“So, what? You’re leaving, too?” asked Wes. “Now?”

“All Charlotte’s trying to do is get you to ask yourselves a question,” said Patrick as he scanned the three of us with an accusing finger. “And that’s whether or not Stephanie’s got some part in this we’re not seeing. And you.” He shifted his finger to me. “Whether you want to see it or not, you’re getting more and more reckless. This isn’t just about Stephanie anymore. Not for you. Or else you would start listening to someone other than yourself.”

Inside my chest, my already thundering heart plummeted into my gut.

Before I could demand that Patrick retract what he’d just said, the door to Rastin’s hotel room swung shut a second time. And while there was a small check of comfort in knowing that Charlotte would not be alone in her abandonment of the group—of me—there was a deeper pain surrounding the fear that Patrick might just have a point.

As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t deny that Charlotte had one. We were in over our heads. That alone made me want to look back and question everything that had brought us to this moment.

I didn’t want to think Charlotte could be right about Stephanie and Erik either, but hadn’t I just seen for myself that there was something between them? Why, until this moment, had I not questioned what that something could be? Rastin had already told us Erik had fallen in love with Stephanie. Was that something that could occur without her encouragement? The dreams Stephanie hadn’t told me about until that day we went into Moldavia—what had happened in those dreams?

Erik. With a face like that, I could imagine any number of things happening between them.

What hadn’t Stephanie told me? And why had she insisted that I not come for her? She’d been afraid for me. But there’d been a silent exchange that had happened between her and Erik, too. She’d alluded to an oath. Whatever it had been, she had either made it for me. Or . . . she had made it for him.

“She’s right . . . isn’t she?” I asked Rastin in a quiet voice as Wes returned with the requested towels, one of which the medium pressed to my still-bleeding arm.

“She . . . raises an interesting concern,” conceded Rastin. “One I admit I had not considered. One that . . . might offer an explanation for an odd occurrence.”

“Which odd occurrence?” asked Wes bleakly.

“When Erik attacked me yesterday,” Rastin said, “I detected his presence within the house as usual. I knew he was still without a heart, because I could not pinpoint his whereabouts. But . . . I also felt Stephanie’s presence on his side. Her whereabouts I could detect. Until now, I felt sure that my awareness of her had more to do with the fact that her soul is out of place in his world. Now, though . . .”