Chapter Twelve Trey
Back at the Beginning
The Same Damn Bedroom
Sick of this Shit
I was tired of waking up in the wrong gods damned place.
Worse, I didn’t know why I was annoyed about waking up in my own bedroom. The same bedroom I’d woken up in thousands of times before. It should be comforting, or at least so routine that I barely registered the location. Instead, I was already scowling before even opening my eyes.
I jumped out of bed and threw the door open.
On the other side, Dad took a startled step back, his raised fist shifting from a knocking position into a fight stance.
Once he realized I was his son, not an intruder running from the scene of a crime, he relaxed and pressed his palm to his racing heart.
“Trey—”
“Someone is either fucking with my head or with everything else.”
He blinked at me. “Fuck.”
That was it. No questions, no doubts, just a simple curse. “Have you felt it too?”
“Since I’m not exactly sure what you mean, no, but I trust you.”
The word ‘trust’ needled my heart with a sharp, mocking pain. Why did I feel guilty that my dad trusted me? When I tried to think of any time I’d lied to him, the memories were like an empty room—bare walls, nothing personalized, just the knowledge I’d done something to lose that trust.
“We should tell your father,” Dad said, then turned on his heel and walked down the hallway toward the dining room.
Father was already at the table. His freckled face lit up the moment we walked into the room. He shifted in his seat and opened one arm in invitation. Dad slotted himself perfectly into that space, allowing Father to wrap an arm around his waist and leaning down to kiss him gently.
Another needle pricked my heart. With it, the briefest memory—a sweet kiss turning rough and bloody as teeth joined the mix. My teeth, or someone else’s? Or both? Was it a passionate kiss or an angry one?
I heard the murmured conversation of Dad explaining what I’d told him. Father’s brow furrowed and he said, “We should take breakfast in my office.”
That felt right and wrong at the same time. I loaded a plate with food and led the charge to my father’s office. Father and Dad were several steps behind me. Although they were worried, they didn’t feel the same urgency. We needed to get through this part to get to the next part, whatever that was.
I set my plate down on Father’s desk and thumped into the visitor’s chair. Father closed and locked the door, then sat behind his desk, while Dad pulled a chair off to the side. I stared at him for a long moment, knowing he was in the wrong place.
“What is it?”
“You’re supposed to sit with him,” I said, jabbing my fork toward Father.
Dad arched an eyebrow. “I need room to eat.”
“Can you explain the problem?” Father asked.
I took a deep breath, trying to put the feeling into words. “Everything feels like I’ve done it before, but nothing happens the same way twice.”
“If nothing happens the same way twice, how do you know it’s happened before?” Dad asked.
I stared at my plate, too distracted and frustrated to feel hungry. “I wake up in my bed, when I’m supposed to be somewhere else—somewhere far away.”
“Do you know where?” Father asked.
I shook my head, then paused as a place came to mind. “Maybe Misfortune?”
My fathers exchanged a look, then Father reached into his desk and pulled out a stack of letters. “We planned to talk to you about this today,” Father said as he handed me the stack.
I weighed the stack in my hands. This interaction felt new, unrehearsed.
I unfolded the first one and scanned the contents.
Familiar words jumped out from the page: next generation, Kingdom Defense Spell, wedding, quest. The last one in the stack was an invitation from Queen Davina of Misfortune for everyone to send their unmarried children to a meeting that would happen next week.
“This,” I said, holding up the letter and waving it for emphasis. “I need to go to this.”
“Does it spark a specific memory?” Father asked. “Or just a feeling?”
I focused on the idea of the meeting, tried to pry it open to see its secrets.
It remained tightly locked against me. If only I had some mental lockpicks.
Another image came to me, a blurry figure with short, dark hair crouched in front of a door, carefully working their picks into the lock.
A half-memory, or my imagination? “A feeling. Like I’ve been there before even though I know I haven’t. ”
Dad took the letter from me and grinned down at it. “We almost met in Misfortune.”
Father arched an eyebrow and dryly replied, “I wouldn’t call that party a fond memory.”
“Why not? It’s how we got—” Dad cut himself off, his brow furrowing as he glanced at me. “I see what you mean.”
