CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I awoke slowly, my limbs heavy and my mind drifting between memory and reality, tangled like a web. The memories, the visions, were already starting to slip from me like silk through my fingers, but I clutched at them, dragging them back into focus.
And then came another memory—sharp, clear, and very real.
Lucien. My hands in his shirt. My lips on his. My body pressed shamelessly against his. Even now, just remembering it sent a molten hot sensation to my core.
Seven hells.
I had kissed him… And worse, I had begged for more. It was a new low for me, begging a ghost to kiss me… to make love to me…
I groaned, dragging the pillow over my face in sheer mortification. “I cannot believe I did that.”
No. That was a lie. I could believe it. I had drunk a memory potion with an aphrodisiac side effect. What did I think would happen? I’d decided to throw myself at a cursed duke, that’s what. A cursed duke I happened to be falling in love with… I pushed that thought far, far away…
I let the pillow fall away and sat up slowly, my head still fogged and heavy. His final, parting words washed over me, sending a fresh wave of heat through my body.
“ When the potion fades, if you still want me, I’ll gladly be yours.”
I let the words replay through my mind over and over. The memory of his dark eyes shimmering with lust just before he’d turned to leave, made my breath catch now. I closed my eyes, allowing myself one moment to savor that memory before letting it go.
The real weight pressing on me wasn’t from the potion. It was from the things I’d seen. The memories.
The first came back in flashes—Serena’s letter, elegant and desperate, ink smudged by a single teardrop that had dried into the parchment.
She had written it to Lucien and I’d felt her desperation to keep him…
deep, obsessive emotions. A pang of guilt settled in my stomach.
Lucien had been right. She had written the letter… not some wicked lover.
But the memory shifted into something much darker.
I’d stood in the corner of a lavish ballroom, hidden in shadow, and watched as Serena stormed through the crowd in a blood-red gown.
Lucien was dancing, smiling even, with a girl I didn’t recognize.
And Serena… she threw he r drink straight at the poor girl, glass shattering on marble.
Gasps rippled through the room. Lucien turned in fury, his jaw clenched.
Then another vision swept over me. Lucien alone in his study. Serena sat opposite him, her face tight with rage and disbelief. He wasn’t yelling. His voice was calm. But firm.
“I don’t love you,” he’d said. “I never have.”
She slapped him. He didn’t flinch.
The vision blurred, shifting again, this time to something colder. More frightening.
My grandmother.
She stood in a candlelit chamber, hunched over an easel.
A half-finished portrait sat before her, and in it, I saw Lucien.
Still, beautiful, lifeless. Her hands trembled as she mixed the paint.
She looked older than I remembered, wearier.
And frightened. She kept glancing behind her, toward something in the shadows.
A figure I couldn’t quite see. Then she whispered the incantation.
The curse crackled over the canvas. And Lucien’s painted eyes closed.
It hadn’t been Lucien’s memory at all… my grandmother had shown it to me. Her memory.
I sat back in the bed, my heart hammering. Sweat clung to my skin. My grandmother had cursed him. I’d suspected it, feared it, but seeing it with my own eyes… It had been real. And yet, she hadn’t looked tr iumphant. She had looked terrified.
Why? Why curse him if she didn’t want to? And who, or what, had been in the shadows with her?
My gaze drifted toward the space Lucien had once stood while I begged him to stay. Guilt pulled at me. Not just for what I’d done under the influence of the potion, but for what I hadn’t told him. What I hadn’t dared to believe until now…
I stood slowly, shaking off the last remnants of my daze, and crossed the room to the basin. The cool water would help clear my head—if not from the lingering effects of the hallucinogen, then at least from the mortifying memory of the night before.
With quick, efficient movements, I slipped off my nightgown, letting the fabric fall from my shoulders. The chill of the room pricked my skin, but I ignored it, stepping out of it and setting them aside.
I dipped my hands into the basin, cupping the water before splashing it over my face, my neck, the exposed planes of my arms. The coolness sent a shiver through me, but I relished it, scrubbing away the remnants of sleep, sweat, and everything else I wished I could erase.
Grabbing a cloth and soap, I dragged it over my skin, the scent of roses and chamomile filling the air.
The bruises from last night’s ordeal were beginning to bloom along my arms, faint aches pulsing beneath my fingertips as I washed.
