It’s you.

The words were there, in his mind, but he couldn’t get them out. “My brother used to say I could rival any youth in leading strings.”

“Leading strings?”

“Ah, guess that’s kind of old school. Mums used to tie their little ones to their skirts so they could go about their chores while the little one toddled around.”

“He compared your art to a toddler’s?”

He shrugged. “I still feel like I should pay you back, for everything.” He shook his head. He had funds, a bolt hole . . . somewhere. “Once I remember where I put my stuff.”

She laughed and the warm peals rolled over him in a heady wave. “Don’t worry about any of that for now. When you remember, then you can bring it up again.”

“Deal.”

“You didn’t sleep long.” She took a step closer and the light surrounding her flared brighter, making him wince.

“No.”

“What woke you?”

He shrugged. “A dream.”

The reds surrounding her flared brighter. “What was it about? I’ve had some luck interpreting dreams.”

He looked away. “I was wearing a hood and . . . .”

“And?”

They cut off my finger. They tortured me. He shook his head. “That’s all. I was wearing a hood.”

She stayed silent for so long he was about to remind her of her offer when she spoke. “That’s easy enough, you’re feeling imprisoned here.”

Interesting. His little butterfly was lying. The dream had been a memory. For fuck’s sake, part of his finger was missing. “So you don’t think it was a memory?”

“No.” She came closer, her skirt brushing his bare knee.

Shit. He forgot he wasn’t wearing anything but a sheet. He lifted Oscar out of the way and tugged it tighter round his hips, pooling the extra material in his lap.

“How about you let me look at those eyes.”

He stood and backed away. “No need. I can see. They’re fine.”

“You’ll either let me take a peek now, or I’ll wait until you’re asleep and look then. Your choice.” Steel backed her words.

“I don’t know anything about you and you expect me to let you that close? You want me to talk about myself? Tell you about my dreams? Sorry, lady, not happening.”

The colors around her flared bright before settling once again in their usual pattern. “Okay, what do you want to know?”

Slack-jawed, he stared at her through the bandage. All the bright colors surrounding her held steady now, calm. Of course she was calm, she was a fucking angel. Hence the reason he’d never tell her any of the sick shit he was beginning to remember.

He wet his lips, deciding to make quick work of this line of questioning. “Tell me the worst thing you’ve ever done.”

“When I was eight—”

Julius scoffed and sat. “The worst thing you’ve ever done happened when you were eight?”

Her colors darkened. “No. It started when I was eight.”

Jesus, it was like kicking a kitten. “Come here.” He swiveled in his chair and patted his thigh. When she accepted his invitation, shock zinged through him. She sat on his lap and put an arm over his shoulder. Her hands went straight to his bandage.

“No.” He grabbed her wrists. “Story first.”

Her sigh ruffled his hair. “This one day, Mother was in a temper. I’ll never forget it.”

A shiver wracked through her. She never used the possessive when speaking about her mom. When he referred to the woman who gave birth to him, he always said, ‘my mother’ or ‘my mom.’ Kat said Mother as if it were a name and not a familial endearment. He held her closer, waiting for her to continue.

“She was a beautiful woman, thin, flame-haired with flawless skin, but she always scowled. That day, when she came out of . . . the . . . uh, orphanage, not only was she scowling, she was stomping.”

Was she censoring herself or emphasizing? “Orphanage?”

“My . . . friends were raised there. They were all orphaned except for me.”

“All of them?” What were the chances of that?

“I always tried to remember to be thankful I had Mother—none of my friends did. Nor did they have a room all their own. They had to share the basement with eleven other girls. Best of all, I didn’t have to put up with Nan. Nan was their foster mother and she terrified me. She had wrinkles and she was mean.”

“Sounds like your Mother was no picnic either.”

She shook her head. “That day, Mother said one of the orphans had gotten in trouble and Nan was going to punish her. The whole ride home, I cowered in the corner of the passenger’s seat grateful Mother wasn’t angry with me.”

Fury blazed under his skin. Children didn’t cower without cause. “Did she get angry with you often?”

