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"It's me, Charlie." She reached her hand out. The girl's scalp was sticky and matted, someone had cut off her hair. "What have they done to you?"

"Help," she cried out. Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the dark. Imogen's face was swollen and covered in blood and bruises, unrecognizable. Charlie found an old blanket and covered the girl with it. She wanted to cry, to scream, to hit something. She had escaped one situation, only to be put into an even worse one. Sinclair said he was trying to keep her from danger. Is this what he meant?

The door slammed open and the man claiming to be a detective entered, carrying a flashlight. The beam cut through the darkness. Imogen sat up and pushed herself into the corner. The man came over to her and took her arm. Pushing up the sleeve on her shirt, he pulled a syringe from his pocket and stabbed it into a vein, injecting the contents. "Hopefully, that will make you feel more agreeable when I come back, you fucking cunt." He kicked her in the stomach and her eyes rolled back in their sockets, the drug taking effect as soon as it hit her bloodstream.

He looked over at Charlie. "Get up. He wants to talk to you."

She stared at him, too afraid to move. He grabbed her by the hair, pulling her to a standing position. "I said to get up, filthy bitch." She followed him out of the room and down a hallway into an old storage room filled with rows of whiskey casks stacked on their sides on shelves. The walls were black with fungus. It was moist and dusty, and the air had a tangy, malty smell. A man sat in the corner at a table. He stood when they entered. She was taken to him and shoved into a seat. Her driver's license along with several neatly stacked bundles of U.S. cash sat on the table. Her life's savings, sixty thousand dollars. "Leave us, Nicholai," he said to the large man, sitting down.

"Charlotte Hanover," he said in a clipped English voice, pronouncing each syllable with precision. He was older, at least in his seventies, with a bald head and sly hazel eyes. His tailored gray suit was impeccable.

She looked at him, not sure how to respond or even if she should. She would be dead soon. He studied her, as if caught off guard, then looked back down at her license. "Your eye color is wrong. It says here they are blue. Are you wearing contacts?"

She shook her head. "No. They made me put blue."

"Why?"

"Because lavender wasn't a choice. They told me it didn't exist."

"Interesting. Ignus fatuus." He studied her. "A delusion or deception."

"They're real," she said.

"Pardon me, I don't mean to appear rude. Let's start again. My name is Viktor Sokolov." He ran an elegant hand over a tightly trimmed goatee. "And you are Charlotte Hanover. Twenty-four years old, from Connecticut. Traveled to Edinburgh during one of the most famous art festivals with a large sum of cash and just so happened to be in a pub where an equally large transaction was about to take place. What are the chances?"

Sokolov. Sinclair had said the name when he was on the phone in the cottage.

He looked at her again, puzzled. "I'm sorry. I'm thrown off by your eyes. They are most peculiar. Were you born with that color?" He rang a small bell on the table.

"Yes."

"Something in nature that shouldn't exist, but it does. You defy the laws of nature."

A man entered carrying a tray with a crystal decanter and two glasses. He set it down and left. "Would you like a drink, Charlotte?" He didn't wait for her to answer and poured them each a glass, the amber liquid stringent and smoky.

"What do you want from me?" she finally had the courage to ask.

"What do I want from you?" He moved her glass closer to her, motioning for her to pick it up. "First, we toast. Then I'll tell you what I want from you."

He cleared his throat. "To the girl with lavender eyes. Slange." He clinked their glasses and finished in one swallow, setting his glass down on the table. "Are you selkie or rusalka?"

"What?" she asked, confused.

"Never mind." He gestured for her to drink. She took a small sip, coughing as it hit her throat, sharp and astringent. Then she repeated the toast, "Slange."

"Good girl." He pulled out a cigarette case, offering her one.

She shook her head.

"I believe the correct term is no thank you," he corrected her.

"No thank you," she said, her voice shaking.

He lit his and took a long draw off it. "You want to know what I want from you?"

"Please."

"I want to know who you work for."