My jaw tightens.“I don’t want to hear anything from you.”
“You need to,” he says softly.“Because you’re the only one who’ll believe it.”
I don’t answer, I don’t move, and he takes my silence as permission.
“You think Harlow is new to this?”Noah asks.“To ghosts.To nightmares.To being hunted?”
A low growl curls up my throat.“Stop talking.”
He doesn’t.“Her gift didn’t start with you.Didn’t start in that institution.It started when she was barely old enough to speak.”
My pulse roars in my ears.
“Children shouldn’t see the dead,” Noah whispers.“But she did.And your precious Council knew.”
Cold grips my spine.
“They tested her.Measured her.Pushed her.Her parents tried to protect her, but they couldn’t.”He looks away, jaw trembling.“No one could.”
I step closer.“Harlow never told me any of this.”
“She doesn’t remember.”His smile is hollow.“The Council wiped the memories.Left gaps so deep she can’t climb out.”
Ice digs into my veins.That’s why she flinches at certain smells, why she wakes shaking and can’t explain, why the coven house feels like a prison even though she doesn’t know why.
“You’re lying,” I breathe.
Noah’s expression doesn’t shift.“Then explain this.”
He steps aside, and I see it.A grave.Marked by a rusted plaque, the name eroded by time and the elements.But the age ...eighteen years old.
My stomach drops.“Who is buried here?”
Noah swallows hard.His voice cracks.“My sister.”The world tilts.
“She was in the same institution as Harlow,” he whispers.“Same wing.Same horrors.Same restraints.Same experiments.”His voice splinters as pain drowns him.“They took things from them.Tested their blood.Tested their fear.”
My breathing falters.
“Harlow doesn’t remember because they didn’t want her to.My sister...”He shudders.“She never made it out.”
The forest holds its breath.
“And you...”Noah says, looking at me with something like accusation and grief twisted together, “...you think you are innocent?That the covens are innocent?You think I snapped for no reason?You think my hatred is random?”He shakes his head.“The coven who found her, who claimed her, killed her.”
He takes a shaking breath.“My sister was a consort.”
The ground beneath my feet feels shaky.
A consort.Claimed and broken.Dead because of a coven hungry for power.And everything clicks into place for me.
Noah’s hatred.His obsession.His fixation on Harlow.His belief is that she’s walking the same doomed path.Grief turned him into a weapon.
“Harlow doesn’t remember,” I repeat, voice hollow.
Noah nods.“She wasn’t meant to.The Council buried her past so deep she’ll never find it alone.”
My throat burns.“Why tell me this?”