Kat ignored his question. “I sat there, staring at Mother’s hand on the steering wheel, her fingers tap-tap-tapping.” Kat’s fingers tapped against his skin in time to her words. “That was always a bad sign—Mother always tapped while she thought up her most devious deeds. She’d spent a lot of time tapping the year before. Late at night, when I should’ve been in bed, I’d hear her.”

A tremor wracked through her and this time it seemed to transfer into him. Gooseflesh lifted on his arms.

“It started around the time my friends’ mothers began to die—the tapping into the wee hours of the morning. Maybe I should’ve assumed Mother worried she’d be next—maybe knocking on wood to prevent her worst fears from coming true. But while Mother was tapping, a small smile flirted with the corners of her mouth. That smile scared me.”

This sounded familiar. With all the details of a true memory, he pictured a thin, red-haired woman sitting at a table that looked right out of a diner—a white linoleum surface with silver starbursts, aluminum siding around the edges—her nails clicking with each tap.

“When we got home, Mother went inside. I lingered for a bit. When I got up my nerve, I stuck my head in the door and peered around the corner. Mother was on the floor surrounded by heavy volumes of books. I should have gone straight upstairs and locked myself in my room, but I was transfixed at the sight of Mother flipping through one book after another, tossing each aside before reaching for the next. She scoured every book, almost growling when she couldn’t find what she wanted.

“When she grabbed the Devil’s Bible, I freaked a little. That was my book. I’d found it at an estate sale and I bought it with my allowance. The book didn’t want Mother to touch it and even though she held her hand above the latches and chanted an opening spell the book refused to open.”

“She made you open it?”

She blinked and her eyes focused on him. “I told her I had to pee.”

He smiled. A brilliant strategy for an eight-year-old.

“I always had to pee when Mother got upset.”

His humor died. Jesus. He closed his eyes. If the woman hadn’t already been dead, he’d kill her.

“When I came back downstairs, we argued. I tried to talk her out of it. The Devil’s Bible has dark spells in it. The book contains all the secrets of the daemon realm. She put the book on the table and told me to open it.”

When he’d asked, he’d expected her to tell him some trivial mistake. His butterfly was honest to a fault, though, and far too honorable to give him less than he’d asked for. He tightened his arms around Kat.

“I said the spell, but I put the opposite intention behind my words. To Mother, it looked like I obeyed, but the book refused to open for me, too.”

Confused, he pulled away. “So you didn’t open it. This is your deep, dark secret?”

Kat’s lips lifted in a small smile. “She made me repeat the words three times. Then she let me leave. I should’ve waited until I got upstairs, but as I turned away, I was so relieved, I smiled. Mother saw me in the mirror.”

They stared at each other and there was something in her colors, a murkiness that made him hate himself for starting this. “You don’t have to tell me anything else.”

“She made me do the spell again and when it wouldn’t open, she hit me.”

Kat said the words with no emotions, as if reading a definition from a dictionary. He pushed her curls over her shoulder, resting his hand along her neck and stroked her cheek. “I shouldn’t have asked, butterfly.”

“No.” The colors surrounding her flared bright with the small show of anger. “Mother hit me so hard, I swear I thought my eye was going to pop right out of my skull. I cried and she made fun of me. And when I refused to do it again she used Magic to bind me. Invisible ropes of Magic that lashed around me to keep me from running. She kept tightening the binding spell until I couldn’t breathe. She was going to kill me. There wasn’t an ounce of any emotion outside of fury in her eyes.”

“So you opened the book.”

“The book opened itself.” She shrugged. “The Devil’s Bible always was protective of me. Always tried to help. Mother’s attention went straight to the book and she released me. She was thrilled. The book had even opened to the perfect spell.”

“What was it?”

“A cursing. She cursed the orphan who was in trouble with a Dybbuk.”

“Nasty creatures.” Witches feared the small daemons. Once they attached to a witch, it was almost impossible to get rid of them. They fed off their Magic and used the witch as a shield to hide from their mortal enemy, vampires. Why could he remember all that and not where he lived? Where he’d been?

