Devyn tsks. “Remarkable how that male privilege affords you so little fear,” she says, offering him a bright smile. “I soon realized Halen was your agenda. Once I saw you together, so much made sense.” They trade a look before she aims her attention on the masked man standing at Kallum’s side. “Prepare him. I want to speak with my sister.”

Her order is eagerly obeyed, and Kallum is hauled to his bare feet and taken to the other end of the parchment. “What are you doing to him?” I demand.

Devyn leisurely lifts her gauzy skirt and kneels before me, her spine forced to keep perfect posture by the bone corset. “Don’t worry,” she says, collecting a stick of white chalk from the cloth. “Nothing too heinous.”

Fury pricks my composure, and in the same way she struck me in the cave, I slap her cheek. My palm stings from the impact, and I instinctively dig my nails into the cut on my left hand to balance the pain. “That’s for trying to eat me.”

Yet it’s for so much more. The emptiness I feel for trying to keep my promise to help her—for failing her. Knowing now there was nothing I could do to save her.

She gingerly touches her face, concealing a faint smile. “You have a sick fetish with pain.”

“Why am I here, Devyn? Am I going to end up like him?” I jerk my head in the direction of the mutilated corpse near the fire.

“I wanted to introduce you to my brother,” she says, delicately grazing her fingers over the bones encasing her chest. “I keep Colter close now. Since birth, we were always together, rarely apart, such as twins are. And now that I’ve been deprived of my family, he’s the last that remains.”

Appall roils in the pit of my stomach as I stare at the twined bones. “It’s probably a bit difficult to be on the run with a gang of people who have no eyes.” I manage a partial shrug. “Just saying.”

A smile brightens her pretty features. “You’ve gotten feisty, Halen St. James. Hot, dirty sex with the professor suits you.” She grips my chin and brings the chalk to my forehead. I control my breathing as she begins to drag the cool stick over my skin.

Early on in the case, Kallum claimed the Overman suspect chose Nietzschean doctrines because of the artist’s soul, attributing it to the rausch. Devyn is an artist. Her art allows her to break free of her stringent perfectionism and obsessive compulsive nature. Her artist’s soul is why she connected to Nietzsche over any other philosopher. And despite the ghastly nature of her corset, I’m choosing to believe that, in her own artistic way, it’s a sign she’s still connected to whatever remains of her humanity.

I swallow past the thick ache of grief in my throat as she tilts her head, turning pensive. “But wait,” she says, “it’s more than that.”

I try to look away, but she keeps hold of my chin, proceeding to scrawl the chalk across my cheekbones. “Something’s changed,” she says solemnly.

What Devyn sought to connect to within me was my grief, the pain. Kallum said the suspect was seeking unity in their opposite, but honestly, that was Kallum’s agenda, never Devyn’s.

I wanted to leave, and she wanted to stay.

An even trade.

“You want to live now,” she says, studying me intently.

Aware Kallum is listening, I say, “Yes. I want to live, Devyn. But I know you’re dying.”

“I had no doubt you’d figure it out.” Some of the woman I knew from before shines through. She appears more lucid than the last time I saw her. Certain medications can help control the unusual movements caused by her disease. They can also help offset any delusions or hallucinations that might present. I have no idea if Devyn is medicated, or if her devout belief is merely overriding her regression.

“I am dying,” she says. “But really, I think I died the moment I lost Colter. Without those we live for, are we truly alive? You know the answer to that, Halen.”

She discards the chalk and spins away, severing the connection.

Alarm flares in my veins. I no longer have any delusion of reaching her, but I have to keep her talking.

“Devyn, wait. Listen. Someone in your life made you feel inadequate,” I say, stalling her. “I profiled this, remember? At first, I thought it was your brother. But it wasn’t. It was him, wasn’t it. This man in authority over you.”

A flash of uncertainty tightens her features.

“He killed Bethany with hemlock,” I say, not letting up. I realized it wasn’t Devyn when we were attacked by the men with syringes. “You cared for her. You wanted to help her—to help them all. But this man…he’s obsessed with you. He can’t let you go.”

I felt the dark obsession in that chamber. I sensed the malice, the vile desperation.

Devyn leans in close to whisper. “He won’t even let me die.”

As she pulls away, a chill blankets my skin at her words. Keeping me snared in her solemn gaze, she snaps her fingers. “It’s time.”

At once, the surrounding marsh comes alive with the rustle of reeds. The figures masked in skulls move in from the high grass. Those closest to the flames place a beveled black plate over the fire. The beat of the drum rises, the rhythm climbing and accelerating my heart rate as they converge around the circle.

A sordid energy tangles my senses, and I seek Kallum across the parchment. His face is chalked with alchemical symbols. The philosopher’s stone marks the center of his forehead—darkly ironic, as it’s the same symbol he scored into Alister’s skull.

He watches the scene unfold as if he’s studying an ancient text, unlocking its code. As if he came here by choice.

Once they’re all gathered around the fire, they remove their masks. No longer anonymous dark figures, they become people. The officer who attacked us, his face bearing the bruises from Kallum’s wrath. Mrs. Lipton, her diamond earrings catching the firelight. Most of the others I place as family members of the locals that went missing.

What’s curious is that there are far less of them than what’s expected of this society. There were thirty-three missing locals. Yet there are only thirteen of their relatives present.

Devyn clasps my hand, making me startle. “I told Bethany to run,” she whispers near my ear. “I told her to run, Halen.”

I angle my face to meet her dark eyes. “I don’t understand—” My words are clipped short the moment I see him.

Shirtless, his broad chest adorned with glyphs, Riddick removes the skull from his face. He strides in Kallum’s direction, and I push past Devyn to reach him first.

Wrists still bound with rope, Kallum squares his shoulders and matches Riddick’s sinister glare. “You got my message.”

Riddick hangs the skull on his belt, his features carved in a sneer. “I did, and since we still need a tongue—” he glances down at the body “—I’ll just take yours. And I’ll really fucking enjoy it, too.” He rests his hand on the hilt of the dagger strapped to his belt. At Kallum’s silence, he chuckles. “What? No final, smart-ass quips, professor?”

Kallum’s mouth curves into a menacing smile, baring the blood staining his teeth. “Aristotle said, evil brings men together.” He glances around. “Looks like we’re all here. Untie me, and let’s have a real fucking party.”

Riddick drops his fist into Kallum’s face.

Kallum takes the hit, his head canted to the side as he swipes a bead of fresh blood from his lip with the back of his hand.

Emotions soaring, I lunge at Riddick, making a reach for the knife.

He expertly catches my wrist in a firm grip, then pushes my sleeve up. His narrowed gaze lowers to my forearm, to where the wound has long since torn open. “You really should have let me stitch you up, Halen.”

As he says this, I realize I was too focused on him at the ravine, on his suturing skill in connection to the suspect. “Where’s your superior?” I ask him, snatching my arm free.

Riddick doesn’t wear the antlers. He doesn’t have implants. He’s the second half of a partnership, the one who had to go undetected. I missed the obvious point Riddick made to replace this person’s police hat after he lost it during his fall down the ravine. Riddick did so to make sure to hide the implants from view.