“Are you ready?” Theo asks.

I can’t answer.

Sister Kipling looks over at us and says nothing. She’s gilded like a saint, and I want to tear her apart. I want to ruin her, I want to make her hurt the same way she hurt me. Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

A gate guard bellows, “Clear!” and it’s met with the roar of motors and the rattle of chains.

The gates creak apart. Graces shake themselves and stamp their feet. I reach out to each, whispering that it’s okay, to find solace because I’m going to buzz out of my skin with the strength of their emotions. The preaching turns to a cry: “We have sown seeds with our suffering, and now it is time to reap what we are due!”

I can do this. I trust the ALC to do this too.

CLANG.

The gates come to rest, and the mouth of Hell is open.

There are so many people waiting. A sea of white robes and white faces, painted with grass stains, dirt, and the gold and gray of the clergy; soldiers, children, and everyone I’ve ever known. The preaching stops, and the silence is a physical thing, crushing down on all of us, a vacuum left in the aftermath of hundreds of people sucking in a breath. There’s no oxygen left. Or maybe that’s just my lungs liquefying between my ribs, choking the air out of my chest.

This is all for me. Because I have come back. Because I have saved them.

The death squad escorting us starts toward the crowd, and they crush forward to meet us. A tide, a thousand prayers rising from the earth. The soldiers tighten around us, their bodies a wall, but hands still stick out between them. Someone snags my jacket. A nail hooks Sister Kipling’s robes.

“Seraph!” a woman cries, cradling a baby to her chest. “Bless you! Bless you!”

Every face is one I left behind. Sister Faring, a young mother who helps teach Sunday school and smiles when Sister Mackenzie describes what it’s like to burn in Hell. Brother Gailey, an old man who spends his days in the chapel atrium and critiques the apprentice reverends with a raspy growl. Sister Clare, who is my age, barely, clutching her mother’s sleeve. We weren’t friends, but sometimes we shared snacks, and that was good enough for us both.

There’s a deep whining in my throat, animalistic and terrified, like the nest in Reformation. Theo pulls me closer, his body warm and solid against mine. A Grace tugs away from their handler, overwhelmed by the noise, and people surge back to avoid them. I whisper them back, begging them to be quiet, to not make things worse. I’m scared, I’m scared too, I know.