Chapter 13
Saint
Rain still hangs in the air, caught between falling and remembering how.
London smells like wet stone and old sins.
The garden behind the townhouse isn’t much — a square of green bordered by brick, half-hidden under ivy and morning fog. Once upon a time, it belonged to a priest’s house. The irony isn’t lost on me.
Ember steps out first, boots sinking into damp earth, hands shoved in her jacket pockets. She tilts her head back, lets the mist hit her face like she’s trying to taste freedom through condensation.
She doesn’t look at me. That, I decide, is intentional.
“You’re not much of a talker,” she says after a long silence.
“Neither are you,” I reply.
Her laugh is soft, short, but it cuts through the stillness like a bell through smoke. “Difference is, I’m doing it on purpose.”
I smile faintly. “And I’m not?”
She glances over her shoulder, eyes a colder blue in the gray light. “You look like a man who only talks when he’s trying to convince himself he’s not damned.”
There’s something cruelly accurate about that.
I fall into step beside her, the crunch of gravel beneath our feet the only sound for a while. The air smells faintly of rosemary and rust. The gardeners haven’t been here in weeks, but the wild suits her. She belongs in places that refuse to be tamed.
“You’ve been patient,” I say. “Most people would have tested the locks by now.”
“Maybe I already did.”
I glance at her, and she gives me that smirk — the kind that’s part defense, part confession.
“I would’ve noticed,” I say.
She shrugs. “Maybe you did. Maybe you let me.”
There’s a strange quiet between us after that. She’s testing me, of course. Everything she says is a blade pressed just deep enough to see if I bleed.
“You think I’m naive,” she says finally.
“I think you’re restless.”
“Restless people are dangerous, Father.”
The word breaks like old glass underfoot.
“Don’t call me that.”
She grins. “Touchy.”
“I left the cloth behind.”
“Not from what I’ve heard,” she murmurs. “You still keep the confessions, don’t you?”
That makes me stop walking.
She keeps going a few paces before turning to face me. There’s no mockery in her expression now — only curiosity, sharp and searching.
“Who told you that?” I ask.
Her smile tilts. “No one. You just did.”
Clever girl.
The wind stirs, carrying the faint sound of city traffic from beyond the walls. She pushes a strand of copper hair from her face, eyes glinting with something I can’t name. Not defiance. Not fear. Understanding, maybe.
I take a slow step forward. “You like provoking me.”
“I like seeing what’s real,” she says. “You all wear masks, Saint. Mine’s just easier to take off.”
“You shouldn’t call me that, either.”
“But you like it.”
I don’t deny it.
She studies me — long enough that I feel the weight of her gaze like heat under my collar. Then she looks away, walking toward the iron gate at the back of the garden. It’s locked, of course, but she touches it anyway, her fingers tracing the rusted bars like she could will them open.
“You ever wonder,” she says quietly, “what it’d be like to leave and not come back?”
“All the time,” I answer.
She glances over, brows lifting slightly. “Then why don’t you?”
“Because faith is a chain,” I say. “Even when it breaks, it remembers.”
She considers that. “You think I’m your penance, don’t you?”
“No,” I say. “You’re my reminder.”
“Of what?”
“That salvation and sin wear the same face.”
Her breath catches — just slightly. Enough for me to see that the words landed.
She looks down, tracing circles in the wet gravel with the toe of her boot. “You think that’s poetic, but it’s not. It’s tragic.”
“I never claimed it wasn’t.”
When she looks at me again, there’s something in her eyes that wasn’t there before. Something softer. Tired. Maybe even understanding.
“Saint,” she says quietly, “I don’t belong to any of you.”
“I know,” I say. “That’s what makes you dangerous.”
And I mean it — not as a threat, but as a prayer.
She exhales, a slow shiver of breath that fogs in the chill. “I’m done walking.”
I nod once, stepping back. “Inside, then.”
She moves past me, shoulder brushing mine — barely a touch, but enough to leave a spark behind.
When the door closes behind us, I look at the garden again. The mist has thickened, softening the edges of everything.
I whisper a prayer I don’t believe in anymore.
Deliver us from temptation.
And for the first time in years, I mean it.
Ember
The next day, the garden is too quiet for comfort. It’s the kind of silence that hums beneath the skin, like the world’s holding its breath.
Rook had said I could come out here only with Saint, which is its own kind of punishment. Of all of them, he’s the hardest to read—soft voice, sharp eyes, like sin dressed up in forgiveness.
I kneel beside the fountain, the stone cool beneath my palms. Water drips from the cherub’s mouth, each drop echoing against the basin. It smells like rosemary and rain, earth and metal.
Saint’s voice breaks the quiet. “You somehow always manage to look like you’re about to run.”
“I am,” I say without looking up.
He chuckles under his breath. “Then why don’t you?”
“Because I don’t know where I’d go.”
A pause. Then, “Honest.”
I glance at him. He’s leaning against the low wall, sleeves rolled, rosary glinting at his wrist. The light catches in his black hair, painting his face in gold edges. He looks too beautiful to belong to anything as ugly as what we are.
“You pray?” I ask.
“Sometimes,” he says. “But mostly I listen.”
“To what?”
“The quiet between sins.”
I snort softly, turning back to the fountain. “You sound like a sermon.”
He steps closer, his shadow sliding over mine. “You think sermons are all lies?”
“I think they’re what people use to justify the things they already want.”
He hums, low in his throat. “And what do you want, Ember Calloway?”
My name sounds dangerous in his mouth. I swallow the answer, stare into the water until my reflection blurs. “To feel clean again.”
Something shifts in him—almost imperceptible—but his voice goes softer. “You mistake scars for sin. They’re not the same.”
“Easy for you to say,” I murmur. “You’re the priest.”
“Was,” he corrects. “Now I just try to keep the devils from eating each other.”
I smile despite myself. “And how’s that working out?”
He tilts his head, thoughtful. “You tell me. The house is quieter since you came.”
“That’s not a compliment,” I say.
“It wasn’t meant as one.”
The air between us changes—charged, fragile. He reaches out, brushing a stray red curl behind my ear. The touch is careful, almost reverent.
“Why do you let them see your anger but not your hurt?” he asks.
“Because one keeps me alive,” I whisper.
His hand lingers at my jaw for half a heartbeat longer, then he lets go, stepping back like he’s afraid of what he might do if he stays.
“Come out here tomorrow,” he says. “Even if Rook doesn’t send me.”
“I don’t take orders,” I remind him.
“I know,” Saint says, smiling faintly. “That’s why I asked.”
He leaves me there, alone with the dripping fountain and the lingering ghost of his touch.