Oh shit. I stumbled, and Maddock caught me before I could bump into anyone and expose us both. Oh shitshitshit.

Sister Pamela stared solemnly into the camera. “As I’m sure you’ve guessed, Brother Jonathan, the demon’s stolen soul must be purified by the holy flame.”

A ripple of whispers rolled over the crowd. Some people were excited, some were obviously horrified, and yet more were curious, anxiously glancing between the screen and what little they could actually see of the front of the courthouse, from which this alleged demon would soon emerge.

“His soul?” Maddock mouthed silently to me in question, but I could only shake my head, my gaze glued to the screen, my hands gripping the sides of my school slacks so tightly my fingers had gone numb. I had no idea who they were about to burn, and—as horrible as the thought was—in that moment all I cared about was that it wasn’t Mellie.

Not yet, anyway.

Sister Pamela laid one hand over her heart and looked thoughtfully, somberly into the camera. “I’m so grateful to the citizens of New Temperance for the honor of being a witness to this glorious moment.”

“I know I have chills.” Brother Jonathan’s sincerity echoed across the crowd.

I had chills too. I’d seen Clare Parker’s soul “cleansed.” I’d heard her scream. I’d smelled her flesh roasting.

It was not an honor.

“Oh, here they come!” Sister Pamela pivoted to her right, and while the crowd turned, the camera focused on a procession coming from the front of the courthouse. Half a dozen fake exorcists escorted a man with his arms cuffed at his back, his head covered by a burlap hood. His feet were bare, and he wore a white school shirt, ripped in places and stained with blood.

He was a student.

My heart beat too hard. My chest ached. My vision started to blur until I realized I needed to blink. My gaze was glued to the screen. To the man—the boy—being paraded toward the dais, stumbling, tripping, and ultimately pulled along by the “exorcists” who held his arms.

They marched him up onto the stone platform, then forced him to kneel like Matthew Mercer had knelt two days before. Like my sister was kneeling even then, in her cell in the courthouse. They slapped the metal cuffs over his legs, just below his knees, and we could hear him now, his breath hitching as if he couldn’t get enough air. Or couldn’t get it fast enough.

We watched in near silence, at least two thousand of us in person and millions at home, waiting to see his face. To see who among us knew the “demon” the Church claimed to have found. Was he a real demon, like the woman whose apartment Anathema had seized? Or was he like us—unlucky enough to have pissed off the Church, and now paying with a fabricated charge?

Could Mellie see this? Were they making her watch from her cell? Did she know how close she was to sharing this poor boy’s fate?