Chapter 16 The Things I’ve Lost #2
He knows my name. He knows some part of me. We kissed once, I remind myself. We tried to kill each other far more times, and he remembers none of it. It’s foolish to think of his hands on my body, his chest against mine. I should be thinking of my blade to his throat, his shadows trapping me.
“You knew each other,” she states it as a fact—not a question.
“Briefly.” I keep myself still, even though I long to flinch. To step out of this discomfort.
Lucian doesn’t remember me. We don’t know each other.
Even if he does get his memories back, I am not the same person he knew.
I’ve died hundreds of times. Marks—brighter and redder than any mortal’s blood—have been etched into my soul.
Distrust from my mother has cut me, death has haunted me, and the people I know who don’t know me have dismantled me.
Even if love is circumstantial, and I could recreate the circumstances, I am not the same.
I feel the heat pool in my hands and behind my eyes. It’s the Flame—or Solar Flame, now that I understand my power and its name. For a moment, I relish it. I missed it. Blood and fire, now. I’m not the same.
I’m much, much angrier.
The headmistress rises from her desk, stepping toward me. “You are right,” she whispers, “to fear you are a monster. Even when divinely crafted, destruction cannot be repaired.”
I take a breath, but when it shakes, I stop midway, the air trapped in my lungs. How could the headmistress know any of this?
As I lift my gaze, I’m shocked by what I find. Her eyes aren’t the light blue I knew. They’re green.
Subtle signs reveal themselves, Mial had said. When such oddities appear, hold fast to them. The headmistress—or whatever is inside her body—smiles knowingly, as if she understands exactly what I’ve just realized.
She steps back toward her desk, but I catch her wrist, turning her toward me. Her eyes are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. There’s more than just green here—there’s brown, blue, even specks of purple. The colors of the universe.
“What are you?”
Her lips flatten into a thin line, and her free hand pats mine gently. “I do this not to hurt you, but to encourage you.”
Then, her hand reaches out, covering and closing my eyes. When they open again, the headmistress is sitting behind her desk. The first thing I search for are her eyes—bright blue, like they should be, and staring at me. Not green.
She glances between my right eye and my left. The way she moves is just like she did in the hallucination. Was it a hallucination? Am I still in one?
I watch her carefully—just as she watches me.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I believe that’s what I should ask of you.”
I narrow my gaze. “What did you see?”
“You were scared, asking questions that came out of nowhere.”
“It wasn’t—”
“I am not of the occupation to question your rationality, Miss…”
“Althenia,” I answer, clearing my throat.
“Miss Althenia,” the headmistress says, her tone flat. “What brought you back?”
I swallow. There’s no answer to give. I’m here because I may have awakened an ancient—and very dangerous—woman. Maybe that’s what the hallucination meant. Or maybe it will say whatever it can to disarm me.
The headmistress nods, like she expected my silence. “You’re a mythical creature to these kids. Not by my choice but by Ilyrian law.”
Well, I can’t be in The Void, either. I can’t be anywhere. But I’m not going back to the septic, to a mother who doesn’t remember me and Damien, who will be scared of me.
But isn’t that what will happen here, too?
“I don’t have any other option,” I say, barely opening my mouth, not wanting to voice the truth.
The headmistress raises an eyebrow, reaches into a drawer at her desk, and pulls out a pair of glasses. “I had these made for you once I was sure you had disappeared.” Handing them to me, she adds, “They’re not as strong as the Memorium, but they’ll hide your eyes.”
Suspiciously, I take the glasses. “The Memorium?” Folkara’s Soul Stone—one of the most powerful materials in the universe. Each world only has one. Of course, a pair of glasses aren’t as strong.
“Your old necklace,” she states.
Mom’s. She had a Soul Stone? Where in the worlds did she get it?
“So you do remember me?” I ask.
“I’ve known of you for a very long time. It’s why I allowed you into Visnatus the first time.” Her fingers brush gently over the wooden desk. “Though, all I recall now are the notes I kept.”
Tipping the glasses between my fingers, I ask, “Who am I pretending to be this time?”
The headmistress gives me a long look. “A Fire Folk.”
“But I’m an Arcane. That’s not our magic.”
“Desdemona, dear. Do not treat me as if I’m puerile.” She smiles, slow and mischievous, like she knows she’s said those very words to me before and is testing me now. A long moment passes before she adds, “Would you like to room with Aralia again?”
