I stared into familiar, dark gray eyes, and my mental fog finally lifted. My memories were once again intact. I knew who I was. I remembered the journey I had gone through with the old mage, the decision to enter the hospital, the spell I'd done to make Luke's spirit inhabit Dean's body—everything that had brought me to this moment.

Tears streamed down my face. Luke was there in the room with me. He was in a different body, but it was him. I sobbed, cried out his name, and ran into his arms. He held me for a long time.

"Colina, I thought I'd lost you," he whispered.

I tightened my grip around him. "How long was I gone?"

"Two weeks. The last time I saw you, you were heading out to Dr. Barton's office to see if you could find a spell."

I remembered now that Barton had a collection of magic books in his office. With Mildred's help, I'd been sneaking in at night and going through them, trying to learn all I could. Barton's collection was extensive. It made sense—when you dealt with those who wielded complex magics, research was important. Even so, Barton didn't seem to have much interest in magic. I would bet that he inherited the collection from the office's prior tenants. If he had any talents of his own, I hadn't seen them yet.

Even if he didn't have any magic of his own, it didn't matter in a facility like this. I knew this hospital was for those without a lot of power, or without enough presence of mind to control what power they did have. It was for the less violent folks, those who were less of a threat to others. I had heard rumors of other places, more like prisons than rehab centers, where they sent those mages deemed the most dangerous to society.

Going through the book collection, I could still picture the one particular old volume that had caught my eye. I remembered leaning down and reaching out to grab it. There was a flash of orange and a rush of noise, and then...nothing.

"I touched a book. There was light and sound. That's all I remember."

"The book must've been enchanted. It gave the spirit inside it the extra power she needed to possess you. With it, she was stronger than you were."

"One moment I was there, and the next I was gone." When I underwent the second ritual, a spirit had possessed me. The spirit of Wanda had rushed into me and pushed me down, but when that happened, a part of me had still been there. I'd heard Wanda's voice coming out of my lips. I'd listened to Luke as he talked with Wanda. I was aware of what was going on, still somewhere in my body. This time, the spirit must have been so much stronger to completely take over my consciousness.

Luke's left hand came up and cradled my head. "Morgana possessed you."

I gasped. "The second victim?" Months ago, one of the patients, an older woman, had jumped from the hospital's roof to her death. Or so the official report stated. But Mildred was convinced Morgana had been the killer's second victim. I'd never met Morgana. She'd died before I admitted myself. If Mildred was right and the woman had been murdered, then it made sense that her spirit would be trapped here. And when I'd been most vulnerable, her spirit had possessed me.

Luke nodded. "Mildred recognized Morgana as soon as she took you over."

When he finally let me go, I took a step back and gazed into his face. I wondered how long it would take me to get used to the way he looked now. Gone was the blond hair and chiseled chin. The face I was looking into belonged to an attractive stranger. But then again, it didn't. The expression in his eyes, his voice, and the way he moved... Luke was in there.

He was with me again, and that was the only thing that mattered.

I reached up and touched his lips. "You're walking."

He gave me a wide smile. "I didn't have a lot to distract me during your little vacation. It's been hard work, but I'm slowly building up my strength. My body's getting stronger every day." A dark shadow passed over his face. "His body."

I grasped his hand. "Your body. You've every right to take it. He was an empty vessel. You know Dean never made it back after the ritual. You're the one who told me how dangerous the rituals were and how people got lost sometimes. Dean was lost."

Those so unbalanced were the easiest to control, Luke had said. That's why Walter brought me here. We'd been intent on finding someone, but not just anyone—Walter knew about Dean's family. He told me how Dean became lost during the second ritual—the possession. Dean had gone through the ritual, but he'd been overpowered by a spirit. He never made it back. Even after his family finally banished the spirit, Dean didn't return. He was an empty vessel, and I took advantage.

I had done the ritual Walter taught me to bind Luke's spirit to Dean's body. I'd used the enchanted medallion and brought Luke back.

But something went wrong. Luke now lived within Dean, but he'd only been able to come out during the witching hour, when the world was quiet, and people slept. It was the only time so far that Luke could bring himself forth and truly possess all of Dean's faculties. I'd been trying to find a way to help Luke stay at the surface permanently before my unplanned possession.

Luke pulled his hand out of mine and clenched both hands into fists. "It feels wrong to be here like this. You should have left me in between."

I flinched back as though he had struck me. Doesn't he want to be with me?

He must have seen something in my expression because he reached out and pulled me into his arms. For a long moment, we stood together, my head resting against his chest. I could hear his heartbeat.

He whispered, "Colina, I love you. I think I've loved you ever since you first walked into my uncle's magic shop."

Surprised by his words, I pulled back. I knew he loved me, but to hear him say he loved me back then, when we first met... Was it true? I looked into his gray eyes. The flame I saw within them now was not stirred by anger.

"If I remember correctly, you wanted to throw me out into the street," I teased.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I knew you were trouble the minute I set eyes on you." I started to laugh before his expression turned serious. "But I also knew from the moment I saw you that I was a goner. You pulled at my heart then. You know you have my whole heart now."

"Love at first sight?" I gave a loud guffaw. "You plied me with questions for hours."

He rested a hand on his chest, covering his heart. "I swear to you, something powerful happened the first time I laid eyes on you. At least for me. That doesn't mean I was happy about it." He grabbed my hand. "I gave you such a hard time because I didn't want to believe it was true."

