There, thought Malachi, there's the heart of you.

The doubt, the fatigue. He observed from the corner of his eye, without fully looking at the youth.

It was not until Chéri had answered his mundane question that Malachi bothered to answer the first. How confident they had seemed for but a moment; many, Malachi had found, believed themselves above the effect of such questions, yet they crumbled before them all the same. All was a matter of phrase.

"We are all sinners, Chéri. It is our nature."

He mirrored the softer tone Chéri had voiced before, quiet in the comfortable space.

"There is nothing that God will not forgive. I would be wrong not to follow in His footsteps."