When we got to Luke's room, he was walking slowly back and forth across the floor. I ran to him. He held me tight within his arms.

Mildred spoke from the doorway. "I'll leave you two lovebirds alone. But don't worry. I'll be back before you turn into a frog." She actually croaked a few times like a frog before closing the door behind her.

"What did you do today?" Luke asked.

I answered, my head still against his chest. "Ate a few awful meals and had a therapy session with Dr. Barton."

"How did that go?"

I laughed. "Not well. He wants me to take a zillion more pills if I can't find outlets to curb my anger."

He took a step back and gave me a smile. "Are you still flushing them down the toilet?"

"I am. I can't believe how drugged up they try to keep people in this place." I put my hand in his. "Oh, and I spent time in the garden. There are some wildflowers growing at the far end."

Sadness filled his eyes. "Darla loves wildflowers. Anytime she saw some she would pick them and put them in vases all over the house."

I knew he missed his sister. I stroked his cheek. "You could go back to them. Be with your family again."

He shook his head and pulled away.

"If you blame this all on me, your family and your guild might come to accept you now, the way you are."

"Colina, I'm not leaving you."

"But your family—"

He held up his hand. "One day they'll come around. They just need some time to get their minds around what happened."

"They think I'm a monster," I whispered.

He pulled me into his arms. "They've never seen anyone with the kind of magic you have. No one has ever been able to raise the dead or force spirits to cross over. Once they realize everything that happened wasn't your fault—"

"But it was all my fault. If I hadn't been so rash, so focused on avenging my family..."

He caressed my cheek. "You lost your family. You watched them get murdered before your very eyes. You were full of pain and anger when you came to the magic shop looking to learn the Death Arts. Anyone who went through what you did would have felt the same."

I let out a harsh laugh. "Would they have come to you, looking to learn dark magic so they could kill their enemies?"

He pulled back, looking down at me. "You had men coming after you. No one in your clan was strong enough to fend them off. If you hadn't come to us, eventually those madmen would have taken you. And when you refused to go along with Macaven's plans, he would've sacrificed you like he did the others."

The "others" Luke was referring to were the seven people Macaven killed and blamed on the Redeemers simply because they refused to become part of his twisted coven. I stared into Luke's eyes shining with so much understanding. He was willing to forgive me for everything I've done wrong.

"I would have refused him," I said.

"And given the chance, he would have killed you. By becoming a death dealer, you survived."

I lowered my head, unable to meet his eyes. "I became a killer."

His lifted my chin. "You did an impossible thing. You went through the rituals in a matter of days. No one has ever done that. You didn't have time to train, to get used to your new powers, or to adjust to the changes that came over you."

"There's violence and darkness in me now." My voice was filled with self-pity.

Sadness filled his eyes. "You can't touch the other side and come back unaffected."

"But half the time I still feel so out of control!" He pulled me back into his arms. "That'll change with time." His arms tightened around me. "Control is not something you can expect to happen overnight."

My head now rested on his chest. I listened to his heartbeat, trying to calm my raging emotions. He was right. Most people trained for a long time to go through the rituals and learn spells. They had time to prepare and adjust. I'd been thrown into the fire without any preparation, but I'd survived.

He pulled back and brushed my bangs off my face. "We don't have a lot of time together. I don't want to spend it talking about things we can't control."

"What do you want to talk about?"

"I don't want to talk at all. I just want to be with you." He kissed me.

It started gentle and soft, but then the kiss turned more passionate. There was an urgency to it. I tried not to think, to only react, but a part of me was acutely aware that the lips I was kissing felt different. They were different.

He suddenly broke away from me. "Open your eyes," he demanded.

I looked into the face that wasn't his. I concentrated on his eyes. In those eyes, I could see Luke staring back at me.

"We've never talked about this," he said awkwardly, looking at his hands. "I'm in a different body."

"I know," I answered, trying to keep my voice neutral.

"But it has to be strange for you. Like now, when we kissed. For me, I'm kissing you. It feels the same for me. But for you, it has to be different." He gestured to his body, and his voice became strained. "He's different."

It did feel different, but I was trying to get used to him. I felt uncomfortable standing there talking about it. I didn't know what I was supposed to say. I pulled his hand into mine. "Nothing matters but that we're together."

"I want us to be together. I want to be closer to you, but I know it's going to take some adjustment. It's going to take time for both of us to get used to the new me," he said. I could hear the anguish in his voice.

I didn't know how to make it alright. I touched his cheek. All that mattered was that behind those eyes was the guy I loved. It didn't matter what he looked like. Luke was here, and we were finally together. "Mildred will be back soon."

