_Status: planned branch chapter. _
## Planned Function
- Open the Church Path after The Borrowed Rite. - Keep James's motive mixed but legible: he is afraid, ashamed of failure, and looking for help that feels less foreign to him. - Let Clara remain an active helper in this route instead of repeating her Islamic-route coma function.
## Continuity Locks
- James has already failed by reducing Zayn's worship to procedure. - The Christian exorcism tape remains evidence of a failed rite, not proof that performance alone saves. - The shaytan's pressure follows James through interpretation, not only through the basement wall.