"I come here when I need to think," Jonas said, sitting down and leaning back on his elbows.
"You think?"
"Rude."
I tossed a rock. It skipped once, then vanished into the blue.
"You think about what it'll be like?" I asked.
"What?"
"If it comes here."
He was quiet.
"I do," I said. "Sometimes I imagine how it'll start. Sirens, or fire. Maybe the stars go out. Maybe it's nothing. Just a silence."
"Don't talk like that," Jonas said. "We're safe."
"For now."
He gave me a sidelong look. "You're not just sad. You're cursed."
"I'll have that put on my tomb."
We sat a while longer, listening to the gulls, to the wind. The sky was turning gold at the edges.
Jonas pulled something from his pocket. A little carved figurine—wood, worn smooth.
"Made it in class," he said. "Supposed to be Saint Michael. But he looks more like a toothpick with wings."
"He's handsome," I said.
"Don't fall in love with him. He's married to the cause."
I laughed. "What cause?"
Jonas shrugged. "Whatever we make up."
We stayed there as the sun dropped lower, slinging gold over the hills and setting the chapel roof aflame. A flock of herons passed overhead, their wings so wide and slow they looked like pieces of cloth caught in a strong wind.
Jonas laid back in the grass and tucked his arms behind his head.
"My uncle says we should dig a shelter. Just in case," he said.
"Does he think that'd help?"
Jonas snorted. "I think he just likes digging. He built a root cellar last spring and sits in it even when it's not hot. Says it's where he does his 'quiet prayers.' But I know he's just napping."
"You're going to be just like him."
"Nah. I want to be important."
"You're already important," I said.
"Not like that. I mean, known. Remembered. Like in the Chronicles. One of the named ones."
I glanced at him. "What, you want to die young in some flaming act of glory?"
"Not necessarily. Maybe just punch a demon in the teeth and make it home in time for dinner."
I smiled. "You'd have to punch up. They're twelve feet tall."
"Good thing I've got strong arms and a reckless spirit."
We lay quiet for a minute. The crickets had started up. The air was cooling, and the first stars were trembling out of the blue.
Jonas pointed at one.
"That one's Gabriel's Eye."
"No it's not," I said. "That's just what your uncle calls it."
"Well, it should be Gabriel's Eye. It's looking right at us."
"Maybe it's not Gabriel. Maybe it's someone else."
"Who?"
I didn't answer.
Jonas glanced over. "You thinking about that 'something like an angel' again?"
I looked up. The sky was so big it made me feel small in a good way.
"I don't know what it was," I said. "I just know it was looking at me."
He sat up, brushing grass off his back.
"You tell anyone else?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because people laugh. Or worry. Or pray too loud."
Jonas was quiet.
"You believe me?" I asked.
He nodded. "Yeah. I think God still talks. Doesn't mean He always makes sense."
I smiled at that.
"Just don't go joining a cult," he added. "If you shave your head and start preaching under a fig tree, I'm telling your mom."
"I'd expect no less."
A bell rang in the distance. Vespers.
Jonas stood and offered me a hand. "Come on. If we're late, your mom'll skin you and make me watch."
We walked back down the slope. Shadows long now, stretching over the dry grass. The town lanterns were being lit, one by one, flickering to life like fireflies. The wind carried the faintest scent of ash and myrrh.
Halfway down, Jonas nudged me.
"If you ever see it again," he said, "whatever it was—"
"Yeah?"
"Let me know. Even if it's nothing. I want to know what your kind of nothing looks like."
"Deal," I said.
The sun was brushing the hills when I came back down the path. The smell of woodsmoke met me before the door did. Someone had lit the hearth early.
Inside, the house was warm and loud with clatter. Thalia shrieked with delight as Zeke lifted her up like a sack of flour, and Mom was swatting at him with a dishtowel between laughter.
"About time," she said when she saw me. "I almost had to send out a search party."
"I'm only a little late."
"Late enough to miss setting the table," she said. "A sin in this house."
Dinah waved from the far side of the room. "He's safe, Mira. No need to scold him before supper."