Another reminder of how close I had come to—No. Don’t think about that now .
Once I was satisfied, I reached for a fresh chemise and thick black satin dress, lacing myself back into something presentable. The fabric felt stiff against my damp skin, but I hardly cared. I needed to feel like myself again.
Finally, I turned to the vanity, my reflection meeting me with disheveled hair and tired eyes. I twisted the strands back, securing them as best I could, before meeting my own gaze in the mirror. My skin was still too pale, my lips slightly swollen, as if…
I swallowed hard.
Last night’s kiss flashed through my mind, the warmth of his mouth against mine, the way he had held me, steady and sure.
I gripped the edge of the vanity, inhaling sharply.
Another memory hit me, washing over my mind before I could contain it.
Serena had returned to the castle.
I saw her standing in the grand foyer, her face a mask of quiet determination, her hands clutching a carefully wrapped parcel. The air between them was strained, thick with something unspoken. Lucien stood opposite her, wariness flickering in his eyes.
“What is this?” he had asked, his voice cautious.
“A parting gift,” she had said simply, offering it to him.
Lucien had hesitated, but eventually, he took it. He unraveled the paper slowly, the firelight catching on the edges of the frame beneath. Then, finally, he pulled it free.
A portrait. His own face stared back at him from the canvas, meticulously rendered, almost too lifelike. I could see the moment he realized something was wrong—the way his fingers twitched against the frame, his breath caught in his throat.
Then, all at once, his body stiffened. His eyes widened in shock. The painting fell from his grasp, crashing to the floor.
And Lucien collapsed with it.
I watched in frozen horror as his body crumpled, his limbs gone slack, his breath stilled. A perfect, unnatural stillness settled over him.
And then, movement. From the corner of the room, a figure stepped forward.
His figure.
Lucien’s phantom self had appeared, staring down at his own fallen body with wide, disbelieving eyes. He reached for it, his hands passing through the physical form that no longer belonged to him.
“What have you done?” he had whispered, his voice carrying through the silent room.
But Serena had only stood there, her expression too pleased, watching as the curse took hold .
A dull ache pulsed in my skull as I sifted through the hazy remnants of my visions, trying to grasp something, anything, that might tell me how to break the curse.
Most of what I’d seen had been useless. Fleeting glimpses of Lucien’s past, moments of his life before Serena had trapped him.
But I knew the answer had to be buried somewhere within the chaos of my mind.
I exhaled slowly, pressing my fingertips against my temples, forcing myself to push deeper.
Then, something else surfaced.
It was distant, foggy at first, like peering through warped glass. No, not glass. A canvas.
I was inside the portrait.
Serena paced before it, her fingers curled around a thick, leather-bound book. I recognized it instantly, the same one Lucien and I had found in the library. My pulse quickened. My grandmother’s book…
Serena lifted her gaze, smiling up at Lucien’s painted form with something sickly sweet in her eyes.
“Now we can be together forever.”
A cold unease crawled through me. No…not me. Lucien. I felt his anger, his helplessness, his silent rage as he watched her from the prison of the painting.
Serena only shrugged, flipping through the pages of the book, her voice light, almost teasing.
“Who knows, Lucien? Perhaps you’ll fall in love with me… and I’ll be willing to break the curse for you one day.”
The vision wavered and shattered, pulling me back into the present with a sharp gasp. My fingers gripped the edge of the basin for support as the truth settled over me like ice.
Lucien was innocent. He’d not betrayed a heart… he’d simply been a victim of an obsessive one.
Tears pricked behind my eyes. For Lucien… and for my grandmother. Despite her involvement, I knew she’d had a good reason, I could feel it.
I sighed softly as I stepped out of the room, the quiet of the hallway pressing in on me, the only sound my own footsteps echoing against the stone floors.
I swallowed hard and made my way down to the kitchen, each step slower than the last. The place felt colder than usual, the walls seeming to close in around me.
When I reached the kitchen, I moved to the table, my hands fidgeting with the hem of my sleeve as I sat down.
My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since the day before.
I snatched a chunk of bread, and some fruit, placing them on a cracked plate. I ate quickly, barely tasting the food as I chewed, my mind occupied with everything but the meal. I kept replaying the visions in my head, Serena’s voice lingering like an insidious whisper .