Adrien reveals his 10,000 years history of 504 suicides and stalls the Muse to Crimes of Passion, Caroline from drowning Megan on Damien’s orders. Thomas guides Megan to another realm in the afterlife of Merridiah, to help her capture the Banshee lurking inside Lewis Carroll's urn, but the two aren't prepared for the return of an eternal entity once thought lost with Merridiah’s heart. On the brink of being erased from existence, Megan lies dying from the banshee’s cry and she learns the secret curse of the Crandall brothers — how their many past lives meet at a single moment in history, when Merridiah University came into existence, when the life of the first muse and her husband came to an end, and when Adrien and Damien both lost that which they each cherished most. Forever transformed by the encounter, Megan now seeks to discover the cruel secret Damien has walled up inside his boutique in the melancholy realm far below Merridiah: Immiserriah, the reservoir where lies all wasted life. Here, Megan discovers how a single event far back in one of her own past lives marks the true reason for Damien’s relentless hatred for her.