Chapter Twenty-Six
Augustine staggered backwards when she rushed back into her own body, in her own time.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, falling to her knees. “Oh my God. It was me. It was me all along.”
She searched the room for Theo, but he wasn’t there, and that absence hit her harder than anything else.
Not the memories — they were still crashing into her in jagged, incomplete fragments.
Not the nausea, or the way the room still felt like it was tilting slightly off-axis.
It was him, not being here, when she needed him most.
“Theo?” Her voice broke on his name, thin and unsteady. “Theo—”
Silence rang out across the shop, though. No one was there. She was alone.
“Oh God,” she choked, her hands pressing against the floor like she could hold herself together by sheer force. “No. No, no, no—”
She knew now that the memories she’d visited were somehow her own. They were hers. All hers. And that meant . . .
He was mine. He was mine, and I don’t remember him. I was his girlfriend all along. It was me.
A sharp, sickening clarity settled in her stomach, and she curled into a ball on the floor. “What’s going on?” Augustine whispered. “What is this? If it was me all along, why can’t I remember him?”
Her lungs felt too tight, her breath coming too fast now, far too shallow for comfort.
Someone did this, she realized. Someone took him out of my life so completely that they took parts of me with him. Every memory, every moment, every piece of him that existed inside my head. Gone. Deleted from existence.
Every kiss. Every laugh. Every touch.
A broken sound escaped her.
“I forgot you,” she whispered, the words splintering as they left her mouth. “I forgot you. How could I have forgotten you?”
Dark magic, she realized. That’s what this is. Dark magic. Someone cast a spell on me. Cast a spell to remove him from my mind. But why? Why would a witch do that? What harm have I ever done, what harm has Theo ever done—?
Suddenly, a new and more horrifying thought crept into her brain. Worse, even, than the creeping certainty that this was dark magic, the like of which she’d never seen before.
Theo is dead. The man I loved — love — is dead. And I don’t remember how. I don’t remember why. I don’t remember the moment it happened, or where I was, or if I held him, or if he was alone, or if he called my name.
Augustine’s stomach twisted violently.
“I should know this,” she whispered, rocking slightly where she knelt. “I should know what happened to you. I should remember.”
There was nothing there, though, just a void where something vital should have been. Something important enough that someone decided she couldn’t be allowed to keep it, and her hands curled into fists against the floor.
“Who did this? Who took you from me and then took you from me again?”
Only silence answered, thick and unforgiving.
It wasn’t random, Augustine decided. Whoever did this to me — whoever did this to us — it was deliberate. Intentional.
It had to be. The memories that had been locked away were too specific. The gaps were too obvious. Theo had been carefully erased from her life and she from his, like someone went through their minds and cut each other out memory by memory, piece by piece.
Suddenly, something else rose up within her, sharp and aching and impossible to ignore: want.
A longing for Theo so sharp it almost cut her soul with it.
The need was immediate and physical and desperate.
She wanted him here. Not as a fragment or echo of a memory, not as a half-remembered feeling that slipped through her fingers the moment she reached for them — but here.
Beside her. Looking at her the way he had, saying her name like it meant something.
She needed him to tell her what happened, to fill in the empty spaces someone had carved into her life, to make sense of the before and the after and the moment everything broke.
“Theo,” she whispered, softer now, but no less urgent. “Come back. Please. I don’t understand any of this without you.”
Augustine stood slowly, her breathing steadying slightly.
“Theo,” she said again, softer now, like maybe if she said his name enough times it would bring him back.
“You found me before,” she whispered into the empty room.
“You can do it again.” Her throat tightened, and tears burned her eyes. “Please.”
There was still only silence, though. Still just an emptiness where Theo had earlier stood.
The disappointment settled in slowly and heavily, and Augustine let out a shaky breath, scrubbing at her eyes with the heel of her hand before the tears could properly fall.
“Right,” she muttered, voice rough. “Of course.”
She turned away, pacing once, twice, like movement alone might shake something loose in her mind.
Suddenly, she stilled as a thought — as a memory — hit her.
I have a flat above the shop. That’s where I live.
She’d told Theo that. In the memory. She’d brought him to The Priestess Reversed, kissed him at the door, and told him she lived upstairs.
Upstairs. In the flat everyone told her didn’t exist.
“I lived upstairs,” she said aloud, the words coming faster now as they formed. “There is a flat upstairs.”
