I move a few pews closer to the altar, and bow my head in a fake prayer. It doesn’t help. The officers don’t make an attempt to quiet their voices, but I don’t speak French.

They traipse over to the altar, bending down to look at where I assume the body was laid. The nuns have stopped their work, but don’t move. They stand, watching silently. It’s unnerving.

Just as soon as they came in, they leave, seemingly annoyed with what they didn’t find.

I jump as the door to the confessional swings open with a thwack.

Finn’s face is a little puffy. I’d mock him for it but I don’t want to give him the attention.

“Ready?” I ask.

But Finn doesn’t answer. He’s staring just beyond me at one of the nuns sweeping the altar. She makes eye contact with him and something passes between them. My blood runs ice cold, right down to my fingertips. Something isn’t right here.

She straightens her hunched back and crosses over to us with quick, careful steps. No one in the church looks over at us, but I feel as if I am being watched.

Silently she jerks her chin in a “follow me” motion.

Finn takes a step.

I grab his upper arm. “Wait,” I hiss.

“Do you trust me?” he asks.

My answer is an emphatic “No.”

“Well, you’re going to have to.”

He follows the nun. I trip after him because I feel as if I have no other choice. I cannot let him go alone. I need to know what he is up to.

The nun leads us down a side staircase into a cold basement significantly less grand than the main hall upstairs.

“Do you know her?” I whisper.

Finn doesn’t answer. He just keeps walking.

We reach a basement room filled with broken pews. We’ve turned through so many serpentine hallways I don’t know if I could find my way out if I tried.

The only light is from a sliver of a window set high up on the wall. Dust flecks swirl in the dim beam.

In the corners are piled-up boxes and statues with chipped faces or missing hands. And on the far wall is a door with so much junk heaped in front of it, it’s barely visible.

“Finn, what is going on? Tell me now,” I demand. My blood is boiling.

I want to lash out at Finn. I want to freeze his body with my mind and slam the doors open and create a ball of light so large it illuminates all the shadowy parts of this awful basement.

But I can’t.

I’m powerless.

The bruising, hollow loss of my magic has me feeling desperate and out of control.

“Finn!”

I will not say please. I refuse to beg.

“Merci, Sister Evangeline,” he says, quiet and calm.