“You don’t seem very shocked,” Nora said.

“More priests than we want to admit got side pieces. I’ve had two cases with people cheating with clergy—one wife, church secretary. One husband, groundskeeper.”

“Both Catholic priests?”

“Both,” he said. “It happens.”

“Yeah, it does.”

They met eyes.

“You pissed at me?” she asked.

“Why? I stole Paulina from the Ursulines.”

“She wasn’t in the order yet. Søren’s been an ordained priest for a long time.”

Cyrus shrugged. “Done too much in my days to judge how you spend your nights.”

She smiled. “I like you.”

“We gonna be friends?” Cyrus asked.

“For the time being.”

“It’ll make our counselor happy. Check ‘female friend’ off the wedding checklist.”

“Can I come to your wedding?” Nora asked, eyes wide.

“Hell no.”

“Fair.” She laughed again. Good to hear her laugh. He promised himself a long time ago he’d stop being the reason why good women cried in this town.

“Back to work,” he said.

Cyrus stood up. His ass was falling asleep fast on that floor. He held out his hand and helped her to her feet.

“You all right?”

“Better. Still freaked out to be digging through a dead priest’s things. Hard to not think about somebody doing this to Søren if something happened to him. Digging through his stuff, finding out his secrets.” She glanced around the room, shuddered a little.

“Just remember, it’s for a good cause. Nobody deserves to die because they’re, you know—”

“A freak like me?”

“Right,” he said. “Let’s get back to work. You find anything in the Bible?”

“Nothing much,” she said. “A few thank you notes from former parishioners. Birthday card from some Archbishop. Picture of him and his sister as kids. One poem. That was about all that stuck out.”

“The poem?”

“Rumi,” she said. “Heard of him?”

Cyrus shook his head.

“Legendary thirteenth century Persian Sufi mystic and poet.”

“Oh yeah, him. You just know this off the top of your head?”

“My boyfriend is half-Persian. I mean, the other one.”

“He a fan of this Rumi guy, or you just like bringing up all the time that you have two boyfriends?”

“Six of one, half a dozen of the other.”

“Just tell me about the damn poem.”

“Well, Rumi mostly wrote religious poetry and love poetry. I’d kind of expect a religious poem in his Bible, but not this one.”

She opened the Bible and took out a folded sheet of paper. The poem was written in Father Ike’s own hand on a sheet of linen paper, the kind people used when they were trying too hard to make their resumes look nice.

“‘Poem of the Butterflies,’” Cyrus read aloud. He continued:

The people of this world are like the three butterflies in front of a candle’s flame.

The first one went closer and said, “I know about love.”

The second one touched the flame with his wings and said, “I know how love’s fire can burn.”

The third one threw himself into the heart of the flame and was consumed.

He alone knows what true love is.