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“Spit it out, Baptiste.”

“When he was naked out there for the ritual, I saw them all, and then it all became so clear. The ring, the watch, the tattoo of the key. They’re all the same, exactly what I remember.”

“Remember what?”

“That night in New Orleans when I was attacked? On the night I thought I was going to die? That’s what he had.”

I pause.

No. Fucking. Way.

“All of that?” I question. “Are you absolutely sure they’re the same thing?”

Baptiste nods.

“Yes.”

“It’s not your imagination going wild?”

“I saw what I saw out there, Fabien. Exactly the same. All three of them? It can’t be a coincidence.”

“You’re certain?”

“I’m positive.”

“Are you fucking certain, Baptiste?”

His eyes finally meet mine.

“I know what I saw in New Orleans,” he whispers, “and I know what I saw out there just then.”

I take a sharp inhale.

“It can’t be,” I say. “It can’t be true. Not Cromwell.”

That man? He half-raised me. He brought me into his home when my parents died. He knew my parents. They were friends.

And he may have killed them? He manipulated Jolie. He’s now Supreme Elder.

“I saw them, Fabien,” Baptiste tells me, still not breaking eye contact. “I saw it all as clear as fucking day. No bullshit.”

We stand here for a moment in total silence, processing what this might truly mean.

And how it flips the world upside down.

But before either of us can say another word, the door swings open, and Clement marches in. He’s already got a finger raised threateningly toward me.

“I followed you two here,” he growls. “I’m not finished with you, Fabien.”

Baptiste puts himself in his path, splitting Clement and me apart.

“Stop, Clement.”

“Move out of the way, Baptiste,” Clement barks. “Fabien and I have something we need to settle. Right here and now. A reckoning.”

I should be terrified of my best friend, but...

“I’m going to ask you one more time,” I say softly to Baptiste. “Was it him?”