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The high priestess.

I can tell it’s her without even seeing her face or knowing her name. There’s power folded into her words.

I take the stairs down, Nero at my side. Despite my familiar’s soothing presence, my nerves are set on edge. Dread has long since soured my stomach. I must be in trouble. Maybe it’s the murders. Or perhaps this is about the fight in the Everwoods. Or Nero poaching on lycanthrope territory.

I honestly have a lot to account for.

But I try to push those worrying thoughts away.

I reach the bottom of the stairs and enter a subterranean room whose floors and walls are covered in the same pale stone as the rest of the house.

Directly across from me, on the other side of the room, sits the high priestess. She’s a crone, her skin wrinkled and paper-thin. Her dark brown eyes shine like gems, and there is something beautiful and strong about her—perhaps it is her power alone that makes her hard to look away from.

Magic loves old things most of all.

She wears white robes, gold clasps holding the garment together at her shoulders. Her hair lies like unspun yarn over her shoulders and down past her breasts. A white raven sits on her shoulder.

“Sit.”

I don’t think the high priestess used any compulsion on me, but I swear my ass has crossed the room and lowered itself into the seat across from her before the echo of her voice has quieted.

She folds her hands under her chin, leaving only her index fingers out to tap ponderously against her mouth.

“You don’t seem like a murderess,” she says thoughtfully, “but then again, the guilty often don’t.”

What?

“What are you talking about?”

She gives me a knowing look. “You don’t think I’m so big a fool that I’m unaware the Politia suspects your involvement in the recent murders.”

The silence that follows those words is thick and ugly.

“I didn’t kill those women,” I say softly.

She leans back in her chair, her eyes moving to Nero, who sits next to me.

“I have long found comfort belowground,” she says, switching topics. “My own magic is particularly potent when drawn from deeper earth. Bedrock, in particular, is a very grounding, very powerful substance to draw from. Wouldn’t you agree?”

She levels those dark eyes on me, and it’s as though she can see me entering the subterranean rooms below the residence hall to join that spell circle. As though she can even see me entering Memnon’s forbidden crypt.

I twist my hands together. “I don’t think I follow…”

“Don’t play coy with me, Selene Bowers. You have lost your memory, not your wits. The oldest, most eternal parts of the universe call to you. Water, stone—even the moon.”

How does she know about my magical aptitudes? Even I can only vaguely remember them.

“Many people consider these cold, lifeless things,” the high priestess continues. She leans forward conspiratorially. “They call to me as well.”

She resettles in her seat, her white raven turning its head and inspecting me with one of its dark eyes.

“Supernaturals—even other witches—worry about those of us bewitched by such things because…well, we are more prone to dark enchantments and perverse magic.”

Ah. So that’s what this is about.

“I didn’t kill those women,” I say again, more forcefully this time. “Please, use a truth spell on me if that’s what it takes.”

“Your own mind hides itself from you, Selene. Such a spell would not fully prove your innocence. You must know this.”