Chapter 5
THE LONG-FORGOTTEN PAST
One agent stood in front of the rest, one of their commanders obviously. He raised his hand in the air. “Agents, ready your magic!”
“Wait!” A young woman emerged from the mass of agents. She wore a black jumpsuit and white sneakers. Her red hair was pulled up into a high ponytail.
“Nash.” Capricorn started to take a step toward her but stopped midway.
Nash gave her a small wave. “Hi, Cap.”
So this was the handler Capricorn had mentioned, her eyes and ears in the field. Her friend.
“Back in line, Nashira.” The commander pointed behind him. “We have our orders.”
Nash didn’t move.
A man joined her. “Why, Scorpio? Why have you turned your back on everything you once believed in?” The look of betrayal on his face was heartbreaking.
They were friends too, like Capricorn and Nash. This must be Antares, Scorpio’s handler.
“It’s all a lie,” Capricorn told them. “Everything they told you—us—was a lie. You aren’t—”
“Silence!”
The commander’s voice shot toward her, pulsing with magic. The spell cut through the room like an explosion. Capricorn tried to speak, but she couldn’t. No words came out of her mouth. She glared at the commander.
“You will not spread lies,” he snapped at her.
Capricorn couldn’t speak, but she could still move. She swept her arms over her head and crossed her wrists. Magic crackled on her fingertips.
“No. There will be none of that.”
The commander waved his hand, and four agents surged forward, pushing past Nash and Antares.
They went straight for Capricorn, binding her.
Scorpio threw back his head and roared. Ropes of magic burst out of him like tentacles, snapping at the agents.
But there were so many of them. He couldn’t take them all on alone. They bombarded him with magic.
No one was paying me any mind. They were all focusing on Scorpio, the bigger threat. I felt a weight in my hand. I looked down and realized I was holding the Remembrance Orb. Scorpio must have put it there before he’d gone ballistic on the agents.
He was keeping them busy, so that I could get up to the roof.
I ran toward the red door, reaching out.
My hand closed around the handle, and magic zapped me.
Tendrils of twisted orange light crawled up my arm, slowly encasing it.
My skin buzzed with static electricity. I tried to draw away, but I couldn’t.
My hand was stuck to the handle. The magic slithered higher.
It was almost to my shoulder now. It bit down.
Pain pierced my skin. My vision went blurry. The world spun, and I fell to the floor.
Slowly, everything came back into focus. The Monolith was gone. I was in a foggy field, and I was on my feet again. Soggy grass squished beneath my shoes. Something wild and feline roared from beyond the veil of fog. This place felt eerily familiar. Was I back in Shadow Fall?
A fire tiger emerged from the fog. Its fur, its tail, its fangs—they were all on fire. I clenched my hands into fists, lifting them in front of my face.
“That’s not a good idea, Savannah.”
My mother stood beside me, dressed in a black t-shirt and a pair of black leggings. Her hair was pulled back into a braided bun, just like mine. She was dressed like me too.
“You can’t fight the tiger,” Mom told me.
“So I should just let it eat me?” I said, exasperation straining my voice.
She laughed softly. “No, of course not. You will think of a way out of this. I know you will, Savannah.”
“But how?”
“You need to alter the scenario,” my mother said, then disappeared.
Alter the scenario. Ok, I could do that, whatever that meant.
I stared at the fire tiger. It stalked toward me, slow and graceful, its tail swooshing back and forth behind it, drawing elegant flaming semicircles in the air. Flames sizzled on the wet grass, a dance of fire and water. A heavy, burnt tang saturated the air.
The tiger was an apex predator, a powerful, primal force of nature that took what it wanted and left carnage behind. But it was also a cat.
The fire tiger opened its mouth to roar, but only a soft meow came out. The flames on its fur went out. There was a puff of magic, and then instead of a tiger, a small fluffy cat stood before me.
“Well, hello there, little one.”
I lowered to my knees, holding out my hand. The cat blinked its big blue eyes at me once, very slowly, then it slunk toward me, back arched. I petted it.
Wisps of fog morphed into a swarm of butterflies. The cat let out an excited meow, then chased after them.
Marlow materialized in front of me. He was dressed in high leather boots, dark blue jeans, and a button-up shirt. Tassels dangled from his long sleeves. He looked like a cowboy. He even wore a big, wide-brimmed hat. He tipped his hat to me now.
