"I know, and I don't blame you in the slightest," he said, before also saying, "Thank you" and stepping inside. "And there are some things I haven't told you. And you deserve to know, because it explains a lot about...you know, why I am the way that I am."
He shoved a hand through his hair. There were five instances that stood out the most vividly in his memory, when he hadn't been able to find a missing person because they'd already been dead. Each time, he'd sworn to be better than before, to hone his skills like a knife blade and be the best that he possibly could. It hadn't always worked out like that.
"About five years after I was canonized," he began. "I was living in Padua, doing whatever work needed to be done. A local woman came to me, and asked me to find her missing daughter. Her name was Maria, she was just nine years old. I promised her that I would. I looked for her for a week. Every time I thought I was getting close, the trail would lead me to a dead end. On the eighth day, I finally found her, in a shallow grave on the edge of town. She'd been dead almost the entire time. I was the one who had to fetch the mother and the priest and tell them what had happened." He trailed off, remembering that field outside Padua, all those centuries ago. "The anguish on her face," he said quietly. "I held her while she cried, and talked with the priest about giving her all the proper rites. And I promised myself, right then, that that would never happen again. But it did. Four more times that were the worst, and a half dozen more additional times where I never even found a body. That's almost a dozen people that have died when I was charged to find them. Eleven souls that I would swear, some days, follow me around. And every time, I throw myself into my work for months, determined to be better than I ever was before, so that something like that never happens again." He sighed. "And you were caught in the crossfire. And it's not fair to you at all. I mean, I know there's nothing I can do about them now, and I should have let them go years ago, but you know us Catholics. We love our guilt."