Kaden opened his mouth, then closed it. The sense of dread had been so heavy, almost like he’d been defeated. But it hadn’t been guilt. He shook his head.

“And if you did kill him?” She looked at Kaden, eyes brimming with tears, but cold with resolve.

“Then I’ll pay the price,” Kaden said.

Taylor rubbed at her eyes. “I really hope it wasn’t you.”

“You and me both,” he said.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Clem said. “If it really happened that way, we would’ve been there. Why would we all give those memories up?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to say,” Kaden said. “What if you didn’t? What if those memories were taken from you?”

Irene shook her head. “We’ve been over this. It isn’t possible. You tried to do it to me, and it didn’t work. And my mom never gave the Bonners our land to begin with,” Irene said.

“Are you sure?” Kaden asked, thinking back to his childhood. “When I was younger, I remember we came to visit your mom to get the corn seeds.”

Irene tilted her head to the side. “That was you? I… I guess I always assumed it was Nate and a friend of his.”

Which meant more of Kaden lost from her mind. Days ago, Kaden would have thought she’d wanted to surrender those memories. Now, he wondered if Nate had taken them from her.

“From what I remember, we walked out to the garden, just the two of us,” Kaden said.

Irene tilted her head to the side.

“It seemed to go on and on forever.”

“We were so small,” Irene said. “Of course it did.”

“We walked all the way out to the edge of the cornfield,” Kaden said. “But there was no barbed-wire fence.”

Irene’s eyes widened. “I mean, not for at least a mile until the yard meets the distillery.” She leaned forward in her seat and rested her hands on her knees. “But I did always wonder how the dark corn grew on distillery land. Anywhere else other than the shadow garden, the dark seeds come up green and bright.”

“You said Irene was worried about the bourbon, in your vision,” Clem said. “But as far as we know, the only memory magic in Yarrow happens at the annual festival.”

“You think it’s in the bourbon,” Taylor whispered.

Kaden nodded slowly. “I was drinking it at the bar that night, when I took that girl’s memories.”

“So, what, you drink it and it gives you the ability to take a person’s memory?” Taylor asked.

“Maybe?” Kaden said.

“You weren’t drinking Bonner’s when we were at the rope swing,” Irene said.

Clem ducked behind the cash register and pulled out a bottle.

“I thought I told you to get rid of that,” Irene said.