“Nina Kane.” The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it until the owner stepped into sight on my right and pulled out the chair across the table, tugging down on one green-embroidered sleeve of her gray cassock.

“Deacon Bennett.” Fear tightened my throat, and I fought the urge to swallow. I’d seen her face and heard her voice nearly every day of my life. She was a prominent figure at every official ceremony and civic function—the pinnacle of purity, devotion, and unwavering faith. Deacon Bennett was the public face of New Temperance and its highest authority. I’d been taught to respect her—or, at the very least, to fear her—by every news clip I’d ever seen and every word out of every one of my teachers’ mouths.

Staring up at the deacon from across the table, even knowing that she was a demon and that she was willing to kill my sister to get to me, for just a second I had to fight an overwhelming urge to look down—or worse, to beg for her forgiveness.

“How thoughtful of you to turn yourself in, Nina,” she said, the grave authority in her voice sharply edged with scorn. “I’m so glad for this chance to talk before officials from Umbra come to haul you off.”

Officials? From the capitol? I tried to shield surprise and confusion from my expression. “You’re not going to…deal with me here?” Fortunately, I planned to be long gone with my sister before anyone from Umbra could possibly make it to New Temperance.

“Are we sure she’s secure?” Deacon Bennett asked, and whoever was behind me shuffled his feet against the floor.

“Her hands were bound when Jennings brought her in. We added leg shackles, bolted to the floor. Not even a demon in his prime could get out of that chair, Deacon.”

Bennett’s eyes narrowed. “That’s exactly what she is, Officer. Leave us.”

The cop’s boots clomped behind me, and then the door closed. Deacon Bennett sank into the chair she’d pulled out, and suddenly I was at eye level with the woman—the demon—who ran New Temperance. Who represented my hometown on a national level. Who’d threatened to burn my sister alive.

“You’ve become a national vexation, Nina Kane. A cankerous sore on the face of this good town.” Bennett leaned back in her chair, her embroidered bell sleeves hanging low as she crossed her arms over the front of her cassock. “Perhaps if your assassin playmates hadn’t dragged New Temperance into the national spotlight, we could have kept you under wraps, but it’s too late for that now, so no, we will not have the pleasure of ‘dealing’ with you here. Your sister, however…She remains under my sole authority.”

“She has nothing to do with this. Would I be wasting my breath if I ask you to let her go?”

“Both your breath and my time.” Deacon Bennett cleared her throat and sat straighter, as if for an official pronouncement. “After a thorough examination of your sister, the Church has determined that though she is guilty of several very egregious sins, she is not possessed. Naturally, she’s eager to demonstrate the purity of her soul, so that there can be no doubt that she was neither involved with nor aware of your demonic exploits.”