“Easy there, Green Eyes,” Aidan said. “Takes a bit to adjust.”

The floor swam at her feet. She steadied herself on the table. She inhaled the smell of pizza and heard the bustle of people in a kitchen—the clanging of pans, the closing of ovens, the sound of knives on plates.

Straightening, she turned to face Mario’s House of Pizza. All the tables were empty except one. Topher and Victoria had staked out a round table tucked against the walls in the corner. It had three chairs. Seeing them, Victoria rose and dragged a fourth chair to the table.

“Take me back,” Eve said to Aidan.

“I told you,” he said. “It’s time to talk.”

She pulled the phone out of her pocket to call Malcolm. Aidan caught her wrist. He twisted the phone out of her hand and then slid it back into her pocket. She noticed that there was a mirror behind him. She could break it, make the glass fly at him … And end up in the hospital again, maybe lose even more days or weeks. She couldn’t face that. She sagged, and Aidan guided her toward the table as if he were a polite gentleman. Topher smiled a languid smile that could have been mocking or could have simply been pasted onto his face. Eve didn’t think for an instant that it was a genuine smile.

Victoria smiled at Eve too, showing her gleaming teeth. “Evy, relax. We want to be your friends. Believe me, we can be the most wonderful friends.”

Eve looked away. She couldn’t look at Victoria knowing that her sister—maybe even her sister’s death—was lodged somewhere in her memory … if she believed Aidan’s assertion that the antlered girl was Victoria’s sister.

“We thought we’d have time to win you over. Aidan had such a lovely plan …” Victoria sighed, and then said briskly, “But plans fall apart and time moves on, and now you’ll simply have to trust us.”

“Really, in your position, you don’t have much choice,” Topher said lazily. He propped his feet up on the table and tilted his chair back.

“What position would that be?” Eve asked.

Aidan drew the empty chair away from the table for Eve. Gently, he pushed down on her shoulder, encouraging her to sit. She shifted away from his hand, but she took the seat.

“I’m sensing a bit of tension,” Victoria said. “We need to remedy that with grease and garlic. Aidan, fetch the garlic knots. They should be ready by now.” She smiled again at Eve. “I think all serious conversations are better with fat and carbs, don’t you?”

Eve didn’t smile back. “What do you want?” She didn’t know what she was going to say when Victoria asked about her sister. She had no answers.

“Garlic knots. Weren’t you listening?” She snapped her fingers at Aidan. “Aidan. Fetch. Now.” Aidan looked amused, but he still trotted to the counter. “Nice boy,” Victoria said, either approvingly or ironically—Eve wasn’t sure which.

“He’s not,” Eve said. “He kidnapped me.”

“For your own good.” Victoria reached across the table and patted Eve’s hand. “We have to stick together. It’s dangerous these days.” Beside her, Topher played with sparks between his fingertips. He kept his hands low, under the table, so as not to attract attention.

“I’m sorry about your sister,” Eve said.

Topher rocked his chair forward, and it landed with a thump. His lazy smile had vanished. Victoria froze. She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. For an instant, Eve thought her face was going to crack like an ice sculpture tapped with a chisel. “Thank you,” Victoria said, a chill frosting her voice. “Someday, she will be avenged.”

Returning, Aidan tossed a bowl of garlic knots on the table. The smell permeated the air and wormed into Eve’s nose until she breathed garlic.

Across the table, Topher squeezed Victoria’s hand. A smile flashed onto her face, too fast to be real. “Until then, there is one silver lining,” Victoria said. “If events hadn’t unfolded as they did, then we wouldn’t have been sent to this world, and we wouldn’t have met each other—or you.”

“Destiny,” Topher said.

“Ours and yours.” Aidan clasped Eve’s hand.

Eve extracted her hand from his. She didn’t know why they were making this hard sell to befriend her. She’d expected questions about Victoria’s sister or her visions or the case. “I’m not interested in destiny. I don’t need your ‘safety in numbers.’ The marshals are keeping me safe. So if you’ll excuse me—” She rose.

Victoria laughed, her voice a cascade. “Oh, Aidan, you are so right about her! She’s so … sweet and wide-eyed innocent as a little doe about to be served on a platter with julienned carrots and a fat apple in her mouth.” She mimed placing an apple in her mouth and then pretended to crunch into it.

Topher leaned forward. “You can’t trust the agency.”

“Funny,” Eve said. “They said the same thing about you.”

“Of course they did,” Victoria said. “They aren’t stupid.”

“Just short-sighted,” Aidan added.

“It’s their nature.” Topher tipped his chair back again. “They’re sheep. They can’t understand or appreciate the power and beauty of wolves. They try to tame us, of course, to use us, but in the end, they fear us.”

Sitting next to her, Aidan smiled, a tender, encompassing smile. He stretched his arm against the back of her chair. She sat ramrod straight, not touching his arm. “We see your power and beauty, Eve, and we admire it. We treasure it.”

“You will be our treasure, my dear sweet Eve,” Victoria cooed. Aidan had called her a treasure before—a treasure that he’d been seeking, a prize to win. Eve didn’t like the sound of that. She wasn’t a thing. Eve glanced at the door and wondered how quickly she could reach it. Not quickly enough, she thought. Aidan could stop her in an instant.

“She doesn’t look convinced,” Topher observed. “In fact, she looks confused. We need to be clearer.” He leaned forward again. “Once this is all over, once the ‘case’ is closed, you will be killed.”

Eve stared at him.

“Your big, strong protector agent man will kill you himself,” Victoria said. “Or perhaps it will be more anonymous. A little poison. An injection. An IV in the hospital. Oh, how easy it will be for them, especially once you fall into one of your oh-so-precious fainting fits, which, by the way, are ever so charming—the wilting heroine.”

Eve felt as if the ground were falling away beneath her feet. They had to be lying. The marshals were keeping her safe. Malcolm was devoted to her safety.

“Or perhaps it will be that aunt of yours,” Victoria continued. “She’s always despised you. If that big mush is too soft to do it himself, perhaps beloved ‘Aunt’ Nicki will smother you with a pillow as you sleep.”

“Or use a gun,” Topher said. “You always think of such elaborate death scenes, Victoria. Really, it isn’t as though they’ll tie her above a pool of sharks. They’re much more practical than that. When they’re done using her, bam. Dead.”

They’d given her a home, a job, food, even a name. They’d made it clear that they needed her and her memory … but what about after she remembered? What would happen after they had all they needed from her? Eve shook her head. She shouldn’t listen to this. It was lies. Poisonous lies. “Why are you saying this?”

“You’re special.” Victoria smiled again. “We saw it when we first met, and our observation of you has only confirmed it.” Eve thought of the snake on the rock in the woods. She thought of the times she’d felt watched in the library and elsewhere.

“You’ve been watching me?” Eve asked.

Topher popped a garlic knot in his mouth. His cheeks bulged as he chewed. “We’d like to offer you a choice. You could be a good little sheep, play along with your herders, let them fleece you, and then let them kill you like so much mutton. Or you could join with us, pledge to our world, and let us save you when the time is right.”

Eve sank into the chair. “How can I trust you? You tried to kill me when we met.”