I hadn’t realized how much I hated that word until I’d spent so long free of it. As soon as I told Dad I was a boy, he’d never let it pass his lips. Nick and Erin saw the word on the document, but to them my name was Benjamin and would always be. The Watch and the ALC never knew me as anything else. Not Esther. Not Seraph. Nobody and nothing but Benji.

Something else is screaming too, and I realize it’s me.

I should kill her. I should tear through the delicate arteries in her neck, and the taste of it would be sweet, ruining her white robes and the blinding paleness of her skin. This is Seraph burning me alive, the fury, the anger, this is what I am. This is what I need to do. It is an inferno, and I am meant to raze the Angels to the ground, and I am more than happy to start with this one person.

But I can’t. Because if I kill her now, New Nazareth will fall into chaos, and I can’t let that happen.

Not yet.

I need time for Nick to organize and get the ALC into position tomorrow. I need to buy the Angels’ trust. I need New Nazareth to let its guard down. There are guns pointed at me again—at my legs, at my knees, right where it will be easiest to incapacitate me. They could still put a bullet in me to keep me down. Theo clings to my shoulders, whispering against my neck, begging me to stay calm the same way I begged the Graces.

I wrestle back the monster, even as I see feathers flitting in my vision, even though I can taste her blood. Not now. Not yet.

Mom says, “You made it just in time for Wednesday service, dear. Why don’t we get you cleaned up?”

Chapter 28

NOW IS THE TIME FOR THE FAITHFUL TO COME TOGETHER. BRING ONLY WHAT YOU CAN CARRY. BRING ONLY WHO YOU WISH TO SAVE.

—The Cloister Order

“I can tell her you’ll only wear robes,” Theo says. I barely hear him over the rushing of blood in my ears, the static threatening to swallow me whole. He hovers by the door to what used to be, and is now again, my room—as if I’ll break if he comes too close. “Get you out of that.”

“Please stop talking.”

“It isn’t right. You shouldn’t have to.”

“Stop.”

My voice shatters. That must be what finally gets the point across. Theo stares at the rough dormitory carpet so he doesn’t have to look at me. I wish I didn’t have to look at me, either. I wish I didn’t have to look at anything. There is a mirror on my desk, and I’m going to shatter it if I spend one more second here.