Stepping across the fallen chain, he moved into the dark and heat. Ten feet in it was close to black,
so he waited for his eyes to adjust. After a moment, the void gathered itself into a low-ceilinged, dim
space with sconces in the walls, a stairwell to the left, and closet doors broken from their hinges.
Stepping through the narthex, he fumbled his way to the double doors that led into the nave. Once
beyond them, the ceiling soared away, and while it remained dim at his end of the church, light
spilled through stained glass at both transepts to illuminate the altar and the woman on it. Colors were
in the light—blues and greens and reds—and lines of shadow from iron in the glass. Otherwise, the
light speared in like a blade to pin the body where it lay, to put color in the skin and on linen that was
white and crisp and ran from feet to chin. Beckett’s first impression was of black hair and stillness
and red nails, the image so familiar and haunting it transfixed him where he stood.
“Please, don’t be the same.…”
He was talking to himself, but couldn’t help it. Light lit her like a jewel in a case, but it was more
than that. It was the tilt of her jaw, the apple-skin nails.

Can anyone help me with the highlighted part?