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Blair rushed forward, knelt, tried to reach for her—but his hands went right through her. Lucy was nothing more than a memory, less substantial than a ghost.

“Your sister was living in a poorhouse when I met her. Skinny, malnourished thing. I offered her a place to live, clean food to eat. In return, she agreed to let me use experimental spells on her in an attempt to improve her powers so she could become a more formidable weapon.”

“For what purpose?”

The four of them turned to look at Gabriel. His voice was strained yet measured.

“Gabriel.” Obedience’s tone was admonishing, as though he were a foolish child who had just failed a critical exam. “Are women not always in need of weapons to protect themselves from the men who seek to harm them? The council, for instance⁠—”

“—has never sought to cause you harm,” Gabriel interjected.

“No thanks to you,” Obedience said, her eyes flashing.

Blair’s whole attention was still focused on the hologram of his sister rocking on the floor like a song set to repeat on an endless loop.

“As her father was human, Lucy’s abilities appeared to be tragically limited,” Obedience continued. “I wanted to see if it was possible to unlock those extra gifts possessed by her birth mother—if her talons and fangs might present themselves, if the muscles in her wings could one day grow strong enough to support flight, if she might gain enough control to transform at will.”

“That wasn’t all you wanted from her, though, was it?” Gabriel asked, sounding disgusted. “You thought you could learn how to make yourself immortal from studying her. Didn’t you?”

“At first, yes, but Miss Saltonstall proved to be utterly useless in that regard. Actually, she was useless in all regards.”

Blair’s heart was so loud in his skull that he thought it might burst out to strangle the woman before him. “Why lock her up then, if she was letting you do the spells willingly?” He meant to sound fierce, but his voice was weak, broken, torn apart by the sight of his sister cowering at his feet, from the memory of all she had suffered.

“Lucy pretended to forget our agreement. She tried to abandon me. At that point, I had no choice. Then, when I was still unable to get what I needed from her, I turned to you. I had you transported to this church to be tested alongside your sister. I trusted your parents wouldn’t come looking for you. After all, they never tried to find her, did they?” She pointed with her boot to the hologram of Lucy’s frail body cowering on the floor.

“I had hoped you would succeed where your sister failed, or at the very least that you might have some information on how your mother had made your father immortal. I had already learned the method of stealing everlasting life by force from a witch who possessed it, but I wanted to go a different route, to understand the principles so I could gift another with immortality if I wished.

“Your mind was sharper, but you were just as grave a disappointment as she was. Too inhuman to function in normal society, too human to be of any real use.” Obedience stepped around Lucy’s body until she stood beside Blair, her long dress limned in lamplight. “And don’t think I’m the only one who sees it. It’s only a matter of time before your friends realize you’re too much to handle, if they haven’t already. There’s just one person I can think of who would willingly put up with you. Who might even welcome your presence in their life.”

Blair let out a shaky breath. “Who?”

Obedience’s lip curled. “Your sister.” There was a flash of silver, and Blair raised his hand to catch the ring before it could fall to the dirt beneath his feet. “Haven’t you wondered why you dream of her, why she seems to have never left your side?”

He watched in astonishment as Lucy’s hologram walked forward slowly until she stood before him. Her eyes were bright now, her face clean. White marks shone like battle scars on her cheeks.

“How do you know that?” Blair asked. His chest ached as he stared into the eyes of the twin sister he’d never been given the chance to truly meet.

“Because I too dream of my sister.”

Lucy raised her hand and Blair reached out to her until their palms connected, vapor against flesh.

“My sister Modesty’s soul is with me still,” said Obedience. “As your sister’s soul resides with you.”

There was silence in the oppressive darkness as her words sunk in.

Obedience gestured to the hologram. “Once Lucy proved to be useless to me in life, I imagined she might assist me in death. I’d held onto my sister’s soul for ten years, waiting for the moment when I would be able to bring her back to me. I thought I might practice with Lucy’s soul. If the spell worked, I would repeat the process with my own sister. If it didn’t”—she shrugged as though acknowledging a minor inconvenience—“I would devise another plan.

“Unfortunately, upon your sister’s death, you were taken from me, and the ring along with you. But that was no matter; I decided I would steal my immortality after all, and that would give me plenty of time to hone my craft, to fully learn the steps required to bring a soul back into the physical world. Time to develop weapons of my own creation.”

Her reflection flashed across the dozens of jagged mirrors that rose up out of the dirt to surround them, just as they had upstairs. Weapons of her own creation, Blair realized, eyeing their sharp, deadly edges.

“I trusted that once I was completely confident, I’d be able to find you again,” she said to Blair. “It was sensible of me to take that time, as I discovered some of my initial ideas were incorrect. I’d known that in order for a soul to return, the spell had to be cast in the same location where the person perished. Hence why I purchased this pitiful place.” She gestured to their dismal surroundings. “But I was unaware that unless the extraction spell was combined with complex necromancy, the soul would return as a mere imprint of the life that had been, devoid of physical form. And I learned that a soul requires the presence of a loved one in order for them to want to be freed. So, when it came to Lucy, I would never have been able to do it on my own.”

With a lazy flick of her wrist, Obedience vanished the image of Lucy and stood in her place. Blair cringed away from her, the cloying scent of her rosemary perfume roiling in his stomach.

“I knew I needed to examine the ring first and foremost, to ensure that Lucy’s soul had successfully attached to it all those years ago, and to begin the process of untethering it. I searched for you and realized you were no longer in the house by the sea. When I tracked you down and saw you lived with the only other person I required to bring my sister back to me permanently, I couldn’t imagine my good fortune. I found you working at that craft fair, and I knew exactly how to get close to you. You made it so simple, Blair. Almost too simple.”

Blair let his gaze drift over to where Clement stood off to the side, observing them. Why wasn’t he performing the memory spell? Why didn’t he put an end to whatever sick, sadistic plan the witch had in store for them?