Days Sixty-Three through Seventy-Two
After Day Sixty-Two, I became quiet again. The Church occupied the silence. I saw its emblem everywhere once I began noticing it: a small hospice, a priest carrying parcels, notices concerning missing people and supernatural crimes. I saw a dark-coated man leaving a cathedral, exhaustion written more clearly in his posture than any prayer could have placed there. None of these people looked like Vale. That did not comfort me as much as it should have. Vale had rarely looked dangerous either.
He had been courteous. Attentive. Competent. The kind of man a frightened patient might be relieved to see enter a room because he would stop Vane from pushing quite as far. That was precisely why the thought of submitting myself to an institution frightened me. Not because I believed every Nighthawk cruel. Because I did not. Cruelty was easy to resist. Sincere protection was harder. A Nighthawk could look at me, believe every word I said, and still decide I was too dangerous to remain free.
A priest could pity the original Evelyn and still decide separating us was necessary. A well-meaning official could call confinement temporary while everyone waited for experts. Vale had taught me how many terrible things fit inside the phrase for your own good. For ten days, I did not bring the problem to the shrine.
I worked. Read. Walked through Tingen. Took Evelyn into shops she had never entered while alive. Once, outside a bakery, she spent several minutes criticizing a hat in the window.
It was hideous.
On Day Sixty-Eight, we passed Saint Selena Cathedral. The cathedral rose above the nearby roofs with a weight the smaller streets could not quite diminish, its dark stone and high windows making the people on the steps appear briefly smaller than they were. Damp air carried the noise of wheels and voices past its entrance, ordinary city life moving around a place built for the divine. A woman emerged holding the hand of a little boy.
The boy was crying. The woman was not. A priest followed them to the steps and crouched to say something to the child. I could not hear his words. The boy eventually laughed. Evelyn noticed where I was looking.
The next afternoon, I saw two volunteers distributing coal to families who could not afford enough for the coming cold. By Day Seventy-Two, refusing to speak about the Church felt less like caution and more like performance. I knelt before the shrine without lighting the candle. Evelyn remained near the edge of my attention. She knew the subject I had been avoiding.
"My Lady, I do not trust Your Church." The room stayed dark. "I also don't think that is entirely fair."
I folded my hands. The familiar candle remained untouched in front of me.
"That is the problem."
Darkness gathered without warning. The bedroom disappeared, and I stood in a cathedral beneath the crimson moon. No walls enclosed it. Pillars rose into the open night, and Evernight waited near the altar. Images appeared between the columns.
A Nighthawk carrying an injured child. A priest washing blood from the floor after tending someone through the night. A clerk handing out food in heavy rain. A grave tended by someone who had never known the dead. None of the scenes remained still enough to become paintings.
"You have imagined My Church most often through the people who could restrain you," Evernight said. The images continued moving between the columns.
"Because they could."
"Yes."
The agreement came immediately. I looked at Her.
"They are real."
"Yes."
I glanced toward the images again. Nothing about them made the people within the Church less capable of frightening me.
"So is he." I glanced toward the image of the Nighthawk.
"He could decide I need to be contained."
"Yes."
I frowned.
"You are not making this easier."
"I am not trying to make it easier."
The images remained. Evernight continued.
"Vale cared for Evelyn."
The use of his name caught my full attention.
"Yes."
"Did that make him safe?"
"No."
"Did his danger make every act of care false?"
I hesitated.
"No."
"Then do not demand simpler categories from strangers than you allow the people you know."
The cathedral quieted. The images remained visible between the pillars, neither condemned nor transformed by Her answer.
"I don't know how to trust them without giving them the opportunity to take everything."
The words sounded more exposed in the open cathedral than they had in my room.
"You do not."
I looked up.
"Trust is not proven by surrendering all means of refusal," Evernight said calmly.
Something in my chest loosened. Not much. Enough.
"I cannot remain hidden forever."
"No."
Her answer carried no urgency.
"You also do not need to become known tonight."
The images faded. The spaces between the pillars returned to darkness.
"When the night can place one of My servants before you without first placing you beneath the authority of the others, you may decide whether to speak."
"One?"
"One."
"What will they know?"
The question came before I could begin inventing answers myself.
"Only what is necessary for them to approach without mistaking you for an enemy."
I thought immediately of the danger.
"My name?"
"No."
"Where I live?"
"Not until the meeting requires it."
"What I am?"
"Enough."
"Will they know about Evelyn?"
The original Evelyn's attention sharpened faintly within our shared mind.
"No."
Her relief reached me through our shared awareness. I continued.
"Will they know that You sent them?"
"Yes."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then you refuse."
The answer was so simple that I distrusted it for half a second out of habit. Evernight waited.
I lowered my eyes.
"I think a part of me wanted You to order me into the Church."
The admission felt worse once it existed outside my own thoughts.
"Why?"
"So I could stop being responsible for deciding."
Vale was there again. The seduction of a framework. Someone larger deciding. Someone else owning the consequences.
"That would not teach you what you believe," Evernight said.
"No."
"Nor would it make the choice yours."
"No."
The cathedral began to fade. Before it vanished, I asked one more question.
"What if the person You send is wrong about me?"
"Then observe them." Her answer was almost dry. "And let them observe you."
I woke before the shrine. The candle remained unlit. The room had returned exactly as I had left it, with the dark cloth and emblem barely visible in the evening gloom. Evelyn spoke within our shared mind after a moment.
'One person.'
'Apparently.'
'Do you intend to meet them?'
'Probably.'
'That sounds like yes.'
'It is a cautious yes.'
'That sounds exactly like yes.'
I leaned back against the chair.
'Fine.'