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“I was afraid. Aren’t you?” she answered, her eyes searching mine. “Aren’t you afraid that, eventually, Harrow will turn on you and you’ll have to pay for the things your family has done?”

“I might be if I knew what any of that was,” I said, spreading my hands.

As before, my utter ignorance seemed to knock her off-balance, and she squinted at me. “Do you knowanythingabout this place?” she asked.

“Not really,” I admitted. “Look, the last time I was here, I was seven. My mom never talked about it, and no one will tell me anything. But you did.”

“That’s because I don’t belong to it. I don’t have to follow its rules,” she said, tilting her head back as she examined me like a weird bug she was getting ready to pin to a specimen card.

I didn’t know what to make of her. I was used to people not liking me, but she didn’t seem unsettled by me—it was almost theopposite. Like she was daring me to surprise her, and I hadn’t managed it yet.

“My mom took me away from here because she didn’t want Harrow to have me. But it didn’t work. It followed us, and it drew me back. And now I’m trapped. You’re the only person who’s been honest with me, as far as I can tell, and I know you hate me, but I need your help,” I said, all in a rush.

She sighed and stood abruptly. I was struck by just how much taller than me she was. She seized her bag from the ground and threw the strap roughly over her shoulder, then grabbed my hand and started dragging me down the path. I squeaked. Actually squeaked. If I wanted to impress her, I was not doing a good job of it.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Shut up,” she told me, without particular animosity.

She walked so quickly I had to practically run to keep up. We hustled down a twisting path, between trees that loomed and rattled their branches disapprovingly. And then, abruptly, the path ended at the collapsed steps of a stone cottage. Moss packed every gap in the stones. The roof sagged, more moss and fallen leaves than wood, but Bryony dragged me right inside through a rot-swollen door and slammed it behind us.

The interior of the cottage was damp and close. It was obvious no one lived here, but shelves lined the walls, filled with glass jars that held dried herbs and mushrooms and frogs in greenish liquid. Bryony dropped my hand and walked to a table in the corner, where she set her bag and her book, and spun again, crossing her arms.

“Well?” she said. “What do you want to know?”

I laughed, and she blinked, taken aback. “Where do Istart?” I asked.

“Hmph,” she said, and I thought I detected the barest trace of amusement in the sound. She tossed her head to clear the dark curls from her face. “Let me get one thing clear: I am not here to help you. It isn’t my job.”

I blew out a frustrated breath. “Then whyareyou here? What is the Harrow Witch?”

“I’m here to watch. And listen. And wait,” Bryony said. “The Witch of Harrow was here the day that the first stone of Harrow was laid, and she will be here when it falls. That’s what I am. A witness. I’m not here to give you answers or hold your hand. Ask your family if you need to know what secrets Harrow holds.”

“But I don’t know if I can trust them,” I blurted out. I thought they were protecting me, but what if I was wrong? I didn’t know enough to be sure one way or another.

She gave a harsh laugh. She let her arms drop and leaned back against the table behind her, fingers hooked over the edge. “Okay, you may be smarter than I thought.”

“Please. Everyone dances around it, acts like maybe it isn’t real—but you know. You know what this place is.” I paced farther inside the house, the floorboards giving springily under my feet. I stopped a few paces from her.

“What doyouthink it is?” she asked. I knew a test when I heard one. Her eyes burned with quiet intensity.

I thought of my mother’s words and echoed them. “Harrow is a cage,” I said.

She nodded once. “It is. But you need to ask yourself: A cage for what?” She lifted an eyebrow as if waiting for my answer.

“The Other,” I said, more guess than anything. All I was doing was mimicking other people, but she grunted as if to say I was right.

“And I thought you said you didn’t know anything.” Her eyes were flat. I couldn’t read her. I tried to look deeper under her skin, to see what lay beneath—some hint of what she was thinking or feeling, of who she was. But I couldn’t. Something was stopping me.

“I don’t know what the Other is. I just overheard my grandmother and uncles talking about it,” I said. “Does it have something to do with the ghosts?”

“There are no—”

“No ghosts at Harrow,” I finished for her. I let out a huff of frustration and raked my hair back from my forehead, pacing away from her. “If they aren’t ghosts, what are they?”

“They’re called figments,” Bryony said. “They look like dead people, but they aren’t. The one you saw when we met is usually a little girl, but it’s only been Jessamine for a little while. Before that, it was somebody else. I don’t know her name or if she was even a real person.”

“You knew Jessamine?” I stopped pacing, looking over at her sharply.