Page 125 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part Two

“What did I miss?” I ask her. “What’s wrong?”

Before she gets a word out, Dom releases a furious torrent of Italian—something about her stupidity—and shakes the crumpled paper at Raven. I’ve never seen him this angry before. Veins pop in his forehead. He’s actually cursing, saying something about her invasion of privacy one moment, then something about it not being her cross to bear.

She shouts, “What’s the big deal? I was wrong, anyway.”

“I’d like to know about these too!” Thea pulls out a folded letter and shoves it at Raven, but it flutters to the ground, ignored. “Were you really not going to tell us until it was too late?”

“He’s the one who’s been lying to us all.” Raven jabs a finger in Dominic’s direction, but glares at us all. “We gonna talk about that?”

Oh shit. Is this about what we learned in Dominic’s interrogation? My eyes swing his way. With everything going on, I’d forgotten about that.

Leila jerks her pistol in Asmodeus’s direction. “I’d like to talk about the ex-demon⁠—”

“Still a demon.” He points at himself with his thumbs.

“—and the giant moth in the yard?” Leila finishes.

Noctis makes an agitated growl and a wing flutter, which sets Jinx off barking in Tawny’s arms. Leila swings her aim to the moth and Asmodeus jogs between them, palms raised in surrender.

“Whoa,” he says to Leila. “He’s just an annoying lintball. Trust me. He’ll run out of psychopomp juice any moment now.” He glances over his shoulder at Noctis and repeats more loudly, “Any moment now.”

Noctis harrumphs defiantly.

“Won’t you?” Asmodeus’s tone turns threatening.

But while that standoff is going on, the argument continues at the porch.

“Is she right?” Wesley snaps at the big Saint. He collects Thea’s fallen letter and waves it at him. “Have you been lying to us this whole time? Were you actually in Hell?”

Guilt plasters over Dominic’s face.

“Bro.” Zeke’s shoulders plummet. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Dominic gives him a look as if to say, look at your own behavior—bro, which turns Zeke’s dejection into chagrin.

“You guys aren’t being fair to Dom,” I point out. “We all have painful secrets we don’t like sharing.”

Thea glowers at me, opens her mouth, but I cut her off and repeat, “All of us!”

Her jaw clicks shut. But then she can’t help it and says, “This is a little more important than the average secret, don’t you think?”

I shrug and gesture at Tawny, Raven, and then myself. “We’ve known since the interrogation.”

“You knew!” Leila turns to me, agape. Her gun swings our way as she gesticulates her anger. “How could you not say something?”

Beside her, Zeke ducks to avoid the aimed weapon. She rolls her eyes and widens her eyes in a way that must mean something to them.

He scratches his head, then gasps with knowing. “Oh yeah, it’s not loaded.” To us, he jerks his thumb at Asmodeus and explains. “It’s not loaded because we were still asleep this morning when Loser-With-A-Soul turned up. Leila was cleaning the gun last night but got a little distracted⁠—”

“It’s not loaded?” Asmodeus’s brows raise, then lower with a smirk.

“Good one.” Leila slaps Zeke over the head, uncocks the pistol now that we all know, and storms up the steps. “Now I need to go and load it.” She points a warning finger back at Asmodeus. “Don’t you go and do anything demony while I’m gone—understood?”

Asmodeus mimes zipping his lips and throwing away the key. “Scout’s honor.”

“That’s not how that goes.” Leila blinks at him, then mumbles under her breath, “Fuck it,” and heads inside.

“Anyways,” Tawny says, picking up the conversation from earlier as she approaches the porch with Jinx. “We didn’t tell everyone because we were all kind of distracted. You know, with the wellbeing of orphans, rotting food, and a looming apocalypse.”