“My mom wants me to believe that you all surrendered your memories of me.” His throat felt thick. His eyes stung. “She wants me to think I murdered Nolan.”

“Why?” Clem asked. “I know Sylvia’s a bitch, but she’s your mother.”

He brushed away a tear, but another replaced it just as quickly. “Because she’s hiding something, and she doesn’t want me to go looking for the truth.”

Irene shook her head slowly. “Your family stole our land.” Then her eyes widened. “You said in one of the visions the garden gave you that you were confronting Nate.”

“Yes, you’d caught him cheating on you,” Kaden said. “It wasn’t the first time. And he said he’d take care of it.”

“He took my memories.” Irene shook her head. “Over and over again. But if we were friends, then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Apparently”—Kaden’s face flushed—“I had a crush on you.” I loved you; I think I’ve always loved you was what he really wanted to say, but he was scared. Why didn’t he tell her that his brother was cheating on her? “That doesn’t excuse it, but maybe I was scared of my brother? Or maybe… he was stealing memories from me, too? Irene, I don’t know. I only remember snippets of things.”

“What does the shadow garden have to do with any of this?” Clem asked. “That’s what I don’t understand.”

Kaden hadn’t thought it possible for his heart to drop further into his stomach. “It made the bourbon—and our magic—stronger.”

“So, you’re saying that there is some kind of inherent Bonner magic?” Irene asked. “That you could take someone’s memories if the conditions were right?”

“And since the shadow garden magic is an amplifier, when it’s combined with Bonner magic, it makes it stronger,” Clem said.

“Strong enough for even a memory harvest,” Taylor said. “All those people in one place…”

“So, what do we do now?” Irene said.

“What can we do?” Taylor replied.

“We could expose them,” Clem suggested.

“If what the garden showed Kaden is true, we tried that already and it failed, miserably.” Irene shook her head.

“And whatever it was that we tried to do, it got Nolan killed,” Taylor said.

“We didn’t get anyone killed,” Clem said. “But I do think Quinn’s been right all along. Nolan was murdered. But I don’t think Kaden did it.”

Kaden held a hand over his mouth. “What if someone was trying to shut him up?”

Irene’s eyes widened. “Maybe he was immune.”

Something about that idea felt familiar to Kaden.

“Like Quinn?” Clem asked.

“It would explain why she recognized Kaden,” Irene said.

“She would’ve been so young,” Taylor said. “How could she even remember?”

“Trauma like that leaves a mark,” Irene said.

“You’ve lost me completely,” Kaden said.