From behind me in the hall, Ford said, “You did.”

Both Ivy and I turned. He looked ragged as both of our personal hells resonated in him. “It’s in your thoughts,” he said, and I just about lost it. Giving up, I sank to my knees before Kisten, the tears flowing unchecked as I tried to arrange his shirt collar to hide his ravaged skin.

“I don’t remember,” I gushed. “I don’t remember any of it. Tell me what happened.”

Ford’s voice was strained. “I don’t know. But you’re feeling guilt and remorse. There’s hatred, but not at him. Someone made you forget.”

I looked up, wanting to believe. Everything was blurry, unreal.

“You didn’t forget because you couldn’t handle it,” he said, guilt in his voice for having labeled me weak. “Someone made you forget against your will. It’s all there in your emotions.”

Blinking fast, I tried to clear my sight. The pain in my chest wouldn’t go away and let me think. Someone had been here besides me. Someone else knew what had happened. Someone had forced me to forget? Why?

A new fear pulled my attention to Ivy, still standing apart and miserable as Kisten lay cold and dead between us. She hadn’t wanted Ford to help me to remember. Had she…had she killed him because he’d bitten me?

“I don’t remember,” Ivy whispered as if knowing my thoughts, her head bowed and arms wrapped around herself to keep from falling apart. “I could have. I don’t remember.”

Edden put his weapon back in the holster, snapping it shut. Arms crossed aggressively, he took a firm stance. I stood, torn between anger at him and fear for Ivy.

“She wouldn’t do it,” I said, frightened, and I went to give her a shake. “You wouldn’t do that, Ivy. Look at me! You loved him!”

She shook her head, her black hair hiding her face.

“She was Piscary’s scion,” Edden said. “She would if he told her to.”

“She loved Kisten!” I exclaimed, appalled and scared. “She wouldn’t do it!”

Edden took a harder line. “Word on the street is she’d kill him if he touched your blood. Did he?”

Guilt seemed to stop my heart, and I looked frantically for a way out. Jenks stood on the dresser, miserable. We were in the same room where I’d bitten Kisten in a blood passion I scarcely knew how to comprehend. He hadn’t bitten me, but it didn’t seem to matter now.

Ivy brought her head up at my silence. Her beautiful face was twisted in pain. “I might have done it,” she whispered. “I don’t remember. Everything up to Piscary attacking you is a…a jumbled nightmare. I think someone told me you tasted Kisten. I can’t remember if someone told me or if I made it up.” Tear-wet eyes rose to mine, framed by black hair iced in gold. A terrible fear lay in her gaze. “I might have. I might have done it, Rachel!”