I shake my head and close my eyes, but it doesn’t do anything to stop the brutal images that continue to play in my mind. “I guess I didn’t realize it was you who edited it, I guess I thought the place somehow did it—like Summerland wouldn’t allow anything bad to creep in—or—something—”

I drop the thread, choosing to let it just dangle instead. Remembering that dark, rainy, creepy part I once stumbled upon, and knowing that like the yin and the yang, every dark has its light, including Summerland it seems.

“I built this place, Ever. Made it especially for you—for us. Which means I’m the one who edits the scenes.” He turns the remote back on, careful to choose a more pleasant view of the two of us sneaking away from a ball in full swing. A happy moment from the frivolous London life I’m so fond of—an obvious attempt to lighten the mood, to banish the dark we both just relived—but it doesn’t quite work. Once seen, those horrifying images are not so easily removed.

“There are many reasons we don’t remember our previous lives when we reincarnate—and what you just experienced is definitely one of them. Sometimes they’re just too painful to deal with—too hard to get over. Memories are haunting things. I should know, I’ve been haunted by more than a few of my own. For over six hundred years.”

But even though he motions toward the screen, motions toward a much happier version of me, it’s no use. There’s no immediate cure for what I now know.

Up until that moment, I was sure that my life as the lowly, Parisian servant was as bad as it got. But an actual slave? I shake my head. I’d never even imagined such a thing—never saw that one coming. And, to be honest, the brutality of it took my breath away.

“The point of reincarnation is to experience as many different lives as possible,” Damen says, tuning in to my thoughts. “It’s how we learn the most important lessons of love and compassion—by literally walking in each other’s shoes—which, ultimately become our own.”