"I'm not scolding," Mom said. "I'm mothering. It's a sacred art."
I washed my hands in the corner basin and sat down just as the food was set out—lentils, squash, some bread Zeke had managed not to burn. It wasn't much, but it was hot, and it was ours.
"How's the fence?" I asked.
"Still standing," Zeke said. "Barely. You planning to help next time?"
"Maybe."
"Mm-hm."
Thalia banged her spoon against the table and squealed. Dinah fed her mashed lentils and hummed a hymn under her breath.
I chewed slowly, half-listening as Mom told a story about the neighbor's runaway goat and Zeke muttered something about turning it into stew. They laughed, and I tried to laugh too. I did. But my mind kept drifting back—to the hills, to the silence behind the chapel, to what I saw.
I didn't speak of it.
Not because I didn't believe in it.
Because I did.
After we ate, Zeke lit the little clay lamp and passed me the prayer book.
"Lead us in," he said.
I opened to the marked page. My voice felt steadier in prayer than it did in conversation.
"O Lord, who watches, keep watch tonight.
O Lord, who shelters, be our roof and wall.
Let no harm come to those beneath this beam—
Not by flame, nor fang, nor fear."
Mom bowed her head. Dinah crossed herself. Zeke murmured along, steady and sure.
Then came the line we always added, like a stone laid on a grave:
"Keep our father, wherever he's been sent."
Silence followed. Full, deep, good.
Afterward, we cleared the table together. Zeke kissed Thalia's forehead, and Dinah scooped her up for bed. Mom patted my shoulder as she passed.
"Sweet dreams, Salem."
"You too, Mom."
I stood by the window for a while after the house had gone quiet, watching the last light bleed from the sky. A shadow passed behind the clouds—just a trick of the wind, I told myself. Just dusk settling like it always did.
But I still couldn't shake the sense that I'd been seen. Named.
And whatever had seen me…was waiting.
That night, the wind came up over Dominara.
It rattled the shutters, sighed under the eaves, whispered like voices just outside the reach of waking.
I dreamed again.
But this time I wasn't alone.
The figure in white stood where it had before—still and silent, robes clean as a death shroud. But now, twenty others stood at his flanks. Soldiers. Not like the ones on the posters in town square. Not like the ones who came through the village once, looking for names.
These were something else.
They wore long, soot-stained coats marked with holy sigils, rusted gas masks slung from their belts. Some had steel helms painted with crosses. Others had plate armor strapped over linen surcoats, dented and pitted from use. Their boots were caked in salt and ash.
A few carried rifles—wood and iron, banded in brass, with bayonets like spears.
One held a flamethrower, the fuel tank etched with Scripture in Latin and Old Dominari.
Another had what looked like a cathedral censer—except chained to a flail handle, and streaked black from use.
The rest bore relics I didn't recognize: halberds wrapped in prayer cords, shields made from broken altarpieces, a machine gun crowned with seven candles that didn't burn down.
They didn't move.
They just watched me.
And then—like the first time—the white-robed figure raised his hand.
And one by one, the soldiers did too.
They waved.
Not in mockery. Not in jest.
Like friends across a battlefield. Like comrades who already knew my name.
I opened my mouth to speak, to ask—but the wind drowned it. That same wind, endless and old, stirring cloaks and banners and carrying with it the smell of burnt myrrh and oil and blood.
Then I woke.
The room was dark. My skin cold. The lamp at my bedside burned low.
I stayed still a long time.
I woke before the others.
Not all the way—just enough to know the sun hadn't broken yet, and the house was still breathing slow and deep around me.
I lay still, eyes on the ceiling, and thought about the men in the dream. About their faces—what little I'd seen—and the way they raised their hands, not in warning, but like a greeting. Like they knew me. Like they were waiting.
My skin still carried the cold of it.
Was it a dream?
Was it from Him?
I didn't ask the question out loud. Not even in my own head.
Instead, I prayed.
Not anything big. Just the words Mom taught us. The morning blessing. The one you say to start your day clean.