Chapter 3:

Private Guidance and Deeper Corruption

The convent lay in deep silence after midnight. I crept through the cold stone corridors on bare feet, my heart hammering so loudly I feared it might wake the others. This was only our third secret meeting, yet my body already craved Father Lucian like a drug. The note he had slipped under my cell door burned in my mind:

Chapel. After midnight. Come empty beneath your habit.

I locked the heavy door behind me. Moonlight poured through the stained glass windows, bathing the altar and crucifix in shades of sapphire and blood-red. Father Lucian waited in the shadows near the altar, tall...