My second is that I will do it, single-handedly, if I have to.

My third is sheer astonishment at the morbidity of the Christian faith. Of the dying Jesus on the Minorite church cross. Of the execution cross itself. The bodies beneath the floors, entombed in walls and stone and beneath the earth outside. Death, everywhere.

“You will see the story of our salvation in the windows,” the pastor says. “There are none along the far wall—a reminder that we must turn away from darkness . . .”

I’ve just decided there’s nothing here, am already thinking ahead with panic. We can’t afford to cross the map from eastern Hungary to Bratislava again. How many times have I zigzagged through the ancient borders of the Austro-Hungarian empire in my past life—and into Wallachia and Transylvania in modern-day Romania as well? How long can I do this and hope to accomplish anything before I lose Luka for good?

A single whisper: Please.

“The tree of life,” the pastor says, pointing to the paned window above the organ pipes. He turns to the window adjacent to it, the first of several along the length of the church, gesturing to each in succession. “The serpent, by which man was tempted. The flower of our Lord Jesus Christ. The water of baptism . . .”

I go very still. Glance sidewise at the row of windows along the southern wall.

“The fire of the Holy Spirit,” the pastor says, “and the Holy Trinity.”

The Trinity window, which is not at the very end of the concave apses over the altar but on the angle just right of it, is composed of three circles built into the top of the window’s Gothic arch. At first glance it is the same as the other windows. On the second, it is not. At the top of the baptism window, the circles are elongated into drops. In the next, the drops invert to form the petals of a flower.

Inside my skull I can almost hear my eyes clicking from one window to the next.

Rolan asks the pastor some question, his voice more gentle than I ever imagined it could be.

“West to east,” I say, my words echoing slightly.

I’m running out of time so fast, the sun’s practically moving from west to east . . .

The pastor pauses.

“What?” Rolan says.

“The story. In the Bible, it starts in Eden.” I’m no biblical scholar, but I’m pretty sure of that much. “The tree of life,” I say and point to the window at back. “The serpent in the garden,” I say, pointing to the next window, the first on the long adjacent side. “All the way through Jesus to baptism, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity . . . the salvation story goes that direction.”

“Yes,” the pastor says softly, kind enough not to scorn me as an infidel or the religious village idiot.