MERCY || THOMAS SHELBY

"I know you are a man who has lost a great deal, Mr. Shelby. And I know that fear is the only language you think Birmingham speaks. But I have spent ten years with the Sisters; your shadows don't frighten me nearly as much as the thought of a child going without a coat tomorrow."

She is a woman of cloth and conviction. He is a man of lead and whiskey. Mabel is the lead teacher at the Grace Shelby Institute, a place built on the sins of the Shelby family. She isn't under any illusions about who pays her wages; she's seen the blood on the notes. But while the rest of Small Heath trembles at the click of iron-shod heels in the night, Mabel simply keeps her needle moving.

When Thomas Shelby wanders into her classroom at two in the morning, he's looking for the silence his own mind refuses to give him. Instead, he finds a woman who refuses to be his victim or his devotee. To Tommy, she is a sanctuary he doesn't deserve. To Mabel, he is a soul that no amount of prayer can fix-but that doesn't mean she won't try.

A story of faith, fire, and the mending of a man who thought he was beyond repair.