“I’m a healer. I’m supposed to make people feel better.” Her mouth twisted and the colors of her aura seethed, turning darker. “I let my friend suffer with the Dybbuk for almost two decades. I knew Mother must’ve killed my friends’ mothers and I didn’t say anything. That’s my sin.” Moisture pooled on the lower lids of her eyes. “I let fear rule me and as a result I hurt those I should’ve healed.” A single tear dropped, streaking down her cheek.

“Shit.” He wrapped her in his tight embrace and let her cry. He was an ass. Now he’d hurt the one person who seemed to want to help him.

“These friends of yours. I don’t suppose they’re witches, too?”

She nodded against his chest. “No one knows.”

“What?”

“No one knows.” She sniffed. “My friend, she’s free from the Dybbuk now, but I still haven’t told anyone about how it came to be. That I let her suffer with the creature all that time. Let her live without Magic. No one knows I guessed about their mothers’ deaths and didn’t tell them. They don’t know. . . .”

“Why tell me?” She was talking about a coven, right? Women who possessed Magic and called each other sister. Women who would kill a coven member who betrayed them.

She leaned back and stared. “So you’ll feel safe with me. This is information that could ruin me in the best-case scenario. In the worst

case . . . .”

Worst case, they’d destroy her. He shook his head. “You don’t know me. I could hurt you with this.”

“You won’t.”

He waited to see if she’d say more and when she didn’t, he pulled her back against him and held her. He had no idea what to say. That it didn’t matter? It did. That it wasn’t wrong? It was. Yet, she hadn’t been in a position to do anything about her mother.

“I promised myself if I ever saw someone hurting, I would do whatever I could to stop it.”

“Is that what you’re doing with me?”

“You’re innocent.”

He snorted. “Honey, I’m pretty damn sure I’m not innocent of much.”

“In this particular case, you are. I know you doubt me, yourself. My biggest concern is that you’ll remember the what, where, and who long before you remember the why.”

“What do you mean?”

“Terrible things were done. But the why, the reason behind those terrible acts is what’s important. Will you remember that? When you recall why you did those things, that’s when you’ll realize you were framed.”

None of that made any sense. “If I committed the crimes, how can I have been framed?”

“I trust you, Jules. I brought you into my home. Locked you away here with me so you could have time. Now I need you to trust me, too.”

Shit. He’d look like a total ass if he didn’t cooperate. “Fine. You can check my eyes.”

She reached for him.

He stopped her. “I’m not talking about anything.”

“Okay.” She reached for him again.

He dodged her. “You need to be quick. One eye at a time.” He had no desire to accidentally put thoughts in her head. He wanted to. He wanted to stare deep into her eyes and tell her she belonged to him and him alone.

But he wouldn’t. Not because it wasn’t right. Because it wouldn’t be real.

“Fine.” She sounded as though she was rolling her eyes. She stood between his sheet-clad thighs and tilted his face back to the angle she wanted. She lifted the left side of the bandage and when he opened his eyes he stared at the ceiling. Still, from the peripheral he caught a glimpse of fiery curls. Soft green eyes. Pale skin. She probably had freckles.

“Look at me.”

Jesus, he wanted to. Wanted a better look at her but he couldn’t risk it. “No.”

“Why?”

“I’m a mesmerist, Kat. I won’t take chances with you.”

“Ah, Jules,” it was all she said, but her disappointment was a palpable thing as she continued her examination.

“As far as I can tell, your left eye looks good.” Her thumb stroked his cheek. “How’s your vision?”

“Blurry, but improving.”

“Good.” She pulled the bandage back into place. “I’m amazed you’re healing so well.”

She lifted the right side of the bandage. Again, he stared at the ceiling when he opened his eyes, but this time she jumped back a full two feet.

“What’s wrong?” He’d known something wasn’t right, but he hadn’t been sure that it would be visible to others.

“C-c-can you s-see?”

“Um, yeah.” He didn’t think it wise to tell her it was like looking through a prism, nor that he saw through it whether his eye was covered or not. “What’s wrong?”