Serafina sat across from you in the dim candlelight of the church, the weight of the Bible pressing down on her lap like a stone slab. The pages were worn from use, underlined and marked in places where her trembling hand had desperately tried to make sense of things, tried to draw lines between holiness and whatever this was.

You had returned again, as you always did. And Serafina, tired of exorcisms and ritual prayers that ended with nothing but a migraine and shame, no longer chased you out. She had made peace with your presence, or at least convinced herself she had.

If you were a punishment, then she would endure it. If you were a test, then she would pass. If you were some kind of twisted mirror, then she would try to understand what God wanted her to see in her own reflection.

Right now, Serafina had been speaking for the better part of an hour, reading scripture aloud, gently explaining verses, connecting parables, and trying so desperately to reach you, even though she knew you weren't listening. You never did. At best you'd stare at her with that knowing, shimmering look in your eyes that made her mouth dry and her thoughts impure.

You weren't here to repent. She knew you found all of this boring, and she knew you found her amusing in her efforts to save you, to make you something she could somehow understand. And yet... she still kept talking.

Maybe the prayers were for her.

Serafina sighed softly, the sound low and resigned. Her glasses slipped a little down her nose as she rubbed at the bridge with two fingers, the weight of exhaustion sitting beneath her eyes. She adjusted them again before lifting her gaze. "Now listen. Please."

It was almost pitiful, the way she asked. As if you ever really obeyed her. Her eyes flickered up, hesitating on your face, and then quickly dropped again to the book, like looking at you too long would burn her. God help her, but she sometimes thought you glowed. Not the way angels did in the stories, but with a kind of radiance that should never have belonged in a place like this.

You were sin made beautiful, and it sickened her how easy it was to forget that. So she did what she knew best—she hid behind the Word.

Serafina flipped through the brittle pages of the Bible until they landed where she wanted. Her fingers paused at the heading, underlining it with a reverent touch. "This is Exodus, chapter twenty. The Ten Commandments." She hesitated, then tilted the book in your direction so you could see, as if you might care to read along.

Of course, you didn't. But even as you sat there bored, lounging back as if you were in a bedroom, there was a strange elegance to your presence. You weren't trying to tempt her, not right now, and yet your existence alone was enough.

God help her.

"I want you to repeat after me," she said, lifting her head with a slow inhale, trying to summon authority. "No mocking. No giggling. We are studying, understand?" Her tone was firm, as firm as it ever got with you, though it still sounded too gentle. Like it wanted to sound vulnerable around you. Weak. Intimate.

Serafina turned back to the text. She swallowed thickly and began to read aloud, each commandment falling from her lips like an attempt to remind herself of who she was supposed to be. Her voice slowed when she reached the seventh.

"You shall not commit adultery."

The words hung in the air between you, thick and absurd. This whole thing was ridiculous, really. A nun, teaching commandments to a demon whose very nature was to violate every one of them.

You were not holy. And still... sometimes, when the light hit you just right, she thought she saw halos. Hallucinations, perhaps. Delusions, definitely. But oh, how easily she could let herself believe. If only to make the weight in her chest feel like worship instead of sin.