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“Jesus. You weren’t kidding.”

“Of course I wasn’t kidding!” Nick scolded. “Dummy.”

Kiko laughed, then punched Dex that time.

Then all three of them looked around.

“What the fuck room is this?” Kiko asked, wiping her eyes.

It was no wonder, really, they were doing a shitty job of going through the house.

“This has to be another bedroom,” Nick muttered, glancing up at the beamed ceiling. “Is it the master? One of the guest rooms? Another study?”

“Well, it’s not the nursery.” Kiko glanced around, frowning. “Right? We saw that crib in the other room.”

Nick fought really, really hard not to roll his eyes.

Enough must have gotten through.

“Don’t be a dick.” Dex gave him a death stare. “We’re all fucked up in here.”

Nick held up his hands. “I know. I know. Sorry. I just want to get the fuck out of here. And I’m used to Kiko being smarter than me––”

“Sheissmarter than you. And me. But we’re allfucked upright now. All of us. And this house is evil as fuck. Its soul is corrupt. Everything about it…”

Dex trailed when a woman appeared on the other side of the long, nearly empty room. It was the auburn-haired woman, Virginie. She seemed to appear out of a closed door, walking in the direction of the broken bedframe and towards where the three of them stood. Nick watched her approach, struck again by how pale she was, how weird her eyes looked.

If he didn’t know better, he’d wonder if she was a vampire.

She wasn’t, though.

Whatever was up with her, it was something else.

He didn’t hear her bare footsteps on the wooden planks as she walked the length of the room, heading in their direction.

Nick looked at her face and flinched.

He felt a shiver go down his spine.

He knew it was a fucking computer program. Heknewit was virtual reality.

Even so, she looked too real.

She looked too physical up here, walking alone in the dark.

Something about the apparition made him feel like he was looking at the ghost of the real person, like some part of her essence remained here, inside the house, captured inside that pale body. It didn’t help that she wore clothing that made the exact time period more ambiguous. Only the candle holder she gripped in one hand, its glass case protecting the flame from drafts, served as a concrete reminder that she didn’t belong to the present day.

He found himself thinking they all knew who she was.

They knew.

She was Brick’s biological mother.

They had no proof of that, but Nick knew it to be true anyway.

Virginie D’aureville.

Witch. Murderer. Pirate.