“You are so clever, Savannah Winters, just like your mother. I haven’t heard from Alara in so long. Is she ok?”
“She’s fine.”
“Are you sure?” Marlow asked me. “Shouldn’t you check on her? Now. She could be in danger.”
I looked around at where I was. The foggy field. The soggy grass. The fire, the butterflies, the tiger-turned-kitten. It was all so weird. And why did the air suddenly smell so strongly of peppermint?
“This isn’t real,” I said to myself.
“Why do the two of you look so much alike? In fact, exactly alike? That’s not normal, you know.”
Wolf ran up to us, barking with excitement. A breeze brushed past me, blowing the fog away. I saw I was in a field of wild flowers. The cat was still chasing the butterflies, and as soon as Wolf saw them, she started chasing the cat.
Marlow ran after his dog, calling out to her. “Wolf, you leave that poor cat alone!”
Man, dog, and cat ran through the field, chasing butterflies—and one another. But no matter how fast they ran, the butterflies eluded them.
“He’s right, you know.”
I turned to look at my mother. She was back. Marlow and Wolf were back too. Wolf dropped a rubber banana toy at my feet.
“You look exactly like me,” Mom said. “That’s unnatural.”
She showed me the photograph she held in her hands. It was a picture of her from before the Curse. I knew that from the scenery: skyscraper cities and busy roads packed full of cars.
Zoe’s taunts replayed inside my head. Oh, but your mom didn’t lose everything because of the Curse. She lost everything before the Curse, when she got herself tangled up at the center of a horrible scandal. And then she wasn’t Professor Winters anymore at all.
For some reason, Marlow could hear the words in my head. I guess because all of this was playing out in my head.
“What happened to you all those years ago, Alara? What’s this scandal she’s talking about?”
Mom blinked a few times. “I don’t know. I can’t seem to remember. All I know is it was bad—so bad that I forced myself to forget.” She clutched my hands, her eyes wide and desperate. “Please, Savannah. Please don’t use the Remembrance Orb. I don’t want to remember. I chose to forget for a reason.”
“This isn’t about us, Mom. It’s about the Lost Spirits. We have to help them remember who they are.”
“Leave it be, Savannah,” she begged me. “The past needs to stay in the past. If you start digging, you won’t like what you find.”
Ok, that made me curious, but I couldn’t let myself get distracted by whatever weird stuff my subconscious was worrying about. I had a Quest to complete.
“Bye, Mom. See you soon.”
I kept walking. The field of flowers faded away. The sounds of battle faded in. I was back in front of the red door. It swung open before me. I ran up the stairs, making my way up to the roof of the Monolith. Footsteps echoed below me. The agents had finally decided I was a threat.
One of them was a teleporter. I saw his outline forming in front of me.
He was mid-teleport. I had to move fast. I cast a spell, coating the ground with ice as I slid.
I ducked left, skidded past the agent, and came to a stop at the center of the roof terrace.
The agent spun around and sprinted toward me, the ice melting beneath his boots.
“Too late,” I told him.
I opened the Remembrance Orb. Warm golden light poured out of it.
A song poured out of it too, melodic and beautiful, like mermaids singing.
The strands of the spell wove together, encasing me in a sphere of light.
The air grew heavy, saturated with magic.
Pressure built up inside of the spell, like a balloon filled to the bursting point.
The agent watched the sphere, his eyes growing wide.
“Now,” I said.
A moment of stillness preceded the explosion, then energy—beautiful, powerful energy—shot out of the orb. The golden veil around me burst, drenching the Monolith.
I went back down the stairs. Down below, the battle was over. The agents were no longer fighting Scorpio. The Monolith was quiet. We’d won. I saw it in the agents’ eyes. They’d woken up. Nash untied Capricorn. Antares helped Scorpio to his feet.
Capricorn set her arms criss-cross over her chest and bowed her head to me. “Thank you, Savannah. You did it. You returned the Lost Spirits’ memories to them. They are their true selves again.”
“I’m happy it worked out for everyone…”
I stopped. Everyone wasn’t here. Kato and Conner were missing. They’d never met up with us again. Where could they be? They should have been here by now.