Page 44 of Sinister

His lips press into a line. “Yes, you’re right. I’m a professor at St. Anselm Hall. But I’m not the pagan monster they make me out to be. My background is in theology. Demonology is simply a branch of it.”

“It’s blasphemous,” I mutter.

“Why? It’s knowledge.”

“Knowledge made man fall.”

He smirks. “Then we’ve already fallen. Why not learn something on the way down?”

I open my mouth to argue but close it again. He has a point.

“Why study it? And why here of all places? You knew this town wouldn’t welcome you.”

“You’re here,” he says simply.

“Be serious.”

He chuckles. “My mentor invited me. He was my teacher at Harvard and recommended me for the position.”

“Harvard?” I blink. “And yet you’re here, in Radcliffe?”

“I told you. Because you are here.”

I roll my eyes, though he can’t see it. “You’re toying with me. And I don’t like it.”

“How many times must I say it? I’m not toying with you, Petra. I’m trying to help you.”

“Help? I never asked for your help.”

“Haven’t you?” He steps closer again, his fingers brushing the edge of my veil. “You crave knowledge, just as I do. I see it in you. You’re bound by expectation, by what others think you must be. But you’re not what they want. You’re something else entirely.”

“Appearances deceive,” I whisper, remembering his letter.

“Exactly. And not just for them—for us, too. I see who you really are.”

I swallow. “Then let me see you, too. Tell me who you really are.”

A sad smile tugs at his mouth. “Perhaps I’m afraid. That if you knew, you would fear me.”

“I told you I’m not scared.”

“You think that now. But I’ve learned that people fear what they don’t understand.”

“Then let yourself be understood.”

“Ah,” he says with a soft laugh, “you clever, clever girl. Yes, I should let myself be known. But if you turned your back on me, as so many others have⁠—”

“You mean the townspeople? Because they called you a demon? I don’t believe that. You’re not a demon.”

He raises a wry eyebrow. “Am I not?”

“No. You’re a person. Just like me.”

“If only that were true,” he muses.

“People say many things. That doesn’t mean I believe them. I make my own opinions.”

He watches me closely. “That’s what I saw in you. Your mind is your own. No matter how much your church tries to suppress it.”