Why couldn’t Madeleine find that same happiness for herself? Why shouldn’t she? She’d fled from the convent, then she’d fled from the confessional. The only walls around her now were metaphorical, and she could take them down if she wanted. Couldn’t she?

The phone display looked blurry. Madeleine blinked, the tears streamed down her cheeks, and it became clear again.

She’ll set you free.

Madeleine gasped aloud. The thought had struck her out of the blue, and she couldn’t tell where it had come from. Surely not herself. Maybe in addition to being gay and a burgeoning heretic, she was hearing voices again. Great.

That settled it. Madeleine needed to get out of here. She’d return to the safe familiarity of home and count this a wasted trip. She navigated the app, looking for the option to change her flight. Why did they make this so difficult? Didn’t they want her to give them an outrageous amount of money?

It’s really too annoying, the voice murmured again. And too expensive.

Madeleine winced as she finally found the “flight change option.” Too expensive was right. She’d spent so much money already, depleting her savings for this trip that she intended now to abandon.

You should stay.

Her fingertip stilled over her phone display.

Stay here, and become free.

Free. The second time she’d thought the word. Or someone else had thought it for her. Maybe it didn’t matter who’d thought it.

What would it be like to be free—set loose from the bonds that held her so tightly they cut? Tradition, doctrine, all of it. What would that be like?

It was one of the most terrifying questions she’d ever asked. How could it also be one of the most thrilling?

If she left Jorsay, she’d just be running back to her cage. And for what? To surrender to her own cowardice instead of exploring what she’d been shown?

Madeleine had done as her angel had ordered her years ago. She’d returned, and it would be the worst folly to turn tail and run before she had some answers. She was ashamed of herself. This was the thought of a coward, a defeatist—everything she’d told Hæra she wasn’t.

Hæra, again.

Hæra who was strange, who was rude, who was really intense, who was the most inexplicably attractive person Madeleine had ever met. And who had an uncanny knack for looking right at things Madeleine would rather keep hidden.

Right. Madeleine was past being able to make sense of this. She closed the airline app and tossed her phone onto the bed, where tonight she’d have more dreams. Would Hæra, her beautiful mouth, and her wicked hands feature in them?

Madeleine blushed. Her lusts seemed to have trapped her even more than religious doctrine.