What gets me most of all, though, is that everybody here is a nonbeliever. All of them. Not a single one believes in the Angelic Movement. Not a single one has given themselves to God in the exact way the Angels demand it. Every person is someone I’ve been taught to hate since I first stepped foot in New Nazareth. I checked Nick and Erin for weapons and demanded they back away, I’ve held tension in my shoulders so hard for the past few hours that they hurt—and the ALC has done nothing but offer me coffee and a place to sleep.

I’m an asshole. Thanks for the brain rot, Mom.

Truth is, I’m the person they should be worried about, not the other way around. I can’t let anyone but Nick and Erin know what I used to be, because they’ll want me dead, and I won’t blame them. I have to figure out the rules for the ALC the way I figured out the rules for New Nazareth.

Rule one: Be careful with religion. Even if Faith is wearing cross earrings. Even if her name is Faith.

I really want to ask about the earrings. They’re the first crosses I’ve seen in days besides the ones carved into the dead. After a second of scrubbing a stain off the countertop, I decide my best course of action is not to ask at all, but to point it out, no judgment implied.

“I like your earrings,” I say.

Faith reaches up to touch them, eyes widening a bit in surprise. “What, these?”

Her hand jerks away.

“They don’t mean anything,” she says defensively. “I just thought they were pretty.”

Her tone takes me off guard. “They are.”

“They were my mom’s. We stopped going to church when I was ten, anyway. It doesn’t mean anything, really.”

Her chest heaves. Her gaze won’t meet mine.

“It’s fine,” I assure her. “Do people give you trouble for it? For the earrings, for going to church—”

“No. Nobody does. Sorry, I’m overreacting.”

I put the rag back in the bucket. We’re the only two on this side of the kitchen. For what it’s worth, we might as well be alone.

So I say, “Can I ask if you believe in God?”

Faith blinks at me.

“It’s not a trap,” I say. “I swear.”

She immediately falls into a ramble, like she’s just been waiting for someone to ask. “I do, actually. And I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about that. Talking to friends—you know, Sadaf is Muslim, Salvador is Catholic, Carly is Jewish—to see if anything clicks. Or if I’m just going to have to deal with believing in the same kind of God those motherfuckers do.” Even though I flinch at the sudden swear, her cheeks push up into her eyes, the way it happens when someone is actually, really smiling. “You know, the first time I brought it up to Sadaf, she couldn’t stop laughing. I felt like an asshole. I guess what I’m saying is, I believe in something, and I don’t know what to do with it, and maybe I don’t actually believe in anything at all, and I just want to because I hate the idea of Trevor being faced with nothing.”