Nora led the way through the maze of hallways with confidence, as if she had navigated them a hundred times before. I lagged behind, unintentionally scuffing my feet every time the floor decided to slope one way or another.

  “So, what did you two talk about?”

  “Things…” I mumbled.

  “What sort of things?”

  I exhaled. “Well, my high school essay, for one thing. It sort of went all over from there.”

  “He really led with that? What a weirdo. Then what?”

  I let out a breath. “Referencing the best friend’s code here, okay? I want to tell you. But he made me promise not to. And… We don’t share other people’s secrets, no matter how many times someone asks.”

  Nora stopped walking and turned. Her face twitched several times, vacillating between suspicion and frustration. “Fine. I can see how Article 2, subsection B of the Best Friends Act can be invoked here. However, I cast Paragraph ii!”

  “Um.”

  Nora huffed. “Paragraph ii. When invoking confidentiality, the subject agrees to share how they feel for the sake of mutual emotional support and mental wellness.”

  “Oh. Right, that one.”

  “Well?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Nora’s upper lip snagged and shot up towards her nose. “Now listen here—”

  “He didn’t do anything wrong! I just… argh. I learned some truths that are a bit uncomfortable. But at the same time…”

  Nora folded her arms and waited. After I didn’t reply fast enough, she tapped her foot. “At the same time?”

  “At the same time, it doesn’t change anything! It just… helps some things make sense. So my original answer of ‘I’m fine’ still stands. Technically.”

  Nora closed her eyes and shook her head. “Alright. I’ll back off for now. But do me a favor? Stop saying fine. It’s lost all credibility coming from you.”

  “As you wish, Headmaster Nora.”

  The door to the Sanctuary was a flat stone slab of slate, with a few gold lines etched into its surface for good measure. I had raised my hand to knock at first, only to wonder if anyone would hear it on the other side.

  “It slides,” Nora prompted.

  “Oh.”

  “Aren’t you going to…”

  I stared at the door, my shoulders sagging.

  I feel like I’m intruding.

  What right do I have to talk to him right now?

  He’s probably feeling very lost.

  Am I the right one to talk to him?

  What if he’s still—

  The door rumbled, opening halfway.

  “I wasn’t eavesdropping!” I blurted, jumping back. “I was just…”

  The door opened wider to reveal Relias inside. His sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, and his once-immaculate white robes were now smeared with dust and ash. Beside him was a bucket of water with a soaked rag hanging over its lip. A faint, cleansing scent of herbal soap lingered in the air around him, blending well with the earthy coolness emanating from the Sanctuary. His eyes were ringed with exhaustion, but they crinkled with a quiet contentment as a slow smile crossed his face.

  “You were worried about me, weren’t you?”

  “Well, uh, we all were!” I replied, pointing to Nora behind me as proof.

  His smile faded. “All?”

  “Oh, well, I…”

  He ran a hand through his damp hair, unsticking it from his temple. “Perhaps you speak truth. I do not believe he would readily voice concern for me. Yet absence itself may carry many meanings. I shall choose to count concern among the possibilities.”

  I blinked. “You… will?”

  “Among a multitude of others, yes.” He glanced past me toward Nora. “And thank you for safeguarding the Captain in my absence, Headmaster Nora.”

  “You’re welcome!” Nora replied, her register a touch higher than usual.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  He doesn’t know what I’ve been up to today! Otherwise, he’d be all out of sorts!

  Relias’s gaze fell back upon me. “And yet you appear unrested, Dear One.”

  “Uh… well…”

  “No doubt I have contributed to your unease.” He sighed and looked about the hallway. “I would ask you both to join me within the Sanctuary, though I must warn you it remains in need of further cleansing.”

  I peeked around the doorway, noting that about a quarter of it was still caked in dust. “You’re… doing it manually?”

  Maybe his powers don’t work here?

  He offered a wry, weary smile and stepped back so we could enter. “It aids contemplation. Perhaps, in purifying this place, I might cleanse myself as well.”

  I plucked up the rag from the bucket and wrung it out.

  “I did not bid you enter so you might shoulder my burden,” Relias said quietly, taking the rag from my hands. “In truth, I asked you in, even as I questioned whether I was prepared to face you.”

  Oh. So, he is still…

  “Maybe I should come back later and—”

  “Rachel. It is not easy to meet your gaze and confess that I was wrong.”

  I heard Nora let out a faint gasp, which made Relias lower his eyes to the floor.

  “I have long desired his death. I will not pretend otherwise. I convinced myself it was necessary—that Speranza’s salvation depended on it. That it was righteous and just.”

  His voice wavered, strained with the effort of admitting it aloud.

  “But that is no longer the whole truth. No. I suppose it never was. It was easier to cast him as my hated enemy, to blame him for all the changes I saw in his subjects’ actions.”

  He exhaled shakily, fingers flexing around the rag.

  “That hatred kept me moving forward even as it blinded me to what truly mattered. I ignored so many consequences of my inaction. And other choices I made without even pausing to consider who would pay the price, all under the guise of preserving Speranza.”

  His shoulders slumped.

