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And all at once, Lucy’s cryptic dream warnings made perfect sense.

Be careful who you trust.

How had Blair even considered the possibility that his sister might have been referring to Iris? How foolish had he been to trust Anna, a complete stranger, so implicitly?

His greatest mistake, he supposed, was in believing he could escape his past, that he would ever be free from the memories that plagued him. He never should have left his home by the sea for the mere hope of something brighter. That hope may have been worth his own life, but it certainly wasn’t worth the lives of the two people who stood near him, who he wanted more than anything to protect.

But then, Gabriel knew this witch too, or so he’d said. Maybe this wasn’t just about him.

“What do you want from me?” Blair asked. He hated the way his voice quavered, and he squared his shoulders, forcing himself to stare into the witch’s cruel eyes.

“This doesn’t seem the place to discuss it, does it?” She peered around the room, and Blair noticed that the jagged mirror shards sticking out at unnatural angles were closing in on them, drawing closer and forcing them to move in a singular direction. The witch beamed, clearly pleased by the ingenuity of her own spell. “This way, please.”

Gabriel stepped over to Iris’ other side, and he and Blair acted as her shields as they followed in the woman’s wake. Clement trailed behind them, his focus on the deadly shards at his back.

The witch led them through a door to their left into a dimly lit passageway. She started down a winding stone staircase, and they had no choice but to follow. Blair’s heart hammered in his chest while Iris’ heartbeat pounded through his ears. He reached for her hand as they turned down a final narrow passageway that spilled out into a dark, cavernous room.

Bile rose up Blair’s throat as recognition hit him like a tidal wave.

The dank, earthy smell, the cloying darkness, the damp humidity that stuck to his skin, caught in his throat. He glanced to their left and saw a tiny window built into the stones, the only light he’d known during the long weeks he’d lived hunched in his cage like a beast, raw and beaten down and barely surviving.

The woman who had inflicted all of that pain stood before him, a superior expression crossing her smooth features as she turned to face the four of them.

“Clement,” she said pleasantly, as though she’d only just noticed him. “Lovely to see you again.”

Clement nodded at her, his careful eyes assessing the room. “I wish I could say the same, Obedience.”

“Please, call me Ms. Bird. So, you probably wonder why I’ve gathered you all here today.” Her teeth gleamed in the firelight that flickered in the lanterns along the walls.

It was as though he’d been transported back in time. Blair wrapped an arm around Iris’ waist, holding her tightly against him. Gabriel stood protectively at her other side.

Clearly, they had walked straight into a trap. Blair inwardly cursed himself. If he had put the pieces together the way he should have, if he’d realized that the woman he thought was Anna had been using magic to mask her true identity, he would have known that it was he she’d wanted all along. He would have gone to find her on his own, where his life would have been the only one in jeopardy.

If he were the cause of Iris’ death, or Gabriel’s, or even Clement’s, he might as well die himself. He would never be whole again, never be able to so much as function.

“I’ll bet you didn’t expect to see this place again, did you, Mr. Saltonstall?” Obedience sauntered over to the area where his and Lucy’s cages had once rested. “Don’t you miss all of the family bonding time you shared with your lovely sister?”

White hot anger flared in the pit of Blair’s stomach, and he nearly launched forward, but he stilled at the small gasp beside him. It seemed that Iris had finally connected the story of his kidnapping with their current location.

“It’s a shame you didn’t realize who she was, or perhaps you would have paid her a bit more attention,” Obedience mused.

Blair’s right hand clenched around Iris’ waist, the other curling into a tight fist. “You broke her mind. She barely knew who she was.”

“She entered into an agreement willingly, Blair. It’s her own fault she didn’t uphold her end of the bargain.”

“What are you talking about?”

Obedience gave a hollow laugh. “Let’s see your ring.”

“I don’t have it.”

In the span of a single heartbeat, Blair’s hand was ripped from Iris. Silver flashed through the air as his ring soared from Clement’s protective pouch to land in Blair’s right hand with such force it felt as though he’d been struck.

Obedience plucked the ring from his palm. She circled her fingers around it, her sharp nails scraping across the silver. Smoke billowed up from the ring, coalescing through the air before twisting itself into a memory, as crisp and bright as a film projected before them.

A young woman crouched on the compact dirt floor, her mousy red hair draped over her face like a veil. Her hands were over her ears as she rocked.

Heel to toe, heel to toe.