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him.”
    And never wanted to! Truth cried out silently. There was an odd tone in Aunt Caroline’s voice that frightened her.
    â€œThere is a legacy …” Aunt Caroline’s voice trailed off, and her head drooped for a moment as the narcotic relief of the pills took hold.
    â€œAunt Caroline?” Truth said anxiously.
    The old woman roused with an effort. “I tire so easily these days; I’m still not used to it. And I shall die before I am.” She grimaced, impatient with her body’s failing. “There is something I have been keeping for you, some of Thorne’s possessions. I know that you won’t understand
why; I’d hoped to wait until I could … But I have run out of time.”
    I have run out of time. That calm statement of fact roused Truth’s pity as no more dramatic statement could.
    â€œTime for what, Aunt Caroline?” Truth asked gently.
    â€œI didn’t wish to give them to you until it wouldn’t—I never wanted you to hate him,” Aunt Caroline said, “I just couldn’t bear … But there is no more time. These things cannot be left around for just anyone to stumble upon once I’m dead; no matter your feelings you’ll have to take them now, and I pray that—” Once more Caroline Jourdemayne broke off in the middle of a sentence, as if there were still things that could not be said. “Call it Thorne’s legacy to you, and I wish you could understand what he … They’re in a box in the bedroom—go get them. And then we must talk about the others.”
    What others? Truth wondered, rising to her feet. But Aunt Caroline’s eyes were closed and Truth could not bear to trouble her further.
    Â 
    Aunt Caroline’s bedroom was at the back of the house. It, too, was filled with the falsely modern furniture that seemed to belong to a vision of some happier tomorrow. The low dresser with its close-grained teak finish—who, in those more fortunate days, had ever heard of an endangered rain forest?—the chaste double bed with the bookcase headboard and bright cotton bedspread, even the pictures on the walls could have come straight out of—
    Out of 1969 , Truth thought with a cold pang of realization. It is as though Time itself stopped here when Mother died.
    She did not want to think about that, to add one more crime to the list of Blackburn’s villainies. She had never before considered how the house looked, but now the knowledge was inescapable. Nothing had changed here since Aunt Caroline’s twin had died. It was as if Aunt Caroline and all the house were … waiting.

    For what?
    Truth walked over to the dresser. There was a photograph on it in a silver frame—a faded head-and-shoulders shot of a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman who was the image of Caroline Jourdemayne at twenty.
    But no one would keep a photo of herself on display in that way—and Caroline Jourdemayne had never in all her life worn her hair in that long, coltish tangle, or those gypsyish hoops of Mexican silver sparkling in her ears.
    Mexican … Blackburn had taken his little coven to Mexico the summer before they’d moved into Shadow’s Gate—the summer before Katherine had died.
    This must be Katherine Jourdemayne.
    Truth had never seen a picture of her mother. If she had thought about it at all, she’d assumed there weren’t any. She picked up the frame, wondering why Aunt Caroline had never shared this with her.
    As Truth moved the photo, another picture—loose, this time—slipped free from its concealment behind the frame and spiraled to the floor. Truth stooped down to pick it up.
    It was a Polaroid of as ancient a vintage as the framed photo, this time a full-figure shot of a slender, laughing, blond-haired man, his long golden hair spilling down his back as he lifted a dark-haired baby high above his head. He was shirtless and barefoot, wearing only