I had no idea what he meant by the “esoteric” sense of home, and I decided not to ask. He didn’t seem violent now that his gun was safely stowed, and if he was crazy, I didn’t want to know that until I’d had both dinner and answers. Starting with the most important.

“What will they do with Melanie?”

“Your sister?” he asked, and I nodded. “They’ll charge her with fornication and unlicensed pregnancy. They’ll interrogate her for information about her baby’s father, and about you.”

“Interrogate.” The ache in my chest sharpened into a painful, piercing fear. “What does that mean, exactly?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure, since she’s pregnant. Normally, they’d starve her, or keep her awake for days on end, or drug her, or even beat her, but the baby makes her a wild card, so their move depends on their endgame.”

“What do you mean?”

“You told your whole neighborhood about the baby, so everyone knows that if they hurt your sister, they’ll be hurting the baby too, and the last thing they want is public sympathy for a pregnant underage outlaw.”

“So she’s safe for now?” Hope felt like a tiny flame warming me from the inside, beating back my chills just a little. Until he doused it with the cold, hard truth.

“None of us are safe, Nina. Least of all your sister. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and she’s the only bird they’ve got their hands on at the moment. But they’ll be looking to change that. They’ll be looking for you, obviously, and for me because—”

“You shot an exorcist.”

Finn looked up from the row of cans he’d been studying, and light from the lantern fell on half of his face. “Yeah. He wasn’t my first. But if it makes you feel any better, I only shoot in self-defense. Or friend-defense. And those weren’t real exorcists. They were just soldiers in black robes. Walking propaganda.” He picked up two cans, then twisted to show them to me. “Beef stew or spaghetti and meatballs?”

“Beef,” I said, and he set the other can back in line, its label facing forward like all the others’. “How do you know those weren’t real exorcists?”

“I know because you are an exorcist, and those ‘exorcists’ ”—his voice practically dripped with derision as he settled onto his cushion again—“were terrified of you.”

You are an exorcist. That was the first time anyone had said it out loud. I hadn’t even dared to think it, but hearing him say it felt like…validation. Corroboration.

Confirmation that I wasn’t crazy. That I hadn’t imagined the whole thing.

He shrugged. “Also, I know they were fakes because all the Church’s exorcists are fakes.”

“Wait, what do you mean? How can they all be fakes?”