Page 125 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part 1

I burst out of the bathroom and run up the stairs to the archives. When I get there, I march right in. The open-plan room is dark except for a thin slice of moonlight falling over the tables and stacks.

It’s quiet and smells like something I’m convinced is just paper and ink. But also, it feels cozy. It calms me down a little. Makes this feel right.

The canvas-wrapped bundle is on the war table where we left it. Forgotten. Joan’s diary is cracked open beside it.

Last time, it didn’t work. Last time, I touched the hilt and received nothing but a chill and more goddamn doubt. But it called to me once, I’m sure of it.

I rip the canvas back without ceremony. The blade is still missing a hilt, ugly as hell, and notched with the scars of a hundred lost battles. My fingers close around the cool handle, and for one breathless heartbeat, nothing happens.

Then, the heat sears up my arm. The sword smolders and pops, shooting electricity into me. I gasp, almost drop the thing, but grip harder instead. I feel it in my teeth, my toes, my clit. Goddamn it’s everywhere and furious.

It wants me to let go. Wants me to be scared.

Fuck that.

Gritting my teeth, I brace it with two hands. My vision tunnels, zeroing in on the blade. I should have turned the damn light on, but I’m sure that’s smoke coiling from the tip, thin wisps at first, then more. The metal goes from cold to burning in an instant. It’s so hot that it lights up the edges of the blade in a dull, hellish glow.

A feral grin stretches my cheeks.

“Yeah, bitch.”

I’m not a backup Sinner, a stand-in. I am not Jasmine. I don’t need to grow the fuck up. This is what I was born for.

Just as quickly as it began, the heat stutters. Smoke gutters out. My palm tingles, nerves spasming, but the fire doesn’t catch. No holy inferno, no angelic voice, no world-ending sword of justice about to cut through all the bullshit.

Just a smoking hot mess aching to be whole.

“Sassy, slutty, and playing hard to get…” I run my thumb across the battered fleur-de-lis. “Of course you’re mine.”

The sword vibrates, not much, but enough that I feel it in my bones. Laughter bursts out of me, loud and cathartic.

She’s fucking mine.

I sit with that for a moment, let the fizz in my blood settle. My fingers ache from the heat, nerves still tingling, but it’s the good kind of pain, the kind I live for. It’s almost as if it’s still testing me. Maybe it never stops. Joan’s diary said something about failing it, and the flames flickering.

I flip it open and hunt for the words I know are made for me. But no matter how hard I look, how many times I re-read the lines, it’s not here.

God’s own soul, I swear it was written in here: The relic demands perfect mercy.

That’s what it said.

Then I see it—a tear line. Someone’s ripped out an entire page.

My grip tightens on the sword. A primal instinct I’ve spent years developing switches on, and suddenly I’m moving. Out of the archives, down the stairs.

I’m coming, Hannah.

And I’m bringing the fucking sword.

I reach the dormitory landing and freeze. Jasmine’s door is wide, flung open like someone ran out in a panic or was dragged by the hair. The closer I get, the worse it feels.

The sword warms in my hand. Smoke curls from the blade again. I shift my grip, ready for a fight, but the threat feels wrong. There’s no monster beyond the threshold, no one hiding in the shadows.

But I hear buzzing within the darkness.

It starts soft and then ramps up.

I take another step. And another. And another until I’m right there at the open door and an acrid, sweet odor crawls up my nose. Every Sinner sense I own screams: Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.