"Stop teasing me." I remembered watching him talk on the phone back at the magic shop and how I'd been drawn to him then. My feelings had just grown stronger each day we were together.

"I'm only telling you how I feel. I knew you were the one for me then, and I want nothing more than to be with you now. And I'm telling you this, so you understand. I would give anything to be with you." Sadness filled his eyes. "But I was brought up to believe that when your time is up, it's up. For me to come back like this... It's not natural. It's not right."

I cut him off. "But it was my fault you died. If I hadn't been so reckless, so full of anger... I didn't care what happened. I only cared about getting my revenge."

"If I had it all to do again, I wouldn't do anything differently. You didn't force me back into the hotel. I went of my own free will. I went to try and protect you. If I hadn't been there..." He stepped closer and caressed my face. "It doesn't matter. You made it out alive."

"But you didn't," I whispered, my eyes welling with tears. Rather than replying, he pulled me into his arms again. I squeezed him tightly before continuing. "I had to bring you back. I couldn't lose you. I couldn't lose someone else I loved."

He brushed a hand through my hair. "Shhh, I'm here with you now."

I knew that he felt what I'd done was wrong, but I would make him see that taking this empty body so he could be here with me was the right thing to do.

His arms tightened around me, and I realized that wasn't something he would have been able to do a few weeks ago. I looked up into his face. "You're getting stronger. Soon we'll be able to escape this place."

"Before we escape, we have to decide where to go."

That was a good question. Where would we go? His family had a target on my back.

Before Luke's death, before the hospital—before any of it—I had brought forth zombies and caused a mass murder. Because of those atrocities, the death dealers were not just hated by the populous. They were hunted. Vigilante mobs had formed in the span of a few months, and a dozen death dealers had been beaten. A few had even been killed. Death dealers across the city now walked in fear for their lives.

And it was all because of my actions. The Phoenix Guild wanted me to pay for what I'd done. They wanted revenge.

They wanted me dead.

I looked into Luke's eyes, pushing back my fears. He was alive and with me. That was all that mattered. "We'll worry about that later, once we are out of here. We need you to get strong enough so that you can climb." Our escape would take some planning. A twenty-foot electric fence surrounded the grounds. We'd have to turn the electricity off, sprint across the property, and quickly climb over the fence, somehow avoiding the staff and security surveillance at the same time.

"But I can still only surface for short periods of time. With the spell you did to bind me, I should be in control of this body all the time. Mildred's been bringing me books from the Doctor's office. From everything I've been studying, there's no reason that I can come up with for why I only have full possession of this body during the witching hour." He looked worried and frustrated.

"We keep looking."

He took a step back. "If you touch another enchanted book, you could be possessed again."

I thought I had mastered the art of keeping spirits out. I hadn't been possessed since Wanda took over my mind and body. But Morgana got in. I looked at Luke thoughtfully, trying to gauge how he would react if I told him my suspicions—that Morgana's spirit still had some kind of hold on me.

For weeks I had been someone else, but the lightning treatment had somehow turned the tables. It had loosened Morgana's hold on my body and allowed me back in control. But I thought I could still feel her, somewhere within the recesses of my mind. Was it my imagination? Or was she really in there somewhere, waiting and hoping for another chance to take over?

I should tell Luke about Morgana, but he was fighting his own battles at the moment, trying to get used to living in someone else's body. The last thing I needed was to burden him with my fears.

It's probably only my imagination anyway.

Luke pulled me toward him again. He placed his lips on mine. For a moment, I forgot about everything but being in his arms and kissing him.

When he pulled away from me, he brushed back my hair from my face and whispered, "You have to be more careful. I'm no help to you during the day. I'm barely any help now. This body is so weak."

"You're getting stronger," I whispered back. I started to pull him closer, wanting to feel those lips on mine again when I heard someone clear their throat. I spun around to see Mildred standing by the doorway, watching us, a huge grin on her face. "Sorry to break this up, lovebirds, but we can't stay much longer. We started out late." She tapped her empty wrist. "Ticktock, ticktock. It's almost the end of the witching hour."

I looked around. "How can you tell?" There was no clock in the room.

"I can feel it in my bones, child." She looked over at Luke. "You best be getting back to your bed. Any minute now you're going to turn into a frog, and her kiss won't turn you back into a prince. When you tumble down and down like Humpty Dumpty, you'll be too big for us to put back together."

Luke kissed me again. He started to move away, but I refused to let him go. I tightened my arms around him. "Not yet. Just a few more minutes."

"You've got to go. Mildred's right."

I reluctantly let go.

He stepped out of my arms and slowly, on unsteady legs, walked over to the bed. He lowered himself down and turned to look at me. "Promise me you'll be—" The light suddenly left his eyes. His body fell back against the pillows. His face slackened, and all expression left it.

I rushed to him. "Luke!"

There was no response. He wasn't there. I could no longer reach him. I'd been without him for so long. For months I had worked with Walter, hiding from Luke's guild, feeling Luke's ghostly presence, unable to touch him, to hold him, to kiss him. I reached down and slid my fingers across his cheek. Now that I finally had him back, I would do whatever it took to keep him with me.

I turned to Mildred. "I can't leave him like this."

"Come, child. We haveto go. We need to get moving. You know as well as I do that at this time of thenight, even the laziest orderlies make a few rounds." I followed her out of theroom.

***