“Why do you keep calling her that?” Zach couldn’t reconcile his Nora with the priest’s Eleanor. “She changed her name to Nora years ago.”

“She was born Eleanor and it was Eleanor with whom I fell in love. She has made decisions in her life that I do not approve of these past five years. I prefer to remember her for who she was, not for what she’s become. She can forsake her name and her past. I never will.”

Søren’s words stirred another memory. “She hasn’t forsaken it,” Zach told him, wanting to prove he knew something about Nora the priest didn’t. “Not entirely. I went to one of her book-signings not long ago. She was reading to some children. They called her Ellie.” Zach glanced at Søren’s face, but other than a glint of a smile, the revelation seemed to have no impact on him.

“Yes, well,” Søren said as they passed under an archway into another hall, “Eleanor always did have a way with children.”

* * *

Nora slipped off the bed and brought Michael with her. She bade him stand still while she knelt down and reached under the bed. She pulled out a metal briefcase, entered the numeric combination and snapped the locks open.

“Are you scared?” she asked.

“A little.” Michael looked down at her.

“Here, I’ll give you something to help with the fear. It’s called a ‘safe word.’”

“I’ve read about safe words…in your books.”

“Good. Since you’re an angel, yours will be ‘wings.’”

“Wings,” he repeated.

She dug through the briefcase for all the supplies she needed—rope, condoms, scissors. “If at any point you want to stop everything and just go home, you can say ‘wings’ and we’re done. We’ve all safed out. It’s completely okay.”

Nora shut the suitcase and slid it back under the bed. She rose up and faced him. With him in his bare feet and her in her high heels, they were almost the same height.

“Let’s practice,” she said. “I’m going to ask you to do something and you’re going to say your safe word to stop everything. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Nora took a step back and looked him up and down.

“Take your clothes off,” she ordered. Michael raised his arm and grasped the neck of his T-shirt.

“Wait,” she said and he stopped. “You’re supposed to say your safe word, angel.”

He lowered his arm slowly.

“But what if I don’t want to?”

Nora grinned at him and came so close to him she could almost hear his heart pounding in his chest.

“Then don’t.”

Michael raised his arm again and stripped out of his T-shirt. He bent over and pulled off his socks. When he got to the top button of his jeans, his courage seemed to fail him.