Her head snapped towards the bookcase. The one she’d already checked, again and again. The one that had shown her nothing.
Augustine crossed the room, her pulse picking up again. Not with hope, not quite, but with something close enough to make her rush.
“I checked it,” she whispered to herself, hands already reaching for the edges, for the seams, for anything that even gave the smallest hint that it didn’t quite belong. “There’s nothing there. It’s just a wall.”
Her fingers pressed against the wood, sliding along the grain, searching. She slid her fingers behind the bookcase and over the wallpaper, at the solid feel of stone beneath the floral print.
There was nothing. Nothing. So, unless this wasn’t really a wall—
Augustine froze.
It’s not really a wall. It just looks like one, she realized.
“A glamour,” she breathed. “It’s a glamour. Witchcraft.”
The word settled into place with unsettling ease.
A witch could do that. Hide something in plain sight. Make you see what isn’t there instead of what is. And if someone had gone to the trouble of tearing memories out of her mind piece by piece . . .
Well, what was one hidden door?
Her hands moved faster now, more certain, pressing, knocking lightly, testing for hollow spaces—
“You look like hell, Augustine.”
The voice cut cleanly through her focus, and Augustine jumped, spinning around too quickly, her heart lurching into her throat.
Mrs Clayton stood in the doorway, expression somewhere between unimpressed and deeply unsurprised, like she’d walked in on exactly what she expected to find.
Her pearl-embossed handbag was clutched tightly in her hand, and she primly walked towards Augustine’s till, sitting on the old stool and staring at Augustine expectantly.
Augustine stared right back at her, breath uneven, fingers still curled slightly from where they’d been searching the bookcase.
“I—” she started, then stopped, because there were too many things to say and not a single one of them made any kind of sense.
Mrs Clayton’s gaze flicked past her, landing briefly on the bookcase before returning to Augustine’s face with a small, knowing sigh. “What are you doing, honey?”
“Looking.”
“For what?”
Augustine didn’t even blink. “You know what.”
Mrs Clayton didn’t reply. She just kept staring at her.
It might have been comical, in another life, this silent, immovable stand-off. Augustine, wild-eyed and breathless, standing in the middle of her own shop like she’d just crawled out of a storm. And Mrs Clayton, neat as ever, handbag in her lap, posture perfect, her wrinkled gaze unwavering.
Pensioner versus witch. Not that it was much of a contest, because somehow, Augustine had the distinct feeling she was losing.
The silence stretched, and then stretched on some more. Finally, Augustine could take it no more. “You used to work here,” she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth, sharp with urgency. “You know this building better than anyone else.”
Mrs Clayton blinked, but she didn’t move.
“There’s a flat upstairs, isn’t there?” Augustine pressed. “You told me there wasn’t. You said it belonged to the office next door.” Her voice tightened. “But you lied to me.”
That did it. Something flickered across Mrs Clayton’s face, quick, but unmistakable, and the woman stood abruptly.
“Well,” she said, too brisk and light, already reaching for her handbag, “I can see you’re busy. I’ll be off. Probably for the best, hospital visiting hours, and all that—”
Augustine moved before she could think better of it, stepping into her path. “Please. Please tell me the truth. Tell me what’s going on.” The words came out softer than anything she’d said so far, despite being undercut by desperation. “I have to know.”
Mrs Clayton stopped, and her gaze dropped away from Augustine, her hands tightening around the handle of her bag. When she finally looked up again, something within her face had changed. She looked . . . almost sad. But underneath that, she also looked something much worse.
Frightened, Augustine realized. She’s frightened.
“I can’t,” Mrs Clayton said quietly. “I can’t.”
Augustine flinched. “No, Mrs C, you can—”
“No.” Mrs Clayton shook her head, her voice wavering slightly beneath its firm tone.
“You don’t understand. I can’t. You . . .
you have to figure it out on your own.” Her grip on the bag tightened further, knuckles paling.
“I can’t do anything,” she added, almost to herself. “I promised that I wouldn’t.”
Augustine stilled. “Who?” she asked, her voice low now, controlled in a way that felt more dangerous than before. “Who did you promise?”
For just a second, Mrs Clayton hesitated, and in that second, Augustine knew: she wanted to tell her. She wanted to tell her . . . she just wasn’t sure she should.