I straightened in my chair. “You felt it too?”
“The memory is as slippery as a lubed up—”
“Rick.”
“—uh, I mean, a … dammit, Brendon, I can’t think of a better metaphor. The point is, it’s slippery, and the harder I try to grab it, the more it squirms in my hand.”
Father sighed and rubbed his eyes. Then he froze and said, “No, you’re right. There’s something … I was drunk for most of it, so I don’t remember much. And I think that’s important too.”
I tossed the letter onto the table, where everyone could see it. “So the problem is focused on Misfortune.”
“Or something that happened in Misfortune,” Father agreed. He picked up the letter and stared at it for a long while. “Alright, we’ll go to the meeting. Perhaps some of the other champions and their families are experiencing the same memory fog.”
“We should fill in Franny and Kit when we pick up Delilah,” Dad said.
Normally, whenever Delilah came into the conversation, I groaned at the thought of my annoying little cousin.
For the first time—that I could remember, at least—I was looking forward to seeing her.
She was part of this, I knew. Maybe if we put our heads together, we could form one whole memory from our fragmented pieces.
Five Days Later
On the Road to Woe
Napping
Shouting outside of the carriage woke me. I immediately crouched and protected my head, expecting to crash at any moment. Instead, the carriage slowed to an easy stop. I frowned and peered out the window. “Why are we stopping?”
“Maybe we’re being held up,” Dad said, his lips quirked in an amused smile. The smile slipped and his brow furrowed. “Dammit, there it is again.”
My fathers had only experienced the weird memory phenomenon a few times.
Once we’d begun traveling, it was like they were actors who had performed their parts a thousand times before.
They fell into their roles naturally, without questioning any of their actions or their own thoughts.
Still, it was comforting to know that I wasn’t the only one caught in the tangle.
“What were you expecting to happen?” Father asked.
“I feel like that line belonged to someone else,” Dad paused, then added, “Not that line exactly. Something more like … bandits!”
His sudden shout startled Father and me. The carriage rocked beneath us as we instinctively jolted away from him.
Dad apologized with laughing eyes. “Sorry, I thought a demonstration would be better.”
The carriage door was ripped open. A dark figure loomed behind it, glaring at us menacingly from a metal face.
Dad dove toward his pack, where he kept a slew of magical items that were not technically weapons. He whipped out a pair of metal manacles and swung one end like a flail.
Why does he have those? No, wait, I don’t need to know.
The bandit ignored Dad as they searched the carriage. “Where is she?”
“Kit?” Father asked, squinting at the helmet.
Kit shoved the visor up on their helmet. Once I saw their face, the menace they’d exuded transformed into a parent’s mixed anger and concern. “Brendon,” they said, their voice cracking in panic. “Where’s Delilah?”
“She’s not with us,” Rick said. “Not yet, at least. We were on our way to meet you.”
“She ran away,” Kit wailed. They clamored into the carriage, thumping onto the seat next to Father.
“I thought you got rid of that armor,” Dad said.
“What? No. I courted my wife in this armor, of course I’m not getting rid of it, even if the only damn piece I could find is the helmet.”
Dad’s brow furrowed and he muttered, “There it is again.”
Kit ignored his comment and pulled a letter out of their jacket pocket, shoving it into Father’s hand. He read it first, his brow furrowed in concern, then passed it to Dad.
When Dad read it, he sighed, “Oh, Delilah.”
I took the letter last.
I’m going to Misfortune. Uncle Brendon and Rick will explain.
All My Love,
Delilah
No details, no excuses or reasons. She’d just laid the blame on my fathers and scurried off.
Dad sighed. “I don’t know why Delilah left without telling you, but I can tell you why she went to Misfortune. Since you’re already here, why don’t we travel together? We can explain on the way.”
“Do you need to speak with Franny before we leave?” Father asked.
Kit shook their head sharply. “I didn’t have time to find her before running off after Delilah, so I left another note.”
Dad frowned at this explanation but let it drop. “Then we’ll head straight there.”
With the change in plans, we would arrive earlier than scheduled. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe we could catch whoever was behind this confusion by surprise.