Chapter 13 #2
A heavy breath slows my pounding heart. “You said you didn’t know me.”
“I did?” Her eyebrows compress, then her beautiful face contorts as confusion bursts into panic. “Arandur’s knickers, I did. I forgot you existed.” Her fingernails dig through my shirt as her grip tightens. “How? Why?”
I wrap my arms around her, pulling her close. Her touch calms the anxiety ricocheting inside me, and I breathe in her lavender scent. “I don’t know.”
Reid groans, sinking into an armchair as he rubs his face with his hand. I lead Ellie to the tea table, facing him.
“What’s going on?” I demand.
“Fuck if I know.”
“You figured it out, so tell us what you know.”
“You were there. I asked you about Ellie, and you said you didn’t know her. I brought you here to make sure I wasn’t going crazy.”
My focus turns back to Ellie as she chews her lip. It seems impossible that I could’ve forgotten her face. The warmth of her in my arms. I should be dreaming of her every night.
Reid’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “You remember that conversation, don’t you?”
I search my memory, my brow furrowing.
“We were at The Duck?” he presses. “Less than a bell ago?”
An image of the tavern forms in my mind, and I grasp at the details. Reid and Emmrich were there… Some girls had asked me to the ball… I wanted to leave…
There. Reid had asked why I wasn’t waiting for Ellie.
But the memory’s already slipping.
“It’s there,” I say, “but it’s like something’s fighting me, pulling it away.”
Ellie nods. “That’s how I felt, too.”
“Well, that’s great.” Reid’s hands drop to his lap. “Not only do you not remember any of your time together, but you can barely recall anyone ever talking about her.”
I shake my head. “No, that’s not right. I remember every moment.” Every smile, every kiss, every touch. I brush my fingers along her skin as a lump forms in my throat.
“But then you forget when you’re not looking at her.” Reid presses his lips together. “That never seemed weird to you? It didn’t occur to you to wonder why you never thought about her when you were apart?”
“It did,” I mutter, “but it didn’t feel important.” Even now, it’s hard to hold on to the panic.
Ellie rubs her thumb against my arm. “How did this even happen? We haven’t been forgetting each other this whole time, have we?”
“You definitely talked to me about Caeo during our first class with Beckwith.” Reid snorts a laugh. “I remember that conversation.”
Ellie turns bright red, then swallows. “Yes, I recall that as well.”
What conversation was this? I tilt my head at her, raising an eyebrow.
She shakes her head. “So it happened after that. But when?” Her face crinkles in thought.
My memory’s so fuzzy, I can’t imagine how we’ll possibly solve this. I fold Ellie into a tight embrace, resting my chin against her hair. Now that I know how easily I can lose her, I never want to let her go.
“Maybe we should go to the headmaster,” I suggest. Not that I really want to, but the gravity of the situation kind of calls for it.
Ellie stiffens. “No, we can’t. My father…” She takes a breath, collecting herself. “We should try to sort this out on our own first. We don’t need my father—the Order—studying our relationship.”
Yeah… I can agree with that. She may not be noble herself, but she’s still a viscount’s daughter. A viscount who’s also the most powerful incanter alive. I’m not in any rush to find out where he falls on propriety’s spectrum.
Then again, potential brain damage isn’t something we can just ignore.
“Well, it’s not related to incanting, right?” I look between Ellie and Reid. “It has nothing to do with the elements. And that’s how fae fight, too? Something similar, at least?”
I really need to pay better attention in class.
Good thing Reid and Ellie are the top students in our year. “Have either of you heard of anything like this?”
They exchange glances.
Reid shrugs. “I can’t think of anything offhand.”
“Me neither.”
Perfect. I rub my face with my hand. “Alright. So let’s figure this out. If we know what causes us to forget, that could lead us to the source.”
Reid sighs, then pushes himself to his feet. “Fine, but you’ll need to let go of each other.”
That’s the last thing I want to do, but I reluctantly drop my arms and step back, still keeping a tight hold on Ellie’s hand. The smile she gives me twitches with uncertainty before she turns her attention to Reid.
“Now then—Ellie forgot about you when she couldn’t see you, so let’s see what happens if you hold hands while not looking at each other.”
We do as he said, and to our great relief, nothing happens.
“Great,” he grumbles. “Because you needed another reason to be all over each other. Now what else can we try…?”
A bell later, I find myself praising Fortune that I have a friend like Reid.
Despite his complaints and near-constant snide commentary, he tests the limits of our memory in ways I never would’ve considered.
I watch as he has Ellie face the wall, repeatedly trying to tell her about me to see what sticks.
Nothing does. Even the vaguest mentions—saying she has a boyfriend, or Reid just calling me his friend—slip away as the conversation continues.
Our memory loss seems based entirely around sight and touch—if I only hear Ellie, I don’t recognize her voice, but if she touches my arm while she speaks, I do, even if I can’t see her.
In one particularly disheartening test, we discovered just how long it takes for us to lose one another by having me repeat Ellie’s name while turning around.
I forgot what I was saying the second she left my sight.
He checks whether our sense of touch keeps us linked if we’re both in contact with the same object. It works through clothing, probably because we can feel each other’s warmth and pressure, but when he incants a stick and has us hold opposite ends of it, we lose everything once our gazes turn away.
“Wait,” I say as the stick crumbles to dust. “What if Ellie makes it?”
She gives me a doubtful look before a pair of vines twist out of her hand, hardening into a short branch. We repeat the test…
“It worked!” It’s not much, but my chest still feels lighter.
“Great.” Reid collapses onto the settee. “She can leash you with vines and solve all your problems.”
The shadows from the dim light emphasize the worry in Ellie’s face. “That’s not a solution. It can keep us from losing each other, but we won’t remember to get together in the first place.”
“And we still don’t have any idea what’s causing this,” I add, despite feeling calmer now that we have a better understanding of things.
“Yeah? So go to the library and do some research,” Reid says, rubbing his temple. “Or to the headmaster.” He glances at Ellie. “And it’s not like you’re sad about it when you’re apart.”
“Come on, man,” I say. “We won’t remember to do any of that on our own. And you’ve seen how miserable my life’s been lately.”
He shakes his head, mumbling one of his ridiculous curses under his breath. “Look, I’ll get her to you, alright? We have all our classes together, and I know all the places you go.”
A spark of hope lights within me.
“Thank you, Reid,” Ellie says, her fingers catching on my shirt as her grip tightens.
“I better be hearing that twenty times a day from now on. You two have it easy—I’m the one who’ll be suffering here.”
I roll my eyes. “It won’t be that bad.”
“How much do you remember of me dragging your sorry ass here tonight? You fought me the entire way.”
My jaw clenches—hardly any of it. Just flashes of him pulling me behind him or pushing me along the road. He must have kept mentioning Ellie.
The thought makes my stomach cave in on itself.
Reid’s been my best friend for as long as I can remember, but now my future with Ellie rests on his shoulders: we won’t accomplish anything without his help.
And if we can’t figure this out soon, we’ll have to involve Ellie’s dad.
It’d be stupid to risk permanent damage just to avoid that.
And with how tonight’s gone, I’d say we’re already at risk of getting on Reid’s nerves.
“Thank you, Reid. I really appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have someone waiting for me.” He pauses at the door. “I’ll make sure you get here tomorrow, and we should probably explain everything to Alexis. She can help, too.”
The door clicks shut behind him, leaving Ellie and me alone, wrapped in one another’s arms.