The Sinner

I tilted my chin. “Not today.”

My nerves didn’t magically turn to steel with that declaration, but bravery, I’d read, wasn’t doing something because you were unafraid. It was being afraid and doing it anyway.

At my closet, I sca

With or without wings?

“Stop it.”

I pushed aside hangers and then grief punched me in the stomach, hard and fast, knocking everything else out.

Dad’s trench coat.

He liked to say the coat was a little old school but that it made him feel like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. He’d always wear it when we went to the Old Vic movie house to watch a classic matinee on Sundays, back in Milford.

I laid the cuff to my cheek and inhaled. He’d been gone for six months but his scent—Old Spice cologne and pipe smoke—was still strong.

This would fit Casziel.

The thought was satisfying and horrifying at the same time.

“No way,” I said through gritted teeth. “Absolutely not.”

I imagined I heard Dad’s voice in my head.

I don’t need it anymore, pumpkin. And neither do you. You’ll always have me.

“You’ll always have me” was one of the last things Dad said to me before the cancer took him.

I had obeyed his last wish and sold most of his things and our house in Co

“I can’t, Daddy,” I murmured into the sleeve. “I can’t give your coat to some stranger.”

But I was doing it again. Playing it safe. Doing what was expected of me: nothing.

I took the coat down from the hanger, buried my face in it one last time, and went back out.

Casziel was where I’d left him, looking weak and helpless.

He’s neither weak nor helpless…and you know it.

Except I didn’t know what he was. I wouldn’t let my imagination go there. I inhaled, ready to scream bloody murder if Casziel pla

“That should do,” he said, eyeing the coat bunched in my hand.

He climbed to his feet, moving stiffly and stumbling. Keeping my eyes averted, I handed over my father’s coat, then quickly stepped away. Casziel turned, and I caught a glimpse of more scars slashed across his back. He pulled the coat over his shoulders. It was a tad too tight but covered him well enough.

“Okay, so…I guess that’s it. Good luck—”

“Lucy, wait…”

Casziel swayed, his hand outstretched, grabbing at air. Instinctively—and like a crazy person—I rushed toward him instead of away. I gave him my arm to prop him up and almost buckled at his heaviness. Hints of smoke and heated metal filled my nose and a strange scent I couldn’t place.

I looked up at Casziel and he looked down at me. His eyes appeared as if a fire burned behind them. Thousands of sunrises and sunsets, rising and falling over thousands of years. They drew me in until I could hear screams…

“What is happening?” I breathed.

“My time grows short, Lucy De

“Better?”

“It might be too late; my sins are many. Countless. But I want to try. I need you to show me how.”

My heart was bursting out of my chest, and I should’ve run but I didn’t. “S-show you how to do what?”

“Find my way back into the light.”

Because he’s been cast out.

A chill came over me as the truth of who— what —Casziel was began to solidify from impossible suspicion into reality.

“No. I…I can’t.” I let go of him and backed away. “I can’t do…whatever this is.”

“Lucy…”

“ No. I’m not like the girls in the stories. I want to be, but I’m just not. I can’t help you. I’m so sorry…”

I was up three stairs to my place when Casziel’s deep voice arrested me.

“This coat belonged to your father.”

I turned, my pulse pounding slow and hard. “What did you say?”

“It’s his. You kept it and gave the rest away.” Casziel frowned, perplexed. “What is a Hum-free Bo-gart?”

The blood drained from my face. “Who told you…?”

“He told me.”

“You’re talking to my father? Right now?”

“He says you should let me explain.” He frowned again, listening. “Not sure what pumpkins have to do with anything…”

“You’re lying,” I said through trembling lips, even as I desperately sca

“I am both.” Casziel’s lips twisted. “But not today.”

I breathed hard, the tears in my throat trying to choke me. “I don’t know who you are or how you know about us, but to have some stranger toy with my grief is wrong . And terrifying.”

“I beg to differ,” Casziel snapped. “ Terrifying is placing the fate of your eternal soul in the hands of a human girl who clearly doesn’t have the guts for it.”

I shook my head. “You’re not well. You need help.”

“Have I not been saying so since the begi

“I don’t care,” I cried, backing away and hitting my hip on the stair rail. The pain was sharp but didn’t wake me from this insanity. “You have my dad’s coat. That’s already too much, but that’s all you’ll get from me. Now leave me alone or I will call the police.”

Casziel muttered a curse, then said louder, “He says to tell you that you’ll always have him.”

I froze, turned.

“He says it may seem crazy, but I need your help. And you’ve never been one to—”

“Turn my back on someone who needs help,” I finished. “My God.” I took another step closer, squaring my shoulders and meeting Casziel’s eyes. “Is this real?”

“It is real.”

“Why me?”

“Lucy born of light, you can help me be something other than…what I am.”

Black wings and black eyes and visions of death swirled all around me. “What you are…”

“Born into darkness.”

Reality warped in those short moments. I was stepping into the wardrobe after all, and there was no going back . And I didn’t want to. A strange energy radiated off Casziel that was waking up something deep inside me. Some courage I didn’t know I had. Turning him away now would put it back to sleep.

I’ve been sleeping through my own life long enough.

“My father is here? With me?”

“Always.”

“He’s an angel?”

“In a matter of speaking.”

“But you’re not.”

It wasn’t a question.

“No,” Casziel said. “I am not.”

“What would they call you?”

His amber gaze seemed to pour into mine. “Can’t you guess, Lucy De

“Tell me.”

I need to hear it.

“We have many names,” Casziel said. “Hyang. Fravashi. Kami. Dji

The sun had sunk beneath the tall towers, draping the city in long shadows. Casziel looked at me expectantly.

I inhaled, then exhaled the word.

“Demon.”