  “Yet I promised you that I would change, didn’t I? But yesterday proved that I cannot change, at least not alone. If there is to be hope for me, for any of us... I believe it lies in admitting that I need the help of those still willing to stand at my side. I by no means say that I will ever find myself fond of him, however... I realize that his presence is necessary.”

  Of course he wasn’t perfect. None of us were. But he was trying. He was admitting it. That had to count for something, didn’t it?

  “Okay,” I said, my voice catching a little. “If you’re serious about changing… then I’ll help. I want to help. And I won’t force you to like him either. You just... Need to work with him. That’s all.”

  Nora shifted beside me. Her arms were crossed, but she didn’t look angry; she was just very focused as she drew in a slow breath. “We’ll help,” she said evenly. “But just so we’re clear…”

  She raised one hand and made a slow, deliberate fist, patting it softly against her other palm.

  “If we see any backsliding? We’re going to point it out. Immediately. And you’re not going to like the consequences.”

  “Nora!”

  Nora gave me a side glance. “What? It’s fine! I don’t punch nearly as hard as you do!”

  “Blame Tetora for—” I stopped, tears filling my eyes. “Oh damn it… No! I didn’t mean to swear in the Sanctuary! I just—ugh, shit!”

  Why’d I have to think about them… Now I…

  Relias offered me the rag. “If you’d like to join me, I would not protest.” His mouth twitched into a wry smile. “It is, after all, the customary penance for such utterances—though if I enforced it, I’d be scrubbing these stones a dozen times over today.”

  “Oh…” Nora cooed, her eyes widening. “I want to hear you swear!”

  I gave her a withering look as I accepted the cloth. “He’s not a pet; you don’t get to just order him to do tricks!”

  “Oh, come on! Can you even imagine it? I bet it’s like a whole sermon of curses strung together!”

  Relias lifted an eyebrow. “I fear you would find it disappointingly pedestrian,” he said at last. “I must concede you possess far greater fluency in such expressions.”

  “Allegedly,” Nora murmured, catching my surprised expression. “Allegedly.”

  “Ah.”

  I found a dirty spot on the wall to clean, unable to shake the feeling that I might have been a trigger for such an eruption. Nora, meanwhile, sauntered up to the altar, giving it a hard look. It was different from any of the others we had seen in Speranza. Here, it was literally a blank slate, with no design depicted on its surface. It felt raw and unadorned, as if waiting for something special to happen.

  Relias cleared his throat as he knelt, scrubbing at the end of a stone pew. “The Second Crisis of the Faith was over 1000 years ago,” he started to explain. “It started as a theological one, with the Council deliberating on Euphridia’s perfect form. At first, I was reticent, but eventually I testified, revealing the form she most frequently assumed.”

  If I could have swiveled my ears to hear any better, you better believe I would have.

  “She appeared as a woman of no single nation or age,” he said quietly. “Fair, yet not the fairest, but the most alive. She had hair that caught the light in unexpected ways, shifting to the color of wheat in the sun. Cerulean eyes that did not simply look at you but seemed to see through you. A mouth as quick to speak laughter as judgment. Slender hands that bore the lines of majestic grace. Robes of brilliant white, gathered by a sash of gold.”

  He scrubbed harder at a stubborn streak of soot.

  “That was the form I gave them. The face I remembered. However, many took offense at my description, for it was not aligned with their own sense of mortal beauty. Some questioned why she had no horns like the ox-men. Others found her fair hair unconvincing, for at the time, darker tresses were favored as a sign of strength.”

  “That’s sort of what she looked like to us, though,” I admitted. “Blonde hair, blue-eyed, sharp tongue.”

  Relias flinched. “Pray, tell me—I do believe I phrased it rather more kindly than that.”

  “Of course you did.” Nora snickered as she found a dusting rag to put to work.

  Relias stood up. “With tensions rising and disputes breaking out across the churches, I ultimately issued a statement retracting my testimony, advising that while I perceived her one way, I, as a mortal, could not claim to comprehend her perfect form—nor could anyone else. That altar you see is the result of my edict.”

  Nora lit up as she tackled some grime. “So you get to imagine whatever you like instead. Makes sense!”

  Oh, I wonder what terrible things she’s putting on her mental image of Euphridia right now.

  I bet it involves those beanie propeller hats.

  She had penned them in on several people in her senior yearbook.

  We continued to clean in thoughtful silence, and even though I was certain we had more important things to discuss, this small break was necessary. I couldn’t tell you exactly how much time passed, not so much as to exhaust me truly, but just enough for me to start worrying about things that could be on their way to interfere with our plans.

  “I believe we have done a fine job of restoring this space,” Relias concluded as he gathered our now filthy supplies. “We should—”

  A loud, demonic buzzing filled the Sanctuary as the stone door slammed shut. A swirl of dark vapor coalesced into Oliver himself, lounging in the second row with his legs draped over the first pew, his horns and tail on full display. He idly toyed with several hazelnuts between his fingers, cracking them with a soft snap before letting their dust scatter onto the floor.

  “You missed a spot.”