“What if I can’t solve your case? What if I never remember? What if you never catch him? What if no one is ever safe? What happens then?”

He gripped the steering wheel. Eve noticed they were heading toward the agency garage. “That won’t happen,” he said.

“How do you know?”

“Because I … because you … won’t let it.” Malcolm drove into the garage, and the door slid shut behind them. Twisting in her seat, she watched it lower, watched daylight disappear.

The elevator doors opened on level three.

Eve saw Lou.

I can’t face him, she thought.

She pushed the elevator door button, and the doors started to close again. Malcolm’s arm shot out, blocking the sensor, and the doors slid back open.

Lou grunted, pivoted, and stalked away, and Malcolm prodded Eve forward out of the elevator. “He hates me,” Eve muttered to Malcolm. He might want to kill me, she wanted to say.

“He doesn’t hate you,” Malcolm said.

Lou called, “Actually, I do.” His voice drifted over the cubicles. “I hate everyone universally. It saves time. You have any idea how much time is wasted on polite pleasantries?” He was waiting for them when they rounded the corner. He wore a tie, but it was loose and the top button of his shirt was undone. Eve glimpsed a corner of a tattoo on his collarbone. “Don’t start thinking you’re special because of me.” He walked into Malcolm’s office.

No, Eve thought, I’m special because I’m a freak. A freak among freaks, as Topher had said.

Malcolm steered Eve inside and then shut the door.

Eve checked Malcolm’s expression. It was guarded, as if he were thinking thoughts that he’d decided should not be said out loud. She wondered if those thoughts were directed at her or at Lou.

The bulletin board had changed since the last time she remembered being here. Instead of the one photo of the antlered girl, the board was covered in multiple photographs. All of the photos were of teenagers. They were arranged in a spiral, with lines and arrows drawn between them, and were labeled with numbers and dates.

She halted in front of the board. There was a circle around the number one next to the antlered girl. Beside her was a boy with tattoos on his cheek. He was labeled number two. Beside him was another boy … She recognized their faces from the photos on the tablet. But why had they been added to the board? She reached to touch one photo, the boy with the tattoos. There was something familiar …

“You remembered them,” Malcolm said quietly behind her.

She hadn’t.

She didn’t.

It was hard to breathe. Her rib cage felt as if it had knitted together, squeezing her lungs until they were shriveled raisins. She heard her breath loud in her ears, ragged and harsh. Her feet retreated until her back hit the door.

“We’re close! Very close. There’s almost a pattern.” Lou swept his arm over the bulletin board. “A few more, and it will fall into place. We have the suspects narrowed down to a mere handful. All we need are the final pieces … and then we’ll have him.” He closed his fist. “Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?” Eve asked. Her voice felt dry.

“To remember more,” Lou said.

Malcolm tilted her chin up so she had to look in his eyes. He stared at her as if he could access her thoughts through her eyes. “What’s your last memory?”

“I saw the box in Patti’s office. And then the hospital … and that’s it until today in the library. I was shelving books. Malcolm, the box. How did it get there? What …”

Malcolm released her chin and said to Lou, “I told you, the harder we push—”

“Your objection was noted, but we have no choice. He will start again. My sources have confirmed it. It’s a matter of when and who and where, not if.” Lou pointed a finger at Eve and then at the leather couch. “Lie down. Use your magic. Have a vision. Tell us what you see.”

Eve didn’t move. She must have heard him wrong. He couldn’t be asking her to … No, she thought. She couldn’t have done this before. She couldn’t have seen all those people!

She turned back to the bulletin board and tried to remember them again—but looking at them was looking at strangers. Except for the antlered girl and the boy with the tattoos. Eve wished she could run. She wanted to be as far from this place, these people, this case, as possible. But the photos stared at her. He won’t stop, Malcolm had said to her once. He’ll find another way. If we don’t catch him, it will begin again.

The antlered girl, Victoria’s sister, had worn silks and velvets, Eve remembered. But she never wore shoes. She’d run through the forest at dawn while the undergrowth was still damp with dew and the air filled with birdsong. Eve had watched her, her bare feet pounding down the same path every morning. She’d skip over a brook, and it would burble and babble at her feet. Her footfalls were soft on the needles, but she was still loud enough to startle birds out of the underbrush and cause the squirrels to scurry to the tops of the trees. She had run alone.

Eve moved to the photo marked number two, the boy with tattoos. She leaned close until her nose almost touched the bulletin board. The tattoos looked like serpents that were woven so tightly together it was impossible to tell where one snake began and another ended. The scales bled into one another. She could picture a box with a clasp encrusted in silver serpents, a replica of those tattoos.

There’s truth in my visions, she thought, and she felt her stomach churn. She tasted bile. If her visions were memories, or even twisted versions of real memories …

She realized both Lou and Malcolm were watching her. Arms crossed, Lou was drumming his fingers on his bicep. She wondered how many visions she’d already had and what she’d seen, and realized she was shaking.

Lou exhaled in a puff. “Just do it. Every moment you waste—”

“But I’ll lose days!” For every memory she gave them, she lost dozens more. “How many times have we had this conversation? How many times have I forgotten everything I’ve done?” She waved her hand at all the photos on the bulletin board. “How many times have I forgotten everything I thought, felt, decided, believed? Everything I cared about? Everything I am?”

Malcolm was silent. He looked at Lou.

“We have had this conversation three times,” Lou said. “And we will have it again. And you will remember because otherwise people will die.”

Eve felt herself deflate.

“You will be here the entire time.” Malcolm’s voice was soothing, and he steered her gently to the couch. “You will be safe. You don’t have to be afraid.”

“Was I afraid before?” Eve lay down. She crossed her arms over her chest and felt as if she were lying in a coffin. The couch cushions were stiff and smelled of smoke.

Malcolm hesitated, as if he wanted to lie. “Every time.”

She leaned back onto the pillows. Her heart was pounding hard, so hard that it hurt. She laid her hands over her chest as if it were a bird that she wanted to hold inside her ribs. Her ribs were a cage, and her heart was a bird, and it was fluttering its wings so very fast. It would escape, and it would fly to the sky and leave her body to die, heartless and without memories on the couch.

“You don’t always forget.” Malcolm patted her hand. “Sometimes you remember—at least until next time.” He smiled as if this should reassure her. It didn’t.

“Get on with it,” Lou said.

She thought of a bit of magic she could do, harmless magic. She remembered the flowers that Zach had grown in the library. She spread her hands and imagined there were flowers growing from them. Bark spread over her hands. Leaves sprouted between her fingers.

“Don’t transform!” Lou said sharply.

But it was too late. She was wood inside. She felt it spread, calming her, steadying her. She felt his voice recede until it was merely wind. He was shouting; she could see his lips move, and doctors were rushing into the office. Then bark sealed over her eyes, and she saw nothing until the smoke rolled in.