“What?”

But even as he says it, I picture the faces turned toward me at the Mad Moose and the Dropfly. I had assumed something about me screamed “outsider” at the end of tourist season. Now I see the distracted interest in their eyes. But lots of people wonder about strangers, where they came from, what they do. Right?

“Something came down through the ages with you. Call it the sins of the father—or mother, in this case—a curse, or Bathory’s last gift to her descendants. It’s really just epigenetics. On steroids, maybe.”

“I don’t know what that is. The epigenetics, not the steroids.”

“It means external factors have changed how your cells read your genes. The genes haven’t changed. Just the way they’re expressed. They said Bathory bathed in the blood of her victims to stay young and beautiful—a legend to explain the fact that she was striking. They called her “witch” because she was extremely persuasive and highly intelligent. Those same qualities are in you in unusual quantity. The next time you’re in a crowd or really want something from someone, notice what happens.”

I feel like people are staring.

It’s because you’re pretty.

But I have never been a “pretty girl.” And I have never been mistaken for beautiful. Strange, perhaps. Different, always. From my fractured attention span to my horrible grades despite being labeled “gifted” at a young age.

I prop my elbow against the window, trying to process, not having ruled out the raving lunatic theory.

The sky has clouded over, a thin layer of gauze blurring the stars. A few minutes later it starts to rain, tiny droplets lighting up the windshield like dull glitter.

“This doesn’t make sense. How can an assassin kill any of us if we have mind control?”

“It isn’t control. It’s suggestion. Except for the powerful and passive moment of your death, they are immune to active persuasion—endowed with ‘righteous armor’ against the wiles of your bloodline,” he says wryly.

“A veritable tinfoil hat.”

“More or less.”

I may sound glib, but my hands are cold. I help myself to his coffee. Take a long slug, nearly emptying it.

“This doesn’t explain why I did it. Wiped my memory.”

We slow through the tiny town of Rumford, and he’s quiet for a minute before he says, “I know why. I don’t agree with it and I can’t begin to understand your logic, but I know.”

“Then tell me!”

“Because you’re protecting something or someone—or some ones—you know. Because at some point you realized you were being hunted and thought you might end up dead. And the only way to keep that knowledge from passing, ultimately, to the Historian was to have it deleted from your memory altogether.”

Your life depends on it. Others’ lives depend on it.

Rolan’s crazy must be contagious.