their salvation.”
I tried to mirror his smile, but something inside me wilted. I wished—oh, I wished—that he could see mercy as something kind, not as a warning.
Father turned toward the doorway. “You will rest now, Elior. Dahlia has prepared your breakfast. Strawberries, as I promised.”
“Yes, Father. Thank you.”
He paused before leaving. “And remember, shadows often hide behind gentle thoughts. Guard your mind, my son. You must not become lost in the darkness like Silas.”
When he was gone, the echo of his footsteps faded down the chapel’s long hall.
2
Jace
Three months of bullshit smiles and Bible talk, and I was finally getting somewhere.
The Covenant of Light. That was the name stamped across the top of every file back at the Bureau—typed in clean black font, sterile and harmless-looking. You wouldn’t think it meant forty people living in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska, playing house with a self-declared prophet and his “holy” son.
But that’s what it was.
I’d read the reports—missing persons, financial fraud, whispers about “cleansings” given as penance. It was more than enough to make the Bureau nervous, but no one had been able to get close. The place was like a fortress. They didn’t recruit online, didn’t advertise, didn’t even have a goddamn website. The only way in was old-fashioned, face-to-face trust.
So that’s what I’d been doing. Earning it.
Every Sunday for weeks, I’d driven the same beat-up Chevy down the cracked highway to the little farmer’s market on the edge of a tiny farming town. And every Sunday, I’d find Malachi there—the man himself, prophet and founder, selling honey in glass jars with handwritten labels and bushels of corn. Well, it was more like he was overseeing his followers, making sure they weren’t up to anything besides making money to line his pockets—all he actually did was sit there while a small group of adults did the actual work.
The first time I spoke to him, he’d barely looked at me—just nodded when I handed him five bucks and told him the honey smelled good. The second week, I asked what the words “Blessed be the Light” on their booth’s sign meant. That got me a half-smile and a pamphlet that didn’t really explain anything.
By the fifth week, I was quoting scripture back at him.
Nothing fancy—just enough to make him curious. I’d drop a line about redemption through suffering or some shit, and he’d tilt his head, studying me with interest.
Then last week, something shifted. He’d talked with me longer than usual, throwing around buzzwords like “the hunger for truth” and “men who seek the flame.” When I said I’d like to see what his congregation was really about, he didn’t say no. He just said, “Perhaps the Lord will call you.”
Which, translated, meant:Not yet, but soon. Maybe.