He wrapped his arms around me again. "Right now, I want to stop thinking. I just want to hold you."

I pressed my head against his chest, relieved to avoid eye contact. I could listen to his heartbeat and let it soothe my soul.

* * *

Mildred came back as promised. Luke and I said our goodbyes. I hated leaving him. Maybe he'd be strong enough in a few more days to try and make an escape.

Mildred and I headed back down the deserted halls. As we passed a set of offices, I stopped, a question on my mind. "Let me take a quick look at a few of those books in Barton's office."

Mildred shook her head and kept walking. "Not tonight, child. It's too late. I need to get you back to your room."

"We're running out of time! You know as well as I do that the longer, we stay in this place, the more we're in danger. Someone's killing the patients. One of us could be next."

She stopped and did a little jig, a wide smile on her face. "I wondered when you were going to bring up those murders again. You believe me about Sabrina?"

"Yes, I believe you." Before Morgana had possessed me, I had slowly come around to believing Mildred's wild accusations of murder. There were too many unexplained deaths. Too many spirits calling out for vengeance. And now Sabrina was dead. The young girl had been a devout Catholic. A girl who prayed over each meal, before bed, and on Sundays. Someone who even carried a set of Rosary beads in her pocket. "Sabrina would never have hung herself. She would never commit suicide."

Mildred nodded in agreement. "I think it's the orderlies. One of them, or maybe all of them."

I realized that I was allowing my emotions to rule my actions again. Coming in here to investigate was a mistake. "We need to get out of here before one of us gets hurt." I was no longer going to be reckless. I wasn't going to put Luke's life in danger.

Mildred's expression turned angry. "You're going to just wash your hands of the whole business? Act like it doesn't matter that folks in here are getting killed?"

Mildred was a pleasant woman when she was happy, but I knew she had a wicked temper. When set off, her anger terrified even the meanest orderlies. I lifted my hands in surrender. "I don't know what you think we can do to stop it. The smart thing is to get out of here, and once we're on the outside we can contact the authorities and tell them what we suspect." Even as I said the words, I felt guilty. People were being killed and all I was concerned about was getting us out of this place in one piece. But I had to be selfish. Going after a killer was reckless and foolish, and the last time I had been foolish and reckless Luke had died.

Mildred made a fist with her right hand and slapped it hard against the palm of her left. "It is forbidden to kill; therefore, all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." She gave me a triumphant look. "Voltaire said that."

And with just one comment, Mildred had taken the conversation out to left field.

"Okay..." Shaking my head, I wondered yet again how much of a full deck she was playing with. "I don't think we can go to the cops now, because the cops are not going to believe a bunch of supposedly unstable patients who tell them there are murders going on in the hospital."

Mildred looked away. When she looked back, her eyes were full of sorrow. "No one cares what happens to folks in this place. We're the only ones who can stop it."

"We can't risk it," I protested again. "We have to get out while we can."

"You won't help?"

I shook my head. "I can't."

Mildred walked over to the office door and unlocked it brusquely. "I thought you were someone I could count on, child."

"I promised you we'd take you with us when we go, and that promise still holds true. We won't leave this place without you," I said.

She turned back to me, her eyes full of regret. "If I'm still alive by the time you decide to leave."

I wanted to believe that she was being dramatic, but there really was something sinister happening in this hospital. Every month one of the patients had turned up dead. We needed to get out of here. "The sooner I find a spell that will allow Luke to be in control all the time, the sooner we can leave."

"I guess I can't blame you for looking after your own skin with what you've been through. And all those death dealers hunting you... I don't want to think what will happen if they ever find you."

Mildred walked down the hallway, speaking over her shoulder, "Okay, child, you go ahead and look in the books, but I'm not going to risk getting caught." She paused. "The doors are all unlocked between here and your room. Can you make it back on your own?"

I gave her a smile. "I can make it back."

She reached into her pocket and walked back to me. "I almost forgot." She handed over the enchanted medallion. "Now that you're back, you'll be needing this."

I took it from her hand. It felt warm against my palm. There was still power in it, power I had filled it with following Walter's instructions. Enough, I hoped, to help juice one more spell.

I watched Mildred walk away then turned and hurried into Barton's office. I shut the door and switched on the desk lamp. There were two wide bookcases full of leather-bound books. I skimmed each title, clutching the medallion in my left hand. In theory, it should protect me from any books that had spells on them, but it hadn't protected me from the last book I'd touched. Whatever spell surrounded that one had been stronger than the magic in the medallion.

There has to be something in one of them that could help us. Something Barton might have missed. I reached for a volume.

Lights suddenly blazed overhead.

