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“ANNALISE VAUGHAN WASthe Harrow Witch,” Bryony said dully. She looked at me, and her expression was closed.

“That’s what you got from this?” Desmond asked, closing the journal. He looked like he wanted to fling it away from himself. “Nicholas Vaughan was a murderer,” he said grimly. “And this is the proof.”

“He wasn’t the only one. Generations of girls have died here—have beenmurderedhere,” Bryony said. “And I—I thought I was supposed to help the dark soul. To protect it. But if Annalise was the first witch...”

“The Harrow Witch has always been another way to control and contain the Other,” I said gently. “The one who could see through its deceptions.”

Bryony sucked in a breath, then let it out. “Okay,” she said.

“Okay? That’s all?” I asked.

Bryony crossed her arms, sitting back against one of the low toppled walls of the folly. “I know who I am, Helen. And what I am. And Annalise Vaughan has nothing to do with it. I wouldneverdo what she did. Murdering that girl—and for what? Power?”

“To contain the Other,” I countered. “It killed his son.”

“It doesn’t die when its body does. How would it know wedoif no one ever taught it?” Bryony asked fiercely.

“It’s broken,” Celia said in horror. She stood close to Desmond. I could tell he wanted to pace, but he stayed near her. “It’s in pain and it’s trapped. It’s lashing out.”

“It’s lashed out pretty hard,” I said. “I’m not saying that what they did is okay, but—”

“It wasn’t just her, though,” Desmond said.

“No. No, it wasn’t,” I said. My hand strayed to my satchel, and I felt the faint hum of the bones within. “This is what happened to Haley Cotter and to a lot of other girls—girls with Vaughan eyes. If they’re going to be a vessel for the Other, they’ve got to have a connection to the dark soul and to Harrow, and I think that means they’ve got to be descendants of Nicholas Vaughan. Like Haley Cotter. Like Jessamine.” Like me.

“What?” Celia asked sharply. “No. I don’t care about the stories they make up in Eston—we’re notevil. Nobody’s going aroundsacrificinglittle girls. Are they?” She turned to Desmond. “Arethey?” He didn’t answer.

I took a breath. “Leopold left Uncle Caleb a letter. In it, he confessed to killing Jessamine because of a mistake he’d made. These other girls died about thirty years apart from each other. Haley Cotter only died twenty years ago, so why would Leopold need to do the ritual again so soon? Unless something had gone wrong with Haley. He said he thought ‘a gentle surcease’ would be enough, without the rest. I think that he wasn’t supposed to get attached to Haley, but he did, and when it was time to kill her, hejust gave her the poison. He didn’t cut her up. So the dark soul didn’t scatter the way it should. It kept growing stronger.”

“Then why not just scatter the bones?” Desmond asked.

“Maybe it was too late,” I said. “It wouldn’t be enough. He had to do the sacrifice again but do it right.”

“That night,” Celia whispered. “The little girl Desmond saw...”

“I think it was me.” My voice quavered.

Desmond squeezed Celia’s hand. She looked at him. “It’s possible,” he said. “I can’t rememberwhenit happened. I barely remember it at all. It could have been Helen I saw.”

“But something went wrong,” Bryony said.

“I got away.” Or someone helped me get away. “And then Mom took me and ran.”

“If Roman was helping Leopold, they wouldn’t have gone after Celia,” Bryony said. “Roman must have protected her. But he didn’t care about Helen. Or Jessamine.”

“Dad was a jerk sometimes, but he wouldn’t...” Celia trailed off.

“Cee. He would,” Desmond said. “He cared about money and power. He said so, straight out. That’s the whole reason he married Mom.”

“But...” Celia’s eyes welled with tears. “He was going to kill Helen?”

“Fuck,” Desmond said instead of answering. He ran his hand over his scalp. “Just, fuck.” He paced away a step and jammed his hands into his pockets, staring off into the distance.

“Jessamine was a baby when I left,” I said. The wind slitheredpast us, cold and sharp. “So they waited until she was old enough. But they’d made a miscalculation. According to what Dr.Raymond and Nicholas both wrote, there’s some kind of connection, a bond, between the Other and the sacrifice. And I don’t think Jessamine had the right bond because I still did. So she died for nothing. It didn’t work. That’s what the letter is about.”

“I don’t get it. If all of that is true, why leave you Harrow?” Celia asked.

“Leopold had screwed up. Not just once. Not just twice. Three times. With Haley, with me, and with Jessamine. Maybe he felt guilty. Maybe he just knew he was at the end of the line. So he decided to fix his mistake—by ending his life. Because it was the only way to bring me back here, to wake up my bond to the Other, and to finish the sacrifice.” Or maybe Eli and Iris had done it for him.

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