I want that room just as much as I don’t. What if Aralia sees me, my red eyes and burnt skin, and hates me all over? What if this time she doesn’t give me a second chance?
What if love really is circumstantial?
I open my mouth, not knowing what should come out of it. “Um…” I curse myself for sounding so spineless. “No.”
“Then you’ll room with Fleur, three doors down from your old suite.” The headmistress leans back in her chair, shifting her gaze to her desk full of papers. Her tone is dismissive, the opposite of the hallucination—but her movements are identical. “I trust you’ll be able to find it?”
The conversation is over.
I get up, letting the door slam behind me as I step back into the once-familiar halls. They feel foreign now, filled with memories of a life once lived and nearly forgotten. Maybe I could’ve let it all go, moved on. But I was forced back here before I got the chance.
Shoving on the glasses, I walk the halls, hiding the eyes I was just starting to get used to. As I pass students I know, I keep my head down—but it’s not like they’d recognize me. Old habits die hard.
My thoughts quickly shift to Fleur, my new roommate.
The girl from Psychology class who wanted to whip children for their parents’ misdeeds.
What is she going to think of me? It won’t be anything like rooming with Aralia—who was open to me, even though she suspected my true origins.
That shouldn’t be praised, but I’m scared I’m about to find out how rare that is here.
I don’t linger on Fleur. Not when there’s movement ahead—a strong stride and curly dark hair. Lucian walks straight toward me. A mistake. The alternative isn’t possible. I shake away my wonder before it can grow, trying to avert my gaze before it becomes impossible.
Then, from down the hall, those midnight eyes meet mine. They widen, his eyebrows knitting together. I swear there’s some kind of recognition in his face. My breath catches, and for just this once, I hope he sees it.
Could he remember me? Would he kill me if he did, like he’s destined to, or would he run to me?
Suddenly, my feet pick up their pace, as if my entire body is trying to reach him sooner and find out if he knows me. Like my body wants him just as much as my mind.
My steps thrum in my ears, each one bringing a new question. What does he see? What does he know? What does he feel? Until I’m just steps away from him. I force myself not to smile. It’s not Lucian I want to remember me—it’s anyone.
But I’d love for it to be Lucian.
This is probably delusional hope. People look at strangers all the time. The chances that it means anything are slim to none. But as he comes closer, his gaze darkens—searching me. My chest tightens. Maybe there’s someone behind me. I turn around just to check.
No one’s there.
When I turn back to him, his eyes are wider, his shoulders rigid—maybe from our nearness, maybe from something else. I could almost reach out and touch him.
Then I hear a broken gulp of breath and realize it’s mine. My feet lift from the floor, my body rising into the air—dangling, breathless, unable to take in air.
I search for Lucian’s gaze—and he looks at me like this is exactly what he wanted.
“Are you Desdemona?” he asks, his voice brimming with anger, but I can’t answer. The shadows wrap around me, much tighter than when he was being magically coerced to hurt me. But he wants this.
Maybe he wants me gone more than he ever wanted me.
I hear a crack. A pain so intense that, two months ago, I’d have thought it the worst imaginable.
Specks of light fill my vision, taking half the hall with them as I fall.
Another snap echoes as my body meets the marble.
The wind is knocked from me—but it’s more than that.
Everything is knocked out of me. The snap was my bones.
I lie on my side, trying to move, but my body is unresponsive.
Lucian steps toward me, and I watch—vision going in and out—knowing he’s going to kill me. Wondering if he knows I can’t die. Maybe it doesn’t matter to him either way. Maybe he just wants to see me dead.
Like a possum with a knife in its neck, I lie, succumbing to my wounds and waiting to die. The pain is nearly numbing—vital bones have snapped, but no organs are ruptured. Nothing claws at me from the inside out.
I don’t move. I can’t. I just look up into his eyes—full of hatred. I consider begging—saying his name, seeing if he remembers me. Instead, I match the hatred in his stare.
He lowers to his knee, something glinting in his hand. A dagger.
I try to move, but my spine must be snapped. I’m paralyzed.
A smile tugs his lips in a thoroughly cruel way. “You might call me sadistic, and perhaps I am… because I truly will enjoy this.”
I hold his gaze as the blade lodges into my chest.