"Looky what we found here, Hank. Now what are you doing snooping in Barton's office? And how did you get out of your room?"

My stomach dropped. It was one of the night orderlies, a burly man with stringy, black hair. Another man followed, and his body filled the doorway.

Before I could react, the first man stepped forward and grabbed me by the arm.

Since I'd been in this place, I'd followed all the rules. I'd never been shoved into solitary confinement. I'd been considered a model patient.

Until Morgana appeared.

The orderly's grip tightened on my arm. "Do you remember this one, Hank? She's the one that spit at you and scratched me last week."

Doctor Barton said I'd been uncontrollable. I'd seen patients like that and how they behaved. The staff often answered erratic behavior aimed at them with after-hours payback. When I was Morgana, I'd wronged these men. Now they wanted their revenge.

I kept my expression calm. Don't resist. The last thing I wanted to do was make them angry and give them a reason to restrain me. The second orderly came around my other side. The two men dragged me out of the office and down the hall.

It was only when we passed by the entrance to the patients' quarters that I grew really concerned. They aren't taking me back to my room.

The halls became darker, and a subtle smell of mildew filled the air. The hospital became more crowded with spirits as the living faded behind us. Voices clamored for my attention at the edge of my mind, but I shut them out. We were going to the oldest part of the hospital, a section of the building that was no longer used. It had become a sanctuary for the many spirits that wandered here. The orderlies felt none of it. They focused only on me.

Hank finally spoke up. "Do you think this is a good idea, Larry?"

Larry answered. "Come on, we can't let her get away with what she did to us."

I struggled against their grips, panicking as we moved deeper into the abandoned part of the hospital. "Where are you taking me?"

"Looks like you need to cool off." Larry laughed.

They turned and pushed open a set of gray, swinging doors. Inside the room, six old-fashioned bathtubs sat in a row. At the back of the room was a line of shower stalls.

I desperately struggled to get free. I didn't know what payback they had planned for me, but I didn't want any part of it.

Larry let me go, and I scrambled to get away, but Hank rounded on me and put me in a bear hug. Larry may have been a burly man, but Hank was a muscle-bound giant.

Larry walked over to the closest tub and turned the handles. Water poured out of the spout. "They don't use this part of the hospital much. But when the place gets full, they still bring some of the more unruly patients in here to wash them down." He lifted the sleeve of his shirt. A two-inch scratch ran across his arm. He rubbed his fingers over the scratch and smiled at Hank. "Watch this one. She has sharp nails."

Larry walked out of the room, leaving me alone with Hank. I struggled to get free. The more I struggled, the harder Hank squeezed. He was squeezing so hard I couldn't catch my breath.

Larry walked back in the room, a blue bucket in each hand. "She's a feisty one. Careful, Hank, you don't want to break her. She looks like she's about to pass out."

Hank's embrace loosened just a bit.

Larry poured the contents of the buckets into the tub. I watched as a stream of ice cubes slide into the water. Larry turned and looked at Hank. "What do you think? Cold enough?" When Hank didn't answer, Larry laughed. "You're right, a girl with such a hot temper probably needs a bit more to cool her down."

He left. A few minutes later, he returned with two more buckets full of ice. He poured them into the tub and turned off the water. "There, that looks just right."

Hank loosened his grip, and Larry pulled me toward the tub. "Come on, love. This will do you some good. If nothing else, it'll make me feel a whole lot better."

I struggled and then let my body go limp, hoping my deadweight would deter him, but it didn't matter. Larry hoisted me up and threw me into the tub.

I hit the cold water, and the shock of it knocked all the air out of my lungs. I felt as though I'd been punched in the stomach. I scrambled to get out, but a beefy hand came down on the top of my head and pushed me under.

Not for the first time, I wished that I had a more direct form of magic at my disposal, something that would rip and tear at bullyboy Larry. But I was a lame sort of death dealer. I had no banshees to fling at my enemies. At times like this, my refusal to bind spirits to do my bidding seemed to be the worst kind of stupidity. Still, I couldn't force myself to hold a soul in servitude, no matter the cost.

As the seconds ticked by and my lungs screamed for air, frustration and anger coursed through me. A wash of adrenaline pumped through my veins. I grabbed Larry's hand, jerked it to my mouth, and bit down hard. I ground my teeth until I tasted blood along with the water.

Larry yanked his hand away, slamming my head into the side of the old cast-iron tub as I surfaced. The entire world spun and throbbed to a distressed pulse in my head as I gasped for breath. My body suddenly seemed weak and hard to control. I felt a hand grasp my hair and shove my head firmly under. I tried to renew the fight to no avail.

***