“I don’t have much else in the way of entertainment.”

“You just let me ramble on,” she shakes her head, “wasting time.”

I shrug. “You were on a roll. Here—” I extend my hand as she steps across the blanched bones to help her over to my side. “You might be right about this being his first site.”

“How’s that.” She moves closer to inspect the alchemic symbol. The philosopher’s stone is depicted as a circle within a triangle, within a larger circle.

“At the first crime scene, we thought the pupils of the dissected eyes were positioned to point to the hemlock. But they were looking past it, at his sacred site, his beginning.” I glance around the ravine. “This place holds his answers. That’s why he used lemon to conceal the path here.”

If he exposed it by removing the hemlock, he has something diabolical planned. As my gaze falls to Halen, unease crawls beneath my flesh.

“This is where he made a choice.” I rest my arm on the clay wall as I lean over her. “Sitting here in this ravine, pondering philosophical thoughts.”

She peeks up at me. “People really do that?”

“Don’t you?” I give her my smoldering smile.

Returning her attention to the symbol, she brings her camera around and captures a few pictures. “Not if I can help it.”

Beneath the banter—which I admittedly enjoy—is the sliver of truth found in her words. Pondering life for Halen would be a torturously cruel pastime. As evident in the way she tried to conceal all reminders of her grief and heartache under the verse inked on her skin, right over the scar which reminds her of her loss.

“Maybe you just need something rousing to stir your soul.”

I’m so close to her, I hear the catch of breath in her throat. See the way she purposely tries not to blink to show the effect her pondering mind has on her. I imagine her amid the dancing firelight, an ethereal goddess with a crown of bone, her body beautiful and glistening with my blood, and feel the furious tempo of her heart.

I know she’s thinking about that moment too.

If I leaned in right now, one quick dip of my head, I could taste her. With her defenses lowered, the lure to steal inside her soul and stoke the flames higher is a demanding pulse in my veins.

Something feverish flashes in her hazel gaze before she says, “The beginning and the end.” She straightens, pulling away from the symbol and me. “If this is where it started, then something happened here. A person doesn’t just suddenly decide to immortalize themselves with an ancient wisdom. There was some inciting incident, a trigger…”

“Birth of Tragedy.”

Halen turns toward me, forehead creased in thought. “What?”

Shoulder leaned against the wall, I cross my arms. “Nietzsche’s first work, Birth of Tragedy. Where he contended, adamantly, that classic Greek tragedies originated from the union of the Apollonian and Dionysian aspects. This is where he raised the argument to abandon Socratic thinking, and devote ourselves to the philosophies of Dionysus.”

“That aligns with the offender’s own place of origin,” she says, and I’m more than impressed with her deduction. “For instance, why the offender connected with Nietzsche verses another philosopher. Because, to be honest, from my long nights of research, there were other methods the offender could’ve invoked which seemed more enlightened.”

It’s fucking tragic we’re having this conversation in a ravine of rank death. Hearing little Halen delve into esoteric philosophy is making my cock hard.

“It’s the art,” I say, and rub the back of my neck. At her drawn features, I clarify, “The artist’s soul. Nietzsche’s obsession. Other, more sound theories incorporating the Hermetic Tradition, Shamanism, the Primal Man, etcetera, are more fundamental, but are less…rousing to the soul.”

A swift breeze sends strands of her hair across her face, stirring my yearning to sweep them from her eyes in demonstration of my point.

“Nietzsche builds off those very core beliefs,” I continue, “and states that, in Greek tragedy, Apollo is necessary to provide humanity relief from our suffering.” I push off the wall and close the gap between us, where I clasp her chin and lift her face, then gently brush her hair behind her ear. “While Dionysus awakens us, enraptures us, with passion and ecstasy, that alone cannot stifle our immense suffering. It’s the unity of both, the primordial unity, where we reach divine madness and are able to transcend beyond our pain.”

Her mouth parts, and I daringly sweep my thumb across her bottom lip, a wicked craving sparked by the unity we can achieve together.

“You’ve said this before.” The slightest tremor leaks into her voice.

I nod slowly. “It bears repeating, because this is what your perpetrator sees in you, sweetness. They envy you this, your beautiful, exquisite suffering.” With panged regret, I release her, letting my hand fall away. “There is no greater destruction than one of self. And therefore, no catalyst more powerful to wield in alchemic creation. Destruction isn’t an end—”

“It’s a beginning,” she supplies, and my heart vaults to match the staccato beat of hers.

A smile tips the corner of my mouth. “You pay attention. Quite the studious student.”

“No, you just like to hear yourself talk, so you talk a lot.”

“Hmm.” I bury my hands in my pockets, curbing dark urges. “There are plenty of sounds I prefer to hear that only your lovely voice can deliver.”

She grips her camera, eyes alighted on me. “The chain is still broken on our door,” she says suddenly.

I shift my stance. “That didn’t do much to keep us apart before.”

“And neither will a chair under the doorknob.” She swallows. “You keep your word, so you claim. Promise me you won’t cross that door’s threshold, Kallum.”

I draw in a deep breath, tasting the sweet tang of honeysuckle in her anxious request. Nodding once, I say, “I won’t cross that door’s threshold.”

Her gaze holds mine a beat longer before she blinks and looks away. “Thank you.”

Before she finds an excuse to escape, I change the topic. “I did happen to notice you’re here, working the scene, instead of in a holding cell. That must mean you found a way around the system.”

Her drawn smile is knowing. “No one wants to believe a woman is capable of something so horrific,” she says. “It’s more comfortable to believe I made a mistake. Don’t have to find a way around when the system’s bias gives you a clear path.”

“So very true.” I drag my hand over my mouth. “But Alister still thinks he’s chasing two killers.”

“As I said, I’m cautious with what I tell him until there’s verifiable proof.” A hint of wariness touches her eyes. “And I’m not yet convinced we’re not chasing two killers.”

The uncertainty threaded in her statement makes me wonder what devils her mind is chasing. I don’t underestimate her. I’ve witnessed the horrific act she’s capable of—and it’s breathtaking. Her artistry should be worshiped as much as feared.

“Either way, this symbol is physical proof of something.” With a sigh, she punches out a text on her phone, I assume to Alister. “I need a way to explain all this in the profile that the task force can actually use.”

As the sounds of the scene bleed into our sacred cocoon, I send a purposeful glance at the philosopher’s stone. It was carved rather than branded, like the other symbols on the willow tree.

“Your guy desires to be a god, in essence, a creator. As art is born from tragedy, suffering, destruction, an act of violence will give birth to creation.” I look up at the edge of the ravine, to where the hemlock grove lay bare. “Whether that’s through a mass sacrifice of his higher men, or cannibalizing that which he envies”—I lock with her eyes—“only the mind of the creator knows their design. But you’re safe to include his design will incorporate the hemlock, one way or another.”