I shake my head to clear it of the fog, but the memories—my memories now—cling. Images paint the inside of my mind, pulsing through my consciousness like drums. Abby’s back. Mary’s hands. Bloodcrafters. The determined look on Pearl’s face. The crossroads child and his golden-orange gaze. The Shadowborn Gate.

A pack of hellhounds crossing to our world.

My eyes find Patricia’s. “You have a sister named Ruth.”

She blinks. “I did. She passed a few years ago.”

“Oh,” I whisper. “I didn’t realize.”

Patricia smiles like she knows what I’m thinking. “I’ve walked with her. I miss her, and yet I see her when I need to. Why do you ask?”

“Because I walked with her too. When she went to school here. When was she enrolled?”

“She graduated maybe twenty-five years ago. Why?”

It feels like she’s just punched me in the gut. My mother was at Carolina twenty-five years ago, maybe living in a dorm not far from where Ruth was that night.

Then, I remember what Louisa showed me—Pearl’s baby that was cast away, the red-eyed man who was its father—and dread in my stomach grows until it chills me through. “I have to go.”

“Go where?” Patricia blinks. “What did you see?”

“They showed me those memories on purpose,” I murmur, scrambling to my feet. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.”

“Bree! What happened?”

“I’m sorry!” I’m already pulling my phone out of my pocket as I run.

Nick doesn’t answer my call, but it doesn’t deter me. I have every intention of sprinting through campus and straight on to the Lodge, until I realize I have to stop somewhere first.

Because as urgent as my new missions are, I have to see it.

When I reach the statue, it’s like I’m looking at it for the first time.

Carr stands in full Civil War uniform with a long-barreled rifle grasped in both hands. The sculptor, whoever he was, made sure that Carr’s spine was straight, his shoulders back, and his chin up. A soldier proudly standing for a war that wasn’t won.

That venomous rage returns.