To say that Effy Stonem has never been a religious girl would be an understatement of, well, biblical proportions. She has, at the tender age of seventeen, broken more of the bible's supposed rules than she ever tried to follow, and always without so much as a second thought, much less the sting of guilt and regret. She's not a believer in the slightest, and couldn't care less what consequences her actions will have in the afterlife. As far as she's ever been concerned, there's only the here and now, and the greatest mistake she could ever make — greater, even, than pre-marital sex, lying, or cheating — is to waste her life in the name of fear disguised as faith.

But then, that isn't entirely true.

She prayed the night that Tony got hit; started the second she saw him go down and didn't stop until they were in the ambulance, at the hospital, until his eyes finally opened. She made all sorts of promises — that she's never drink or smoke or use again, that she'd stay pure until she was married, that she'd join a convent and dedicate her life to the good Lord. That she'd do anything, in the end, if it meant Tony got to live. And he did, but she didn't keep a single of her promises, and she never thought about it again. Not until now.

"You're serious." It isn't a question so much as a realization; he isn't lying, and it's easy to tell. He believes it, and if a place such as Tabula Rasa can exist, what's to say that angels and demons can't, either?