“How?”

“After five days the sheep will show themselves as wolves. If you don’t kill them both before they reveal the truth of what they are, Haven Valley will be lost.”

Her pulse quickened. Five days . . . It was a new revelation.

Rose glanced up and met Sylous’s gaze, only inches from her face. She didn’t want to doubt him again, didn’t want to feel his wrath replace the warmth that now held her. But she couldn’t imagine murdering anyone, much less a boy.

He knew her mind. “Was the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah murder?”

“We could send them away,” Rose dared to say.

“To return in yet another masquerade of light? You still underestimate the power of the Fury.”

Rose searched her mind for a solution that didn’t require violence, but nothing came to her.

“Can you kill them?” she asked. “The way you killed my father?”

“Fear doesn’t work against the Fury. Even if it did, God seeks your obedience, dear Rose. Pleasing him is all that matters now.”

Sylous reached up and held Rose’s face in his large warm hands. His deep green eyes pulled her in. “The bride looks to you for guidance,” he said.

For a few moments, Rose stood in his presence, torn by conflicting emotions. “Kill them,” she whispered, as if saying the words out loud might give her courage.

Sylous leaned in close and placed his lips against hers. Tender and warm, his kiss buzzed inside her mouth. He held her there, caught up in a perfect moment, and when he released her, a new resolve had flooded her chest.

“Don’t be deceived by their show of innocence. If the Holy Family allows the boy to live, all of heaven will weep for your souls.”

“Yes,” she whispered, closing her eyes, her body still caught up in the pleasure of his mouth.

Listen to me, and I will always guide you, his mind sang to hers.

She felt him leave, felt the dankness of the room return at his departure, but she didn’t move.

I will do as you say, she sang back.

And so she would.

Chapter
Nineteen

I STOOD INSIDE THE PIERCE KITCHEN THE NEXT AFTERnoon, watching the children, but my mind was on my father, dying in the clinic not far away. And on Eli, who’d been secluded somewhere, and on Jamie, who was hardly the caring brother I’d once known, and on Bobbie, who told me to trust no one. Rose would sense if I was distracted, so I tried my best not to show any concern. I was beginning to see what Bobbie meant when she said I would need help, because my whole world had been turned inside out in the last few days and I didn’t know where to turn.