Page 312 of Sinister

His choice to sacrifice tens of people just to meet me brought me closer to the fulfillment of my own bargain. Because when I died as Petra in 1896, when Sin had fulfilled his bargain yet had still lost me, he gained another boon from Valerion—the opportunity to be with me again; for me to relive the past, to remember it.

When he slipped a drop of Jí in my drink, it wasn’t just the memories of past Petra that were awakened. It was also the memories of Agatha. The former took on the shape of dreams, but the latter manifested as a split personality.

Or, as I see snippets of everything that happened, that is the only way I could describe it.

Perhaps it’s because present-day Petra was far too innocent of the evil in the world. Perhaps because Agatha’s twisted bargain could not coexist inside my mind—yet.

But as the Jí worked in my mind, the consciousness of Agatha became stronger and stronger. And she—I—knew what she had to do.

Deliver five souls. Five evil souls.

What is perhaps even more surprising than the fact that I developed a split personality of my past-life self is that Sin has known about it all along.

If I had any question about how I, five-foot-three-one-hundred-twenty-pounds Petra could have killed guys twice my size, now I know—I see it.

Sin facilitated every single murder.

The first one was Edwin.

Present-day Petra had felt so sad about him, had pitied him for the way he’d been killed. Because that Petra did not know the depth of his depravity.

Days before his death, he’d been planning a massacre at the school. He had everything ready. Hunting rifles stolen from his father. Makeshift bombs to create mayhem and confusion. And a list of victims, most of them professors and a few students who’d made fun of him.

Was he evil, or just traumatized? the still-normal part of me asks. He must have been evil, since his death counted as one.

The next was Harry.

Present-day Petra had mourned him, too, without realizing that at the very ball at which he died, he’d planned to spike her drink, bring her to his car, and do . . . unspeakable things to her.

She’s felt sad for the poor kid while he was planning to assault her.

My features harden as I realize just how naïve I’d been, how easily I’d been misled by seemingly nice people who were in fact evil. Because Harry’s death counted. He was number two.

François had terrorized half the female population at St. Anselm Hall. Present-day Petra had been far too asocial and secluded to know that he’d been taking pictures and videos of girls, sharing them without their consent, blackmailing them.

He was evil! He deserved to die, and he more than earned his place as the third.

That Daphne was truly evil is not a surprise.

Present-day Petra had not been the only victim of her bullying. She’d driven at least one girl to suicide and bullied a few others to the point of self-harm and mental breakdown.

She deserved to die, and so she was fourth.

Now, Fiona was a bit more tricky.

As Fiona had tried to find evidence to pin the murders on me, Sin had done his best to sidetrack her. But in his research, he’d discovered some things that did not make sense.

Complex murders seemingly solved overnight. Rushed convictions. Lives ruined.

Fiona was in the business of planting evidence—all to get a conviction.

For her stellar record, she’d been sent to Radcliffe to investigate the murders. Even if she were correct that I was the murderer, she developed her theory without much evidence at first, based solely on her hunch.

Then, she became single-minded in her focus, which allowed Sin to question her true motives; after all, with his assistance, I had left no evidence at any of the crime scenes.

All the information solidifies in my mind until the shock I felt earlier at having killed Fiona vanishes. In its place, a sense of fulfillment and gratitude appears.

The past and present merge until there is only one Petra—me. The sum of all past selves and the convergence of only one desire: to be reunited with her loved ones.