I slid the stiletto in too late, waited until he came, and maybe I enjoyed it? Maybe I wanted to feel him flooding into me, wanted to see the rapture in his face before his eyes sprang open at the pain, the realization of what I’d done to him? I could have done it sooner, but he was pounding into me, hard, harder, and then when he grunted I raised my hand and slid the blade into his back, pushed hard, so hard that it cut from his chest and pricked my neck . . . and his eyes opened, and I had killed him, he knew that already, could feel it, the blood bursting inside and stilling his heart, and even as I met his gaze I felt sick with what I had done. Not his fault. He hadn’t made me do anything. I had invited him in. And in his final exhalation, that last grumbling breath from his slack mouth, there hid none of the truths I believed would be there . . .

“Not me!” Hope hissed. “Not me! I didn’t do it, not on purpose—not me, it was . . . everyone before me!” Ancestors, she thought. They made me do it. Those real witches who mocked me by passing down their name to my pitiful, fraudulent self.

Her horse ran on, Rafe held her around the waist, and the opening up of the foulest corners of her mind continued.

He was a bad man anyway, he deserved what those things did to him, I could never have unlocked the door and forgiven myself if he escaped . . .

I like it, I like it, I can’t help that, I can’t help that they’re alive when I eat them . . .

He’d have still paid me, still screwed me, even if he had known . . . it wasn’t my fault . . . by then nothing would have stopped him, not even the knowledge of what I had . . .

Hope cried through eyes shut tight.

Behind her, Rafe said nothing.

HE FELT THE things in the shadows probing him, finding his mind and then scampering away in alarm. They spun away between the trees, dug themselves back down beneath the leaves and needles where they slept for years on end. They were terrified. They had found him, but as those unknown things plunged their tendrils deep into his mind, they discovered something else entirely.

The magic, new and fresh, yet with a history older than they could understand or accept.

Their shock turned to terror when it unveiled itself to them. Its own history—its failings, its shame, its eternal guilt—was laid bare, just for an instant, but long enough to force the creatures away. Perhaps to drive them mad.

Rafe did his best not to see.