“We cleanse in Your blessed name, we fight in Your blessed name, we bleed and die in Your blessed name!” The words slur together. A Heaven-drunk chorus of soldiers howls, frothing at the mouth under their masks. I press myself into the shadows, white-hot fury and pain rising through my bones until I feel like my body is going to come apart at the seams. “O God, accept this pound of flesh as our love!”

A death squad in my path to Reformation, standing around a pair of crumpled, broken bodies. They are beaten and crushed. Their deaths were not quick. It was a game.

“Ashes to ashes,” one of the soldiers says, “dust to dust, abyss to abyss.”

“Rot in Hell,” says another. “Fucking heretics. Fucking rats.”

Seraph spreads its wings of fire in the hollow expanse of my chest, where my insides used to be.

Walking away from them is a mercy they don’t deserve.

Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

Nicholas

Chapter 23

These feathers are a promise. Do you promise to do the works of God and light His fires? Do you promise to be His hands on this earth, no matter the cost? Keep your promise close. Remember that it can be taken away.

—The general of New Nazareth

Nick wakes up, and Benji isn’t there.

He and Benji turned in a few hours ago, together. Together. That was the key word. Benji was sick, and Nick was going to keep an eye on him. He wasn’t leaving his friend alone. Benji was his friend, and they’d hurt each other, and now they were trying to make it right. Even if he couldn’t get words to come out the way they should, even if saying sorry didn’t come naturally to either of them, that was something he knew he could do.

But now Benji isn’t here. Nick reaches over to the balled-up jacket on the other side of the copy room that Benji had been using as a pillow. It’s still warm. He hasn’t been gone long.

Maybe he got sick again? Nick grabs a bottle of water and heads to the courtyard, practicing what he’s going to say when he finds him. He can’t say, Are you sick? because that’ll be obvious. Maybe, Are you okay? But the answer has been “No” for so long, what’s the point in that?

Benji. So instead he says the name over and over. Not Seraph. Benji. He, him, his, not it. Benji’s real name comes so much easier than any other name ever did, and it is a relief to let go of the wrong pronouns. The actual ones are a blessing because they are the truth, and as much time as Nick spends lying, the truth is beautiful.