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“And when Malek hears her voice—splintered, pleading for grace—memory will drag him back to the boy who bled scripture on these floors. He will remember this house. This altar. This Gospel. He will remember the Revelation that made him.”

I tuck the photograph into the inner fold of my robe, pressing it above my heart where warmth will warp it into a relic.

A noise flickers from the back room—not a sob, not a plea. A sharp, bitten-off curse.

Something hot.

Something furious.

Something with teeth in it.

It’s quiet—smothered quickly by a hand or a gag or sheer exhaustion—but that spark, that stubborn, reckless spark, lingers in the air. I feel it before I truly hear it, the way a priest feels a tremor of prophecy gathering behind his ribs. Some spirits crumble at the first touch of fear. Others flare brighter.

I’ve always preferred the latter.

I pause mid-step, my head tilting with calm appreciation. There’s pleasure in this. A sacred thrill. The Gospel shines best when poured into something that tries, foolishly, to resist.

The girl’s voice breaks again—low, furious, unmistakably older. Not the soft one. The sharp one.

“She fights,” I murmur, almost fond. My voice softens with the warmth of a teacher admiring a promising student. “Even now.”

My smile spreads, beatific.

Ah. A blaze.

A spirit that believes it still belongs to itself.

“A spirited offering,” I say. “The kind that reshapes the Gospel.”

I turn toward the hallway, robes whispering around me like closing wings. My steps are slow, savoring the moment. There’s beauty in the final flickers of defiance. Beauty in watching a fire gasp for breath before it’s sanctified into something holy.

“When the fire dims,” I say gently, “bring her to the altar.”

Nothing more.

Nothing explained.

Just that flash of heat in the back room—the exact kind of red-hot spark Selah’s sister always carried in her mouth like a blade.

The kind of fire Cass never learned to swallow.

XI

Silence is brutal.

The fence wire bites into my palm when I pull it too tight. Not a clean bite—ragged, gritty. Rust flakes shear off and grind into the cut, orange dust mixing with sweat and skin. It stings. I welcome it.

I twist harder. The metal screams and the wood complains.

Pain is honest.

Grief lies.

The hammer slips, glancing off the post with a sharp clang that echoes too loud across the yard. Birds scatter from the tree line in a frantic burst of wings, like the sound startled something bigger than it should have.

My heart jumps anyway.

Behind me, gravel shifts. I don’t turn.