They weren’t spirits or demons or entities. They were fear—the same kind everyone in the world hosted without knowing it. The only difference was that on two occasions Sylous had given us the capacity to see fear more clearly than others—once thirteen years ago when he’d first appeared among us, and once after Eli had healed Evelyn. And Sylous did this to increase our fear.

Now my fears were showing themselves in fullness for all to see what they truly were. My creations.

My Fury didn’t have faces, but if they did, they would all be versions of me, and for the first time I truly understood them for what they were. My self-pity, my anxiousness, my anger, my hopelessness, my judgment, my self-criticism, my worthlessness, my victimhood, my self-righteousness, my disapproval of others, my fear of being deceived, my need to control any situation, my guilt . . .

Yes. My guilt, which was the largest Fury of them all, twice the size of the others, hovering over me and glaring with yellow eyes, arms crossed like a disgusted god.

And in that moment, I understood not only my fears but the fears of the world. A man jealous of another man who took his wife. A mother upset at her child for disobeying. A truck driver worried he wouldn’t be able to feed his family. A country putting up defenses at its borders to keep enemies out. A pastor worried he wasn’t serving the flock well enough. On they went—a million fears that blinded humanity to the light of love. None of the fears were less damaging than others, I saw. Anger was as destructive as murder.

The world had made an agreement with fear to keep it safe, but that safety was a lie wielded like a sword, turning the world into a sea of blood. Humanity had been murdering itself for a very long time. Only love could cast out that fear.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because it’s only a shadow.

I stood still, letting my Fury be, surprised by how obvious they were. They were silent but desperate, and I was sure that if I’d been in a different state of being, they would have been able to tear into me as they had Jamie on the mountain. But I wasn’t giving them that power anymore.

Most of the people in the room were still glued to the far corner, where Bobbie had just unveiled herself as a black-hooded Fury. A symphony of alarm and terror had filled the auditorium.

Those screams were cut short when a gunshot echoed through the room. Jamie had seen Bobbie morph and impulsively turned his gun on her, firing into her body. Could a Fury be killed?