14. Eliza
Chapter fourteen
Eliza
W e’d practiced for hours. I’d give Sylvie a phrase and focus on making her forget she ever knew it at all. Then she had me practice on other people, wider and wider and wider. Nothing important, just tiny things.
Sylvie had said, “Your power is exceptional because it knows no bounds.” She paused, then added, “I’m sure you know this, but Lethe is also the goddess of oblivion. Of nothingness. And if you can just sink into that feeling, wrap it around yourself, you could spread what you are across the damn globe. It could be amazing, but also very dangerous.”
And I would have, For Corvan, I would have. I would have made everyone forget about that stupid fucking article that released about him all those years ago. But I couldn’t make the papers themselves disappear. The reports done on him. Which meant that, if I did erase everyone’s memory of what Jade said, it left them with the potential to re-discover it. To add more fuel to the flame that was nothing more than an old ember now. Plus, his people had already done a pretty good job of making much of the reporting disappear .
It was better, we’d agreed, if I stuck to Savannah and Jade. Still risky, if Jade ever saw an article about her saying something she couldn’t remember saying, but… perhaps she’d just assume then that it was made up. No matter what, she’d have doubts. She wouldn’t know .
Which meant she’d leave him the fuck alone.
And that was enough for me.
I practiced as much as I could. I gave Corvan phrases to remember and then made him forget those phrases. From one side of the ship to the other, sifting through people until I found him. From just on the other side of the bed from him. Constantly, I was practicing. Because when the boat docked and most everyone went out to explore our Alaskan destination, Cor and I would stay on. It would be the perfect chance for me to truly be able to concentrate, to search across the distance, the oblivion I would sink into, until I found her. Corvan had found a photo of her for me, an essence for me to go off of.
I didn’t think I would need it.
My intention would be enough.
Savannah was close, easy. The next morning, after resting my brain and my power, I went after her. Land was visible in the distance, which meant I needed to seek her out, and soon.
I chose now. It would give me enough time to build myself back up before sinking deep into my power to find Jade—which would take who fucking knows how long.
Corvan was somewhere beside me and touching me, his presence something to solidify me, to ground me to my body while I searched through the void of minds until I found the right one. Something I’d quickly learned—it was a hell of a lot easier to pull yourself out of a place of pure nothingness when there was something to root yourself to.
Something that called you home.
So I sunk deep inside myself. I emptied myself of everything I was besides my power. In here, it was the only thing that mattered. I only ended up watering it down if I focused on the me of the equation.
Savannah was still asleep. It was early, so this was expected. And it was also another reason I’d wanted to do it so early—she was more vulnerable right now.
It was like sneaking in through a window. In this place, I was merely an essence. There were minds, there was me, and there was nothing.
I was merely a mouse. A mouse who sifted through her thoughts, who pulled on any string attached to Corvan’s name and removed the volatile ones. She would know him as the entrepreneur, as the ex of the younger sister she hadn’t seen in decades besides in tabloids beside Corvan.
And she would know nothing else about him. Every other thought or fact or opinion about him, every plan she made with her sister, I took with me. I stole it and absorbed it and made it a part of me. Mine to keep forever. Only mine.
Just like he was.
When the cruise ship docks and Corvan and I are alone, locked in my room, I sink back inside of myself .
I search for Jade Montgomery through those bright spots of consciousness. I call her mind toward mine, beckoning, searching, pulling her toward me as I push my way towards her.
Time is passing, I know. Far differently here than it does where there was a sun and a moon and light and true life . There is a world to return to outside of this one, but all I can do for now is search through the blackness, the specs of glowing dark that are barely anything among the void.
And then I find her. Through the throngs of millions of people, Jade finally arrives at my feet (though I didn’t actually have those in this place). I am only mostly sure, at first, until I sift through her memories of Corvan and see everything I need. His vulnerable, exposed confession. Days and nights they’d spent together, happy. And she had traded it all. Traded him like he was nothing.
I tug on the threads of her mind angrily. I take everything she doesn’t deserve to keep—maybe it wasn’t my right and maybe some people would judge me for doing any of this anyway, but I don’t want her to have fond memories of Corvan holding her close when she’d been nothing but shit to him after all. I let her keep the screaming she did at him, the “sorries” he always gave back, even when she didn’t always deserve them.
She’d fucking ruined him. And I would be damned if I let her remember what kind of hold she’d once had over him.
So, I take her memories. I absorb them into this weightless, non-existent body and allow them to become nothing more than molecules of knowledge. Something no one would ever see again .
And when I open my eyes to find that the sky is now a purple-drenched sunset beyond the balcony, I find that Corvan’s hand is still wrapped around mine. I smile at him. I say, “I love you, Cor,” and then I bring his lips to mine.
He kisses me back with so much love, with so much passion and desire, that everything I am sparks to life. He pulls back long enough to murmur, “I was so fucking worried about you. But Sylvie said to leave you. That her Gran had seen something similar once, and that you were the only one who could make you leave. She said grounding you was the only thing I could do, and anything else might hurt you.”
“I’m back now,” I whisper against his lips. “And it’s done.”
“It’s done?” He says the words like he’s not sure he can truly believe them.
“You’re safe from them now, Cor.” I bring his body down on top of mine, holding him close.
“Thank you. Thank you so fucking much, Eliza. I’ll never be able to repay you.”
“There’s one thing you could do,” I whisper to him. “One thing that would make all of it worth it.”
“Anything.” He answers so quickly that I barely have time to finish speaking.
I smile up at him, eyes firmly on his, and say, “Do the rite with me, Cor. Right now. Claim me as yours, forever.”
His body freezes. He pulls back a little to get a better view of me. “Eliza? Are you serious?”
“I want nothing more than you , Corvan. Forever and always. And I want to prove it.”
“You don’t need to. ”
“I want to,” I say again. “Don’t you?”
“Yes.” He buries his face in my neck. He kisses me there before muttering. “That's all I want. But I don’t have a gift for you, Eliza.”
“We don’t need one,” I say. “But I want to do the rite. I want to walk off this boat and be yours forever.”
Corvan moves his lips to my mouth, then. He kisses me like we are something completely brand new, now, and I swear it alters my brain chemistry. Then he backs up. Off of me, until he’s standing. “Okay, then,” he says. “Then I’ll be back.”
I frown. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes. To prepare for the rite. No matter what you say, I have to bring you a gift, too.”
She nods, recognition flaring in her eyes. “A gift and a feather.”
“Yes,” I say again. “So I’ll be back. And when I get back, I’ll make you mine. Forever.”
Nothing has ever sounded quite so right in my whole life.