The storm had finally spent itself after unleashing all of its fury upon the land. The rain battered against the stone walls no more. Sunlight finally poured through the stained glass and painted the halls in a myriad of colours.

The first few villagers came to the church that morning to offer their prayers. They lingered longer than usual, keeping company with the priestess who had spent nearly a month in seclusion while the storm raged.

“What can we say, priestess,” one of them said with a weary sigh. “The heavens were not kind to us. The rains ruined the crops, most of the cattle have perished, and the roads are so damaged that none dared travel them.”

She hesitated before placing a small bundle upon the table.

“We could only bring this much.”

Inside were a loaf of bread and a small portion of cheese. Evangeline accepted the offering with gratitude. 

Sylas had already heard them long before she reached the door. By the time the first knock sounded upon the wood, he had already withdrawn into one of the underground chambers beneath the church — leaving the halls above as empty as they had always appeared to the villagers.

The villagers continued to arrive throughout the day. They prayed, lingered for a few words, and left offerings of food and firewood before departing.

By the time evening came and Evangeline finished her final prayers, the church had grown still once more.

When she entered the library, she found it empty.

She had grown accustomed to seeing Sylas seated at the long table, bent over some ancient volume. The absence of that familiar sight made the room feel strangely hollow. The book he had been reading the night before still lay where he had left it.

She checked the underground chambers as well, but he was nowhere to be found.

That night, Evangeline finished her supper at the small dining table — a simple sandwich of meat and bread. As she rose to clear the plate, the wooden door opened softly, and Sylas stepped inside. His cloak was damp, and traces of mud clung to his boots.

“The rain has stopped,” Sylas said. “I think it is time I leave.”

His gaze lingered on the room for a moment before returning to her.

“You have already done more for me than I deserved. I should not remain here any longer. Thank you… for everything, Evangeline.”

Evangeline did not answer at first. After a moment, she set the plate down slowly.

“Where will you go?” she asked. “The forest is hardly fit to shelter anyone after the storm.”

Sylas frowned slightly.

“How did you—”

“The villagers,” Evangeline said, as though the answer required no further explanation.

“Many of the trees were uprooted,” Sylas said. “The forest has become little more than a graveyard of leaves. Even the beasts did not survive the storm.”

He paused briefly.

“But I will find somewhere to hide. Perhaps farther north…”

Yet as he spoke, Sylas found his thoughts drifting. Did he truly wish to go farther away?

He remembered an evening in the library, when he and Evangeline had been reading a small book of poetry by candlelight.

Her thoughts had always seemed different from those he had known among the clergy. There was a certain openness in the way she spoke of faith and the world beyond the church walls, and it had stirred his curiosity for some time.

That evening he had finally asked her about her life before coming to the church.

Evangeline had been silent for a moment before answering.

“The church took me under its supervision when I was very young,” she said. “But I was not always as disciplined as they might have wished.”

A faint smile had touched her lips at the memory.

“When I was younger, I used to slip outside the grounds from time to time. I made a few friends in the village… and I often visited the library there.”

She paused, gently turning a page of the book between them.

“Perhaps the books I read, and the people I met beyond these walls, shaped the way I see the world now.”

That memory lingered in his mind.

In the past weeks he had grown accustomed to the life within the church — far more than he cared to admit.

He had come to enjoy the small, ordinary things — the kind he had once believed were forever lost to him. Even the simplest chores brought with them a strange sense of belonging.

He had grown accustomed to Evangeline’s hymns drifting softly through the corridors, and to the quiet motion of her fingers turning the rosary whenever she sank into thought.

And he had begun to look forward to the evenings they sometimes spent in the library, reading and speaking of the books they found there.

Far more than he wished to confess.

Evangeline remained silent. In truth, his departure had always been inevitable.

He did not belong within the walls of the church. The forest had been his home for years.

Yet he had become a part of her life there with such quiet ease that she now found it difficult to imagine the days returning to what they had once been.

Her fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the table.

“If you must go,” Evangeline said after a moment, “I cannot ask you to stay.”

“But the roads are still broken from the storm. It may be wiser to wait until dawn.” The words left her lips before she fully considered them.

Sylas could have told her that he could fly, that the broken roads would not hinder him. That leaving before sunrise might even be more dangerous for him.

But he did not.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “I will leave at dawn.”

That night, the church stood in silence, yet sleep came to neither of them.

Evangeline woke before sunrise, preparing for the first sermon of the day. As she passed by the chamber Sylas had occupied, she found it empty.

The bedroll he had used was folded neatly against the cold wall. The small lantern beside it had long since burned out. A book about the religious arts lay on the wooden table. 

She lingered at the doorway for a moment longer than necessary. Then she turned away.