Page 75 of The Sinner and the Scholar
I know.A drunken, low-energy scoff slips out of me like it’s obvious.
“Why?” she demands. “Why use it on him when this is happening to you?”
I shrug.
“But you’re dying. You won’t have made it back to the abbey!”
“I promised him.” Again, I shrug. “People die around me, and they get sick. It’s my fault.”
“Fuck that.” She snarls and flexes her fists. “You’re Team Saint. You’re meant to be the good ones!”
“We’re not saints. Only Dom is.”
“Then why…” She clutches the charm, and her eyes widen. “You gave me this. It protects the wearer from demonic influence. It was yours, wasn’t it?”
All I can muster is my brows lifting and another shrug. Oblivion is a death march, thudding in my pulse, getting closer.
She’s silent. I think I’m asleep… drifting… drowning… but then her voice calls me back like the angel I always thought she was.
“Wes.”
“Mm.”
“You said Vepar’s been after you for a while. Would your hands be like that if you hadn’t given me this charm?”
I close my eyes and shake my head.
“Fuck.”
Pain filters in at my side. I glance down, half delirious, and see a dagger protruding from my skin. Blood dribbles from the hilt and oozes onto the ground. “You stabbed me,” I murmur, remembering.
“Fuck, Wes.” Thea gets down on her knee and tugs my face so I look into her dark, tragic eyes. “What the fuck? This is why you ignored me after we shared something so wonderful.”
I’m sure the pain and regret bleed from my eyes because she flinches as I say, “I didn’t want you to go down with me.”
She barks a laugh, big eyes glistening. “I’m already down, Wes. I’m the lowest you can get.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Maybe I thought that at the start, but…” I pant. “We got it all wrong.”
She’s so beautiful. The light from a streetlamp casts a halo around her head. When I first saw her, I thought the devil picked her, but now I believe God sent her to save us all.
“Thisis beatific vision.” I sigh, a rapturous smile on my face as I study her. “Looking at you chases the pain away. What you have—seeing the bad—that’s not beatific. That’s infernal.”
“Always with your damned references. I suppose it should make me confident you’re okay. You men and your intolerance to pain.” She pats my face, trying to bring my focus back. Her voice is tight now, rough. “Wes, why do you think the staff can be only used once?”
“Prophecy,” I mumble. “One body to save.”
“How did you know about the prophecy? I thought we united the gospel.”
“It was united before. We had a record of it.” I breathe. Wince. Try to toughen up for her. “But the old scholars discredited it. They ripped it apart and sent half away.”
“You found it,” she notes.
I nod. “Tracked it down. Sent it to you.”
“You were behind that last incoming shipment from our sister chapter in Spain.”
“Yes.”
