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“Ah. And she was the first,” Bryony said, carefully neutral in a way that made her disgust plain. “Poor Mary. She never had a chance, did she? They used her up and threw her away, every one of them. Okay. We’ll check the attic. We were only looking for Harrow’s girls before. Maybe there’s something we missed.”

Upstairs, we split up the boxes, sorting through them. “I don’t think we need stuff about the history of Eston’s sewer and water revitalization project, do you?” Bryony asked.

“Do we? What if there’s something hidden in the water pipes, or they’re laid out in a mystic sigil, or—”

“Helen. Chill,” Bryony said, shaking her head in amusement. “We can come back to it later if we need to. Prioritize.”

“Right,” I said.

“Ah, okay. This says, ‘Harrowstone Hall: nineteenth century.’ You look through these.” She handed me a thick folder. It was packed with everything from delicate newspaper clippings in plastic sleeves to printouts of online articles to photographs. I went through with my usual haphazard approach, grabbing things at random, setting them down when they didn’t tell me anything new.

For the most part, the documents told the same story I already knew: Nicholas Vaughan and his wife came to Eston, built Harrowstone Hall, and made it their family home. Men of influence visited; Vaughan’s fortunes rose year by year. No one ever seemed to say no to Vaughan.

The Other could alter memories and thoughts. If Vaughan had a way to control it, he would get what he wanted without any effort at all. He just needed people to spend one night here, and they were his.

Tucked near the middle of the folder was an old black-and-white photograph. The man pictured was nearly bald, wisps of hair plastered against his scalp. A massive mustache drooped over his scowling mouth, and his pale eyes glared out from a narrow, bony face.Dr.Samuel Raymond, 1872, was written on the back. So this was Dr.Raymond, whose eager knife had destroyed Mary and brought the Other to our world.

With the picture was a small notebook, the size of my palm. It cracked when I opened it. The ink was faded, some pages stuck together or missing altogether, and the text was dense, but I could pick out most of the words.

A procedure to divide the consciousness of the Other:

The human mind exists within the cradle of the brain. The mind of the creature, in contrast, does not restrict itself to the brain; it conceives itself as a whole. This simplifies matters considerably. One need not sever an exacting pathway of tissue in that most delicate and complex of organs but may undertake a separation any layman is perfectly capable of, after which the resulting material should be scattered; thus, the mind itself shall be scattered and made pliant in its confusion. In order to establish mastery, the original procedure must be repeated:

An object belonging to the offering shall be placed at the heart of the spiral. Her soul will be drawn to it, and she will walk willingly to the place of sacrifice. The new Master must make an offering of his own flesh, which shall be placed at the foot of the Harrow stone. He shallmark the child’s face with his blood to represent the bond between them.

Three must stand with him to demonstrate that he is recognized as the rightful Master. To signify their common purpose, they will share a communion, and each shall offer a secret to bind them. Then must the Master speak the names of all who came before him to honor the unbroken line.

Finally, the Master shall call on the Other-soul and command it to claim the body and mind of the offering. A potion may be prepared to make the end swift, or a knife may be used, but the body shall then be divided in the manner indicated.

On the next page was a sketch of a human form—faceless, genderless, ageless, just the suggestion of a body. Lines had been drawn across it: at the neck, the wrists, the elbows, the shoulders—every joint.

They matched, perfectly, the welts that had risen on my skin.

“This is it,” I said. “This is what they did. They bound the Other to the girl, and then they killed her. Cut her apart. Scattered her bones.” That was what Roman had done with the bones, too. There must have been enough of an echo of power that it could hurt me through my bond to the Other.

“This is pure evil,” Bryony said, peering over my shoulder. “All those girls. All for what?”

“To keep a monster from killing people,” I said, not looking at her.

“They’re the monsters,” she replied, poison in her voice.

“At least now we know what it is that Iris and Eli are trying to do,” I said.

“You don’t know that it’s just them. Three witnesses? Sounds like a lot more people are involved. You can’t trust any of them.”

“Caleb—”

“You don’t know him,” Bryony said. “You’ve barely just met any of them.”

“I’ve known them just as long as I’ve known you,” I pointed out. She let out a frustrated breath. “I have to trust someone, Bryony. I can’t do this on my own.”

“You don’t have to. You have me.” She brushed her thumb over my knuckles, and I shivered.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I confessed.

She leaned down and kissed me. “You are so much stronger than you think,” she told me, and I wished that I believed her.

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